A long long time ago in New York City I worked at a popular morning news show. My job as a freelance writer slash producer was to write the scripts for just about every on-air personality in the newsroom -- from the anchors and the on-call "doctor" to the entertainment reporter and the meteorologist. One of the most critical aspects of the job -- in addition to writing and reporting, to be frank, waaaay more stories than writers/producers there would have been juggling if it weren't for a down economy -- was to produce what TV folks refer to as "packages," pre-recorded, pre-narrated, video-driven "stories" that air, for instance, on The Today Show, but were obviously not shot in real-time inside Rockefeller Center. We were expected to put these packages together every day for our on-the-street reporters -- the intrepid men and women who rush to the scene of a raging fire or a still-active earthquake to give their viewers the exclusive. Our jobs, though technical, were essential: after all the footage had been pieced together in a news truck we were responsible for editing, loading and eventually pressing play on said video and then feeding it to the control room often times mere moments before broadcast. And, by the way, did I mention all of this was done between the ungodly hours of 1230 AM and 9 AM?

Well, one day -- and, man, I'll never forget this -- my job was to help one of our reporters, James Ford, get his package out about a home invasion that had happened overnight on Long Island. We were at the height of the morning news show mid-day -- the prime-time, money-shot hour of 6 am -- and I was waiting for James' editor to feed his package to the studio so I could quickly re-edit it, throw some "chryons" on (newsroom-speak for the reporter's name and location of the story written at the bottom of the screen) and send it out in time for its 6:05 am airtime. In theory this should have been easy: we'd been airing some version of this package every half hour since 4:30 am, updating it whenever possible with new sound bytes and video to reflect new information and the changing scenery, in this case the changing color of the sky as the sun began its ascent. 

But at 6:01, amidst all the other stories I was hustling to finish up, I noticed that James' video had not fed in. This was a a problem: I needed five minutes to edit his package and 30 seconds to get it from my desk to the control room. Shit. I had a decision to make. Work in warp speed and pray I got it in on time or give my boss a head's up that "James" might not make it.

With my ego in th driver's seat I opted to keep quiet and work feverishly to get the job done. Fatal mistake. By not telling my co-workers -- some of whom were more seasoned than I and might have easily saved the day -- I essentially set myself up to fail. In truth I set all of us up to fail. So you can guess what happened next: 6:05 came and no video. I'd managed to get all the edits done on time but I'd filed the package so late it only partially fed into the control room, which means it didn't make it to the air. I watched in horror as every TV screen inside the newsroom went black, symbolic of the tens of thousands of viewers throughout the tri-state area who were now also staring at a black screen. Believe me, if that black hole could have swallowed me up I would have let it. In lightning speed the executive producer took us to commercial break while the control room scrambled to recover. James aired at 6:15 instead and if a viewer had just returned from a bathroom break he or she would never have been the wiser. Fortunately being relatively new saved me and the executive producer chalked my fumble up to a "rookie" mistake. However I sure as hell walked away with some valuable lessons:

- Don't try to be a hero. If you see a train wreck coming, ask for help, even if you are the one causing the wreck.

- Sometimes failures happen. What makes them 'tragic failures' is when they were preventable.

- Sometimes you'll find yourself operating at a level you're not completely comfortable with -- be honest with yourself about that and seek out others to shadow until you find your footing.

- When you screw up take ownership and apologize immediately. This can mean the difference between you getting another crack at it, or not.