Enterprising reporters have always looked beyond the daybook or the local newspaper for stories worth exploring. They’ve browsed bulletin boards, driven around town with their windows down and scoured the Web. And now–perhaps not surprisingly–social media are an increasingly important source of story ideas and sources. According to a national survey, the vast majority of …
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Just check out the comments section following the New York Times article on the potential layoffs announcement at ABC News. The news division is “seeking 300 to 400 buyouts and would resort to layoffs if necessary.” Depending on the person, the development is either another sign that journalism is dying or much ado about nothing. What I am …
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As journalism organizations try to figure out how to make money in a Web-driven, free content world, MediaPost’s summary of new research from Nielsen offers some important information. The topline summary suggests that pay-for-view news is going to be a tough sell as 79% of users say they would no longer access a Web site that charges them. …
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Reporting with sound isn’t just a technical challenge–it can raise ethical issues as well. How do you gather sound in the field and how do you use it? How much editing is okay? Guidelines like the RTDNA ethics code, which warns journalists not to “manipulate sound in any way that is misleading,” are a good …
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Sometimes it’s fun to poke fun ourselves and British humorist, and journalist Charlie Brooker is particularly good at it. In the following segment, he explains how to put together the essential elements of a TV pkg. The truth can be painful, can’t it? In doing a search for the video, I also stumbled across a …
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In case you haven’t seen them, here’s a link to the Radio Television Digital News Association ethical guidelines for the use of social media in gathering and disseminating news. The Poynter’s Al Tompkins was one of the architects. We wanted to speak to how speed and space limitations can compromise accuracy and fairness. We wanted to …
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Nikki Burdine is the anchor and producer for the noon and 5 p.m. show at WHAG-NBC25 in Hagerstown, Maryland. She also blogs for RTDNA where she recently posted a description of her experiment with LiveStream during a newscast. It was very simple, I set up an account, had someone hold their iPhone up during the …
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If anyone’s hiring these days–and some news organizations actually are–they’re looking for candidates who have it all. They want basic journalism skills and technical know-how. But you might be surprised at how different kinds of news organizations rank the importance of those two types of skills. A study by Serena Carpenter of Arizona State University …
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