How do you decide when a reporter should appear onscreen during a report? When is a stand-up more appropriate than reporter narration?
NBC’s award-winning national correspondent Bob Dotson responds:
In every story there is important information that may be difficult to visualize. That’s what I put into my stand-ups. I once had to do a piece on the NBC Nightly News about skyrocketing meat prices.
Visually, pretty boring stuff. I figured out how much stew meat you could buy five years ago for five dollars. Tossed the meat onto a butcher block, picked up a cleaver and asked, “How much would five dollars buy today?” WHACK! Half the meat was gone.
That was much more powerful.
