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It's been more than a year since we brought you inside the "Evening News" lineup meeting, and we thought it was time to do it again. The lineup meeting is where "Evening News" producers decide what stories are going to be in that day's show, and where in the show those stories will run.

Today's meeting was pretty interesting – when Executive Producer Rome Hartman walked in, he immediately called for the stock market story to be moved to the top of the show. A story on the economy had been scheduled to run after stories on Iraq and the bombing that took place near Vice President Cheney. But the market had officially begun to tank, so Hartman moved the market story to the top slot.

Click on the video box to watch the entire meeting. It's about 15 minutes long, and offers a unique insight into how the "Evening News" comes together.

As we noted in our coverage of the "CBS Evening News" lineup meeting yesterday, what ends up on each night's broadcast can be a lot different than how it looked in the beginning of the day.



Yesterday's fatal shooting of a man by air marshals shifted the order of the show of course but other changes were also made. During the lineup meeting, there was discussion of whether to lead with the story of potential job cuts at Ford or President Bush's speech on Iraq and the new CBS News poll. In the end, the shooting led, followed by Iraq news and the Ford story ended running after the first commercial break. There are not necessarily any profound lessons to be learned but it's interesting to see the evolution of the broadcast day. You can see for yourself, watch the video (20 mins running time) and compare it to the final order below in a screen shot of the actual lineup as CBS News employees see it:

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Public Eye has taken you into the “Evening News” control room and the “Early Show” control room. We’ve even shown you the CBS News morning editorial meeting where CBS executives and producers discuss the news you’ll see each evening, morning and into the future. Now you get to see a lineup meeting, where evening news producers gather to begin the process of putting together a show.



There is plenty of competition to get onto the newscast and much of it takes place before the lineup meeting. But it is here where the decisions begin to solidify and the broadcast starts to take shape. Today was an especially busy news day with a full menu to choose from. There is talk about whether or not to cover Saddam Hussein’s trial even though the accused refused to show up. Anchor Bob Schieffer made a compelling case for explaining how it was Saddam was able to simply refuse. There is talk about where to place President Bush’s speech and a new CBS poll and whether or not some Republican House leadership wrangling should make the show. There’s explanation of an interesting story on the Egyptian elections, a package on the MTV generation of soldiers and lots of talk about the war in Iraq.



Click on the video and find out the answers to these questions and get a first-hand look at how these issues are discussed between Schieffer, Executive Producer Jim Murphy and the rest of the “Evening News” editorial team. The lineup discussed in the meeting is subject to constant change as news develops throughout the day. This video has not been edited in any way other than to add chyrons to identify those involved. It’s an unprecedented look at a small part of the process that goes into putting together a network newscast. The video runs just about 20 minutes.



UPDATE: In case you're wondering why the shooting at the Miami airport did not come up in the meeting, there's a simple explanation: The meeting took place this morning, and news of the shooting did break until the afternoon.

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Public Eye has taken you into the “Evening News” control room and the “Early Show” control room. We’ve even shown you the CBS News morning editorial meeting where CBS executives and producers discuss the news you’ll see each evening, morning and into the future. Now you get to see a lineup meeting, where evening news producers gather to begin the process of putting together a show.



There is plenty of competition to get onto the newscast and much of it takes place before the lineup meeting. But it is here where the decisions begin to solidify and the broadcast starts to take shape. Today was an especially busy news day with a full menu to choose from. There is talk about whether or not to cover Saddam Hussein’s trial even though the accused refused to show up. Anchor Bob Schieffer made a compelling case for explaining how it was Saddam was able to simply refuse. There is talk about where to place President Bush’s speech and a new CBS poll and whether or not some Republican House leadership wrangling should make the show. There’s explanation of an interesting story on the Egyptian elections, a package on the MTV generation of soldiers and lots of talk about the war in Iraq.



Click on the video and find out the answers to these questions and get a first-hand look at how these issues are discussed between Schieffer, Executive Producer Jim Murphy and the rest of the “Evening News” editorial team. The lineup discussed in the meeting is subject to constant change as news develops throughout the day. This video has not been edited in any way other than to add chyrons to identify those involved. It’s an unprecedented look at a small part of the process that goes into putting together a network newscast.

Read full post…