Monthly Archives: March 2015

It’s a phrase becoming more and more common in newsrooms. Somebody in a supervisory position asks a reporter “what’s the source for this? Is this confirmed?” and the reply, all too often, is “but the story is already out there”, usually meaning it’s “out there” on social media. Like the story from social media a few months ago that Hugh Hefner had died, which far too many broadcast newsrooms picked up and ran with, until Hef himself tweeted that he really wasn’t dead. Here are some thoughts about “The Twitterization of News” by TV News Director Forrest Carr.

A powerful group of broadcast and entertainment industry associations has collaborated to develop resources which help journalists cover mental illness, substance use disorders, behavioral health treatment and recovery and suicide prevention. This new booklet offers suggestions for storytelling, best practices, research, lived experiences, and guidance for creating thoughtful reporting. With the national media focused on reporting on the mental condition of the pilot that crashed the airliner into the French Alps, killing all on board, these guidelines and suggestions are particularly timely. There are plenty of local news stories involving police dealing with people with mental afflictions, so it’s a good idea to download the booklet and take a look at it. The booklet is found at the end of the story linked here.

Posted by Tim Morrissey

Al Sunshine was an investigative reporter for a Florida TV station for forty years. He’s written a column for the RTDNA with some useful tips. It’s short, to-the-point, and worth the few minutes it will take to read it. The column is here.

It may be hard for some to believe, but Twitter is now in its tenth year. The man who founded the ubiquitous social app, Jack Dorsey, let out a flurry of tweets Saturday, March 21, on his brainchild’s ninth birthday, in which he gave much of the credit for Twitter’s growth to Journalists. You can read the HuffPo article here.

Most news writers have a variety of crutches they lean on when writing a story quickly to make a deadline. Some writers are lazy and just copy-and-paste large chunks of text right out of a police report with little consideration for the “cop-talk” that’s always found in such reports, not even bothering to change pat phrases like “the incident remains under investigation” – not realizing that it would be news if the incident were NOT still under investigation…as if the cops just said “well, this one’s too hard to figure out; might as well not pursue looking for the perp.”

Here’s an interesting column from a veteran news writer and RTDNA contributor about how many news writers lean on the word “official” far too much.

At the end, the writer asks about pet peeves. One of my many pet peeves in news writing is “high rate of speed”. Speed is a rate – usually expressed as miles/hour in the U.S. “High speed” is not only accurate and correct, it’s not redundant. Please feel free to share your “pet peeves” in newswriting with the rest of us. Send me a note at editor@wbanewsroom.org and I’ll compile a list and post it.

Posted by Tim Morrissey

“Government transparency” is a phrase bandied about by many politicians, promising that under their watch, their doings on behalf of the electorate will be open and free for all to see. Lofty words, but words too often not backed by action. Citizens expect transparency at every level of government, whether it’s their local town board, or the office of the President of the United States. This column from the executive director of the Radio-TV-Digital News Association highlights another blow to transparency, and points out that the move rejected by the White House wasn’t much of a step forward in government transparency to begin with.

This section of the WBA Newsroom gives a quick tutorial on how Wisconsinites feel about transparent government, and the laws the state has enacted in an attempt to allow reporters unfettered access to the doings of state government.

Posted by Tim Morrissey

March Madness is here! The Girls’ State Basketball Tournament is underway in Green Bay; next week the Boys’ tournament starts; and late Sunday afternoon we’ll know where the Badgers will be playing in the first round of the biggest “March Madness” contest of them all, the NCAA Division One Basketball Tournament.  As this article from the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association’s “legal eagle” points out, “March Madness” is a trademarked term, just like “Super Bowl” and a lot of others. There’s no problem using the phrase “March Madness” in news and sports reports on your station, but for commercial matter, it’s another kettle of fish – including sponsor messages delivered during live coverage.  David Oxenford makes it clear and easy to understand.

However, there are plenty of cautions for news and sports writers when it comes to using copyrighted terms. This section of the WBA Newsroom will give you a quick primer on do’s and don’ts. The list of copyright words and terms on the list is sure to contain a few that will surprise you!

Posted by Tim Morrissey

Covering  breaking news at a crime scene or emergency falls within the job description of any broadcast news reporter or photographer. The recent police shooting in Madison provided a number of challenges for electronic media professionals, covering not only the scene of the shooting, but the protests that quickly materialized after the shooting, which left a young black man dead. If you are a reporter or photographer new to Wisconsin, or not experienced in covering live crime scenes, this special section of the WBA Newsroom will quickly bring you up to speed on what’s allowed and what isn’t; and provides suggestions from police authorities on their expectations of the media covering crime scenes. As a reporter or photographer it’s important to know what your rights are, and it helps to know in advance what police expectations regarding media coverage might be.

Pro tip: “officer-involved shooting” is police jargon which has crept into news writing and reporting. “Police shooting” is accurate and descriptive.

Posted by Tim Morrissey March 7, 2015

“Clickworthy” and “click bait” are two words heard often regarding today’s news reporting style. Do reporters really ask questions just to try and see how many clicks the story will get on their station’s website? In this interesting article from the Columbia Journalism Review, Susan Milligan writes extensively (more than 45-hundred words) about the nature of questions reporters asked President Obama after the mid-term elections a few months ago.  The article is here.

I remember watching a local news telecast on a morning several months ago and seeing a story about the death of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. I knew the story was wrong, because the rumor of Hefner’s death had been de-bunked the day before, but not until the story had been “out there” for several hours. After a commercial break, the TV news anchor apologized for the story on Hef’s death, saying it was apparently an internet rumor. I can only imagine how embarrassed the young anchor must have felt, after learning from a producer or somebody fielding the scores of viewer calls that must have poured in during the 3-minute commercial break, saying “Hef’s alive and well – you guys fell for a rumor!”

In this fascinating column from former TV News Director Forrest Carr, he puts the year that TV news started reporting rumors – or, worse still, rumors of rumors – as 1998, when Grudge reported a rumor of a rumor that the President of the United States had a sexual relationship with a White House intern. The story got tremendous pickup, and was on “mainstream” broadcast news outlets a short time later.

Do you go with a story because “it’s out there?” Should you? After all, it was TMZ that actually broke the story of Michael Jackson’s death. But it seems for every story like that, there’s another from some website that’s totally untrue, like the story of Hugh Hefner’s death.

At what point does your newsroom decide a story is “real”?

Tom Bier, who is station manager at WISC-TV in Madison, and has had a distinguished career in TV news, used to give a seminar to various civic groups about the process of deciding when a story becomes news.  When he talked about reporting on crimes, he’d ask the attendees when it was appropriate to begin reporting on alleged criminal activity. Often times, with some subtle pushing from Tom, the attendees would come to a consensus that because a person’s reputation is at stake, the news should not report on alleged crimes until the person charged was actually found guilty by a jury.

Tom would then say something along the lines of “in other words, we should never have reported a single word about O. J. Simpson, when he was charged with the murder of his ex-wife.” It must have been fun to watch the reaction of the seminar attendees at that point.

The point is this: do old-school Journalism standards still apply – or, do you go with a story “because it’s out there”.  It’s a debate which should be held in every broadcast newsroom.

(This post written by Tim Morrissey)