NewsroomAmerica: Media » Media Crisis

Beware of the future, TV broadcasters

2 Feb 09:52 | Media

Forgive the apocalyptic headline, but when two columns cross my desk the same day warning broadcast executives to wake up or face extinction, I pay attention. Technology-driven threats to the broadcast business model aren’t new, but these columns suggest a bazillion-channel future is closer than many may think, leaving little time to prepare. Let’s begin [...]read more »

Beware of the future, TV broadcasters

2 Feb 09:52 | Media

Forgive the apocalyptic headline, but when two columns cross my desk the same day warning broadcast executives to wake up or face extinction, I pay attention. Technology-driven threats to the broadcast business model aren’t new, but these columns suggest a bazillion-channel future is closer than many may think, leaving little time to prepare. Let’s begin [...]read more »

Mobile apps let newsrooms assign ‘citizen journalists’

31 Jan 11:26 | Media

A new mobile app aims to give YouTube a run for its money in the “citizen journalist” assignment game. Rawporter is the latest competitor to YouTube Direct, giving newsrooms the ability to request and rebroadcast video from anyone who happens to be at or near the scene of a news event. What Rawporter offers that’s [...]read more »

What’s in a reporter’s notebook?

23 Jan 2012 | Media

by John Larson, correspondent, PBS Note taking for me has always been defined by deadline — the tighter it is, the more my notes tend to reflect immediate needs: the in/out cues of the best potential quotes, the most important facts/statistics that I’ll need RIGHT NOW. I needed to make sure I’d have the quotes [...]read more »

What’s in a reporter’s notebook?

23 Jan 2012 | Media

by John Larson, correspondent, PBS Note taking for me has always been defined by deadline — the tighter it is, the more my notes tend to reflect immediate needs: the in/out cues of the best potential quotes, the most important facts/statistics that I’ll need RIGHT NOW. I needed to make sure I’d have the quotes [...]read more »

TV news needs verbs

17 Jan 2012 | Media

Some things rarely change. TV news writing is one of them, unfortunately. More than a decade ago, I noticed something about both network and local newscasts that drove me nuts and wrote a column about it. This morning, I got a message from Rick Tillery, an anchor in Medford, Oregon. “It appears this needs to [...]read more »

Tips on taking good notes

11 Jan 2012 | Media

“Leave the notebook at home.” That’s what one journalism site recommended when reviewing Evernote, a digital service that stores notes, pictures and Web clips online so users can access them anywhere from any device. It’s a cool tool but it hasn’t replaced my reporter’s notebook and I don’t think it ever will. A pad and pen [...]read more »

Making a numbers story visual

6 Jan 2012 | Media

Television’s need for pictures can be a two-edged sword. Great pictures can make a story memorable, because viewers remember what they see longer than what they hear. But a lack of pictures can turn an important story into a throw-away anchor reader, giving it less time on air and leaving little impact. So TV’s bias [...]read more »

How to interview almost anyone

4 Jan 2012 | Media

Interviews are an essential building block for just about every news story, so it’s obviously important to know how to conduct a good one. Most interviewing advice comes in the form of tips and hints, like these dos and don’ts from Canadian journalist John Sawatsky and the suggestions we’ve previously posted here. But sometimes it’s helpful [...]read more »

Network newscasts more different than ever

4 Jan 2012 | Media

For years, critics have complained that the nightly national TV newscasts are all basically the same, leading with the same stories, covering the same developments, often in exactly the same order. And the networks have been criticized for ignoring international news unless the U.S. was directly involved. There used to be some truth to all [...]read more »

Top 10 in journalism for 2011

29 Dec 2011 | Media

Who’s counting? Everybody, it seems, at this time of year. Everywhere you look, there’s a top 10 list for the year’s best and worst, so why should journalism be different? And why reinvent the wheel? Instead of creating our own 2011 rundown, we’ve put together a meta-list with a few additions and comments. This was [...]read more »

Working on holidays doesn’t have to be a pain

16 Dec 2011 | Media

We’ve all been there–hard at work while everyone else, it seems, has the day off. Or the week off. For journalists, being on the job instead of with family at holiday time goes with the territory. And it doesn’t have to be all bad. Making the best of things takes preparation, says Matthew Nordin of WMBF [...]read more »

Photojournalists arrested for doing their jobs

12 Dec 2011 | Media

Covering fires is a routine part of a television news photographer’s job. Clint Fillinger has been doing it for more than 40 years in Milwaukee, so he knows the drill: Stay behind the yellow police tape and roll on everything. But this fall, while doing exactly that, Fillinger went from shooting the news to making it [...]read more »

Self-talk for photojournalists

9 Dec 2011 | Media

by Mark Anderson, former NPPA photojournalist of the year Some of you may know that my dad recently passed. He was my hero and defined the words gentleman and optimist. When he was stationed over in France for the war, he and his Army buddies loved to read Shakespeare. Growing up in Iowa he quoted [...]read more »

Self-talk for photojournalists

9 Dec 2011 | Media

by Mark Anderson, former NPPA photojournalist of the year Some of you may know that my dad recently passed. He was my hero and defined the words gentleman and optimist. When he was stationed over in France for the war, he and his Army buddies loved to read Shakespeare. Growing up in Iowa he quoted [...]read more »

Everyone is a news photographer

2 Dec 2011 | Media

If you cover breaking news in just about any local market, you’ve probably had to come to terms with a new reality. Someone else is going to get pictures before you do. Their video may not be as good as yours, but they’ve probably captured something you’ve missed. So now what? “After 45 years of [...]read more »

Tips for dealing with confidential sources

28 Nov 2011 | Media

How far will you go to protect the identity of sources who give you information on the condition that you not reveal their names? If you haven’t thought about it, you should. Every reporter eventually runs into a story so important that it’s worth getting the information on a confidential basis. But you’d better understand [...]read more »

Once a storyteller, always a storyteller

23 Nov 2011 | Media

What do you get when you put two terrific storytellers in charge of a PR shoot? A great story, that’s what, and some useful lessons on how to capture stunning video with compact, light-weight equipment. “The Sewing Machine” is a video produced by former NBC reporter John Larson and one-time NPPA photojournalist of the year Lisa [...]read more »

Sounding conversational

21 Nov 2011 | Media

I’ve always been a huge Robert Krulwich fan. His stories on NPR and ABC News break through the standard news blather thanks in part to his memorable delivery. Unlike so many reporters who tend to “announce” their scripts, Krulwich just talks, or at least that’s how it appears to the listener. But don’t be fooled. [...]read more »

Tips from a prize-winning solo video journalist

17 Nov 2011 | Media

Working alone in the field can be a challenge, but it’s a challenge that Michelle Michael has mastered. Since 2003, she’s been shooting, writing and editing her own stories for the US Armed Forces Network. This year, she won the NPPA Solo Video Journalist of the Year award. What’s her advice to other one-man-bands? “If [...]read more »

Tips from a prize-winning solo video journalist

17 Nov 2011 | Media

Working alone in the field can be a challenge, but it’s a challenge that Michelle Michael has mastered. Since 2003, she’s been shooting, writing and editing her own stories for the US Armed Forces Network. This year, she won the NPPA Solo Video Journalist of the Year award. What’s her advice to other one-man-bands? “If [...]read more »

Is there any hope for quality in local TV news?

15 Nov 2011 | Media

There’s more news on local TV than ever–more than five hours every day, on average–but is it any good? It depends on where you look and whom you ask. On some stations, serious reporting is hard to find, squeezed out by crime and fluff. And even at stations where good journalism is valued, there’s no [...]read more »

Tips for better stand-ups

10 Nov 2011 | Media

Love them or hate them, TV reporters have to do stand-ups. A stand-up can help to establish a reporter’s credibility and build a relationship with viewers, giving them a face to put with the voice. The trouble is, too many stand-ups today go overboard with unmotivated movement, cheesy props or “reporter involvement,” in an effort to [...]read more »

Keep it simple when writing TV news

8 Nov 2011 | Media

Every writer knows the KISS rule: Keep It Simple, Stupid! But too many writers forget to apply it, loading their stories with so much information that the viewers’ eyes glaze over. KGO reporter Wayne Freedman compares the way writers over-stuff stories to the way travelers cram suitcases with so many clothes that everything comes out wrinkled. [...]read more »

Working with a GoPro camera

4 Nov 2011 | Media

It’s the latest “must have” gadget for TV news, or so it appears from all the references I’ve heard lately to the GoPro camera. Small, rugged and light-weight, it shoots in HD and sports a wide-angle lens so it goes where other cameras can’t. It’s often used for “point of view” video, which is what it [...]read more »

Tips on planning a TV news story

1 Nov 2011 | Media

I’m of the belief that planning makes stories stronger, and I often talk about planning as the step that comes between reporting and writing that is too often skipped. An outline like the one on the left–just a few words jotted down in a notebook–helps me stay on track. The longer the story I’m writing, [...]read more »

Tips on planning a TV news story

1 Nov 2011 | Media

I’m of the belief that planning makes stories stronger, and I often talk about planning as the step that comes between reporting and writing that is too often skipped. An outline like the one on the left–just a few words jotted down in a notebook–helps me stay on track. The longer the story I’m writing, [...]read more »

Should journalists be sneaky?

25 Oct 2011 | Media

I love reading what other journalists have to say about their work and sharing their insights here, but sometimes I find myself in a bit of a quandary. What to make of this comment? “You’re in the wrong job if you think that political journalists can or should be entirely up-front and open in their [...]read more »

CBS eye turns 60

20 Oct 2011 | Media

Some corporate logos have stood the test of time. Coca Cola’s iconic red script and General Electric’s GE-in-a-circle have been around since the late 1800s. But Betty Crocker sure doesn’t look like she used to back in 1927. And NBC’s logo has gone from xylophone to peacock to snake to giant N and back again since [...]read more »

Must-haves for mobile journalism

18 Oct 2011 | Media

“Everyone should have a smartphone in the future; it’s baseline gear,” says Damon Kiesow, senior product manager at Boston.com. Speaking at the Excellence in Journalism convention in New Orleans, Kiesow said newsrooms have to get more “intentional and strategic” when it comes to mobile. “It doesn’t work to just go buy 20 iPhones and tell the reporters [...]read more »

How to learn social media skills at mid-career

13 Oct 2011 | Media

Let’s say you’ve been a journalist for a while but you feel a bit out of the loop when it comes to using social media and multimedia. OK, not just out of the loop–totally overwhelmed. And you’re worried some kid just out of college is going to steal your job one day because they have [...]read more »

Tips to increase social media engagement

11 Oct 2011 | Media

We all know by now that social media are meant to be, well, social. It’s not enough to post links on Twitter and Facebook to something you’ve written and consider the job done. What you really want is for people to retweet, like and comment on your posts, to take advantage of the multiplier effect of social media. [...]read more »

Journalists need allies as well as sources

6 Oct 2011 | Media

A good source is worth every minute you put into cultivating him or her. A source can tip you off to stories you might not find any other way, steer you in the right direction and keep you from making embarrassing mistakes. But reporters need more than sources when they’re working on tough stories. They [...]read more »

What to do with the new Facebook?

4 Oct 2011 | Media

Facebook is giving me a headache but not for the reason you may think. Sure, it’s annoying when services you’ve grown accustomed to shake things up for no apparent reason (see the new Delicious, for example). But that’s their prerogative and we’d better get used to it. “Facebook will always be changing,” says Vadim Lavrusik [...]read more »

Taking Twitter to the next level

29 Sep 2011 | Media

Andy Carvin of NPR is a Twitter rock star. His social media reporting during the Arab Spring has made @acarvin a go-to source for information about uprisings from Tunisia to Yemen. He describes his role as that of a “Twitter anchor,” vetting sources, verifying information and passing it along to the public. Carvin’s 55,000 plus Twitter [...]read more »

Investigative journalism risks and rewards

27 Sep 2011 | Media

Whoever said news about important subjects doesn’t sell? CBS News chairman Jeff Fager is happy to contradict them. The ratings for 60 Minutes, he says, make it clear that Americans are hungry for that kind of reporting. His goal now is to make the rest of CBS News more like the Sunday evening program, with [...]read more »

A video game for training photojournalists?

26 Sep 2011 | Media

How’s this for a new way to train journalists? An Australian company is working on a new first-person video game that puts players in a war zone armed only with a camera. In Warco (short for “war correspondent”), players document a conflict that echoes recent events in the Middle East. Each scenario has different story [...]read more »

Writing tips for solo video journalists

22 Sep 2011 | Media

Writing is tough. Anybody who has sweated over a keyboard or notebook knows great writing doesn’t come easily. And Lee Powell of the Associated Press says writing for online video is even tougher, with always-now deadlines and an audience whose attention span is notoriously short. Powell usually works alone, shooting, writing and editing video packages that [...]read more »

Diversity stalls in TV and radio news

21 Sep 2011 | Media

When is it news when nothing much changes? When the lack of change signals little to no progress in making broadcast newsrooms more diverse. The latest research from Hofstra University’s Bob Papper, produced for RTDNA, says the percentage of minorities employed in radio and TV newsrooms was up this year, but only slightly. The bigger [...]read more »

TV news and the mobile mind-set

19 Sep 2011 | Media

by Tim Blotz The Associated Press alert that chimed on my newsroom computer a few years ago was short and direct. “Bulletin: Jeane Kirkpatrick has died.” I leapt from my desk and shouted across the room to my 5 p.m. newscast producers, “Folks, we have to add an important story. Jeane Kirkpatrick is dead!” The silence was [...]read more »

Tips for journalists from terrorism experts

9 Sep 2011 | Media

It’s obvious that much has changed in the ten years since 9/11. Ask Americans what they think is the most important problem facing the United States and terrorism doesn’t even make the list. The number of Americans willing to have the government violate their “basic civil liberties” in order to prevent additional acts of terrorism [...]read more »

Tweeting an online job application

7 Sep 2011 | Media

You already know that prospective employers are looking for journalists with social media skills. The Statesman-Journal in Salem, Oregon, certainly is. Executive Editor Bill Church recently advertised an opening for a “talented reporter with high digital IQ.” If you’re talented, aggressive, responsible, innovative, socially adept, digitally awesome and perpetually energized, you’ll fit in just fine [...]read more »

Videotaping police action

6 Sep 2011 | Media

A motorcyclist pulled over for speeding in Maryland uses his helmet camera to videotape an officer threatening him with a gun. State police later confiscate his cameras, computers and hard drives and charge him with a felony. A bystander records an arrest in Massachusetts with his cellphone and is promptly arrested himself. These two incidents three years [...]read more »

What’s the point of journalism school?

1 Sep 2011 | Media

Some critics would have you believe there’s very little point in getting a college degree in journalism. Writing in The Nation, Michael Tracy asserts that a journalism degree is unnecessary because you can get a job in the news business without one. What’s worse, Tracy says, is that “it’s actually bad for the craft.” In [...]read more »

Advice on working from home

29 Aug 2011 | Media

Remember when the home office meant your company’s headquarters? Many journalists never set foot in the home office, working instead from a local station, broadcast center or news bureau. But today, “home office” has an entirely different meaning for legions of journalists who freelance, work for Web outlets or run their own news sites. Working [...]read more »

Using YouTube video on the air

26 Aug 2011 | Media

When an earthquake hits, as happened on the East Coast this week, or when a major storm comes ashore as appears likely with Hurricane Irene this weekend, YouTube can be an invaluable source of video. Since just about everyone these days has a camera on hand at all times, YouTube and other video sharing services [...]read more »

Minor earthquake, major wake-up call for newsrooms

25 Aug 2011 | Media

By Stan Heist When I was a news photographer I carried a lot of gear in the back of my car. Perhaps the most important thing – and most seldom used – was a small blue duffel bag that I called my “go-kit.” Inside the go-kit were the essentials for an unplanned overnight stay, just [...]read more »

Crime reporting tips

24 Aug 2011 | Media

For many journalists, covering crime is their least favorite part of being on general assignment. The late shift at many stations is a steady diet of crime scenes and victims. Lots of newsrooms send their greenest reporters out on crime stories, perhaps figuring they’re easy to cover with cops providing “the facts” and with “good [...]read more »

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