Every note a network executive gives you contains two things: a problem they actually perceived, and a solution they invented on the fly. Your job — the part nobody teaches you in school — is to surgically separate those two things, because the problem is almost always real and the solution is almost always wrong. If you execute their solution without questioning it, you might fix their discomfort and break your show at the same time. That is the trap junior editors fall into repeatedly, and it costs them years of creative credibility they can't get back.
Here is a real example from a network drama I cut years ago. An exec watched a scene and came back with: "What is he saying in that line? I can't follow it. Cut it out." The instinct is to comply — they're the client, it's one line, done. But that line was a narrative anchor. It carried the pull-through to the next act. Cut it and the story doesn't break in any obvious way; it just goes slack, like a tent with one fewer stake. You watch it back and something feels off but you can't name it. The exec can't name it either, so now everyone is confused and the episode is worse. The actual problem was clarity — the line was mumbly, the mix was soft, the screen was busy. The solution was a subtitle, or a reframe, or a trim to the visual clutter around it. Not a cut. So I went back to them with: "I understand why that's not landing. Here's what I think is actually causing it, and here's how I want to fix it." We added a lower-third. The exec loved it. The story stayed intact. That is the job.
The essence of the note is true, even when the note itself is wrong.
Over time you develop a translation layer for network shorthand. Executives describe feelings, not editorial operations, because that's how they experience the show — emotionally, not mechanically. When someone says "Can we hear him start his announcement before we cut away?" they are not asking for a longer scene. They are asking for an L-cut. They don't know the term, and it doesn't matter that they don't. What matters is that you do. When someone says "this section feels long," they might mean the pacing is slow, or they might mean a specific performance moment isn't landing and everything around it feels like waiting. Ask one more question before you make the cut. "What specifically made you want to look away?" That answer tells you where the problem actually lives. Most of the time, it's three seconds earlier than where they pointed.
There are essentially four ways to respond to a note. The first is to just do it — the default, the right call the majority of the time. The second is the sidestep: you make a minimal change that addresses the symptom without executing the bad idea, mark it done, and move on. This requires precision and a little nerve. The third is to push back directly and not do it — almost never the right move unless the note would genuinely damage something irreplaceable and you have enough standing to absorb the friction. The fourth option gets overlooked too often: pick up the phone. Get on a Zoom call. Written notes are stripped of everything that makes communication human. Tone, hesitation, the moment when someone trails off because they're not actually sure what they want. I once received a midnight email from a VP that read like a career-ending catastrophe. I didn't sleep. I called the next morning and within twenty minutes it was clear she was frustrated about one specific moment, had written the email fast, and half the notes were actually questions. The Zoom was collaborative and fine. The email alone would have sent me into the bay doing damage for two hours. Format matters. When the stakes feel high, get a human on the line.
Written notes strip away tone and humanity the same way text messages do. What reads as cold fury is often just someone typing quickly on their phone.
There is one more thing worth knowing about executing bad notes. Sometimes you do it anyway — deliberately, with full knowledge that it won't work — because earning trust downstream is worth more than being right today. If you've told someone three times that a particular approach won't land with the audience and they keep coming back to it, there is a version of this where you just build it their way, screen it, and let the evidence do the work. Done without arrogance, this builds more credibility than almost anything else. When you finally say "I don't think this is going to work," and you have a track record of doing the work faithfully before saying it, people believe you. That trust is a real asset. You accumulate it or you burn it, one note session at a time.
None of this is about being difficult or protecting your cut like it's your child. It's about understanding that the person giving you notes is reacting to something genuine — a moment of confusion, a drop in energy, a beat that didn't pay off — and your obligation is to solve the real problem, not execute the first solution that got said out loud. The note is a symptom report. The editor is the diagnostician. Learn to treat the disease and you'll spend a lot less time wondering why the patient isn't getting better.
This post draws from material being developed for Above the Cut — a book about surviving and thriving in network television post-production.