Student Blog: Covering the Emmys Before Classes Start

By Brandon Penny, Emerson College

As many college students return to school and get back into the daily grind of classes and homework – I’m lucky to be able to hold off on that madness and enter a different world with its own madness.

Unlike many schools, Emerson College does not start classes until the day after Labor Day.  So while I do have more time than most students before I have to face the monotony of classes, I’m jumping back into the craziness of school in my own unique way.

Less than a week after I was in Colorado Springs, working at my internship for the U.S. Olympic Committee, I have flown back to the west coast, but this time to cover the 2010 Primetime Emmy Awards.  I arrived Thursday, along with a crew of six other students, and will be in L.A. until Tuesday…before returning home again, only to spend four days there before actually going back to school.

From Newsroom to Classroom: Fall Semester Begins

By Dr. Lydia Reeves Timmins, University of Delaware

Out of nowhere, summer is ending and the first day on the new job is fast approaching. I have to meet with the HR department to work out benefits, my syllabi need to be sent to the copy center, students are emailing me begging to get into one class or another--man, launching a new show was just as much work!

As the days tick away I'm preparing a cheat sheet to remind myself what to do for the first class meeting session. You know, introduce myself, pass out the syllabus, tell war stories. I'm trying to decide how much of the latter to do. I want to establish myself as an expert, but I also need to actually TEACH the students something too.

In the two previous classes I taught, I found that the students were way more interested in hearing about famous people I met or cool things I did than actually learning the material in the class. Wonder why? But my goal is to incorporate the actuality with the theory and reasons behind it. (And yes, you of little faith, there is theory behind the news!) I hope that combination will result in learning that's fun and sticks with them past the first exam.

FCC Annual Regulatory Fees Due August 31

Partnering for Better Journalism

By Steve Safran Editor, Lost Remote

This week's episode of PBS's "Frontline" was striking for two reasons. First, because of the outstanding reporting that went into its heartbreaking story of police behavior during and after Hurricane Katrina. But second, because Frontline didn't go it alone. The episode, "Law & Disorder," was a partnership of Frontline, ProPublica and The Times-Picayune of New Orleans. It's not that Frontline couldn't have done this story on its own. Its producers clearly decided that the partnerships would help make for better journalism. The partners worked together for more than a year to produce this compelling work of journalism.

Partnerships aren't unheard of at the local level, but they are rare. And partnering is something we really need to revisit these days, given the number of resources that are available to help tell a story. Look at the number of local blogs in your community, especially those hyperlocals that are dedicated to neighborhood coverage. The blogs have journalists working a daily beat - so why not bring them in to the process?
 

Using QR Codes to Your Advantage

By Lynn Walsh, Texas Watchdog

QR codes are everywhere lately, on New York City garbage trucks, at music festivals and even in print advertisements.

QR or Quick Response codes are scanable bar codes that can be read by QR readers on mobile phones. Some codes just link to one website, others link to a whole list of contact information for an individual or a company.

Mobile QR apps are everywhere and most of them are free. It is also free to scan the QR codes and with plenty of QR code generators that are also free, there is no reason why journalists should not experiment with them as well... 

RTDNA President Emeritus Barbara Cochran Joins Missouri School of Journalism Faculty

RTDNA President Emeritus Barbara Cochran will join the Missouri School of Journalism faculty in its Washington D.C. bureau as the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting the school announced on Thursday.

“The School is very excited to have a person at the very top of our profession join our faculty and carry out the mission of the Hurley Chair,” said Stacey Woelfel, an associate professor and news director at the Missouri School of Journalism and current RTDNF chairman.  “Barbara brings the gold standard in broadcast journalism to Missouri’s efforts to improve public affairs reporting.”

In the position, Cochran will work with the School's faculty to teach and provide course content for students. Cochran also will engage in programs of research, consulting and training aimed at improving the practice of journalism, working with the Committee of Concerned Journalists, also located in Washington, and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute... 

Rookie Reporter Blog: New City, New Sources

By Marissa Pendergrass, cbs4qc

Moving to a new community is exciting and invigorating as a rookie reporter.  You meet so many new people and begin usually start out in an unfamiliar area.  Talking with people in the community and building relationships with those sources needs to start right from the very beginning. 

I’ve lived in five different cities in three different states before starting my first reporter job.  Every city and town in America is unique when it comes to the people and personalities you encounter.  That is part of what makes this job so exciting.  Yet, the concept of gathering a pool of resources is always the same.  It will take some time to build those sources and finding the extra time outside of work to touch base with them can be challenging.  
 

Money Matters - How to: Paint a Bigger Picture

Covering the economy can often involve a search for meaning in a swamp of data. It's not enough to share the numbers. Stories have to be "relatable and interesting," says NPR's Tamara Keith.

Keith became a full-time business reporter only a couple of years ago, filing stories for Marketplace on American Public Media and for NPR. Talk about timing: she took on the beat right around the time the financial system collapsed. Keith says she faced a very steep learning curve, but in some ways, it helped that she came to the story without a lot of expertise. "I don't make any assumptions about what listeners know because I didn't know that much not long ago," Keith says.

Now that she's been covering the economy for a while, Keith has developed a few routines. She uses this handy online calendar to keep track of upcoming developments, but she says she also finds business stories just about everywhere she looks. One of her favorite recent stories "walked in" while she was in New Orleans this summer. She'd gone to an oyster processing plant to check on food safety inspections in the wake of the Gulf oil spill and heard the owner telling workers not to come in the next day because they couldn't get any oysters...

RTDNA/Hofstra Survey: TV & Radio News Salaries Stabilize in 2009

The good news in broadcast news salaries in 2009 is that there isn't bad news, according to the latest RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey.  Local television news salaries rose a modest 2.5 percent during 2009, and local radio news salaries were unchanged.  That compares with drops for both local TV (4.4 percent) and local radio (1.8 percent) the year before.

“With negative inflation in 2009, even flat salaries mean no loss in buying power,” said Bob Papper, professor of journalism at Hofstra University and the survey director.

There’s a mixed picture in TV salaries.  Eleven positions saw increased salaries from last year, four dropped and three stayed the same.  But no salary for any position changed much, which is probably the more important point. 

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Radio Blog: Who Listens to Radio Anymore?

By Mark Willis, Region 6 Coordinator

Does your news organization have a mission statement? A purpose? R-T-D-N-A does. You're familiar with the name. The Radio Television Digital News Association. Founded in 1946, the RTDNA has long been associated with journalistic excellence. The RTDNA. mission statement on the website is simple, "Although news techniques and technologies are constantly changing, RTDNA's commitment to encouraging excellence in the electronic journalism industry remains the same." Here is something worth mentioning, too, about RTDNA. The first letter in R-T-D-N-A is RADIO.

Who listens to radio anymore?

I'll bet you do, along with millions of other people. Don't fool yourself into thinking radio is dead. It's not. People still want information. One of the first places they get that information is the radio. Whether it's in the car, truck, home or office, people will tune in and listen. What did you listen to on the way to work? 

Intern Advice: Not Your Typical Internship

By Brandon Penny, Emerson College

It’s funny how an internship will change your priorities, your perspective and force you to make grown-up decisions.

Last week, my family, along with a family that I grew up with and is like family to me, was on vacation in Cancun, Mexico.  I, on the other hand, was finishing the last week of my internship with the U.S. Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs.  I was supposed to go to Cancun when the trip was originally planned, and was beyond excited – it was the first time in six years the 10 of us would be going away together, plus I’ve never been to Mexico.

But when I was selected for the internship and found out the last week of the internship was the same week I was supposed to go to Cancun, I had to be mature and realize there was no way I could ask my supervisors for a week off (especially the last week), before I had even met them.  After all, it is an honor to be one of the few selected as a USOC intern, especially considering I was the youngest intern of this class.
 

CBS News Correspondent Harold Dow Dies at 62

How You Can Beat Patch

By Steve Safran, Editor, Lost Remote

Patch is moving in, and it's time to pay attention. AOL's local (some would say hyperlocal) effort hit its 100th town this week, and the company announced it's shooting for 500 by the end of the year. That's big news for us, because it means that a segment of what should be your web plan is being taken by a company with deep, deep pockets.

However, Patch is by no means a market killer. You still have time.

The advantage you have over Patch is simple: you know your market, and you are in a better position to reflect it and sell advertising against the site. Patch is a classic aggregation play -- it's trying to get page views across its network so it can sell national advertising. This does nothing for local advertisers, who should be your online sales bread and butter. In order to sell page views, Patch needs to aggregate hundreds of thousands of views. This is, simply, the wrong way to sell a local/hyperlocal website.

How can you beat Patch? 

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