As a digital producer, I covered breaking news events along with writing feature stories to drive traffic. That sometimes included creating original stories that were related to the news of the day. Other times it was just ensuring we were covering the news our audience needed to know.
After seeing a very interesting analysis piece on contemporary cyber security issues, I asked my manager if I could pursue an independently produced piece explaining why cyberattacks are so common now. The piece took a few days to work on in-between my other work, but I ended up very proud of the result.
I interviewed tech experts and gathered additional data about the rise of cyberattacks.
When breaking news happens, it doesn’t care how large your staff is or the time of day. This attack on the Kabul airport happened early in the morning before our network was fully-staffed for the day. It was important to make sure our audience was updated on this attack. My fellow digital producer and I spent 5 hours as the only reporters in the network providing consistent updates.
We then provided consistent updates on this story and other developments until the last plane left Afghanistan. This included interviews with former service members about their concerns along with President Biden’s response before and after the attack.
One of my most successful stories adheres to the old adage, “News you can use.” My editor asked what happens if you lose your vaccine card, and I went out to seek an answer. This story ended up being shared with hundreds of our sister stations to be crossposted on their websites. It helped drive traffic back to our site, and it was one of our top stories for weeks.
One of the most important functions I performed while working as a digital producer was maintaining live streams for our hundreds of sister stations. We handled all national news event streams to make sure their own audiences were informed while increasing our brand awareness. This included everything from White House Press Conferences to the Surfside Collapse to Congressional votes. Each live stream was maintained and shared via Facebook and our own website.
When I wasn’t covering major news stories, I was always looking for opportunities to write quicker turn-around feature stories about topics in the entertainment world. This Rihanna story allowed me to increase our SEO presence on a trending story and get a break from covering the heavier news of COVID-19.
Tiffany Hudson 
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