Think for a moment about the people who you’ve used as sources in your recent stories. Was it a diverse group that represents different viewpoints in your community?
It’s a question that public radio is trying to address by logging who they talk to when they produce their stories.
“Newsroom leaders at NPR and stations say that the work of developing diverse sources creates better journalism, and also makes business sense.”
Newspapers across the country are running editorials today emphasizing the importance of a free press.
The Society of Professional Journalists submitted this letter to the editor to newspapers across the country. It spells out the tenants of the SPJ Code of Ethics:
1. Seek Truth and Report it
2. Minimize Harm
3. Act Independently
4. Be Accountable and Transparent
“We at the Society of Professional Journalists hope that today will be a wake-up call to the millions of Americans who cherish the freedom of expression guarded by the First Amendment.”
The WBA announced today that it will be hosting debates in the Wisconsin Governor and U.S. Senate races. All the details are here.
Thank you to all the journalists in the Madison and Wausau/Rhinelander markets who will be asking candidates the tough questions on live TV:
Top row:
Moderator for both debates, Jill Geisler
Gubernatorial debate panelists:
Jessica Arp, WISC-TV
Emilee Fannon, WKOW-TV
Leigh Mills, WMTV-TV
Lupita Montoto, La Movida Radio
Bottom row:
U.S. Senate debate panelists:
Holly Chilsen, WSAW-TV
Chris Conley, WSAU Radio
Melissa Langbehn, WAOW-TV
Ben Meyer, WJFW-TV
Jeff Thelen, WSAW-TV
Be sure to tune in on Oct. 5 and Oct. 13 and do everything you can help voters make informed decisions when Election Day arrives.
Election Day is traditionally a long and stressful day for newsrooms. Newsrooms have often soothed themselves on these days with pizza and sweets.
WBA Newsroom knows a newsrooms needs some stress relief today and encourages reporters, producers, photographers, news directors, and everyone else in the newsroom to do what you need to do to ease the stress, whether that means indulging in junk food, getting exercise, or reading a book. Find what relieves the stress and make it happen today.
But do it before the polls close at 8 p.m. That’s when it’s game time.
Good luck with your election coverage tonight.
From joshuamiranda on Morguefile
If you’ve spent any time fact checking, you know that it’s a lot harder than it sounds.
Today we have a series of videos to share with you about how to improve your fact-checking abilities. You can check them out here.
Here’s one of them that explains how you can use a tool called Mapchecking to measure crowd sizes:
News directors have a lot of people to think about. Their GM, their reporters, their audience. It’s a lot to balance.
If you’re a news director or just someone looking to appreciate the challenges of being one, you’ll want to check out this article from RTDNA written by Austin Kellerman, the news director for KARK and KLRT-TV in Little Rock, Arkansas. In it he shares ten things he’s learned after ten years of being a news director.
While directed at news directors, there’s great advice there for anyone in broadcasting management.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice on Wednesday issued a release in response to concerns about rising fees for access to public records and suggesting fees for records custodians. Here are some key quotes:
“Copying fees should be based on the actual costs of the copy machine or contract, and the actual cost of paper.”
“Authorities should limit the amount of time spent by specialized personnel to only that time required to perform the specialized portion of the location task, thereby minimizing the time spent using specialized and costly personnel.”
“The law explicitly permits an authority to impose a fee for locating records if the cost is $50.00 or more, but only actual, necessary, and direct location costs are permitted.”
If you find yourself working with a records custodian who wants to charge you more than what seems reasonable for copies of public records, you might want to keep this document handy.
Thank you to the DOJ for providing guidance on this issue.
You probably never heard of Dr. Joe Flaherty, but his innovations revolutionized television, and TV news in particular.
Flaherty worked for CBS and is credited with ending the use of 16mm film for news gathering and replacing it with electronic news gathering. This ended the long and tedious process of transporting and processing film to broadcast news events. His innovations made it possible to take a TV audience to a live news event.
He was also one of the leading innovators on HDTV.
Flaherty died Tuesday. You can read all about his remarkable career here.
You write every day for work, but when’s the last time you thought about your writing.
Take a quick break from the typing to brush up on your skills. Poynter collected writing tips from a group of veteran journalists.
Data can be useful for powerfully sourcing your stories and for generating story ideas.
Poynter is sharing a list of databases and reference documents that every reporter could find useful.
The next time you’re wondering what important story you could bring your audience, remember that there are countless stories waiting to be discovered in the mountains of data available in online databases.
WBA Newsroom