Monthly Archives: October 2021

WBAY-TV News Director Matt Kummer is staying with Gray but moving to Knoxville, Tennessee to lead the newsroom at WVLT-TV/WBXX-TV.

“After an amazing decade leading the WBAY-TV newsroom, I’m heading south,” Kummer wrote on social media. “Already memorizing the lyrics to Rocky Top!”

Kummer started at WBAY-TV in 2011. Before that he was an executive producer at WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, an executive producer at WISH-TV in Indianapolis, an executive producer at WLUK-TV in Green Bay, and a newscast producer at WJBK-TV in Detroit.

Madison TV station WISC-TV was recognized Wednesday by RTDNA during the 2021 Edward R. Murrow Awards Gala in New York City.

WISC-TV was one of eight stations across the country to be recognized for overall excellence, the biggest prize in the competition.

You can read more about the Murrow Awards here.

Award-winning journalist Gerron Jordan is joining “WISN 12 News This Morning” as the live desk anchor on weekdays from 4:30 a.m. to 7:00 a.m., beginning Nov. 8. Jordan will work alongside co-anchors Adrienne Pedersen and Diana Gutiérrez, meteorologist Lindsey Slater, and Matt Salemme in News Chopper 12.

Prior to joining WISN 12, Jordan served as co-anchor of WVLA/WGMB-TV in Baton Rouge, Louisiana since 2017. He also worked as a general assignment reporter in KTVI/KPLR in St. Louis, Missouri. Jordan began his career doing a variety of roles at KPLC-TV in Lake Charles, Louisiana and WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, including anchor, morning reporter, multimedia journalist, and producer.

“We are thrilled to have Gerron join our top-rated morning team,” said Jan Wade, WISN 12 president and general manager. “He’s a very talented journalist, who enjoys reporting on stories that have meaningful impact, as well as people who make the community special. He’s a native of the Midwest, and we are delighted to welcome him back home.”

Jordan has received several prestigious awards for breaking news, digital media use, and political coverage, from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Louisiana Association of Broadcasters, and Louisiana Associated Press.

“Joining the dynamic ‘12 News This Morning’ family is truly a blessing,” he said. “I can’t wait to join Adrienne, Diana, Lindsey and Matt to bring viewers breaking news, impactful community stories and some lighthearted moments that can put a smile on your face. I’m excited to immerse myself in the greater Milwaukee community and get to know the great people of southeastern Wisconsin.”

Jordan is a native of Chicago, Illinois and graduated, with honors, from Howard University in Washington, DC with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism. Jordan is also a proud member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Hannah Storm wrote ten years ago about the safety of women journalists in newsrooms. This week she wrote an update for Poynter. You can find that here.

Many states, including Wisconsin, are taking up bills restricting transgender athletes’ ability to participate on sports teams that match their gender identity. Here’s a timely and free session from Poynter to get you up to speed on the topic:

During the 2021 legislative session, seven states passed laws that restrict transgender athletes’ ability to participate on sports teams that match their gender identity; dozens more states introduced similar bills in 2021 that didn’t pass.

At the center of public — and often vitriolic — debate around such laws are kids, families, athletic clubs and schools. This webinar, featuring award-winning ESPN reporter , will teach journalists how to thoughtfully, accurately and ethically report stories about gender and sports on the local level. 

Cost: Free, thanks to support from the Google News Initiative in cooperation with the JSK Journalism Fellowships.

Enroll here

Poynter is offering a free session for journalists looking to learn more about redistricting and how it affects elections. This will be particularly important for journalists in a state like Wisconsin where redistricting is a high profile issue. Here are the details:

States are actively redrawing political districts based on 2020 census data. This 90-minute webinar will prepare journalists to cover the redistricting process in their state and track the impact on upcoming elections.

Overview

• Join PolitiFact’s editor-in-chief and senior correspondent as they explore redistricting on Nov. 17 at noon Eastern
• Hear tips from experienced journalists who have covered redistricting in decades past
• Get your questions answered throughout the webinar and during a Q&A at the end of the session

Learn more and enroll here.

This comes from the Reynolds Journalism Institute:

Applications are now open for newsrooms who want to host a RJI Student Fellow for the summer! These fellows will be Mizzou journalism students who are placed with a news organization to work 30-40 hours per week in a summer product fellowship. These fellowships can be remote or in-person. 

The 2022 fellowships will be focused on projects that create, extend or build upon product work in each newsroom. This can be anything from building tools, creating a newsletter, working with your CMS or other product centered ideas. 

Each student will be trained by a News Product Alliance coach prior to their fellowship and have monthly remote training sessions throughout the summer with them.

Your WBA is offering members free access to a two-part Poynter workshop on powerful storytelling.

Here’s what will be covered:

–Finding and developing compelling characters 
–Finding sharp story focus 
–What goes where in the story and why 
–How to make words and video work seamless together even when you have limited video 
–How to spot soundbites that deeply connect with viewers
–The eight motivators that make any story more interesting 
–Getting beyond the obvious to the more important “why” of the story 
–The power of the Ladder of Abstraction (how to make interesting stories important and important stories interesting) 
–Sentence structure that makes information unforgettable 
–Navigating the friction between creative storytelling and clear storytelling

Part one is on Oct. 21 and part 2 is on Nov. 4. Both sessions start at 11 a.m.

Learn more and sign up here.

The following webinar is being offered by Poynter:

This webinar will help you think more deeply about LGBTQ+ people as a core part of your audience. During the first section, Poynter faculty and senior adviser Joie Chen will talk with Sharif Durhams, managing editor at The News & Observer and the Herald-Sun and president of NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists. They will discuss current best practices for reporting on LGBTQ+ people and uplift examples of impactful and innovative coverage. 

During the second part of the webinar, Tampa Bay Times engagement editor Ashley Dye will talk about strategies for LGBTQ+ inclusion. Dye founded the tbt*’s Coast is Queer section and is recognized nationally as a leader in improving equity and inclusion in newsrooms and news coverage.

Cost: Free, thanks to the support from the Gill Foundation.

Enroll here.