I love reading what other journalists have to say about their work and sharing their insights here, but sometimes I find myself in a bit of a quandary. What to make of this comment? “You’re in the wrong job if…
Should journalists be sneaky?
Category: 02. Finding the Story
Planning and rehearsing phone interviews pays off
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…
Five steps to better TV stories
“It’s not about the beer,” says Boyd Huppert, describing an assignment to profile a successful local brewery. Instead, Huppert’s story focused on the family behind the business — tapping into a universal theme. “My goal is to go out and…
Prize-winning local TV strategies
If you’ve been feeling despondent about the current state of local TV news, just take a look at the latest issue of Quill, the SPJ magazine. Here’s all you need to know about the section that cheered me up: Despite…
From Classroom to Newsroom: Finding story ideas
So, you just got your new job in a new city and your new boss expects you to have new story ideas on a daily basis — lots of them. “We are supposed to have three “leadable” stories every day,”…
Digital verification tools
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…
Are beats the answer to better local TV news?
Jerry Gumbert, CEO of AR&D, a local media strategy firm, says the No. 1 reason why TV news is flagging “has been a failure of news management to sustain focus on a formal beat system.” News leaders have to realign…
Social media required for good journalism?
Can you be a good journalist and not be plugged into social media? The Washington Post’s Local Editor Vernon Loeb says, “No.” “Social media are not really optional anymore,” says Loeb. “You can’t do your job without them. Social media…
How journalists should talk to diverse sources
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…
Diane Sawyer on interviewing
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”…