Monthly Archives: October 2020

RTDNA is offering the following free training to help you learn how to use free Google tools in the newsroom:

Join digital trainer Mike Reilley on Thursday, Oct. 15 at 1 p.m. CT for a hands-on, interactive Google Tools workshop.

You’ll learn how to use no-cost Google tools to create maps, visualizations, interactive charts and more.

Register here

Register now to join the creator of The Journalist’s Toolbox and add more Google tools to your toolbox.

This training will be offered live only. We will provide registrants a follow up tip sheet, but the training will not be recorded.

The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute is seeking proposals from individuals and organizations who wish to partner on innovative projects that strengthen journalism’s future. Fellowships range from $20k – $80k and last eight months. 

The deadline to apply is Dec. 18.

Learn more and apply here.

A sports anchor and reporter working in Syracuse, New York is joining the CBS 58 (WDJT-TV) Sport Zone.

Darius Joshua is a proud graduate of Syracuse University where he spent time at the nation’s oldest student run TV station, CitrusTV, and played a key role in covering Syracuse athletics. 

Joshua had a previous stop at a TV station in Iowa. He said he’s eager to get back to the Midwest and live in a great sports town like Milwaukee.

“Sports are a way of life in Wisconsin and I’m honored to get to be a part of it,” Joshua said. “From the Brewers, to the Bucks and of course, the Packers, I can’t wait to tell the stories between the lines that you don’t hear every day.”

“Darius will bring a new energy to the CBS 58 Sports Zone and the Milwaukee sports market,” said Kent Harrell, News Director at CBS 58. “He’s a creative sports personality and will be fun to watch. We’re very excited for him to get started.”

Joshua starts in December.

Here are some questions for parents to ponder:

Do you care if your kids get COVID-19? 

Do you want to be able to stay informed about coronavirus cases in your community? 

Should officials responsible for public health and education be held accountable for how they respond (or fail to respond) to the pandemic?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may find it troubling that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services does not name which schools have COVID-19 cases. Go to the agency’s and you’ll instead find aggregate numbers of case investigations for de-identified “,” which cover daycare centers, schools, colleges and universities.

The state knows the identities of schools, so why conceal them? I asked DHS spokesperson Jennifer Miller, who said in an email that her agency defers to local authorities to “make the best decisions for their communities.” That means it reports outbreaks in schools the same way it reports outbreaks in most other facilities: as overall numbers by county or region.

“We see no public health value in releasing the names of the school districts with active cases of COVID-19,” Miller wrote.

That latter point surprised me. There is no public health value in knowing which schools have COVID-19 cases?

Really?

Then why do some school districts school-specific case data? Why does the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the state’s largest news organization, devote substantial time and resources to independently tracking cases in schools around the state and ? Why do some other states, including , , and , centrally report cases in their school systems?

All of these players recognize the obvious value in knowing which schools have COVID-19 cases.

To be fair, DHS has deployed robust tools to help the public and press track the general spread and severity of COVID-19. on the agency’s website show the number of confirmed cases and the trajectory of those cases over time. The site also shows regional , including the number of ICU beds and ventilators in use.

But the state’s refusal to identify specific schools with COVID-19 cases a more pernicious problem: that officials don’t trust parents and students to have easy public access to information that could put schools or administrators in a negative light.

On April 29, in the early weeks of the pandemic, DHS Secretary-designee Andrea Palm touted the availability of outbreak information on the agency’s website, writing in a : “Data are one of our most critical tools to better understand and fight COVID-19. It is important that we share this information with the public so they understand how we are making decisions about our response to COVID-19, as well as better understand how this virus is impacting different areas of Wisconsin.”

I couldn’t agree more. Palm should follow through by posting on the DHS website the names of all schools with COVID-19 cases and the severity of such cases.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (), a group dedicated to open government. Council member Jonathan Anderson is a former Wisconsin journalist and current Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota.

The Poynter Institute is offering a unique opportunity to experience its annual recognition dinner. Read more from Andrew DeLong, Poynter’s teaching and evert services director:

As a nonprofit organization, around this time every year, Poynter hosts its major fundraising gala — The Bowtie Ball —  in our home of Tampa Bay, Florida. Six hundred fans of journalism join us and together, we celebrate journalism and democracy while honoring the lifetime achievement of a peer.

We’ve always wished for you to be there with us — to witness citizens valuing journalism’s collective work and to receive a resounding standing ovation when we ask people to stand and recognize the journalists in the room. 

This year, of course, our in-person celebration must wait. In its place, Poynter will host a virtual event — The Poynter Institute Celebrates Journalism — on Nov. 10. The event is free to attend with a donation suggested if you have the means. 

During the event, we will honor the distinguished career of longtime broadcast journalist Chris Wallace with the Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism. 

The Poynter Institute Celebrates Journalism
WHEN: Tuesday Nov. 10
TIME: 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m. CT
Get Tickets

Last year’s Medal winner, Katie Couric, said she was moved to be in a room where journalism was being honored by so many people. 

Please celebrate with us this year and get that virtual standing ovation you deserve as we honor your essential role. Forward this invitation to your family and friends who want to support journalism and democracy. The more, the merrier. 

If your organization would like to sponsor this event, please contact our director of advancement, Wendy Wallace, at wwallace@poynter.org for more information. 

We hope to see you there! Keep scrolling for this week’s training opportunities.

A morning anchor at NBC 15 (WMTV-TV) in Madison is taking a job at Fox 6 (WITI-TV) in Milwaukee.

Amelia Jones’ last day at NBC 15 will be on Friday. She was once an intern at Fox 6.

“Thank you to everyone who has woken up early with me and allowed me to share your stories,” Jones wrote on Instagram. “I appreciate every email, comment, like, tweet, direct message, everything you’ve ever sent me during my time here. Your kindness fills me with so much joy. Madison, you have my heart forever.”

Jones is originally from Kansas City. She graduated from Marquette University in May 2018 and has been repeatedly recognized for her work, including awards from the WBA Awards for Excellence.

It’s Oct. 1 and we are now on the homestretch to Election Day in America, which could mean journalists will face the challenge of combating misinformation.

RTDNA published this article from Andrew Rockway, Senior Community Manager for Elections at American Press Institute, highlighting four steps to help journalists address misinformation with their election coverage.

A key takeaway is realizing that audiences are getting information from a diversity of sources, which will affect how you present accurate information. Check it out.