680News - Lisa Brandt

One of the questions we’re often asked on the 680News morning show is, how do you know when to talk?

Some people assume that we are handed full scripts before we go on the air and that we stick to them like glue. That would be an easy way to explain how we know when to speak and exactly what to say.

That’s definitely not how it works!

Regular listeners know that because we’re first to bring you breaking news, we cannot be sitting and waiting for perfect scripts to be delivered to us. New content is being put into the system all the time and - not to take anything away from our editor Elizabeth or writer Jennifer who are as important to the process as we are - Paul and I do a lot of writing. You can often hear the tap-tap-tap of keyboards in the background. That’s us!

So, how do we know when to speak, when we’re editing and reading on the fly and with new information popping in and out? We employ a variety of hand-signals that allow us to keep reading while letting the other know what’s expected of them and what’s coming up next. Some of the signals were devised by Paul and Marlane Oliver when Marlane co-anchored on mornings. (Marlane is, of course, now on afternoons.) Some I’m happy to say I helped develop. Others we make up as needed.

There isn’t always time to verbally tell each other what we plan to do so the silent signals work like magic. They’re our little secret for how we communicate when traditional communication isn’t possible.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 10:21 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.