“How are the anchors? … Is he really as tall as he looks on air? … What about the meteorologist in the morning? Is she nice?”
Speaking for anyone in the business, I think we get a lot of questions.
But if you look past the fancy studio lighting and the allure of the on-air production side of the equation, you’ll find part of the operation that not as many people know to ask about -- yet it’s often the backbone of a newsroom, the piece of the puzzle that makes the whole operation hum. It’s the assignment desk.
These assignment desk editors have to be so balanced, so focused, so composed and extremely news savvy. They have to be able to communicate with the rest of the often-bustling, chaotic newsroom about what’s breaking, where to send a crew, what deserves coverage, and how to communicate a message, while at the same time, fielding phone calls from viewers, digging through court documents, monitoring what the competitors are reporting, placing calls to various police agencies, and relaying messages to web teams, producers, sometimes the talent and most definitely the news managers.
(Assignment desk editors: What am I missing? I must be forgetting at least 5 tasks you’re managing to juggle). Sure, the job is probably a bit different, depending on where you work, but still: the absolute backbone of a local newsroom.
It’s a hell of a role, to say the least. Newsrooms are not often what you’d call relaxing environments, not to mention, viewers can get pretty annoyed when say, someone has to make a decision to cut into regularly scheduled programming for a weather emergency. It’s your assignment desk editor who has to field those calls. Media relations professionals take note: If you’re looking to get a story on air or online, become friendly with this person. Make sure your pitches are feasible. And don’t make them open any email attachments. (When your inbox has hundreds of unopened messages, no one’s got time for an attachment).
These are all lessons I learned from working closely with “the desk” over the years.
The first assignment editor I ever had, a man named John Arguello, passed away recently. He was 61.
I want to tell you a little about John and what he did at the station, not because we worked together for a long time -- in fact, it was just about two years -- but because there’s likely a “John” behind the scenes at other newsrooms in this country. Except it seems hard to believe that they’d have his knack for news, or his sharp wit.
As I read up on John’s life, I learned that he came to WOOD-TV when he was 18. He stayed for 43 years. As a “poor kid from South Dakota,” John had dropped out of high school when he was in the ninth-grade. He ended up on Michigan's west side when he was 18, and started working in the station’s mailroom. From there, he went on to work as a news photographer, an investigative producer and an assignment editor. He met and photographed five sitting U.S. presidents. John went on to know U.S. congressmen, governors and many other politicians on a first-name basis.
He was a seriously impressive guy.
He never told me all of this. I learned some of it over those two years, but I’m still learning about his life, even just through Facebook posts and conversations with former colleagues.
John wasn’t showy.
He knew how to treat people though. We worked together on the night shift, and I had never been around local TV. I’d only had one other job in news after graduating from college, and that was at the newspaper in town. This was my first career job. The first time I got health insurance through an employer and not my dad.
I was 22. I didn’t know the first thing about a VO-SOT (that’s a voice over, with sound on tape), when I walked through those doors. I knew how to write reasonably well, but in a lot of ways, when it came to broadcast, I was as green as it gets.
It would have made sense if John were to snap at me. I was often opening an email from him, then moseying on over to his desk to ask for some kind of translation. What did it mean for me -- as in, how should I write it to post on the web?
John never made me feel silly or out of the loop. On the contrary, he told me (in so many words) to believe in my abilities and trust my gut. He showed me how to sift through court documents. I helped him answer the phones when I had time. He took me under his wing, in a lot of ways. Once when I didn’t have a ride home, he drove me, no questions asked. And I didn’t exactly live close by.
Another time, he dropped off some paperwork at my desk and told me to look at page -- I don’t know, maybe 60? This was a big pile of papers.
We ended up leading the newscast with whatever juicy nugget John had unearthed. No one else in town had it, because no one else in town had John. He was so good at his job. And he led by example, and I feel like every veteran news person could learn something from him. When I have an intern or someone who I’m teaching, I try to emulate what John showed me.
By the way, my boss the next morning told me what a big deal it was, that John had found that piece of news and we’d gotten it posted online so quickly. John made me better. He made all of us better.
In 2011, I moved across the country for another job in news -- thanks in part to John’s guidance, no doubt -- but we kept in touch over the years, on and off. I wish I would have been more consistent. I always thought I'd see him again someday, "next time I went to GR."
Near the end of John’s life, a Facebook page was set up, where people could share their stories and memories.
Some of us knew him for decades. Others recall brief working stints with John, but posted something similar to my experience with him: Something like, “He worked with me closely. He taught me so much. He was so funny. I’ll always remember that.”
His lessons will carry on through all who worked with him, and all who knew him. (Related/unrelated: I am definitely not as funny as John was, but I did make him laugh a few times, which made me quite proud).
And finally, I learned that he wrote his own obituary several years ago, which was posted online in our FB group.
“If I loved you in my lifetime, you knew it. I was never bashful. Remember that as you remember me. I will always be in your heart as you were in mine.”
I love that so much. It's true -- he wasn't bashful. He always called me a silly nickname or told me I was one of his favorite people in the building.
In a lot of ways, I’m just rambling about my friend right now. I’ll miss our occasional emails and I’ll always look back on my time in my first big newsroom and think of working with him.
But also: to anyone who watches the news regularly, reads the news online, and appreciates what it is that this business does every day, thank your local assignment desk. Thank the guys like this.
