Before You Book a Breaking News Crew: A Checklist

Most disagreements with an outside crew begin with a vague brief. Before you ring anyone, write down what the finished item has to be: a thirty-second voiced piece, a package with a reporter stand-up, raw rushes for your own editors, or a live-ready feed. A crew that films, cuts and files while a story is still developing can do any of these, but each one changes the kit, the number of people and the time on location.

Be honest about the slot as well. If the item has to be in the running order for a lunchtime bulletin, say so and work backwards. Allow time for travel, filming, the edit, a script check and delivery. A crew can only protect a deadline that has been stated plainly, and a desk that gives a rough idea gets a rough plan back.

It also helps to say what the story is not. If legal has already flagged a name or a location, the crew should hear that before they point a lens at it.

• Format of the finished item and its running length
• Bulletin slot and the hard deadline for delivery
• Whether you want rushes, a cut package, or both

On a developing story, decisions arrive faster than paperwork. Name one person on your desk who can change the brief, and one who approves the finished cut. If those are the same person, say so. If approval needs a duty editor and a lawyer, tell the crew that too, because it affects when they stop filming and start editing.

I see delays most often where two producers give the crew different instructions in the same hour. A single named contact, reachable by phone rather than by a message that might be read later, removes most of that. The crew should know in advance whether they may make editorial calls on location, such as which interviewee to prioritise when access is limited.

Agree what happens if the contact goes quiet. A fallback name costs nothing to give and saves a missed slot.

• One commissioning contact, reachable by phone
• A named approver for the final cut
• A fallback contact if the first is unavailable

Footage that cannot reach your system is only a nice memory. Confirm the delivery route in the planning call: the file format, frame rate and resolution your playout expects, whether captions are required, and how the file arrives, whether by secure upload or another route you already use. A mismatch discovered at the point of delivery eats the margin you built for the edit.

Ask the crew to name the codecs and containers they will produce, and compare them with your ingest specification. If your newsroom has a naming convention for story slugs, give it to them so the file lands where your editors expect it. These details feel minor until a clip is sitting in the wrong folder at five to one.

Where connectivity on location is poor, ask what the crew does about it. A plan for weak signal is a good sign.

• Codec, frame rate and resolution your playout accepts
• Caption and subtitle requirements
• Your slug and file naming convention

Breaking stories often happen in places with restrictions: police cordons, private land, hospital grounds, courtrooms. Ask who on the crew is responsible for checking what can be filmed and from where, and how they will deal with a request to stop. You want a crew that knows the difference between a public pavement and a site that needs consent, and that will tell you when a shot is not safe or not allowed rather than quietly taking it anyway.

Safety is a practical question, not a formality. Ask what the crew has done about working near traffic, crowds or flooding, and whether anyone is working alone. Autumn brings early darkness and wet ground, and a low-light exterior needs different preparation from a daytime one.

Agree in advance that the crew may withdraw from a location they judge unsafe.

• Who checks filming permissions on site
• How the crew handles being asked to stop
• Plans for low light and wet weather

A crew works to your standards, so give them yours. Share your guidance on reconstruction, graphics, music, the use of eyewitness footage and the treatment of distressing material. If your newsroom verifies user-generated clips in a particular way, describe it, because the crew may be asked to handle such material during the edit.

Also decide how corrections will work. If a caption is wrong or a name is misspelled, who is told, how quickly can a revised file be turned around, and who bears the cost of the re-delivery? A short written note on this before the job is far easier than an argument after it.

Accuracy under pressure comes from shared rules, not from good intentions on the day.

• Your guidance on distressing or sensitive material
• How eyewitness footage is verified
• The route and turnaround for corrections

Last on the list, and not the least. Ask for a written quotation that says what is included: crew size, hours on location, travel, the edit, captioning and delivery. Ask what changes the price, such as a longer stay on site, a second edit pass, or an extra operator, so that nothing surprises your budget holder when the invoice arrives.

Check the cancellation terms as well. Stories collapse, are held back by lawyers or are overtaken by events, and you should know what applies if a booking is dropped at short notice. A clear answer now spares both sides an awkward conversation.

If a supplier is vague about any of these points before the job, treat that as information about how the job will go.

• What the quotation includes and excludes
• Factors that raise or lower the price
• Cancellation terms for a story that falls away