Cronkite News Lab recently profiled the technology being used by Tegna to promote best practices in writing headlines and copy for the web.
One highlighted innovation is the “story strength meter” which rates the quality of your story on numerous variables, like length, SEO, and related story links. This happens at the same time you’re producing the story.
You can read more about that and other innovations here.
Wisconsin Public Radio’s (WPR) latest reporting fellows reflect a continuing commitment to providing opportunities for underrepresented and early career journalists. This year WPR is pleased to welcome Lee Ester News Fellow Diane Bezucha and Second Century News Fellow Christine Hatfield.
Bezucha was a high school teacher in California and a photographer and educator in New York City before turning to journalism. As a graduate student at City University of New York, she embraced audio journalism. She is based in WPR’s Madison office, covering stories from around the state.
Community engagement underscores Bezucha’s passion for public radio. “Whether it’s through call-in talk shows, supporting with their dollars, or an engagement initiative like WHYsconsin, public radio is a true dialog between journalists and the community,” Bezucha said.
WPR’s 2021 Second Century News Fellow Christine Hatfield grew up outside Chicago and studied journalism at Ball State University. She comes to WPR fresh from a Master’s program in Public Affairs Reporting at the University of Illinois-Springfield, where she interned with public radio station WGLT in Bloomington-Normal, covering the Illinois statehouse. She is based in WPR’s Milwaukee office.
Hatfield is drawn to radio for its powerful storytelling. “With a really good radio story, that little bit of sound requires the listener to take an active role, to picture what it’s like to be there, to put themselves in the place of whatever the subject of the story is,” she said. In addition to daily news responsibilities, she will be gaining experience in producing talk programming on ‘The Morning Show’ on The Ideas Network.
WPR created the Lee Ester News Fellowship in memory of journalist Lee Ester, and the Second Century News Fellowship to provide opportunities for new, early career and underrepresented journalists to gain practical experience in public media news.
The RTDNA is pushing an effort to clarify the right to record the work of law enforcement officers. Here’s more from RTDNA Executive Director Dan Shelley:
RTDNA’s ongoing effort to ensure all Americans, including all journalists, have an unambiguous right lawfully to record the activity of police moves to a new phase today. The U.S. Supreme Court — without explanation — announced November 1 it will not hear Frasier v. Evans, et al., a case from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver that could have resolved the issue once and for all.
In response, our advocacy efforts will return to winning support on Capitol Hill for federal legislation and explaining to the public why it would benefit from such clarity.
As of now, fewer than half of the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals have clearly ruled that citizens, including journalists, have the right lawfully to record police activity subject to reasonable time, manner and place restrictions. In states covered by the remaining federal appeals courts, that right exists only if states or local jurisdictions have chosen to make it so. Many have, but some have not, leading to confusion and inconsistently enforced laws and policies.
In too many cases, citizens, including journalists, are being harassed, assaulted, or arrested by law enforcement simply for recording police activity.
Please urge your U.S. senators and representatives to support the Right to Record Police Act, written but not yet introduced in Congress, which would make the right to record police activity the law of the land.
Here are the only states currently covered by federal appeals court rulings affirming the right lawfully to record police. If a state is not listed, it may — or may not — have statewide or local laws or policies in place ensuring that right.
• Arkansas
• Connecticut
• Iowa
• Kentucky
• Maryland
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Missouri
• Nebraska
• New York
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Vermont
• Virginia
• West Virginia
The right to record police is a top RTDNA priority. This Supreme Court development is not a defeat; rather, it merely delays what I remain confident will be a positive outcome from all of the hard work we have done so far and will continue to do.
But it will only succeed with your help.
The Natural Resources Board, an all-volunteer body that guides policy for the Department of Natural Resources, is part of Wisconsin’s tradition of open government. The idea to empower volunteers — rather than politicians — was first proposed in the progressive era by leading conservationists, including Aldo Leopold, who understood that decisions about natural resources should be guarded from backroom dealing between politicians and lobbyists.
For this reason, the NRB is designed to allow for direct input from ordinary people and for an open decision-making process. But a shadow has fallen over the board. Its current chairperson, Frederick Prehn, has clung to the role past his term, which ended in May. Dr. Prehn, a dentist in Wausau, maintains that he can hold on to the role until the state Senate confirms his replacement.
Gov. Tony Evers in late April Sandra Naas to replace Prehn. But the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature has refused to take it up.
Wisconsin’s public records law has shed light on this murky situation. My organization, Midwest Environmental Advocates, made several demands under that law for records regarding Prehn. They show that Prehn spoke with staff of the Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, which helped him obtain a memo from the Legislative Reference Bureau about remaining on the board. Other records document Prehn’s regular coordination with lobbyists from Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC).
These same lobbyists met with LaMahieu about Prehn’s term before his replacement was announced. In other records, he suggested he should remain on the NRB to block the governor’s proactive approach to PFAS contamination (the toxins found in Teflon and other products), policies that WMC is also fighting tooth and nail.
The records law has given the public a clearer picture of what Prehn and others are up to. But the picture is far from complete, and that is why my group has Prehn.
Midwest Environmental Advocates believes Prehn may have illegally hidden the full extent of his coordination with WMC and others. We requested all forms of written communications Prehn sent and received about his decision. He turned over no text messages. But through a request to another official, we later discovered a text message in which Prehn reflected on his decision to stay on to oppose the governor’s policies. Prehn was legally obligated to retain and disclose this message.
Our lawsuit is about holding Prehn accountable by obtaining records that we all have a right to see. Prehn is not respecting the state’s open government traditions, so essential to the NRB.
The case involving Prehn points to ways to better implement the public records law to avoid litigation. Prehn regularly communicated about NRB business on personal email and text. Of course, he is not alone in using personal accounts for public business, which is not illegal, even though all such communications are still public records.
Officials should be discouraged from this practice. When public records exist on private accounts, we are forced to rely on the word of the official who created the records. Compliance officers at state agencies should consider requiring officials who created public records on personal accounts to attest under oath that they complied with their duties to search for and disclose records. Doing so would make officials think twice before attempting to skirt the law and it would promote transparency.
Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the (), a group dedicated to open government. Tony Wilkin Gibart is the executive director of Midwest Environmental Advocates, a nonprofit environmental law firm.
WBA Newsroom