Issues

Feature: Now is the Perfect Time for Reinvention

Stefani Blair

The promise of the New Year can be a powerful motivator. That’s when people are more likely to resolve to lose weight or stop smoking, resolve to spend less money or call their mothers more. The successful seem to be the ones who change their lifestyle and the way they think.

In radio and television newsrooms, resolutions happen all year long. I’m going to do better stories. I will not be afraid of new technology. I will not do things they way they have always been done simply because that’s the way they’ve always been done.

But then there’s a tanker explosion during rush hour or your website inexplicably goes down during midday and suddenly you’re just like the guy who resolved to quit smoking but come July still has a Marlboro in his hand.

Luckily, there are newsrooms where serious change is happening and we can learn from them. These broadcasters took a step back and asked, “What is the newsroom of the 21st century really going to be like?” And they realized they had to change their station’s culture and lifestyle. They took an opportunity to reinvent themselves, and their newsrooms.

The Profile of Today’s Broadcast Journalist
You don’t work for a radio company or a TV company, you work for a media company. And that’s the way it is.

Let’s say there is a groundbreaking ceremony at 9:30 a.m.somewhere in Milwaukee, and WISN-TV needs to cover it. There was a time, not so long ago, that the crew would shoot video of the event, and then that tape would sit on a desk until 5 p.m. because WISN doesn’t have a noontime program.

News director Lori Waldon saw this scenario as an opportunity lost. The website, she thought, can fi ll the news gap between 12 News This Morning and Channel 12 News at 5. “Now, if we shoot something, it goes directly to the web,” Waldon says. “It doesn’t wait for TV.”

Waldon has done more than just change the news cycle, she’s changed the culture at WISN. “There is no doubt our industry has changed,” she says. “We don’t work for a TV company anymore, we work for a media company. We produce content, not TV stories. … At this point, it’s not a question of whether you want to get on board. The train has already left the station.”

By getting everyone in the newsroom involved with the website, she has kept at bay the dreaded “us versus them” mentality. She has trained most people in the newsroom, no matter their traditional roles, to post simple stories on the web. All of the producers, managers and morning directors can post video. She hopes she is on her way to having everyone in the field thinking about reporting for the web, blogging and podcasting while they are out there.

“We win when we get the news up on WISN.com and onto WISN immediately,” she says. Giving staff the chance to learn new skills and take on responsibility beyond their previously established roles is a trend in many forward-thinking newsrooms, whether print or broadcast. Lane Michaelsen spent over two years of his time with Gannett traveling and teaching video skills to reporters and photographers. Through a three-and-a-half day course, they would learn to shoot, produce and edit a real story on a short deadline.

Earlier this fall, Michaelsen moved to WUSA-TV, a Gannett station in Washington, to serve as vice president of the information center, a title that itself suggests the kind of transition newsrooms are making. “Everyone, whether it’s at USA9 or another newsroom near you, is training or wanting to train journalists new skills,” he says. “We want an environment where we have newsrooms full of content gatherers.”

The thought of adapting will make some cringe. For veteran news folks who have watched the industry evolve, there will be some natural resistance, Waldon says. But she suggests there is less fear when you let people know your vision, provide training and reassure them you’re going to give them everything they need to do it well. “We know we have to walk before we can run,” she says. “So it takes patience on the part of management.”

Still, Michaelsen adds, the world is changing and journalists need to change with it—before someone tells them to. “Take initiative,” he says. “What skills do you have? What are you interested in learning?” It’s Waldon’s hope that people will continue to become more comfortable with their new digital skills, and that as that becomes more expected, it will become second nature to journalists—like breathing. “I’m very proud of where we’re headed, and that we’re trying to be innovative,” she says. “Change doesn’t have to be scary. It can be fun.”

The Blueprint for Better Workflow
Improve the layout of your newsroom and you will improve the product being created there.

Be honest: Is your web team tucked in a back corner, far away from the assignment desk? Back when newsrooms realized they needed to have a web presence, but hadn’t yet realized the potential that could mean, they hired web-savvy IT types and then struggled to fi nd room for them in the newsroom.

We now know that these nimble web writers need to be near the action, right next to the assignment desk, says WISN’s Walden. “The worst thing you could do is put them on the other side of the room,” she says. “They need to be hand-in-hand with the folks bringing the news back.”

This is just one example of how your newsroom layout may be affecting your efficiency. “Too often the physical space dictates the workflow,” says Andrea Parquet-Taylor, news director at WXYZ-TV in Detroit. “News managers have to step back from the day to day and look at the bigger picture.”

WXYZ did something many people probably wish they could do: they gutted their newsroom. For about nine months in 2005 and 2006, the staff moved upstairs to a room a fraction of the real newsroom’s size while their space was redesigned.

�“The design of the newsroom wascarefully planned to support our core mission of open communication and teamwork,” she says. “We planned the space for a multiple-platform approach to gathering and distributing content. We wanted everyone to touch both on air and online.”

Among the changes: they eliminated the edit rooms to bring the edit function close to the producers, and they created a team environment for each newscast so that producers, directors and anchors who work on a show together can all sit together. “The feedback has been tremendous,” she says. “We are no longer cut up into tiny cubicles, there is no wall dividing us.”

If you have the chance to design a space from scratch, take the opportunity to get innovative, like WBOC-TV in� Salisbury, MD. The station just completed construction of Newsplex, an 11,000-square-foot facility whose crowning jewel is a rotating anchor desk. Bill Brown, creative director at FX Group, designed Newsplex so that five separate work/studio shooting areas serve as backgrounds behind the rotating platform—the news area, weather area, control room, edit suites and performance area. There are eight different positions from which to shoot.

What truly makes the rotating anchor desk unique, says WBOC news director John Dearing, is the lighting instruments, which are mounted on a truss rig that is part of the anchor platform. “If you used all eight positions, you’d need eight lighting setups. Instead you need only one lighting position,” he says.

Brown drafted the design on the back of a napkin during a social event, where he then presented it to Dearing, who approved it immediately.

“The studio design offers unmatched flexibility for shooting—virtually everything is an attractive news background,” Dearing says. “Not only that, the WBOC Newsplex is designed specifically for workflow efficiency for TV and the web.”

The key to WBOC’s plan is the relationship between its four essential newsgathering and production areas, Brown says:
—At the heart of the newsroom is a spacious assignment desk with a permanent EP position and a catbird’s seat for Dearing during breaking news.

—The assignment desk is fl anked by two producer “pods” providing permanent homes for eight producers, who are all within earshot of the assignment desk and conversational distance from producers of adjacent newscasts. Plus they see the same incoming video signals the assignment editor sees, including pictures from WBOC’s chopper and local radar.

—Directly behind the assignment desk is WBOC’s online area, featuring face-to-face seating for two webmasters, who are within earshot of assignment editors, scanners, and the EP, so that breaking news is uploaded instantly to WBOC.com. The online desk features a small HD camera unit. Webmasters use it to record reporter updates and promos without engaging control room or MCO personnel.

—Situated immediately behind the online desk is WBOC’s main reporter bullpen. All reporters are within steps of the online area, the video archives with a dedicated edit station, and a VO tracking booth. Maybe you can’t gut your newsroom, and maybe you don’t plan to move into new space this year. Still, you can take advantage of a slow time, like the holidays, to move people around and break down (literal and figurative) walls.

Notes for Better Storytelling
You can’t ignore some of the perennial stories your audience craves, but you can cover them better.

Research has shown time and again that the typical news consumer will always be interested in
news about the weather, crime and the economy. If it feels like you are covering the same story
over and over again, it may be time to re-think your approach. Get back to the basics of reporting:
do you have all the facts and have you represented them fairly? What voices are helping tell the story?

Are there trends you can bring to people’s attention? Did you follow up? Here are more ideas.

Better Coverage of the Financial Crisis
By Lynn Jimenez

Covering our latest financial crisis has been much like covering a tsunami from the top of the last tree standing: You can see the big picture around you, and the details washing by you, and you can taste the fear that the waters will sweep you away along with everything else.

The near collapse of the nation’s banking and credit systems and a historic slide in stock prices has proven to be a fast-paced, emotional story of universal interest. Its impact is both global and personal. This is where experience and preparation count.

Build a Foundation Before a Crisis

If you are a beat reporter covering a specific area of interest, you have the responsibility and privilege of building a stable of qualifi ed experts to call on. You also have the responsibility to educate yourself about the basics of the economy and the fi nancial system.

Build on the Foundation During a Crisis
—You have the duty to put the unfolding events into context.

—Use your experts judiciously for live interviews. This gives you the chance to think like your listeners and ask the questions they would ask, if they could.

—Tell stories in ways your audience will understand. For example, find a local family or fi rm to demonstrate how the credit crunch affects them. Though I could not leave my mic to go on site, I was on the phone with the manager of a local floor installation company even as his co-workers were being laid off. The events at that firm helped me demonstrate how a credit crunch could make it impossible for a company to meet payroll as it waits for its customers
to pay their bills.

—Sometimes making a story relevant requires something as simple as explaining a term in a way that also shows how it affects your audience. KGO’s audience now knows that the London Interbank Offered rate is a key international interest rate for short-term, bank-to-bank loans, and that it sets borrowing costs for credit cards, student loans and some adjust-able mortgages. I tell them that every morning as we check to see whether the credit market is thawing.

—Explain why public works will go unfinished if governments can’t convince lenders to take an IOU, or why the erosion of 401k investments are likely to force millions of people to work years longer than planned before they retire.

—Be available to lend your experience and knowledge to other day parts and other programs on your station. Often when I finish the Morning News, I join Ronn Owens’ top-rated talk show, do news updates, and then later that evening, I join Gene Burns on his program.

Build a Team

If you’re fortunate enough to work in a radio station with a news staff of more than one or two people, share the wealth. This is an enormous story. Though it may cry out for a specialist’s coverage, as noted earlier, it is universal. That means your producers or fellow reporters will have something to add.Help them.

—Another reason to make sure your co-workers understand the story is that many stations rely on syndicated programming for financial coverage. Those services rarely cover more than the surface, and often serve the agenda of their news organizations, not your listeners.

—The size of the current financial meltdown is such that it will affect national, state and local government, as
well as education, transportation, the job market, housing and the financial security of millions of people. Watch for the rising water in all these areas.

—If your format allows, find experts without conflicts of interest to help your listeners understand their financial choices during the crisis. It is not easy to keep your balance as the big wave sets your lonely little tree swaying. But you must stay balanced. The challenge of a story like this is to master the details without getting lost in them; to master them in a way that helps you bring your audience the big picture, the scope of the tsunami.

And if you meet that challenge, your audience may be able to fi nd it’s own path through the debris to relatively safe financial ground.—Lynn Jimenez keeps listeners up to date on “Your Money” weekdays on KGO-AM in San Francisco. Jimenez is also author of “?Se Habla Dinero? The Everyday Guide to Financial Success,” a family financial
guide in English and Spanish, available on Amazon.com.

Smarter Crime Coverage
By Al Tompkins

For nearly 20 years, local television news has turned to crime as a centerpiece of their coverage. Various studies of local TV content in Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Orlando from 1994 to today show that evening newscasts dedicate 22 to 50 percent of their news hole to crime stories. Despite frequent complaints from viewers and pundits about excessive crime coverage, a 2003 survey by RTNDA asked frequent TV viewers what topic was most important on the local news, and 62 percent said crime (72 percent said weather). So if crime coverage is important, how can we do it better? How can we inform viewers without needlessly scaring them? Here are my suggestions:

Keep it in context. How often does this crime occur? Where does it occur most often? Cover trends as much or more as you cover events. Don’t just focus on the crime, but on the causes of the crime. A number of content studies show that the most violent crimes get the most news attention. But those crimes are really quite rare compared to burglaries, break-ins and white-collar crimes. Remember, the Bureau for Justice Statistics says murder accounts for
less than one-half of one percent of the crimes in cities. It is even less for smaller rural towns.

Of course the more famous (or infamous) the victim, the more likely the crime is to be covered. Content studies also show that crimes that involve females, and young or elderly victims receive more attention. All of that attention skews the publics’ understanding ofwho is most likely to be a victim and where, as well as how and why crimes occur.

Be thoughtful about where you play crime stories in your newscasts. Studies by the Projects for Excellence in Journalism found that crime studies usually air at or near the top of the newscast and usually include video. The placement and treatment of crime stories could falsely reinforce the threat that crime poses.

Do the pictures/sounds/copy reflect the truth and context? Who are you showing and why? Avoid stereotypes in your video. Be careful not to use images that make the story more sensational than it was in real life. Flashing lights and blaring sirens are just as bright and loud on false alarms as they are on disasters. Don’t mislead the public. Avoid hyperbolic language, graphics and narration that pump air into stories that have no real substance.

Avoid file tape. Replaying inflammatory video of any crime scene rarely adds information, only emotion. It is especially important to be sensitive to crimescene video that might show people in a moment of anguish or vulnerability. The repeated use of video of a person in handcuffs can harm that person’s ability to get a fair trial. The repeated use of file video involving minorities re-enforces stereotypes.

Avoid “code words.” Use precise language when describing the location of a crime. Avoid words such as “inner city,” when you really mean “1216 East Elm Street.” The White House is technically in “inner city” Washington.

Carefully use production techniques. Slow motion video makes people look more guilty. Dramatic lighting, framing and backgrounds all carry editorial implications and convey a mood or tone. Quick edits may add energy to a story but may send inappropriate signals about the real urgency of the story.

Know what to ask for. Go to the police department and the court clerk’s offices and get blank copies of all of the forms they keep on file. That way you will know what to ask for. What kind of data do police keep on every incident?

Be fair. Do you cover crime with equal interest in all areas of your community or does it seem that you cover crime in lower income neighborhoods while ignoring crime in other areas?

Go beyond the “what” to the “so what.” When police claim that murders have declined, ask if armed assaults have increased. Maybe a new trauma center opened across town and more people are surviving their assaults. Maybe the police department changed the way it “codes” or reports crimes to improve their statistics, as they did in Atlanta just before the city was selected as site of the Olympics.

Ask better questions to enterprise the story beyond the crime event. Is there specific action the audience could take such as calling police if they have seen someone the police are searching for? Does the story lend itself to a crime-fighting or prevention effort? What could you learn about police staffing patterns? KTRK-TV in Houston used GPS data from police cars to determine that cops were out in the biggest force during the middle of the afternoon, while they had the fewest number of cops on the street at 2 a.m., just as bars were closing and crime in that city was at it’s daily peak.

Follow up. Journalists aggressively cover arrests but are not nearly as aggressive in following up the outcome of the case. Cover acquittals and dropped charges with the same prominence as you do the arrests. When police release composite sketches of people they suspect committed a crime, follow up to see if the person they arrest fits the sketch. Track how courts treat cases that you cover at the time of arrest. Follow up with crime victims to see how the system treats the victim as well as the criminal.—Al Tompkins is the broadcast/online group leader for The Poynter Institute.

Reinventing the Radio Reporter for the Digital Age
By Scott Wykoff

When I first got into radio, the joke used to be, “What do you do the other 55 minutes each hour?” As anyone in today’s radio newsroom knows, simply focusing on preparing scripts and pieces for a top-of-the-hour newscast is no longer an option.

We are now multimedia journalists and content producers for many platforms. Whether we’re in the field or in the newsroom,radio reporters and anchors have to produce for every digital platform quickly and efficiently. And oh yes, we still put it on the air, too.

Not only am I responsible for providing highly produced stories that can run in newscasts, but it’s also my responsibility to produce audio, video, copy and photos for the station’s website. Each story truly becomes my own. There are no layers of staff needed to get information from me to where it needs to go. I have become the one-man band and do it all on my own.

While my objectives as a radio reporter have evolved, so to have the “digital-age tools” I use to get the job done. No longer is my reporter’s bag filled with a bulky tape recorder and cassette tapes. I go into the field each day with an assortment of off-the-shelf, consumer-grade products.

Palm-size recorders with an SD fl ash card allow me to quickly turnaround audio and download material that can be used right away on the radio and posted instantly to our website, WBAL.com. I carry a digital camera to take still photos and shoot short videos for the web. These cameras cost less than $200. A light-weight, hand-held flip cam allows me to shoot video that becomes “video on demand” online. Those cameras cost about $100, with HD flip cams costing a little more. With my laptop and wireless card, I now carry a production studio with me to wherever news happens, allowing me to mix multi-tracked audio for a highly produced piece that before could only be done in a backroom studio at the station.

Everything I use to broadcast on the radio and across all digital platforms fits into a pair of easy to carry bags. Compactness and portability are important. On the final night of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, I walked about four miles following protesters, with my two bags in hand. They are my professional “life support” and they moved with me all across the streets of St. Paul.

With my laptop and wireless card, at a moment’s notice, I can produce stories and web content from virtually anywhere. With user-friendly, template driven software that requires no code, every reporter at WBAL is responsible for producing multimedia stories for the air and for the web, from start to finish. Interchangeable technology is making it more efficient for reporters to produce content for multiple platforms. I can use the same SD card in both by palm-sized audio recorder, my lightweight digital camera, and even in some flip cams and video cameras.

With an off-the-shelf software program, I can edit pictures from anywhere in the field—quickly cropping, sizing and sharpening photos in a few easy, simple steps. And then, with a few clicks of the mouse, they are uploaded to our
website.

In 30 degree weather on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay, I was able to produce two stories an hour, rich with natural sound, while at the same time constantly updating copy, photos and video on WBAL.com. Using my laptop, flash recorder, digital camera and flip cam, I sat on a picnic table a few feet from where thousands of people were plunging into the frigid water to raise money for the Maryland Special Olympics.

Wherever I am, I can send out a breaking news alert to the email and cell phones of thousands of WBAL listeners. They’re busy and mobile, but with our technology,they are always connected to WBAL, on air, and online. I even get to write my own blog on WBAL.com. It’s a mix of hard news and feature news. It’s a peek behind the curtain. It gives me yet another avenue to share all the things I love about my profession.

I think back to all the times I worked so hard on a story, only to have it air once or twice. Now, with the Internet, there is a permanence to my product. I have a global audience.

I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten the first time someone recognized my voice and said, “Hey, aren’t you the guy who does the news?” That was a kick. But it doesn’t come close to the kick I get doing my job now. And no one asks me anymore, what I’m doing with “the other 55 minutes in the hour.” Reinvention has reinvigorated me.—Scott Wykoff is a reporter with WBAL Radio in Baltimore.