Posted on April 16th, 2009 by Deb Wenger
Bloomberg is reporting on what could be a significant trend for local TV stations – they’re dropping syndicated programming and adding more local news. TV station owners, facing a record drop in advertising, are pushing their news crews to fill expanded schedules, allowing programmers to eliminate more costly syndicated programs such as “Dr. Phil.” In [...]
Filed under: 09. Producing for TV & Multiple Platforms, 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | 1 Comment »
Posted on April 14th, 2009 by Deborah Potter
No doubt about it. You need to be able to work fast and juggle multiple deadlines if you’re going to succeed in online journalism. But you also have to be adept at marketing, which used to be a dirty word in newsrooms–as Alan Murray, deputy managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, notes in this [...]
Filed under: 01. The Multimedia Mindset | No Comments »
Posted on April 14th, 2009 by Deborah Potter
Is this a trend? A station in northeast Pennsylvania pulled the plug on its local newscasts this month and gave the entire news staff only a few hours notice that they were all being fired. WYOU-TV’s newscasts were produced by one of its competitors, WBRE-TV, and consistently finished a distant third in the ratings. Killing [...]
Filed under: 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | 3 Comments »
Posted on April 13th, 2009 by Deborah Potter
It may sound counterintuitive, but you really do need a plan if you’re going to do the best possible job of covering breaking news. The more prepared you are, the less you have to worry about when the big story hits. That’s especially true online. Consider the elements you’ll want to add to your Web [...]
Filed under: 06. Multimedia Storytelling, 08. Producing for the Web | 2 Comments »
Posted on April 9th, 2009 by Deborah Potter
Stand-ups should never be an afterthought, says award-winning photojournalist Darren Durlach of WBFF-TV in Baltimore. He makes a point of talking with reporters on the way to the story to plan the day’s stand-up. Many photojournalists dislike shooting stand-ups, but Durlach calls them “crucial.” [
Filed under: 06. Multimedia Storytelling, 10. Delivering the News | No Comments »
Posted on April 7th, 2009 by Deborah Potter
TV newsrooms that are replacing reporter-photographer teams with solo video journalists might benefit from the experience of stations that have always had them. News8 Austin, the cable news channel in Texas, has used VJs ever since it launched 10 years ago. News director Kevin Benz told Poynter’s Jill Geisler that managers need different strategies to [...]
Filed under: 03. Multimedia Newsgathering | 4 Comments »
Posted on April 7th, 2009 by Deb Wenger
There’s no doubt about it; the journalism industry has to reinvent itself to remain viable in a world where the old model of advertising-supported content is unlikely to work. But where should news organizations draw the line? In Oklahoma, stations KOTV and KWTV are both running stories within their newscasts about a state-sponsored insurance program [...]
Filed under: 09. Producing for TV & Multiple Platforms, 11. Multimedia Ethics | 2 Comments »
Posted on April 6th, 2009 by Deborah Potter
Being a VJ means that you are totally responsible for what the viewer sees. That’s how Eric Olsen, a video journalist at The New York Times, describes his job in a post at Digital Journalist. I’ve always thought of it as something akin to an acrobat working without a net, but that’s not entirely the [...]
Filed under: 03. Multimedia Newsgathering | 1 Comment »
Posted on April 3rd, 2009 by Deborah Potter
Three local TV stations have won prestigious Peabody Awards for the kind of in-depth reporting many stations no longer seem to value. In an era of budget cuts and layoffs, WWL in New Orleans, KMGH in Denver and KLAS in Las Vegas devoted substantial time to covering significant local stories and they deserve credit for [...]
Filed under: 04. Reporting in Depth | No Comments »
Posted on April 2nd, 2009 by Deborah Potter
Okay, there’s really only one secret. Award-winning photojournalist John Gross of KSTP-TV in Minneapolis says it’s pretty basic, and once you know it, you just have to make sure you get it every time. Gross believes the closing shot is the most important shot in any story. It’s the information the viewer will take home, [...]
Filed under: 06. Multimedia Storytelling | 9 Comments »
