S2E09: Capital Ideas
How do you cover the seat of the United States government, the White House, the Pentagon, the Supreme Court, cooperate with competitors, discover exclusives, keep staff safe, and deliver to multiple platforms?
In this episode of Making the Media, host Craig Wilson talks in-depth with Andrea Owen, Director of the Washington D.C. Bureau for ABC News.
Our Guest This Episode
Andrea Owen
Andrea Owen has been director, D.C. Bureau operations at ABC News since April, 2015. In that role, she oversees all newsgathering operations from Washington for both in the field and the bureau’s studios and control room operations. Owen leads a large team of managers, crews, engineers, studio crews, and editors covering the White House, Capitol Hill, the Supreme Court, and all aspects of Washington D.C. coverage for ABC News, as well as large-scale live productions.
As a 30-year veteran of ABC News, Owen has always kept a hand in the editorial side and another in the operational side. She began her career as an intern in the ABC News London Bureau. Since then she worked as an assignment editor, both an editorial and graphics producer for World News Tonight, operations producer for This Week and World News Tonight, anchor producer, special events producer, and managed training, digital operations, and new workflows.
Owen has transformed every aspect of the Washington operations team, while also serving as the backbone of many D.C. special events, such as the inauguration of President Biden, the January 6th riot on Capitol Hill, Senate Impeachment hearings of President Trump, Overall US Network Pool Producer for the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Black Lives Matter protests in D.C., the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, including US Network Pool coverage of the ceremony and lying in state at the Capitol, four State of the Union Addresses with a full, new set builds each year, 130+ special reports in one year for mostly President Trump’s first year in office, the state funeral for President George H.W. Bush, the National Service for Sen. John McCain, the Inauguration of President Trump, Pope Francis's visit to Washington, and a Town Hall with President Barack Obama, pulled together in 78 hours with live studio audience.
Owen is a graduate of York University in Toronto and the British Columbia Institute of Technology’s Broadcast Journalism program.
More Resources
For more on this topic, check out:
Making the Media Podcast – Moving the Media – Discover how one news channel is moving its entire operation thousands of miles, while staying on air.
What Can Newsrooms Gain From the Cloud– Find out more in a new e-book about the news business
Contact Us
Questions? Comments? Cool ideas? Get in touch: makingthemedia@avid.com or @craigaw1969. Follow Avid at @avid.
Credits
Host: Craig Wilson
Producer: Matt Diggs
Social: Wim van den Broeck
Theme Music: Greg “Stryke” Chin