Posts tagged Reporting

The Ultimate Nerd Assignment Slate’s Matthew Yglesias watches every movie and every episode of every Star Trek and reports back on what it all means.

The Ultimate Nerd Assignment

Slate’s Matthew Yglesias watches every movie and every episode of every Star Trek and reports back on what it all means.

"Creative Newsroom" Not Actually Reporting Anything

Second in a series of posts about Real-time marketing and Edelman’s Creative Newsroom. In a previous

Edelman, as an agency, should be embarrassed to ever pitch reporters or seek what they might call “earned media,” i.e. coverage of what they’re pitching, again if they’re willing to call this branded content agency division a “Newsroom.”

Reporting Traumatic Events Steven Gorelick, professor of media studies, Hunter College: Be very careful about the experts you select as sources. These kinds of high-profile stories are magnets for everyone from legitimate scholars and practitioners to self-proclaimed “profilers.” Serious experts are almost always quick to admit that there is no easy explanation for why and how something happened, especially before even the most basic information is released. Beware of the expert source who is just dying to be helpful. And perk up your ears when someone tells you: “I really need to get more information before I have anything useful to say.” Scott Wallace, freelance journalist: Despite the fact that we are all on deadline, you must take the time to breathe, empathize and feel the pain of survivors and loved ones whom you interview and come in contact with… …Above all, forget trying to “scoop” your colleagues on this story. A spirit of cooperation should reign among the reporters, photographers and producers on a story like this. It may be useful to work in tandem with a colleague or two from some other media outlet, sharing the material and the experience of the interview rather than putting the same subject through it multiple times. Lena Jakobsson, television producer: Chasing victims’ family members down the street seems like a far more reasonable idea if CNN and MSNBC and FOX and all the nets are doing it, too, and you’re about to get yelled at if you don’t get that video. But you always have at least a few seconds to stop and listen to what your gut is telling you. Ratings come and go. The impact on your integrity, and on the people you’re covering — that stays. Al Tompkins, Poynter Clearly tell the public what you know and what you do not know. With a story like this — one that changes by the hour — do not assume the public is up to date… …Acknowledge the emotional impact of the tragedy. Online conversations about the bombings, especially Twitter, have been loaded with people who are in distress, wondering what has become of humankind. Don’t underestimate that feeling. Spend some time and space honoring the good people who performed selfless acts in a time of crisis and beyond. Work with your local crisis lines, counselors and clergy, and stay in touch with the pulse of what they are hearing. Dave Weigel, Slate: In a situation like this, political reporters should probably make a quiet, temporary exit from the scene. There will be political angles in the reaction to this story, because this sort of nightmare knocks everything else out of the news cycle. Gosnell? Manchin-Toomey? Immigration? They’re in the middle of the paper if they’re anywhere. They’re paused, as is any speculation about the motivation for the attack. Who has ever speculated about that and not gone on to total, moronic infamy? Jeremy Stahl, Slate [D]on’t use a tragedy to make a political point before the facts are even known. Shortly after the attacks, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof tweeted this inanity: “explosion is a reminder that ATF needs a director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking apptment.” Probably realizing how his snarkiness sounded under the circumstances, Kristof quickly deleted the tweet and called it a “low blow.” On the right, Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin sent out this doozy, comparing the national media’s coverage of Boston to its alleged non-coverage of the Kermit Gosnell abortion case. Image: A man after the explosions at the Boston Marathon, via Boston.com/AP.

Reporting Traumatic Events

Steven Gorelick, professor of media studies, Hunter College:

Be very careful about the experts you select as sources. These kinds of high-profile stories are magnets for everyone from legitimate scholars and practitioners to self-proclaimed “profilers.”

Serious experts are almost always quick to admit that there is no easy explanation for why and how something happened, especially before even the most basic information is released. Beware of the expert source who is just dying to be helpful. And perk up your ears when someone tells you: “I really need to get more information before I have anything useful to say.”

Scott Wallace, freelance journalist:

Despite the fact that we are all on deadline, you must take the time to breathe, empathize and feel the pain of survivors and loved ones whom you interview and come in contact with…

…Above all, forget trying to “scoop” your colleagues on this story. A spirit of cooperation should reign among the reporters, photographers and producers on a story like this. It may be useful to work in tandem with a colleague or two from some other media outlet, sharing the material and the experience of the interview rather than putting the same subject through it multiple times.

Lena Jakobsson, television producer:

Chasing victims’ family members down the street seems like a far more reasonable idea if CNN and MSNBC and FOX and all the nets are doing it, too, and you’re about to get yelled at if you don’t get that video. But you always have at least a few seconds to stop and listen to what your gut is telling you. Ratings come and go. The impact on your integrity, and on the people you’re covering — that stays.

Al Tompkins, Poynter

Clearly tell the public what you know and what you do not know. With a story like this — one that changes by the hour — do not assume the public is up to date…

…Acknowledge the emotional impact of the tragedy. Online conversations about the bombings, especially Twitter, have been loaded with people who are in distress, wondering what has become of humankind. Don’t underestimate that feeling. Spend some time and space honoring the good people who performed selfless acts in a time of crisis and beyond. Work with your local crisis lines, counselors and clergy, and stay in touch with the pulse of what they are hearing.

Dave Weigel, Slate:

In a situation like this, political reporters should probably make a quiet, temporary exit from the scene. There will be political angles in the reaction to this story, because this sort of nightmare knocks everything else out of the news cycle. Gosnell? Manchin-Toomey? Immigration? They’re in the middle of the paper if they’re anywhere. They’re paused, as is any speculation about the motivation for the attack. Who has ever speculated about that and not gone on to total, moronic infamy?

Jeremy Stahl, Slate

[D]on’t use a tragedy to make a political point before the facts are even known. Shortly after the attacks, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof tweeted this inanity: “explosion is a reminder that ATF needs a director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking apptment.” Probably realizing how his snarkiness sounded under the circumstances, Kristof quickly deleted the tweet and called it a “low blow.” On the right, Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin sent out this doozy, comparing the national media’s coverage of Boston to its alleged non-coverage of the Kermit Gosnell abortion case.

Image: A man after the explosions at the Boston Marathon, via Boston.com/AP.

How Do You Explain the Word “Reporter”

Sesame Street wants to know.

Meantime, and this boggles my mind, they’re five million views away from a billion on YouTube. — Michael

Images: Selected Tweets. Select to embiggen.

Politico: Obama’s a Media Puppet Master

Politico’s Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen came out with a longread yesterday about a rift between the Obama administration and the Washington press corp. Specifically, the issue is about access to Obama. More specifically, about how the White House has conducted few interviews with establishment media.

In Vandehei’s and Allen’s eyes, Obama is a media “puppet master” who, along with his staff, “has taken old tricks for shaping coverage (staged leaks, friendly interviews) and put them on steroids using new ones (social media, content creation, precision targeting).”

The results are transformational. With more technology, and fewer resources at many media companies, the balance of power between the White House and press has tipped unmistakably toward the government. This is an arguably dangerous development, and one that the Obama White House — fluent in digital media and no fan of the mainstream press — has exploited cleverly and ruthlessly. And future presidents from both parties will undoubtedly copy and expand on this approach.

The story is one of disruption. That is, disruption of an establishment press corp that feels slighted that the White House can — and does — go around them with its messaging by using social media and content marketing strategies. But there’s also a sense of entitlement permeating the piece.

For example, for all their handwringing that the president hasn’t given “an interview to print reporters at The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, POLITICO and others in years,” Vandehei and Allen point out the Obama does give frequent interviews. Matter of fact, 674 in his first term, over 500 more than George W Bush gave in his first term.

But these interviews aren’t with the right people. Instead, “they are often with network anchors or local TV stations, and rarely with the reporters who cover the White House day to day.” Reporters who, in their estimation, would ask the tough and unpredictable questions. (See Allen’s  tough and unpredictable questions for George W Bush above from his 2008 one on one interview with the president.) 

And then there’s the complaint that the administration is creating content and taking that directly to the public rather than going through press intermediaries:

Still, the most unique twist by this White House has been the government’s generating and distributing of content.

A number of these techniques were on vivid display two weekends ago, when the White House released a six-month-old photo of the president shooting skeet, buttressing his claim in a New Republic interview that he fires at clay pigeons “all the time” at Camp David…

…The government created the content (the photo), released it on its terms (Twitter) and then used Twitter again to stoke stories about conservatives who didn’t believe Obama ever shot a gun in the first place.

All of which is to say, And?

In an age where everyone’s a publisher and everyone’s a brand, it would be surprising for a presidency not to employ these tools. In fact, they follow a long, if frustrating, history of political stagecraft and media manipulation.

In “Stagecraft and Statecraft: Advance and Media Events in Political Communication”, Dan Schill writes:

There is a complicated relationship between newsmakers and the journalists that cover their activities. [Philip] Seib reviews this relationship: “The journalists try to gather information, the politicians try to shape the news. This process tends to become a struggle for control over the information. Reporters can gather plenty of newsworthy material on their own, but they also need some cooperation from the candidates and staff members. Any major campaign will offer a rich diet of media events, but real news is often in short supply.” While the relationship can be adversarial, it is largely symbiotic — what is good for the candidate is usually also what is good for the reporter. Both campaigns and the news media want a compelling narrative, compelling pictures, and large audiences… Reporters rarely deviate from the news narrative that has been established. Especially at the presidential level, politicians can control the rules of engagement and “freeze out” reporters who do not follow those rules. According to [Tim] Cook, “Reporters, dependent on presidents’ cooperation, end up prisoners in the all but hermetically sealed pressroom, reluctant to roam far from their connection to fame and fortune in the news business. Instead of encouraging innovation and enterprise, the White House breeds concern among reporters about missing out on the story that everyone else is chasing.” Members of the news media should recognize this relationship and understand the factors that allow newsmakers to exploit this relationship, control the news agenda, and receive favorable coverage.

Go back to Timothy Crouse’s 1972 book, “Boys on the Bus,” about that year’s presidential campaign and reporters are complaining about “media events” and message control.

Or fast forward to the Reagan years and press complaints about Reagan’s mastery of political television and the importance of image over substance and you have, largely, the same phenomenon. It’s just different technology these days.

This isn’t to suggest that sit downs with the president aren’t important. They most certainly are. But the tug and pull between administrations and journalists is well known and well understood. It’s the journalist’s job to inform the public and if the only way they can do that is to get the coveted presidential interview they’re not doing that job well.  

To blame techniques such as social outreach and content creation by non-media actors is to cling to a traditional information flow that media modernity has long eclipsed.

We’re well into a new day and a new age. Instead of griping about it, change your tactics. There’s a whole lot of important reporting to do. — Michael

Related, Part 01: The Seven Secrets of Political Theater.

Related, Part 02: The Staging of a Photo-Op.

Images: Selected questions by Politico’s Mike Allen during his 2008 interview with George W. Bush, as posted to Twitter by Gawker’s John Cook. Complete interview transcript via Politico. Select to embiggen.

The Glamorous Life of Political Reporters Michael Shear, White House Correspondent for The New York Times, shares press benefits and privileges while covering the president.

The Glamorous Life of Political Reporters

Michael Shear, White House Correspondent for The New York Times, shares press benefits and privileges while covering the president.

Local News

Homeless hitchhiker saves woman from attack with hatchet.

This just won the Internet. — Michael

H/T: Xeni Jardin/Boing Boing.

Why Do Americans Hate Android And Love Apple?

ReadWrite’s Dan Lyons points to a disturbing trend in tech journalism as he tries to unwrap why iPhones have such significant US marketshare while the rest of the world runs 75% Android.

Android, goes a coverage tick, is for poor people:

But Apple and its cheerleaders in the States don’t just criticize Android phones; they also criticize Android users, depicting them as low-class people who are uneducated, poor, cheap and too lacking in “taste” (a favorite Apple fanboy word) to pay for an Apple product and instead willing to settle for a low-price knockoff.

See, for example, a recent story by Sam Biddle on Gizmodo called “Android Is Popular Because It’s Cheap, Not Because It’s Good,” illustrated with a photo of a homeless man sleeping next to a shopping cart and bags full of collected cans. Nice touch!… Apparently inspired by this article, John Biggs of TechCrunch picked up the “Android is cheap” meme and ran with it too…

…[I]n America, a noisy chorus of pro-Apple bloggers keeps repeating the mantra about Android being cheap and crappy and second-rate, and people keep believing it and insisting that they must have an iPhone. American consumers have been told that those Android smartphones are hard to use, or complicated, or geeky, or unreliable, and, worst of all, on top of all that, they’re made for poor people. 

And that’s where the rhetoric starts to border on something ugly. Look at what Apple fans were saying in April 2012 when Instagram became available on Android. Cult of Mac had a nice roundup which included sneering tweets about Walmart and “poor peasants” and “riff raff” and “poor people,” but also included these:

  • “It’s like when all the ghetto people started coming to the nice suburbs. Instagram was our nice lil suburb.”
  • “Instagram just got a whole lotta ghetto.”

The italics are mine, and I’ve added them for a reason. Yes, it’s the dreaded G word, and it comes up again in a Dec. 13, 2011 article by Glenn Derene, who wrote that “Android’s Cheap, Low Quality Apps Make It Feel Like A Technological Ghetto.”

Related: Henry Blodget, founder of Business Insider, writes about the horrors of flying economy. Evidently, he couldn’t charge his laptop, there was no wifi and the food was bad.

Pwning the Media, Take 02

In a rush to get there first, a number of media outlets reported today that Google purchased WiFi hotspot provider ICOA. Problem is, the story just isn’t true.

Via Ars Technica:

The stories were all attributed to an announcement made by Google. The only trouble is, Google didn’t make the announcement at all. And ICOA now says the story is entirely false.

So how did this story get so widely distributed? The answer is media outlets writing about it didn’t contact Google or ICOA before pumping out their stories, relying solely on a press release that wasn’t issued by either company. ICOA’s stock (worth less than a penny) soared on the fake news and then, just as suddenly, fell back down to earth. This leads to the natural assumption: someone must be profiting off this little mess…

…A story in BuzzFeed quotes [ICOA CEO George] Strouthopoulos as saying the source of the hoax is from Aruba. The Securities Exchange Commission has reportedly halted trading on ICOA’s stock at ICOA’s request.

So, current idea is that someone planted the press release on PRWeb to boost ICOA’s stock price.

More importantly though, as Ars Technical writes, “No one’s perfect. But a few minutes of digging, Google searching, e-mailing, and phone calling is usually enough to prevent false news from hitting the wire.”

Put another way, a press release isn’t a verification of fact. Contact your sources, report and then publish.

Bonus Pwnage: Here’s a story from a few months back about a man who offered himself up as an expert in all things. Even though he wasn’t, media outlets took the bait and quoted him extensively about all manner of topics.

NBC News correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin said it’s a “completely different dynamic” reporting from Gaza now than it was four years ago, given both the unrestricted access for journalists and widespread use of social media.

In late 2008, Mohyeldin was based in Gaza City, when the Israel Defense Forces launched a three-week aerial bombardment and ground invasion that killed 1,400 Palestinians. At the time, the Israeli military restricted foreign journalists from entering Gaza, leaving Mohyeldin and his Al Jazeera English colleague Sherine Tadros to cover the war with little competition.

While the pair received high marks at the time for their coverage, Mohyeldin, speaking by phone Monday from Gaza City, said “there was a dearth of information and pictures” as a result of so few journalists on the ground. “We couldn’t be everywhere at the same time,” he said.

Four years later, that’s not the case. News organizations have flooded Gaza over the past six days of a conflict that has killed 104 Palestinians and three Israelis, along with wounding 860 Palestinians and 68 Israelis, according to CNN.

“I think it’s a testament to how important journalism still is in having real journalists on the ground in Gaza,” Mohyeldin said.

Widespread social media use is the other significant change in Gaza coverage from winter 2008-2009, with citizens uploading their own videos and journalists engaging over Twitter, Reddit and Google+.

In covering the war in Syria, news organizations have often relied on raw footage from areas where no journalists were present. It’s a different situation now in Gaza, where numerous journalists are reporting each major strike throughout the day in real time on Twitter, often adding context and details as soon as they are available.

Take Monday’s strike on a media center in Gaza City, an event quickly covered on Twitter.

BBC Middle East bureau chief Paul Danahar tweeted around 8:30 a.m. EST that Israel struck a building used by some outlets. “I’m standing in front of it,” Danahar tweeted. “It’s on fire. Smoke billowing out.”

The Huffington Post, “Gaza Media Reports Strikes In Real-Time, Without Restrictions” (via inothernews)
What is the best way to record and/or take notes during phone interview if you only have a cell phone and laptop? — Asked by marcfishman

When I want to record a call I use either Skype or Google Voice along with an application called Wiretap from Ambrosia Software (Mac only).

Wiretap allows you to choose the inputs to record (eg., the internal microphone which records you, and then an app such as Skype or your Web browser through which you’re using Google Voice).

You can also record a Google Voice call within Google Voice. However, for whatever reason, it has to be an incoming call. Instructions for doing so are here.

You can also use a conference service like Free Conference Call and use the recording capabilities built into it. That way, and crazy as it sounds, you can actually use your phone to make the call.

Looking for alternative solutions? The Next Web has a good roundup of cross platform Skype recording apps. There are also iOS and Android call recording solutions. I haven’t used any so can’t make any recommendations. Note though that they often charge for the amount of time recorded.

Remember that whatever your method, there are laws (in the US) concerning recording. You can brush up with a primer from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. And here’s another from the Citizen Media Law Project.

Hope this helps. — Michael

Have recommendations, add them in the comment section here.

[D]emands for after-the-fact quote approval by sources and their press aides have gone too far.”

The practice risks giving readers a mistaken impression that we are ceding too much control over a story to our sources,” it says. “In its most extreme form, it invites meddling by press aides and others that goes far beyond the traditional negotiations between reporter and source over the terms of an interview.

Memorandum from New York TImes Executive Editor Jill Abramson to staff.

According to Margaret Sullivan, the Times Public Editor, a new policy is now in place that prohibits “after the fact” quote approval. 

The issue has gained attention since a July story by Jeremy Peters outlined how reporters often submit quotes to political campaign aides for approval before running a story.

New York Times, In New Policy, The Times Forbids After-the-Fact ‘Quote Approval’.

It’s time for political beat reporters to pick up a bat and see what it’s like to take a swing.

Sasha Issenberg, Slate. Stuff Some Envelopes, Then Ask Questions.

The Issue: Issenberg argues that political campaigns have become so complex and statistically driven that reporters often don’t understand the mechanics of what drives them.

His solution: Make reporters work inside a campaign to learn how they really work.

So a modest proposal: newsrooms develop a version of a study-abroad program, placing their reporters in campaign field offices for a month during the summer of an election season. It’s time that they see the place where campaigns interact with real people, by asking the questions on phone-bank scripts, entering the answers into databases, then seeing how that information shapes decisions about which voters to call or visit next… My guess is that journalists who spent even a few weeks in this world would pose wildly different questions the next time they sat down with Jim Messina or Stuart Stevens.

The goal would not be to gather intelligence about a particular candidate and his tactics but to build institutional knowledge that could help to re-center journalistic understandings of what a campaign actually does. To assuage concerns about bias and conflicts of interest, newsrooms could assign reporters to work in races away from the ones they cover: the Richmond Times-Dispatch correspondent gets detailed to an Oregon mayoral campaign, the Nevada radio reporter to a Maine ballot initiative. Assignment editors at the Washington Post and Politico and NBC News would randomly dispatch their reporters so they’re split evenly, half campaigning for Democratic candidates and half for Republicans. While it would be great if they could slot into presidential campaigns, it’s by no means necessary. Many of the essential tools used by campaigns for organizing and marshaling voter data have become so universal that a national political journalist would learn plenty from being exposed to a competent modern campaign for state legislature or county judge.

I'm a recent college grad, who majored in communication and sociology. I've always been a strong writer and I'm realizing now that it's what I'd really like to do - BUT, I have no experience in writing for a campus newspaper, internship, etc. They're IMPOSSIBLE to find in my area. Any suggestions on how to get started? I have a blog with some original content but that's it! — Asked by Anonymous

Hi there,

Sounds like you feel yourself caught in a classic career starting conundrum: You don’t have experience but can’t get experience because you don’t have experience.

We posted a video recently of CUNY professor CW Anderson discussing an entrepreneurial journalism course he teaches. While he talks about many things, a key point I like is how he stresses that we all must write. Especially those of us out of a job or hoping to get into a job.

In July, I wrote something similar to a question a student had about putting together a portfolio. Here’s a bit where I mention what is was like before we could all have blogs and self-publishing tools:

Back then getting started was a chicken and egg proposition. You’d apply for something and be asked to show your clips. But you didn’t have clips because you were just starting out, and you wouldn’t get clips until someone overlooked that and took a chance on you.

That’s not true anymore. Want to be a science writer, start writing about it, start reporting about it, start curating about it. No one’s stopping you. Fashion more your thing? Do the same. More interested in the tech side of things? Start creating things and/or get involved in an Open Source project, and then write about what you’re doing and learning.

It takes some effort but that’s what we have to do. Block off 30 minutes a day to work on these things. Maybe even an hour.

After a month or a few you’ll be amazed by how much material you have to show people. You’ll also be amazed by how much you’ve personally learned by actually doing it.

So, you say you want to be a writer but there’s nothing available in your area. In that case, make something available to yourself.

There are stories everywhere. There are stories where there are lots of people. There are stories where they are no people. There are great stories about topics other than people.

So start writing them. Choose something that you’re passionate about. If it’s a character who lives down the street, approach him and ask if you can interview and write about him. If he asks why, and what for, say simply, “I like to write.”

Some people will say no but you’ll be surprised by how many people say yes. People are wonderful that way.

And if your passion is for a subject or topic that requires more discrete expertise, say science or medicine or art or local politics, start reading up and then start calling people up (eg, at local colleges, businesses, governmental agencies and what not) and ask questions.

Again, many will ask why and where will this appear and you simply say, “I like to write and its for a personal site I’m creating.”

And then some will say no but others will say yes but give it a couple months and you have yourself body of work. You’ve gotten started.

It takes effort. But it is doable. And find a trusted friend, former teacher or family member to give you feedback on what you do, to be an editor. And listen to what they have to say even if you disagree. Else you’ll write in a ramble like I do.

We wish you great luck and let us know how it goes. — Michael

Have a question? Ask away here.