Jeremy Settle
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Checks and Balances

7/12/2013

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PictureScreen shot from KTVU's July 12th Noon News
Today's unfortunate incident during KTVU's Noon newscast in which they thought they were reporting the names of the flight crew from the Asiana Airlines crash from last Saturday serves as a sobering reminder to local newsrooms nationwide.

What appears to be the cataclysmic failure of checks and balances at KTVU today should give everyone working in a similar operation reason for pause. 

I've never been inside KTVU and I don't know anyone who works there.  I can't say I know how that report got on television, and I'm not going to sit here in judgement of a TV station I know very little about. 

What it does do is vividly illustrate a real world example of what can happen when there is a lack of focus and/or discipline in any facet of a news organization.  It prompted me to reflect tonight on some best practices I have tried to instill in my own news teams over the years.

1) Never build a graphic you wouldn't want to see on the air.  Photoshop is cool and the art department is so talented and its all on fun... no, no, no.  While you may think the likelihood of a gag graphic getting to air is next to impossible, the computer engines that drive newsroom graphics systems are far from perfect.  Making things even more complicated are ambiguous are naming conventions that make getting the right graphics to air challenging enough.  

2) Nearly every viewer has a DVR and a Facebook account.  In a world of DVRs and Social Media, the smallest mistake is likely to make it to the web.  Within 30 minutes of KTVU's "incident" today, the video went viral.  The genie was out of the bottle and it was not going back in.  


We are living in an unforgiving age where everything is recorded by almost everyone.  To further prove that point, compare how easy it is find video of Sue Simmons dropping the F-Bomb on Live live TV in 2008 as opposed to finding video Warner Wolf's teeth falling out on live television 10 years earlier.  

3) Being Second and a Right is still better than Being First and Wrong. Aside from KTVU, KPIX is the only other English-language station in the bay area with a Noon newscast on.  Was the rush to beat them worth the credibility crisis KTVU is facing right now?  Yes, I sit at home and watch simultaneous newscasts and several TVs but I've never met anyone outside of the news business who does the same.  

While there does linger some promotional value in being first, it's never worth the gamble if there is ever any degree of uncertainty.  

4) Rundown Slug Lines Should Always Maintain Professionalism & Accuracy.  Don't forget your rundowns are fair game if litigation comes in to play.  Don't think that a cutesy slug line such as "Dirty Doctor" or "Pervert Arrested" won't come back to haunt you.  These both illustrate the perception of a foregone conclusion on the part of the news staff, producer or management for someone who may be presumed to be or actually is innocent of the allegations they are facing.

5) Report, Don't Rip & Read.  I had a news director once who was very critical of anyone pitching stories from press releases.  We're not "hand out specialists," we're journalists and as such should approach every nugget of information we harvest with a healthy dose of skepticism.  Remembering that nearly everyone has an agenda they're trying to push and that not everything printed in media alerts is always going to be true serves as a great starting point.



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Why Mentorship Matters

7/10/2013

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Picture2004 w/Greg Seaby on WUSA Assignment Desk
This isn't a topic I necessarily saw myself writing for a blog, but as I was sitting here starting out the window at the Hudson tonight, it occurred to me why I love mentoring young broadcast journalists so much.  

The first time I recognized this was before I was ever a news director.  It was when I held the position of Assignment Manager at WUSA-TV.  During my second full year as a news manager in Washington, we hired a young assignment editor from up the road in Baltimore.  The kid was a University of Maryland grad, like myself, and he carried around his own digital scanner all the time.  Pretty impressive I have to say.

He was a little too anxious at first, sending crews on every car wreck and house fire he would hear dispatch.  As time went on we talked about the stories that tend to be more relevant to a Washington, DC audience, and in no time he was carving out his own niche on the assignment desk and making a name for himself in the market.

Not long after I left D.C. for Charlottesville, he left WUSA and went to work for my best friend at a competing station in town.  In the five-plus years he was there, he ran the night desk better than anyone in town.  Today, he is an assignment editor at CNN and I couldn't be more proud of him.

There is such a great feeling in helping motivated individuals reach that next level.  Just tonight I was speaking on the phone with one of my former sports directors.  The guy is one of the most genuinely sincere people working in the news business today.  Among other things, we discussed some possible approaches he could take toward a really cool story idea he is working on at his current station.  He likely doesn't realize it, but as he walked away thinking I helped him tonight, he truly helped me.  

I'm in the news business for the love and passion I have for news and to see the industry as a whole do better.  When I hung up the phone a short time ago, it not only made me feel great to know I was there to help a friend, but it makes me a better journalist as well as a better person.  The critical thinking and discussion with others who share the same passion is a real driver of excellence.

There used to be times when I would find myself really disappointed in my lack having a mentor of my own.  What I didn't expect was the rewarding feeling and strategic growth I gained being one to others.  

There are many measures of success in the news business.  The satisfaction in making this business better by helping others may not win any awards, but it will leave you with a feeling far better for a much longer time.


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Breaking News Isn't Just for Weekdays

7/6/2013

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Today's crash of an Asiana Airlines Flight at SFO should serve as a reminder to newsrooms across the country that news happens at any time! Not just during business hours.

Winning Breaking News and Breaking Weather stories consistently can be a game changer for a station trying to capture market dominance.  Living the brand goes beyond just good promotion and a catchy positioning statement... It includes being prepared for the unexpected. 

Just after lunchtime on a Saturday afternoon, most local newsrooms are operating with a skeleton crew.  Does your weekend staff know how to react in the event of a disaster?  How quickly can your newsroom publish information to the web, send a mobile alert and get on the air to establish coverage?

Winning Breaking News is Always a Team Effort

Every facet of the TV station plays a key role in making sure coverage is a success.  Some keys to success include:
  • Getting on-air without a fully staffed control room team.
  • Quickly beginning the process of calling in additional staff.
  • Launching the Helicopter (if applicable)/Deploying any bonded cellular Live gear ahead of Live vehicles.
  • Aggressively updating online information.
  • Ensuring promotions has a plan for weekend coverage in the event of major breaking news. 
  • Technical Considerations:
  1. How are you captioning or otherwise visually telling the story on screen for the hearing impaired?
  2. Are crews in the field able to get a mixed-minus IFB feed when bypassing the control room?
  3. Can you get a phoner to air if you had to?

Getting On-air

On my first day as News Director at WBRE, it was clear something very obvious was missing in the newsroom: a flash cam.  To get on the air in a breaking news event, they were still firing up the studio lights putting an anchor on the set (far removed from where the content was coming in), and relying on a staffed control room to get on TV.

Before the end of my first week, I had a decommissioned ENG camera put back into service and mounted on the wall in the newsroom.  It represented the first step in us becoming the Breaking News/Breaking Weather station.

The availability of traffic and publicly accessible cameras has never been greater.  Everyone in house should know how to bring these cameras up and get them to air at a moment's notice.  When realistic, crews in the field that aren't in vehicles capable of live transmission should have some means of transmission whether its bonded cellular technology or something as crude as an iphone.  

Online

Depending on the station and market size, it is highly possible that your online team will be overwhelmed particularly in the early hours of the breaking event.  Reach out for backup from either another station in your group or preferably another employee who can jump in from home on short notice.

Be aggressive at sending out that Breaking News alert.  It serves a great driver to both on-air and online.  When possible, make sure it's linking to an article, so as not to send the consumer on a fact finding mission elsewhere.  

In the fervor of activity, are you adequately covering your web page as well as your social media channels?  Are you driving coverage back to the station properties through links?

This is a two way street.  As  we know, social media has made us as media organizations more easily accessible than ever before.  Loyal viewers are often in the right place at the right time and more than willing, in fact excited, to share their experiences, pictures, and videos.  Of course this comes with the cautionary disclaimer to make absolutely sure you have vetted any pictures or video thoroughly before taking them to air.

This also presents an opportunity to showcase specific reporters who are covering the big story for you.  Include in your news articles the twitter handles of the actively tweeting reporters who are on the story.  Make sure the news department is retweeting their reporters when they have a big nugget of information.

Streaming Raw Feeds

Live Streaming coverage on the web is undoubtedly a draw for news consumers hungry for information as it happens.  I have seen stations punch out a raw shot from one of the crews in the field in place of an air signal.  This comes with risk.  While watching one of these raw feeds today, I could hear the truck op and crew laughing and kidding around .  It's embarrassing and unprofessional.  Make sure crews treat their live signals as if they are hot all the time.

Quality Content Remains King

Picture
A well sourced reporter can really shine during breaking news situations.  It can help a station stand out and lead the way as opposed to waiting for information to trickle out at media press conferences.

It's important to look for opportunities for to delivery relevant sidebars.  Of course localize the story, but almost everyone either flies or know someone who does.  There is still a lot of information to come out of a story like this, but a lot of that will be dependent on the hard work of journalists digging into information such as the pilot's history and other potential warning signs, if any existed.

It goes without saying, but dumb mistakes just kill your credibility.  In the heat of the moment, you can easily make a typo.  The team must understand the magnitude of a mistake that they may shrug off as "just a typo."  

Think back to the J-School professors that would fail you for one error in fact.  I don't believe in making a staff live in fear of their job, at the same time, they must understand mistakes like this just won't be tolerated.


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