OTNB IDEA: Share Web Style Guides

Every news operation should have a style guide, but as anyone whose ever written one can tell you, the writing can be frustrating and unrewarding.

ADVANTAGES OF A STYLE GUIDE
Aside from the obvious benefit of having everyone working off the same page, one of the biggest benefits of a style guide is the Writing Guidelines.

In her blog, Advancing the Story: Broadcast Journalism in a Multimedia World, Deb Halpern Wenger says, “One of  the criticisms leveled at TV news sites is the hit-or-miss quality of the writing. Part of the problem, as many in the broadcast industry freely admit, is a discomfort with or lack of knowledge about writing in “print style.”

Luckily, some forward thinking news organizations put their style guides online and they are generally loaded with help for punctuation, titles, capitalization rules, etc.

Reuters: http://handbook.reuters.com/index.php/Main_Page
Times of London: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tools_and_services/specials/style_guide/
BBC (pdf): http://www.bbctraining.com/pdfs/newsstyleguide.pdf

AP sells its style book: http://www.apstylebook.com/?do=product&pid=978-0-917360-53-4

Why share this stuff? Dean Wright, Global Editor for Ethics, Innovation and News Standards says transparency, service, and geography are behind Reuters decision to publish their styleguide.

“As we’ve seen over the past decade, the barriers to publishing have dropped so that anyone with an idea and a computer can be a publisher. But it’s also become clear that publishers have a varying standard of truth, fairness and style. Our handbook is a good place for budding journalists to begin. Reuters serves a global audience and the handbook recognises the cultural and political differences that our journalists face in reporting for the world.”

TV news salaries drop « Advancing the Story

TV news salaries drop

Posted on July 6, 2009 by dhwenger

For the first time in 15 years, people working in local TV news have started making less money than they did the year previously. According to the annual RTNDA/Hofstra University survey (pdf), overall salaries fell about 4.4% in 2008 – and if you factor inflation into the mix, the survey says real wages fell by 8.2%.

The positions that took the biggest hits were those of reporter (13.3% drop), news anchor (-11.5%), weathercaster (-9.1%) and sports anchor (-8.9%). Only assignment editor and art director salaries held steady.

The picture varies by market and newsroom staff size, but the overall salary drops are hardly unexpected in the current economic environment.

SalariesWhat the survey does not reveal is the salary picture for entry level positions. According to the University of Georgia’s 2007 Annual Survey of Journalism and Mass Communication Graduates, TV news salaries for recent grads had been slowly improving in recent years, though salaries were down slightly for 2007 from 2006.

The 2008 survey should be released in early August and it will be interesting to see if those starter jobs are again losing ground when it comes to pay.

Filed under: 12. Getting Ready for the Real World

Reporter Hit by Car Near Jackson Family Compound

Fox News reporter Craig Boswell was the victim of a accident outside the Jackson family compound in Encino, Calif. (from Broadcasting & Cable)

Use your News Cars to promote your “Tweets”

You can recruit new followers by targeting one of life’s few remaining captive audiences: drivers in traffic.

Put your Twitter handle on your News cars

Sometimes, the simplest ideas have the most power. Your news cars are seen by thousands of people each day. Another variation on this would be to print some vinyl decals for your followers to put on their cars. Offer it as an incentive to sign up – “.. and we’ll give you one of these I FOLLOW WXXO on TWITTER!”

A couple of entrepreneurs are already turning this into a business model.

At Tweet My Bumper, enter your Twitter user name along with the usual other basic information, and Tweet My Bumper will print and ship you a bumper sticker that shows your Twitter name along with the tag line, “Follow me in traffic. Follow me on Twitter.” It will cost you around $5.

Of course, your promotions department can get them printed in bulk for a tenth of that. Give it a try and let me know what happens

“You Want Me to Package a Mug Shot?” – Visual Stories with NO Visuals

Bob Kaplitz of the AR&D media consulting company recently posted “Just a Mug Shot.”
His video blog shows how a creative field team can turn a little video into a lot of storytelling.

Limited video doesn’t have to be a limitation. It can be an opportunity. On-camera storytelling can be the answer — but you have to do it the right way.-Bob Kaplitz, AR&D

NBC Nightly News: Sorry, Viewers, We Have No Idea What Time It Is

From: Silicon Valley Insider
Apparently there’s some confusion within NBC as to what time it is elsewhere in the world (check out those clocks). Perhaps they could enlist the help of some of their bureaus to figure it out?

A screen-shot from Wednesday’s Nightly News:

Screenshot: Scott Kurnit

Will local broadcasters capitalize on the greatest opportunity in 40 years to increase their market share?

Digital subchannels offer the possibility of niche community programming

by Mark Friedrich President at Michigan Free TV Inc.

The switch to digital broadcasting and the sagging economy, may present local broadcasters their greatest opportunity in 40 years to increase market share. Digital broadcasting has effectively tripled the amount of programming content that they can provide, during a time when consumers are looking for ways to save every penny. The only question is, will they capitalize on it?

To be effective, a new mind-set and spirit of coopitition (cooperative-competition) among local broadcasters will be required. Instead of competing head-to-head for all viewers, they will have to work together to provide a variety of programming choices that will diminish the value of subscription offerings. Sure local broadcast news departments will still compete against each other, the networks will still vie for primetime viewers and they will have to be careful not to diminish or compete directly with their own primary offerings. This still leaves a lot of room to entice viewers away from “pay” TV to “free” TV. It most likely will require cooperation from the local broadcasters affiliated networks to provide what is currently “subscription only” content on a re-run or time shifted basis. Some broadcasters are already airing some pre-packaged content like RTN and This, which is better than nothing, but I don’t think that this type of programming alone will be enough for people to give up their subscriptions. The biggest reasons for maintaining subscription services, is the availability of sports, conservative news and documentary programming. All of which are readily available through affiliated networks and independent sources.

Remember, Local broadcasters have two distinct advantages that subscription services never will. They are free, and can target their content to their local demographics. You don’t have to provide content that necessarily beats that of subscription television, you just need to provide a wide enough variety of targeted content to make the additional offerings of subscription services, not worth their cost. Every household that switches from pay service to free broadcast service eliminates up to 200 channels of competition for those viewers, increasing the value of broadcast advertising time.

Local broadcasters also need to start cross promoting their own sub-channels and reminding viewers that what they are watching is available in digital clarity without a monthly subscription.

TV in Denial?

“The traditional TV industry — cable companies, networks, and broadcasters — is where the newspaper industry was about five years ago: in denial.”

— From Henry Blodget’s column in Silicon Alley Insider, “Sorry, There’s No Way To Save The TV Business.” If you work in TV, you’ll likely disagree with his grim assessment, but Blodget makes some thought-provoking points about video distribution.

A New “Pay”Model for Journalist Entrepeneurs

True/Slant offers a new financial model for journalists

“It was a dark and stormy night — in a place that is home to the world’s worst thunderstorms,” he said. O’Brien noted that the Airbus A330 had a good record and “the crew had ‘Sully-esque’ seasoning.”

But O’Brien wasn’t reporting for CNN, which dumped him in December. He was posting on True/Slant, a Web site that is mapping a new relationship between journalists, readers and advertisers. In fact, O’Brien has already contacted such aerospace companies as Boeing and Lockheed Martin to sponsor his work at another site, and plans to do so for True/Slant.

Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post writes on how True/Slant is breaking down the wall between sponsors and journalism. The site may even feature pages produced by sponsors.

Lewis Dvorkin, founder of the site, which officially launches today after a trial run, makes no apologies for throwing out the old model. “It’s tailored for the entrepreneurial journalist,” he says. “We’re enabling and empowering journalists to develop their own brand.”

While this is unlikely to be the model for entire television station or newspaper sites, it could be turn a popular talent, or feature, into a profit center. You should spend some time familiarizing yourself with the model.
MORE ON TRUE/SLANT
True/Slant launches – a new journalism model? | CyberJournalist.net
Trevor Cook: True/Slant – another online journalism project

MSNBC on “Starbucks” Deal

Yesterday, I shared the produce placement deal finally acknowledged by MSNBC and STARBUCKS.

Here is more on the deal:

“The world is just different,” said MSNBC’s Phil Griffin. “The rules of 10, 15, 20 years ago just don’t apply. You can’t live by them. You’ve got to be creative.”

Griffin noted that Scarborough’s partner, Mika Brzezinski, asked Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz on Monday’s show about the high number of calories in a Starbucks Frappucino.

“It doesn’t do Starbucks or us any good to put our head in the sand,” Griffin said. “We are going to stay true to the principles of integrity in our news operation.”

He called the sponsorship a “natural fit” for a show where the hosts have openly talked about drinking Starbucks coffee, with the show’s very name a slang term for coffee.

Read entire article.