tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49414283547485736882023-11-16T02:55:27.930-08:00All About JournalismTony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-65824931570909249422021-04-23T07:58:00.004-07:002021-05-19T22:22:57.989-07:00Here’s the Newswriting Format in a Nutshell<p></p>If you are taking your first journalism class, you’ve probably
discovered that newswriting is very different from other kinds of
writing. But don’t be intimidated. The newswriting format is very
straightforward and you should be able to master it without too much
difficulty.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br />
<a name="more"></a><br />
Newswriting is based on the idea that readers have limited time and
attention spans, which means you want to put the most important
information in your story at the very top, or beginning, of the story.
Then, as you go from the beginning to the end of your story, the
information presented should be of gradually lesser importance.<p></p>
<p>This is known as the <b>inverted pyramid format</b>, because the heaviest, most important information is at the top while the lightest, least important stuff is at the bottom.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivXSQpg7uAnQp2e3yQ4LrEkwLqGYNDCJpMl9gWJHW8DSs2yu2wvGIfG_sqVwsomQRRSzPOvNCeUV-Mgg69FU6swU5HbYdBLrflJ57y4oXAPdyZ02vTFkC4dqUGWU0RLxjESFXLieCqOedj/s420/pyramid-420x372.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivXSQpg7uAnQp2e3yQ4LrEkwLqGYNDCJpMl9gWJHW8DSs2yu2wvGIfG_sqVwsomQRRSzPOvNCeUV-Mgg69FU6swU5HbYdBLrflJ57y4oXAPdyZ02vTFkC4dqUGWU0RLxjESFXLieCqOedj/s320/pyramid-420x372.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p>Writing this way makes it possible for readers to get the most
important information without necessarily having to read the entire
story. This also allows editors, who sometimes have to shorten stories
to fit a page, to cut stories from the bottom, knowing that the
information there shouldn’t be too critical.</p>
<p>The first sentence of a news story is called the lead (also spelled
lede) and it’s the most important part of the entire article. The lead
is where you sum up the main points of the story while saving extraneous
details for later. The lead should generally be a single sentence of no
more than 35 to 40 words long.</p>
<p>To figure out what should go into the lead, journalists use the fivr
Ws and the H: who, what, where, when, why and how. In other words:</p>
<p>Who is the story about?<br />
What is the story about?<br />
Where did the event being about occur?<br />
When did it occur?<br />
Why and how did it occur?</p>
<p>When writing a lead, you can use the 5W’s and the H as a kind of
checklist to make sure you are including what you should. As you get
more writing experience, this process will become automatic and you
won’t have to think of the 5W’s and the H nearly as much.</p>
<p>Here’s an example of a pretty standard lead:</p>
<p><i>Two people were killed last night when a fire gutted a three-story apartment complex on Main Street.</i></p>
<p>This lead gives us the most important points of the story – the fact
that there was a fire that killed two people and destroyed an apartment
building on Main Street.</p>
<p>But you’ll notice that more specific details – the exact time the
fire occurred, the address of the apartment building, the names of the
victims – have been left out. Obviously you will include that
information in your story, but you don’t want to clutter up your lead
with those kinds of details. Remember, the lead should just include the
most important points, the broad brush strokes of the story.</p>
<p>I’ve already said that the lead of your news story should generally
be one relatively short sentence. The other thing to remember is that
the rest the paragraphs in your article should be fairly short as well,
generally just one to two sentences each. News stories with short
paragraphs look less intimidating to the reader, and this structure
makes it easier for editors to cut overly long stories on a tight
deadline.</p>
<p>One other thing to keep in mind about newswriting: it should
generally be short, sweet and to the point. As I said earlier, readers
have limited time and attention. They need to get their daily news fix
as quickly and efficiently as possible. So make your stories substantive
but convey information in them quickly and efficiently.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-69455549333369809032021-04-23T07:55:00.006-07:002021-05-19T22:22:50.216-07:00Important Tips to Keep in Mind When Shooting Digital Video<p></p>More and more reporters are being asked to produce digital online
videos. And while video editing programs, such as Adobe Premiere Pro and
Apple’s Final Cut, can seem intimidating, shooting digital video can,
for the beginner, seem deceptively easy. After all, what more is there
to do than point your camera or smart phone at what you want to shoot
and press the record button?<p></p>
<p>In fact, there are plenty of pitfalls that can occur when shooting a
video, so here are some pointers for the novice to keep in mind.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p><b>Keep the camera steady:</b> I can’t tell you how many
times I’ve seen videos ruined by shaky, handheld camera work. There is
nothing more irritating – and even nauseating – than watching a video
that looks like it’s been shot by a drunk standing on the deck of a ship
in heavy seas. So always keep your camera as steady as possible, and
use a tripod if you can get your hands on one.</p>
<p><b>Avoid pans:</b> This is related to the tip above. For
some reason, newbie camera people often want to do panning shots, where
the camera moves from left to right or up and down across a landscape.
But these are difficult to do even with a tripod, and virtually
impossible to pull off well without one. Instead of pans, just do lots
of static shots of whatever you are filming. Trust me, it will look
better than a pan.</p>
<p><b>Shoot plenty of B-roll:</b> B-roll is the background
footage you see in news videos. For instance, if you’re shooting a video
about a house fire, obviously you want plenty of shots of the house
itself. But you should also get shots of firefighters, of local
residents watching the blaze, and so on. B-roll is important because it
is used in combination with voiceover narration, which is common in news
videos. B-roll can also be overlapped with an interview, and is much
more interesting visually than looking at a person talking. So always,
always get lots of B-roll, even if it’s far more than you think you will
need.</p>
<p><b>Don’t forget about good audio:</b> So you’ve got a
tripod and are keeping your camera work steady and smooth? That’s great,
but the quality of your audio is every bit as important as the video. I
can’t tell you how many student-produced videos I’ve seen that were
ruined because of poor audio quality. This usually happens because the
camera person doesn’t have a good quality microphone and makes the
mistake of filming an interview in a noisy environment, such as a
crowded college cafeteria or anywhere outdoors on a windy day. So if you
can, invest in a good microphone that can be clipped to the shirt or
blouse of the person being interviewed. If that’s not possible, make
sure you do your interviews in a quiet spot somewhere so that the
ambient noise won’t drown out what your interviewee is saying.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-54771414325890350902021-04-23T07:54:00.003-07:002021-05-19T22:22:42.416-07:00What’s the Difference Between Journalism and Public Relations?<p></p>What’s the difference between journalism and public relations, a reader asks.<p></p>
<p>Good question.</p>
<p>Broadly speaking, journalism is about finding the truth. Public
relations, on the other hand, is about presenting a person, company,
agency or institution in the best light possible.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>For instance, let’s say your college decides to raise the cost of
tuition. The college’s PR department will no doubt issue a press release
that will probably talk about the increase being modest but necessary,
and how, even with the hike, the school remains affordable.</p>
<p>All of that may be perfectly true, but chances are the college’s
press release won’t include any quotes from – you guessed it – the
students. Not surprisingly, the students who will have to pay for the
increased cost of tuition won’t be happy. And they are likely to say
things like – you guessed it again – “this sucks.”</p>
<p>Now let’s imagine that you’re a reporter for the student newspaper at
this college and you’ve been assigned to write an article about the
tuition increase. You may use the press release as a starting point for
basic information, and talk to college officials who are knowledgeable
about why tuition costs what it does.</p>
<p>But the other thing you’ll do – which the college’s PR department
won’t do – is interview plenty of students. After all, they are the ones
who will be the most affected by this issue.</p>
<p>That’s the difference. Journalists seek to discover and convey the
truth, good, bad or otherwise. And as the saying goes, the truth hurts,
or at the very least is often unpleasant. But journalists don’t worry
about that because they aren’t trying to put a positive spin on the
news. That’s not their job.</p>
<p>But portraying things positively is the job of public relations, and
as I’m sure you’ve figured out, there is an inherent conflict between
conveying the truth and trying to make things look good.</p>
<p>That’s why journalists and public relations people – reporters call
them flacks – often come into conflict. Journalists want to dig down and
find out what’s really going on in the world, while PR people often
want to sanitize the news, to the point where the language they use
tries to whitewash what is really going on.</p>
<p>Here’s a classic example: In 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke
apart shortly after takeoff, killing all seven crew members. It was a
horrific disaster, broadcast live on television nationwide.</p>
<p>Yet NASA, in a bizarre attempt to somehow portray those events in the
best light possible, described the Challenger tragedy as an “anomaly.”
The remains of the dead astronauts were referred to as “recovered
components.” And their body parts were placed in what the space agency
called “crew transfer containers.”</p>
<p>The lesson for journalists is clear. While reporters often have to
work with PR people in order to dig up news stories, they must be
careful not to fall into a public relations mindset that attempts to
shield the public from harsh realities.</p>
<p>And when writing their stories, journalists should use language that
precisely describes what has happened, and avoid using euphemisms or
jargon that distorts reality.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-49065902267287686412021-04-23T07:52:00.003-07:002021-05-19T22:22:35.270-07:00Here’s an Associated Press Style Cheat Sheet<p align="center" style="text-align: left;"></p>Associated Press style is
the standard format used by the vast majority of print and online news
outlets in the U.S. No one expects you to memorize the AP Stylebook, but
you should start checking it when you you write your stories. Over
time, you’ll start to memorize the most commonly used AP style points.<span><a name='more'></a></span><p></p>
<p>Here is a cheat sheet that covers some of those points.</p>
<p align="center" style="text-align: left;">Numbers one to nine are generally spelled out<br />
10 and above are generally numerals<br />
but there are exceptions…</p>
<p align="center" style="text-align: left;">Units of measurement and dimensions are always written as numerals: That board is 32 inches long.</p>
<p>Percentages are always numerals: Inflation rose 5 percent.</p>
<p>Numbered street addresses are numerals: She lives at 123 Main St.</p>
<p>(avenue and boulevard are also abbreviated with a numbered address)</p>
<p>But: She lives on Main Street.</p>
<p>Dates are numerals: Halloween is on Oct. 31.</p>
<p>But: Halloween is in October.</p>
<p>March-July are always spelled out</p>
<p>August through February are abbreviated with a date</p>
<p>Job titles are capitalized when they come before a name: President Jay Adams</p>
<p>But: Jay Adams, the president of Student Council</p>
<p>Amounts of money are always expressed as numerals:</p>
<p>$1<br />
$10<br />
$100<br />
$1,000<br />
$1 million<br />
$1.5 million</p>
<p align="center" style="text-align: left;">“Movie Titles”<br />
Punctuation goes inside quotes</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-11745363211408596462021-04-23T07:50:00.003-07:002021-04-23T07:50:27.103-07:00The Basics of Libel and Libel Law<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilHKC1QukS8TncCSfuSFB2uO1s12jxk5gTI5TPN9QNjTvtm3yV7GkMDfd6gS5yX_l98buvbLabT2ul5v8gJW61USCmpHqddLAb3nYXkht7LYXD2gL6RKTXJvfwg9X0OWBry_6_dxJwZFJX/s840/morepapers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="840" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilHKC1QukS8TncCSfuSFB2uO1s12jxk5gTI5TPN9QNjTvtm3yV7GkMDfd6gS5yX_l98buvbLabT2ul5v8gJW61USCmpHqddLAb3nYXkht7LYXD2gL6RKTXJvfwg9X0OWBry_6_dxJwZFJX/s320/morepapers.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>With great power comes great responsibility, the saying goes. And in
the United States, the press has an enormous amount of power and yes,
responsibility.<p></p>
<p>That’s because the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution mandates
that the press not be controlled by the government, in contrast to many
countries around the world, where press freedom is either severely
curtailed or nonexistent. That unparalleled level of freedom has made
the American news media very powerful.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>But that doesn’t mean reporters can simply publish anything they
want, and in the U.S., libel law is where the power of the press and its
responsibilities intersect. So every reporter should have a basic
understanding of libel.</p>
<p><strong>What is libel?<br />
</strong></p>
<p>Libel is published defamation of character, as opposed to spoken defamation of character, which is slander.</p>
<p>Libel exposes a person to hatred, shame, disgrace, contempt or
ridicule. It injures a person’s reputation or causes the person to be
shunned or avoided, and it may injure the person in his or her
occupation.</p>
<p>So what might be in example of libel? Accusing someone of having
committed a heinous crime, or of having a disease such as leprosy that
might cause them to be shunned.</p>
<p>Libel is by definition false. Anything that is provably true cannot be libelous.</p>
<p>And for something libelous to be published, it just has to be
communicated to someone other than the person being libeled. So
publication can mean anything from an article that’s photocopied and
distributed to just a few people to a story that appears in a large
newspaper like The New York Times.</p>
<p><strong>What are the elements of libel?</strong></p>
<p>The elements of libel are what a person who sues for libel must prove in order to win their lawsuit. They must prove:</p>
<p>That a statement was libelous</p>
<p>That the statement was published</p>
<p><strong>Defenses against libel</strong></p>
<p>If you are a journalist who is sued for libel, there are three common legal defenses.</p>
<ul><li><strong>Truth:</strong> Since libel is by definition false, if a
news report is true it can’t be libelous, even if it damages a person’s
reputation. Truth is the reporter’s best defense against a libel suit.
The key is in doing thorough and careful reporting in order to prove
something is true.<br /><br /></li><li><strong>Privilege:</strong> Accurate reports about official
proceedings – anything from a murder trial to a congressional hearing –
cannot be libelous. This may seem like an odd defense, but imagine a
reporter covering a murder trial. Theoretically he could be sued for
libel every time someone in the courtroom accused the defendant of
murder.<br /><br /></li><li><strong>Fair Comment & Criticism:</strong> This defense covers
expressions of opinion, everything from movie reviews to columns about
politics. The fair comment and criticism defense allows reporters to
express opinions no matter how scathing or critical. Examples might
include a film critic ripping the latest Adam Sandler flick, or a
political columnist excoriating the president for doing a horrible job.</li></ul>
<p><strong>Public Officials vs. Private Individuals: </strong>In order
to win a libel lawsuit, private individuals need only prove that an
article about them was libelous, and that it was published. But public
officials who work in the local, state or federal government must also
prove a story was published with something called “actual malice.”</p>
<p>Actual malice means that the story was published with the knowledge
that it was false, and/or that it was published with reckless disregard
of whether or not it was false.</p>
<p><strong>Times vs. Sullivan</strong></p>
<p>The most important legal ruling on libel law was the 1964 U.S.
Supreme Court verdict in a case called Times vs. Sullivan. In Times vs.
Sullivan, the court said that making it too easy for government
officials to win libel suits would have a chilling effect on the press
and its ability to aggressively report on the important issues of the
day. Times vs. Sullivan established the actual malice threshold for
public officials wanting to sue for libel.</p>
<p>Since Times vs. Sullivan, the use of the actual malice standard has
been expanded to also include public figures, which essentially means
anyone who is in the public eye.</p>
<p>This means that celebrities, sports stars, high-profile corporate
executives and the like all must meet the actual malice requirement in
order to win a libel suit.</p>
<p>For journalists, it’s important to remember that most libel lawsuits
are the result of careless reporting. So the best way avoid being sued
is to do thorough, responsible reporting. Don’t be afraid to probe
wrongdoing committed by powerful people, agencies and institutions. Just
be sure you have the facts to back you up.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-22612514863981426912021-04-23T07:48:00.006-07:002021-05-19T22:22:24.470-07:00The Five Things You Need to do in College to Help You Get a Job in JournalismSo you’re in college and have decided you want to someday be a
journalist. But you’re not sure what you should be doing now to increase
your chances of landing a job in the news business after graduation.<span><a name='more'></a></span><p></p>
<p>Fear not. I’ve been working in journalism, either as a reporter,
editor or professor, for over 30 years. I’ve counseled dozens of
students on what they can do to increase their marketability in the job
market. Here are the five things I tell them to do, and while I can’t
guarantee that these measures will work, they will certainly increase
your chances.</p>
<ol><li><b>Write for your student newspaper</b> – Everyone who
wants to work in the news business should do this, whether you are a
journalism student or not. Start writing for your student newspaper as
soon as possible, and keep writing for it until the day you graduate.
Doing this will be step one of a long process that will hopefully one
day land you a job in professional journalism. And it’s probably the
single most important thing you can do to boost your resume.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Become an editor at your student newspaper –</b> This
is the next step. Taking on an editor position shows you have a deep
commitment not just to the student newspaper but to mastering the craft
of journalism. Becoming an editor shows that you’re serious about
becoming a journalist.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Get an internship –</b> Doing an internship at a
professional news outlet, which usually happens sometime in your junior
or senior year of college, shows you are ready to move from student
journalism to the big leagues. A good internship should help you get
good clips for your portfolio and great references from the people you
work with.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Build your clip portfolio –</b> Clips, which are
stories you’ve had published, can make or break a job application. Just
one great clip can be the deciding factor in whether you get hired or
not. That’s why it’s important to write as much as possible and
constantly update your clip portfolio, which, by the way, should be
online.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Learn tech skills –</b> We all know that journalism in
the digital age involves technology every step of the way, so mastering
as many tech skills while in college is a no-brainer. The good news is
that many of these skills are relatively easy to learn, and can usually
be acquired while working for your college newspaper. Such skills
include blogging and website management, digital photography, shooting
and editing digital video and using social media. And, oh yes, don’t
forget layout.<br />
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p></li></ol><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-46317630440328217092021-04-23T07:46:00.005-07:002021-05-19T22:22:17.218-07:00To Write a Great Lead, Focus on What Makes a Story Interesting<p></p>I’ve already talked about <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/heres-newswriting-format-nutshell">the basics of writing a lead</a>, and the idea that it should summarize the main points of the story using the 5W’s and the H.<p></p>
<p>But experienced reporters know there’s another important element to writing a lead – grabbing the reader’s attention.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>After all, journalists are writing to be read, and with the lead they
have one chance to convince the news consumer to dive into their story.</p>
<p>To do this you must figure out which element of a story is most
newsworthy and interesting, and make that that the focus of your lead.
Start by looking at the 5W’s and the H and deciding which of those
components is most important.</p>
<p>A “who” story – a story in which the most interesting element is the
person involved – typically involves someone who’s well-known.</p>
<p>For instance, people die of drug overdoses every day. But when famous
actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died of an overdose in 2014, it was
international news, and of course all the stories highlighted the fact
that it was Hoffman in the very first sentence. Here’s the lead of the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-hoffman-casualties-idUSBREA110IY20140203">Reuters story</a> about his death:</p>
<p><i>Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the leading actors of his
generation and winner of an Academy Award for his title role in the film
“Capote,” was found dead in his </i><i>Manhattan</i><i> apartment on Sunday in what a </i><i>New York</i><i> police source described as an apparent drug overdose.</i></p>
<p>Most news stories are “what” stories – the focus is on what happened.
But here again, it’s important to highlight the most interesting and
newsworthy aspect of the story.</p>
<p>Let’s say you’re writing about an apartment fire that killed three
people. In interviewing the fire marshal you learn that those killed
were a mother and her two young children. Obviously this makes the story
all the more heartbreaking and tragic, but it also means that those
details must go into your lead:</p>
<p><i>A mother and her 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter were killed when a fire swept through their apartment complex on </i><i>Main Street</i><i> last night.</i></p>
<p>In other words, it’s not enough to simply say “three people were
killed in an apartment fire last night.” The lead has to include the
details of who died.</p>
<p>The “why” and “how” of a news story isn’t always something you learn
right away, but when you do, that should be the focus of your lead.
Let’s say it’s a couple of days after the tragic house fire and
investigators have discovered that the blaze was purposely set,
apparently by the estranged boyfriend of the mother of the two young
children. That becomes the focus of the lead of your follow-up story on
the fire:</p>
<p><i>Police are hunting for the estranged boyfriend of a mother who
perished with her two young children in an apartment fire two days ago,
saying that he may have started the blaze following an argument with the
woman.</i></p>
<p>Again, it’s not enough to simply say the police are searching for a
man; the lead has to make it clear that the man being sought was the
woman’s estranged boyfriend. That’s what makes the story interesting and
newsworthy.</p>
<p>In short, whenever you’re writing a news story you always want to
think about what makes that story interesting. Whether you’re writing
about a house fire, the death of a celebrity or a city council meeting,
you always want to figure out what makes that story stand out from all
the others. Once you’ve figured out what that is, always, always put
that into your lead.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-6929801938241785452021-04-23T07:44:00.004-07:002021-05-19T22:22:08.419-07:00Six Tips on How to Conduct an Effective Interview<p></p>Journalism students tend to fret a lot about learning the <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/heres-newswriting-format-nutshell">newswriting format</a>.
But learning to write a news story is relatively easy, and any
experienced journalist will tell you that reporting is at the heart of
what the news business is all about. And when it comes to reporting,
there is nothing more important than learning to be a good interviewer.<p></p>
<p>So here are six important tips to keep in mind when doing any interview.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<ol><li><b>Do plenty of preparation.</b> Preparation means doing
background research before the interview, both about the interviewee and
the subject you will be discussing. Nothing inspires confidence in an
interviewee more than a reporter who is clearly well prepared for the
interview. On the other hand, walking into an interview cold, with
little or no preparation, can be a recipe for disaster, especially for a
young, inexperienced reporter. And it just makes sense that a reporter
who is knowledgeable about the subject to be discussed will do a better
interview.<br /> <br /></li><li><b>Prepare a list of questions</b>. This goes along with
the prep work mentioned above. Once you’ve done your background
research, having a list of prepared questions ready will give you
confidence and help you conduct a more focused interview. Having such a
list can also save time for both you and the person you’re interviewing.<br /><br /></li><li><b>But don’t be afraid to deviate from that list.</b> What
do I mean? Let’s say the person you’re interviewing says something
really interesting and newsworthy about a topic you hadn’t thought of
beforehand, one that isn’t on your list of questions. Don’t be afraid to
go off-script and pursue that avenue of the conversation to see where
it leads. Experienced reporters will tell you that the best interviews
are those where your source says something really unexpected, and when
that happens you need to be ready to throw out your prepared questions
and improvise.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Listen.</b> This seems painfully obvious, but I can’t
tell you how many interviews I’ve watched where the interviewer was
clearly more interested in the sound of his or her own voice than in
hearing from the person being interviewed. Remember, the purpose of an
interview is to get information – to learn something – from the
interviewee. You can’t do that if you’re constantly talking over them or
just not listening to what they are saying.<br /><br /></li><li><b>Establish a rapport with the interviewee.</b> Many
people, especially those who are not regularly in the news, can get
very nervous at the prospect of being interviewed by a reporter. So the
best thing you can do is make them comfortable by approaching the
interview in a casual, friendly manner, and by making the interview
itself as much like a conversation as possible. For instance, before
starting the interview, make a point of chitchatting about some
unrelated topic, such as the weather or the state of the local sports
teams. This sets a casual tone for the interview, one that will make the
interviewee feel at ease and, hopefully, make them more forthcoming.<br /><br /></li><li><b>After the interview, check and double-check.</b>
Interviews can move very quickly, and if you are taking notes it can be
easy to miss or misconstrue things that are said. So once the interview
is wrapping up, don’t be afraid to go back and double check things that
the interviewee has said to make sure that you understood them clearly.
You worked hard to build a level of trust with your interviewee; you
don’t want to wreck that by misquoting them in your article. So double
check anything you’re not sure about.<br />
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p></li></ol><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-26502928756917842472021-04-23T07:42:00.007-07:002021-05-19T22:22:00.829-07:00Should Reporters Record Interviews, or Just Take Notes?<p></p>I’m a journalism professor, and one of the questions I’m most often asked by students is this: “Should I record my <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/six-tips-conduct-effective-interview">interviews</a>, or just take notes?”<p></p>
<p>It’s a good question, but one that reflects the insecurity journalism
students feel when they go out to do their first interviews. Many are
concerned that if they simply take notes they won’t be able to get down
everything the interviewee says. So here are my thoughts on the pros and
cons of notebooks versus recorders.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p><b>Notebooks:</b> The classic reporter’s notebook is a
time-honored tool of journalists everywhere, and for good reason. The
reporter’s notebook is the ultimate low-tech, no-fuss tool, one that is
totally reliable and yet portable enough to fit inside a purse or a back
pocket. Professional reporters carry these notebooks with them wherever
they go, not only for covering stories but for jotting down potential
story ideas. As long as you always have a pen (or pencil) with you at
all times, the reporter’s notebook will never fail you.</p>
<p>However, some journalism students worry that they won’t be able to
take notes fast enough to capture everything a source says in an
interview, which is brings us to recorders.</p>
<p><b>Recorders:</b> Recording devices have come a long way.
Decades ago they were bulky, cumbersome devices that had to be carried
in a backpack slung over one’s shoulder. More recently, advances in
micro-cassettes and then digital recorders have made such devices much
smaller and easier to use. These days, anyone with a smartphone can
download a recording app and easily record interviews that way. And of
course, if you are creating a <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/important-tips-keep-mind-shooting-digital-video">digital video news report</a> you’ll need to be able to record good audio.</p>
<p>The downside with recording devices is that there’s always the
potential for something to go wrong. Virtually every reporter who’s ever
worked in the news business has a story about recording a long
interview, only to get back to the newsroom and turn on the device to
hear nothing but static. Also, some sources may balk at being recorded.
And if you want to record someone during a phone interview, you have to
get their permission first.</p>
<p>But the real issue of recorders versus notebooks has to do with time.
Any time you record an interview, you have to go back and listen to the
recording later in order to get the quotes you want for your news
story. Some reporters will even spend hours transcribing long recorded
interviews. That quickly becomes a real time-suck, especially if you are
writing a story on a tight deadline.</p>
<p>So most reporters will tell you that when they are doing a deadline
news story, they’ll stick to using the notebook. Even though the
notebook is low-tech, it is, ironically, generally much faster to work
with than a recorder when time is of the essence.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you’re doing a story that doesn’t have a
pressing deadline, such as a profile or some other kind of feature
article, then you may prefer to use a recorder in order to capture all
the nuances of the way your interviewee talks. Later, you can listen to
the recording and, with the luxury of time, carefully choose the quotes
you want to use.</p>
<p>But given the potential for recording devices to fail, I always tell
students to take notes, even when they are using a recorder. (And if you
are going to be doing interviews outdoors in subzero weather, always
bring a pencil along. Pens freeze.)</p>
<p>As for concerns about not being able to get everything a source says,
word for word, here’s a little secret of the news business: It doesn’t
really matter. No one expects you to be a stenographer, and as long as
you accurately capture the meaning of what your source says, no one is
going to raise a fuss if you don’t get every “the,” “and” or “but” that
they used in a sentence.</p>
<p>And if you are ever unsure about whether you got a quote right, just check it with the source to make sure.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-43650658215734936852021-04-23T07:41:00.004-07:002021-05-19T22:21:45.374-07:00Six Things to Look For When Evaluating a Journalism Program<p></p>So you’ve decided you want to major in journalism in college, and are
in the process of finding a <br />program that’s right for you. That’s not
necessarily an easy task, since there are dozens if not hundreds of
journalism programs in colleges and universities across the U.S.<p></p>
<p>But by prioritizing the things that are most important to you, you
can certainly make the process easier. I have both undergraduate and
graduate degrees in journalism and have been a journalism professor for
nearly 20 years, so here are six things I think any prospective student
should look for.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p><b>Experienced professors:</b> this seems obvious, but let
me explain why this is important. In recent years many journalism
programs, especially those at larger universities, have made it
mandatory for all full-time faculty to have Ph.Ds.</p>
<p>Now there’s nothing wrong with this per se, but the problem is there
aren’t a lot of people out there who have both extensive journalism
experience and a doctorate. So many journalism programs have hired
journalism faculty who are primarily academics rather than journalists,
people who have Ph.Ds but little in the way of newsroom experience. But
if you’re going to journalism school to become a journalist, you want to
learn from someone who has practical experience in the field, not
someone who’s spent their entire career in an ivory tower.</p>
<p>So when evaluating a journalism school, look closely at the faculty
bios on the program’s website. Do most of the professors have real-world
experience in print, online or broadcast journalism? Or are they
primarily academics who’ve spent most of their time writing articles for
obscure scholarly journals? Go for the program that has more of the
former rather than the latter.</p>
<p><b>State-of-the-art technology:</b> again, this may seem
obvious, but journalism in the 21st century is all about using the tools
of the digital age, especially if you are working in online or
broadcast news. So make sure the program you’re looking at has
up-to-date technology and facilities where you can learn to use those
tools.</p>
<p><b>A really good student newspaper:</b> most journalism students will tell you they learned at least as much from working on a <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/college-newspapers-keep-printing">college newspaper</a>
as they did in class. So make sure the program you’re looking at has a
really strong student paper, especially if you’re majoring in print or
online journalism. If you’re a broadcast major, find out if the program
has student radio station or TV news show. Getting lots of experience in
these kinds of extracurricular activities can make a big difference <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/77-2">when you’re applying for jobs after graduation</a>.</p>
<p><b>A strong internship program:</b> a journalism
internship, usually done during a student’s junior or senior year, is
another important step in getting practical experience. So check out the
internship program at the school you’re thinking about. Are lots of
students being placed in internships at reputable media outlets? If so,
that’s the kind of place you want to be.</p>
<p><b>Partnerships with local news outlets:</b> in recent
years some journalism programs have teamed up with local media outlets
to have students help cover news in the local community. Not every
journalism school is doing this yet, but the ones that are tend to be
top-notch programs.</p>
<p><b>A commitment to teaching practical skills:</b> there’s
nothing wrong with college programs that focus on all things theoretical
and abstract, especially if you want to pursue an academic career. But
as I said earlier, journalism isn’t about being ensconced in an ivory
tower. It’s about getting out into the community and talking to everyday
people about real-world concerns. And a good journalism program should
primarily focus on training you in the skills needed to do this.</p>
<p>So once you’ve looked at the various factors I’ve outlined here, step
back and think about the journalism program you’re considering. Is the
school’s emphasis on training reporters and editors to work in
professional newsrooms? Or is it a program that seems out of touch with
such concerns, a place whose faculty are mostly academics?</p>
<p>If you’re asking me, I’d pick the program with the emphasis on practical skills, every time.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook </a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-4161473491089269342021-04-23T07:40:00.002-07:002021-05-19T22:21:53.194-07:00Are There Really No Jobs in Newspapers? Or is That Just A Lot of Bad Press?<p></p>Computer network support specialists. Architectural and engineering managers. Electrical engineers.<p></p>
<p>Those all sound like pretty good careers, ones with decent employment prospects.</p>
<p>And yet each of those those fields employ roughly the same number of people in the U.S. – around 180,000 – as newspapers.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>According to a recent report by the <a href="http://www.bls.gov/home.htm">Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>, there are <b>183,200 people working for newspapers nationwide</b>.
That compares to 184,570 computer network support specialists, 179,770
architectural and engineering managers, and 178,580 electrical
engineers.</p>
<p>The funny thing is, I haven’t read any depressing articles about how
there are no jobs to be had for computer network support specialists,
which I’m pretty sure is a fancy way of saying an IT person. And as the
father of two college students I certainly haven’t heard any of the
parents I know fretting about the lousy job prospects facing a kid
majoring in electrical engineering.</p>
<p>Yet just about anything you read these days about careers in the news
business consists of a doom-and-gloom scenario in which anyone foolish
enough to <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/186-2">major in journalism in college</a> is bound to be on the unemployment line after graduation.</p>
<p>Indeed, a website called Careercast.com recently ranked newspaper reporter as <a href="http://www.careercast.com/jobs-rated/worst-jobs-2016">one of the worst jobs out there</a>, primarily because of the supposed dearth of openings.</p>
<p>So why does the <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/really-journalists-working-online-print">newspaper business</a>
get such a bad rap? In part because of recent history. Over the last 26
years there’s been a nearly 60 percent drop in the number of people
working for newspapers (in 1990 there were nearly 458,000 people working
in print journalism). Continuing declines in newspaper circulation and
ad revenue, coupled with the disruption wrought by the digital media
age, have dealt a body blow to the industry.</p>
<p>But I believe another reason so much ink has been spilled over the supposedly grim employment picture in journalism is because <i>it’s journalists who write such stories</i>.
It’s not surprising that reporters would spend a lot of time bemoaning
what is happening in the profession they experience firsthand.</p>
<p>One only need scan the numbers to find lots of fields that employ far
fewer people than newspapers, yet get none of the bad press. Health
care jobs, for instance, are often touted as safe bets, career-wise. Yet
there are only 157,610 medical and clinical laboratory techs in the
U.S., according to the BLS, and a mere 136,060 nurse practitioners.
Digital pundits claim the future is online, yet there are only 127,070
web developers.</p>
<p>Chefs and head cooks? 129,370. Human resources managers? 122,780.
Dietitians and nutritionists? 59,740, just a third of the number working
at newspapers. You get the idea.</p>
<p>Are there fewer jobs in print journalism now than there once were?
Absolutely. But then again, the drop cited by the BLS occurred over a
quarter of a century. That’s a pretty long time (about a third of the
average person’s lifespan), and lots of professions will experience
dramatic changes in employment over such a long period.</p>
<p>Going forward, there are reasons to be hopeful about the future of
print journalism. After all, digital media pundits have been predicting
the demise of newspapers since the dawn of the Internet age, and yet,
more than two decades later, there are still roughly 1,300 newspapers
publishing in the U.S.</p>
<p>So why haven’t newspapers gone the way of the dinosaurs and
eight-track tapes? Because they continue to make money. Even now, most
papers still get the majority of their revenue not from digital
advertising, which has proven to be something of a disappointment, but
from printed display ads.</p>
<p>(Online only news sites, meanwhile, are experiencing problems of their own. Huffington Post, BuzzFeed and Mashable all <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/buzzfeed-exits-223438661.html">laid off staffers recently</a>. Both print and online news outlets continue to search for a business model that will work in the age of digital media.)</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the negative reporting about newspapers in particular
discourages students from pursuing journalism as a career. As a
journalism professor I see this all the time.</p>
<p>But I have a remedy. I refer worried students to <a href="http://www.journalismjobs.com/index.php">Journalism jobs.com</a>,
one of the most popular media job search sites. As I write this there
are 1,441 job openings listed there, and by far the most – 417 – are for
newspapers and wire services.</p>
<p>So the next time someone tells you there are no jobs in print journalism, just tell them that’s a lot of bad press.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-39412886165083439642021-04-23T07:37:00.007-07:002021-05-19T22:21:37.688-07:00A Really Easy Guide to Using Adobe Premiere Pro Video Editing Software<p></p>If you’re <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/77-2">going into journalism</a>, chances are you’re going to have to learn to shoot and edit digital video. <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/important-tips-keep-mind-shooting-digital-video">Shooting raw footage</a> isn’t too difficult, and often can be done on something as straightforward as a smartphone.<p></p>
<p>However, news outlets will usually want reporters to use a
professional editing program in order to give such videos a professional
look. Probably the two most widely used programs are Apple’s Final Cut
Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro. Both programs are used by professional
videographers and as such offer a lot of options, which can make them
tricky to master.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>But you don’t have to be the next Martin Scorsese in order to produce
a 90-second video news report. If you can learn to trim clips, add
titles and combine voiceover narration with b-roll, you’ll be most of
the way there.</p>
<p>So here’s a bare-bones guide to using Adobe Premiere Pro, one that
focuses just on the things you’ll need to know. (Note: there are lots of
places on the web where you can find detailed instructions on how to
use the program’s more advanced functions.)</p>
<p><b>Open the Program, Import Files</b></p>
<p>Open the program and click “new project.”</p>
<p>Give the project a name and click “OK.”</p>
<p>The next window will show “sequence one.” Click “OK” again.</p>
<p>Go to “file” at the top menu and click “import” on the drop-down menu.</p>
<p>Navigate to the video and audio files you want to use for your
project. Click on the ones you want and click “open.” Use the control
key to click on all the files at once.</p>
<p>The files you imported should be in the square in the lower left-hand
corner of your screen. On the bottom right you’ll see the timeline that
you will use to edit your video. At the top left is a screen you can
use to watch the original files. At the top right is a screen that shows
what’s on your editing timeline.</p>
<p>Drag the clips you want to use over to your timeline. You will see
that there are numbered channels for both video and audio. You can drag
your first clip into the “video one” and “audio one” channels. Drag your
second clip into the “video two” and “audio two” channels and so on.
These can be rearranged later.</p>
<p>Once your clips are in the timeline, you can watch what you have by
clicking the play button under the timeline monitor or by dragging the
sliding red stick across the clips to pinpoint the area you want to
edit.</p>
<p><b>Edit Clips</b></p>
<p>The simplest way to edit a clip is to hit “C” on your keyboard (for
cut). When you do that your cursor turns into a razor blade. Once that
happens, click on the starting point of the clip you want to cut, then
click again at the endpoint of the section you want to cut. Then hit “V”
on your keyboard to revert back to your selection tool. Click on the
section of the clip that you’ve just cut with the razor blade, and hit
“delete.” Now there will be a space on the timeline where the deleted
clip was, so drag the clips together on the timeline, making sure that
your cursor is in selection mode instead of cut mode.</p>
<p><b>Create Titles</b></p>
<p>Navigate to the part of your clip where you want your title to be.
Click “title” in the top menu and then click “new title” and “default
still.” You will get a pop-up screen that gives the title a number.
Click “OK.” A pop-up box will show your video clip. Click the area
(within the defined boxes) where you want your title to go. Generally
speaking, if you are identifying a person who is speaking in your video,
the title with their name should go at the bottom of the screen. Click
that area and a blinking box will appear. You can type the name or the
title in that box, then adjust the size and the style of the font you
want to use. Use conventional, easy-to-read fonts for your titles. Avoid
weird fonts.</p>
<p>Once the title looks the way you want it to, close the title box and
the title should appear in the lower left-hand box that contains the
rest of your clips. You can now drag your title over to the timeline and
position it where you want it to go. If you want the title to be
superimposed over the video clip, then it needs to go into its own
channel. So if your main video is in channel 1, the title should go into
channel two. Once your title is in your editing timeline, you can
shorten it or lengthen it by dragging it from the side.</p>
<p><b>Update</b></p>
<p>In newer versions of Premiere, the easiest way to create a title is
to click the text tool (the large “T”) then place the cursor on the
monitor where you would like the title to go. Type the title in the box,
then switch back to the arrow tool (or “V”) to move the title where you
want it to be.</p>
<p><b>Overlap Video Clips</b></p>
<p>Sometimes you will want to have video clips overlap one another. For
instance, if you have a long clip of someone being interviewed, you may
want to overlap part of that interview with some B-roll (background
footage). So if your interview footage is in video channel 1, place
your b-roll in video channel 2 at the part of the interview you want to
overlap. Now when you watch the clip you will see the video switch from
the person being interviewed to the B-roll footage.</p>
<p>Note: when you have two video clips overlapping one another, you may
have to adjust your audio levels (see below) so that the sound from your
b-roll doesn’t overwhelm the sound of your interview.</p>
<p><b>Adjust Audio Levels</b></p>
<p>To adjust the volume of the audio on your clips, click the arrow just
to the left of where it says “audio 1,” “audio 2,” and so on. When you
click that arrow the audio track will expand to reveal the soundwaves
within that track. In the middle of the soundwave you will see a yellow
bar running through the middle of the clip. Click on that bar and drag
it up to make the audio louder, or down to make it quieter.</p>
<p><b>Update</b></p>
<p>In newer versions of Premiere, right-click the audio track you want
to adjust. In the pop-up menu you’ll see “Audio Gain.” Click that and
you’ll see “Adjust Gain By” next to a box with a zero in it. To increase
the volume, type a number, say 5. To decrease the volume, type a minus
sign, then a number. Through trial and error you can adjust the audio to
the proper level.</p>
<p><b>Delete Audio From a Video Clip</b></p>
<p>If you want to delete the audio from a video clip, right-click the
clip, then click “unlink” on the menu that pops up. This will separate
the audio and video tracks of that clip. Then click on the audio clip
and hit “delete.” The audio will be deleted from that clip.</p>
<p><b>Export Your Completed Video</b></p>
<p>Go to “file” at the top menu, then click “export” and “media.” Click
the “export” button on the lower right corner of the pop-up box, and the
program will begin to encode your video. This may take several minutes,
depending on the length of your video. But once this process is
complete, your video is done and <a href="http://desktopvideo.about.com/video/Adobe-Premiere-Pro--How-to-Export-for-the-Web.htm">ready to upload</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook and</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-848042083590119622021-04-23T07:36:00.004-07:002021-05-19T22:21:29.369-07:00Eight Things to Watch Out for – and Get Rid of – When Editing News Stories<p></p>It’s a time-honored progression: you start writing for your <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/college-newspapers-keep-printing">college newspaper</a>
and before you know it you’re recruited to be an editor. Suddenly,
badly written articles are being thrown at you left and right and you
don’t have a clue about what to do.<p></p>
<p>This isn’t unusual. At many college newspapers, editing skills are
picked up on the fly. With that in mind, here’s a list of eight things
for new editors to watch out for.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p><b>Buried leads –</b> it’s not uncommon for beginning journalism students to do what’s called burying the <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/write-great-lead-focus-makes-story-interesting">lead</a>.
That means they put the most important information in a news story down
around the eighth paragraph instead of in the first sentence, where it
belongs. So keep an eye out for buried leads in every story you edit.</p>
<p><b>Weak reporting –</b> some journalism students are naturally talented writers but produce stories that are thin on the reporting. Maybe they haven’t <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/reporters-record-interviews-just-take-notes">interviewed enough people</a>
or provided enough background information. Maybe, on a controversial
issue, they haven’t gotten both sides of the story. Think of it this way
– does the story fully flesh out what’s said in the lead? If not, then
you as the editor have to send the story back to the reporter and tell
them to keep digging.</p>
<p><b>Bad grammar –</b> this is probably the most basic thing you can do as an editor. Even if you haven’t yet mastered the <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/heres-newswriting-format-nutshell">newswriting format</a> or AP style, you should be able to spot poorly written sentences and fix them.</p>
<p><b>AP style errors –</b> one of the hallmarks of a
well-edited student paper is that all the stories, from news articles on
page 1 to the sports section, follow AP style. Why is this important?
Because just about every professional news outlet in the U.S. uses AP
style, so you’re going to have to learn it sooner or later. There is no
simple way to fix AP style errors other than to get out your AP
Stylebook and use it. You can also check the <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/heres-associated-press-style-cheat-sheet">AP style cheat sheet</a> on this website.</p>
<p><b>Long sentences and paragraphs –</b> journalism students
accustomed to writing research papers tend to produce never-ending
sentences and gigantic paragraphs. But in newswriting we keep things
short, sweet and to the point. So if you see a ridiculously long
sentence that’s trying to convey too many ideas at once, break it up
into two or even three sentences. And remember, paragraphs in news
stories should generally be just one to two sentences each.</p>
<p><b>Opinions –</b> a lot of beginning journalism students
like to insert their opinions into their articles, which is fine for
things like movie reviews. But there’s no place for opinion-mongering in
a straight-news story.</p>
<p><b>First person –</b> journalism newbies also seem to like
putting the first-person “I” into their stories, something that should
make any editor cringe. Remember, there’s no “I” in news.</p>
<p><b>Libel –</b> does the story contain unsubstantiated material that could damage a person’s reputation? This may be <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/basics-libel-libel-law">libelous</a> and any story with such content should be discussed with your paper’s editor-in-chief and faculty adviser before publication.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-11110012971800568372021-04-23T07:35:00.004-07:002021-05-19T22:21:22.047-07:00Journalism Students Can Dream Big, But Keep Realistic Career Goals in Mind<p></p><br />As a journalism professor I see lots of students who have big dreams.
They imagine themselves working in glamorous jobs, usually in
television, in the not-too distant future. They want to be ESPN anchors,
host their own talk shows or be marquee columnists for top newspapers
or websites.<p></p>
<p>That’s fine. I never discourage my students from dreaming big. But
too often these big dreamers lack three key elements in their thinking:<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>1) an understanding of the hard work and sacrifice that’s required to achieve such goals</p>
<p>2) a realistic assessment of what kinds of career goals are actually attainable</p>
<p>3) a sense of how important what they do now is in reaching their goals</p>
<p>For example, not long ago I was chatting with a young woman in my
class who told me she dreamed of becoming the next Oprah Winfrey. She
seemed absolutely serious and apparently didn’t notice the look of mild
shock that spread across my face when she told me this.</p>
<p>The problem was, this student was doing poorly in my class and didn’t
seem very interested in improving. Because of this she didn’t strike me
as a particularly hard worker, or as someone brimming over with drive
and motivation.</p>
<p>And yet she dreamed of following in the footsteps of one of the most
powerful media figures in history. Clearly she hadn’t read anything
about Winfrey’s humble beginnings working for local TV news and talk
shows before making her way into the big time.</p>
<p>Now, I wouldn’t be foolish enough to claim that doing poorly in a
college journalism course automatically means someone won’t be
successful in life.</p>
<p>But as someone who believes that actions speak louder than words, I’m
pretty confident that I had a window into the personality of this
student, one who had big dreams but wasn’t prepared to back them up.
This young woman lacked an awareness of the three elements I listed
above.</p>
<p>Here’s another example. Recently a young man in my reporting class
told me he wanted to become host of an ESPN show in which he would
interview coaches and athletes.</p>
<p>That’s great, I said. I told him he could get valuable experience by <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/six-tips-conduct-effective-interview">interviewing coaches and players</a> and <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/write-great-lead-focus-makes-story-interesting">writing stories</a> for the student newspaper about the sports teams at our college.</p>
<p>But week after week passed and the only stories he did were ones
regurgitating information he found on the Internet about the local
professional sports teams. Apparently doing an actual interview with a
real human being was too intimidating or troublesome a prospect for this
student.</p>
<p>Of course, this student may yet go on to have a successful career.
But in my class at least, he demonstrated that while he dreamed of
having a high-profile job interviewing people, he had no appetite for
doing so in the real world.</p>
<p>Students like these only see successful people at the height of their
success. They don’t see, or imagine, what it took for them to reach the
mountaintop.</p>
<p>Such information isn’t hard to find. A quick search of the ESPN
website turns up bios for many of the people who work there. For
instance, a glance at the <a href="http://espnmediazone.com/us/bios/coachman_jonathan/">bio for ESPN interviewer Jonathan Coachman</a>
shows that he got a degree in communications from McPherson College and
worked at several local TV stations before moving to the MSG network
and eventually ESPN.</p>
<p>Coachman began his career in decidedly unglamorous places like
Wichita, Kansas, before breaking into the big leagues. He did what
virtually everyone who becomes successful in journalism or the news
media does – he worked his way up.</p>
<p>Of the three elements I listed above, probably the one I find most
frustrating is the third. Students need to understand that their career
doesn’t magically begin at some indeterminate point in the future. It
begins now, this day, this minute.</p>
<p>Successful students understand this. They do well in my classes, get
involved with the student newspaper and work their way into internships.
That in turn leads to good jobs and successful careers. Hard work
produces positive results. Success breeds success.</p>
<p>But other students fail to see the connection between what they do in
college and their ultimate career. The student who wanted to work for
ESPN could have gotten valuable experience interviewing athletes and
writing stories, skills that would have prepared him for internships and
entry-level jobs covering sports. Instead he frittered away the
semester doing little or nothing, wasting his time (and mine) and
throwing away a valuable opportunity.</p>
<p>Here’s the takeaway: if you want to model your career after a
successful journalist or media figure, do a little research and find out
how they got where they are. Also, understand that while you might not
become rich and famous, that doesn’t mean you can’t have an exciting and
satisfying career.</p>
<p>Most importantly, understand that your first step on the career
ladder must be taken now, and that what you do in school will directly
prepare you for what comes next.</p>
<p>Now get to work.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-71535370099674894912021-04-23T07:33:00.008-07:002021-05-19T22:21:14.780-07:00Five Good Reasons Why You Should Work For Your College Newspaper<p></p>Everyone is familiar – and if they aren’t, they should be – with the scene in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” where <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D7InkvFaz8">Linus asks Lucy to give him one good reason</a>
why he should memorize his lines for the Christmas play. Lucy tells
him, “I’ll give you five good reasons,” then proceeds to curl her
fingers into a fist that she shakes menacingly at her brother. “Those
are good reasons,” Linus responds sensibly.<span><a name='more'></a></span><p></p>
<p>There are many reasons why <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/journalism-students-can-dream-big-keep-realistic-career-goals-mind">journalism students</a> should get involved with their <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/college-newspapers-keep-printing">college newspaper</a>, but, using Lucy’s example, let me set out (in an entirely unthreatening way) the five most important.</p>
<p><b>1) It’s great work experience. </b>For the beginning journalism student, the college newspaper is the absolute best way to <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/77-2">get work experience</a>.
Even if you’ve never written a news story in your life, chances are
your college paper will be only too glad to have you join the staff. The
great thing about a college newspaper is that no one is an expert, and
everyone is learning as they go. College papers are where aspiring
journalists can learn from the kinds of mistakes they won’t want to make
when they become professionals. And the students who get heavily
involved with college newspapers tend to be the ones who land
internships.</p>
<p><b>2) You can learn important tech skills. </b>Years ago some college papers were slow to adapt to the brave new world of <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/really-journalists-working-online-print">digital journalism</a>. But now virtually all of the <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/category/tech-skills">technical skills</a>
that professional news organizations need in young reporters can be
learned at a student newspaper, from page layout to digital photography,
and web design to <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/really-easy-guide-using-adobe-premiere-pro-video-editing-software">digital video</a>
(to say nothing of blogging and using social media). College papers
need staffers who can produce online videos, run websites and use
Twitter, which means there are plenty of opportunities to acquire those
skills.</p>
<p><b>3) You get clips.</b> Clips, which are published samples
of your work, are vitally important in landing internships and jobs.
You can get straight A’s in <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/186-2">journalism school</a>
but if you don’t have any clips when you graduate you’ll be
hard-pressed to find employment. By working at a college newspaper you
can build an impressive clip portfolio even before you graduate.</p>
<p><b>4) You learn what it’s like work in a professional newsroom</b>.
If you’re thinking about a career in journalism but aren’t quite sure,
there’s no better way to get a sense of what it’s like than to work on a
student newspaper. Yes, there are differences between collegiate and
professional journalism, but fundamentally they’re very similar. College
or pro, reporters must meet deadlines, <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/269-2">editors must edit copy</a>,
and so on. Many college newspaper staffers already know they want to
become journalists, and that’s great. But in a lot of ways joining a
college paper is even more important for those who aren’t so certain.</p>
<p><b>5) It’s a lot of fun.</b> Colleges and universities,
especially the larger ones, can be lonely places for students who are
away from home for the first time. Of course you want to do well in your
classes, but it’s also important to find a niche of your own outside of
the academics. When you join a student newspaper you’ll immediately
meet a group of people who probably share many of your interests.
College newspaper staffers work hard but they also play hard, and their
social lives often revolve around the people they encounter in the
newsroom.</p>
<p>I can honestly say that some of the best times of my life were spent
working on college papers and hanging out with the people I met there.
Indeed, many of the friends I made in student newspaper newsrooms are
still friends today. Chances are, if you get involved with your student
newspaper, your experience will be similar.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a> </p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-26694109448157134572021-04-23T07:32:00.004-07:002021-05-24T06:37:27.050-07:00Original Reporting Shouldn’t Be Left Behind When College Newspapers Go Digital<p></p>The article, on a journalism website, was on a topic I’ve seen a lot of lately: a <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/293-2">college newspaper</a>
had <br />ditched print in order to focus exclusively on digital news. Not
only that, the staff of this student news operation was expanding its
focus to cover not just the campus but even some local and national
news.<p></p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the article practically gushed about the idea of
these students leaving behind so-called “legacy” journalism to fully
embrace online news. This is of a piece with the groupthink that
pervades sites that cover the news business. Print journalism is old and
thus bad. Digital is shiny and new, and thus good.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>But as I perused this student news website, it occurred to me that
while the articles were reasonably well written, many had little or no
original reporting. Original quotes from sources the students had
interviewed themselves were few and far between. Many stories simply
rehashed material found on the Internet.</p>
<p>I’ve written before about <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/college-newspapers-keep-printing">why I think college newspapers should keep on printing</a>.
True, digital news is ascendant. But there are still some 1,300
newspapers being printed nationwide, and those papers, for the
foreseeable future, will need staffers who possess the skills necessary
to produce a print product. Students on college news operations that
have ditched print are being deprived of the opportunity to learn such
skills.</p>
<p>However, that’s an issue on which well-meaning people can disagree.
If the staff of a college newspaper find that with declining ad revenue
they can simply no longer afford printing costs, then I can understand a
decision to shut down the presses.</p>
<p>But there should be no disagreement on something that’s even more
fundamental, the idea that print and online journalism are based on two
elements – reporting and writing. Nor should there be any argument about
which of those two is ultimately more important: reporting.</p>
<p>Reporting, the gathering of quotes and information from live sources,
records and yes, the Internet, is at the very heart of what good
journalism is all about. Clear, lucid writing is important, but if a
reporter hasn’t done any reporting he has nothing to write about.
Thorough, substantive reporting is the basis of all great journalism.
The best reporters, and yes, writers, in the news business all know
this.</p>
<p>Indeed, if you were to ask 100 editors whether they’d rather hire a
great reporter or a great writer, I’d wager all 100 would pick the great
reporter. After all, a seasoned editor can polish up a well-reported
but sloppily written news story. But an editor can’t compensate for a
story that’s thinly reported, one that doesn’t have enough quotes,
background material or analysis.</p>
<p>So when I see a student news website that skimps on reporting, I’m
concerned on two fronts. First, those students are getting a very
distorted picture of what the news business is all about. Second, they
are clearly not getting the training they need in basic reporting
skills.</p>
<p>This is more important than it might seem at first glance. I’ve been a
college journalism professor for nearly 20 years, and I get plenty of
students in my classes who are fairly talented writers. Indeed, that’s
why many of them took a journalism course in the first place.</p>
<p>For students like these, mastering the <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/heres-newswriting-format-nutshell">newswriting format</a> is a piece of cake. But for many, <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/six-tips-conduct-effective-interview">learning to do a basic interview</a>
is much more challenging. A generation of young people who grew up
staring into computer screens often find it difficult to approach a
person on campus or on the street and ask them questions. But those are
the skills such students need to learn.</p>
<p>If a student news operation abandons print but replaces it with a
vigorous website filled with original and hard-hitting reporting, I’ll
be the first to applaud.</p>
<p>But if the phrase “focusing exclusively on digital” comes to mean
students sitting around a newsroom rewriting stuff from the web, that’s
bad news for everyone.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-54719212478741513332021-04-23T07:30:00.003-07:002021-05-19T22:21:07.766-07:00Here Are Some Common Mistakes I See When Journalism Students Write Their First Articles<p></p>It’s early in the semester and students at the college where I teach
journalism have just turned in their first articles for the <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/293-2">student newspaper</a>. Most of them are really good, but as always there are a few common mistakes that students make early on.<p></p>
<p>Here are some of the problems I see most frequently:<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p><b>Long leads and long paragraphs –</b> Remember, news stories should use a <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/write-great-lead-focus-makes-story-interesting">one-sentence lead</a>.
And paragraphs in news stories should generally be just 1 to 2
sentences each. I can always tell when someone has written their first
news story, because it’s invariably full of giant paragraphs that look
like they belong in a Jane Austen novel.</p>
<p>Articles that are more feature-like in nature, such as those found in
the arts and entertainment section, can break these rules sometimes.
But news stories shouldn’t.</p>
<p><b>First references to people –</b> When referring for the
first time to someone quoted in your article, use their full name and
full job title. If they are a student, give their age, major and
hometown. Note: It’s very important that you always give a full name.
Hardly any news outlet anywhere, whether run by professionals or
students, will allow the use of quotes from someone if their full name
isn’t given.</p>
<p><b>Second and subsequent references –</b> Once you’ve used a
person’s full name the first time you refer to them, all subsequent
references should use just their last name. So if the first reference
is, “Jane Smith, an English professor at the college,” all subsequent
references should simply be “Smith.”</p>
<p><b>Punctuation –</b> it always goes <b>inside</b> quotation marks. No exceptions.</p>
<p><b>First person –</b> We never, ever use the first person
“I” in news stories. You might use it if you’re writing something like a
movie review, but even then only sparingly.</p>
<p><b>Associated Press style –</b> AP style errors are common
in early articles but as a professor I tighten up on this as the
semester goes on. So get into the habit of <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/heres-associated-press-style-cheat-sheet">checking your AP stylebook</a>
whenever you are writing things like dates, times, titles, dollar
amounts and so on. AP style is standard usage for 99.999 percent of all
news outlets, so learning it isn’t optional. It’s mandatory.</p>
<p><b>Reporting – </b>These are all issues that have to do
writing news stories. But by far the biggest problem I see with newby
journalists has to do with <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/original-reporting-shouldnt-left-behind-college-newspapers-go-digital">reporting</a>. I get too many stories where it’s clear that the student hasn’t <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/six-tips-conduct-effective-interview">interviewed enough people</a> or gathered enough background information to produce an average-length news story of say, 500 words.</p>
<p>Journalism begins and ends with reporting, and even the most talented
writer can’t produce good work if he doesn’t put in the time on doing
interviews and finding information. So the thing I most often tell
journalism students is this – do more reporting.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a> <br /></p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-22736052308547336572021-04-23T07:28:00.007-07:002021-05-19T22:18:28.121-07:00For Journalism Students, Lessons to be Learned in Coverage of Trump’s Election<p></p>In my journalism classes on the morning of the election, I was
imparting some received wisdom to my students. “If you see North
Carolina go for Hillary, then it’s all over for Trump. It should be an
early night,” I told them, confidently.<p></p>
<p>How wrong I was.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>Of course, I wasn’t alone (not that that’s any consolation). From the
polling organizations to Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com to the
country’s major news outlets, many, it seems, missed not just the boat
but the entire lake by a pretty wide margin.</p>
<p>Jim Rutenberg <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/business/media/news-outlets-wonder-where-the-predictions-went-wrong.html">put it</a> this way in The New York Times:</p>
<p><i>“The country’s major news organizations, as surprised as anybody
by Donald J. Trump’s ascension to the presidency, faced a question from
their audiences on Wednesday that was laced with a sense of betrayal and
anger: How did you get it so wrong?”</i></p>
<p><b>Journalists Out of Touch?</b></p>
<p>I’m not a polling expert so I’ll leave that end of things for others
slice and dice. As for the news business, the post-mortems have focused
mostly on major news organizations. A common refrain is that reporters
ensconced in newsrooms in Manhattan or Washington were woefully out of
touch with Trump’s growing core of support in places like the hill towns
of Appalachia or rustbelt cities in the Midwest.</p>
<p>As media columnist Margaret Sullivan <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-media-didnt-want-to-believe-trump-could-win-so-they-looked-the-other-way/2016/11/09/d2ea1436-a623-11e6-8042-f4d111c862d1_story.html">wrote</a> in the Washington Post:</p>
<p><i>“Journalists — college-educated, urban and, for the most part,
liberal — are more likely than ever before to live and work in New York
City and Washington, D.C., or on the West Coast. And although we touched
down in the big red states for a few days, or interviewed some coal
miners or unemployed autoworkers in the Rust Belt, we didn’t take them
seriously. Or not seriously enough.”</i></p>
<p>Sullivan makes a pungent point about reporters from elite news
outlets parachuting into Trump strongholds for brief forays. But she’s
being parochial when she claims that most journalists ply their trade in
the corridors of power in major metro areas.</p>
<p>In fact, with some 1,300 newspapers still operating across the
country, most journalists still work for small and medium-sized
publications and websites. News outlets like these don’t get much
attention nationally, but some of them may have been more attuned to the
Trump’s rise than their big-city brethren.</p>
<p><b>A Feisty Local Website</b></p>
<p>Tom Sofield is the founder of <a href="http://levittownnow.com/">LevittownNow.com</a>,
a scrappy news site that obsessively covers the blue-collar town in the
suburbs north of Philly. In an area seen as a bellwether for
presidential elections, Sofield says he saw support for Trump growing
early on.</p>
<p>“During the primary, I spoke to voters in (nearby) Bristol Township
who voted for all Democrats except for Hillary,” Sofield told me. “Many
said they were planning to vote for Trump in the general election.
Although Clinton won the Levittown area, Trump seemed to have lots of
support.”</p>
<p>Recalling campaign stops in several local towns, Sofield added: “When
Mike Pence visited Bensalem, he received a huge crowd of close to
2,000. The Tim Kaine rally in Newtown seemed to have trouble drawing
more than 500.”</p>
<p>As we spoke, Sofield was banging out a story on a lifelong Democratic
committee member who was one of Trump’s biggest local supporters. “He’s
been saying his blue-collar Democratic friends were voting for Trump,”
Sofield said.</p>
<p><b>Coverage at Charlotte’s Major Paper</b></p>
<p>At the much-larger Charlotte Observer, <a href="http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/eric-frazier/">columnist Eric Frazier</a> admits that his paper was surprised by Trump’s victory.</p>
<p>“What we didn’t see was the lack of support for Clinton, especially
after the Democratic convention, when she and Sanders had supposedly
papered over their differences,” Frazier said. “The young people still
weren’t buying what she was selling.”</p>
<p>But with North Carolina being a key swing state, the Observer’s journalists produced an enormous amount of campaign coverage.</p>
<p>“We had both candidates and their surrogates here more times than I
can count,” Frazier says. “I think having both campaigns so active here
likely meant that we ran more copy on the campaign, as both kept holding
press conferences and having events. Plus you had to think and report
about how the national campaigns were affecting downballot races, and
vice versa.”</p>
<p><b>Lessons for Aspiring Journalists</b></p>
<p>Frazier says there are clear lessons for journalists in the way the campaign coverage played out.</p>
<p>“Even in an age of sophisticated data and social media, there’s no
substitute for good old fashioned shoe- leather reporting,” Frazier
says. “Let data and social media guide you to the people at the center
of the issue/story, but never mistake data and social media for the real
story. The story with a human being at the center of it is always the
one that will move people the most.”</p>
<p>Sofield says he’s learned never to “underestimate voters who are
passionate about their candidate. And try not to lose sight of your
mission of reporting on all the candidates without bias.”</p>
<p>He adds: “Report independently and don’t follow everyone else. Don’t
be afraid to ask tough questions of people who have popular and
unpopular points of view. And talk to more people than just the
politicos.”</p>
<p>Indeed, that’s pretty much what I was telling my journalism students
the day after the election. After analyzing the results and critiquing
the news coverage, I simply said this:</p>
<p>Get out of the newsroom. Hit the streets. Knock on doors. And talk to real people.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a> <a href="https://plus.google.com/+TonyRogersJournalism"><br /></a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-80092864035152180252021-04-23T07:27:00.002-07:002021-05-19T22:19:22.756-07:00This is Why We Keep Printing the Student Newspaper at My College<p></p>As a <a href="http://faculty.bucks.edu/rogerst/">journalism professor at a community college</a>
where the student newspaper is still just that – a paper – people
sometimes ask me why we haven’t followed the lead of some other colleges
by eliminating our print edition and going all-digital.<span><a name='more'></a></span><p></p>
<p>The answers to this question are key to understanding how the news
business really works, as opposed to how some would like us to think it
works. Needless to say, it has a lot to do with money.</p>
<p>What do I mean? Well, a group of people whom I call the digital
zealots have been telling everyone for the better part of two decades
that newspapers are a relic of a bygone age and should be abandoned.</p>
<p>The way the zealots saw it, the Internet paved the way for a brave
new digital world in which all news would be online, and the wasteful,
old-school practice of chopping down trees to print news on paper would
go the way of the dinosaurs. (The zealots assumed all of this would work
out financially because revenue from online advertising was going to be
the pot of gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow.)</p>
<p>Problem is, things didn’t work out that way. Online advertising
turned out to be far less profitable than once hoped, for the simple
reason that most people ignore online ads, and thus businesses aren’t
willing to pay very much for them. Website paywalls, which the digital
zealots used to fiercely criticize, have boosted revenue somewhat. But
the net gain has not been enough to offset the loss of print
advertising.</p>
<p>For instance, The New York Times recently reported that it has
amassed an impressive 1.5 million digital–only subscriptions. But
officials also revealed that only about 36 percent of the company’s
revenue currently comes from digital advertising. “For all the progress
we have made,” the paper said in a statement, “we still have not built a
digital business large enough on its own to support a newsroom that can
fulfill our ambitions.”</p>
<p>What’s striking about these numbers is the fact that the Times,
considered the country’s newspaper of record, has been far more
successful in attracting digital subscribers than most other papers.
Indeed, most newspaper companies <a href="http://www.journalism.org/2016/06/15/newspapers-fact-sheet/">only get about one-quarter of their revenue from digital advertising</a>. Yet even at The New York Times, digital revenue just isn’t enough.</p>
<p>But wait, you say. Aren’t <a href="http://www.journalism.org/2016/06/15/newspapers-fact-sheet/">newspapers in decline</a>?
The answer is yes. Revenue from circulation and print advertising has
been heading south for many years. However, even with those drops, print
advertising still constitutes a big chunk of revenue – sometimes 70
percent or more – for many papers.</p>
<p>Which is why, even as I write this in early 2017, most newspapers
haven’t yet shut down their printing presses. True, some papers at both
the professional and collegiate levels have eliminated or cut back on
print. But there are still more than 1,000 newspapers across the U.S.
that do print, and the reason why is simple – print still makes money.</p>
<p>Now, will newspapers still be around in 10 or 20 years? Who knows? I
certainly don’t have a crystal ball. What I do know is that predictions
about the imminent demise of newspapers were – and still are – wildly
premature.</p>
<p>All of which brings me back to the Centurion, the student newspaper
at the college where I teach. Six times every semester the Centurion’s
editors sweat bullets and buckets to lay out the paper and then rush the
pages to the printer. It’s often a real pain in the butt.</p>
<p>But the editors also get a lot of satisfaction for their hard work.
There’ a palpable sense of excitement in the newsroom when 2,000 copies
of the paper come back from the printer. And once those copies are
distributed across the campus, you can actually see students perusing
the latest issue.</p>
<p>The Centurion does, of course, have a <a href="http://www.bucks-news.com/">website</a>,
but running that doesn’t offer the same thrills. Watching someone scan
the news on a smartphone just isn’t the same as seeing a reader poring
over a newspaper.</p>
<p>As for the finances, the Centurion spends thousands of dollars every
semester on printing costs. But since we started working with a company
called <a href="http://www.mymediamate.com/">MediaMate</a> (shameless
plug alert) that specializes in advertising for college newspapers,
we’ve actually managed to turn a profit. Indeed, the Centurion is now
entirely self-supporting.</p>
<p>But the most important reason for continuing to print the Centurion
lies beyond the campus. Some 1,300 newspapers are printed in large
cities and small towns across the country. Those papers will, for the
foreseeable future, <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/college-newspapers-keep-printing">need staffers who have the layout and design skills</a> associated with print. Students from our college paper will have those skills; students at all-digital publications won’t.</p>
<p>So why do we keep printing our college newspaper? Because we’re doing
what we should be doing for our students – preparing them for the real
world.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://plus.google.com/+TonyRogersJournalism">Google Plus</a></p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-29812764068051109592021-04-22T11:37:00.006-07:002021-05-19T22:19:32.079-07:00On a Drive Across Pennsylvania, Seeing a Student Take Flight<p></p><br />The other day, I went on a road trip. Not too far, just a couple of
hours across a stretch of the vast east-west expanse we call
Pennsylvania, a journey from the burbs north of Philly to Hershey, where
my students, journalism majors at Bucks County Community College, would
attend a luncheon to receive the awards they’d won, in a statewide
competition, for their work on the college newspaper. On the drive, I
got a chance to catch up with a student I hadn’t seen in a few months,
one who had transferred recently to Temple University.<p></p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>James, I’ll call him, has one of those complicated histories that so
many of our students have experienced. A troubled upbringing, family
dysfunction, and bouts, at a young age, with drugs and alcohol. There
was rough living, then rehabilitation, and then the journey back, which
is when he came to the college. Enrolled in my journalism courses, James
quickly learned to write and edit, to lay out pages for the student
paper and run the website. He was sharp and hungry and quick to absorb
everything, because he understood that what he learned could translate
into a way out.<p></p>
<p>He left us at the end of last semester, Temple-bound. And when I
picked him up for our trek to Hershey, he told me about another
adventure on which he would soon embark – a summer abroad in London. He
would be taking courses and, on weekends, joining other students on
excursions to destinations like Stonehenge. He told me, “If I didn’t do
this now, I figured, when would I?”</p>
<p>As it happened, I’d done a semester in London a hundred years ago,
and so was full of advice. Watch the buskers at Covent Garden, I told
him. Have a pint in a real English pub. Spend a day hiking up Mount
Snowdon in Wales. He nodded.</p>
<p>As I babbled away, it occurred to me that the road he’d traveled,
just to be able to even contemplate such a trip, was so much longer and
so much rougher than the one I’d taken so many years ago.</p>
<p>At the awards ceremony, he accepted his plaques with gratitude, not
bravado. On the drive home, he scanned a copy of the Financial Times
newspaper. Reading up for the trip, he said.</p>
<p>In the late afternoon, I dropped him off at the Septa station for the
ride back to his place in North Philly, where there would be another
night of studying, of forging his path ahead.</p>
<p>We briefly embraced, then I watched him walk toward the train. I had
the impulse to curl my hand into a fist and urge him on, under my
breath, like one of those Mission Control technicians back during the
moon launches, when the Saturn V rockets would lift off ever-so slowly,
then gather speed as they rode a column of flame skyward, carrying a
clutch of astronauts and the hopes and dreams of the age. Don’t stop, I
whispered, as the young man moved out of sight. Go. Go. Go.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a> <br /></p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-51941446255579305642021-04-22T11:00:00.001-07:002021-06-18T13:53:44.877-07:00Remembering Pete Hamill, Through His Writing<p></p><p>The one and only time I worked with an honest-to-god legend in my
career as an ink-stained wretch was when, for a brief period in the
1990s, Pete Hamill was editor in chief of the New York Daily News, and I
was an editor on the national desk. I didn’t interact with Pete much;
he was, understandably, primarily focused on coverage of the city, the
tabloid’s raison d’etre. I do recall coming in late to work one morning
at the paper’s old West 33<sup>rd</sup> Street headquarters.
Speed-walking down the corridor lined with famous Daily News front
pages, I suddenly found Pete next to me, headed in the same direction.
We chatted for a minute or so about this and that – in addition to his
myriad achievements Pete was a genuinely nice guy – then went our
separate ways as we entered the football field-sized newsroom. I
practically levitated the rest of the way to my desk.</p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>But as family, friends and colleagues mourn <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-writer-pete-hamill-dead-at-85-20200805-4wowyopsrnazznqbbj5ze25ibi-story.html">Pete’s passing</a>,
his gift to all of us in the years to come will of course be the
writing – the columns, magazine pieces, memoirs, short stories and
novels – where he combined the descriptive powers of a seasoned reporter
with the lyricism of a poet.<p></p>
<p>For instance, when Donald Trump took out full-page ads calling for
New York State to adopt the death penalty following the arrest of black
and Latino teenagers in the Central Park Five rape case in 1989 (the
five were eventually exonerated), Hamill penned what remains, to my
mind, the most <a href="https://meaww.com/1989-jimmy-breslin-pete-hamill-v-donald-trump">clear-eyed description</a> of Trump’s brutishness ever committed to paper:</p>
<p><i>“Snarling and heartless and fraudulently tough, insisting on the
virtue of stupidity, it was the epitome of blind negation. Hate was just
another luxury. And Trump stood naked, revealed as the spokesman for
that tiny minority of Americans who live well-defended lives. Forget
poverty and its causes. Forget the degradation and squalor of millions.
Fry them into passivity.”</i></p>
<p>Hamill was in Lower Manhattan on Sept 11, 2001, and saw United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower. In the <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/hamill-ashes-spread-city-2001-article-1.2349198">Daily News</a> he conveyed haunting images from that day:</p>
<p><i>“The street before us is now a pale gray wilderness. There is
powdery white dust on gutter and sidewalk, and dust on the roofs of
cars, and dust on the tombstones of </i><i>St. Paul</i><i>‘s. Dust
coats all the walking human beings, the police and the civilians, white
people and black, men and women. It’s like an assembly of ghosts.”</i></p>
<p>Another time, another tragedy. In <a href="https://nymag.com/news/features/45252/">New York Magazine</a> in 1980, Hamill wrote about how the shooting of John Lennon was not just heartbreaking, but horrifyingly different.</p>
<p><i>“This time the ruined body belonged to someone who had made us
laugh, who had taught young people how to feel, who had helped change
and shape an entire generation, from inside out. This time someone had
murdered a song.”</i></p>
<p>But not all the news was bad. In an elegiac piece in 2008, Pete <a href="https://nymag.com/anniversary/40th/50654/">paid tribute to his beloved Brooklyn</a>:</p>
<p><i>“…Brooklyn is still the wide, low borough of light, bouncing off the harbor and the ocean (out by </i><i>Coney Island</i><i>),
a place of big skies, a place where you can see weather, not simply
defend against it. Clouds move swiftly, driven by the wind, or hang in
lazy stupor. Storms can be tracked visually, as the immense dark clouds
make their tours. At dawn the sun begins to pass over </i><i>Prospect</i> <i>Park</i><i>, </i><i>Green-Wood</i> <i>Cemetery</i><i>, then all the way to the </i><i>Verrazano</i> <i>Bridge</i><i>, the start of its long day’s journey into the </i><i>New Jersey</i><i> night.”</i></p>
<p>It’s been a long time since I worked for the Daily News. These days I teach journalism at <a href="http://faculty.bucks.edu/rogerst/">Bucks County Community College</a>.
At the moment I’m prepping for my Fall classes, which will be online
this semester because of the pandemic. No matter. In the classroom or on
Zoom, I’ll be ready with lots of Pete’s stories. I’ll give them to my
students and tell them, here’s a guy who was thoughtful and observant,
who brought a real humanity to everything he ever wrote. I knew Pete
Hamill, I’ll say. And he was a legend.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism/">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-51304915970922592492021-04-22T09:27:00.005-07:002021-05-19T22:19:44.848-07:00With Thinned-Out Newsrooms, Local Papers Struggle to Do Stories That Lure Readers<p></p><p>These are relatively good times for the nation’s top two newspapers, The New York Times and the Washington Post. <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/journalism-students-learning-investigative-scoops-trump">As I wrote recently</a>,
both have snagged a series of scoops on the Trump administration in
what is shaping up as an old-school newspaper war. Some are calling it a
new golden age of journalism.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p></p>
<p>This journalistic excellence has paid off in more ways than one. Both
papers were awarded hard-news Pulitzers for 2017: the Times for tough
reporting on Vladimir Putin, the Post for digging into Trump’s
charitable giving. And the aggressive newsgathering is also boosting the
bottom line. Both papers reported <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/story/14199728/2/two-newspapers-have-crushed-all-others-in-post-election-growth.html">spikes in digital subscriptions</a> in the wake of Trump’s election, and both appear to be navigating the choppy waters of the 21<sup>st</sup> century news business relatively well. As newspaper analyst Craig Huber <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/business/washington-post-digital-news.html">told the Times</a>,
“The only future for newspapers is at the high end of quality
journalism. That and only that are what people are willing to pay for.”</p>
<p>Therein lies the problem for the rest of the country’s roughly 1,300
daily papers. Already weakened by the decades-old tumble in print
circulation and advertising revenue, many small- and medium-sized local
papers are also struggling to generate significant revenue from digital
subscriptions and ads. The upshot of all this financial turmoil has been
tens of thousands of layoffs at newsrooms nationwide in recent years.</p>
<p>At the same time, large newspaper chains have been gobbling up local
papers, resulting in still more consolidations and layoffs. Recently I
was visiting my brother in Milwaukee, where the city’s paper of record,
the Journal Sentinel, was <a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/business/gannett-purchase-of-journal-media-group-approved-b99702350z1-374946801.html">bought out by the Gannett chain</a>.
Over beers at a local pub, my brother complained about how the paper
had gotten steadily thinner, with fewer local stories and more wire
service copy. He was considering canceling his subscription.</p>
<p>Just days after I got back home to Pennsylvania came news that our local paper, the Bucks County Courier Times, had <a href="http://levittownnow.com/2017/06/19/bucks-county-courier-times-sister-papers-sold-national-chain/">been bought by the Gatehouse Media conglomerate</a>,
ending nearly eight decades of local ownership by the Calkins family.
Will this mean more layoffs in the Courier Times’ already thinned-out
newsroom? I have no idea. But that’s what often happens when large
chains snap up local papers.</p>
<p>All of which leads me back to the dilemma facing local papers: How
can they do the kind of quality journalism that attracts paying readers
when their newsrooms have been gutted, and when the reporters who are
left are being asked to not just cover stories, but maintain blogs,
shoot digital video and so on?</p>
<p>I don’t know the answer. I do know that the country needs strong
local newspapers as much as it needs The New York Times and the
Washington Post. And papers that continue to cut their newsrooms to the
bone risk rendering themselves irrelevant.</p>
<p><i>Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons</i></p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-10793017061794297422021-04-22T09:26:00.011-07:002021-04-22T11:17:11.778-07:00Reporters Cover the Biggest Story of Their Careers When Four Men are Slain in Bucolic Bucks County<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdq6DFoG60sBjPGiJS-GUA0-vlcy8-szSMGI7g1AAF3R8LdDmoyEDCGJhRyxkCp8xdUO1nWJ_ATj7BuKLhnS92SOdywoBHp1K2y2IhF3mHPli-0VfD9ipLbiE6jw76-VOTNPVQ02qbiIQQ/s840/IMG_2089a-1-840x385.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="840" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdq6DFoG60sBjPGiJS-GUA0-vlcy8-szSMGI7g1AAF3R8LdDmoyEDCGJhRyxkCp8xdUO1nWJ_ATj7BuKLhnS92SOdywoBHp1K2y2IhF3mHPli-0VfD9ipLbiE6jw76-VOTNPVQ02qbiIQQ/w487-h223/IMG_2089a-1-840x385.jpg" width="487" /></a></div><p></p><p>It was the kind of case one might expect to find in Philadelphia
to the south or New York to the north, but the slayings of four young
men over a few sweltering days in July became one of the biggest and
most tragic stories to come out of the bucolic Bucks County suburbs in
years.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p></p>
<p>It began when Thomas Meo, 21, Mark Sturgis, 22, and Jimi Patrick and
Dean Finocchiaro, both 19, vanished seemingly without a trace in early
July. Cops arrested Cosmo DiNardo, a hulking 20-year-old with a history
of bizarre behavior, and searchers started combing a tract of farmland
owned by DiNardo’s parents in the sleepy town of Solebury.</p>
<p>Soon enough, police found four bodies, and DiNardo and another man, Sean Kratz, 20, were <a href="http://levittownnow.com/2017/07/14/prosecutors-release-details-as-charges-filed-against-dinardo-kratz/">charged</a> with gunning their victims down in cold blood, the possible motive being a dispute over drug deals.</p>
<p>The case drew a swarm of big-league media outlets and resulted in
network TV reports and headlines splashed across papers and websites
nationwide.<br /></p>
<p>Locally, three young reporters who did top-notch coverage of the story – <a href="https://muckrack.com/michele-haddon">Michele Haddon</a> of the <a href="http://www.theintell.com/">Doylestown Intelligencer</a>, and <a href="http://levittownnow.com/author/tomsofield/">Tom Sofield</a> and <a href="http://levittownnow.com/author/erichmartin/">Erich Martin</a> of the news sites <a href="http://levittownnow.com/">LevittownNow.com</a> and <a href="http://newtownpanow.com/">NewtownPaNow.com</a> – were all alums of the <a href="http://faculty.bucks.edu/rogerst/">journalism program at Bucks County Community College</a>.</p>
<p>It was an experience they won’t soon forget.</p>
<p>Sofield, founder and publisher of LevittownNow and NewtownPaNow,
recalls that the case began as a fairly routine missing persons story.
Then he got a tip from a firefighter that authorities were using a
helicopter to search the DiNardo’s farm.</p>
<p>TV crews were gathering at a press staging area, but Sofield’s reporter instincts told him to head to the search site.</p>
<p>“Right after I got out of my car, two huge black county detectives
trucks came over the hill and headed to a large farm a short distance
away,” Sofield says. “Based on my experience covering crime in Bucks
County, I knew they didn’t break those trucks out unless there was
something big happened. A few minutes later I learned the district
attorney was heading home from a vacation he just started. At that
point, I knew this story was big.”</p>
<p>Sofield mobilized his small staff, including Martin and reporter
Amanda Burg. He and Martin interviewed neighbors and friends of the
victims, while Burg scoured their social media accounts and public
records. “We were hearing whispers of what happened to these four young
men. We pretty much cleared our schedules and moved content around so we
could throw ourselves into this story,” Sofield says.</p>
<p>As the story went viral on social media, <a href="http://levittownnow.com/2017/07/19/heard-rumor-missing4-tragedy-police/">rumors</a>
and bad information started to fly. One example: A TV station reported
that the bodies had been found when they hadn’t. “We heard the same
information but held off on publishing it until we had three sources
confirm it,” Sofield says. “And three of our sources got back to us and
said ‘no,’ and one called and said two words – ‘That’s bulls–t.’”</p>
<p>“We made sure our coverage was factual and we independently confirmed
every detail before publication,” Sofield says. “In some cases, we
didn’t have the information first, but we also were told by law
enforcement our stories were spot on.”</p>
<p>Sofield said as local journalists, “we had a different perspective
than some of the regional outlets and national media. They could be
quick, get some facts wrong and slap ‘breaking’ on their live hits. For
us, we had to be right and treat this story delicately.”</p>
<p>Haddon, working for the Intelligencer, says, “it was all hands on
deck with several reporters, photojournalists, the video team, copy desk
and our editors working long hours. Information came at us from all
angles, from press briefings to submitted news tips, and we had to work
quickly to discern the truth from the many rumors and theories that were
tossed our way.”</p>
<p>Haddon was tasked with covering press conferences and waiting along
the roadside across the street from the DiNardo’s farm. “You couldn’t
see much from where I stood, just a view of a long driveway that
stretched its way between trees to the rest of the farm which was out of
view,” she recalls. “But in those hours watching the driveway, I was
able to report on and photograph everything and everyone coming in and
out of there.”</p>For Martin, the DiNardo case was the biggest breaking news story he’d
ever covered. “It acted as a wake up call to what a true media circus
can end up looking like, between the crowds at press conferences to the
mad rush to the DiNardo arraignment, the entire case was a strong
example of a groundswell of journalists collecting on one scene for one
story.”
<p>Martin says the training he received from Bucks’ journalism program, and experience working on the <a href="http://www.bucks-news.com/">Centurion student newspaper</a>, was invaluable, particularly what he learned in a feature writing course about putting a human face on stories.</p>
<p>“A lot of the information that we could write about came from press
conferences and other standardized sources. I believe our coverage stood
out as humanizing for the victims and really told the story of what we
know to be the truth of the case. This wouldn’t have been possible
without the feature writing class,” he says.</p>
<p>He adds: “Teamwork played a huge role in our coverage. Bouncing ideas
off of other people, as is common in the Centurion newsroom at Bucks,
helped us to clearly define our coverage goals and standards.”</p>
<p>Veteran reporters often speak of the exuberance of covering a big
story, and it’s a truism that journalists often do their best work
writing about the most desperate human tragedies.</p>
<p>But for these three reporters, what lingers is the senseless <a href="http://levittownnow.com/2017/07/26/fundraiser-for-families-of-slain-young-men-draws-hundreds/">loss of four young lives</a>.</p>
<p>“It was a tragedy that touched so many lives in Bucks County as the
entire country followed along,” Haddon says. “I was grateful to be part
of a team of such dedicated journalists working on this story.”</p>
<p>Sofield adds, “In the end, we have to tell the story of the four
young men who were murdered, report on the alleged killers and live in
the same towns as their families. Knowing that some of the families were
reading our coverage really put the story in perspective for me.”</p>
<p><i>Top photo: Reporters covering the DiNardo case</i></p>
<p><i>All news photos courtesy Tom Sofield/LevittownNow.com</i></p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-43297408954992855002021-04-22T09:25:00.004-07:002021-04-22T11:17:03.238-07:00Print Journalism is Still Vital, In More Ways Than One<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxKgEPGajzEWF7gSbv3xMFASqlEsjllSLght0_q57_hnx3pKysK670To5tcrl8BAKzPrnLP83f0btlJgiPaFuHKw0_2-vqEHCRd9t-bXrMamRNjbt8Xys8PCN2Ir4JeJBidKa5i2-33aN9/s840/morepapers.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="840" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxKgEPGajzEWF7gSbv3xMFASqlEsjllSLght0_q57_hnx3pKysK670To5tcrl8BAKzPrnLP83f0btlJgiPaFuHKw0_2-vqEHCRd9t-bXrMamRNjbt8Xys8PCN2Ir4JeJBidKa5i2-33aN9/w484-h222/morepapers.jpg" width="484" /></a></div><p></p><p>If there’s one thing the crazy summer of 2017 has made abundantly
clear, it’s that print journalism remains enormously important, both
for its vital role in informing the citizenry, and for its continuing
strength as a business model.</p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>The last clause of that <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/write-great-lead-focus-makes-story-interesting">lede</a> may be shocking. More about that later.</p>
<p>First, the part about informing the citizenry. Ever since <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/journalism-students-lessons-learned-coverage-trumps-election">President Trump took office</a>, the news media in general, and newspapers in particular, have been tasked with correcting the record any time what <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/donald-trump-liar-in-chief-w475917">some have called</a> our “liar in chief” lets loose with another whopper.</p>
<p>More specifically, it’s clear to anyone who has been following the
news that The New York Times and the Washington Post are engaged in a
great newspaper war as they try to outdo one another in digging up dirt
on the White House. As I <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/journalism-students-learning-investigative-scoops-trump">wrote earlier this summer</a>,
the two papers have been serving up a near-constant stream of scoops
about Trump’s lies, blunders and misdeeds. And as I write this in early
August, the Post has just published another bombshell: transcripts of
Trump’s embarrassing conversations with the president of Mexico and
prime minister of Australia.</p>
<p>If you don’t believe that this demonstrates how important newspapers
still are, even in comparison to television news, see how long you can
watch one of the cable news networks without hearing them refer to the
latest revelation from the Times or the Post. Indeed, see how long it is
before the reporters who dug up these scoops are being interviewed on
various cable news shows. Chances are, it won’t be very long.</p>
<p>(Newspapers are still the primary movers and shakers of investigative
journalism for the simple reason that they have more reporters, and
specifically more beat reporters, than their broadcast brethren. Network
news operations employ lots of anchor people and camera operators and
technicians of various sorts, but typically have far fewer reporters
than large papers like The Times, the Post or the Wall Street Journal.)</p>
<p>So watch the political shoutfests all you want on CNN, MSNBC or Fox,
but remember that the real news about the Trump administration still
comes largely from print journalists. Given the mendaciousness of the
current administration, what these newspapers are providing is nothing
less than a vital service to our country.</p>
<p>Now about that business model. It’s common knowledge that publishing
newspapers is a sorry business indeed, and that the future of news is
digital and online.</p>
<p>That’s true in a general sense. Newspapers have been hit with drops
in both circulation and advertising revenue for years, a trend that has
only accelerated in the digital age.</p>
<p>But that’s really only half the story because even now, at most
newspapers the revenue that comes from print (ad revenue and sales of
the papers themselves) still amounts to <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/how-can-newspapers-remain-profitable-2074032">far more than what comes from digital</a> (online advertising and revenue from website paywalls).</p>
<p>Take The New York Times. As Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute <a href="http://www.poynter.org/2017/digital-may-be-the-future-but-print-still-looms-large-in-the-present-fortunes-of-newspapers/467548/">reported in July</a>,
at The Times, “digital-only subscriptions now outnumber print by more
than two to one, and net additions per quarter, thanks in part to the
Trump bump, have been growing by six-figure increments in recent
quarters.”</p>
<p>The problem is, digital subscriptions still only account for 31
percent of the Times’ circulation revenue, while nearly 70 percent still
comes from, you guessed it, print.</p>
<p>That’s significant, because probably no other U.S. newspaper has done
a better job of monetizing digital revenue than the Times. Yet even
there, they still struggle to reap significant digital earnings.</p>
<p>As Edmonds writes:</p>
<p>“A full-rate digital-only subscription is $195 a year. Print subs
range in price but go as high as more than $1,000 annually… Even after
also factoring for less expensive Sunday-only subscriptions, it clearly
takes multiple New York Times digital subs – maybe three or more – to
generate the same revenue as one print/all access.”</p>
<p>Print also remains stubbornly appealing to many readers (yes,
probably the older ones). Edmonds cites a study that revealed this
interesting fact: 44 percent of print readers still don’t even look at
the digital version of their paper.</p>
<p>What does this all mean? That newspapers are going to be around for some time to come. And we should all be thankful for that.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a><a href="https://plus.google.com/+TonyRogersJournalism"><br /></a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4941428354748573688.post-62541858866792533902021-04-22T09:23:00.005-07:002021-05-19T22:20:01.626-07:00Five Tips for Creating a Successful Blog<p></p><p>In the early days of the Internet, long before Facebook and
Snapchat and cat videos, blogs were the hottest thing online. Everyone,
it seemed, was starting a blog, lured by dreams of making big bucks
(which hardly anyone did) or at least having the chance to publicly
proclaim their opinions (which everyone did).</p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Those days are long gone, but blogs can still be a way for aspiring
writers and journalists to build their skills. And while few people ever
make much money from blogging, bloggers can get satisfaction from doing
good work and attracting loyal readers.<p></p>
<p>So what are the keys to a successful blog? Here are five tips.</p>
<p><b>Find your focus.</b> The most successful blogs usually
focus on a particular topic or category, such as politics, sports,
childcare or fashion. Decide what you’d like to blog on – something
you’re passionate about is always a good choice – then stick to that.
The narrower the focus, the better. Instead of blogging about sports in
general, drill down on one sport or team in particular.</p>
<p><b>Have a point of view.</b> Most blogs are forums for
writers airing their opinions, and no one likes a blogger who is
wishy-washy. Clarify your thoughts on the issues you are covering, then
state them clearly and unequivocally. Hint: Never write “I think,” as in
“I think climate change is a real threat.” Just write a declarative
sentence: “Climate change is a real threat.” See how the second sentence
sounds more authoritative?</p>
<p><b>Keep your writing simple, conversational – and short.</b>
No one wants to read a blog that drones on like a badly written
research paper. In fact, take the opposite approach. A good blog sounds
like a real person talking, so don’t be afraid to write in a casual,
conversational way. And don’t ramble on endlessly. People’s attention
spans are limited, especially when reading on screens, so make your
point and move on. One surefire way of writing tight is to use the
Subject–Verb–Object (SVO) formula.</p>
<p><b>Write a great lead.</b> In journalism, <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/write-great-lead-focus-makes-story-interesting">the lead</a> is the first sentence of a news story. It not only <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/heres-newswriting-format-nutshell">summarizes the article’s main points</a>,
but should also grab a reader’s attention. So try to start every
blogpost with something that will draw readers into your story.<b><br />
</b></p>
<p><b>Do research and reporting.</b> A famous politician once
said, “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own
facts.” What’s my point? Just because you have strong opinions on an
issue doesn’t mean readers will take your word for anything. The best
opinion pieces are backed up by rigorous background research, and if you
cite research or statistics in your blogpost, you can link back to that
information. If you’re an aspiring journalist, do some <a href="http://allaboutjournalism.com/six-tips-conduct-effective-interview">actual interviews</a>
with experts in the field you’re writing about. That will give your
blogposts credibility and help you gain experience in working with
sources.</p>
<hr />
<p>Follow me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allaboutjournalism">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/aboutjournalism">Twitter</a><a href="https://plus.google.com/+TonyRogersJournalism"><br /></a></p><p> </p>Tony Rogershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10349928652972081421noreply@blogger.com