By Stan Heist When I was a news photographer I carried a lot of gear in the back of my car. Perhaps the most important thing – and most seldom used – was a small blue duffel bag that I called my “go-kit.” Inside the go-kit were the essentials for an unplanned overnight stay, just [...]
A fascinating piece by Scott Jensen in the latest NPPA News Photographer magazine traces the path each of the 2011 stations of the year followed to get where they are today. What struck me was what Seattle’s KING-TV, KCCI in Des Moines, and WAVY in Portsmouth, Va., have in common. They share a similar newsroom [...]
by Joe Enea All stations have about the same equipment and physical resources. What makes one station different from the rest? The people working there. Chemistry among the team is important in this business. Dealing with people under pressure with major time constraints is sometimes difficult. It’s amazing how different people can become once the [...]
Television news has always been a team sport. Almost nothing gets on the air that hasn’t been touched by several sets of hands. Reporters, photographers, video editors, producers and managers all influence the content. But in many TV newsrooms, there’s rarely much discussion about how to improve the content. As my former CBS colleague Wally [...]
Awkward. Inspiring. Hilarious. That’s how it looked from my seat at last night’s RTDNF dinner honoring some of the biggest names in broadcast news. Awkward? That would be ABC News president David Westin speed-reading his way through remarks accepting the First Amendment leadership award just a week after announcing plans for drastic staff cuts. When [...]
Phone calls, email, social media: Journalists today are more accessible than ever. Soliciting comments, video and photos on the Web opens up the newsroom for input from the community; so does crowdsourcing on Twitter or Facebook. But how much interaction with readers, viewers and listeners takes place face to face? California Watch, an investigative start-up [...]
The earthquake in Haiti was devastating for the country and a challenge for journalists trying to cover it. Now, a month after the quake, it seems like a good time to share some lessons learned there and in other crises that could apply when disaster strikes closer to home. Amy Webb at IJNet says many [...]
How can a station do more with less and still produce award-winning work? KUSA-TV in Denver was named NPPA station of the year in 2009–the 11th time it’s won the top prize for TV photojournalism. But that’s one of the few things that hasn’t changed in the KUSA newsroom lately. In fact, KUSA no longer [...]
Want to improve your newscasts? Improve your planning meetings. Meeting time may be the only time during the day when a critical mass of news staffers are off the phone and paying attention to the overall content of upcoming newscasts and the Web–not just their own piece of the puzzle. If you can make your [...]
By Michael Castengera, University of Georgia Increase efficiency. Improve morale. Reduce turnover. Raise the ratings. How, you ask? One word – communication. Yes, I know that sounds like a trite answer, but a professor at the University of Miami has done a survey that ‘proves’ just that. Terry Adams at the University’s School of Communication [...]
by Margie Ruttenberg I remember that big, bright, noisy newsroom. I was 18 years old. I was an television news intern, and I must admit, I was a bit intimidated. But soon, everything that seemed scary started to make sense. Grateful for that experience, I jumped at the chance to manage the intern program at [...]
What’s in a name? A lot, says RTNDA chairman Stacey Woelfel, which is why the organization will soon become RTDNA. “It’s not a typo,” Woelfel says. “It’s a big change for the association.” The Radio-Television News Directors Association, founded in 1946, is becoming the Radio Television Digital News Association. For years now, the organization has [...]
Boomer bosses, take note. It may be time to change the way you look at your younger employees. So says Mary Rogus, a veteran TV news producer who now teaches at Ohio University. Yes, the Gen Y-Millennials are different from their older colleagues. They care much more about having a personal life so they’re sometimes [...]
The ongoing debate over health care reform is a tough story for local television news to cover well. Angry protesters and emotional testimony at town hall meetings make for good video but add little to public understanding of the issues. Recognizing that, stations across the country are reforming their coverage of health reform. WFOR-TV in [...]
It’s hard to sustain a beat system in a short-staffed newsroom and even harder to build one from scratch. While many TV stations still have a medical reporter or a consumer reporter, it’s rare to find a station these days where most reporters are not considered general assignment. But as one news director put it, [...]
Some news stories have lasting psychological effects on journalists. Just ask anyone who covered the 9/11 attacks or the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But traumatic effects like stress disorders aren’t confined to major national disasters, as the staff of WGAL-TV learned in October 2006 when a gunman killed five little girls and injured five at [...]
“When the media goes to trial, you’re more likely to lose than to win.” That caution from attorney John Ronayne III should get everyone’s attention in newsrooms around the country. Ronayne warned that landing in court can be hideously expensive. “The average cost just to get a libel case ready to try was $100,000 ten years ago. That can put a huge dent in any newsroom’s budget.”
Ask a roomful of journalists if they get enough feedback on their work and you’ll rarely see any hands go up. Managers typically say they want to offer more but there’s never enough time. And in a short-staffed, overworked newsroom, pulling people together for a group critique session is almost impossible. So WGAL-TV news director [...]
Despite the importance of the Web to all news organizations, many of them still treat their online teams like poor relations: Stick them in a corner and feed them scraps. But senior web producer Rich Murphy at WTTG-TV in Washington has worked hard to change the way his newsroom deals with the Web. Step one: [...]
By Holly Edgell, Executive Producer, KOMU-TV and Assistant Professor, The Missouri School of Journalism While producers don’t have the official title of manager, they must develop leadership strategies to manage resources and empower their peers to do their best work. I have found that the best way to develop a great working environment — and [...]