Internet vs. TV News

From MediaBistro's TVNewser:

A Zogby Poll, commissioned by IFC, found 37.6% of those asked consider the Internets the most reliable source of news. 20.3% consider national TV news most reliable and 16% say radio is the most reliable source.

"Don't get into news if you want to save the world" = B.S.

No, I'm not advocating that somehow getting into broadcast news will give you superpowers to cure the world's ills nor am I injecting braggadoccio into a profession that is ill-suited to serve as the healer of mankind.

But I'm just plain sick of hearing this line from those with decades of experience in the field as if it's some pithy expression whose speaker believes is a clever way to knock the idealism out of j-school students.

The phrase undercuts the very real ability for news to do something positive. News will never "save the world." Even being the president of the United States will not give you the ability to "save the world." But being a broadcast reporter gives you the power of the microphone, and that power can be used now and then to make small but positive differences. I've done stories on hurricane evacuees who would not have had enough gas money to get home if it hadn't been for our extremely generous viewers contributing to a cause. A positive difference doesn't even have to be monetary; I covered a woman whose side had been left out of a news report from another reporter the day before, and she was so grateful that her side had been told. Our station did a story on a local military post involving a woman being harassed with a noose hanging around a tree outside her house. After the report aired, the military post upped their security around the area, held a town hall to address citizens concerns, and as a result made the entire area safer.

Now I'm not trying to brag about any individual or station accomplishments, I'm just trying to say that in my short time in broadcast, I've had the wonderful opportunity to cover stories that made a positive difference in the subjects' lives.

To say "Don't get into news if you want to save the world" is a statement of cowardice and jaded cynicism, nothing more. The primary function of news is to illuminate and inform your viewers rather than act as a force of goodwill, but it still doesn't mean these two concepts are mutually exclusive.

iPhone: How I Love Thee

Disclaimer: I am not in any way receiving any sort of compensation from Apple for this post. I just want to marry my iPhone, have its children, and worship it like the all-knowing all-powerful deity it truly is.

For the first month of my job, I had a RAZR. I had to write down phone numbers on a beatcheck list on my computer and print it out for me. I had to scroll endlessly through my contacts (and their multiple cell/work/dayside/nightside numbers) just to find the person I'm looking for. Work would send me emails of press releases, story info, etc. that I wasn't able to get on the road.

And then everything changed.

When I bought my iPhone 3G and activated it for the first time, I was in awe. But a month later after using it on the job, the difference was like night and day.

Basically, the iPhone is the best thing eveeeeeer to happen to local reporters. Why?

- GPS. If your station hasn't equipped every car with a GPS, this sure beats the hell out of using a Mapsco or any other mapbook when you need to find something quickly. Of course, it's only about 90% accurate so there will be the occasional hiccup, but I can't imagine going back to using a mapsco, especially in breaking news situations or when your directions are "the Walmart in Anytown" and you don't have a specific address.

- Email. I had to let my station know that sending important emails during work was basically useless, as I might be out on a story or just searching for one. Now, I depend on email, and if I need info for a story or results from the archive, I can have a producer email me on the road. Of course, the Blackberry series or other email-capable phones are just as good if not better in some cases, but I love the iPhone's clean mail interface. But the best thing about email?

- Writing scripts. Normally, reporters on a live shot who aren't connected through ENPS/QSeries or other news software have to write their stories on a notepad, then either dictate the entire story to the producer over the phone, or just give in-cues and out-cues and when to take a soundbyte if there's not enough time. Now, I write my scripts on the iPhone (and yes it's totally easy with the type interface), email it directly to the producer once I'm done, and then read off the phone during my live shot. Easy as pie. Of course, if you do this, you might want to put a notepad in front so it doesn't look like you're checking your cellphone for a booty call text while your live shot is going on... and make sure to turn on Airplane mode so that you don't get a call while you're reading your script off the phone. That, would suck.

- Logging soundbytes. Same as above. Instead of writing on a piece of paper your timecodes and soundbyte transcriptions then retyping it later, you can just type it to your iPhone, then email it to yourself when you're done. It's much easier this way, and it could save valuable minutes in a crunch.

- Internet. Not the mobile Internet, but real Internet. I can check city council websites, lookup personal information on Anywho.com, find background information on a subject while I'm on the road, browse the competition's websites to see if they have something we don't, and much more.

- Extremely Breaking News. We had a huge fire one time right before the newscast, and our live truck was out of commission. To send another truck would have taken at least 45 minutes. Instead, I took a bunch of pictures from my iPhone and emailed them to the graphics department during the show, where they used the photos as b-roll when I did a live phoner from the scene. Two other stations (photogs only, it was late) and the local paper were there. No one went live with the story except for us.

- Picking up Girls. Just kidding :)

Basically, if you have the money for an iPhone and you're a reporter or looking for your first job, I can't adequately express in words how much the iPhone makes this job easier. And when you start to have hundreds of contacts in your phone, some of whom might have mobile/fax/work/pager/etc., you'll be thanking yourself.

Believe me.

Yikes pt.2

From the New York Times:

In a move intended to save money in the economically pressed business of local television news, two stations in Philadelphia owned by NBC and Fox are combining some of their video operations with a plan to provide the service to all the stations owned by each company.

...

Local television stations have experienced sharp decreases in their profit margins as the Internet has cut into their reach with local viewers and many reliable local advertisers, like auto dealers, have been in a severe downturn.

“It’s a tough operating environment,” said John Wallace, the president of NBC Local Media, “This is about cost savings, but it’s also about being smart about local television news.”

Maybe if news stations would start viewing their online presences as their primary mode of distribution and not secondary to its television broadcasting, they wouldn't be siphoning off viewers to their Internet competition so quickly. I'm not saying remove anything from the television end of distribution, but approach it with the mindset that within five to ten years it's entirely possible that online viewing will surpass television viewing. That's really not that crazy of a prediction with 19% of households that watch tv online (doubling within two years), Tina Fey's Palin impression returning relevancy to SNL (only 1/3rd of the audience viewed it live), and even NBC learning from its online experience.

But with local news websites mainly consisting of poor graphic design, poor layouts, content management systems that only allow images up to 180px (are you kidding me?), more garish advertisements, pop-ups, flash ads, etc, it's not a surprise that we are losing the opportunity to create unique daily pageviews.

I'll be posting soon on my take about local news's inept ability to achieve a competitive internet presence.

Yikes

From the New York Times "TV Decoder" section:

The bottom seems to be falling out of local broadcast television advertising sales, according to a report that came out on Tuesday.

In the report, the trade association for TV stations, the Television Bureau of Advertising, revised significantly downward its previous forecasts for results in 2009 as well as for this year. The updates come only two months after the bureau issued its predictions.

...

“These are not happy numbers to report,” Chris Rohrs, president at the bureau, said in a statement, “but they are the new reality.” The “unprecedented economic developments” since the summer led the association to reconsider the previous forecasts, he added.

Where Do Stories Come From?

Probably the most frequent question I hear from friends who aren't in the news business and interns looking to jump into the news business, is where reporters get their stories from.

Mainly, there are press releases and then there's real reporting. Businesses, charities, city governments, and sometimes crazy people bombard the assignment desk and reporters with info on a latest product, charity dinner invitations, city council agendas to try and get positive coverage for their organization. Press releases are (hopefully) rarely used for a story of the day, unless it's about massive layoffs, a major political rally, or another significant event. At some stations, you will find reporters simply parroting press releases and choosing which release they want to cover for the day. I highly suggest against this method of reporting, as it's the lowest effort to find a story and most likely if it's significant, all the other stations will be covering the same story.

Breaking news is easy. Keep the scanners on, listen for excited voices, a call for all units, the mention of flames, etc.

But for those days where you have to find something else, the trick is to keep your eyes and ears open at all times. I know it sounds like a blindingly obvious statement, but it's paying attention at all times, during another story, at home, keeping lines of communication with community leaders open, and most importantly the realization that at any moment you could hear a tiny little piece of information, maybe a passing remark, that could be your next story.

I was on a story about Hurricane Ike evacuees staying at a local shelter when I ran into a health inspector I had talked to a few times in the past. He was there to make sure the kitchen was clean and that the food was OK to serve. I chatted him up for a few minutes after he was done, and he ended up telling me he had been busier than usual the last month because he had closed down several restaurants for health violations. He told me that the closures were for things that could have easily been prevented had the business spent just a bit more money, and speculated that it could be related to the recent downturn in the economy.

Ding. There was a future story. I asked him when he would be free in the next few days, and went from there. A story can hit you anytime, anyplace, and you have to make sure when you hear something interesting to ask questions, write down a phone #, setup a future interview, and chase your next story by the tail.

The classic wisdom that news directors will give you is to find out the place where the cops go when they get off their shift, and go hang out with them. For our generation who grew up with the Internet, we can apply this advice and find places where people discuss their city online, and for that there's no better place than online messageboards. For example, residents of one city in our coverage area use the website Topix.com frequently to "discuss" issues that their city is dealing with (though like all Internet messageboards discussions can sometimes degrade into petty trolling). When you have some downtime, start Googling a city within your beat and see if you can find online discussion forums where a lot of people are posting about issues with their city. I've spent hours just reading arguments back and forth about cities in my coverage area, and though the signal-to-noise ratio was low sometimes, it gave me some good ideas on where to look for a new story, as well as insight on how people feel about what goes on in their city.

For crime stories, check out the local county jail listings (ask around if there's a website that displays updated inmate information along with charges and bond info). Look for inmates recently checked in with bonds over $100,000, charges of murder or aggrevated assault, illegal gambling, endangerment of a child, theft in excess of a large amount, anything that sets them apart from the multitude of DUI's, petty thefts, and misdemeanors. Get the inmate's first and last name and call the associated police department to find out more information about the inmate. If you can, check the local Justice of the Peace or municipal court for the complaint affidavit which will have the officer's description of what happened. You might have to wait until the inmate has been arraigned for the complaint affidavit to be released. See if neighbors of the suspect's listed address will talk or give you more information. Look up info of any names related in the case on anywho.com or any similar public search listing. This is (in my experience) the quickest way to get information on crime suspects before press releases are issued by police on interesting subjects. These releases might come at the end of a business day, and are typically addressed to all your competitors as well as you. If you are checking the inmate list on a regular basis, you'll be able to beat your competition before the release comes out. Make friends with the PIO or anyone else at the police station. Ask them details about a case if you can't find the complaint affidavit yet.

For school stories, make friends with the PIO. Keep in mind, schools can't comment on a lot of matters by law, so try not to simply call them up on a controversial matter, ask them a question you know they can't answer, and call that "getting both sides." Work with them. Explain to whoever you are talking with that you want to make sure they are given a fair shake, and if they can't give you a statement or comment on a case, ask them if they can refer you to someone else who can. They won't be able to give out personal information 99% of the time, so ask if you can give them your cell or other contact info, and pass it along to the other party in case they do want their side to be heard. It's entirely easy to do a school story that makes them look bad as they are basically muzzled on a lot of issues. It's much tougher to do the right story and work with them to try and give them a fair shake.

Of course, the most important thing is to keep meeting people. Try to add one new phone number to your Rolodex/iPhone/Outlook/Google Contacts/etc. every day, even if it means cold calling a local city official, health inspector, DPS, police, political organization (especially during elections), etc. You need to be connected to the various groups that make up a city and be on a first name basis with a point of contact at each group. If you become friendly enough with them, they will be more open to giving you information earlier and possibly letting you scoop a major event if they feel they can trust your coverage.

Be friendly. If you don't have the gift of gab, this probably isn't the right job for you. Don't approach a subject with the single intention of getting two or three soundbytes so you can go back and write your PKG before your live shot. If there's free time, just shoot the breeze with them. Ask them how long they've been doing their job, if they like it, what their family does, etc. One person who has been very helpful in giving me information off the record said that after being burned by media in the past, she started talking to me but only because she saw the way I talked with a subject that I tried to connect to them in a personal way and not in a cold and fake manner that so many other reporters adopt. It's your ability to turn one-time interview subjects into friends that will best help your ability to get stories no one else will have.

And of course, read all local newspapers, watch your local competition's newscasts, and pay attention to everything that happens in your city. Understanding context and asking deeper questions that aren't necessarily part of your story for the day will enable you to better comprehend ongoing events and to find an angle to a story that no one else has thought of.