Category: Media » Media Crisis
15 rules of storytelling–and then some
20 May 09:11 | Media
Writing a two-minute TV news story is nothing like writing a screenplay for a movie. Or is it? Truth is, all writing has some things in common. Take this list from Emma Coats, a former screenwriter at Pixar, the movie studio. Of her 22 rules of storytelling, more than a handful apply to the kind [...]read more »
Cutting corners isn’t just lazy, it’s wrong
16 May 14:03 | Media
Picture this. You’re on day two of a TV news shoot out-of-town, working with a freelance crew. Location: a high school auditorium. Day one was a morning session and the house lights were on. The photographer got plenty of shots of the action on stage and the audience reaction. Now it’s the evening of day [...]read more »
Cutting corners isn’t just lazy, it’s wrong
16 May 14:03 | Media
Picture this. You’re on day two of a TV shoot out-of-town, working with a freelance crew. Location: a high school auditorium. Day one was a morning session and the house lights were on. The photographer got plenty of shots of the action on stage and the audience reaction. Now it’s the evening of day two. [...]read more »
When photography is treated as a crime
6 May 2013 | Media
What’s the connection between photography and terrorism? Apparently, it depends on where you sit and when you ask the question. Just after the bombing at the Boston Marathon, investigators urged anyone who’d been near the finish line to share photos or video they’d taken around the time of the explosions. But the very same day, [...]read more »
The shame of starting salaries in TV news
1 May 2013 | Media
Some issues just won’t go away. More than a decade ago, I wrote a column for American Journalism Review in which I posited that some of the best and brightest J-school grads probably weren’t going to work at local TV stations because the salaries were so low. Last week, I got a call from a [...]read more »
The shame of starting salaries in TV news
1 May 2013 | Media
Some issues just won’t go away. More than a decade ago, I wrote a column for American Journalism Review in which I posited that some of the best and brightest J-school grads probably weren’t going to work at local TV stations because the salaries were so low. Last week, I got a call from a [...]read more »
Never miss another shot?
29 Apr 2013 | Media
Missed it! It’s an awful feeling. You’ve been waiting and waiting for a specific shot for a story and when it finally happens, you hit record just a wee bit too late. Maybe you’ve captured some of what you need, but it’s going to be hard to edit. If only you could turn back time. [...]read more »
Covering disasters: Tips for staying safe
25 Apr 2013 | Media
Journalists reacted to the bombings at the Boston Marathon and the aftermath the way they always do: they ran toward danger. In a crisis, whether it’s terrorism or a manhunt in Boston or a fertilizer plant explosion in Texas, the news media are first responders. In order to do their job well, however, journalists must [...]read more »
When to break exclusive news and where
23 Apr 2013 | Media
You’re working on an exclusive story for tonight and the Web and social media team wants a piece of it, hours before air. Should you share? If you thought that question had been laid to rest years ago, think again. In some newsrooms, the answer still is, “It depends.” Brandon Mercer, news director at KTXL [...]read more »
Local TV rises to the occasion in Boston
19 Apr 2013 | Media
by Steve Safran I want to tell you a little bit about working in local news. It’s messy and complicated. It’s filled with drudgery. It’s overnights for years without recognition. It’s reporters who start in small markets with pay so low they take a second job, usually as a waiter or waitress. Pilots describe their [...]read more »
What’s wrong with local TV news?
15 Apr 2013 | Media
Local television news can be so easy to mock. Happy-talk anchors, meaningless live shots and enough on-screen grammar goofs to send an English teacher into orbit. The good news is that it’s not all terrible. But a lot of it is and, sadly, there’s not much hope for improvement. Take the fact that so many [...]read more »
The J-school debate, revisited
9 Apr 2013 | Media
What exactly is the value of a journalism degree? Are J-schools really preparing students for the media jobs of the future? The questions aren’t new, but they’ve come up again in connection with the selection of a new dean for Columbia’s prestigious graduate school of journalism. If you haven’t read it, Michael Wolff’s take in [...]read more »
Top 5 tactics for consumer reporters
27 Mar 2013 | Media
Consumer reporter Jackie Callaway of WFTS in Tampa calls her beat a beast. She’s expected to produce two or three quick turns a week and a “deeper dive” every other week, while working long-term on investigative stories. But after heading the station’s “Taking Action” franchise for a decade, Callaway says she’s learned how to tame [...]read more »
Good news, bad news for local TV
18 Mar 2013 | Media
If you just look at the bottom line, local TV stations appear to be thriving. Revenue was up substantially last year, thanks largely to a flood of political advertising. But viewership was down in every key time slot in every sweeps period in 2012, according to an analysis of Nielsen data by the Pew Research [...]read more »
News Websites Urged To Target "Reward Seekers" To Boost Revenue
5 Mar 2013 | Media
University of Missouri researchers have found that news organizations should target readers with certain personality traits in order to optimize their online viewership.read more »
Shooting news with a DSLR
4 Mar 2013 | Media
by Geoff Roth, executive producer, KRIV, Houston Last year our News Director challenged everyone to come up with new ideas for our newscasts. One suggestion I made was to recruit bloggers from the Houston community to do pieces on restaurants, lifestyle, and the arts. His response” Great idea. Why don’t you go out and do [...]read more »
Shooting news with a DSLR
4 Mar 2013 | Media
by Geoff Roth, executive producer, KRIV, Houston Last year our news director challenged everyone to come up with new ideas for our newscasts. One suggestion I made was to recruit bloggers from the Houston community to do pieces on restaurants, lifestyle, and the arts. His response” Great idea. Why don’t you go out and do [...]read more »
The downside of media training
25 Feb 2013 | Media
Are some of the people you interview sounding a little rehearsed these days? More and more officials, professionals and business executives are being coached on how to deal with the media. And while that can be a good thing, it isn’t always. Many doctors and lawyers have been advised to avoid acronyms and technical language so [...]read more »
Is your Web video mostly just repurposed TV?
20 Feb 2013 | Media
Of course you have video on your website. Doesn’t everyone? But what is it, exactly? Putting TV clips on the Web is a no-brainer, says NBC News chief digital officer Vivian Schiller, but it’s not a game changer. What is? No one really knows yet, but there’s lots of experimentation underway. Schiller told the Beet-TV [...]read more »
Is your voice fried?
11 Feb 2013 | Media
All of us have “bad voice” days when we don’t sound as good as we’d like. I’m having one of those days today, in fact, thanks to a rotten cold. But most days, my voice performs pretty well. The same can’t be said for a lot of younger broadcast journalists, apparently. Voice coach Ann Utterback [...]read more »
iPhone reporting goes mainstream
7 Feb 2013 | Media
The iPhone has become an essential part of many if not most journalists’ tool kits, in part because so many free or low-cost apps make it easier to report with an iPhone than other smart phones. We’ve written about some of these apps before, but not lately, and things obviously change fast. So it was a pleasure [...]read more »
iPhone reporting goes mainstream
7 Feb 2013 | Media
The iPhone has become an essential part of many if not most journalists’ tool kits, in part because so many free or low-cost apps make it easier to report with an iPhone than other smart phones. We’ve written about some of these apps before, but not lately, and things obviously change fast. So it was a pleasure [...]read more »
How to put a TV story puzzle together
30 Jan 2013 | Media
Can you be a good TV photojournalist and a lousy storyteller? Absolutely. Fabulous images alone won’t tell a great story. Award-winning videographer Nathan Thompson thinks of each story as a puzzle with five main pieces. If any one of them is missing, he says, the story won’t hang together. Thompson shared his keys to efficient [...]read more »
How to put a TV story puzzle together
30 Jan 2013 | Media
Can you be a good TV photojournalist and a lousy storyteller? Absolutely. Fabulous images alone won’t tell a great story. Award-winning videographer Nathan Thompson thinks of each story as a puzzle with five main pieces. If any one of them is missing, he says, the story won’t hang together. Thompson shared his keys to efficient [...]read more »
A reporter’s reading list
8 Jan 2013 | Media
Do you write more than you read? One way to become a better writer is to read more. Here’s how the Portuguese author Jose Saramago, who won the Nobel Prize for literature, once described his writing routine: “I write two pages. And then I read and read and read.” Writers read to see how others do [...]read more »
Tribune Company Emerges From Chapter 11
1 Jan 2013 | U.S. News
Tribune Company, which includes the L.A. Times among its media assets, announced it has successfully emerged from its Chapter 11 restructuring process. read more »
Top 10 NewsLab posts of 2012
1 Jan 2013 | Media
We’re starting the New Year here at NewsLab by looking back at the year before–just as we did at this time a year ago. In 2012, our readers not only wanted practical tips, they also gravitated toward posts about the state of the news business. Here are our top ten most viewed posts, in case [...]read more »
Storytelling in 4D
19 Dec 2012 | Media
It’s a map. It’s a timeline. It’s photos and video and text and links. But that’s not all you get from the new online tool Meograph. You can also add a voice-over to tell a complete story, with the bells and whistles providing context–the fourth dimension, according to the founders. Other tools, like Vuvox, provide similar [...]read more »
SEC Charges Financial Media Company and Executives With Fraud
18 Dec 2012 | Business
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a digital financial media company and three executives for their roles in an accounting fraud that artificially inflated company revenues and misstated operating income to investors.read more »
Just 28 Percent Of Young People In Spain Read Online Or Conventional Newspapers
10 Dec 2012 | World
A study at the Jaume I University in Castellón has verified the decrease in press consumption among young people between the ages of 16 and 30 years, which now stands at 28.8%. read more »
More TV news outlets target Hispanics
7 Dec 2012 | Media
The TV business runs on numbers. So it’s really no surprise that networks from ABC to Fox are ramping up their efforts to offer news aimed at Hispanic viewers. The real wonder is that it took so long. For years, Latinos were mostly ignored by the biggest names in broadcast TV, viewed as a niche [...]read more »
Hashtag conversations on local TV news
27 Nov 2012 | Media
This isn’t a new idea, but it’s remarkably successful and so, worth revisiting. Local television stations that are smart about using #hashtags on Twitter can build their audience and amplify their coverage. That’s obvious when it comes to big events like Hurricane Sandy. By one count, there were 3.5 million tweets with the hashtag #sandy [...]read more »
Tips for investigative reporting
20 Nov 2012 | Media
Organized chaos. That’s how Lee Zurik of WVUE in New Orleans describes his work days. And no wonder. He anchors two prime time newscasts every night and also serves as the station’s chief investigative reporter. How does he manage to keep producing award-winning work? We asked Zurik to share his strategies for finding and keeping [...]read more »
How to produce live coverage using video chat
14 Nov 2012 | Media
What can you do when the network sucks up all the air time on Election Night? Convinced that cut-ins twice an hour just wouldn’t cut it, anchor Amy Wood expanded her station’s 2012 coverage online using a relatively new video chat tool, Spreecast. The result? “Nine hours of live streaming coverage. No live trucks. No [...]read more »
Top BBC News Executives Step Aside
12 Nov 2012 | World
The BBC's director of news and current affairs, Helen Boaden, and her deputy, Steve Mitchell, have 'stepped aside' while it deals with a Newsnight broadcast about child abuse broadcast which wrongly implicated Thatcher-era Tory Lord McAlpine.read more »
BBC Director General George Entwistle Resigns
10 Nov 2012 | World
The BBC's director general, George Entwistle, has resigned following a news broadcast about child abuse broadcast which wrongly implicated Thatcher-era Tory Lord McAlpine.read more »
Edit backward
23 Oct 2012 | Media
Words have power and the most powerful word in a sentence should come last. I could have written: Words have power and the last word should be the most powerful one in a sentence. But that would have put the emphasis on “sentence” when I wanted to stress “last.” See the difference? Sometimes, this kind [...]read more »
Must-have equipment for video journalists
16 Oct 2012 | Media
Great photojournalists are sticklers about their gear. They check it thoroughly before and after every shoot. They supplement the standard-issue package with specialty items, from dimmers to clothespins to GoPros. They experiment and improvise, always on the hunt for new accessories that will save time or give them an edge on the competition. Jonathan Malat [...]read more »
How social media spreads journalism
7 Oct 2012 | Media
What does social media have to do with journalism? Everything, says Bea Chang, social media manager at KARE-TV in Minneapolis. Facebook is one of the best ways to expand the reach of your stories if you know how to use it. And Twitter has become the new scanner, says KARE news director Jane Helmke, with [...]read more »
Newspaper Publishers Optimistic About the Future, MU Survey Shows
3 Oct 2012 | Entertainment
Publishers of U.S. daily newspapers remain optimistic about the future of their industry despite a declining readership and a poor economy that has forced the newspaper industry to drastically cut staff and expenditures in recent years, according to a new survey.read more »
Tips for VJs on writing fast
1 Oct 2012 | Media
Video journalist Anne Herbst firmly believes in preparation. She does research on stories before leaving the newsroom. She shows up to assignments early so she can meet people and figure out in advance who might be a strong character. And she writes fast–an essential skill when you’re working by yourself and you have to do [...]read more »
Video journalism tips from a pro
24 Sep 2012 | Media
Darren Durlach left television almost two years ago to try something new. He’d won two consecutive NPPA TV Photographer of the Year awards and, unbeknownst to him, was on the verge of winning a third. He’s now senior multimedia producer at the Boston Globe, where he shoots and edits stories both alone and in collaboration [...]read more »
How to make a TV story memorable
17 Sep 2012 | Media
How would you define a memorable TV news story? For reporter Boyd Huppert, it’s a story that connects with viewers, that goes beyond the facts to touch people in some way. To achieve that goal, Huppert looks for a character and a concept that will tie his story together. And when he writes the script, [...]read more »
How to make a TV story memorable
17 Sep 2012 | Media
How would you define a memorable TV news story? For reporter Boyd Huppert, it’s a story that connects with viewers, that goes beyond the facts to touch people in some way. To achieve that goal, Huppert looks for a character and a concept that will tie his story together. And when he writes the script, [...]read more »
Apps for political coverage
27 Aug 2012 | Media
It’s a long way from the “Boys on the Bus.” Political reporters today have more information at their fingertips than a whole newsroom could provide not that long ago. Here are a few you might want to download, if you haven’t already. Ad Hawk, free from the Sunlight Foundation, uses sound recognition technology to quickly [...]read more »
The glamorous life of TV news
9 Aug 2012 | Media
A front row seat to history. The privilege of sharing life’s most amazing moments. And the God-given right to eat behind the wheel. Nobody ever said working in TV news was all glamour, right? If you’ve ever been on a six-hour stake-out with no bathroom in sight, you’ve “enjoyed” one of the unique aspects of a TV [...]read more »
For journalists, almost nothing is just personal
7 Aug 2012 | Media
Here we go again. Two more journalists have learned lessons the hard way. If they thought their personal lives were somehow separate from their professional lives, they’ve had to think again. And while the two cases were vastly different, the outcome was the same. Both journalists lost their jobs. Lesson 1: What you post on [...]read more »
Tracking digital footprints
3 Aug 2012 | Media
It’s an age-old question. How can you be sure the information you’re getting is accurate? That basic task of every journalist has become more difficult in today’s digital world, when data can be so easily manipulated. But as we’ve noted here before, technology also makes it easier to detect manipulation. And one very useful piece [...]read more »
Commitment, characters key to prize-winning photojournalism
27 Jul 2012 | Media
From part-time, overnight camera operator in market 83 to best TV news photographer in the country in just six years: How did Nathan Thompson do it? Natural talent? Not at all, Thompson told NPPA’s News Photographer magazine. Instead, he credits hard work and a deliberate, methodical approach to learning on the job. When he started [...]read more »
Eight Charged With UK Phone Hacking Including Rebekah Brooks
24 Jul 2012 | World
The British Crown Prosecution Service has announced eight people, including former News Corporation high flier Rebekah Brooks, will face a total of 19 charges relating to phone hacking. read more »
