A quick prologue: I’ve discovered major breaking news events always reveal something about the way TV stations cover important stories. We find out more about what works for us, what doesn’t, what we should do, and what we shouldn’t do. Today, I have feelings similar to the ones I had after watching the unfolding tragedy in Newtown. It’s mostly sadness, but there is also a dose of reflection.

As a morning show producer, I’m asleep during the day. At 4:25 p.m. Monday, I just happened to wake up, turn to my phone, and see several breaking news texts. I rolled out of bed, turned on my TV, and switched through the networks’ live coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings.

I’m curious, and a know-it-all, so I wanted as much information as possible. As I changed channels, I stuck with CBS. Scott Pelley’s delivery engaged me more than Brian Williams (though I typically lean toward Williams). Once I realized CBS wasn’t getting updates as fast as I wanted, I hopped back to NBC, then my ABC station (which turned to a local broadcast), then to ESPN. I reached a point where I knew everything the stations knew (and what they hadn’t confirmed). It then dawned on me: competition doesn’t serve the audience well in times of chaotic breaking news.

Given the number of injuries, the lack of a suspect, and the potential danger still looming, this should have been a situation where the networks (and other news outlets) pool together efforts to ensure the public is correctly informed. I realize the FCC won’t allow stations to collude, but I know a bending of the rules should be allowed from time to time to serve the greater public. Clearly, some news outlets are better than others at getting the latest information from police, hospitals, public officials, etc. In the face of tragedy, the desire to “win” should be subservient to the need to get people informed.

I noticed the stations failed to acknowledge any developments on social media. After I turned off the TV around 5:30, I checked my TweetDeck, and saw people sharing Google’s Person Finder, to help people track loved ones. Perhaps the networks brought it up after I stop watching, but based on the hour of coverage I watched, they ignored social media.

Imagine how worthwhile and valuable TV’s coverage could be if all the networks shared important pieces of information like this to its viewers. This collaboration doesn’t have to last days. It might only need to last until the day ends (depending on when tragedy strikes), or a threat has subsided. By Tuesday morning, I think they collaboration window for Boston probably closed since an imminent danger seems to have subsided.

I’m sure my calls for “teamwork” will fall on deaf ears. I understand it might even be too difficult to contact every single news outlet to confirm what they’ve confirmed while scrambling during breaking news. But I will remain optimistic that something can be done that can improve TV’s response to tragedy that better serves the public.

Mike Brannen is a morning newscast producer for KSTP, the ABC affiliate in Minneapolis-St.Paul. Before that, he was a producer at KIRO7 in Seattle, where he led the 4:30 a.m. show to a #1 share in the U.S. He received an MA in Broadcast Management from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2010 and received his Bachelor of Journalism degree the year before. He shares more about his life at mikebrannen.com and on Twitter: @MikeBrannen.

By GenJ Guest Blogger Robert McLean

Lay offs, furloughs and buyouts have hit the journalism industry hard in the past few years. Even The Grey Lady – The New York Times – hasn’t been immune from the profession’s transition into the 21st Century.

Yet young journalists continue to find jobs. Non-profit journalism organizations are hiring reporters and editors fresh out of J-School. Recently, I spoke with three of these non-profit journalists about their careers.

From left to right: Michael Todd, Managing Editor of Hear Nebraska (photo by Rob McLean), Rebecca Thiele, Radio Producer for WMUK (photo courtesy of Rebecca Thiele), Lauren Mills, Digital Analyst and Reporter for IowaWatch (photo courtesy of Lauren Mills)

Lauren Mills, Digital Analyst and Reporter at Iowa Watch

Lauren Mills turned a student job into a full time journalism gig.

Mills and I met at the 2012 SPJ Region 7 spring conference in Ames, Iowa. She was in her senior year at the University of Iowa, and had just completed a project on nitrogen pollution in the Gulf of Mexico for the non-profit news site IowaWatch.org.

She landed a reporting gig at IowaWatch after applying for a fellowship program with the organization– a website that dedicates itself to “producing and encouraging explanatory and investigative journalism in Iowa, engaging in collaborative reporting efforts with Iowa news organizations and educating journalism students.”

Mills started out as a student reporter, but moved up to web manager and assistant editor during her senior year. After a brief stint at the Sioux City Journal, Mills joined Iowa Watch as a digital analyst and reporter.

Aside from reporting, Mills has sit in on board meetings, where she said she gets an inside view on what the organization is doing in various areas. It also gives her insight into how the organization is coming along in funding.

The main difference between working at IowaWatch and a traditional newspaper, she said, is the length of journalism. She said IowaWatch is able to do long-form pieces, averaging one article per week.

Participation is also different, she said. Iowa Watch has a smaller staff than her old newspaper, she said, which lets everyone participate in every aspect of the process.

Michael Todd, Managing Editor of Hear Nebraska

Full disclosure: I’ve made a monetary donation to and have written a few articles for Hear Nebraska, a non-profit music journalism website focusing on the Nebraska’s music scene. That’s how I came to meet its managing editor, Michael Todd.

Todd has been with HN since the organization’s early days. He said he really likes the creativity he’s allotted by the website’s co-founders, Andrew and Angie Norman.

“It’s just very open, productive and creative,” Todd said.

He met the Normans, after inviting them on a radio show he hosted on KRNU – the University of Nebraska’s student radio station. After the show, Todd said he applied for an internship with the organization and worked his way to managing editor.

Todd said he focuses most of his energy on producing editorial content, leaving development and conferring with the organization’s board of directors to the Normans. However, he has worked on fundraising initiatives for the site.

For instance he took a lead roll in posting social media about the Give to Lincoln Day fundraising initiative, where the organization raised more than $10,000.

Pitching ideas for the website is relatively easy, Todd said. He said he isn’t sure that would be possible at a newspaper that is already established.

Rebecca Thiele, Radio Producer at WMUK

I met Rebecca Thiele while she was freelancing for Patch.com in the St. Louis area. I was a Local Editor, and she had written some news coverage for the site I managed.

The call of the north, however, was too strong to keep her in Missouri. She took a radio producer position covering the arts at WMUK, the public broadcasting station at Western Michigan University.

Thiele graduated from the University of Missouri in May 2011. She said she was trying to find a job in radio, and the WMUK job looked attractive.

She said the organization is very good about keeping the news department separate from fundraising and other nonprofit aspects of the organization.

“When we need someone to do on-air fund drives, the news people are pretty much the last pick,” she said.

However, she’s not totally isolated from all aspects of the non-profit model. For instance, the show she produces has underwriting from the Richmond Center for Visual Arts – an organization on which she might report.

Thiele said when an opportunity to cover the organization arises, she asks herself if she would cover that story if the organization wasn’t underwriting the show. If the answer is yes, she pursues the story.

Rob McLean is a Digital Managing Editor with Hearst Television. He has been a member of the Society of Professional Journalists since 2010 and a member of the Online News Association since 2012. Interact on Twitter: @robertmclean.

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I swear, and often. I rarely, if ever, use actual swear words in my writing — I often opt for the strong, but less shocking cousins, like heck and crap. This article (in the The New York Times) about women’s magazines got me thinking about what I’ve started to see as a trend as a consumer — swear words (or the character-laden alternatives) in print.

Basically, the article talks about how women’s magazines are looking to use stronger language, language used in the offices of the magazines — where women are powerful and not afraid to use whatever language necessary to get their points across. Even if those points seem to come across on the edge of their six inch stilettos.

Journalists have always cursed — I’ll never forget my first day in a newsroom…I think I heard (what I call) the big five within the first ten minutes, but those words NEVER graced the pages of the newspaper. They never even graced the screens of the blogs.

What do you think? Do you think it’s OK to curse? In my social media branding, I never use curses…I also dislike using LOL or other colloquialisms in my professional posts, but my personal blog is full of those types of “common man” phrases.

On one hand, I believe it is our job as reporters to analyze different things that happen in the world and bring it down to an easy-to-digest story in 500 words or less (or inches, if you’re into that sort of thing). On the other hand, I believe that part of that means learning and understanding — and using — the language of your readers.

Is it our job to lift people up? To educate them, to make them highlight our words on iPads/iPhones (or the good old fashioned highlighter) to be defined at a later date? Isn’t it our responsibility to make people learn?

Share your thoughts with me — I want to know if this is a women’s thing, a reporter thing or just a “thing.” And, if you need to swear to share your thoughts, take a minute and see if you can’t save a few characters by using another word (even perhaps (horror of horrors) an abbrev).

Victoria Reitano is the Digital Producer for LIVE with Kelly and Michael. She is also the publisher of The Giornalista Files, her personal blog and portfolio site where she shares her ideas about being an early career lady journo with anyone who will listen. Reitano feels Bikram Yoga is the perfect compliment to her obsessive need to consume information on a constant basis. Connect with her on Twitter @giornalista515.

Is this is a criminal tweet?

“BREAKING: Confirmed flooding on NYSE. The trading floor is flooded under more than 3 feet of water.”

On October 29th, when Hurricane/Post-Tropical/Superstorm Sandy barreled through the east coast, water poured through the streets and subways of New York. Amidst the chaos, and people’s overwhelming desire to tweet the most exclusive information first, the aforementioned tweet was sent out through the Twitter user “@comfortablysmug.” CNN picked up the tweet before doing its own fact-checking, and realizing the New York Stock Exchange was not actually flooding.

CNN backtracked, which as of this year, has burned them badly. Cue the CNN Public Relations twitter account:

“CORRECTED: #NYSE officials reporting that floor is NOT flooding at this time.”

So many incorrect tweets, so much retraction. Now who is the culprit behind the original incorrect tweet? It is Shashank Tripathi, he is a manager for the congressional campaign of Republican Christopher Wright for New York’s 12th Congressional District. On Tuesday, October 30th, a day after his tweet, he resigned. He apologized for several false tweets, saying “I deeply regret any distress or harm they may have caused.”

I’m not sure of the timeline of events, but also on Tuesday, New York City Councilman Peter Vallone told Buzzfeed.com that he might consider criminal charges. He told the website, the “Manhattan DA is taking this very seriously.”

I want to discuss what is the likelihood of this happening and if there’s a Pandora’s box it could open. Since the First Amendment doesn’t narrowly address free speech posted through social media, we have to accept that all speech is protected (with perhaps the exception of violent threats, but that’s another discussion). Therefore, the chances of Tripathi facing any punishment seems doubtful. I’m certain Tripathi issued his apology after learning he could get in big trouble for it.

Clear and Present Danger Test
One could make the case that in times of natural disaster, such speech isn’t completely protected, even if it is on social media. Let’s go back to the old standard of protected speech: the Clear and Present Danger test. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. established it in his famous opinion for the case Schenck v. United States, back in 1919:

“The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that the United States Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.” Additionally, he said in times of war, speech is also limited given the tense circumstances war brings. Also in his opinion, he explains that free speech doesn’t protect someone from yelling “fire” in a theater when there isn’t a fire.

Natural disasters, especially in the moment of impact, create a dangerous environment. The dissemination of correct information is crucial when time is of the essence. People purposefully providing lies can jeopardize rescue efforts, or detract from them. However, what is difficult to prove is whether or not someone is intentionally lying, or just doesn’t have the right information. I would argue people who thoughtfully type the letters into a tweet are responsible for the facts they present. A simple verbal utterance, untruthful or misinformed, should receive a higher level of protection than that what is tweeted, because an audience within earshot of the message is smaller than the online community.

CNN Accountable
If the Supreme Court would rule on limiting speech made online, it could create a troublesome slippery slope for TV news. Consider how much cable and local news networks rely on social media to gather information. Earlier I mentioned CNN reported what Tripathi tweeted. Can you hold CNN accountable for false information? I’m sure the network would argue that by saying “we’re hearing reports” before any statement helps them wipe their hands clean of any responsibility. Obviously, they are still accountable for everything they report. A Supreme Court ruling may force CNN and other networks to do its own original reporting (gasp!). I would have to support such a ruling because it ensures accuracy.

When it comes to tweeters sending out information just to gain followers, Vallone told Buzzfeed: “I think the consideration of criminal charges will assure this kind of stuff doesn’t happen again,” but also said that the criminal case is a “very difficult case to make.” Ultimately, I don’t see the Supreme Court ruling on social media anytime soon. I think the Court is letting people use their own judgments when it comes to getting information from social media. So, people will simply have to rely on their instincts to figure out which tweets are true, which are incorrect, and which ones are completely made up.

Mike Brannen is a morning newscast producer for KSTP, the ABC affiliate in Minneapolis-St.Paul. Before that, he was a producer at KIRO7 in Seattle, where he led the 4:30 a.m. show to a #1 share in the U.S. He received an MA in Broadcast Management from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2010 and received his Bachelor of Journalism degree the year before. He shares more about his life at mikebrannen.com and on Twitter: @MikeBrannen.

Lingering in the minds of many TV news employees is a scary question: will TV news end? It’s a question that occasionally drifts into our heads every time stunning new technology is introduced, or something embarrassingly and insultingly bad happens on our airwaves. TV news has survived a lot, and it’s still standing strong.

But something was unveiled in Kansas City in July that you wouldn’t think could end TV news. I’ve always said local TV news affiliates (and networks) will survive and have an edge over other non-TV news outlets as long as they could broadcast faster and with a stronger signal than anyone else.

That edge is gone in Kansas City. It now has Google Fiber, and it signals a potential death for TV News.

Google Fiber is a super high-speed and television service. It offers customers 1 gigabit of Internet download speed. According to Jeff Kagan of E-Commerce Times, that is one thousand times faster than the few megabites most of us get from our current cable/Internet providers.

The Internet is the biggest threat to television, especially since the television medium isn’t changing as fast as what’s happening online.

Look back at the last 15 years. What are TV’s greatest additions in the last decade?

TIVO? A glorified VCR.

Netflix? Blockbuster for the lazy.

3-D? Only if I take an aspirin as I’m watching.

Notice how each one is a “luxury” addition to TV. You can watch TV at a bar or an airport or any public place the same way you did 15 years ago without those additions.

Look where the Internet was in 1997. Try not to laugh. But you see the point. Our internet experience has vastly improved over the last 15 years.

So how does speed end TV? Speed makes Internet news sites more competitive with TV. When I talked with Kagan about Google Fiber, he brought up a great analogy. Picture a pie. When TV first began, there were 3 networks all sharing the same pie (which is the audience). When cable started, the networks had to compete with about 15 channels over the pie. Satellite comes along, and pie slices got smaller.

The pie changed even more with the Internet. It isn’t just a TV pie anymore. It’s a media pie. TV and Internet are part of the same pie now that computers and mobile devices force news outlets from different platforms to compete in the same space for the audience’s attention

You’ve seen newspapers, online news media, and bloggers all post video to the Internet. Their ability to stream content as quickly as television is dangerous for us working at TV affiliates. They may soon out-do TV stations when it comes to breaking news. Why bother putting on the TV if the Internet is just as fast? That’s a bone-chilling thought.

I don’t expect a major change to happen overnight where people suddenly abandon TV affiliates. I would get worried if Google rolls out Fiber in other cities. When people realize how fast their Internet experience can get, TV stations better have a game plan.

But, Kagan says this is just a warning shot. Google might not go anywhere else with this, and cable companies might just improve download speed a little more for its customers because Google put some pressure on them. TV can continue without fear, with Fiber out of sight, and out of mind.

Mike Brannen is a morning newscast producer for KSTP, the ABC affiliate in Minneapolis-St.Paul. Before that, he was a producer at KIRO7 in Seattle, where he led the 4:30 a.m. show to a #1 share in the U.S. He received an MA in Broadcast Management from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2010 and received his Bachelor of Journalism degree the year before. He shares more about his life at mikebrannen.com and on Twitter: @MikeBrannen.

We have all heard celebrities during their Oscar acceptance speech say how lucky they are do to what they love. Those speeches always made me want to lose my lunch until I realized on a smaller scale, I feel the same way. It is not the glitz and glamor (both are non-existent in local tv news as a one-woman-band) that keeps me coming back for more.

This past week, I have been sitting in the media room at the Pinellas County Criminal Justice Center watching a murder trial via video feed a pool camera person is piping down four floors. The media room is a bunch of sad chairs, tables that have seen better days and a wall full of electrical outlets. But, it is the in between banter at the table among journalists and reporters from differing generations that reminded me why I love my job.

In this group, there is energy and passion. You can see it in the glare of an eye or the way one smiles over getting to be at events and seeing things unfold others won’t ever be privy to. We have encountered numerous instances in this case where the defense attorney has referenced his client’s underwear and the judge subsequently putting it on record that he could not believe underwear was being discussed in open court. Sounds cooky, no? It is something everyone of us here will remember and retell at a later gathering–oh and lets not forget most of us wrote about it in an online sidebar!

Reporters are like a secret fraternity and we all speak the same secret language. When one of our comrades reminisces about a judge that insisted he wore a cowboy hat during all trials in his courtroom or discovering a celibate man of the cloth was secretly married (both things I have heard this week), we feed off it, understand and impulse kicks in. Sometimes I think reporters are born and there is something in our DNA that is different than the rest of the world. Why else would we essentially be starving artists, shop the sale racks for our next on-air look, work odd hours, have tattered shoes, live states away from family and submit to a Ramon noodle budget?
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Something incredible happened this week at the newspaper where I got my start. And what might seem like a small company dispute on the surface was actually a symbol of a larger industry problem.

As a freshman pre-journalism major trying to find his place among the Bulldog fans at the University of Georgia in 1999, The Red & Black quickly became my new home. In fact, I applied to work there before I even moved into my dormitory.

And they didn’t just hire anyone. You had to prove you wanted the job. I was asked to report on three news stories – my own interviews, my own writing. The only experience I had going into these assignments was working on my high school newspaper, which wasn’t exactly an environment that allowed for students to be entrusted with objective news reporting. But I soon became a stringer for The Red & Black – my first real, paying job as a journalist ($6.50 per story … the “big bucks”).

But it was more than that. In the realm of college journalism, working for The Red & Black meant you were one of the cool kids. A byline that read “By David Brandt, The Red & Black” said to any reader, “I chose to report this news and convince you to read this story, because it’s important for you to know.” It was baptism by fire, and it wasn’t for just some school paper. This was a real newspaper through and through. It was real, and its independence was not to be trifled.

Despite the glory of being a part of that publication, it was also a training ground. It was where I first learned about the impact of a lede, how to ensure accurate quotes, and the value of (at least) two independent sources to the objectivity of my work. I didn’t stay at UGA and made a few mistakes while I worked at The Red & Black, but while I was there I took that opportunity to decide whether being a newspaperman was what I wanted for myself. Every decision I made and every experience I had there, good or bad … I owned.

I got more lessons from a semester with the paper than I did from most of my classroom education. And though most of the latter was obtained at a private college after I left UGA, never did I receive a set of parameters like the now infamous memo given to the staff at The Red & Black last week.

And what a greedy list of demands it was, written by a company board member who couldn’t even spell “libel,” according to reports from the RedandDead.com – the result of top editors and others from The Red & Black staff standing up for the integrity of what The Red & Black means to them. They may have walked out, but they didn’t quit – within 24 hours they set up the social media equivalent to a phoenix, and continued reporting on news about the University of Georgia and its community. The service was more important to them than the brand, just as it should be always.

But as I write this blog, it appears that some form of healing has begun. The board member who authored the memo I referenced above has resigned. The demands for content review by personnel other than students have been dropped. And the former editor in chief and former managing editor are, along with others, applying for their jobs again. I hope their status is reinstated … they’ve earned it. It’s a scenario that they may find themselves having to play out again in their professional careers, given the increasingly controlling role of executives and corporate boards over what content is published or broadcasted – or in some cases, what is even allowed to be deemed “news.”

Many young journalists go into their careers eager to find a great “Watergate” experience. Frankly, I hope tomorrow’s students are eager for an experience that these student journalists at UGA had this week … complete with camaraderie, a test of one’s ethics, and loyalty to the great institution they’ve chosen to serve: objective, independent journalism.

And in a media industry where journalism is more and more stained by corporate interests and political favoritism, tomorrow’s journalism students are going to need an example to admire, one that will guide them to an ultimate truth: Businessmen don’t decide what journalism is … that’s a job for journalists.

Long live the Red & Dead.

David Brandt is the Web managing editor for the Institute of Industrial Engineers, where he writes and edits Web content, produces new media projects, and writes for a monthly magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @iamdavidbrandt.

Edited 12:23 by Lynn Walsh

Edited 12:46 by Scott Leadingham

Ethics. Remember that class in college? Maybe it wasn’t something you learned till grad school, or on the job. Perhaps it was rolled into your media law class Either way, when we march down (or up) to get our diplomas, we — Journalists — all know that it is wrong to copy other people’s work. We know that it is wrong to fabricate quotes.

We know this. However, the internet is filled with plagiarism and lies, even among those we regard as “best in class.”

CNN, The New York Times, Jim Romensko, Fareed Zakaria, Jonah Lehrer, Poynter — all have recently been at the center of discussion about possible plagiarism or fabrication (or in Romensko’s case, “incomplete attribution”).

All of these names should mean something to you — to many of you, they are well regarded sources in the industry. However, they may also mean “plagiarism” or other missteps to you based on the recent (and not so recent) actions of these reporters and reporters at these outlets.

(Correction – The preceding paragraphs have been updated to reflect that Romenesko and Poynter were not involved in any direct case of plagiarism, but rather that Romenesko left Poynter after a controversy about attribution.)

What drives reporters to plagiarize and, more importantly, how do we stop ourselves from losing sight of what is truly important as we advance in our careers?

That’s what’s #muckedup this week. We’re joining forces with @MuckRack to bring you a chat tomorrow night — 5pm PST/8pm ET and we’ll be discussing all of this and more.

Bring your passion to this, #GenJ — after all, that’s all we, young journalists, have and I don’t know about you, but I am NOT ready to give it up without a fight.

Follow @MuckRack and the #muckedup hashtag. @LWalsh and I (@giornalista515) will be tweeting on our own handles and from @SPJGenerationJ (using #GenJ) as well, but be sure to follow #muckedup because we want to get all the questions answered in a timely fashion.

Victoria Reitano is a Digital Producer at Live! with Kelly. She works at ABC in New York and is so happy to be reunited with her true love – Manhattan. In her spare time, she dabbles with her blog, The Giornalista Files, where she shares her ideas about being an early career lady journo with anyone who will listen. Reitano feels Yoga is the perfect compliment to her obsessive need to consume information on a constant basis and when she’s not practicing that, she’s cycling at one studio or another as spin is the perfect compliment to her Staten Island background — fist pump, anyone? Connect with her on Twitter @giornalista515 for laughs, thoughts and some tricks of the trade.

Most of my friends don’t get it. “Why are you following (insert elected officials name here) around?”

My family still sometimes doesn’t understand why when they watch a story I produced they don’t see my face on camera. “That was great Lynn, but we didn’t see you. Was that the correct link?”

And on first dates, let’s just say, they seem to think it means I work with James Bond. “So, you go undercover all the time? Hide out in vans? Cool!”

And the reality is my job is cool (or at least I think so.)

I get to write, research, shoot video, play with new interactive web tools, ask questions that make people uncomfortable but provide answers for the community and most importantly make a difference in people’s lives.

Everyday isn’t perfect and some days are more frustrating than you know: all I want is the answer to what you think would be a simple question, but after being re-directed to eight different offices, leaving voicemails and waiting for return phone calls, a day can pass by and you still may not have the answer.
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Over the years, conversations with friends and colleagues and listening to my parents friends and sometimes relatives gripe about their jobs, I have learned that a lot of people don’t like what they do. They’re working to make money to survive or they’re settling for something they fell into easily.

For those people that may be fine, but I know I would never be able to work somewhere and not love what I was doing.

As articles about how tough the news business is, pop up almost daily. As columns about how journalism is dying continue to be tweeted. And as year after year, survey after survey ranks “journalist” as one of the worst jobs a person could have, the Generation J committee has something to say: WE LOVE OUR JOBS!

Yes, I think our enthusiasm shines brightly in our blogs and our tweets daily and I like to think it’s just as contagious, this time we wanted to scream it and make sure every journalist and even those non-news people out there are hearing us loud and clear.

So, tomorrow will mark the beginning of a series of posts from Gen J committee members and young journalists working in news that will tell you why we love what we do.

These blogs will run right up to the start of the SPJ and RTDNA Excellence in Journalism Convention which begins September 19. The fun and love of journalism will continue at the convention where you can meet and mingle with the committee members and other young journalists who love their jobs.
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