Twitter got a ton of free publicity this week by releasing #TfN, a newsroom guide for Twitter. "We want to make our tools easier to use so you can focus on your job," the guide says, "finding sources, verifying facts, publishing stories, promoting your work …
Sometimes the best advice is the simplest. At a conference of public radio news directors last week, NPR investigative reporter Daniel Zwerdling put it simply. "Read the whole report," he said, quoting the legendary journalist I. F. (Izzy) Stone. The executive summary doesn't cut it. Reading …
Information travels so fast these days that it's hard to keep track of where it came from. Technology makes plagiarism and deception a snap. Online text can be copied and pasted in seconds, photos can be manipulated and no one may be the wiser. But …
What turns one appalling case into an investigation that can change state law and reform an industry? Determined, methodical digging and accurate analysis of public records--that's how the Seattle Times told the full story of Seniors for Sale, a year-long series on elderly abuse in "adult …
Taking notes used to be a simple matter. You pulled out a pen and a pad of paper and you wrote things down. Over time, if you developed your own shorthand, you could take notes faster and more accurately. If you could read your own …
For decades, foundations have poured money into journalism training around the world in the belief that strong, independent news media are a vital component of democracy. And for just as long, those funders have wondered if the investment was worth it. Trainers who spent weeks …
The mayor of Seattle is telling local TV stations to back off. In Georgia, the governor's office went so far as to ban an Atlanta station from a public event. What's going on here? Elected officials often don't like the way they're covered but they usually …
Insightful, creative, provocative, irritating. Choose your description--they all applied to Jeff Gralnick, who died this week after a long battle with cancer. He spent more than 50 years in the news business, starting out as a desk assistant at CBS. He served as a senior …
Here we go again. Black leaders in Pittsburgh are complaining that local TV news misrepresents African-Americans. "I'm tired of turning on the news and seeing a sister with her hair all over the place, five teeth missing and looking like she just stepped out of …
Wearing dark sunglasses and a baseball cap, Bubba the Love Sponge brings it on. “Oil prices are a scam,” he roars. “A select few people are getting ultra-rich on the backs of the American family!” It’s classic Bubba, the same shock jock shtick he’s been …
The odds have long been stacked against investigative reporting in local TV, but somehow it survives. Despite concerns about the expense and time involved in producing investigative journalism, not to mention the potential for lawsuits, some I-Teams actually manage to thrive. While many newsrooms cut or …
Too many TV stories use graphics as filler, when there's no obvious video available to cover a track. Full screens of text and numbers aren't very attractive but they're better than a black hole, right? If that's how you've thought about graphics in the past, …
