On the job or in the classroom?

We discussed the opportunities (or relative lack thereof) for thorough training in the T&T media last class. I encouraged the class to take advantage of the practice and exposure this course offers, and to pay attention to the mechanical framework the programme provides.

NPR recently ran a story highlighting some of the journalism education issues I brought up near the end of our session. "What's the Point of Journalism School Anyway?" questions the wisdom of pursuing (often costly) tertiary qualifications for an industry which, as the writer points out, doesn't even require a degree. The story also notes the concerns of students regarding the industry-wide shift away from traditional media to new media like the internet.

Take a read. It's relevant to your interests.

Wilson argues that good citizenship and a vibrant press are inextricably linked.

"If you look around the world, whether it's a developed country or a developing country ... if that country has a free and independent press it's much more likely they're going to be a democracy," he says. "And I think those of us in [the] journalism education field have an obligation to help train people to provide information in the public interest."

"Journalism's first obligation is to the truth..."

Welcome to the course.

The next four months will broaden your perspective on how information is delivered to you, and hopefully pique your interest in an often overlooked profession.

As we discussed today, defining journalism is more about saying what it does than what it is. The debate will only deepen as the internet continues to democratize journalism, and growing niches like citizen journalism and advocacy journalism will continue to shift our perception of news.

We'll be diving straight into the fundamentals of newswriting next week. I invite you to check out Jim Hall's excellent Beginning Reporting website for a primer on upcoming topics. Keep an eye on this spot for other helpful links.

Every few weeks I'll make some of my lecture material, such as scripts and PowerPoints, directly available for download here. I'll also regularly post story examples and well-written practice assignments from within the class. If I pick up troubling trends while correcting assignments, I'll address them here initially.

Feel free to comment under each post or e-mail me your questions and suggestions.

Until next week, keep reading.

Words that should be banned from professional writing

Words that should be banned from professional writing

Has a public official been “probed” lately? Or has one executive been “tipped” to replace another in an organization? Have political opponents “blasted” each other recently in the media? Journalists – like other professionals – can develop routines or habits to add speed or ease to the performance of their job. But while some routines are good – like getting a second source for serious revelations or carefully re-reading your work for errors of grammar or clarity - some routines are bad but continue because so many people practise them and so few question them. Bad habits abound in journalists’ use of language, particularly the use of words and phrases in ways that are imprecise, exaggerated or just plain worn out. David Randall, author of The Universal Journalist, calls these words or phrases “journalese”. There is a list of them in the excellent book “English for Journalists” by Wynford Hicks. I’ll start a list of my own by first borrowing from his, then adding from other sources over time. Feel free to criticize or make suggestions in the comments section.

aim (to mean intend)

axe (to mean sack)

battle (dispute)

bid (try, attempt)

blast (criticize)

blaze (fire)

clampdown (control)

clash (dispute)

dash (hurry)

don (put on)

drama (event)

dub (describe)

launch (start)

loom (threaten)

oust (replace)

pledge (promise)

poised (ready)

probe (inquiry)

rock (shock)

row (dispute)

scrap (cancel)

slam (criticize)

soar (increase)

unveil (announce)

vigil (patrol)

vow (promise)

If you're not online, you're missing half the story.

The internet isn't killing newspapers. It's facilitating a transition.

Adapt or die.

The press dropped the ball with their coverage of the recent Fatima scandal. Salacious content aside, the incident presented opportunities for several interesting and relevant stories. Instead we got late, short stories that lacked much of the basic information behind the incident, and failed to explore the various angles.

- What exactly happened?

- What's the reaction from the staff, the PTA, students, the Ministry of Education, the Catholic School Board, and the currently beleaguered Catholic Church?

- What was the reaction online, where the video was first exposed and circulated?

- What of the fact that the video is essentially child pornography? What is the state of our legislation regarding the possession and circulation of child pornography? Do the Are people who have the video on their phones and in their e-mail inboxes aware of the gravity of what they're doing?

- How does this impact the Ministry's plans (or its PR) for its single-sex school pilot project?

- Weren't camera phones banned in schools about 18 months ago?

None of these questions were answered adequately (if at all), and the crux of that problem has to do with the failure to take advantage of the internet and social media as a source of news, information and feedback. We discussed this issue at length in class on Monday (thanks to Dwayne for bringing up the Minority Report example), and several commentators, including former journalist Danielle Jones, have weighed in on the issue.

A few months ago I argued on the No Behaviour Show that a reporter who doesn't have a blog or post their work online is not necessarily incompetent. I stand behind that, but I believe that all reporters should keep an eye on Facebook, Twitter, discussion forums and the commentary feeds beneath their own stories.

In fact, I'll take it one step further and suggest that each local newspaper should designate an internet savvy reporter to observe these avenues on a daily basis, quietly become a part of internet forums where possible, and produce stories (or story ideas) based on our active online communities. A reporter with that responsibility would have produced multiple stories on the day the Fatima scandal broke (no pun intended).

Similarly, if the Guardian kept a closer watch of the TTOnline forum linked off their own website, they'd be surprised at the number of interesting stories they'd have caught wind of over the last few years. Or the number of people they've reported on who regularly post quite revealing information right under their noses. And TTOnline pales in comparison to Trinituner.

As Mark Lyndersay noted a few weeks ago (and Jones pointed it out in her own blog), a social media desk is no longer innovative or novel...it's a necessity. And it has to be a specialized role. You can't simply take a reporter from another beat and expect them to get to the most out of stories like these...especially when you also probably expect that reporter to juggle two other totally unrelated stories that same day. It's unrealistic, unreasonable and unfair to the reporter.

Your online reporter has to be someone who knows their way around, and is part of, the online community. Someone who tweets, blogs, posts on Facebook, keeps up with their RSS feeds and podcasts, and quietly interacts with the unknowing public on forums.

The investment will pay off: You'll attract the attention of the sort of people who don't usually read newspapers, and encourage your mostly offline readers to explore the internet, hopefully using your own paper's site as a portal.

It's the perfect role for one of those cub reporters, fresh out of school, enthusiastic and energetic, but not too familiar with the outside world. Instead of burning them out on some uninspiring and frustrating beat, take advantage of their strengths and let them help you explore this increasingly vital frontier.

Editorials, columns and some house keeping

Last Thursday (or Monday) in class we discussed what makes a good newspaper and magazine editorial and/or column. They each have a lot of things in common; for instance they adhere to journalistic structure, but hold elements of both news and feature stories. They're meant to influence public opinion through persuasive argument. And although editorials and columns do use the writer's opinion, this opinion is based on solid, accurate fact and information. This article at Poynter Online should help you to remember the most important points about the structure, tone, style and purpose of an editorial. As for columns, their style, tone and purpose really depend on the editorial policy and readership of the publication. I know you all had a favourite out of the ones we discussed, so I'm posting a link here so you can read the rest yourselves.

One thing we didn't touch on in class was the issue of blogs. Blogs act as the new column for 21st century media, and since there's no cost to start or maintain one, a lot of people are spewing opinions (bad, good or indifferent) all over the web. But the best blogs are still the ones that follow journalistic style writing, however brief, that opine based on accurate fact and that influence public opinion through argument. Some blogs that you may find interesting are that of writer/photographer Mark Lyndersay, our last guest lecturer, a food blog I love called The Wednesday Chef and Afro Bella, a local girl gone global talking about natural hair care.

Assignment #2 is in, and I'd like to just reiterate a couple of points. Firstly, its very important that you read up on the nitty gritty of writing. Many of you had great stories, but you fell down on punctuation, on the strength (or lack thereof) of your sources, proper attribution and editorialising. One of your recommended texts, How to Write Articles for Newspapers and Magazines is an excellent resource for all the finer points of writing, so please use it or any other of the online resources you see posted on this blog.

Hope you're working on your stories for Assignment #1. Until next class,

Desiree

"Be entrepreneurial."

First off, we'd like to again thank Mark Lyndersay for last night's enlightening and invigorating presentation on the entrepreneurial media professional. Using his perspective as an old stalwart of T&T's press and periphery, Mark shared several valuable approaches to freelancing that have served him well over his 35-year career. If any of you felt like quitting your jobs there and then, don't worry: you were not alone.

Each of us would have gained something specific from the discussion, but I feel I need to reiterate one of Mark's later points. As a media professional, you don't have to be good at everything, but you should try everything. Gain an understanding and appreciation for every aspect of media production, and keep abreast of the technologies that propel this ever-changing field.

This point is particularly relevant to you all because the BTEC programme will expose you to almost every aspect of media production. You'll be recording and editing audio and video, taking pictures, writing news stories and movie scripts, and learning the fundamentals of media and communication theory. However, many of you approach the programme as an opportunity to gain skills in one specific field, and dismiss many of the others as nothing more than exams you need to pass.

Change that attitude. Open your mind. This is an exciting, vibrant field, one that's changing the world in more ways than you might know, and it pays to be a producer rather than a consumer. Don't rob yourselves of the chance to become well-rounded, versatile media professionals, ready to respond at a moment's notice to any opportunity.

Mark has posted a vidcast of the presentation at his site (21MB), and this week's Bit Depth acts as a companion column to the lecture.

Asking questions is a great way to find out things...

Very interesting excerpt from an interview about drugs with Beatle Paul McCartney. Take note of the reporter's technique, but also think about McCartney's statements regarding the responsibility of the media versus the responsibility of the public figure.

Whose side do you find yourself leaning to? Leave a comment below.

The video was originally posted here. You can find other interesting interview-related videos here and here.

You no doubt interviewed several sources for your first assignment, and the challenges you faced would have given you an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of your approach to interviewing. Keep at it, because you'll most definitely be interviewing a few more people before this course is over.

Read these columns for some great advice on the skills you'll need to develop.

From the Poynter Institute:
The Power of Good Questions
The First Rule of Interviewing: Be Human
The Art of Asking Questions


From No Train No Gain:
Loosening Lips
The Good Interview
Developing and cultivating sources


Pay particular attention to the first Poynter column and the first and last No Train No Gain ones. Two of those feature interviewing techniques developed by investigative journalism lecturer John Sawatsky, who has, through experience and research, captured the essence of direct, tough-to-BS questions.

We'll practice our interview techniques next class. Come prepared.

Complementing a thousand words

Goat butts in: A goat interrupts a meeting between Laventille West MP Ni Leung Hypolite (second from left), chairman of the National Self-Help Commission Limited Krishna Rajkumar (left) and St Barb's resident Monica Roberts, as they stand in front of Roberts' collapsed house in St Barb's, Laventille yesterday.
(2008-05-28) Author: ROGER JACOB


Captions initially appear to be a minor part of a reporter's duties, but writing great captions often presents quite a challenge to even the most seasoned veterans. A well-captioned picture is a story in itself, and allows reporters (and photographers) to write a 1000+ word piece in a few minutes.

Most of you got some valuable practice in caption-writing this evening. Read through these guides for some more tips on perfecting your caption-writing.

Hot tips for writing photo captions at Poynter.

10 tips for better cutlines at No Train No Gain.

Mindy McAdams takes an interesting look at when captions get it wrong.

Finally, Newsday's photo galleries have tons of examples.

You'll be putting these skills to use sooner than you think.

Leads by example

I hope you enjoyed our last session's lead-writing exercises.

It might seem like a lot of effort to put into one topic area, but it mirrors the emphasis that professional journalists (and more importantly, their editors) place on writing a good lead. As we discussed last week, the lead is arguably the single most crucial aspect of a news story. It's common for reporters to spend 20 minutes or more just staring into space trying to find the right beginning for their stories. The lead sets the tone and rhythm for the rest of the story, and perfection of the skill should be one of your priorities.

Let's try a more interactive, long-term lead exercise. Many of us read newspapers and magazines both online and off, and we've all encountered examples of the main types of leads as identified by the Sue Barr handout.

Let's find other examples of those types of leads in our local and regional publications, and compile a list of them in a future post on this blog. Identifying leads, evaluating them and improving them should be a priority for you as a student of this course.


In the mean time, read some of these articles for great advice and insight into the lead-writing process.

Chip Scanlan at The Poynter Institute asks several industry heads to opine on the The Power of Leads.

Frank Soloman at BNet provides Ten Commandments for Writing Good Leads.

I know some of you are in marketing & communications, so here's an interesting guide to writing the lead paragraphs of press releases.

Finally (for now), here's a good companion piece to the Barr handout. It identifies different leads and provides some tips on writing them as well. It's available as a downloadable and printable PDF.



********************************

One other minor point: Keep bringing your newspapers and clippings in the future.

We studied the active voice; the passive voice was also taught.

This week's lecture challenged a few of us, but we chipped away at it until we got it right.

I noted (with pleasure) that many of you are now casually evaluating the quality of leads. Knowledge of the active voice's importance will similarly change the way you read news stories. Inappropriately passive sentence will now jump out at you as you read the papers and, I hope, as you write your own stories.

Read through these guides to polish up on the initial lecture, or to catch up on what you missed.

The Active Voice at Purdue's excellent Online Writing Lab.

The Guide to Grammar & Writing focuses more on the Passive Voice, and features examples of its appropriate use.

Towson University digs deeper into the mechanics and provides a lot of examples.

Finally, take this Passive-to-Active quiz, and its Active-to-Passive counterpart, at About.com.