How many local TV stations have reporters whose primary responsibility is the Web? It's an idea whose has come at WPRI, the LIN-owned station in Providence, R.I., which now has two digital beat reporters, one covering economics and business and the other, politics. "I don't know …
One of the first things to go when a newsroom shrinks is regular feedback. Everyone has more work to do, including managers, and there just doesn't seem to be time to give employees feedback on their work. In many cases, what happens instead is an …
What happened on Reddit after the Boston Marathon bombings may have scared many journalists away from the site. NPR tech reporter Elise Hu believes that's a shame. The self-described "front page of the Internet" became a hive of misinformation, as users posted theories about the bombing and falsely identified suspects. …
For the first time in four years, local TV news salaries have taken a dive. The latest RTDNA/Hofstra University survey says pay was down on average by almost 2% in 2012. If you factor in the rate of inflation, real wages were down by about 4%. Just …
Research a few years ago suggested that the bloom was off the rose for news-sharing agreements between TV stations and newspapers. An uptick during the recession may have been fleeting, according to the latest RTDNA survey, and there's nothing in this year's data to indicate a …
The video went viral, of course. Reporter Abbey Niezgoda of WLNE in Providence, R.I., was reporting reaction to a shooting when she was attacked by the victim's mother. The video shows the woman throwing a rock at the TV crew, threatening them with a baseball …
One challenge TV reporters face is deciding what details belong in a story. Too many and the story bogs down. Too few and it loses impact. What works in a story is "telling" detail: information that conveys a basic truth about a character or situation. Think …
Writing a two-minute TV news story is nothing like writing a screenplay for a movie. Or is it? Truth is, all writing has some things in common. Take this list from Emma Coats, a former screenwriter at Pixar, the movie studio. Of her 22 rules …
Picture this. You're on day two of a TV news shoot out-of-town, working with a freelance crew. Location: a high school auditorium. Day one was a morning session and the house lights were on. The photographer got plenty of shots of the action on stage …
What's the connection between photography and terrorism? Apparently, it depends on where you sit and when you ask the question. Just after the bombing at the Boston Marathon, investigators urged anyone who'd been near the finish line to share photos or video they'd taken around the …
Some issues just won't go away. More than a decade ago, I wrote a column for American Journalism Review in which I posited that some of the best and brightest J-school grads probably weren't going to work at local TV stations because the salaries were …
Missed it! It's an awful feeling. You've been waiting and waiting for a specific shot for a story and when it finally happens, you hit record just a wee bit too late. Maybe you've captured some of what you need, but it's going to be …
