The New Newsperson

“A drone owned by Castanet.net in Kelowna and being operated by a news editor was grounded after a fire information officer said it flew too close to a Peachland, B.C. wildfire. The officer cited the dangers of a drone coming into contact with aviation related to the fire fight as well as distracting crews on the ground. The use of drones is controlled by Transport Canada, which issues Special Flight Operating Certificates for approved operations.”
    — Broadcast Dialogue 

Wakeup call to news people who "read stories" from "the radio newsroom:"  a website - not a TV station or a newspaper - was flying drones over Kelowna, BC's wildfire area in their aggressive coverage of local news.

Today, listeners won’t accept news people not being involved with the stories they are reporting.

Doing so is easier for radio than almost any other medium making full use of all the theater of the mind tools available to audio media, especially now that smart phones have powerful video and editing tools built-in.

News value is measured by intelligent judgment rather than dollars and cents or weight in pounds and ounces.   A lead/top story simply must be fresh, something the audience hasn’t heard before that also captures the imagination of the highest percentage of the audience as possible.

Interesting.  Important.  A sudden change of pace.  That's "news to me."

Plus, something the newscaster has a personal connection/involvement/reporting direct from with if at all possible.

If you can't get out of your studio to deeply, even though briefly, cover what's important to local listeners, you need to find other ways by phone and social media to bring it to life immediately and authentically.

If that's not possible, reconsider whether you can do "news" today in a competitive way.  Maybe it's better not to do it at all than to do it poorly.

Are Station Promotions "News?"

No, not normally, but if anything out of the ordinary ever happens as you execute contests, special events, remotes, social media interactions and phone contact with listeners I hereby vote that they are.

Remind everyone on your team that “news” is defined as relevant new info carrying a story your target cares about.

Your best source for news stories meeting that criterion?

Local sources of things listeners won’t see on national or cable news, Twitter, the wire, the internet, Facebook, government agencies, You Tube, your music format, movies, TV, sports, weather of course, but never neglect to “report” interesting things that happen when the routine things your radio station does turn out to be extraordinary within your own newscasts.

Why Do Any News?

• Satisfy “the friendlies.”  TV’s network morning shows make this their specialty.  Being cheerful, upbeat with great rapport is a must if you hope to compete with them.
• Welcome “the belongers.”  These listeners have very high family values and are sociable.  Make them feel welcome, a part of your family.
• Reassure the folks who tend have trouble coping with life.  Bring listeners together to tell their personal stories of hardship and work to help solve problems.  Social media is a great place to do this and then repurpose the most compelling stories in your on air news packages.
• Shake things up.  If the news becomes too warm and fuzzy, some men will find it boring.  Crime stories, special reports and interviews with law enforcement and victims on the edgy aspects of life can add important balance.
• Time management.  Keep it brief and fast moving.  Satisfy the people who want no-frills news.
• Tell the ongoing stories.  Don’t make every newscast identical.  Even if you get in early and pre-write every one, build in “fresh new facts” on an item from thirty minutes ago.  Make your information packages benchmarks for “the longer you listen, the more you know.”
• Weather and traffic ARE news.  Present them with the all of the above in mind.

"It's an exciting time to be in news.  It's not going away anytime soon, and I approach it every time I get in front of a computer as 'This is exciting. This is not old. This is not boring. ... And the more people involved, the better."  -- Drudge Report's Matt Drudge (on WTOP) via Don Anthony's Jockline Daily

Information is a must for any well-rounded radio station.  What makes it work (or not!) is consistently achieving the right balance of all logical and psychological needs of the listener.

Can We Save "The News"?

I have been a huge fan of David Horsey for many years.  Normally, he's a man of potent cartoons and very few words.  

After the Seattle newspaper which employed him ceased publication he moved to The Los Angeles Times and this week the man of pictures not words penned a column for his new employer that isn't about radio, but resonates for all media, "Newspapers have a future, if they can avoid being 'click whores'" (click to read it!)

When Horsey decides he has something to say that takes more than just a cartoon, he has my support and attention.

Media has great responsibility to the people who read, watch and listen to us, far more important to our society than merely making money.

And, as the history and economics of newspapers has proven, when we do it responsibly big money comes too.

Who's going to fill their shoes?

Today? You're Memorializing Whitney Today?

Hopefully, Radio Ink's headline this morning "Radio to Honor Whitney Houston Today" was wrong, and as you read their story it appears that it is, since the info under it reads "the outpouring of prayers, thoughts, feelings and condolences was immediate and overwhelming.."

It's Monday. The event happened Saturday.

My Facebook friends and the Tweeters I follow were digging into it within an hour of the time that police set her time of death.

If you're still talking about it this morning, you better have some new info on it all that I haven't heard multiple times over the weekend or at least a very fresh perspective. That's relevance.

Rehashing old news is irrelevance. (thanks to Mark Edwards for a great read this morning)

Bad Weather

The following story is being used here as an excuse to rant again about a pet peeve of mine. It probably won't be the last time I blog about what a lousy job most voices on the radio do relating weather updates.

Last week a client GM sent along this RBR report and asked:

"So does this mean things have changed so much that we should just dump weather and play more music? Don't know if I totally buy this? This is awful for radio."

Michael O'Malley, always the voice of reason, points out that things may not be as bad as it appears. "Too many questions we don't know about the survey question or sample including what context this is asked in? A poll of who? How was the question phrased? Did they have more than one choice? RBR leaves all that important-for-perspective info out."

However, O'Malley adds: "It's no secret though that for music stations with 18-49 making up at least some substantial portion of the audience composition, the interest in all services continues to decline - markedly so if they're 'formal.' As a listener I can find out about the news, weather and last night's lottery numbers on my smart phone while listening to my favorite song on my favorite station and not have to wait for anything formal. Doesn't mean radio has diminished in my estimation (I'm there for the music, fun, talent, etc), just that I'm not using for these particular services at the moment. We don't see that aspect reflected in this article either.

"'Breaking' however is another story; the interested in 'breaking' is significantly greater. We've also known for a while that TV has taken over in the kitchen vs. the bedroom and car. Be long on organic and short on formal. Program for how I'm being used right now."

That very day, I played morning show airchecks of every station in a client market for for our cluster's crew so that we could all talk about things we must do to stand out and be better. Weather was pretty much the same on every station in town except one (the CHR, the jock did a great job briefly relating it and making it fun). Everyone else was 30% chance of precip, considerable clouds, blah blah.

Everyone agreed after listening, radio's voice tracked approach to weather has become irrelevant. The cluster Operations Manager/PD, as if to make O'Malley's point, pulled out his smart phone and showed that he can get current conditions, temp and even a ten day forecast anytime he wants it.

Yet, we all continue to talk up the same old weather jingles with the NWS forecast verbatim up to a call letter stinger at the end just like radio did decades ago.

Most of us, face it, are pretty much "average" at most of what we do and that is no longer acceptable with anything in a multi-media world of ubiquitous information, choice, personalization, micro-local and customization.

If we can't do info differently and exceptionally, let's stop wasting listeners time with drivel.

A Lesson In Social Networking In A Local Emergency From CHAT, Medicine Hat

Kudos to the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group country team in "The Hat" for showing how it's done when flooding threatens a community (click to see their very active Facebook fan page).

And, thanks to Mike Doll for tipping me to it.

The Good News Is That The Bad News Changes Every Day

Is there a better reason to be sure that, whether you're voice-tracked or not at this very moment, someone at your radio station is constantly checking every information source available to you and has a way to get breaking information on the air immediately?

Good News

Journalism education has greatly declined over the past two decades as colleges and universities have either closed journalism programs or transformed them into "Communications Departments." Radio journalism has been especially hard hit, with diminished teaching resources given over to television instruction because TV is the more attractive broadcast medium.

Consequently, many journalists starting out in radio lack basic knowledge on how to communicate effectively though the medium. In the past, much of that knowledge was learned on the job, but consolidations, cutbacks and downsizing in radio have reduced news staffs to the point where news directors can afford little time to training those new in the profession.

In this sink-or-swim environment, far too many radio journalists have figured out only how to float. They haven't been introduced to the wide range of possibilities in preparing radio news and are often frustrated either by not being able to move up to a larger market or by not having the satisfaction of becoming respected journalists within their communities.

Michael Meckler began working in radio news with an internship at WCBE in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, back in 1982. Over the next decade and a half, he worked at radio stations in small, medium and large markets in the Midwest and Northeast, including three years in the 1990s as a writer, producer and reporter at the pre-Westinghouse, pre-Infinity, pre-Viacom CBS owned-and-operated all-news WWJ in Detroit. He has also taught at several universities, including Michigan, Ohio State and Yale.

I guess it's his background in education that motivated him to create an online basic course for anyone who wants to improve their news - writing, delivery, digging, reporting.

Have I piqued your interest? Even better: it's free with a click here.

Radio: 19.4% (Up From 16.5% Last Year)

OK, so now I have your attention, you also need to pay attention to what aspect of our business that hike is IN: an online source for news and information! However, we need to work on our credibility when compared to TV's online info efforts.

The survey was conducted with 1,000 US adults, ages 18+, by phone September 10-13, 2009.

45% Of Newsrooms Use Social Media To Gain Sources

The News Generation survey found that nearly half of the newsrooms (45%) use Twitter and Facebook, to offer their technologically savvy audiences an extension to conventional radio to provide another broadcast platform.

Thirty percent believe that keeping pace with technology and using social media builds listenership loyalty and keeps listeners tuned-in throughout the day.

The majority of radio newsrooms (56%) rely on social media for story leads from “citizen journalists,” and 34% of radio newsrooms say social media not only provides leads but can also provide possible sources of information for news stories.

Tip: News Generation is a PR firm which advises clients on how to get their stories onto our air, and the fact that they are telling the folks they work with to use Facebook, Twitter, et al, means we need to be more skeptical than ever on social media as credible sources.

It's The Internet, Stupid

Zogby shows that only one in ten would choose radio as their only source for news, but when it comes to "trust" our medium does better and the 'net does worse.

Implications?

Drop or trim down the length of 'news' and integrate talk and info about what's important right now into everything you do making use of your 'experts,' every minute, every day.

No, it's not as easy as doing six five minute newscasts per day and telling yourself that you still do news, of course, but self-deception can be that way, sometimes.

The need for lengthy news on radio is inversely related to the growth of the internet. That's somewhat new, but just because you have sponsors willing to pay for something, doesn't mean listeners care a whit about it.

That isn't new. Savvy programmers have been fighting that battle since formats replaced block programming six decades ago.

Get Your Head Around This Concept

What if, in just a few years, there's no longer any old media, new media, interactive media, mobile media, out-of-home-media, at work media, in home media, but just local media leveraging all their brands and platforms for ownership of the mental real estate?

A tough economy is almost always the delivery room for new amalgamations, some of which become wildly successful, while others fail.

What if today wasn't the end of media as we know it, but a new beginning?

Pew: "Chilling Numbers"

Bad news #1: The number of Americans who regularly go online for news, jumped 19% in the last two years, according to one survey; in 2008 alone traffic to the top 50 news sites rose 27%.

Bad news #2: It is now all but settled that advertising revenue -- the model that financed journalism for the last century -- will be inadequate to do so in this one. Growing by a third annually just two years ago, online ad revenue to news websites now appears to be flattening; in newspapers it is declining.

Only cable news really flourished in 2008, thanks to an Ahab-like focus on the 2008 election, although some of the ratings gains were erased after the election.

From: State of the News Media 2009

A Busy News Day Calls For Time Economy And Word Efficiency

Lessons from the Inauguration for those among us who tend to speak like no other human beings on earth do ("was involved in the altercation..," "no cause for the fire has been released..," "the alleged perpetrator attempted to flee on foot..," etc) and take the liberty of expanding their time on the air to their perceived importance:

1. It only takes 39 words to swear in a President.
2. "Small words say well." - Winston Churchill

Need I say more?

Manage News? Is Your Output "Content" (Or Discontent)?

Virginia Heffernan is The Medium columnist for The New York Times Magazine. Previously she spent four years as a television critic for The New York Times newspaper. Before coming to the newspaper, she wrote for Slate, and before that she was an editor at Harper's and Talk magazines. She makes some assertions I think you need to make sure your people understand are about them and how they do what they do:

• "Content that thrives in the new distribution-and-display systems is suspiciously different from the American popular culture we used to love even 10 years ago...
• "We have to change. We have to develop content that metamorphoses in sync with new ways of experiencing it, disseminating it and monetizing it...
• "It’s not possible to translate or extend traditional analog content like news reports and soap operas into pixels without fundamentally changing them. So we have to invent new forms...
• "All of the fascinating, particular, sometimes beautiful and already quaint ways of organizing words and images that evolved in the previous centuries — music reviews, fashion spreads, page-one news reports, action movies, late-night talk shows — are designed for a world that no longer exists...
• "For 10 years, journalists have hoped to avoid radical job retraining. And who can blame anyone in any profession, midcareer and set in her ways, for avoiding seminars on writing Google-friendly leads or opening her sources to readers? At the same time, a huge number of mainstream journalists have taken to blogging, signed up for Facebook and Twitter, linked to video and experimented with new forms...
• "The fact that articles live in digital form and no longer, primarily, on paper, frees them from certain constraints that seem absolutely normal to old-media people and archaic if not just stupid to everyone else...
• "People who work in traditional media and entertainment ought either to concentrate on the antiquarian quality of their work, cultivating the exclusive audience ... that might pay for craftsmanship. Or they should imagine that they are 19 again: spending a day on Twitter....
• "Then they should think about what content suits these new modes of distribution and could evolve in tandem with them."

The article I lifted these quotes from is titled "Content or Discontent," implying that this change isn't being fully embraced even in the venerable "Times" newsroom. So, you're not alone if you're not yet completely up-to-speed. To get there, three quick questions:

1. How 'flexible' is your most experienced people's approach to keeping your listener up-to-date (in ways you can still package and sell to advertisers without losing audience and attention)?
2. Do you tell great stories, create engaging, viral content?
3. Do your news personalities understand how very important this is, now?

Can You Make Money By Moving Your News Off Air And Online?

It looks like you're going to have to (and soon!):

An Associated Press executive has revealed some of the results of its survey of 18-to-34-year-olds around the world -- conducted in an attempt to understand how young people consume the news and how news organizations can check the decline in young readership.

Jim Kennedy, Vice President and Director of Strategic Planning at AP, summed up the soon-to-be-released survey results in an interview with Jean-Yves Chainon, of the World Editors Forum "Editors Weblog" Web site.

“We looked for just regular people. The only prerequisite was that we wanted them to be digital consumers.”

Kennedy will present the survey findings in full at the World Editors Forum, which will be held June 1-4 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The survey found that young consumers get their news in an irregular fashion, and generally have no ritual of news consumption, like reading the newspaper or watching the evening news every day. However, the survey also found that young people, in addition to facts and updates, wanted the news to be presented with context.

“They wanted to find a path to the backstory. And they wanted to find a path to what’s going to happen next.”

Other significant findings of the survey included the fact that most of the survey group shared news with each other, whether via text message, e-mail, or social networks, like Myspace and Facebook. Also, the survey found that 16 of the 18 participants got their news through e-mail, a medium which traditional media like newspapers rarely employ. Kennedy also noted that the survey turned up few cultural differences between young consumers, telling Chainon “The young digital consumers in Hyderabad were very similar to the ones in Silicon Valley in the United States.”

The survey group consisted of 18 individuals, living in six cities or regions around the world. Those places were: Houston, Philadelphia; Kansas City; Silicon Valley; Brighton, England; and Hyderabad, India.

There's a new definition for "broadcast" news, and we are not alone (as if you didn't know), according to the latest issue of Editor & Publisher Magazine:

In recent years, The Newspaper Association of America has managed to wrangle a varied crew of scolders from within and outside the industry to shake up publishers during its annual conference. Ann MacDonald, then CMO of Macy's Corporate Marketing, took a dim view of newspapers' circulation slide. Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott told the crowd the world's largest retailer had little use for newspaper advertising. Craig "Craigslist" Newmark, the guy who siphoned millions of classified dollars from newspapers, blithely informed publishers that they were "screwed."

I don't think radio news is "screwed," unless we keep doing newscasts on the hour and half hour as if that's what people still need. Now, while you have a news image (if you have one), get the folks who count on you for local info to sign up for email updates from you which they can forward to their friends when stories interest them.

THAT is where the growth will come from. Soon.

Social Networking: Can It Save The News Biz?

Erick Schonfeld is uniquely qualified as a former employee of Time Inc. and current writer for TechCrunch (one of the most influential blogs on the Web), to outline the ways in which traditional journalism is becoming more like blogging every day. From Eric’s post: “Just as more and more blogs are building up professional writing staffs, more and more newspapers and magazines are requiring that their writers start blogging….

“Our philosophy is that it is better to get 70 percent of a story up fast and get the basic facts right than to wait another hour (or a day) to get the remaining 30 percent. We can always update the post or do another one as new information comes in. More often than not, putting up partial information is what leads us to the truth — a source contacts us with more details or adds them directly into comments.”

How fast can your news department jump on a developing story, still get the facts right, and involve listeners in the news-gathering process at the same time?

The State Of News: Don't Tell Me. Help Me, Empower Me

Memo to the news department: "There is no single or finished news product anymore. As news consumption becomes continual, more new effort is put into producing incremental updates, as brief as 40-character e-mails sent from reporters directly to consumers without editing."

Our Believability Is Slipping

19.6% of Americans surveyed say they believe all or most of media news reporting. That’s down from 27.4% in2003. The perception is growing among Americans that the news media attempts to influence public opinion -- from79.3% strongly or somewhat agreeing in 2003 to 87.6% in 2007.

Frighteningly (to me and it sounds like to some others too - it may say as much about America right now as it does about the news media), Americans surveyed in the poll say that the most trusted national TV outlets, in descending order were Fox News (27.0%); CNN (14.6%); NBC News(10.90%); ABC News (7.0%); local news (6.9%); CBS News (6.8%); MSNBC (4.0%); PBS News (3.0%); and,CNBC (0.6%).

Large majorities:
-- See too much coverage of celebrities
-- Say media has more influence on children than parents
-- Say there's too much sex on TV
-- Support limits on advertising content surrounding children's shows

The new national poll was conducted by the Sacred Heart University Polling Institute and finds large majorities of Americans, 80.7%, pay no or very little attention to celebrities when they make political or public policy statements. This is down slightly from 81.9% found in a 2003 Sacred Heart Poll.

"Once again, Americans are loudly confirming they just don't care who Oprah or Magic Johnson support for President," said Jerry C. Lindsley, director of the SHU Polling Institute. He added, "Americans may be enjoying the free entertainment from Hollywood celebrities, but it's not moving them to the polls."

Three-fifths of Americans surveyed (59.1%) would rather see celebrities leave public policy-making to the experts and the voters. This is down somewhat from 69.5% in a 2003 SHU Poll. Another 31.7% suggested celebrities should publicly voice their political views. This is up somewhat from 27.6% in a 2003 Sacred Heart Poll.

“Americans know bias and imbalance when they see it and they don’t like it. When most service organizations strive for consumer satisfaction ratings in the high eighties to low nineties, an overall positive rating of 40.7% is disma. Americans know that it’s just not that hard to present
both sides and keep personal bias at home.” -- Jerry C. Lindsley, director of the Sacred Heart University Polling Institute

Most Americans (88.1%) did agree there was too much coverage of celebrities. (could there be some bias in this study? I wonder why the ratings of that coverage are so high?)

"The dissatisfaction with media content expressed by the majority of the American public could be viewed as an opportunity for media professionals to address issues that affect the American public as voters and citizens, not just as consumers and fans," stated James Castonguay, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of SHU's Department of Media Studies & Digital Culture. "At the same time, the American public views the Internet as a tool that can both educate and entertain," he added.

National poll respondents did see the Internet as having a positive impact. Three-quarters of Americans surveyed, 75.0%, agreed that the Internet is a positive educational supplement today.