More than one hat

Want to be a TV news producer or reporter? Be prepared to wear multiple hats. Mary Ellen Hardies, who produces the 6 p.m. newscast at WCMH-TV in Columbus, Ohio, does a lot more than assemble a rundown and write lead-ins. She screens video on her desk top, makes all her own graphics, [...]

Ask more questions

Sam Donaldson, who has spent most of his long career at ABC News covering politics, said he’s “apprehensive” about some of the campaign coverage on radio and television this year, suggesting that journalists haven’t been tough enough in questioning the candidates.
“It’s not our job to tear them down or fall in love with them,” [...]

Get a job

You’ve heard it before. A news director will give you just 30 seconds to make an impression with your resume tape. Turns out that may be a generous estimate. “My rule is ten seconds or less,” news director Neal Bennett of WVIR-TV told an audience at the RTNDA convention in Las Vegas.
If [...]

The new career track

For years, aspiring TV journalists have been told to expect to start in a small market where they’ll do it all–report, write, shoot and edit.  Then they could move up to bigger and bigger markets, where eventually they would only have to do one of those things.  That may not be true any more.
At the [...]

Getting online video right

The second annual Emerging Video Services study, conducted by Leichtman Research Group, Inc., includes some fascinating findings:

Online video usage is still very weighted to young males, ages 18-34 and the growth in online video overall was primarily among both young men and women.
Across all demographics, people still spend twice as much time watching television as [...]

Ten tips for writing TV news

People who think writing TV news is easy have probably never done it well. What’s easy (unfortunately) is finding examples of BAD news writing–”simplistic, cliché and shallow,” says Jessica Grillanda, who teaches at Cambrian College in Ontario, Canada. Getting it right takes a lot of skill, she says, because you have to synchronize [...]

Job tips for students

“You’ve got to be determined, you’ve got to work hard and not for a lot of money.” Heard that before? This time the advice comes from WCBS-TV news director David Friend, according to the Hofstra Chronicle. It also helps to have a good education and some experience, Friend said. If you [...]

Is blogging journalism?

You might think that question has been resolved, but it keeps coming up. I ran across it again this week in a study of the BBC’s use of blogs by network veteran Alfred Hermida, who now teaches at the University of British Columbia. His research paper (available as a .pdf file) quotes a [...]

Team building for producers

TV newscast producers may not think of themselves as leaders or managers, but the good ones are both. Even in the smallest stations, producers are team leaders. They have to work with anchors, directors, graphics and assignment editors to put together the best possible newscast. They also have to manage their [...]

Solo journalism advice

Bob Cronkleton is a reporter for the Kansas City Star.  He recently answered a question about multimedia reporting which was posted on the Criminal Justice Journalists listserv.   It offers some valuable advice, right from the frontlines.
“When it comes to multimedia skills, I started by focusing on audio first and
branched out from there,” wrote Cronkleton.  In [...]