Viewers tell us the local news is boring. They say it’s all the same, and they’re often right. One reason is the lack of enterprise reporting in local newsrooms. A recent study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that enterprise–“the serious, proactive journalism that local TV so heavily promotes — is dropping precipitously.”
What exactly is enterprise journalism? Why is there so little in television news, and what can be done to foster more of it? At the NewsLab conference “Encouraging Enterprise,” we asked those questions of experienced broadcast journalists and educators (click on their pictures to read their bios). Their comments and suggestions offer a roadmap stations can follow to boost their enterprise quotient. To see how your newsroom rates when it comes to enterprise, try our new interactive quiz.
Define Enterprise
John Cardenas, WBNS-TV: Doing stories that are unique in terms of being initiated by that reporter or that station. Stories that you’re not going to find in the paper. Stories you’re not going to find on the radio. It’s not stories that were taken off an Internet Web site. These are stories that they are going to go dig and find on their own and develop.
Jim Ogle, WKYT-TV: There are a lot of particularly younger reporters who believe enterprise is–because they read something in Albany, New York, and so maybe that could be happening around here, and suddenly that’s an enterprise idea. And the thing I try to emphasize to our people is derivative is not enterprise. That doesn’t mean its not a good reason to do a story on it, but that’s not enterprise. That’s not working sources, that’s not paying attention around here, it’s derivative. If it happened somewhere else first, you don’t get points on enterprise for that.
Mike Plews, WOWT-TV: Enterprise…is a story that did not arrive via a press release, scanner traffic or a regularly covered meeting. You can expand this definition to stories covered in an enterprising fashion. Unusual production approaches or clever sidebar stories come to mind. Breaking out of the pack mentality on stories of the day fits the bill also.
Make a Case for Enterprise
Barbara Hamm, WTKR-TV: One thing that research shows us over and over and over again is that the major complaint that viewers have is that it’s all the same. And so for us the argument is that if we’re going to pull away from the pack…we’re a station now that’s climbing aggressively and trying very hard to come out of the third place position…we’ve got to do stories that no one else has. I mean everybody is going to cover the President, everybody is going to be at the fire, everybody is going to be at the Navy base christening of a new ship or whatever it is. So we’ve got to pull out stories that no one else has. That’s one thing. And then secondly, I think you do your viewership a service by showing them other stories that you won’t see anywhere else. I mean people have to have variety or else they won’t stay tuned
Jim Ogle, WKYT-TV: We in fact make it a point of purpose or contention by our beat reporters to attend…meetings for two reasons: One we think actually things happen at these things sometimes; but number two, developing relationships with sources. We’re the only TV station that someone’s sitting there paying attention, and some of the feedback that I’ve gotten over the last seven years as being news director is that they know we’re paying attention. And that in a market in which two other stations have not been doing that for a long while, it opens doors for us in following the sources.
Kent Collins, University of Missouri: I think so much of what we’ve come back to is a reverence to the concept of the newscast as opposed to reverence for the news story. The feeding of the beast, our franchising and the lock and load mentality of producers is about protecting the concept of a newscast. The people don’t come to us to see a newscast. They come to see one or two good stories that they talk about at dinner or at the coffee machine the next morning. And if you worry just about the newscast then you don’t have as much opportunity to worry about enterprising an individual story.
Build an Enterprise Culture
John Cardenas, WBNS-TV: I think it has to start with the expectation. If management doesn’t expect enterprise reporting, you’re going to find a desk-driven, scanner-driven, press release, event-driven newsroom. And at the end of the day, you have what everybody else has on the air. So I tell reporters if you’re not willing to come to the table not only with ideas but researched ideas, you’re not going to succeed in this job.
Lois Dyer, CBS News: What fosters enterprise is good news directors because the news director sets the tone. He’s going to be the one who lets the managing editor and EP know, “This is what I want. I want enterprise stories. I don’t want to see us doing the same thing that the other stations are doing. I want our reporters to be told that they are to go out and find stories and to not just piggyback off some news conference or what they saw in USA Today.”
Toni Morrissey, WISC-TV : Part of the culture has to be when the reporter comes to you and says, “Okay, do you want me to do this this way? What is it? Is it a package; is it a VO/SOT; is it a VO?” Your response to them needs to be “You tell me.”
Barbara Hamm, WTKR-TV: In our planning room we have several dry erase boards, and for our daily planning meetings we have a couple columns. One is the enterprise column, which we list all the enterprise stories that we pitch that day. And then we have the big stories, which are, you know, the fire and the stories that everybody is gong to be covering; you know, the V/Os and V/O SOT. And then we have another board where we have follows for enterprise and we have another that just lists enterprise stories. So that people will see the names and see, “Well gosh, so-and-so’s name has been on there four times this week. I’d better get on the stick.”
Jim Ogle, WKYT-TV: The metaphor we talk about in our newsroom is that each of our beat reporters are like specialty chefs and we’re laying out a buffet table. And some of these folks are going to produce great main course meals. Some are going to do wonderful vegetables. Some supply the appetizers and others the desserts. The job of both the assignment editor and the producers are to make sure that we don’t serve up a meal that is all dessert or a meal that’s all main courses with no side dishes. It’s got to be balanced.
Expand Your Sources
Mike Plews, WOWT-TV: We have a voice mail system at the station and solicit leads on our web site. There’s a spot that you can click in to do that. And the stack of story leads we’ve received from viewers looks like a phone book. I bet we get 200 hits a month and out of those I’ll bet there are about 30 stories in any given month that you can develop.
Barbara Hamm, WTKR-TV: We open up our series ideas to the whole station. As a matter of fact, all our series pieces, with the exception of a couple of investigative stories, came from inside the station but outside of the news department. Everybody in the station was invited to pitch ideas and then we narrowed them down and had focus groups with everybody except news. And those people picked what topics were most interesting. It really gave the rest of the station some buy-in and ownership into the newscast.
Toni Morrissey, WISC-TV: There’s a difference between thinking like a reporter and thinking like a person. In our newsroom we talk about, “Think as a person as you’re driving to work what are you seeing?” You know, your thoughts and observations as you’re living your life often springboard into enterprise ideas. So we do a lot of enterprise about what’s affecting us as families or taxpayers or parents of schoolchildren. We really encourage thinking as a person rather than thinking as a reporter.
Barbara Fought, Syracuse University: I just talked to an EP [executive producer] who said they systemized this in their newsroom, so that every reporter once a week has to leave with the desk another lead or story or follow up or sidebar or something. And the desk makes some calls, particularly if there may be an interesting person who might have a story or somebody to call for stories or whatever and then the desk does that the next week.
Jim Ogle, WKYT-TV: Develop a relationship and a touch point outside of where you are… We always say, “We need to go to Waffle House,” because by definition, in education, most of our folks are the antithesis of the folks who go there. Most of my folks except for some photographers wouldn’t be caught dead at a Waffle House. They think it’s beneath them. But the fact is it meshes more with our viewers….And it’s very important to just go sit somewhere and listen to what people talk about… Go out and look around you. There are stories there. The people we find are best and we rely on often are photographers. Our photographers participate in our morning meeting and we ask them what stories they’ve seen out there. They seem to have the best connection to what I think regular, average viewers are relating to because they aren’t treated like they’re some sort of God’s gift because they’re on TV.
Manage for Enterprise
Lois Dyer, CBS News: When you’re hiring new people you say, “This is what we’re about. We do the day-to-day stories that you have to do, that you’re going to see everywhere, but one of the things that we really like here is enterprise. We like people who come up with their own ideas. We like people who go out into the community and kind of look and see and make contacts and are able to bring to the table stories that we don’t see in our local newspaper or our competition. And we’re here to help you do that. And we do hold people accountable.”
John Cardenas, WBNS-TV: I think it has to start with the expectation. If that’s not the expectation in the news department then you’re not going to get it. So if management doesn’t expect that then I think you’re going to find what we find in a lot of newsrooms, which is a desk-driven, scanner-driven, press-release, event-driven newsroom. And at the end of the day, you have what everybody else has on the air. So I tell reporters if you’re not willing to come to the table not only with ideas but researched ideas, you’re not going to succeed in this job.
Barbara Hamm, WTKR-TV: It is a part of our performance evaluations. The goals that our reporters are given specifically talk to enterprise and talk about the number of enterprise stories that they are required to come up with. We make it a part of their performance goals.
Mike Plews, WOWT-TV: It’s getting people involved and giving them some ownership. Our photographers used to never come to the morning meetings. Now we take our turn at running them. Our business is real top down and sometimes it has to be that way. But there are places where diffusing those decisions out and giving people a little bit more power and control-they really get excited about bringing stuff in there.
