Posted on March 17th, 2010 by Deb Wenger
If you’re reading this post, my guess is you probably already have your own Twitter account, but social media expert Jeff Cutler has some thoughts on what’s good about Twitter as a journalistic tool and what could be better.
Tip #1
“Twitter is perfect for talking to a crowd and just getting your question out there and seeing [...]
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Posted on March 2nd, 2010 by Deborah Potter
Reporters who want to anchor often get their first opportunity as a “fill in” when a colleague is away. Some slide right into the chair and do just fine. But others worry that something will go wrong and they won’t ever get another chance. Having the jitters about an assignment increases the odds that it [...]
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Posted on October 5th, 2009 by Deb Wenger
Our text, Advancing the Story, details strategies for solo journalists who need to shoot their own stand ups. One approach involves using your light stand as a stand-in for your body as you frame your shot.
Bob Kaplitz of the consulting firm of AR&D has created a short video explainer of the technique, along with an example [...]
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Posted on September 18th, 2009 by Deborah Potter
What’s the most harmful thing you can do to your voice? That’s an easy one: Smoke.
When I first started working at CBS News, I sat across from Dallas Townsend, the longtime radio anchor of the morning World News Roundup. He went through two packs of unfiltered cigarettes in an eight-hour shift and it destroyed his [...]
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Posted on September 1st, 2009 by Deborah Potter
By Dave Cupp & Ann Utterback
Much has been written about the new and varied media platforms journalists are now asked to master, but one area that has not been explored is what delivery style works best on these new devices…
…We are no longer captives in our homes or offices when we watch television. Now we [...]
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Posted on July 25th, 2009 by Deborah Potter
Here’s a question I get all the time: What kind of standups and live shots should a reporter include in a resume tape montage? The simple answer is to feature only your very best stuff, with the goal of showing how confident and comfortable you are on camera.
So is there anything you should NOT include? [...]
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Posted on July 18th, 2009 by Deborah Potter
When Walter Cronkite anchored the CBS Evening News, his trademark sign-off was sometimes criticized as an overstatement. How could he end each broadcast, “And that’s the way it is,” when his 30-minute program only provided a brief glimpse of the day’s events?
Cronkite admitted that a network newscast was at best a headline service. As he [...]
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Posted on July 14th, 2009 by Deb Wenger
One of the criticisms leveled at TV news sites is the hit-or-miss quality of the writing. Part of the problem, as many in the broadcast industry freely admit, is a discomfort with or lack of knowledge about writing in “print style.”
One tool that can help is a solid style guide, and now Reuters has posted its internal newsroom guide online, for [...]
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Posted on June 12th, 2009 by Deb Wenger
It’s an unfortunate reality that a good portion of students go into broadcast journalism because they want to be on TV. They dream of being someone like Oprah or of anchoring a newcast because they think it looks fun and easy. They may be right about the fun part, but it’s probably never been easy, [...]
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Posted on June 3rd, 2009 by Deborah Potter
It’s a given. If you’re going live on television, sooner or later something wacky will happen and it will be caught on camera. Back in the old days, you could expect to be teased by your newsroom colleagues and perhaps a few sharp-eyed viewers. But you could feel fairly confident that cousin Carl in Chicago would [...]
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