Most waited to be assigned a story from the news desk (a task usually
taken on by the news assignments editor or, in small markets, the news
director).
For the first time since I became public editor, the
executive editor and the publisher have declined to respond to my
requests for information about news-related decision-making. He was
hailed by media stars as a "breathtaking" example of presidential
leadership in toppling Saddam Hussein. They do not choose an area
because it's a terrible place to raise kids, the schools are unsafe, the
water supply bad, and the taxes high.
media coverage, click here.
I
pointed out in a news meeting a few years ago that people do not move
to an area because it leads the state in murders. "Imagine the
difference between a picture gallery with the sun shining through and
the same gallery at night, illuminated by a half dozen candles. I've
been forced to hire younger and younger people who do not read, write,
or deliver material well at all. 19, three days after the article
appeared. It takes time and commitment to get to know people who can
help you when you need a sound bite on a certain issue.
It's time, I believe, to build an information hi-rise that includes the best that's in us as well.
I've seen more than one news director frustrated by young reporters' lack of curiosity about their community.
For possibly the most amazing story he wrote which got virtually no U.S.
The
New York Times's explanation of its decision to report, after what it
said was a one-year delay, that the National Security Agency is
eavesdropping domestically without court-approved warrants was woefully
inadequate. It was a "hot property." Area businesses were willing to pay
premium prices to have their ads placed before and after the segments
called "James' Corner."
newsperson even bothered to ask me or the
BBC for the data and research we had painstakingly done. If the story
bleeds, it's likely to lead, be the top story in that evening's
newscast.
At first the station higher-ups thought feature stories
about the unsung heroes in the community were a waste of time. US
forces should be able to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of
globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems
dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum". They have no action."
TV
news is brilliant when it comes to showcasing the worst aspects of
human nature. In an e-mail uncovered and released by the House Judiciary
Committee last month, Tim Griffin, once Karl Rove's right-hand man,
gloated that "no [U.S.] national press picked up" a BBC Television story
reporting that the Rove team had developed an elaborate scheme to
challenge the votes of thousands of African Americans in the 2004
election. Griffin wasn't exactly right. Get the top news stories from news daily for all your news needs.
A
news director I used to work for told me, "When I started in this
business twenty years ago, we had a solid core of proven journalists
working for us. Having created over 2,000 feature stories over a nine
year period during my tenure at a CBS-TV affiliate in Texas, I know the
importance of preserving the broadcast tradition of telling the stories
of local unsung heroes, innovators, and visionaries -- material
routinely overlooked by the "ratings hungry" TV news outlets.
11
is inadequate, some of the nation's leading structural engineers and
fire-safety experts are calling for a new, independent and
better-financed inquiry that could produce the kinds of conclusions
vital for skyscrapers and future buildings nationwide. "Psyops messages
will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences,
including the American public. The fact that the "Information Operations
Roadmap" is approved by the Secretary of Defense suggests that these
plans are taken very seriously indeed in the Pentagon.
What's
involved is caring enough to get all the necessary pictures and sound
bites at the scene. Murrow, Douglas Edwards, Walter Chronkite, Chet
Huntley and David Brinkley, and the early journalistic years of Barbara
Walters at NBC are all but lost on today's generation of new hires who
have only the vaguest ideas of the standards, values, and news ethics
that were so important to these broadcasting legends.
It was the
reporter's responsibility to bring story ideas to the morning news
meeting. 16 article about President Bush's secret decision in the months
after 9/11 to authorize the warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in
the United States. "The brain works on energy and energy illumines
reality," the British novelist Colin Wilson wrote. Local broadcast news
has become more about ratings and station profits than solid news
gathering, compiling lists of trusted sources, compelling writing, and
good storytelling. Sensationalism dominates newscasts nowadays. The
document recommends that the United States should seek the ability to
"provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum". I had
no idea what you showed us today even existed." These viewers
appreciated being told they lived in a community with good people around
them who were making tangible contributions.
These "feel-good"
about-your-community stories are vanishing from TV news broadcasts and
being replaced with news stories directed at target audiences that
Orlando Sentinel syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker says are
"culturally locked in perpetual adolescence."
Tonight I saw a
panel of White House correspondents talking about what it was like to
cover the White House. The professional reporter must also have the
ability to write a great story and the skills to edit video to match
audio, even if another person in the newsroom is assigned to edit their
story.