Category Archives: Journalism

Newsroom New Year’s resolutions for 2007

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A few nuggets from Lost Remote Managing Editor Steve Safran’s Newsroom New Year’s resolutions for 2007:

Start thinking of the web as more than our newscast online
Your website is a new channel, not just a new way of repurposing your news. If you were magically given a new TV channel, you wouldn’t populate it with your newscast over and over, would you? So why are you doing that online? … Think of the website as a new channel instead of a news site.

Integrate blogging into our newsroom
I know, change is painful. It’s additional work, yes. Not a ton, but some. Get over it. Workflows change.

Prepare my site for the 2008 elections
Now’s your chance. There will be a lot of money going into online advertising for the election. And you can get it. But only if you can make a compelling case that your site deserves it.

Never allow the words “added value” in my shop again
As long as you are training your advertisers that the web is added value, you are telling them it is NO value.

Existing newsies need to know the painful truth: we have to work on more platforms as part of our jobs now. If we don’t want to, that’s fine. Younger people who will work for less will be graduating this June. And next June. And the following June…

I started flogging this mule almost ten years ago. And I couldn’t fill a teacup with the progress I’ve made. But then, June is just around the corner.

Weblogs vs. the New York Times

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Which will be more authoritative in 2007, weblogs or the New York Times? The question (“The Long Bet”) was posed back in 2002 as part of something called The Long Now Foundation. Dave Winer’s explains:

“My bet with Martin Nisenholtz at the Times says that the tide has turned, and in five years, the publishing world will have changed so thoroughly that informed people will look to amateurs they trust for the information they want.”

Not sure who will win the wager but there’s little question the publishing world has changed and blog are having some impact.

Yahoo and Reuters want your pix and video

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This morning one of our networks posted a story about how last weeks snow and ice storm has caused millions of dollars in damage to docks, marinas, and boats at the Lake of the Ozarks. A short time later, someone forwarded a link to a web page featuring photos of the damage. I called the guy that put the page up and got his permission to use one of the images (and linked our story to his page).

I only mention this because, starting tomorrow, users will be able to upload photos and videos to a section of Yahoo called You Witness News. All of the submissions will appear on Flickr or a similar site for video. Editors at both Reuters and Yahoo will review the submissions and select some to place on pages with relevant news articles, just as professional photographs and video clips are woven into their news sites today.

According to the story at NYTimes.com, users will not be paid for images displayed on the Yahoo and Reuters sites. But people whose photos or videos are selected for distribution to Reuters clients will receive a payment.

The piece goes on to say that Yahoo plans to use the images on its sports and entertainment sites. Over time, it wants to expand to local news and high school sports. And it will consider allowing users to contribute articles as well as images.

Now, before you tell me that the public won’t be smart enough or take the time to upload a photo or video… let me just say: YouTube.

Who might use the Yahoo/Reuters service? Well, we struggle to come up with photos for the stories our networks cover. We’re radio guys and we’re still figuring out how to get good images for our stories. And we haven’t touched video. If the Yahoo/Reuters service was easy and affordable, yeah… I’d be interested.

And here’s a question for radio station webmasters: If some of your listeners have great photos and video of last night’s local high school football game… and they’re willing (eager!) to share them with you… do you have the wherewithal to add them to your website? Or, better question… do YOU have anything about the big game on your site? Mark my words… someone will make a place for that very local content.

Blogging’s impact in the newsroom

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Steve Rubel points to an article in The American Journalism Review about how bloggers are changing journalism in the US. This should be required reading for any working journalist. The AJR piece concludes with some blogging tips from Dallas Morning News Editorial Page Editor Keven Ann Willey, who led her staff in launching the nation’s first editorial page blog. Here are her excellent suggestions:

1. Be brief and informal. Breezy, conversational tone is good. Two hundred words is too long. Go for the quick hit, light touch, witty aside. Attitude required.

2. Don’t be too proud to blog.

3. Respond to previous blog postings. This is about conversation, after all. It’s the back and forth that makes a blog engaging.

4. Vary your topics. Don’t be a wonk.

5. Don’t write anything you wouldn’t want your mother to read in the paper.

6. Use hyperlinks.

7. Incorporate interesting, provocative reader e-mail. The best blogs are two-way streets.

8. Be quick to correct yourself.

9. Don’t feel obligated to answer all blog-generated e-mail.

10. Don’t over edit; but designate a blog boss.

Do we really have a scoop?

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E-Mediat Tidbits: “It’s a perennial newsroom quandary: When a reporter has a hot story, should you break it online immediately or hold it for the press or airtime deadline?”

The anecdote related by an editor for the Nashua Telegraph suggests don’t hold the story:

“It is not TV or radio or other papers that are going to beat you — it is your readers. There are more of them, they know more than you, and they don’t have deadlines.”

I know that many of the people working in our newsrooms still can’t quite believe this could be true. And I can’t believe they can’t believe it (Can you belive it?). All those bloggers… all of those video-capable cell phones…

For the longest time there was this, “if-a-tree-falls-in-the-forrest” mindset. If the bank was robbed at 3:00 p.m. but none of the news media had reported it… it was like it hadn’t happened. It wasn’t real until we told you about.

From now on, when the tree falls…somebody blogged it.

The future of local news?

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I stumbled across this on one of the Wired blogs (Epicenter). Have you heard of Topix? It’s a news aggregator that uses a geolocating algorithm they’ve developed to get all the news relevant to any zip code or city from all of its 50,000 news sources. Punch in the coordinates for Jefferson City and you get all the stories out of all the local papers, without repeats, in one place.

You can also use Topix to search 5,500 public company and industry verticals, 48,000 celebrities and musicians, 1,500 sports teams and personalities. You used to have to pay big money to do a Lexis-Nexis search to get info like this or pay a clipping service like Burrelles. Now anyone can do it for free.

According to Epicenter (a Wired blog), Topix is backed by Tribune, Gannett and McClatchy. This is one of those things that’s hard to describe but kind of cool in practice. Check it out.

Clear Channel does deal with Reuters for web content

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Clear Channel Radio’s online division has announced that it will add news and video content from Reuters to its News on Demand service on CC Web sites.

“Clear Channel Radio’s News on Demand product combines on-demand video and text feeds from Reuters with CCR’s 24/7 coverage of breaking news, business/financial stories, entertainment news and human-interest features. The product also allows CCR stations to upload their own local news to their sites, giving both local and national news coverage from station sites on demand.”

I’d love to see exactly what “on demand” means but I can’t argue with the strategy. I hope more of our affiliates will get their online act together and inlcude our our state news and sports content on their sites. And I wonder where AP was/is in this mix. Too pricey perhaps? I’d love to hear more about this. SteveMays at Gmail dot com [Radio and Records]

Thirty years of election coverage

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The first election covered by The Missourinet (a network owned by the company I work for) was in 1976. News Director Bob Priddy orchestrated that first election night and every one since. Prior to The Missourinet, radio stations throughout the state focused on local races and relied on the wire services for news and numbers from throughout the state.

The Missourinet brought the sounds of election night from the state capitol and campaign headquarters throughout Missouri to the hometown audiences of our affiliates.

The technology has changed… and is changing… but insight and understanding Missourinet reporters bring to their election night coverage remains the focus of their reporting. Bob reflects on the past 30 years in this 10 minute video.

Gannett “Information Centers”

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The Des Moines Register is not a newspaper anymore, it’s an “information center.” Excerpts from a Gannett memo:

“What is it? The Information Center is a way to gather and disseminate news and information across all platforms, 24/7. The Information Center will let us gather the very local news and information that customers want, then distribute it when, where and how our customers seek it.

“The Information Center, frankly, is the newsroom of the future. It will fulfill today’s needs for a more flexible, broader-based approach to the information gathering process. And it will be platform agnostic: News and information will be delivered to the right media — be it newspapers, online, mobile, video or ones not yet invented — at the right time. Our customers will decide which they prefer.”

This caught my attention because one of our networks (Radio Iowa) is headquartered in Des Moines and I’ve had some dealings (nothing recent) over the years with the paper. The Register is a big deal in Iowa.

If I learn anything about how this new concept is playing in the newsroom… er, the “information center,” I’ll let you know.

Anyone have thoughts on what the radio “newsroom of the future” should look like? [E-Media Tidbits]

ABC World News Webcast

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ABC News VideoWorking late tonight. Had my dinner at my desk while watching ABC’s World News Webcast. Ran almost 17 min with no commercials except for a little spot at the beginning and end. Perfect. It had a more relaxed feel but that might have been my imagination. The quality of the video was exceptional and the 320 pixel video is fine when you’re 18 inches away. I paused a couple of times while I tended to other business. If you think you’re pretty fast on the Blackberry, watch this piece from the webcast.

Our networks are streaming our newscasts but –as Mark Ramsey warns– simply repurposing your existing programming won’t be enough. Not by a long shot.