Guidelines like the RTDNA ethics code, which warns journalists not to “manipulate sound in any way that is misleading,” are a good starting point. But that general rule is open to interpretation and reasonable people may disagree.

A recent issue of News Photographer magazine quoted this sound advice from an ethics guide David Leeson developed for the Dallas Morning News:

Audio should always be presented in context. It is perfectly acceptable to edit out unwanted audio as long as the audio chosen for your story is used in proper context.

That leaves room for interpretation, of course, which isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe that’s why this set of guidelines on audio ethics from J-Source in Canada struck me as just a little too detailed in terms of what’s permissible.

It’s okay, even expected, that you will cut out ums, ers, long pauses, and other examples of verbal stalling – unless their verbal stalling is key part of the story, as in the case of a politician ducking tough questions.

It’s okay, even recommended, that you will cut out extraneous words.

In other words, it’s okay to make edits that help someone sound sharper, tighter, clearer. It’s just NEVER okay to change the meaning of what they said.

Yes, technology makes it easy to cut stuff out, but heavy internal editing can raise questions of credibility, even if your motive is simply to make someone “sound sharper, tighter, clearer.” If the person just doesn’t talk that way, isn’t it misleading to make them sound on the air as if they do? Leeson again:

In general, subjects should be presented…’as they are.’ If your subject naturally uses a lot of ‘umms’ and ahhs’ while talking then it could be inappropriate to remove them and change their natural way of speaking. Use good judgment.

“Cleaning up” bites used to be common practice in some newsrooms to save time or to make stories flow better. But these days, when the same audio is often available from lots of different sources, it’s easy for listeners to compare an edited version to the original. And that’s bound to raise questions about why stuff was taken out.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Sourced from: NewsLab

The truth can be painful, can’t it? In doing a search for the video, I also stumbled across a couple of more serious resources on this topic that I thought were worth sharing.

So have a laugh, but then take a minute to learn a little, too!

Meeks Mixed Media How-To

E-How How-To

We wanted to speak to how speed and space limitations can compromise accuracy and fairness. We wanted to speak to the frictions that occur when journalists “friend” people on Facebook. We wanted to say something about how journalists are always journalists, even when they are off the clock. We also thought it was important to speak to how journalists sometimes say or post things online that they would not say or show on the air.

Additionally, we wanted to say loudly that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other such sites have a legitimate place in the distribution and collection of news and information, but that like any tools, they should be used carefully.

In addition to all that Tompkins mentions, one of the guidelines that strikes me as particularly noteworthy is the suggestion that news organizations correct their social media mistakes.  As someone who turns to Twitter and other social media sites during breaking news, I can tell you that many news organizations do report inaccuracies, but few seem to own up to it.  It seems to me that preserving journalistic integrity is critical to preserving journalism’s future — and that every station ought to be developing a social media corrections policy.  How about you?

It was very simple, I set up an account, had someone hold their iPhone up during the show, and voila! We were streaming. I teased viewers and friends via Facebook and Twitter, telling them to tune into our behind-the-scenes broadcast of the 5 o’clock news.

The stream was very casual, informal and candid. There were several viewers who tuned in and were able to comment during the show. We started streaming from right before show time, explaining to viewers what we were doing, introducing them to production assistants and just talking casually about what to expect. We streamed throughout the first block of the show, and then commercial breaks, where I interacted with viewers via a chat-like setting on LiveStream. We even had a few random people from different countries!

It was a simple and easy way to let the viewers in on a little piece of the news that they don’t normally get…the long-time weather man who everyone in our market adores, what the studio really looks like, and how it all works.

Burdine went on to say that the station does plan to do it again, but “not too much.”

And that raises the big question: How much IS too much?

Certainly there seems to be nothing wrong with taking viewers behind the scenes of a newscast. And people who spend a lot of time in the “social media space” see absolutely nothing wrong with reporters sharing via Facebook or Twitter details of visits to the Wendy’s drive through or trying to get cat hair off their clothes, but sometimes I wonder how all this changes our notions of journalism?

Is the end result a “personality-driven press” where everyone is vying to win a popularity contest with the audience? Will journalists be known more by their private lives than by their publications?

Perhaps not, but you can follow Nikki Burdine’s day today on Twitter: @NikkiBurdine.

A study by Serena Carpenter of Arizona State University found that online news outlets are more likely to hire people with broad bodies of knowledge while traditional news organizations tend to seek new hires with solid technical skills.  Both types of employers are just as interested in the basics: solid writing skills, working under deadline, editing, teamwork and communication skills. But online newsrooms are less interested in routine technical expertise, according to a summary of the research on the AEJMC site, and more interested in “adaptive expertise,” such as knowledge of subjects other than journalism, creativity, independent and critical thinking, leadership, and problem-solving abilities

Why wouldn’t online newsrooms care just as much about technical skills? Perhaps, the study suggests, because they assume applicants already have them or because they could easily be taught.

The study was based on a review of six months of job postings at JournalismJobs.com.  It’s hardly exhaustive, but the results are food for thought interesting.

Here are some tips from experienced photojournalists on how to produce compelling nat sound stories.

Know your story

• Know what your story is about and why it should matter to viewers. Having a clear focus helps you decide what kind of sound (and pictures) you need to tell the story. “The sounds you record and the interviews you conduct are your only tools when you hit the edit bay,” says photojournalist Tim King, formerly of KATU-TV in Portland, Ore.

• Think story structure from the start. Your story needs to introduce the issue and the people involved, explain it, and demonstrate its resolution. Listen for sound that will give you a strong ending to tie up your story. “Within the first few seconds of your story get the subject to tell you the basics,” says former NPPA president Dave Wertheimer, “who they are, what they do, what is going on, where are they, and–most important–why. The ‘why’ is the emotion and the ‘what’ is the set up.”

Capture the sound

• Put a wireless lav on your subjects and let them get used to it. Soon, they’ll forget they have it on, and what they say will be much more natural.

• Get close with a shotgun mic to pick up crisp natural sound that will connect the elements in your story and move it forward. Or place a lav mic on anything that makes noise. Photojournalist Stan Heist, formerly of WBFF-TV in Baltimore, has put microphones on everything from door hinges to dumpsters.

• Carry and use a separate audio recorder to pick up “wild sound.” Photographer John Goheen says he’ll often leave a recorder rolling on the announcer or m.c. of an event while he shoots the action. This “play by play” sound can help in the edit.

Interview differently

• Break the “rules” and ask double-barreled questions. Example: Who are you and what are you doing? “It’s an easy way to introduce the subject and the story,” says photojournalist Bryan Barr, formerly of WBFF in Baltimore. It’s also a good way to get responses in complete sentences, containing complete thoughts, which Goheen believes are essential for nat sound stories.

• Don’t ask questions, make observations. Instead of asking, “How much damage did the storm cause to your home?” try saying, “Wow, what a mess!” People tend to respond as they would in a conversation, instead of providing one or two word answers.

• Seek active sound in multiple locations. Talk to people while they’re doing something, and repeat your questions at several locations. “This gives me more options later in the edit room,” says photographer John Goheen.

• Get more sound than you think you need. Goheen often conducts a more formal sit-down interview at the end of the shoot in a quiet location, just for audio purposes. This gives him additional sound he can use V/O.

• Don’t be afraid to look like a moron. “If you ask someone to re-explain something, they will usually be a lot more descriptive,” says Barr. Playing dumb also elicits sound you’ll need to construct your narrative. “Make sure that you ask stupid questions,” says Wertheimer. Go ahead and ask what the score is and how much time is left in a game, even when the answer is obvious, because you need that information on tape.

Put it together

• Log all of your tape and sound before beginning to edit. Create a story outline, and put your sound in order. What would work best at the beginning, in the middle and at the end?

• Listen to your story without looking at it. Beware of “implied content”–information you know because you shot the story, but that viewers won’t.

• Share before air. Have your favorite reporter or producer screen the story to see if you’ve accomplished your goal. “They weren’t there, and if the story makes sense to them, you did it,” says Barr.

When you put it all together, a nat sound story can be just as informative as a narrated package and, sometimes, even more engaging. See what you think of this collection of nat paks shot by photojournalist Jordan Arseneau while at WCIA-TV in Champaign, Illinois:

Sourced from: NewsLab

“Local TV news in general is infamous for a condition similar to attention deficit disorder, characterized by stories that are reactive in nature, and that are here, then gone,” Carr said.

Carr, who is working for the second time at KGUN in Tuscon, Ariz., says his station is taking a very different approach.  Case in point, a story they’ve been following for more than five months involving the firing of a local superintendent.

The head of the school board refused to give a reason for the firing and KGUN refused to let the story rest.  They’ve recently published Douglas Stonewalling Day 129 on the station’s Web site.

“This series is an example of a station with modest resources (66th largest TV market) attempting to distinguish itself (in other words, get away from a slavish devotion to event-driven stories such as crime) through enterprise reporting, commitment to follow-ups, Web-exclusive content and a particular style and philosophy of journalism,” Carr said.

So, how is KGUN doing it?  They’ve been cross-training photojournalists to report and reporters to shoot, just like many other stations, but Carr is also trying to produce more enterprise for the newscasts and more exclusive Web content in a couple of innovative ways.

“We’ve trained our assignment editors to be Web contributors.   They are driving the vast majority of our Web content in fact,” Carr said.   “We have one assignment editor, a former newspaper reporter, who is a slightly different model.   On the weekend, she runs the desk and contributes Web content as outlined above.   During the week she organizes viewer tips, does research and helps coordinate the efforts of our enterprise reporting team.  But last week she researched, did an interview for, wrote and posted her first Web-exclusive story, exactly as if she were writing an article for the morning newspaper.”

Carr says the station is using its radio partner to develop Web stories, too.

“This week we hired a somewhat experimental position, a journalist who will write and present radio newscasts for one of our co-owned radio partners within the building (104.1 “The Truth”) and also help drive content to the TV station Web site.”

Carr says the innovation has to be ongoing.

“It’s all a metamorphosis; some areas of the newsroom are progressing more quickly than others but there are not many people who won’t be touched by some aspect of it,” Carr said.

One of the most common mistakes when it comes to dealing with numbers is failing to make sure those numbers add up. This can lead to stories about polls which sampled more than 100 percent of respondents, or budgets that are larger than the sum of their parts. All it takes is a minute with a calculator to avoid these kinds of errors–and the “you people are stupid” calls they often generate.

Another frequent mistake journalists make is relying on raw numbers instead of calculating the relationship between those numbers to help people understand what they really mean. Yes, that means you have to do the math to determine percentages, and percent change, and rates [comparing numbers while holding a key variable, like population, constant]. But the good news is there are dozens of terrific online calculators to help you get the results right. Calculator.com is another good starting point.

You can’t always be online, though, so learn how to use the calculator on your smart phone or PDA, or carry a separate calculator with you. You’ll also want to have other resources at your fingertips. Ask your local university for the name of a good statistician–someone you can call when faced with a confusing number stories. Consider using an online forum, like Ask Dr. Math at Drexel University, for questions that may be less time-sensitive.

Other resources are available to improve your skills and boost your confidence in dealing with numbers. In “News by the Numbers,” writing coach Jack Hart details a series of essential steps every journalist needs to take when dealing with number-heavy stories. The IRE’s Sarah Cohen offers cheat sheets and tips in a collection of handouts, “Danger! Numbers in the Newsroom!”

Journalist Robert Niles has posted statistics every writer should know. Included are valuable tips on how to determine if the data you are looking at adds up to a story worth reporting. Another tipsheet by Kathleen Woodruff Wickham of the University of Mississippi, can help you understand the basics of polling and includes an exercise to explain margin of error and confidence level.

You can test your basic math skills by taking this interactive quiz by Steve Doig (with credit to Phil Meyer). Or take the free Math for Journalists course at NewsU (registration required).

If you want to dig deeper, IRE’s Cohen has put together a book, Numbers in the Newsroom, that’s for sale through the IRE Web site. The late Victor Cohn’s classic guidebook, News and Numbers, has been updated by Lewis Cope. For skill drills and formulas, check the book Math Tools for Journalists by Kathleen Woodruff Wickham. For a comprehensive bibliography on numeracy, check the PowerReporting Web site.

Sourced from: NewsLab

“What do we have to do to get students interested in news?” Gould asks in a column for the Michigan Association of Broadcasters newsletter.

His answer? Get back to creative visual storytelling.

Great stories stand out among the clutter. Just because the delivery method has changed doesn’t mean we have to give up our core journalistic values and the ability to tell great stories — stories that affect people and the lives that we live.

But would that be enough to attract younger viewers to news? I’d say probably not, if we’re talking about traditional TV news programs. Great stories are being done now, just not very often, so they’re lost in all that clutter. I can’t envision that balance changing dramatically enough to make a real difference.

On the other hand, individual videos already do attract younger viewers when they’re available where those viewers are–on YouTube, for example–and when it’s easy to share them with others. The question is whether those videos could be the kinds of well-crafted news stories Gould is talking about or whether they’re more likely to be the raw, “you gotta see this” footage that tends to go viral now.

Any thoughts?

“Your real education begins today,” wrote Kim Green of WNCN-TV in Raleigh, N.C. “What you know [about] journalism today will have a different meaning in two years.”

“Be versatile,” wrote reporter Ben Winslow of Fox13 in Salt Lake City. “Adapt to survive.”

WMAZ-TV news director Jeff Ofgang had similar advice. “Learn as many skills as you can, because you’re not just in the ‘TV News’ business anymore. Or the ‘newspaper’ business.”

“How exciting to be in such a challenging field in a challenging time,” wrote Barbara Magana, former assignment editor at KPRC-TV in Houston.

“I would say it’s one of the most exciting times in journalism,” wrote former CNN producer Donna Liu . “They will determine the future of news, but they must be original thinkers.”

USA Today reporter Kathy Kiely, who also teaches at American University, agreed with Donna. “No better time to be a news newbie than now,” she wrote. “Out of chaos comes opportunity. I hope one of my students hires me someday!”

Independent producer Bruce Bowers, who struck out on his own after two decades in TV news, offered this advice: “Reconsider? Journalism may not be a viable way of making a living for much longer… So good luck – and be sure you have a ‘Plan B.’”

So what did I tell them? Most of the above. Here’s the text:

It’s an honor to be with you today and to be back in a place I love. I just have one question for the graduates in the room.

What on earth were you thinking?

You majored in journalism and the business as we knew it is imploding. You majored in advertising and the bottom has dropped out of the market. You majored in PR, and you’re leaving school without doing a case study on Tiger Woods? Okay, so maybe that was on the final.

One thing I know for sure: you’re not leaving Carolina without a very clear sense of the reality that awaits you. And let’s face it, in some ways that reality isn’t pretty.

One in five newspaper jobs lost since 2001. Television newsrooms shrinking. Advertising revenue down sharply. More of it is moving online, but not enough to be sustainable…not yet, anyway.

I’m not going to dwell on this, because you already know it, and besides, it’s not as if you’re the only ones facing an uncertain future. Anyone graduating from college right now is in a tough spot. The biggest winners at this point appear to be…grad schools.

I’m sure that you (or your parents) just spent a boatload of money to get a degree from a great school and now you’re wondering what it’s worth. Is anyone going to pay you to put the skills you’ve acquired to use? Will they pay you enough to repay your loans? OK, will they pay you enough so you can finally stop eating ramen?

The answers, if you’re keeping score: Maybe. Not any time soon. And…eventually.

You all know what awaits you, right? Stress. Low pay. Hard work. Few opportunities for promotion.

I got that list from a survey of new journalism graduates like many of you…only it was conducted in1989.

So…20 years ago, young people just like you left college with journalism degrees knowing full well what they were getting into and they did it anyway. What were THEY thinking? Either A) they weren’t very bright, or B) they had the audacity to believe that what they wanted to do would be worth the personal sacrifice they knew it was going to take.

I choose (B).

You know what they knew. You know it’s going to be tough. It always has been….even back when I started out.

Yes, the journalism world today is dramatically different from the one I entered when I left Carolina with a degree you can’t even get any more: a BA in Radio, Television and Motion Pictures. Isn’t that quaint? It seemed very forward looking at the time, even if it was known here on campus as RUDDYVUMP.

And if you had asked any of us what journalism would look like almost 40 years later, no one would have envisioned where we are today.

The internet? Mobile video? Are you kidding? The personal computer hadn’t been invented yet. Phones were not smart.

Let me give you a quick tour of the first newsrooms I worked in.

• Manual typewriters. (Yes, electric typewriters existed, but most newsrooms didn’t use them—way too expensive. It was LOUD in newsrooms then).
• Reel to reel audio tape and video tape that was two inches wide. To edit, you sliced out a chunk with a razor and taped it back together. It wasn’t pretty.
• Film cameras that had to be reloaded on the fly, in the dark.
• A processor in the back of the building that reeked of chemicals and ruined at least one story a week.
• You had to carry change for pay phones and dictate your script from the field. It took forever.

And I loved it.

They paid me so little I think I ate meat maybe once a week. Six years later, when I finally made it to an on-air job at CBS, I worked from midnight to 8 a.m. for two years anchoring news on the radio.

And I loved it.

If you’re passionate about learning what’s really going on, if you delight in telling great stories, there couldn’t be a better time for you to get into journalism.

Frankly, I’m tired of the moaning and groaning about the future of newspapers. If they stop printing news on dead trees, I’m sure we’ll think of something else to put in the bottom of the birdcage. I’m much more interested in the future of journalism and I think it’s bright.

The tools you have at your disposal have never been better. The information you need has never been more accessible.

Yes, there are fewer jobs available at news organizations. But you don’t need to work for one to do great journalism and have it seen by a wide audience. In fact, the Internet makes your potential audience almost unlimited. That’s a little scary…but very exciting.

You’ll need more skills than we did, though. When I applied for reporting jobs, no one expected me to be able to shoot and edit video. It will be expected of you, whether you work for a traditional news organization, a website or for yourself. And frankly, that’s exciting, too.

You can tell stories in words and pictures, in maps and graphs that bring data to life. You’ll be the ones inventing new ways of providing information and connecting people, just as the Des Moines Register did after a tornado wiped out a third of a nearby town last year. Their coverage of what happened to Parkersburg combined shoe-leather reporting with crowd-sourcing, their online package merged text and video with interactive maps. And they created a database of homes damaged or destroyed so they could track the rebuilding process over time. They’re still doing it.

You will be the ones finding new ways of funding good journalism, like Dave Cohn did when he launched Spot.us. The idea of asking the public to sponsor journalists to cover stories they’d like to read about struck some people as either a pipe dream or a recipe for trouble, with funders having too much influence over what gets reported. But it’s working. Last month, a Spot.us funded story about pollution in the Pacific Ocean ran in the New York Times. More than a hundred people gave an average of ten dollars each to make it happen.

You’ll be the ones discovering new ways of using social media whether it’s Facebook or Twitter or something yet to come. If there’s one area news organizations and other media-related businesses are hiring in, this is it. According to Forbes magazine, about 200 social media directors have been hired in the past two years at newspapers, book publishers, magazines and television news stations. Sky TV in England even has a Twitter correspondent. Who knows what jobs you’ll create?

You understand what many journalists who’ve been in the business a long time resist—our role is different now. I’ve heard it described as moving from being “the sage on the stage to the guide on the side.” There’s no point in trying to be a gatekeeper when information is all around us. There’s no fence any more. Why on earth would we need a gate?

Phil Meyer, one of many great journalists and teachers associated with this school, put his finger on it years ago. In the old days, information was in short supply. Now, we’re swimming in it. What’s in short supply these days is attention. We’re pulled in every direction—email, cell phone, television, social media—and six browser tabs open at the same time. At least, that’s what’s was going on in my office last week as I was thinking about what I’d say this morning.

So our role has changed, and I feel sure that you will be the ones to take advantage of the endless possibilities. You’ll launch hyperlocal news sites that combine the wisdom of the community with investigative muscle to hold the powerful accountable. And you’ll make a living doing it.

You might want to build your business chops or learn some programming skills to boost your odds of success. You’ll definitely need flexibility and a strong desire to keep learning.

But for all the change that’s coming at us at hyper-speed these days, some things stay the same. The core values journalists have always needed to bring to their work have not changed and never will.

• Curiosity. A good journalist is always astonished by the obvious. Take nothing for granted. Always ask why. And listen to the crazies—don’t hang up on them or delete their emails immediately. You never know. They might be right!
• Commitment. Don’t give up. Even if a story doesn’t pan out right away, stay on it, collect string, look for evidence. Do not be easily intimidated or deterred. Be tough.
• Caring. That may sound counter-intuitive, but journalists, at heart, are do-gooders who just happen to hate math. Care about your work, care about the people you cover, care about your audience, care about getting it right. If you don’t care, why would anyone else? Ring Lardner put it this way: How can you write if you can’t cry?
• Courage. I know, Dan Rather made the word a joke when he used it as his sign-off for a brief time. But great journalists need to be courageous, to get past the obstacles thrown in their way and to tell stories people may not want to hear.

It took courage and commitment for a television reporter at WWL in New Orleans to investigate the city’s non-profit housing agency that was supposed to help poor and elderly victims of Hurricane Katrina. What he found prompted a federal investigation of its misuse of funds.

It took curiosity and caring for a reporter at the Las Vegas Sun to expose the high death rate among construction workers on the Strip and the lax enforcement of regulations, leading to changes in policy and improved safety conditions.

In a time of shrinking resources, cutbacks, layoffs and questions about the future of journalism, WFAA television in Dallas won the first ever Gold Baton for a local station in this year’s DuPont-Columbia awards for three outstanding investigative stories.

Byron Harris uncovered corruption and waste at the U.S. Export-Import bank, making fraudulent loans to Texas companies. Brett Shipp exposed how coaches, principals and teachers change grades for high school athletes so they can qualify to compete even though they’re failing in class. And Shipp’s examination of the danger of aging gas pipelines forced the companies involved to remove faulty couplings to prevent more explosions and possibly save lives.

These are the kinds of stories that make a difference and win awards. They’re traditional journalism at its best and we should celebrate it. But we should also celebrate the work of Jacqueline Dupree, whose blog JD-Land covers the area around the Nationals baseball park in Washington, DC. She’s not a journalist although she does work at the Washington Post where she runs the company intranet. At heart, she’s a historian, and she decided almost ten years ago to chronicle the transformation of a neighborhood two blocks south of where she lives. Almost four years later, when the ballpark plan was announced, her blog traffic went off the charts.

JDLand features stories from news organizations, links to original documents and databases, and a zippy interactive neighborhood map along with an extensive photo archive. And Dupree also does a lot of independent reporting, covering government meetings in her spare time that almost no one else attends. “It’s ‘news over the fence,’ what people are talking about,” she says. “The paper can’t cover all of that. Just because they can’t doesn’t mean it’s not news.”

Lately, she’s been writing about plans to open a “fast casual” restaurant in the area, which has almost no sit-down dining. It may seem trivial but it’s important to her readers. She’s one of the few dependable sources of information about a neighborhood the big paper mostly ignores. Is she a journalist? You bet she is. She doesn’t traffic in gossip, she checks her facts, she keeps her personal opinions to herself. She’s legit because she does journalism.

That’s where we’re going. To a future in which journalism is what you DO, irrespective of where you do it. To a future in which your credibility depends on HOW you do what you do, not where you do it.

A journalism professor wrote in the most recent issue of the SPJ magazine Quill that he’d talked to some of his students about what they thought about the future. One student put it best, I think: “The future is terrifying and I’m excited to write about it.”

Yes, you’re taking a risk by going into a field that’s so unsettled. But what else is new?

The truth is, this profession needs risk takers…and always has. It needs skeptics who question everything…and it needs idealists who believe that asking questions can lead to change. And it always has.

Journalism is a noble profession. For many of us, it is a calling. A public service. It needs you, the best of the next generation – to practice it and protect it. As long as you have what it takes: curiosity, commitment, caring and courage, journalism will survive, and even thrive.

Congratulations to all of you…and good luck!

Sourced from: NewsLab