Broadcast support missions are essential to ensure the smooth running of live productions. At France 24, Aski-da regularly reinforces the in-house team by providing technical support to journalists, especially at times of stress or difficulty.
These assignments include assistance with tasks such as editing, voice-over recording and media research. At France 24, desk journalists are responsible for the overall preparation of stories, and must therefore be autonomous, but they sometimes need outside help to solve certain problems. This is where the “Rescue” team (a name created within France 24 to designate them) comes in.
Crisis preparation and management: the challenges of the Rescue mission
In the event of a problem, the Rescue team must act quickly to resolve users’ issues. Using tools such as OpenMedia to manage broadcast shells and Media Composer for editing, the team helps to ensure that content is broadcast without interruption. Their expertise goes beyond simple troubleshooting: they also act as an interface between users and technical services, notably maintenance.
Preparing a newsroom helpdesk team for an assignment starts with a rigorous process of organizing and documenting workflows, and the helpdesk is also involved in checking content quality and sending out incident reports.
The essential skills of newsroom assistance: beyond technique
Rescue assignments require solid technical expertise. The professionals working at France 24 are experienced editors or journalists, particularly familiar with news production, the AVID environment and tools such as Media Composer. They have to interpret requests quickly, assess their level of urgency and adapt their response according to the context and their interlocutors, whether novices or experts.
Their mission is not limited to problem-solving: they also play a role in passing on knowledge, reminding people of best practices and helping them to differentiate between misuse and genuine technical malfunction. Last but not least, their cool-headedness is essential to ensure effective support, even in crisis situations.
Training support also plays a central role in these missions. The support team regularly trains new journalists on their tools and best practices for solving problems themselves, while remaining available to provide rapid assistance at the workstation.
In short, newsroom support work is a combination of technical and human skills, with a crucial interface role between journalists, technicians and management. France 24’s Rescue team, backed up by Aski-da, plays an indispensable role in maintaining the fluidity and quality of production.