Advancing the Story

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 reporters [...]

Filed under: 02. Reporting the Story | 1 Comment »

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 couple [...]

Filed under: 02. Reporting the Story, 05. Writing the Story, 06. Visual Storytelling | 2 Comments »

A friend of mine calls her journalism students “do-gooders who hate math.” But journalists need math skills to make sense of numbers the way they need language skills to make sense of words. The truth is, math is not rocket science and [...]

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When we used to talk about the advantages of the Web, we often mentioned the “bottomless newshole” - the ability to post more and longer stories online.
We’ve learned a lot since then, most notably that the quality of the content definitely matters.  Still, the fact is, there’s more space for long-form video online than in most TV newscasts.
Michael Farrell [...]

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The interview is one of the most basic building blocks of journalism. It sounds obvious, but reporters have to talk to people to learn what’s really going on. And journalists need to include people’s voices in their stories to [...]

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Every journalist knows the importance of getting it right. As the legendary publisher Joseph Pulitzer once said, there are three rules of journalism: Accuracy, accuracy and accuracy. Mistakes damage credibility so preventing errors is paramount. But how are journalists taught to do that?
Not very well, says Craig Silverman, founder of Regret The Error.com. J-school students [...]

Filed under: 02. Reporting the Story, 11. Multimedia Ethics | 1 Comment »

The best advice I’ve seen lately on how to do better interviews can be summed up in those two words: Pay attention. That may be easier said than done if you’re shooting your own video, but it’s critically important. Once the interview begins, you can’t be worrying about white balance or focus. Don’t mess with [...]

Filed under: 02. Reporting the Story | 2 Comments »

Every newsroom is stressed to the max these days, with too few people producing news on more platforms than ever. How can you free up time for enterprise reporting or multimedia projects? By saving time on the routine stories.
Simple templates can speed up the collection of basic information on the kinds of stories [...]

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You do your research. You plan your questions. But when the interview starts, do you really listen to what’s being said? If not, you might slip almost as badly as the “interviewer” in this old-time comedy skit:

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At a time when many journalists are struggling to find jobs, anchor Rhori Johnston of WTVF in Nashville says folks who already have positions need to work hard to hold on to them.
Speaking to a group of 34 broadcast journalists at the SPJ Reporters Institute, Johnston said it’s more important than ever to come in early, stay late [...]

Filed under: 02. Reporting the Story, 12. Getting Ready for the Real World | 1 Comment »