Here is an interesting article on how the recent changes in Facebook will affect journalists (mostly positive). This is justhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif the first several paragraphs--to read the entire article,
Facebook has released several updates in the last month that will affect how journalists use the platform for reporting and storytelling. Many of these new features will make it easier for journalists to distribute their content and keep up with sources of information.
Some of the relevant changes for journalists include Subscribe, which enables readers to subscribe to journalists’ public updates, and a redesigned News Feed — complete with a newly introduced Ticker for real-time updates that makes it easier to keep up with the news that’s most important to you. The new lists also make it easier for you to target updates to a specific group of people, and to see a customized stream of news from them.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
New Pew Study on Where People Get News
Note the paragraphs on the newspaper:
‘Word of mouth,’ as news source, gains on local TV broadcasts, Pew says
By Paul Farhi, Published: September 25
It’s hardly news that local TV newscasts are the most popular source of community information. Surveys and Nielsen ratings have shown that for years.
But the second most widely followed source of local news isn’t the newspaper, radio or the Internet. It’s the oldest and most basic form of human communication: word of mouth.
The importance of neighbors, friends and co-workers as information transmitters is highlighted in a new study that suggests that the dinner table, the back fence and the water cooler make up the ultimate social network, over which some of the most important and relevant news is transmitted.
Word of mouth outranked every new and traditional form of news media except local TV news as the most frequently consulted news source in the study, released Monday by the Pew Research Center and the Knight Foundation. Their report suggests people get news about their communities through a complex “information ecology” that involves multiple sources and media, some mass and some interpersonal.
The role of human-to-human communication in news is both obvious — people have always told stories to one another — and revelatory, primarily because data and studies have long focused on the news media, not on all of the ways news actually gets around.
Local TV news still sits atop the information pyramid, according to the study, but its role is narrow and even fading. In a nationwide survey of 2,251 people, 74 percent said they turned to local TV news at least once a week to get information about their community, more than any other source.
Word of mouth ranked second (55 percent), followed by radio (51), newspapers (50) and the Internet (47). The latter category includes search engines, social networks such as Facebook, and blogs and Web sites not associated with a traditional media source such as a TV station or newspaper.
Marketers have always known that word-of-mouth advertising, or buzz, is critical to selling a product, but its role in news hasn’t been well studied.
The quality of word-of-mouth information, of course, varies considerably from the kind one gets via professional reporters (as the wildly inaccurate character who reports “Second-Hand News” on “Saturday Night Live” demonstrates).
On the other hand, interpersonal news usually comes from a known and trusted source, and helps people “triangulate” or vet information that may have been reported by the mass media, said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, one of two Pew-funded organizations behind the research. It also may be far more specific and personal than anything the media can provide, he said, such as who’s the best fourth-grade teacher at the local school.
Local TV news ranked as the leading information source in the study primarily because it’s the go-to medium for the handful of subjects people said they followed most: weather, breaking news, politics and crime. Weather was, by far, the most widely followed among the 16 topics researchers asked about, with 89 percent of adults saying they keep up with weather news.
But TV ranks low as a source on many other topics, such as news about businesses, schools, government and cultural events. And its appeal is primarily to people over 40; younger people say they are increasingly getting their news from other sources, such as the Internet and mobile phones.
Newspapers, meanwhile, were the most widely cited source for a wide variety of topics, though the topics were generally of lesser interest. Newspapers (print and online) ranked first or tied for first in 11 of the 16 news categories that researchers asked about, such as government, cultural events, schools and housing (sports was not on the list because researchers determined the term implied too many variables, including professional, college, high school, youth and participant sports).
Despite this, the news for newspapers seems ominous. Some 69 percent of the people surveyed said that if their local paper no longer existed, it wouldn’t have a major impact on their ability to learn about news in their community.
Word-of-mouth information tends to fill in gaps in the media infrastructure. Its importance rises the less a subject is covered. A Brookings Institution study this year, for example, found that “family and friends” were the most popular and highly regarded providers of education news.
“People rely on people they know because there’s no other source for a lot of this information,” said Russ Whitehurst, a co-author of the Brookings report. The track record of a local school or teacher “isn’t in the newspaper or online.”
The poll in Pew’s study, “How People Learn About Their Local Community,” has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
‘Word of mouth,’ as news source, gains on local TV broadcasts, Pew says
By Paul Farhi, Published: September 25
It’s hardly news that local TV newscasts are the most popular source of community information. Surveys and Nielsen ratings have shown that for years.
But the second most widely followed source of local news isn’t the newspaper, radio or the Internet. It’s the oldest and most basic form of human communication: word of mouth.
The importance of neighbors, friends and co-workers as information transmitters is highlighted in a new study that suggests that the dinner table, the back fence and the water cooler make up the ultimate social network, over which some of the most important and relevant news is transmitted.
Word of mouth outranked every new and traditional form of news media except local TV news as the most frequently consulted news source in the study, released Monday by the Pew Research Center and the Knight Foundation. Their report suggests people get news about their communities through a complex “information ecology” that involves multiple sources and media, some mass and some interpersonal.
The role of human-to-human communication in news is both obvious — people have always told stories to one another — and revelatory, primarily because data and studies have long focused on the news media, not on all of the ways news actually gets around.
Local TV news still sits atop the information pyramid, according to the study, but its role is narrow and even fading. In a nationwide survey of 2,251 people, 74 percent said they turned to local TV news at least once a week to get information about their community, more than any other source.
Word of mouth ranked second (55 percent), followed by radio (51), newspapers (50) and the Internet (47). The latter category includes search engines, social networks such as Facebook, and blogs and Web sites not associated with a traditional media source such as a TV station or newspaper.
Marketers have always known that word-of-mouth advertising, or buzz, is critical to selling a product, but its role in news hasn’t been well studied.
The quality of word-of-mouth information, of course, varies considerably from the kind one gets via professional reporters (as the wildly inaccurate character who reports “Second-Hand News” on “Saturday Night Live” demonstrates).
On the other hand, interpersonal news usually comes from a known and trusted source, and helps people “triangulate” or vet information that may have been reported by the mass media, said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, one of two Pew-funded organizations behind the research. It also may be far more specific and personal than anything the media can provide, he said, such as who’s the best fourth-grade teacher at the local school.
Local TV news ranked as the leading information source in the study primarily because it’s the go-to medium for the handful of subjects people said they followed most: weather, breaking news, politics and crime. Weather was, by far, the most widely followed among the 16 topics researchers asked about, with 89 percent of adults saying they keep up with weather news.
But TV ranks low as a source on many other topics, such as news about businesses, schools, government and cultural events. And its appeal is primarily to people over 40; younger people say they are increasingly getting their news from other sources, such as the Internet and mobile phones.
Newspapers, meanwhile, were the most widely cited source for a wide variety of topics, though the topics were generally of lesser interest. Newspapers (print and online) ranked first or tied for first in 11 of the 16 news categories that researchers asked about, such as government, cultural events, schools and housing (sports was not on the list because researchers determined the term implied too many variables, including professional, college, high school, youth and participant sports).
Despite this, the news for newspapers seems ominous. Some 69 percent of the people surveyed said that if their local paper no longer existed, it wouldn’t have a major impact on their ability to learn about news in their community.
Word-of-mouth information tends to fill in gaps in the media infrastructure. Its importance rises the less a subject is covered. A Brookings Institution study this year, for example, found that “family and friends” were the most popular and highly regarded providers of education news.
“People rely on people they know because there’s no other source for a lot of this information,” said Russ Whitehurst, a co-author of the Brookings report. The track record of a local school or teacher “isn’t in the newspaper or online.”
The poll in Pew’s study, “How People Learn About Their Local Community,” has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Working Hard and Owning the Business
Here's a very interesting post from a seasoned journalist who has some very accurate observations about the issue of startupshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif, working for a hyperlocal news site, and having your own business. See the original by clicking here.
You should only work this hard if you own the business
Posted on September 24, 2011 by Howard Owens
The list of duties for Patch editors in this Romenesko post is pretty much the job description for every local news site owner I know, at least the ones making a living at it.
When I’ve written about the number of hours I put into my business critics have said I don’t have a business model, my business isn’t “sustainable,” and so on.
Of course, this is coming from people who probably don’t want to work that hard, preferring the good old corporatism days of journalism with secure 9-5 jobs, two weeks paid vacation and dental coverage. Those days are disappearing, but the knock against hyperlocal start ups is that they’re not staffed as bodaciously as the newsrooms they may or may not replace.
To the second point, my response remains: Newspapers started small, cheap and with different standards. No newspaper started with staffs of dozens and a raft of Pulitzers. To hold an online-only start up to those standards is just plain daft.
To the issue of hard work, yes it’s hard work to start your own business, and I figure the critics of the online start ups have never dealt much with small business owners.
I deal with them every day, and for any of them that started their own businesses, they will readily tell you of the 100-hour work weeks, the weeks of just barely getting by and the impossibly long to-do lists. The hardships and sacrifices just go with the territory of starting your own business.
But here’s the thing about the work load for Patch editors: They’re not owners. They are expected to do all of the things they would have to do if they owned their own web sites, but merely in service of building wealth for AOL shareholders. Sure, work hard and keep your job is a nice benefit, and as a former corporate employee I think employees have an ethical obligation to help build shareholder value. That’s what they’re paid to do.
I’ve also been critical of corporate employees who aren’t willing to put in a little extra effort to help a project succeed.
However, if what we’re hearing is true about the Patch workload, I can only ask: Why are you doing it?
Patch editors should know that what they’re being asked to do on salary they could do for themselves far more successfully and with some chance of building a valuable business for themselves and their families.
I’m not writing this to wish Patch ill. I am not one to hope for anyone’s failure. I’m writing this for the sake of the seemingly overburdened Patch editors, and asking, “Why not just start your own local news site?”
Jump on in, the water’s fine.
You should only work this hard if you own the business
Posted on September 24, 2011 by Howard Owens
The list of duties for Patch editors in this Romenesko post is pretty much the job description for every local news site owner I know, at least the ones making a living at it.
When I’ve written about the number of hours I put into my business critics have said I don’t have a business model, my business isn’t “sustainable,” and so on.
Of course, this is coming from people who probably don’t want to work that hard, preferring the good old corporatism days of journalism with secure 9-5 jobs, two weeks paid vacation and dental coverage. Those days are disappearing, but the knock against hyperlocal start ups is that they’re not staffed as bodaciously as the newsrooms they may or may not replace.
To the second point, my response remains: Newspapers started small, cheap and with different standards. No newspaper started with staffs of dozens and a raft of Pulitzers. To hold an online-only start up to those standards is just plain daft.
To the issue of hard work, yes it’s hard work to start your own business, and I figure the critics of the online start ups have never dealt much with small business owners.
I deal with them every day, and for any of them that started their own businesses, they will readily tell you of the 100-hour work weeks, the weeks of just barely getting by and the impossibly long to-do lists. The hardships and sacrifices just go with the territory of starting your own business.
But here’s the thing about the work load for Patch editors: They’re not owners. They are expected to do all of the things they would have to do if they owned their own web sites, but merely in service of building wealth for AOL shareholders. Sure, work hard and keep your job is a nice benefit, and as a former corporate employee I think employees have an ethical obligation to help build shareholder value. That’s what they’re paid to do.
I’ve also been critical of corporate employees who aren’t willing to put in a little extra effort to help a project succeed.
However, if what we’re hearing is true about the Patch workload, I can only ask: Why are you doing it?
Patch editors should know that what they’re being asked to do on salary they could do for themselves far more successfully and with some chance of building a valuable business for themselves and their families.
I’m not writing this to wish Patch ill. I am not one to hope for anyone’s failure. I’m writing this for the sake of the seemingly overburdened Patch editors, and asking, “Why not just start your own local news site?”
Jump on in, the water’s fine.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
On This Day . . . 1690 and 1789
From Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac for Sunday, September 25:
On this day in 1690, the colonies' first multipaged newspaper was printed in Boston, named Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick.
It was also its last printing; gossip about the immoralities of the King of France and a denouncement of the mistreatment of French captives in the French and Indian War angered the local government. Four days after the paper's distribution, the governor and council issued a statement that the paper be "Suppressed and called in," and decreed that any future publications must be first authorized. America's first paper was also its first to be censored.
On this day in 1789, the First Federal Congress of the United States proposed 12 amendments to the recently ratified Constitution. Ten of them were ultimately adopted to become what's known as the Bill of Rights.
The amendments were the result of a major compromise between opposing factions, the Federalists — who thought the Constitution was a sound and sufficient document — and the Anti-Federalists, who worried that it gave far too much power to the central government and didn't protect individual freedoms. The two sides were at an impasse, and the Constitution was at risk of being rejected, until an agreement was reached that, if the Constitution was ratified, Congress would add on a bill of rights.
The Federalists believed the addition was unnecessary, and the anti-Federalists believed it wasn't enough ... but both sides conceded for the sake of the common good.
The first two amendments, concerning the number of constituents and the payment for Congressmen, were rejected.
The other 10, each a single sentence, provided for such rights as the freedom of speech and religion, the right to bear arms, the right to a speedy trial by jury without cruel or unusual punishment, and the right of states to govern themselves in any way not expressly prohibited by the Constitution.
An additional 17 amendments have been added to the Constitution since then. The most recent one, passed in 1992, was that second article proposed and rejected back in 1789, delaying any change to Congress's pay until the following session. The very first article proposed is still pending before state legislatures.
As the anonymous saying goes, "Democracy is cumbersome, slow and inefficient, but in due time, the voice of the people will be heard and their latent wisdom will prevail."
On this day in 1690, the colonies' first multipaged newspaper was printed in Boston, named Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick.
It was also its last printing; gossip about the immoralities of the King of France and a denouncement of the mistreatment of French captives in the French and Indian War angered the local government. Four days after the paper's distribution, the governor and council issued a statement that the paper be "Suppressed and called in," and decreed that any future publications must be first authorized. America's first paper was also its first to be censored.
On this day in 1789, the First Federal Congress of the United States proposed 12 amendments to the recently ratified Constitution. Ten of them were ultimately adopted to become what's known as the Bill of Rights.
The amendments were the result of a major compromise between opposing factions, the Federalists — who thought the Constitution was a sound and sufficient document — and the Anti-Federalists, who worried that it gave far too much power to the central government and didn't protect individual freedoms. The two sides were at an impasse, and the Constitution was at risk of being rejected, until an agreement was reached that, if the Constitution was ratified, Congress would add on a bill of rights.
The Federalists believed the addition was unnecessary, and the anti-Federalists believed it wasn't enough ... but both sides conceded for the sake of the common good.
The first two amendments, concerning the number of constituents and the payment for Congressmen, were rejected.
The other 10, each a single sentence, provided for such rights as the freedom of speech and religion, the right to bear arms, the right to a speedy trial by jury without cruel or unusual punishment, and the right of states to govern themselves in any way not expressly prohibited by the Constitution.
An additional 17 amendments have been added to the Constitution since then. The most recent one, passed in 1992, was that second article proposed and rejected back in 1789, delaying any change to Congress's pay until the following session. The very first article proposed is still pending before state legislatures.
As the anonymous saying goes, "Democracy is cumbersome, slow and inefficient, but in due time, the voice of the people will be heard and their latent wisdom will prevail."
Friday, September 23, 2011
Could Reporters Be Replaced by Computers?
Here's a really fascinating new technology which may help you a great deal in future reporting of board and council meetings, etc.
Narrative Science – Closer to a True Robot Reporter?
by Alex Salkever
The New York Times recently published an in-depth article about Narrative Science, a fascinating startup founded by two computer scientists who are also journalism professors at Northwestern University, and a veteran executive from DoubleClick. Their product is a software engine that can, given a box score, a crime log, or a real estate transaction, generate a brief , well-written news article in the classic who-what-when-where-why canon. While not works of art, these articles are credible and often beat what human scribes have to offer.
I wrote about Narrative Science a back in June for Street Fight, contemplating whether its application would fuel a truly 100% automated hyperlocal paper. In the Times piece, we got some more tantalizing detail. A Y Combinator backed startup called Market Brief is now using Narrative Science to turn thousands of daily Securities and Exchange Commission filings into moderately readable, albeit grindingly bland briefs. (In all fairness to Narrative Science, consider the original source of the information.)This is very interesting. but also highlights a major weakness of Narrative Science as a hyperlocal news generator. The SEC articles are primarily about transactions. The Narrative Science news engine cannot make inferences or logical leaps—yet.
The articles don’t note that the executive who sold 100,000 shares of stock in his brother’s company did the same thing two months before the company reported bad earnings last year. Okay, I’m making that part up—but you get the idea. The computer could also write up transcripts of city council meetings, but could it pick out the news nuggets, the bombs hidden in the footnotes of the agenda that a human reporter might know to highlight?
Not yet, but it can allow reporters to focus on those nuggets rather than on the drudgery of turns-of-the-screw reporting that is important to put the public record in a more accessible and searchable formate. And I have confidence that the Narrative Science guys have a tricks up their sleeves still. So stay tuned.
Narrative Science – Closer to a True Robot Reporter?
by Alex Salkever
The New York Times recently published an in-depth article about Narrative Science, a fascinating startup founded by two computer scientists who are also journalism professors at Northwestern University, and a veteran executive from DoubleClick. Their product is a software engine that can, given a box score, a crime log, or a real estate transaction, generate a brief , well-written news article in the classic who-what-when-where-why canon. While not works of art, these articles are credible and often beat what human scribes have to offer.
I wrote about Narrative Science a back in June for Street Fight, contemplating whether its application would fuel a truly 100% automated hyperlocal paper. In the Times piece, we got some more tantalizing detail. A Y Combinator backed startup called Market Brief is now using Narrative Science to turn thousands of daily Securities and Exchange Commission filings into moderately readable, albeit grindingly bland briefs. (In all fairness to Narrative Science, consider the original source of the information.)This is very interesting. but also highlights a major weakness of Narrative Science as a hyperlocal news generator. The SEC articles are primarily about transactions. The Narrative Science news engine cannot make inferences or logical leaps—yet.
The articles don’t note that the executive who sold 100,000 shares of stock in his brother’s company did the same thing two months before the company reported bad earnings last year. Okay, I’m making that part up—but you get the idea. The computer could also write up transcripts of city council meetings, but could it pick out the news nuggets, the bombs hidden in the footnotes of the agenda that a human reporter might know to highlight?
Not yet, but it can allow reporters to focus on those nuggets rather than on the drudgery of turns-of-the-screw reporting that is important to put the public record in a more accessible and searchable formate. And I have confidence that the Narrative Science guys have a tricks up their sleeves still. So stay tuned.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Journalistic 'Oopsies'
This is great! See the video at http://www.cnn.com/2011/IREPORT/09/21/journalism.fails.irpt/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
(CNN) -- Journalism can be an unforgiving profession. Mistakes are easy to make, and they're usually made publicly, which means red faces and awkward apologies all around. The only comfort is that everybody -- EVERYBODY -- makes them at some point.
We'll prove it to you. Here are nine CNN journalists -- including anchor Brooke Baldwin, in the video above -- sharing their most embarrassing professional moments and what they learned from them.
Actually record
It doesn't matter how awesome your interview is if you don't have a record of it. Steve Goldberg, a CNN senior producer, learned that one the hard way.
"I was covering UGA for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and had a big interview lined up with the university president," he says. "I went in with my tape recorder, took only brief notes, only to get back to the office and discovered that the batteries had died and I didn't have a recording."
So Goldberg had to swallow his pride and go back to the university. "I asked sheepishly if I could redo the interview and, much to my surprise, he said yes. Lesson learned: Make sure I put in fresh batteries before the big interview!"
It's critical to make sure you're intimately familiar with your equipment before you go out in the field to avoid such mistakes.(Mistakes, by the way, that many a CNNer have admitted to making.) And along those lines, make sure you actually, you know, hit record. (Yup, we've done that, too.)
Check your facts -- and your geography
CNN.com designer Ken Uzquiano single-handedly ceded Wales to England. True story.
He created a map of the UK to go along with a crime story on CNN.com. The only problem was, he left off Wales, instead marking the country as part of England.
"Within two minutes, it was all over the blogs," Uzquiano remembers.
And indeed it was. The UK-based tech blog The Register wrote:
"We have some bad news for those of you who woke up this morning thinking you were Welsh: As of right now, you're English, and you'd just better get used to the idea. ... Although the offending map has now been removed, when we rang the Welsh Assembly this morning a very glum spokesperson admitted, 'If CNN says we're English then it must be true.' "
Always have someone -- preferably someone with knowledge of the subject -- look over your stories before you make them public. And double-check your locators, because there's a Decatur in almost every state, and you want to make sure you're talking about the right one.
Name (the right) names
CNN video producer Jo Parker had painstakingly checked her facts. She'd gotten both sides of the story. She'd included fantastic, descriptive quotes. Only one problem: She was writing about the wrong guy.
"As a fairly new reporter, I was covering my first town council meeting. I was really proud of the way I'd balanced the story and included terrific quotes," Parker remembers. "I was trying hard to gain credibility, since the previous reporter had irritated local officials by being careless with balance and fairness issues."
"The next day, the story came out. Before I could finish patting myself on the back, I realized that I'd written about a town council member -- but used the local district attorney's name." Oops.
Parker says the mistake taught her to immediately admit the error, take responsibility and apologize as soon as possible. But, perhaps most importantly, "triple-check the things you 'know,' " she says.
Listen up
If you work in TV, you know that live segments have incredible potential for embarrassing screw-ups. CNN iReport producer Rachel Rodriguez was getting ready to present a somber story when she heard the anchor give her an unexpectedly lighthearted intro.
"It was Memorial Day, and I was doing a piece about soldiers we'd lost, so it was a really sad, serious story," she says. "I don't know how the anchor got the wrong information, but she gave me an intro along the lines of 'It's a beautiful Memorial Day outside, and everyone's picnicking and enjoying the lovely weather! CNN iReport's Rachel Rodriguez has more on how people are taking advantage of this gorgeous day! Rachel!' "
Rodriguez remembers the pit in her stomach growing as she heard the intro on her earpiece.
"There was no graceful way out of it," she says. "I just had to take control and turn the conversation around as best I could without making it sound like we were making light of the deaths of soldiers."
The key to recouping? Listen. Whether you're conducting an interview or narrating a segment, make sure you're paying attention to the other person and not just mindlessly reading your notes (or the teleprompter). Chances are, you'll need to react to something they say.
Put everything in context
CNN iReport producer David Williams found a creative -- if entirely unintentional -- way to combine two hot entertainment topics in 2006: Madonna and "Snakes on a Plane."
He was filling in for the entertainment producer, and it was "at the height of the 'Snakes on a Plane' hysteria," Williams remembers. "We ran a story about snake handlers having to deal with large amounts of snake poop during production. I gave it the brilliant but juvenile headline 'Poop on a Plane' and went on with my day."
His fatal flaw? "I didn't really think about how this would look on the CNN.com homepage," he says.
"The headline above it was about Madonna causing a stir in Germany," says Williams. "It looked sort of like this: German authorities watching Madonna poop on a plane. The fine folks at Gawker had a good time with it."
Amusing, but whether you're writing headlines or choosing quotes to go in a story, the lesson is the same: Take the time to think about the context for your words. Often, that will shape how you use them.
The devil is in the details
"When CNN first started going to a system of running videos off of computer codes, it was easy to get the eight-digit numbers mixed up," says CNN senior producer Tricia Escobedo. I think you can tell where this story is going.
"One day, when I was a TV writer for CNN International, two of the top stories were the annual 'running of the bulls' in Pamplona, Spain, and some sort of violence in the Middle East," Escobedo recalls. "I wrote the story for the anchor to read on CNNI over the video of the deadly violence, but inadvertently put in the number for the running of the bulls. I was horrified when I heard the anchor read about mayhem in the Middle East -- and saw the video of a bunch of crazed bulls chasing after some nutty tourists!"
"So the lesson is: Check those minor details and logistics," she says. "They can lead to major mess-ups."
Relax
Ah, internships. Time and scene of so many mistakes. Well, let's call them "learning experiences."
Toward the beginning of his career, CNN video copy editor James Dinan interned with the news department of a radio station in Newton, New Jersey.
"After a couple of days learning the ropes and staying out of trouble, I was offered the chance to cover one of the World Cup soccer games from Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey," Dinan recalls. "It was a simple task -- do a live spot about the game itself, as well as record one or two features about the sights and sounds surrounding the game."
Remember what we said earlier about live segments having excellent potential for mess-ups? Yeah.
"It was time for my live shot, and I was prepared. Or so I thought," Dinan says. "The first words out of my mouth...
"Italy rebounded from its opening match defeat by upending Norwegia, 1-0.
"Norwegia? Wasn't that a fictitious country featured in 'Duck Soup' or a Three Stooges short?" he jokes. "I was supposed to say Norway, but I had Norwegian on the brain and, somehow, the two managed to fuse together into a made-up word."
Luckily, Dinan's boss let him cover another game, Ireland vs. Norway, and he pronounced the country's name perfectly the second time around. His slip-up is a reminder not to psych yourself out before going on camera -- and not to worry too much about the little things.
Read it out loud
Here at CNN, we get our fair share of prank phone calls with super-fun fake names. But even if it's not a prank name, it helps to stop and think about -- and pronounce out loud -- any name you come across.
"In my first job in journalism, among the many things I had to do at a teeny-tiny paper was edit an advice column written by the newsroom staff," says CNN senior editor Jan Winburn. "People called in questions, and the newsroom secretary transcribed them and handed them around to staffers to track down answers."
One day, someone called in the following question: "I would like to find out why Jack Hammers and his equipment are allowed to work at 4 a.m. on Clinkscales and Worley and disturb people's sleep." See where this is going?
"The reporter who got this question dutifully called the city public works department and wrote an answer something to the effect that no one at the department was aware of anyone working at that intersection," says Winburn. "The joke, of course, is that she transcribed the question off the phone as Jack Hammers instead of jackhammer ... and I didn't catch it!" Winburn has kept the clip for more than 10 years.
Pro tip: It always helps to read your stories out loud, even if you're writing for print. Not only does it help make the writing flow, it makes it easier to catch embarrassing errors. And always have a second person read over your story.
(CNN) -- Journalism can be an unforgiving profession. Mistakes are easy to make, and they're usually made publicly, which means red faces and awkward apologies all around. The only comfort is that everybody -- EVERYBODY -- makes them at some point.
We'll prove it to you. Here are nine CNN journalists -- including anchor Brooke Baldwin, in the video above -- sharing their most embarrassing professional moments and what they learned from them.
Actually record
It doesn't matter how awesome your interview is if you don't have a record of it. Steve Goldberg, a CNN senior producer, learned that one the hard way.
"I was covering UGA for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and had a big interview lined up with the university president," he says. "I went in with my tape recorder, took only brief notes, only to get back to the office and discovered that the batteries had died and I didn't have a recording."
So Goldberg had to swallow his pride and go back to the university. "I asked sheepishly if I could redo the interview and, much to my surprise, he said yes. Lesson learned: Make sure I put in fresh batteries before the big interview!"
It's critical to make sure you're intimately familiar with your equipment before you go out in the field to avoid such mistakes.(Mistakes, by the way, that many a CNNer have admitted to making.) And along those lines, make sure you actually, you know, hit record. (Yup, we've done that, too.)
Check your facts -- and your geography
CNN.com designer Ken Uzquiano single-handedly ceded Wales to England. True story.
He created a map of the UK to go along with a crime story on CNN.com. The only problem was, he left off Wales, instead marking the country as part of England.
"Within two minutes, it was all over the blogs," Uzquiano remembers.
And indeed it was. The UK-based tech blog The Register wrote:
"We have some bad news for those of you who woke up this morning thinking you were Welsh: As of right now, you're English, and you'd just better get used to the idea. ... Although the offending map has now been removed, when we rang the Welsh Assembly this morning a very glum spokesperson admitted, 'If CNN says we're English then it must be true.' "
Always have someone -- preferably someone with knowledge of the subject -- look over your stories before you make them public. And double-check your locators, because there's a Decatur in almost every state, and you want to make sure you're talking about the right one.
Name (the right) names
CNN video producer Jo Parker had painstakingly checked her facts. She'd gotten both sides of the story. She'd included fantastic, descriptive quotes. Only one problem: She was writing about the wrong guy.
"As a fairly new reporter, I was covering my first town council meeting. I was really proud of the way I'd balanced the story and included terrific quotes," Parker remembers. "I was trying hard to gain credibility, since the previous reporter had irritated local officials by being careless with balance and fairness issues."
"The next day, the story came out. Before I could finish patting myself on the back, I realized that I'd written about a town council member -- but used the local district attorney's name." Oops.
Parker says the mistake taught her to immediately admit the error, take responsibility and apologize as soon as possible. But, perhaps most importantly, "triple-check the things you 'know,' " she says.
Listen up
If you work in TV, you know that live segments have incredible potential for embarrassing screw-ups. CNN iReport producer Rachel Rodriguez was getting ready to present a somber story when she heard the anchor give her an unexpectedly lighthearted intro.
"It was Memorial Day, and I was doing a piece about soldiers we'd lost, so it was a really sad, serious story," she says. "I don't know how the anchor got the wrong information, but she gave me an intro along the lines of 'It's a beautiful Memorial Day outside, and everyone's picnicking and enjoying the lovely weather! CNN iReport's Rachel Rodriguez has more on how people are taking advantage of this gorgeous day! Rachel!' "
Rodriguez remembers the pit in her stomach growing as she heard the intro on her earpiece.
"There was no graceful way out of it," she says. "I just had to take control and turn the conversation around as best I could without making it sound like we were making light of the deaths of soldiers."
The key to recouping? Listen. Whether you're conducting an interview or narrating a segment, make sure you're paying attention to the other person and not just mindlessly reading your notes (or the teleprompter). Chances are, you'll need to react to something they say.
Put everything in context
CNN iReport producer David Williams found a creative -- if entirely unintentional -- way to combine two hot entertainment topics in 2006: Madonna and "Snakes on a Plane."
He was filling in for the entertainment producer, and it was "at the height of the 'Snakes on a Plane' hysteria," Williams remembers. "We ran a story about snake handlers having to deal with large amounts of snake poop during production. I gave it the brilliant but juvenile headline 'Poop on a Plane' and went on with my day."
His fatal flaw? "I didn't really think about how this would look on the CNN.com homepage," he says.
"The headline above it was about Madonna causing a stir in Germany," says Williams. "It looked sort of like this: German authorities watching Madonna poop on a plane. The fine folks at Gawker had a good time with it."
Amusing, but whether you're writing headlines or choosing quotes to go in a story, the lesson is the same: Take the time to think about the context for your words. Often, that will shape how you use them.
The devil is in the details
"When CNN first started going to a system of running videos off of computer codes, it was easy to get the eight-digit numbers mixed up," says CNN senior producer Tricia Escobedo. I think you can tell where this story is going.
"One day, when I was a TV writer for CNN International, two of the top stories were the annual 'running of the bulls' in Pamplona, Spain, and some sort of violence in the Middle East," Escobedo recalls. "I wrote the story for the anchor to read on CNNI over the video of the deadly violence, but inadvertently put in the number for the running of the bulls. I was horrified when I heard the anchor read about mayhem in the Middle East -- and saw the video of a bunch of crazed bulls chasing after some nutty tourists!"
"So the lesson is: Check those minor details and logistics," she says. "They can lead to major mess-ups."
Relax
Ah, internships. Time and scene of so many mistakes. Well, let's call them "learning experiences."
Toward the beginning of his career, CNN video copy editor James Dinan interned with the news department of a radio station in Newton, New Jersey.
"After a couple of days learning the ropes and staying out of trouble, I was offered the chance to cover one of the World Cup soccer games from Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey," Dinan recalls. "It was a simple task -- do a live spot about the game itself, as well as record one or two features about the sights and sounds surrounding the game."
Remember what we said earlier about live segments having excellent potential for mess-ups? Yeah.
"It was time for my live shot, and I was prepared. Or so I thought," Dinan says. "The first words out of my mouth...
"Italy rebounded from its opening match defeat by upending Norwegia, 1-0.
"Norwegia? Wasn't that a fictitious country featured in 'Duck Soup' or a Three Stooges short?" he jokes. "I was supposed to say Norway, but I had Norwegian on the brain and, somehow, the two managed to fuse together into a made-up word."
Luckily, Dinan's boss let him cover another game, Ireland vs. Norway, and he pronounced the country's name perfectly the second time around. His slip-up is a reminder not to psych yourself out before going on camera -- and not to worry too much about the little things.
Read it out loud
Here at CNN, we get our fair share of prank phone calls with super-fun fake names. But even if it's not a prank name, it helps to stop and think about -- and pronounce out loud -- any name you come across.
"In my first job in journalism, among the many things I had to do at a teeny-tiny paper was edit an advice column written by the newsroom staff," says CNN senior editor Jan Winburn. "People called in questions, and the newsroom secretary transcribed them and handed them around to staffers to track down answers."
One day, someone called in the following question: "I would like to find out why Jack Hammers and his equipment are allowed to work at 4 a.m. on Clinkscales and Worley and disturb people's sleep." See where this is going?
"The reporter who got this question dutifully called the city public works department and wrote an answer something to the effect that no one at the department was aware of anyone working at that intersection," says Winburn. "The joke, of course, is that she transcribed the question off the phone as Jack Hammers instead of jackhammer ... and I didn't catch it!" Winburn has kept the clip for more than 10 years.
Pro tip: It always helps to read your stories out loud, even if you're writing for print. Not only does it help make the writing flow, it makes it easier to catch embarrassing errors. And always have a second person read over your story.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Sports Events This Week
If you have not yet written your sports-coverage article, here are a listing of Lancer sporting events the remainder of this week:
Tuesday, September 20
4p M Tennis Away vs. Goshen College
4p W Tennis Home vs. Goshen College
Wednesday, September 21
4p W Soccer Home vs. Holy Cross
7p M Soccer Away vs. Indiana Tech
7p W Volleyball Away vs. Marian Univ.
Friday, September 23
7p W Volleyball Home vs. Spring Arbor University
Saturday, September 24
10a JV/V Baseball Away vs. Ancilla
1p M Tennis Home vs. Huntington
1p W Volleyball Home vs. Taylor University
2p W Tennis Away vs. Huntington
3p M Soccer Away vs. Huntington
Softball Grace Tournament Home
Tuesday, September 20
4p M Tennis Away vs. Goshen College
4p W Tennis Home vs. Goshen College
Wednesday, September 21
4p W Soccer Home vs. Holy Cross
7p M Soccer Away vs. Indiana Tech
7p W Volleyball Away vs. Marian Univ.
Friday, September 23
7p W Volleyball Home vs. Spring Arbor University
Saturday, September 24
10a JV/V Baseball Away vs. Ancilla
1p M Tennis Home vs. Huntington
1p W Volleyball Home vs. Taylor University
2p W Tennis Away vs. Huntington
3p M Soccer Away vs. Huntington
Softball Grace Tournament Home
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