Reporting Basics

Good “fishing holes” for campus reporters: Five places to find stories that will continue to pay dividends

The saying, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man To fish, and you feed him for a lifetime,” applies pretty nicely to journalism. Last week, we talked about five stories you could do once you got back to campus and hopefully at least a few folks found those to be helpful. However, once those are done, the question of, “OK, now what?” emerges and it can feel like another uphill slog to find good content.

We can’t exactly teach you how to fish here; that job is up to your instructors, advisers and other folk who work with you. However, here are a couple of our favorite “fishing holes” brought to you by the Hivemind:

  1. City Records: Even though it is often an island unto itself, your campus is still part of a larger area, namely a city, town or municipality of some kind. Your campus food services are likely checked over by the city health inspector. Your dorms have to meet codes for structure, electrical work and other similar issues. Beyond the campus itself, you can find inspection records for various properties, including restaurants, businesses and rental properties. Find out which rental company has the most complaints or if a certain restaurant or tattoo parlor has been cited for unsanitary practices.
  2. Job Services: The most common question I answer when students tour is the one my own father asked many, many years ago when I was entering college and choosing a major: “(Fill in name of major)? Can you get a job with that?” Many higher education institutions have some sort of job-placement service either through administration or through individual colleges and schools within the university. Find out who helps people get jobs or at least who tracks the data regarding job placement for graduates that are one, five or 10 years out of school. Which majors have the highest and the lowest rates? What careers yield the best financial return on investment?
  3. Health Care: We’ve all heard it before: “I’m sick, but I’m not going to Student Death…” Although healthcare records themselves are private, more general information on the overall services aren’t. How many people has your student healthcare center seen over the past year or two? What are the main drivers of health-related visits on your campus in that time? Also, what programs are available that go beyond, “Take two of these and call me in the morning” as a solution? Some campuses have therapy animals, mental health services, weight-watcher programs and other things that can benefit student if they know about them.
  4. Student Organizations: Not every story you look for has to cure cancer. In many cases, telling stories and alerting people to things they didn’t know about (but probably would appreciate knowing) works just as well. Grab a copy of a list that outlines every official student organization on campus and see if you can find trends: Is your campus particularly laden with political or environmental groups? Do you see more social or activity-based opportunities? Are there clubs for things you never thought would lead to a club, such as squirrel clubs or organizations for concrete canoe makers?
  5. Budget Office: Follow the money. Always. If you want to figure out where things are going and how people value certain things on your campus, it pays to learn how to read a budget. Save yourself the agony of trying to learn how to do this on a deadline by visiting the budget office when you have no pressing needs, asking to see a fairly benign budgetary document and asking for a chance to talk to a budget specialist about it. This will help you understand how to see where money goes, what certain budget categories mean and how best to track money in a system. It’s not easy, but once you figure it out, you can find great financial stories and be less susceptible to having someone pull the wool over your eyes.

Five random story ideas that you could try during your first week back at school

One of the hardest things about reporting on stories that aren’t event based is trying to find things that could lead to neat stories. We’re going to try to throw out some random, story ideas you could look into at your school. Not all of these will apply to everyone’s campus (public schools have open records rules that don’t apply at private institutions), but consider this at least a jumping off point for you.

If you have any ideas you’d like share, feel free to use the contact function or just post your ideas below in the comments. Here we go…

Who has the most unpaid parking tickets and how much do they owe? This might be a fairly pedestrian (pardon the pun) story or it might be a case of a massive scofflaw on your campus. In any case, it’s always interesting to figure out who has the biggest problems finding a legal space and what they have to say about it.

Who is currently suing your university and why? A quick perusal of your local court records might find some people who truly demand justice or a few folks who likely wear tinfoil hats to bed. Former athletes alleging assault and claims of racial discrimination within the administration could lead to some serious coverage while suits because “the president of the university has taken over my brain” could be downright amusing.

Is your school buying or selling wins? One of the more interesting aspects of college sports is the contractual obligations between academic institutions. Some Division I schools with limited resources and lower-caliber teams will sign contracts for “guarantee games,” in which a football or basketball program goes to a major D-I school to get slaughtered. The rub? The major institution “guarantees” the lesser program a certain amount of money for the privilege of getting killed 94-0 on the field or court. In other cases, it could be a simple promise of a free lunch to get the two programs onto the same field. Pull the contracts and find out.

(A word of warning to schools who try this. Sometimes you aren’t guaranteed a win, as Michigan found out in 2007)

Happy (or unhappy) Anniversary! Take a look back in the archives of your school newspaper to find out what was big news 10, 20, 30 or 50 years ago. You might find out that there was a riot on campus or some racial injustice at the time. You could also discover a rare event, a special graduation or an incredible sports event.

How much for that guest speaker at the union? If you are a public institution, any contract between your university and any outside vendor is a public record, so feel free to pull some of them. It might be interesting to find out how much the “Campus Speaker Series” is costing your campus or see who gets paid the most or the least for their speeches. The same is true of concerts, carnivals or other events that cost cash. Pull those records and see how much stuff is costing or if the “super stars” are asking for anything special in the “rider.” (See the world’s most famous “rider” to a contract here: Van Halen’s 1982 “No Brown M&M’s” document)

Happy reporting! Feel free to send us any links to anything you covered on this list. (We’d love to post it.)

Guest Blogging: Context Counts (or when an airline cuts flights)

Each week, we will strive to post content from a guest blogger with an expertise in an area of the field. This week, we are fortunate to have Jessica Sparks, an experienced journalist and assistant professor at Savannah State University to discuss the importance of context in journalism. Interested in being our next guest blogger? Contact us here.

In the first few weeks of my entry level course in media writing, I introduce students to three specific values the media has traditionally held- fairness, diversity and context. Without these three pieces, we become Rush Limbaugh- pick apart the facts to support your opinion and forget all those pesky statements that completely oppose it.

Context, to me, is one value many novice journalists tend to forget. There are two possible explanations for this: They know the context, but forget to include it in the story so the audience can see the information they way they saw it; or they didn’t ask enough questions to really understand the information given to them and therefore don’t have enough context to explain it thoroughly.

In class, I often pose this question to my students:

An airline announces it will cut half of all its flights from a mid-size airport near your media outlet. Is this news?

Without posing follow-up questions for context, you cannot definitively say yes or no.

As Vince points out in his book “Dynamics of Media Writing,” a good story applies to a mass audience- it’s interesting, timely and informative. In addition, it has at least some of those characteristics (conflict, impact, proximity, prominence, novelty).

For this example, most students picture an airline such as Delta cutting hundreds of flights, which could affect thousands of travelers and hundreds of jobs. Yes, that is news.

However, what if it’s a regional airline that flies twice a month with a 20-person plane? The announcement isn’t nearly as newsworthy as the aforementioned scenario, and it might not be worth a full report.

During my “Back to the Newsroom” fellowship with the Wall Street Journal, I was placed on The Numbers blog team. My job, essentially, was to identify data that would intrigue an audience and build visual elements to accompany short blog posts about that data. One of the most memorable of these pieces for me was “More kids born outside of marriage, but fewer teen births.”

In terms of context, this story stuck out to me because the numbers provided by the Census Bureau pointed to a traditional generational process. As the world has changed, so has the core family experience. This headline pushes that agenda.

However, the statistics still showed, the majority of new mothers were married when birthing their first child.

That’s context. The headline grabs the reader, but the story must still make clear that the data is showing a possible trend- not a rule. There’s not rule from this data saying children will be born out of wedlock. All it’s saying is that there is a possible trend emerging through the numbers.

What can you do to make sure you have the context around each fact, number and quote?

  1. Make sure you understand it yourself. Don’t write about something you don’t understand, and don’t feel silly asking a question of a source because you think it will make you look dumb. Sources would prefer you get the story right. (Though, you should do your best to come prepared and knowledgeable.)
  2. Continually ask yourself if you are misleading your audience. Are you choosing to omit information because it contradicts something else in your story? Don’t. It’s better to write that there was some confusing detail than to seem opaque in your reporting process.
  3. Read it out loud to yourself. Sometimes hearing the fact instead of reading it forces you to notice missing- yet important- details.

If your mother says she loves you, go check it out (or why making sure you’re sure matters).

Iphonetext

The adage in journalism regarding verification is: “If your mother says she loves you, go check it out.” The idea is that you need to make sure things are right before you publish them. You also want to verify the source of the information before you get yourself into trouble.

This issue popped up again this week after former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci had exchanged several emails with a person he thought to be former Chief of Staff Reince Prebus. It turns out, the messages came from a prankster, who baited Scaramucci into an “email battle:”

“At no stage have you acted in a way that’s even remotely classy, yet you believe that’s the standard by which everyone should behave towards you?” read the email to Scaramucci from a “mail.com” account.

Scaramucci, apparently unaware the email was a hoax, responded with indignation.

“You know what you did. We all do. Even today. But rest assured we were prepared. A Man would apologize,” Scaramucci wrote.

The prankster, now aware that he had deceived the beleaguered Scaramucci, went in for the kill.

“I can’t believe you are questioning my ethics! The so called ‘Mooch’, who can’t even manage his first week in the White House without leaving upset in his wake,” the fake Priebus wrote. “I have nothing to apologize for.”

Scaramucci shot back with a veiled threat to destroy Priebus Shakespearean-style.

“Read Shakespeare. Particularly Othello. You are right there. My family is fine by the way and will thrive. I know what you did. No more replies from me,” the actual Scaramucci.

“Othello” is a tragedy in which the main character is tricked into killing his wife Desdemona after his confidante convinces him that she has been unfaithful.

As the article points out, Scaramucci isn’t the first person to be suckered by a prank. Other members of the government had been similarly duped via email. In terms of prank calls, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker found himself once speaking with a person pretending to be billionaire David Koch, discussing ways to attack protesters and destroy liberals.   (The prankster told his side of the story on Politico.)

News journalists have also been caught short when it comes to making sure they’re sure about the sources and information they receive. In 2013, KTVU-TV in San Francisco had what it thought was a big scoop on the Asiana Flight 214 crash: The names of the captain and crew. However, the information turned out to be not only a hoax, but an intentionally racist set of names:

Three people were fired and a fourth resigned for health reasons in the wake of this error. In digging into this, it turned out that the NTSB found the source of the names to be a “summer intern” who thought this would be funny. In its own investigation, the station found that nobody asked the source at the NTSB for his name or title. The station issued an apology, as did the NTSB.

It’s easy to laugh at these incidents or to marvel at how dumb somebody was to buy into this stuff. However, we used to say around my house, “There, but by the grace of God, go I.” In other words, you could be next.

So here are three simple tips to help you avoid these problems:

  1. Verify, verify, verify: If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Look up information on various sites, ask a source for other people who can augment/confirm the information and make sure you feel confident in your content before you publish.
  2. If you aren’t sure, back away: It is always better to be late on something than it is to be wrong. It’s also better to let a random email or a text go without a response than to get sucked in and pay the price later. Some of these are easy, like when a Nigerian Prince promises you untold riches if you would just transfer your bank account number to him. Some are harder: When’s the last time you made sure it was your friend texting you about a “crazy night” and not his mom or dad doing some snooping? We just assume we know the actual source. That can be dangerous, so back off if you’re not sure.
  3. Kick it around the room: One of the best reasons why newsrooms, PR offices and ad agencies exist is to gather collective knowledge in one place. Sure, with technology now, it’s easy for everyone to work “off site” but keeping people in a single physical spot can make it easier to have someone look over your shoulder and see if something you just got “smells right.” Take advantage of other people around you and don’t go at it alone.

John Heard and Obituary Math

At one of my first newspaper jobs, a veteran reporter told me that there were only two reasons we EVER would stop the presses: If we printed the wrong lottery numbers or if we got someone’s obituary wrong. You libeled the pope? We’ll figure that out later, but if you screwed up an obit, stuff would come to a screeching halt in the press room.

I never found out if that was meant to scare me, as I was a new reporter who would mostly be doing the lottery numbers and obituaries or if it was a true story. However, the idea that obituaries mattered stuck with me. It continued with me at my first editing gig in Columbia, Missouri. My boss had a rule that EVERYONE who died in our area would get a full staff-written obituary, free of charge.

George Kennedy saw the Missourian as the paper of record and recording the life stories of people in our circulation area was sacred to him. We always would tell the reporters, “Do the math” when it came to the age of the deceased. We firmly stated, “Check again” on any outlandish claims regarding war medals or honorary degrees we couldn’t verify. “Are you sure?” was our mantra when it came to these stories.

While I was at a wedding last night, I found out actor John Heard, who was best known for his role in the “Home Alone” movies, died in Palo Alto, California. I did a quick search through my news feed and found that most of my main sources had done obituaries and most listed him at age 71:

However, one source listed him at 72. It was an outlier among a sea of “venerable” publications, and it had me thinking about how easy it is to screw up an age in an obit. A check of years instead of birthdays, an unfortunate accident near or on a date of birth or just a general “whoops” will do it. However, I dug more and found additional notices that supported the “Heard is 72” age issue:

A quick check of his IMDB page gave me this:

IMDBHeard.jpg

The math was easy (March birthday) and his birthday is listed, so where were the BBC and NY Times getting the idea that this guy wasn’t 72? I couldn’t find a birth record, a formal form from the coroner’s office or anything else. CNN finally put something together that was helpful in one of its stories:

(CNN)Actor John Heard, best known for playing the father in the “Home Alone” movies, has died, the Santa Clara County, California, medical examiner’s office said.
The medical examiner’s office said the actor was 71, but other reports list his age as 72. He died Friday.

It’s unclear where the coroner got the information from. Let’s just hope it wasn’t the most popular source out there prior to Heard’s death that listed his date of birth in a way that would have put him at 71:

HeardWikiFull

 

I can’t say for sure that the medical examiner (or even the NY Times) went to Wikipedia like somebody’s stoner roommate trying to pull together a last-minute Sociology paper. The Times, BBC and other people didn’t cite their sources. At least CNN, while not giving us a definitive answer, gave us clarity with an attribution. What I can say is that it’s impossible for him to be both 71 and 72 at the same time.

With all of that in mind, here are three key take aways from this:

  1. If your mother says she loves you, go check it out. Make sure you have a solid source to demonstrate from whence your information came. Also attribute that information so people can go back and check for themselves. It shows faith in your readers and bolsters your credibility. If a reader looked at you and said, “Where did you get THAT from?” would you feel confident telling that person the answer?
  2. Trust, but verify. Just because the New York Times ran a story that said one thing and the Portage Daily Shopper contradicted it, don’t just assume the Times is right and the Shopper is wrong. Sources do count for something, but even a blind squirrel can find an acorn and even Goliath can get knocked on his ass.
  3. Treat obituaries with reverence. I used to tell my students that an obituary might be the first and last time someone was mentioned in the media. With that in mind, you need to bring your “A” game when you do the reporting and writing.

 

Filak-ism: It should hurt so much that you never do it again, but not so badly it kills you. (Or how my grading policy works thanks to the Crawfish River)

SONY DSC

Filak-ism: A random observation, borrowed idea from a movie/song/TV show/book, odd concept or weird phrase that has been warped in the mind of Dr. Vince Filak for broader application within journalism situations.

It’s hard to get over a mistake you made when you literally have to drive over it several times a year.

As a cub reporter, I caught a great story about a 10-year-old kid who jumped into a river to save his little brother’s life. I managed to get the police report, the hospital info on the little brother and interviews with the family, all while on deadline. When TV didn’t have the story that night (in the era before people broke news online), I had an honest-to-God exclusive. I couldn’t wait for that story to run.

When it did, I wished it never had.

Turns out, I called the Crawfish River the “Crawford River,” which makes no sense as we don’t have one of those around here. I also managed to mix up Fall River, Wisconsin with River Falls, Wisconsin. Two errors in the lead. Good grief.

It turns out that to drive from Madison, where I was living at the time, to my folks’ house in Milwaukee, I actually had to cross the Crawfish River. Even now, years later, I’ll be driving in some part of the state and end up on a bridge over that damned thing. It never goes away.

What also doesn’t go away, however, was that constant reminder to ALWAYS double check proper nouns, including people, places and events. Spelling, geography, whatever. Just make sure you’re sure, I would tell myself after my fifth overly paranoid examination of whatever I was writing.

When I became a professor, I wove that philosophy of pain and remembrance into my grading as well. Fact errors cost people half their reporting grade. Some students thought it was too harsh. Colleagues occasionally told me it was too lenient, in that they gave out zeros when someone made an error like the “Crawford River.” I explained it to both groups with a simple philosophy:

I want mistakes like these to hurt so badly that you never make them again, but not so bad that they kill you so you can’t ever recover and thus miss the point. In short, if the penalty is too harsh, it fails to do its job. If the penalty is too soft, it fails to do its job.

I won’t disagree with other systems, but it appeared to me over time that mine worked out pretty well. Last year, I was in contact with a former student who had just gotten her master’s degree in library science. She just got engaged so congratulations on both fronts were in order. After a brief exchange, she said this:

“Poy Sippi is spelled P-O-Y S-I-P-P-I, not P-O-Y S-I-P-P-Y.”

I paused, wondering if she was OK.

“That’s the reason I got an A- in your features class. I misspelled that damned thing. Now I always look stuff like that up.”

Score one more for the Crawfish River…

Cliffhanger questions are for “Game of Thrones,” not journalism

The goal of good writing is to make sure you answer the questions your readers have. At the very least, you don’t want to create questions and then leave them unanswered. CNN’s report on the latest poling numbers for President Trump does exactly that:

Washington (CNN) Only 36% of Americans approve of President Donald Trump’s performance in the Oval Office, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll has found.

That gives Trump the lowest approval rating at the six-month mark of any president in 70 years, ABC News reports.

As the story goes on, I kept waiting for the answer of, “Why 70 years ago?” Did they only start doing polling like this 70 years ago? Was there a guttural level of unique hatred for Truman or Eisenhower at one of their six-month marks? How close was the closest guy to this number for Trump? Or as Sunshine would say:

I kept reading and kept looking, but no dice. As the story wore on, CNN seemed less interested in answering the questions I had about that record-breaking low and more interested in pelting me with as many numbers as possible. It was like CNN kept loading up a bratzooka with percentages and firing them into the story:

In the end, I went elsewhere to find the answers, namely the ABC story CNN references. To be fair to CNN, the video did cover some of the items I wanted to know, but as a journalist you a) can’t assume the audience is going to look at the video and the text, even if you set it to autoplay and b) you don’t want to force readers to look elsewhere for answers.

This is especially true if it’s your fault they have the questions in the first place.

GAME TIME: Can you spot the fake news?

Fake news means roughly whatever anyone wants it to mean at this point in time. For some, it is satire, partisanship or general trolling meant to fool the public. For others, if the information doesn’t jibe with their worldview, it must be fake news. For journalists, true “fake” news is information purported to be real but lacking in any factual or substantive information, regardless of intent.

The tricky part about spotting fake news is that the fakers have become exceptionally good at mimicking the style, structure and approach journalists take to storytelling. Even people trained to be suspicious of information and verify stories before publishing them can be fooled. To help people see how well their BS detectors function, a pair of Fellows at the JOLT lab built a game that present real and fake news, asking the participants to determine which is which.

The Factitious system not only provides you with the stories, but can provide you with the sources if you need a little help. In addition, if you misjudge a piece, Factitious fills you in on the telltale signs you should keep an eye on for future encounters.

To play the game click here!

(H/T Tracy Everbach, University of North Texas for the head’s up on this)

 

Sneak Peek: Up for Discussion- Email Interviews

One of the key features in the Dynamics of News Reporting & Writing is a breakout that we’re calling “Up for Discussion” (a working title…). The idea is to introduce a facet of journalism that can have multiple angles to it in hopes of sparking discussion.

Here’s a sneak peek at the one from the chapter on interviewing on the pros and cons of email interviewing (the arguments here are obviously not exhaustive, thus the point of the “discussion” on the topic):

The acceptability of email interviews varies from situation to situation and from organization to organization. Some journalists see it as an easy way to gain quick access to a source while others view it as a cop out that provides less valuable information when compared to a traditional interview. Here are some of the positives and negatives associated with this approach:

  • You get quick access for simple answers: The people you want to reach might be busy at work or trapped in a meeting, but thanks to mobile devices and a quick click of the “reply” button, they can give you what you need right away. If you need a simple answer such as “PAP stands for Pittsville Action Party, right?” or “How old did you say your son was?” a quick email response will do the job quite efficiently.
  • They produce readymade interview transcripts: One of the common refrains from people who don’t like something written about them is, “I never said that.” The best part about email is the ability to capture the EXACT words your source chose to use and put them into your story verbatim. If a source doesn’t like how people reacted to the story and tries the “I never said that” defense, you can publish the email and show you are right. It’s like a security blanket for your reporting.
  • Sources tend to like it: Rather than spending 20 minutes on a phone or look for a block of time in their schedule, the source can time-shift the interview to the first open moment he or she has and respond quickly at that point. Sources also feel more in control, as they can compose themselves before answering questions and get a stronger sense of how exactly to communicate their feelings in a coherent fashion. Email is ubiquitous so most sources understand how to use the tool and feel comfortable using it to interact with people.
  • You end up with weaker reporting opportunities: Email interviews don’t allow you the opportunity to follow up on crucial issues right away. With an in-person interview, when a source introduces a topic or offers an opinion, a good reporter can jump in right away and ask for clarification or push back on a misperception. An email interview doesn’t allow for that. It also doesn’t allow you to see how a source will react to a question. If you ask your chancellor, “Is there any truth to the rumor that you are taking a job as chancellor of Southeastern Central College?” his reaction might be worth more than the quote he provides. If he turns red, quickly throws a file from his desk into a drawer and says, “No, why? Where did you hear that?” you know you have something. If you asked that question via email, the chancellor can curse up a blue streak in his office and scream, “WHO TOLD THAT REPORTER ABOUT MY JOB INTERVIEW?” Then, he can calmly sit down at the computer and write, “I have no immediate intention to change jobs, as I love it here at Northwestern Central University.You don’t bond with your sources: The best way to get to know someone is to spend time with that person. Face-to-face interviews and frequent phone calls that include a little small talk can go a long way to create bonds between you and your sources. This can be incredibly valuable when you have big stories or you need an inside tip. If the only thing your sources know about you is your email address, you will never develop those kinds of connections that can lead to exclusive stories.

Before you do an email interview, check with your editor to see what rules exist about them. Also, consider the type of information you need and the type of story you are writing as you determine the viability of an email interview. If email is the right tool for the job and your company allows it, give it a shot. If not, don’t be lazy or scared and set up a more traditional interview with your source.

Thoughts on the topic, the approach and the usefulness of this feature in the book are always appreciated.

 

Sources: Sources say that sources say stuff

Sources

I grabbed the following screen caption from the top headlines of ESPN.com a few days back. The use of “Source” or “Report” was present in five of the six headlines. The stories to which these heads linked used similar attributions, such as “sources said” or “according to sources.”

The whole point of sources and attributing information to those sources is to help your readers understand who is telling the reporters this information. This allows the reporter to showcase the value of the source in the story and allows the readers to determine how much credence they want to lend to this source. When all you get is “according to a source…,” you lose both aspects of that. Consider this quote:

“ObamaCare is imploding. It is a disaster and 2017 will be the worst year yet, by far.”

If you don’t have an attribution on this, or if you have “a political source said,” you have no way of knowing how big of a deal this is. An attribution makes all the difference. If this were attributed to House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican who has often attacked the plan, people can think about this one way. However, if it turned out that these words were spoken last week by Joe Biden, Obama’s vice president and a Democrat, this quote takes on an entirely different meaning. (It’s actually a tweet from Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.)

In the case of sports journalism, reporters often have to trade in anonymity to get sources to provide them with inside information. However, the degree to which readers can trust the statements those sources make is limited by this Faustian bargain. It is also unclear from a reader’s perspective if the reporter made strides to get the information from a named source or if going unnamed was the easiest option.

Consider how much value information has and how it might be compromised without a named source before you allow “sources” to “say” things in your work.