Posted on August 25th, 2011 by Deborah Potter
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 at [...]
Filed under: 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | 1 Comment »
Posted on August 22nd, 2011 by Deborah Potter
For all the emphasis on multimedia and technology in today’s newsrooms, the basics are just as important as ever. That’s what journalism professor Laura Smith concluded after spending a month this summer working at KXAN-TV in Austin, Texas. In a recent issue of Static, a newsletter for journalism educators, Smith listed these basics: News judgment–a [...]
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Posted on August 17th, 2011 by Deb Wenger
Jason Lamb is a Murrow Award-winning TV news writer from Anchorage, AK. Earlier this week, he shared how meticulous logging of video is one of the building blocks of effective storytelling. Lamb says another key component is taking time to determine a story’s focus. “Beyond just the story ‘subject,’ a focus tells you what person, [...]
Filed under: 05. Writing the Story | 1 Comment »
Posted on August 15th, 2011 by Deb Wenger
The Murrow Award for writing “demonstrates excellence in writing that conveys the feeling and significance of events to the listener or viewer.” That’s the goal of great storytelling, isn’t it? To help make the news matter. Last year’s national winner in the small market category was Jason Lamb of KTUU in Anchorage, AK. In this [...]
Filed under: 05. Writing the Story, 06. Multimedia Storytelling | 4 Comments »
Posted on August 12th, 2011 by Deborah Potter
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 [...]
Filed under: 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | 3 Comments »
Posted on August 10th, 2011 by Deb Wenger
The annual survey of journalism and mass communications graduates finds that most grads are using the Web skills they’ve learned in school and wishing they had more. The majority of 2010 bachelor’s degree recipients said they had the skill when they completed their studies to write for the Web, edit for the Web, use still photography [...]
Filed under: 07. Writing for the Web, 08. Producing for the Web, 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | No Comments »
Posted on August 8th, 2011 by Deborah Potter
Sometimes the best advice is the simplest. At a recent conference of public radio news directors, NPR investigative reporter Daniel Zwerdling put it simply. “Read the whole report,” he said, quoting the legendary journalist I. F. (Izzy) Stone. The executive summary doesn’t cut it. Reading just the introduction and conclusion isn’t much better. “Read the [...]
Filed under: 04. Reporting in Depth | Comments Off
Posted on August 5th, 2011 by Deb Wenger
The latest RTDNA/Hofstra survey finds that more than two thirds of TV newsrooms have a Facebook page and more than a third describe themselves as “constantly” using Twitter. As we did last year, we asked what stations were doing with social media, and there’s been a change in the last year. Although this open-ended response is [...]
Filed under: 08. Producing for the Web | No Comments »
Posted on August 2nd, 2011 by Deborah Potter
Information travels so fast these days that it’s hard to keep track of where it came from. Technology makes plagiarism and deception a snap. Online text can be copied and pasted in seconds, photos can be manipulated and no one may be the wiser. But thanks to technology, problems are also easier to detect. If [...]
Filed under: 02. Finding the Story | No Comments »
