(upbeat music) Recently my colleague Mary Gamba and I had a conversation with our colleague Usame Tunagur who is our executive producer, handles all post-production for Caucus Education Corporation.

We talked a little bit about post-production, the editing process, how complicated it is, and also how there is sometimes bias, media bias in the visuals or pictures you show or don't show.

Complicated stuff.

It's more than simply post-production in a program and has a lot to do with the impact of your content on your audience.

Here's that conversation.

- We're joined now by Usame Tunagur, who's executive producer for post-production at the Caucus Educational Corporation, our not-for-profit production operation.

Usame, how you doing?

- Doing fine.

Thank you very much for having me, Steve and Mary.

- Now, Usame, you pronounce your last name a little bit different than I just did.

Say it the way you say it.

- Actually you got it perfect, Tunagur.

- Yeah, but the last, okay.

- The last one is not a U, it's an U because I'm originally from Turkey, I was born and raised in Istanbul, and we have eight vowels and U is one of the eight vowels.

- Fascinating.

Tell us a little bit more about your childhood, where'd you grow up?

I was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, which is the largest, it's like New York of Turkey.

It rests between Asia and Europe.

I actually grew up on the Asian side for high school.

And for middle school and high school, I went on the European side.

So imagine Hudson River splitting between Jersey and New York.

We have Bosporus that is splitting Asia and Europe, and on a daily basis, I was crossing continents.

- Your interest in media and public policy/politics comes from where?

- Since early age, say late elementary school, middle school, I was always interested in storytelling, so I had a good feeling I was always gonna go into storytelling.

So after high school, I actually migrated to United States and I went to Temple University.

I studied broadcasting and mass media.

And after that, I studied Master of Fine Arts and Film at Ohio University, always interested in storytelling.

And I do not see a huge difference between filmmaking, media production, broadcast media, but later on it also evolved into doing my part towards public awareness and public education.

And particularly currently working with you, I'm able to play my part in terms of making sure New Jerseyans, let alone others around New Jersey are more well-informed.

- But let's make it clear that it's interesting there are different executive producers in our operation.

The term executive producers used to mean a lot of different things.

Sometimes it's just a title.

In Usame's case, that's not the case.

Usame is the leader of the operation.

Once we do a program, he together with Marcus, who is also is terrific partner, they make it happen.

Mary, they put the pieces together and then when it goes on the air, they go, "Wait a minute, that looks a lot better than we first we first did it.

- I Know.

- Go ahead, Mary.

- Yeah, my husband Bill and I were watching a program a couple of weeks ago.

Not that, not just, I mean we watch every week, of course.

- You know, you watch for the first time, 24 years, you just for the first- - For the first time.

And we were watching it and I was just shaking my head.

I'm like, look how far we've come with these photos, with the graphics.

And Usame, you were talking about that you have a passion for storytelling and it just is so evident in what you choose to put in, where you put it in, how you put these graphics, whether it's a photo or a video Broll, as we call it in the business.

So thank you for that.

And Steve mentioned, I would love to pick your brain a little bit about collaboration.

You came into a hybrid work environment, post COVID we were all working remotely.

And you work hand in hand with Marcus, who is on the editing side.

Talk about leadership when it comes to, number one, being self-driven, and number two, really partnering with others.

But when you're in a remote environment, I think you and I and Steve have seen each other maybe six or seven times in the past few years, max.

So talk a little bit about that.

- Three or four years ago when COVID first happened, I was actually working as a full-time professor teaching video production, visual journalism.

And that was the first time I had to teach remotely.

It was a major challenge because I'm a person who gets energy from eye connection from people in the room.

And after that, I was working at Black News Channel where everything had to be remotely.

So there's been a learning curve.

It's been challenging for especially people like myself.

I consider myself an extrovert.

When it comes to our current operation at Caucus Education, I've been here for two years.

And in terms of leadership, more than seeing myself from a traditional leader, I see myself more as a collaborator, as an enabler.

So whatever it is I need to do for Marcus, for him to do what he needs to do efficiently and with minimal mistake, that's how I see my role as leadership.

So as much as preparation that I can put before he starts editing, that's first part of my job.

But the second one is making sure after he edits that everything is ready to go on air.

And as you can guess, that never happens after a first pass.

So we do multiple passes.

I try my best to always listen to Steve's conversation with guests and then always try to think about are there any ways in which naturally we can enrich the look and the feel of the show with visuals.

But also, I'm also listening to Steve and then making sure, is he always factual?

Has he mis-mentioned a date a person?

If those kind of things happen, I'm always editing those out.

And sometimes I even change the order of some questions that no one knows except me and Marcus and everybody's- - Well, now everybody knows.

- I know the secret's out of that bag.

How are we ever gonna take that back?

Oh, I'm gonna edit it out with Sylvester.

- We're gonna edit that out.

- With Sylvester, who's the editor of lessons and leadership.

But let me just follow up on that.

I actually said to you, "Listen, there's an upcoming interview," or we did an interview and I said, "Listen, Usame, no one's better than you are on the post-production end as a lead executive producer in creating, enhancing the content with visuals."

But I also said to you, "I don't want visuals for this."

I actually, this is visuals can enhance, they can also distort, they can also editorialize just by showing the video, showing the picture.

In and of itself is a statement.

Question, how the heck do you manage?

I'm gonna call it media bias.

People who say they have no bias in the media, that's just ridiculous.

We all have biases, right?

We all have a bias.

It's not a question of whether you have it, it's a question of whether it manifests itself in the content.

How do you manage your own bias?

- It's a tough question to answer because we all have implicit bias.

That's number one too.

As we experience life, we build on that bias.

Those biases take different turns.

It also depends on the time of the day.

Are you in a happier mood or are you in a disappointed mood, you know?

So that's number one.

Second, for example, there's an issue that we've been covering a lot in the last few months.

I ask myself, if it is an issue that a lot of people are polarized and if I'm using visuals, I tell myself, if I have used a visual that is representing, let's say, for a lack of better word, I don't like to polarize it further from team A.

Have I used also visuals from Team B?

And is it aligned with what the person is saying?

And depend from interview to interview, also the situation changes where, Steve, you tell me, Usame, this feels like this is over visual.

Can you take, you know, can you minimize it?

Can you just leave the guest and myself, meaning Steve, on the interview so people just make their own decisions?

Because they can tap into those visuals on their own.

- Listen, I'm not saying it's easy.

I'm just not a fan of people saying, "We have no bias."

It's a question of does the bias manifest itself in the content so people can say, "Oh, that's what you believe in.

That's what..." Anyway, I'm off my soapbox.

Usame, listen, not just because you're a terrific person to work with and a team member who came in at a very tough time during COVID.

You're the best at what you do and you add to our content and you serve our audience every day.

Usame, thanks my friend.

- Thank you very much for having me.

Enjoy the rest of the day.

- I'm sure these are none of the things Usame thought we talk about.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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