First and foremost, it’s not about you. Tanya Carter is assistant news director at WABG-TV in Greenville, Miss. She’s also one of the primary news anchors, so she’s seen both sides of the job hunt. She’s says that just having a good camera presence is not enough to get you hired. “So, you have the …
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Video journalist Anne Herbst firmly believes in preparation. She does research on stories before leaving the newsroom. She shows up to assignments early so she can meet people and figure out in advance who might be a strong character. And she writes fast–an essential skill when you’re working by yourself and you have to do …
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Darren Durlach left television almost two years ago to try something new. He’d won two consecutive NPPA TV Photographer of the Year awards and, unbeknownst to him, was on the verge of winning a third. He’s now senior multimedia producer at the Boston Globe, where he shoots and edits stories both alone and in collaboration …
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Interviews are an essential building block for just about every news story, so it’s obviously important to know how to conduct a good one. Most interviewing advice comes in the form of tips and hints, like these dos and don’ts from Canadian journalist John Sawatsky and the suggestions we’ve previously posted here. But sometimes it’s helpful …
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How far will you go to protect the identity of sources who give you information on the condition that you not reveal their names? If you haven’t thought about it, you should. Every reporter eventually runs into a story so important that it’s worth getting the information on a confidential basis. But you’d better understand …
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What could be more basic than a profile story, right? Yet, Sara Jackson a reporter and editor for UPI says they’re harder to write well than you may think. “Even with profiles, it’s important to have a news hook — something to grab people’s attention,” says Jackson. She suggests trying to tie the profile in …
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How real are class-based reporting assignments? Karl Idsvoog, an associate professor at Kent State University, tries to make his assignments as real as possible. “Journalism students don’t learn to play hardball by playing softball,” he writes in the most recent issue of the IRE Journal. For a class reporting project on the fees universities in …
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Reporters do it every day. They talk to people “across differences” as Poynter’s Kenny Irby likes to say. But reporters don’t always do a good job of exploring those differences for the audience to tell richer stories. “If you can get to appreciate ‘otherness,’” says Irby, “embracing conditions of difference can help us move to …
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The best stories are almost always include great interviews, and ABC’s Diane Sawyer is well known for her interview style. “My husband likes to say television interviews are performances masquerading as conversations,” says Sawyer with a smile. But those “performances” require solid preparation before sitting down with an interview subject. “I believe in reading everything …
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Too many stories depend almost entirely on officials for information and sound bites. Watch a newscast or read a news site on any given day and notice who gets to talk. Are most of them people with titles and business cards? Would those stories be more interesting, engaging and authentic if they included other voices? …
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