Rethinking Online Newscasts Continued

From Ars Technica:

In our house, the shift has had two curious effects. One is that we watch more video. It's easier to see shows, there's more to choose from, and you never have to worry about scheduling—but the dearth of commercials on Netflix and Hulu (which shows only one per ad break) also means that it's now possible to watch three "half hour" shows in just over 60 minutes. With a full show only consuming about twenty minutes and entire seasons available for watching at once, episodes feel more like snacks than like full meals—and everyone knows how easy it is to just keep snacking

Question: Explain to me why I should sit down at a pre-determined time every night to watch the news when every other television show and movie I am interested in is available online streaming (and available on my TV through my Xbox360)? Once again, this is not to say cancel the 6pm show, but an online version of the show is becoming more essential to your web strategy as every month goes by.

On Posting Full Newscasts online

From Ars Technica:

In the six months between September 2008 and April 2009, long-form streaming video exploded in popularity—the percentage of US Internet users watching online TV shows and movies doubled in that timeframe alone.

Such huge gains might seem at first to be chalked up to the fact that doubling from one percent to two percent is much simpler than doubling from 25 percent to 50 percent. Isn't watching TV shows online still a niche activity? But that's exactly what makes the new numbers so compelling; the percentages involved are significant, showing that online streaming has quickly become the on-demand method of choice for half of all young Americans.

According to recent data from Ipsos MediaCT's ongoing MOTION study, 51 percent of all Internet users between the ages of 18 and 24 have watched at least one streamed TV show in the previous 30 days. This number is up from only 18 percent in September 2008—nearly a tripling of use.

Now's a good time to reconsider posting full newscasts on your website.

The Most Trusted Man in News

"Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself."
-- V, V for Vendetta

I can only imagine how the conversation went back in 1997:

"Let's take a successful format ripped from SNL's Weekend Update that focuses upon celebrity gossip and books attractive twenty-something's to slavishly hawk whatever mind-numbing comedy or action movie is about to open at the box office, and replace it with a politically-oriented show that riffs off C-SPAN televised sessions, arcane congressional procedures (with the occasional gratuitous fart joke), and start to book politicians, authors, and professors who are plugging 300+ page books on topics that are mostly absent from our relatively younger demographic's everyday conversations. That'll make us one of the best shows on TV!"

And yet it happened. Now, with the passing of Walter Cronkite, the last vestige of an era where trust was placed in the hands of the person sitting inside the box, reading us the news without the demagoguery of Lou Dobbs or Glenn Beck, the "wink-wink" partisanship of everybody on Fox News besides Shepard Smith, or the garish CNN gimmicks where Anderson Cooper "beamed up" Will.I.Am, voters in Time's online poll selected Jon Stewart of the Daily Show as the most trusted name in news now that Cronkite is gone.

Sure, an online poll is completely unscientific. And for most of you, the thought that a stand-up comic that became the host of a "poop-joke" show that came right after a show about puppets making crank phone calls has taken that mantle might elicit a gag reflex in some journalists out there.

But from his takedown of Tucker Carlson on the now-cancelled Crossfire where he confronted the show's hosts that they were playing into the partisans' games, his now infamous takedown of quivering Jim Cramer, Bill Kristol's reluctant admission that government-run healthcare is good, Ramesh Ponnuru, and the absolute class that he held by having one of the most civilized debates on abortion I've ever seen with Mike Huckabee, it should be absolutely clear at this point that he is arguably the best interviewer out there. He disarms you with the expectation that you're there to facilitate humourous one-liners and quips, and then sneaks in a real, hard-hitting question.

Stewart has managed to put a show together that not only entertains, but imparts real information, and at that, important information you might not be getting on the "real" news networks. By forcing viewers to figure out what is real and what is satire (with the real sometimes much stranger than the satire), they are forced to think what their own opinions are on the matter.

There will always be a need for news straight-up, but Stewart has become the watchdog, making both networks and their viewers re-evaluate the form and function of news for fear/want that a segment show up on the Daily Show as what news shouldn't look like. His role in keeping the media honest by creating a symbiotic relationship (at least to the viewers) between real news and fake news is exactly why he is so deserved of the title.

Farewell Channel 25

"Although I love this company more than anything in the world, I have decided to step down from my post and spend more time with my family. I do not fear the unknown. I will meet my new challenges head-on, and I will succeed and I will laugh in the faces of those who doubt me. It's been a pleasure working with some of you and I will not forget those of you soon. But remember while today it is me, we all shall fall."

- Dwight K. Shrute, The Office

Just wanted to say I have many fond memories working at News Channel 25 and of the people who work there. I can't say enough about how Channel 25 makes you work hard to find stories, and I am a better reporter because of it. I'll be looking for my next reporter job in this "challenging" job market, but whatever I make out of my career, it's because of the great experience I got out of this station. Adios!

The Ten Commandments of a News Station's Website

Recently, I heard a particularly illuminating comment by a news director from another market about their website that perfectly encapsulates the kind of pervasive mindset that desperately needs to be changed.

To paraphrase, he said that the only reason they have a website is "because our competitors do." He complained that the site doesn't bring in any real revenue and as a result, he feels no need to spend additional station resources to improve their online presence.

It is absolutely imperative that we develop a quality online experience for our viewership that isn't simply an afterthought of the day's news. And while many stations spin a good yarn about commitment to the web and emerging web technologies, far too often in my limited experience does this phrase translate in real life to little more than making sure stories are uploaded during the day along with maybe a grainy cellphone photo. A commitment to the web goes far beyond web updates alone.

There are several important steps that should be considered by a station or station group to improve their website, which will require a significant allocation of resources. A site re-design from the ground up beats a Web CMS widely in use (i.e. Worldnow) any day. While such an expenditure for an individual station's use is not very practical, station group owners should think long-term and put together web assets that can be shared across their ownership group.

Still, there are also several steps which can potentially be integrated within a current web framework, regardless if it's a CMS or not. So without further ado, here are the ten commandments that can help achieve a better web presence online that in many cases can be utilized without a significant overhaul to the current web framework.

Commandment #1 - Thou Shalt Use Tags/Labels/Keywords

Examples:
- Ars Technica
- Politico
- The Daily Show

A station that doesn't do its demographic research is a station waiting to fold. So it should be fairly obvious to say that the visitors to your website care about different topics of interest. If they can find stories they care about on your site more easily than on those of your competitors, you're going to increase market share. One way you can accomplish this is by using tags attached to each of your stories.

Tags are commonly used keywords that can be attached to an entry that can be searched for later. You can find tags on pretty much every blog out there (even this site) and on some of the better online news sites.

Take a look at the examples above, with Ars Technica being the model you should try to emulate. The main page contains stories from all kinds of categories. If you'll notice, each story has a category tag associated with it (Apple - Infinite Loop, Business - Uptime). Clicking on either the category tag on the story or from the navigation bar at the top filters your story search for what you truly care about. The site recognizes that people who have an Apple computer might not care about what Microsoft has to say.

In all seriousness, The Daily Show had a tremendous challenge in organizing and sorting over ten years of episodes that are available on their website. Their web team did a magnificent job of adding keywords to their episodes to help organize the content and aid visitors in finding the episode or part of an episode that they are looking for.

We should apply the same logic to our news websites and allow users to filter the news they want to see. A teacher might be more interested in school stories than crime, or a resident living in a tough area might favor crime stories around their area. Where Ars Technica has "Apple, Business, Gadgets, Gaming, Hardware, Microsoft" at the top navigational bar, news websites should pick the most common category tags and make a similar navigational bar such as "Crime, Schools, Courts, Community, Economy, Politics" or whatever categories you think best fits your market.

You might be asking yourself, "My website already has a search function that searches for text within stories. Isn't that good enough?"

The purpose of a search button is to locate a specific item, not necessarily to browse through related stories. For example, a visitor might be interested in crime, but a typical story about an aggravated assault might not actually have the word "crime" in it. Also, if someone is interested in school stories, it's not exactly user-friendly to make them type in "Killeen school" every time they want to filter results.

Remember: this is a competition, and the easier you make it for users to sort and find the information that matters to them, the more visitors you will attract to your website.

Commandment #2 - Thou Shalt Use High Quality Video

Examples:
- Vimeo
- SmugMug
- YouTube
- CollegeHumor
- Wikipedia's List of Video Sharing Websites

With broadband Internet penetration in most markets reaching a saturation point, there's no excuse for us to only provide low quality video on our websites. Arguments over ensuring dial-up users are not forgotten are definitely valid, but that's a reason to use multiple encodings targeting various bitrates rather than cripple your site for the majority of other viewers. If you're going to only use one encoding for the purposes of simplicity, I'd argue that using higher quality video will net you more total users over the long-run, especially if you can provide better quality video than your competitors.

I'd say a good ballpark for video quality is 320 x 240 pixels at the very least. Anything smaller is not going to cut it. Try to aim for 640 x 480 or a widescreen variant. Some websites use video at a higher resolution but stick the video in a tiny box at the corner of the screen. I mean - c'mon people, our main product is video. Why are we cramping the lifeblood of our industry into a little tiny box at the corner or in some cases not even on the front page at all?

Without a doubt, the best interface I've seen for watching videos is CollegeHumor.com. Ignoring the actual content for a second, take a look at their interface here:

First off, notice the clean interface, a good ratio of content to advertisement (a point I'll get to later), but more importantly:

- A healthy-sized video player at the top.
- Advertisements in-video are sparse.
- Videos load extremely quickly.
- Videos are encoded in a high-quality format.
- After the video ends, a new one automatically begins, keeping the viewer occupied. If you choose to put ads in-video at the end of each segment, this is the most efficient way to get people to watch ads. They're satisfied by getting immediate gratification on the video they want, and while the next one is queued up, your advertisement plays. Put yourself in the role of a visitor to the site -- do you really want to click on multiple videos when you know the commercial is coming before each one? It's much better to sneak the commercial in after the segment.

In terms of actual news sites, the ABC O&O's like KABC are the best I've seen. Look at KABC's website for a moment. Notice the large video player at the top, crisp and clean and taking up a good amount of screen real estate but not too much. If you have a talented web team that can actually design a Flash video player, you might want to use this site as an example of what to emulate.

So let's cut to the chase: how should a medium-market television station upgrade their video without significantly altering their web framework? With a relatively low gigabyte limit, CMS systems like WorldNow currently don't provide the most optimal way to deliver video.

Instead, consider using a third-party video distrubution system like Vimeo, YouTube, SmugMug, or any other website that allows embedding videos onto your station's website.

I personally like Vimeo the best, but they do technically say they disallow videos for commercial purposes. IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer), but if you can make it work with your legal department, try Vimeo. If not, you should jump on the bandwagon of stations using YouTube. YouTube allows the upload of HD videos (just make sure whoever encodes your videos off your editing system knows what they're doing), allows embedding of those videos onto your news site, and gives you an automatic presence on YouTube for people randomly searching for news in your area. Also, by using YouTube you're allowing users to embed your clips onto their websites and blogs thus promoting your website without even doing a thing. And if it's all about the Benjamins, talk to your marketing department about encoding quick 10-15 second ads when you upload and if advertisers would go for it. Maybe bring up this article if you want to help make your point.

But remember, you need to think long-term. Take advantage of this transition period when ad revenue from Internet in-video advertisements aren't considered nearly as important as ad revenue from the actual television broadcast. Your primary goal should be to increase market share by providing a superior online video experience than your competitors. If you look at the heavyweights of streaming online video, the advertisements are relatively thin. If I watch the Simpsons on TV, I have to sit through 8 minutes of commercials. If I watch it on Hulu.com, I can sit through one 1:30 ad in the beginning and enjoy a full episode uninterrupted. Despite years of asinine online distribution strategies by the major networks who refused to cave to the demand for online content, I'm actually pleasantly surprised at their offerings on Hulu and network sites like www.fox.com.

In short -- Sign up for a site like Vimeo or YouTube. Start embedding HD videos onto your current web framework using embed tags that should be allowed by your content management system. Talk to your marketing department about the potential ad sales for affixing advertisements at the end of the clip. If you have a talented web designer, a general manager who is willing to spend resources on improving the website, or are managing a station group and are thinking long-term about the stations within your broadcast group, design a video player using Adobe Flash or whatever technology you want that incorporates the design elements I've enumerated above. Whatever you do, it's imperative that the video solution you choose allows embedding into third-party sites. It's a quick and easy way to draw viewers to your site, and helps encourage other news sites to link to your stories.

Most importantly, remember that the short-term benefits might not be tangibles that show up in a revenue report, but they are essential to the long-term strategy of an online presence that will become increasingly important as people use the Internet more and more for their source of news.

Whatever video solution you use, it should be the centerpiece of your site, on the front page, high resolution and large in screen real estate, and have multiple videos that (ideally) autoplay after the previous video finishes.

Commandment #3 - Thou Shalt Podcast... Period

Examples:
- Beginner's Guide to Podcasting
- Another Beginner's Guide to Podcasting

At this year's RTNDA conference, I asked the panel of news directors if they provided full newscasts online, not live streams, not short ad-ridden chunks of a newscast, but full newscasts. With the introduction of full episodes of popular shows like the Office, Lost, Family Guy, and Simpsons available on-demand online, it seemed to me that news would follow suit and cater towards people who aren't the type to sit down at a specific time to watch news content -- people like my generation.

I know personally, my viewer patterns have dramatically shifted in just the last year. I watch all of my favorite shows online now and very rarely watch anything non-sports related that's live. I try to never miss an episode of The Daily Show, Meet the Press, This Week, Bill Maher's Real Time, all of which are offered online in their entirety.

Now whether these shifting patterns will apply to daily local news as well is a legitimate question. Obviously, when serious news happens, it's more compelling to watch a live reporter from the scene walks us through what's happening *right now*. But it's pure fallacy to use this as an excuse to avoid catering to people who might not be home during the newscast especially given the relative ease of uploading full podcasts once you know how to do it.

If you're thinking to yourself "Well our site has our lead packages and a few other VO's as well, isn't that good enough?"

I could answer that by simply saying the truth: absolutely not. But the best way to answer this question is by asking another question: If you provided full daily podcasts, would people download it? Well the makers of Meet the Press, Rachel Maddow, and NBC News think so. And viewers seem to want this as well, given from this random example on the iTunes store:

ABC world news **
by PerryKing - Feb 8, 2007
All I want is: "just a rerun of the ABC World News"..just as it was broadcast...just like NBC does. Please!!!

Get it together! *
by DK22 - Jan 12, 2008
Come on CNN, either do a Podcast or don't! Give us all of the show!

Don't even get users started on Hardball with Chris Matthews on offering only a chunk of the daily newscast.

Sad Excuse for a Podcast *
by Chillpicker - Dec 27, 2005
Im [sic] calling Chris Matthews out on this one. As a political junkie and a Chris Matthews fan, I am disapointed [sic] by these miniscule tidbits that you've called a podcast. Give us the entire show. Don't go cheap on the podcast Chris. Meet the Press gives us a whole show. Why can't you?
41 out of 48 listeners found this review helpful

Useless!! *
by Vance Hunnt - Jan 29, 2006
I was very excited to hear that Matthews had a Podcast, BUT this! Come on why did NBC even go to the trouble to print up the screen art for this? There are literally commercials on the real show longer than this. They have truly insulted Softball's following. If you're going to do something, do it right.
24 out of 30 listeners found this review helpful

Hardball **
by Compu-Tor - Dec 27, 2005
Love Hardball, but am unable to catch it every day, so I was happy to find it on iTunes. But perhaps this Podcast should be renamed to reflect the length of it's content... Tee-Bell with Chris Matthews?
21 out of 28 listeners found this review helpful

I could go on and on quoting reviews about people begging for full episode podcasts and not just the snippets. If you truly still believe that people aren't interested in downloading full newscasts, go to iTunes yourself and check out the user reviews of podcasts like Chris Matthews that only offer part of the show and watch these podcast ratings get torn apart. Also, take note of that last review which contained the key phrase "Love Hardball, but am unable to catch it every day." Do you think there are viewers like this one in your market that might not be around during the newscast but would watch it if offered online? If your answer to this question is that you don't have a lot of viewers who use iTunes, that's fine. Just watch when your forward-thinking competition taps that market and builds a user base that you gave away for free.

When I asked the question, the answer disappointed me. At first, they didn't respond to whether or not they offered full newscasts online but rather said "the research" showed that there wasn't interest in downloading full newscasts.

Disregarding my extreme disagreement with their hypothesis and "research", a simple cost/benefit analysis yields a conclusion that the ease of which it takes to offer full episodes online is worth it even if the proposed return in views is relatively low.

Folks, it's really easy to podcast. Read the links in the examples above to get a sense on how easy it is. With most editing systems, it takes about 5-10 minutes to export a half hour of DV footage into compressed video suitable for the web. Utilizing this short amount of time and resources to provide your product in an untapped market is just common sense.

Please also take note that most of these full newscasts online offer extremely limited commercial interruptions. They're trying to build market share rather than reap immediate benefits from ad revenue. It's up to you on how much advertisements you want to include in your online offerings, but I strongly suggest you think about how best to attract viewers to your site as your first priority.

Whether you like it or not, there's an increasing audience out there that doesn't conform to sitting down at a specific time every day to watch a television show. This is how you reach that audience.

Commandment #4 - Thou Shalt Use Advertisments Sparingly and Accordingly

Examples:
- KABC
- KRON
- WCBS

As I've expressed in previous points, there's a delicate balance between advertisements and content. As broadcasters, you know that the 8 minutes of advertisements in every half hour broadcast was reached as the perfect balance between making money and keeping viewers from wanting to change the channel.

Make sure that your website adheres to the same principles. Keep advertisements small and unintrusive. Try to avoid annoying pop-up ads, blinking ads, and any other gawdy monstrosities that detract from your content.

Take a look at KABC's website (which has the same layout as other ABC O&O's). The first thing you see on the page is the gorgeous video player at the top, then content follows right below. In-player ads do show up, as well as just a few graphic ads below the player but it doesn't detract from the content.

I like KRON's website also, as there's basically only one banner ad on the top of another example of a healthy-sized video player. It's a very clean interface that isn't ruined by the subtle but effective advertising.

Commandment #5 - Thou Shalt Engage Thy Audience Beyond A Comment Section

Nothing breeds viewer loyalty more than allowing them to partake in the news-gathering process. We are in a period of time unlike any before where viewers have more power in terms of interacting with their news sources. If you're able to nurture the relationship between the recipient and producer of news, you will not only draw more viewers, but you will help establish your online presence that will be so critical down the road as viewer habits shift more and more to getting their news online. Of course, there are many tools in the toolkit:

Comments
-----------
If you don't have the ability to comment on a story, you're behind the times. There's not a lot to say about comments except make sure they are moderated. If your comments are chock full of racism, xenophobia, and a few other gems Internet trolls have to offer, you're going to get less signal-to-noise ratio. But a comment system is just the tip of the iceberg on how you can engage your viewers.

Twitter/Facebook
--------
Unless you've been living under a rock the last year, I'm sure you've been told repeatedly that Twitter is the Godsend of all creation and will singlehandedly triple your station's profits. In all seriousness, Twitter is a good device to help you connect with viewers but be careful of how you use it. I've seem some station accounts that use their Twitter accounts to chat about completely random and useless information. If you're only going to use one Twitter account, I'd suggest to keep it professional with updates on your most important news stories. And if you're doing to do it, do it right. Don't post one story a day. Use your account to tease the most interesting stories in upcoming stories. Task your promos person with posting tweets as they write their promos if you have to. If you want to post informally with anecdotes or tweets that aren't newsworthy, use a second account and label it as such.

I'm highly ambivalent about Facebook. If you think a station profile works, go ahead. I mean yeah, by using status updates it's a way to mirror what Twitter does to a different group of viewers, but for some reason I just like Twitter better. I think it's just a natural gag reflex of seeing commercial MySpage/Facebook pages (that aren't a music group) that I've developed over the years.

On a side note, I'm very apprehensive about using personal reporter accounts on Twitter or Facebook to promo stories. If you have a purely professional Facebook/Twitter account, by all means use it to help promo your stories. But in my honest opinion, using personal Facebook accounts to promo your stories to your family and close friends is a bit narcisstic. I mean, all of your friends have dayjobs as well that might have to do with attracting clients. Would you be OK if one of your friends posted status updates like "BTW if you need life insurance hit me up! I can get you a great deal!" OK, off my soapbox...

Messageboard
--------------
- Aimoo
- Boardhost.com
- SetBB.com

Do you have a place on your website where people can discuss random topics that aren't affixed to a single story? A place where people can discuss what's going on in their neighborhood and initiate discussions on their own? A place where reporters and producers can interact with those people in the community and help bring news tips in?

If the answer is no, then why aren't you doing it? Messageboards can be set up with relative ease and are far superior than the flash in the pan discussions that take place in the comments affixed to the end of a story. Messageboards encourage repeat visitors to your site and can help your station get into the mix of what's going on in the community. Just take a look at sites like Topix.com which has a local messageboard for cities across the country. Isn't that a market of potential viewers you want to tap into, or at the very least bring them to your site with your ads rather than theirs?

Keep in mind, however, that a messageboard is not something you set up then leave be and expect returns. The more effort you put into it, the more you will get out. If reporters and producers are engaging users and contributing to discussions, people are much more likely to take part and tell their friends about it. Of course, make sure reporters and producers who do contribute know they are representing the station and should refrain from giving personal opinions about the news. But answering questions about coverage or stories, giving anecdotes or information that couldn't fit in the actual stories, etc., are all perfectly acceptable in my opinion.

For those old school newspeople who believe any post by a reporter constitutes a violation of neutrality, I understand. But you can still solicit ideas from the community, moderate discussions, thank those people who provided news tips that turned into actual PKGs, etc.

As with comments, make sure you are razor sharp on moderation. Simply filtering posts against a list of swear words is not enough. Identifying abusive users and kicking them out is essential to the health of any messageboard.

I can say that I've gotten plenty of story ideas from roving the local messageboards and listening to the discussions taking place in local communities. Why not provide a place for them to do that right on your website? At the very least, you'll up the amount of pageviews and therefore advertising that a given user sees.

Flickr Pools
------------
- Flickr
- Consumerist's Flickr Pool
- Recipe Flickr Pool

If you've never heard of Flickr, it's a photo sharing site where individuals can post photos that they share with the rest of the world. One cool feature about the site is to create what's called a "Flickr pool", or a page where random users can contribute photos to your website. Take a look at the examples provided above. For the Consumerist, they help promote the Flickr pool by providing a regular "Best Of" segment where they pick the most amazing photos users have shared and promote them to the front page.

Just imagine doing promotions soliciting viewers to take pictures of an important event that day and to upload them to your station's Flickr pool. How many people do you think will get their camera, take some pictures ranging from decent to magnificent, and contribute to the pool? How many of their friends will they tell? How good will your station look when you tell people the next day about all the fabulous photos that were sent in and that viewers can get all sorts of extra pictures showing what happened.

The best thing about a Flickr pool is that it's all automatic. Of course, you'll have to moderate to make sure pictures are both germane and appropriate. But you won't have to task your web producer with uploading a whole bunch of individual photos. By using the proper HTML tags, you can embed a Flickr pool into your actual site so they won't have to click away to somewhere else.

YouTube
---------
Same thing as above. Why don't you suggest on-air for people to send in links to YouTube clips they've uploaded that depict a newsworthy event?


User Moderation of Stories
---------------------------
Examples:
- Digg.com
- DailyKos

Many stations are using a "Most Popular" section on their homepage for stories with the most hits. Some use how many comments each story gets to rank what people are talking about. Both of these approaches are fine and dandy, but you can use a different statistic that once again offers active participation by the viewer rather than upping some stat counter that they can't see.

Take a look at Digg.com for a second. The concept between Digg is quite simple and yet it is one of the most popular news aggregators on the 'net. Users rate certain stories up or down ("digg"-ing the story) and as a result, the cream of the crop rises to the top of the listing.

Think about it from the perspective of your viewers. By giving them the ability to rate stories, they can actively take a small part in what stories are considered most popular. Don't have a ratings system (like X out of 5 stars) or negative voting (who wants to let their users tell the station how bad their stories are), but just have a "I like this!" option and see if users start getting involved.

This is exactly how DailyKos grew from just a blog into a fully functioning community. Ignoring politics for a second, take a look at the "Recommended Diaries" on the right hand side of the screen. These diaries are selected out of the hundreds to thousands of diaries posted to the site every day by people who hit the "Recommend" button. As a reader, I am always interested in what shows up there as I know it's not just what one person or an editorial group thinks is important for the day, it's stories that the community as a whole feel is important and as a result has risen to the top of the site.

This option isn't easily adopted into a current web framework, but you can embed a link to "Digg" each story and use that as a way to incorporate this idea into your website. It's always better to use your own moderation system if you have the web talent to accomplish it.

Commandment #6 - Thou Shalt Live And Die By Quality Assurance

Newspapers are used to making sure the print that shows up is meticulously crafted and without error. One bad mistake that isn't corrected before print time makes a paper look incredibly bad when that mistake is reproduced and sent to newstands all over the city.

Yes, we are prone to saying the wrong word on-air, but unless it's a significantly wrong word like an f-bomb, it goes away like tears in the rain (I need to rent that movie again). But nothing screams amateur like a TV news website that has spelling and grammar errors.

Now at most stations, it's up to the reporter to make sure their story is free of such errors. But all people make mistakes and some are going to get by. At some places, there is not one person who is skilled in the arts of grammar and spelling that is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the site is error-free.

No matter how much the importance of spelling and grammar is spelled out to those who write the stories, the sheer amount of stories that are written on a daily basis means that these drafts will have mistakes.

In all cases, one person should be tasked with QA, checking errors and sending messages to repeat offenders who are making spelling errors. I know this sounds incredibly obvious, but just browsing through random news TV sites you wonder how many spelling errors alone made it through whatever review process they used.

Bottom line: make sure you have someone besides the reporters who is trained in the English language and can actually look through the pieces before uploading them to the web.

Commandment #7 - Thou Shalt Post Content Additional To Thy Newscast

Now that you have a website, you have another way to provide content to viewers that isn't restricted by a time limit. Raw interviews, additional extended footage of crazy fires, extended cuts of a PKG, the sky's the limit.

When I shot a multi-part series on Hurricane Katrina two years after the storm, I also uploaded chunks of raw interviews I did with Congressman Gene Taylor about what he was trying to accomplish with insurance reform. Taylor's people were excited that I had uploaded the videos and as a result, one of those raw interview clips is now embedded on the front page of Taylor's own website. If you start regularly promoting these additional videos on your newscast, it will help drive traffic to your website as well as give people the idea that your station gets more in-depth into a story than anyone else.

Also, you want people to think of your site as ideally the first and last stop to get their local news. Try posting stories that are interesting but didn't fit in the 30 minutes. See something interesting in the wires? Post it before the newscast.

Commandment #8 - Thou Shalt Link To Prominent Local Sites In Thy Community

Examples:
- KVUE's Elise Hu

Most likely, if I mention the word "blog," some old school newspeople are reeling against associating themselves from the unkempt journalistic hand of the masses. And while there's a lot of innane drivel out there that masquerades as quality journalism, there's also probably a few gems that cover things taking place in your markets.

Here in Texas, there are several quality websites that are not TV stations or newspapers, but they are quality reads nonetheless. In fact, if you look at Elise Hu's blog (my professional crush and excellent political reporter for KVUE in Austin, TX), she links to local political blogs on both ends of the spectrum. By including these sites in the discussion and linking to stories they bring up, she increases both her presence and her station's presence in the community, especially when all these sites start linking back to her.

When it comes down to it, your job as a source of news is to connect your viewers with the community around them. As the cream of the crop rise from obscurity into well-respected blogs and independent websites, you should be the first to welcome them into the news community.

It doesn't hurt that they'll help drive traffic to your site as well. (Do a search on Burnt Orange Report for Elise Hu to see the potential to drive traffic)

Commandment #9 - Thou Shalt Keepeth Content Fresh

It pains me to write this commandment as it should be painfully obvious, but I have actually seen websites that don't update during the day until their PKGs are uploaded after the newscast.

Web first. Web first. Oh yeah, web first. Of course, consider the fact that your competition will be reading your website as well, but in the case of breaking news, you should be updating your piece online several times beyond the initial posting as new information comes in.

OK, I'm taking my Captain Obvious hat off now.

Commandment #10 - Thou Shalt Think Long-Term

I was watching South Park online at southparkstudios.com (all episodes are available online with limited commercial interruption) when I came across a very prescient quote. It was the episode where the town of South Park no longer has Internet. The residents were in chaos, rioting in the streets and desperately trying to find out why their Internet was out.

Gerald: How can there be no Internet anywhere? What's going on!?

Butters' Dad: Anybody got a Blackberry? Check Drudge Report!

Randy: Good idea! No, wait, we can't check Drudge Report because there's no Internet!

Mr. Garrison: There has to be a way to find out what's going on!

Gerald: We can't! Don't you get it? There's no Internet to find out why there's no Internet!

Resident: What did we used to do to get the news before the Internet?

Everyone is stumped, until Randy comes up with the answer.

Randy: A TELEVISION!!

There will always be television news, no matter how many news sites spring up on the Internet. But it's important for us to start now to develop a compelling online experience for our viewers that will keep them coming back. We can't keep thinking that a station's website is there "because our competition has a site." There are a significant amount of people who get their news exclusively from the Internet, and with so many players in the information market we're up against more competition than in the past. Instead of three or four television stations competing against each other, television news sites are now up against news aggregators which may or may not link back to their site, newspaper websites, blogs, and many more sources of information.

Conclusion

If many of these ideas seem obvious to you, then you're ahead of the game. But every one of these ideas come from looking at actual TV News sites as a person who has been in Web Design for 10 years. I may be a relative newcomer in the news industry, but as a web designer I do know my way around the Internet and consequently what works and what doesn't.

It's easy to say "well changing our website will require a significant amount of resources, more employees, and we can't afford any of those in these tough economic times." This kind of mindset is precisely why I wrote this guide. If you have money to spend as a station group or an individual station or you already have a talented web department, that's great. But there are also things you can accomplish that don't require a significant expenditure or more manpower, it just requires that you are open to learning new things and incorporating them into your current web framework. Putting your station on YouTube, or setting up a messageboard, or using a Flickr pool, or many of the techniques I've outlined are easy steps that can help improve the user experience that your site provides.

Canary in the Coal Mine Ctd.

From a speech by Steven Johnson at SXSW in Austin, TX:

Let me say one final thing. I am bullish on the future of news, as you can tell. But I am not bullish on what is happening right now in the newspaper industry. It is ugly, and it is going to get uglier. Great journalists and editors are going to lose their jobs, and cities are going to lose their papers. There should have been a ten-year evolutionary process: the ecosystem steadily diversifying and establishing its complex relationships, the new business models evolving, the papers slowly transferring from print to digital, along with the advertisers. Instead, the financial meltdown – and some related over-leveraging by the newspaper companies themselves – has taken what should have been a decade-long process and crammed it down into a year or two. That is bad news for two reasons. First because it is going to inflict a lot of stress on people inside the industry who do great things, and who provide an important social good with their work. But it’s also bad news because it’s going to distract us from the long-term view; we’re going to spend so much time trying to figure out how to keep the old model on life support that we won’t be able to help invent a new model that actually might work better for everyone. The old growth forest won’t just magically grow on its own, of course, and no doubt there will be false starts and complications along the way. But in times like these, when all that is solid is melting into air, as Marx said of another equally turbulent era, it’s important that we try to imagine how we’d like the future to turn out and set our sights on that, and not just struggle to keep the past alive for a few more years.

Coercing an Interview: Right or Wrong?

There have been two times in my career so far where I've approached a subject who was on the verge of tears in a state of confusion and asked them if they would talk on camera.

The first time, I met a man and his two friends in an empty softball field. It turned out, he was intimately connected (though innocent himself) to a major child molestation case we had around here. He brought along documentary evidence which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the authenticity of his story. And as he related his story to me, he could barely get words through the tears that ran down his face. I asked him if he would go on camera, either his face or us shooting his feet, and he wouldn't say yes or no to me.

At the same time, my absolutely wonderful photog at the time was on the phone buying me time with my station that without a doubt wanted me to get an exclusive interview at all costs. Now I could have simply walked up with the camera and pushed the microphone in his face, and I doubt he would have objected. But I remembered that he is a human being who had clearly been through a traumatic event, and though it may be easy for those of us in news to appear on camera, the potential for retribution or unwanted fallout that can happen to our subjects should always be considered. Due to the nature of his connection to the events, I wanted to make sure he decided for himself, and not under duress, that he wanted to participate in the segment. So after hearing his story and still getting exclusive pictures he had brought on CD that nobody else had, I told him to think about it that night and call me in the morning.

I spoke with him the next day, and after talking about the matter with his wife, they decided that it was safer for their family to stay out of the matter and let the authorities deal with the situation. As a journalist, I was disappointed that I wasn't going to get an exclusive interview from a person no other reporter even knew existed on a significantly newsworthy event. But as a human being, I thought I had done the right thing and not taken advantage of the man's state of vulnerability to advance a news story. I'm not so sure others shared my thought process.

The second time, I was speaking with a soldier's wife who had been going through some tough news that her husband, despite health problems, had been assigned for another tour of duty overseas. She had just heard the news and was clearly shaken by the thought of her husband being away and in a dangerous situation when she felt his health problems hadn't been properly resolved. I sat down with her to begin the interview, but turned the camera off after a few minutes when she couldn't finish a sentence without a valiant attempt to hold back tears. I told her to just start talking and tell me how she was feeling and what their family was going through in an attempt to jumpstart a stream of consciousness that would hopefully calm her down and allow her to talk about the issue more comfortably. After an hour, her husband came to meet her and I decided to give her a day to calm down and let the news sink in so she would be comfortable with the idea of speaking on camera. I called the next business day to see if her and her husband still wanted to talk. After discussing amongst themselves, they decided they wanted to put off talking to the media until they felt they had exhausted other avenues of persuading the military before applying pressure on them through the media. Once again, I felt the disappointment that my story fell through, but glad that I had not taken advantage of a subject in a vulnerable state.

Looking back at these two situations, I still think I did the right thing but I'm not so ironclad about my decision as I used to be. In a situation you know to be ripe with potential consequences for a subject who has just witnessed a traumatic event and is in a highly suggestive state, is it right to coerce them into an interview knowing you'd get an exclusive before anyone else? Is that just the way of the business, or is that the path that will inevitably lead me towards the dark side of journalism.

Though I feel I have a lot of introspection on the matter before developing any sort of rule of thumb, my heart tells me I did the right thing in erring towards respecting a source rather than scooping the competition. If you show compassion and respect for your sources, it might not always pan out immediately but the trust gained from the situation may give you an even better exclusive down the road.

Questions

* Why is it OK for national shows like "60 Minutes" to do segments that are longer than 1:30, but it's not OK for local news?

* Why is commentary allowed on shows like Bob Schieffer or even local big-market stations, but ruled out for use in other local markets?

* Why do some stations feature the top ten movies of the week, but neglect to mention top iTunes downloads?

* Why, at some stations, is healthy discussion over important and compelling local events between anchors and guests as part of the newscast completely ruled out for inclusion?

* Why do markets outside the top 50 or so rely upon hand-written Nielsen diaries filled out by a sample size of less than 1% of the population to set ratings and thus advertising rates? More importantly, is there an age shift from this definitively non-random sub-set of the population? When Nielsen ratings shift from hand-written diaries to set top box information (which is a more accurate determination of actual viewers), will stations be in a rude awakening to see how many young viewers they actually have?

(more to come...)

A Quick Beatcheck Tip

Speaking with a communications person at our local police today, I came across some valuable information.

When making your beatchecks, asking "Hey, is there anything going on today?" is in most cases a complete waste of time. I was informed today that our local PD is trained to simply say "Everything's about normal today" regardless of anything going on that's sub-apocalypse level of importance. But, if you're listening to the scanner and have one nugget of information, if you start with "Hey we're hearing on the scanner there's a robbery in progress, do you know where the address is?" then you'll get some concrete information.

Of course, if you're making your regular beatchecks and are trying to be friendly with local dispatch, you might be able to get that information anyways if you're friendly with them. I know an overnight producer who had no PIO to rely upon for breaking news, and the constant communication between her and local dispatches allowed her to get more information from dispatch than they generally release. It's probably been repeated to death, but when making beatcheck calls, be friendly, try to sneak in a question about their day or anything beyond "Anything going on? No? OK thanks bye!".

To recap, if there's a robbery going on in your town, the quick call to local PD can go two different ways.

"Hey, is there anything going on right now?"
"Everything's within normal."
"OK, thanks!"

OR......

"Hey, I heard on the scanner that there's a robbery in progress in Temple, do you have the address?"
"Yes, hold on... It's on the 3700 block of ____ Street, units are on scene."
"OK, Thanks!"

I'm not sure if this is how every PD in a mid-sized town works, but I was shocked when he said how many other news stations ask him that question when he knows he can't volunteer indiscriminate information and that he's been trained to simply reply "Everything's normal" regardless of what the current situation is.

Just a quick tip I thought I'd pass on.

Chipping Away at the Top

From The Economist:

Technology hasn't just changed the demand for newspapers, it's also changed the supply of information. News used to be an oligopolistic business, now it's just about perfectly competitive. Barriers to entry are minimal, and plenty of suppliers are happy to provide content at next to nothing. That's a recipe for a big drop in price, and any organisation built on market power and rents is sure to fail in such an environment.

Does this mean that news, as a business, is dead? Not necessarily. Some papers will survive by selling things other than news—reputation, say, or exclusivity. Others will hang on until the print market shrinks enough that profitability is possible for a handful (or fewer) of national papers. Survivors in both groups are also likely to capitalise on the demand for news products that remain scarce—especially investigative reporting.

Extra Credit Question: How is the above relevant to broadcast news?

Live Shots - Breaking Through the Wall

It's only 10-15 seconds. It's only a few main points. It's only you looking into a little black lens. Easy, right?

For some reason, it's much harder than that. Take out the "umm", "you know", pauses, slang, informal speech, keep your eyes on the camera, don't look down unless you have to, ignore the scene behind you which may or may not consist of bystanders trying to mess you up or get their 15 seconds on TV, and whatever you do, keep talking and don't stop to think.

Now some people are naturals on TV, going live their first time like their last job was the host of the Emmy's. Others have been in the business for years, and still sound like they're a substitute teacher for a high school algebra class. For the majority of us, we start off somewhere in between.

From talking to other people as well as from my own experience, it takes about 3-4 months of regular on-air experience before your live presence is solid. There will be hiccups, embarrassing live shots, and moments where you want to throw your paper down and put your coat over your head afterwards (just make sure your photog doesn't zoom in on you so that the control room can record it and play ad infinitum). But from these experiences, your comfort level will rise and the wall of fear that hit you the first time will slowly fade with every live shot. For me, it's been 6 months and a while since I've had that dread experience where I hear "Kevin Davis joins us from the newsroom with more, Kevin?" and the words I had practiced just suck right out of my head. But that doesn't mean I'm not prone to error either, as the impetus for this post was a horrible live shot I did just last week where I paused and had to look down on my paper to see what I was saying.

When you first start out, try to keep your intros and tag-outs short. In the beginning, it's much easier to introduce a package with a quick sentence then to try for a 30-second intro. Just put that information you were going to do live into the package. Start with short introductions and work yourself up to longer and more detailed intros when you get more comfortable on camera.

Read over what you wrote, and make sure it's natural for you to speak it as well as it was written. If you're in an extremely breaking news situation, it's sometimes better to write the most important facts in bullet point and read off that rather than meticulously constructing each sentence.

Speak with authority, but try not to get all Kent Brockman about it either. There's a middle ground between the monotonous dead-pan style of PBS and the uber-cheesy inflection of tabloid shows like Access Hollywood. Watch network anchors like Campbell Brown and Mika Brzezinski, both of whom are very good at sounding authoritative while being conversational at the same time.

Whatever you do, don't get frustrated. If your live shot goes bad, just start practicing a little bit earlier the next day. Look forward to your next live appearance as an opportunity for redemption.

For me, it's been 6 months and I'm still learning. I no longer fear going live. Instead, I now look forward to the adrenaline rush. I don't think that slight nervousness before a live shot will ever go away, I've just tried to harness that energy. I've come a long way since the beginning but I still have room to grow before my station can throw me at a huge breaking news story minutes before a live hit where I'm expected to flawlessly ad-lib off the top of my head the details of the story in narrative structure rather than just a fact-by-fact recount.

But I'll be there soon, and you will be too if you aren't already there. Practice makes perfect!

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

When you're on TV, it just goes along with the job that you're putting yourself up for criticism. People who have never touched a microphone, never gathered sources, never raced to a live shot to gather information minutes before a live hit will tell you with absolute certainty every minute detail that you did wrong. From your presentation, your presence on-air, your sentence construction, choice of phrases, camera shots, etc. all these are fair game.

I don't bring this up to stir anger, resentment, or any other feelings of ill will, as I honestly don't feel any of these things. The only reason why I've progressed since my first day is from valuable constructive criticism I've received from my co-workers. But just know, it takes a thick skin to be the face on TV.

The key is to find the balance between how others see you and you see yourself. Take criticism, even when it's hardly constructive, but don't always accede to criticism that doesn't ring true. Gauge your stories by your intuition, think about what you did correctly, and what you can work on to improve. Ignore the petty smack talk. Incorporate constructive suggestions.

All throughout your career, no matter what field, you will face coworkers who are supportive and those who are less so. The sooner you learn to learn from those with valuable lessons and tune out those who are simply trying to bring you down, the easier your professional life will become.

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.

The Reporter's Prayer

May I give thanks for the opportunity to tell stories that matter, that make a difference, and leave the viewer a better informed citizen.

May I not profit off exacerbating the viewer's base emotions and capitalize nonchalantly off the death, destruction, and mayhem that goes hand in hand with broadcast journalism.

May I not let the sadness and despair from the misery and death I see overcome me, but may my ears never become dull to the sound of a fellow human being crying out in pain.

May I always treat subjects with respect, for they graciously allow me access to intimate parts of their life, and they expect me to use that power to paint them not flatteringly, not deprecatingly, but accurately.

May I not become "that reporter" who somehow believes they are superior because they are on television, the reporter who treats photogs like shit, the reporter that looks at a subject with hungry eyes for the quick soundbyte and not to try and understand and relate to them as a human being, the reporter whose ego comes first and journalism comes second...for they are not reporters, they are just on tv.

May I give both sides to every story, so that even two diametrically opposite and bitter opponents can both look at the same piece and think they were given their fair shake.

May I have the courage to speak up against my producer if I believe the story cannot be run in an accurate and fair manner in time for the show.

May I defer to the wisdom of those with decades of experience in broadcast journalism in the event of a disagreement, but be ready to defend my beliefs if I feel strongly about the matter.

But most of all, may I remember that I have the power of the microphone, and that power can be used to illuminate, inform, and even to do good, but it can also be used to slander, misrepresent, misquote, and cause needless trauma. May I have the courage of my convictions to practice the former over the latter.

The Intern's Guide

So you're in college and you're thinking about taking that internship at the local tv station? When you start your first day, it's important to keep one thing in mind: your internship will be what you make of it.

News stations want interns because they are a cheap source of labor to make beat checks (daily calls to local PD/Fire/etc.) and do the mundane tasks producers and reporters don't want to do. And while your station might train you on basic tasks which they expect to be a part of your responsibilities, they're not going to tell you what you need to gain out of your internship to make it a productive experience that will help land you that first reporter job.

Remember the challenge you face when you eventually start sending out resume tapes: most likely you'll be up against over a dozen other applicants for the same job. If you're applying in a starter's market (if the job listing says you don't need to have at least one year of experience), you'll probably be up against other interns like yourself as well as those coming from smaller markets.

Since the competition will be tight, you have to use your internship to put yourself in the best position so that you separate yourself from the rest of the pack. To help you maximize the time you have with the station, I've put together a list of rules I learned myself from my internship.

1. Come out of your internship with a resume tape. This is the single and most important goal you need to try and accomplish. Learning the quirks and protocol about a newsroom is very important, but your tangible goal will be to walk out the door before your last day with either a DVD or your video uploaded to YouTube.

To go over the basics, what I learned from my first station is that you want to keep your demo reel short and sweet, preferably in this format:

- 10 second intro with name and contact information
- 5 standups
- 2 packages
- 10 second outro with name and contact information

Have a graphics person or photog put together your intro graphic, and try to make it nice if you can, as it's the first thing your potential news director will see.'

Then select your 5 *best* standups, preferably you talking in front or something or demonstrating something to the viewer, and cut out the "Live in Somewhere, I'm Joe Smith" and try to keep it as short as possible. You can even cut out a 10 second chunk of a longer standup you've done, unless you're actually interacting with the scene or demonstrating something cool, then I'd leave the whole thing in. Which brings me to rule #2.

2. Make interesting, compelling, demonstrative standups. Go google "reporter resume tape" for a second, it's ok I'll wait. Pick a resume tape that comes from someone who hasn't actually been on air yet. Most likely, you'll see them in front of a park setting, police station, and varying other non-descript locales that might or might not have anything to do with what the would-be reporter is talking about. Remember when I said you'll be up against over a dozen other interns for the reporter position? This is how you set yourself apart. Write a standup that interacts with the background behind you. Walk and talk. Recreate the crime scene for the viewers by pointing, indicating, and moving. Don't just stand there and tell me something, *be* the story. Impart some knowledge on me. Find a way to use your hands. For example, our station did a story a while back about alcoholic energy drinks sold at gas stations that look almost identical to normal energy drinks. The standup I saw for it had the reporter picking up the alcoholic energy drink explaining to viewers that though it looked identical to this other energy drink (then picks the other one up), this one in fact had alcohol, a fact which escaped many gas station employees who didn't card for the alcoholic beverage. My favorite standup from my own resume tape was when I was in the ninth ward in New Orleans, I came upon a house that had been hollowed out on the inside, a note had been left on the door saying the government had failed them, and a spray painted marking had been left on the front wall indicating how many bodies they had found, as well as what organization had come to check on the house. I started by walking up the steps, explaining to viewers these markings that were on every house, what they meant, then I pointed to the note that had been left on the door, and finished the standup by having the photog open the door and walk inside to witness the devastation within. It wasn't the most amazing standup, but it beat standing in front of the house and just talking about it. Just be creative.

Now if you can, try to be out on a real story so you can shoot standups in front of accidents, fires, actual crime scenes, etc. Of course, navigating that will be a bit tricky. The standard practice for this is to eventually start going out with the reporters to see how they work, and to maybe shoot a standup if there's free time. But I'll tell you something else which helped me much more than going out with the reporters, which brings me to rule #3.

3. Go out with the photogs as much as possible. After you begin your internship, make friends with the reporters. Yes, of course, in all likelihood not all of them will be willing to take the time to help you out, but you need to try anyways. Pick the friendliest one there, or ask the other interns if they know which ones are chill and which ones are egotistical Ron Burgandys.

But the real gem, which helped me much more than going out with reporters, is going out with the photogs. See, at most stations, there are reporter/photog teams, but then there are extra photogs sitting around to shoot smaller stories, or breaking news situations where the reporters are already out on assignment and can't make it in time.

Those are the ones you want to make friends with. See, photogs sometimes have to get interviews from police or whoever happens to be on scene, and most of the time they just want to shoot video and not have to write down details, think up interview questions, and be responsible to give that information to the producer.

That's where you come in. If you're sitting around and hear a photog get sent out, go with him/her. Bring a notepad. When you get on scene, ask the photog who you should talk to. Walk up and introduce yourself. Make sure to get down all the details. Time it occurred? How did it happen? Have they released information about the suspects? What age(s)? Is there a phone # where you can call to get followup questions before the show? As my news director says, details matter.

That way, the photographer can just shoot video and not worry about all that other stuff, and you put yourself in a position where you are intimately familliar with the details of the story. When you come back, ask the producer if you can write the story. They'll probably say yes, as it would take them time to go over the details again with you just to write a 45-second story. And if you prove yourself, you can start doing this regularly, becoming a pseudo-reporter who does everything except front the stories for the newscast.

And if you keep it up, you'll be putting yourself in the best situation to be out on real stories, shooting real standups, rather than the bland front-of-the-police-station standups. This is how you set yourself apart.

4. Write creative packages. You can revoice a package already done by another reporter. Or, even better you can write a package on a story you went out on with a photog and shot a standup for. Pick an interesting story that won't bore a news director who's seen thousands of packages at his station, let alone hundreds by other interns competing for the same job as you.

5. Don't just sit there looking pretty. Ask questions. How does ______ work? If you simply show up on time, sit there on Facebook and msg your friends, you'll be wasting valuable time. Of course you can't be busy all the time, but try finding a photog on the downtime and explaining some of the basics of nonlinear editing, whatever system is being used. For some reason, people I talk to are afraid of learning editing systems, like it's advanced calculus or something. The only thing you need to learn is enough to drag and drop 7 clips to the timeline (5 standups, 2 packages) and move them into the correct order. It's nothing really, and you're going to need to learn these skills in the future sometime. Why not start now and cut your own resume tape?

6. Start looking at job postings now to get an idea. Check out www.newsblues.com and www.tvjobs.com . Newsblues is good for looking at specific markets if you're partial to certain locations. TVJobs is better for just getting job listings across all markets. Don't rule out markets ranked in the top 100. Once you have your resume tape together, you're going to want to be familliar with what the typical news director is looking for in a job application. Both those sites cost money, but they're relatively cheap and are great investments for when you actually apply.

7. Don't get discouraged. Getting that first job is tough. You're going to have to probably move somewhere that's half in the middle of nowhere depending on what market size. You're going to have to deal with some pretty big egos, other interns who will give you the "Oh, is that really your standup? Yeah I'd change that," watching reporters go live and thinking "Wow I'll never be that comfortable on camera" and a host of other things which will feed doubt into your head. And it doesn't get any easier once you actually get the job.

But the rewards are well worth the hard work it takes. Being out every day, meeting new people, the adrenaline rush of going live, getting into places other people can't, and all the perks that come with being a reporter. Finally, before you're done with your internship:

8. Put your stuff up on YouTube. It's not hard, it doesn't take that long to register an account, and it might get you the job. My news director told me I was the first person he had hired solely from a YouTube page and no physical resume tape. The advantages are obvious: you can, in one email, attach your PDF/Word resume and a link to your video allowing a news director to see your stuff immediately rather than waiting days to receive a tape in the mail, which will be accompanied with the rest of your competition. Pick a professional username that you can use, so that you can use your channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/kdreporter) instead of the individual video links (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0Cz3_4MS9o).

9. Read these two books. I swear, it will help put things in perspective. These aren't cheesy memoirs, they are real world excercises in writing packages and other challenges that face a reporter. They are:

- It Takes More Than Good Looks, by Wayne Freedman. There's just so many gems in this book it's hard to put into words how much of a must-read book this is for aspiring reporters.

- Writing Broadcast News, by Mervin Block. Block is somewhat of an OCD case when it comes to proper writing, but read this and you'll be schooling your producers on how to write concise and engaging stories.


Hopefully these rules will help you rise above your competition and beat out the rest in getting that first job. Just remember to make sure the few months you have at your station are well spent. If you're sitting there just chillin, you're going to get beat out by others who are using their internships more productively.

Most importantly, have fun!