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.

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!

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.

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 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!