Thursday, February 17, 2011

Can't find a story? Check for follow-ups

During sweeps months you pull out all the stops to take your work to the next level. You might do more interviews, dig a little deeper, add bells and whistles like graphics, take extra care in editing. The result is often a promotable story that is designed to capture the viewer's interest.

And then when sweeps end, you forget all about those great stories you knocked out during sweeps.

Guess what? The viewers haven't.

They want questions answered. "What ever became of that person?" "What happened with that big story?" "What's new on that major issue?"

Reporters march into morning meetings after sweeps, desperate for ideas. In reality, your best ideas may be sitting in your own file.

Whether you keep notes on paper or in a computer, take some time to look back at the stories you've done in the past year. Chances are you'll find a ton of them that deserve revisiting.

An old trick by good stations is to take stories done by other stations and do follow ups. If you've dropped the ball and someone else picks it up, it's their story.

Viewers love follow-ups. They want to know what's happened since it first aired, if anything has changed, and if there's a happy ending.

If you don't do a follow up to your best stories, it's like writing a story without an ending.

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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

A camera and microphone don't make you bulletproof

A few years ago when the Iraq war was heating up I got a call from a network guy wanting to know if I knew any photographers who wanted to work the story. "We're paying twenty grand a month," he said. You read that number right. The reason was obvious. You shoot some video, other people will probably shoot bullets at you.

Lara Logan's assault is a chilling reminder that we are often in harms way and don't even realize it.

Often times we show up with a camera and a mike in dicey neighborhoods and don't bat an eye. After all, even the bad guys want to be on TV more than they want to hurt us. They need us, right? I still often feel the same way. I've wearing a network logo and there's a big sat truck down the street, so who would possibly hurt me?

Well, we're just as vulnerable as the next guy, whether we're in Iraq, Egypt or just doing a local story. More than 100 journalists died covering the Iraq war, some, like Daniel Pearl, in horrifying fashion. Reporters get roughed up covering local stories as well.

When I was a rookie reporter I was assigned to do a story on tensions in a rough neighborhood. We arrived and got pats on the back from the people, who all wanted to be on television. We never felt like we were in danger. We shot the story, I did a standup, and we headed back to the station. When we were looking at the video our jaws dropped. We didn't notice what was going on in the background as I did the standup. Rocks and bottles were flying around. Our rose colored glasses hadn't seen it.

A few years ago a photog I know was shooting some crime video in a bad section of town. A cop came over to him and said, "Time to go." The photog explained he wasn't done. The cop said, "You don't understand. When we leave, you leave. It isn't safe here. And we're not leaving you here alone."

To borrow a catchphrase from the old TV show Hill Street Blues, "Let's be careful out there." We're not bulletproof.

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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

How to get even with your male co-anchor in one easy lesson

Perhaps if the anchor crosstalk in the United States was as entertaining as the stuff from Australia, ratings might be a lot better...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a0zJb5FlAg


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Monday, February 14, 2011

Feature story idea for Tuesday, February 15th

It's a chocoholic holiday!

It's one of two days during the year (the other being the day after Easter) on which you can score great chocolate at bargain prices. People will be snapping up half price hearts tomorrow, which should hold them until the discount rabbits appear in April.

Don't laugh... if you're not up early all the bargains are gone. (I know this from personal experience.)

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The electronic footprint

When you're in the public eye you are governed by a different set of rules. The public holds you to a higher standard than the average person. You're not supposed to break the law, be rude in public, or do anything stupid.

And now in our electronic world, Big Brother is always one cell phone away from capturing our every move and uploading it to the Internet.

These days, wherever you go, whatever you do, you leave an electronic footprint. From Brett Favre to the Craigslist Congressman, we see constant examples of people who left a paper trail, even though the paper is now electronic.

Wanna check out how you're doing? Google yourself. You might be surprised what you find. Because you've left an electronic footprint.

Not only are your stories online, but any blog posts, photos, comments, etc. That picture of you getting hammered during spring break that you posted on a social networking site might still be floating around the universe. A rant about a politician or a cause could still be circulating.

In most cases, the Internet is forever. And in many cases, it's impossible to get something deleted.

Back in the old neighborhood, I was told many times never to write anything down. Because it could come back to bite you. That's still great advice, even though flash paper has been replaced by a keyboard and a cell phone.

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