Tag: journalism

Media, old, new and otherwise

Community comes together in grief, online

I do think we’re developing something of a community at KTVZ.COM with the article comments.

When the news is slow, most of the “regulars” just snipe at each other, give me grief over typos, others come to my defense, etc., etc.

But in a time of tragedy, like this week’s drowning of a popular, dare I say beloved ER doctor, and … wow.

An outpouring of human emotions – support, prayers, remembrances and salutes – and while I do appreciate the page views (heh), I moreso appreciate how this has become a place to share when there’s really no other public way to do so. And I appreciate every single one of the folks taking the time to make those posts.

I’ll probably do my Friday on-air piece about this wonderful phenomenon, which almost wipes out the icky taste of those who like to hijack discussions, dump on each other, make outlandish accusations, etc.

THIS is why I pushed so hard for comments, despite the risks – not to babysit or referee, but to just sit back and watch a community sharing its views and feelings – be they grief, joy, frustration, what have you.

Thanks to all. It’s a great feeling, and I so appreciate the wonderful use of our little corner of cyberspace.

Into our living rooms, losses of pain (or ‘Less Stay, More Cation’)

Wow, check this out: http://echuck.newsvine.com/_news/2008/06/13/1571290-in-memoriam-nbc-newsman-tim-russert – such wonderfully written, heartfelt comments on the passing of someone many of us felt we knew, and liked, even though we’d never met him.

I was in Master Control, prepping to record tonight’s ‘Leave it to Barney” (darn that lint roller!;-) when the golf gave way to an NBC News Special Report slide. Then,Tom Brokaw. Then the sad news of Tim Russert’s passing. It was a shock, I’m guessing, to everyone when they heard the news. Surely at our network, in our profession, and to middle-aged males across America who work too hard, get too much stress and too little sleep, and fear the pain that takes us to the Next Stage.

Tonight also marks the start of time away from the newsroom, a whole week, to mark my 25th wedding anniversary to darling Deb. It’s, to use the new term, a ‘Staycation’ – because until my wife finds a job;-/ we can’t afford to go far, much less to the dreamed-of Hawaii. Plus, there’s this beast called KTVZ.COM that always needs feeding, and the folks in the newsroom only know so much about how to do that. My fault, I suppose. I care too much about every word, want to beat back every typo, so…  I can’t let go.

Former station manager Jim DeChant, the Wise Buddha of NewsChannel 21, taught me some good lessons when I arrived a few years back, with only high school and college TV experience. He (and others to be sure), talk of the special power of television to bring people into our living rooms, day and night, to the point where we truly feel we know them (and like them, hopefully), so when we lose them, it’s like a loss in the family.

Those Newsvine tributes show just how true it is. They are almost more tear-inducing than the loss itself. People who don’t know each other and actually never knew Tim Russert, felt they knew him, and with his passing, we shed collective tears. The Internet has that power. So does television. May we use it wisely, and try never to abuse it. It’s too important.

And I’ll do my best to make it less “stay” and more “cation” over the next week. If that means a few less updates of the Website – well, my apologies. Get away from the keyboard, now that the High Desert has finally warmed up. Read a book in Drake Park. Get on that bike. Hug those spouses and kids.

Life’s too short. Who needs another reminder?;-)

Signal-to-noise ratio in article comments

OK, time to try doing what I said I’d do here – expound at length on something of interest (to me, anyway), then boil it down for the on-air version.

We’ve had more than 4,000 article comments since we began the first version in early February – about 1,000 a month – postable comments, that is. Another, oh, 1,000 or so un-postable – some that make me nervous to think I might live near or interact with these folks;-)

So that’s sort of a 3-to-1 signal to noise ratio, in terms of wheat to problematic chaff – except for the fact I probably don’t hold to as firm a line as I should.

NOBODY reads Terms of Service – who has time, interest? – but they are there – and for our Website, they ban : “Posting or transmitting any unlawful, fraudulent, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable or harmful information of any kind.”

Man, I could probably eliminate 95 percent of the posts, if I defined those labels rigorously. But it’d sure be a boring discussion – except of course that I’d be spending too much of my time explaining why this or that comment got deleted.

Our posts are anonymous – though folks can give their real names if they want, and some do. On the other hand, The Bulletin recently started having article comments – but only by paid subscribers – and the most they’ve had on any one story is… three. I do understand the tradeoffs involved.

But in talking to my big brother David today, it reminded me of the whole pluses-minuses thing to forums – for him, it’s viiting stocks/finance ones, for my boss at the station, it’s cars. Somewhere there’s folks already arguing about/discussing/offering advice on whatever subject you’re interested in.

And if the moderator doesn’t allow flamewars to burn out or hijack a previously interesting, thoughtful discussion, great – but I’m sure they get grief from the few screeching “censorship” or “freedom of the press.” Which is silly, because on the Internet, there’s always a place you can talk/argue about whatever it is you want to say. Whether anyone will be listening is another matter entirely.

So if the interesting or at least neutral posts outweigh the “you idiot!” etc. distractions, the signal-to-noise ratio is acceptable. And I’ve found just enough supportive, enlightening or at least not scarily negative posts to keep the thing going. Corporations are just not used to providing platforms for people to dump on them – fairly or unfairly. But my argument is, better in your forum then in a place you can’t monitor or weigh in on. And as I’ve said, folks come to our defense quite often without us lifting a finger.

So the typical routine on the more negative comment threads – and I can almost predict which stories they come about on – is the following sequence: Attack. Defend. Attack the Defenders. Defend the Attackers. Someone pleads “can’t we get along?” And eventually the argument loses steam and folks move on, except for an occasional add-on by someone late to the gathering.

I’ve been slammed for “deleting comments I don’t agree with,” when all that happened was a new version of a story came along and the old one is moved out (but linked to). I’d rather keep updating the same story, to keep the comment threads intact, BUT search engines like Google News don’t re-index existing story URLs, so that’s a point in favor of new stories, rather than updated ones.

Life’s full of tradeoffs. Fortunately, our current comment system from JS-Kit does provide for my favorite kind of community regulation – self-regulation. It allows folks to vote on whether they like a post or not (believe they slide up or down as a result), or mark posts as offensive (if, under the default settings, five folks make such a marking, a post VANISHES).

I know far bigger media outlets than ours have often abandoned comment systems for how they are abused. But USA Today is hanging tough, and several others as well. It just seems worth it, to me.

Ah, me public;-) (And ‘the news is depressing’)

Got a haircut this afternoon to neaten up, long before I decided to make a rare (on purpose) visit to Bend craigslist (already have a nibble on my free still-working fax machine – then I remembered KTVZ.COM’s Mark It Place, ugh!) and of course HAD to go read rants and raves where one of the major Abusers of Anonymity (calls itself “the TRUTH TELLER”) said I “could possibly be the MOST UNATTRACTIVE MAN ALIVE!!!”

Owwwww. I’m sure whoever posted THAT is a stunner of gorgeousness;-)

Anyhoo, back to my haircut, a fine job by a young gal named Kelsey. Had a pleasant chat, learned she’s born and raised in Bend. Asked if she ever watches the news. Said no, “it’s too depressing.”

Well, that depressed ME. I mean, we don’t WANT to depress people. Or bore them. Or anything more than enlighten, engage and sometimes entertain, when it’s in the proper context. (Some say we want to “scare” them, but it’s more a matter of what surveys find – people want to know about things that threaten their or their families’ safety, for example.)

I’m sure many people out there feel that way about the news, to avoid it because it’s depressing, be it TV or other medium. I told her of the rash of tragedy of late, and she knew nothing of it, but said if it was someone she knew, she’d no doubt have found out another way, not needing the news to learn more about it.

True.

And of course, if someone gets, say, stuck in traffic behind a wreck, or hears sirens in their area, many of them will watch the news to learn what happened. (Some even call us, which is fine – we appreciate the tips. But you should know, anyone can call 911 non-emergency in Deschutes County, 693-6911, then hit 5. That’s often what we need to do, when we get a tip or hear things on scanners. We do try to not pester them too much.)

For a while, we offered a “good news story of the day.” But that seemed, well, artificial. I’ve said it many a time – it’s not news when 1,000 people cross the street safely – it is when one doesn’t.

Tonight, we had what I call bittersweet-good/bad news stories. Take Heaven Can Wait, for example, a very successful ninth annual fund-raiser for the Sara Fisher Breast Cancer Project. Bummer topic, but upbeat story about 3,300 folks gathering for the 5K run/walk. I’m glad we led with it. It’s also a people story, not an issue story (or worse yet, a “government meeting” story, bleh.)

Too much “good news” sounds like fluff (or free ads, which of course everything we do is, in a way) only of vital interest to the program, organization, people (or their families) involved.

I LOVE dramatic good news stories – the rescue of a child, for example. But those don’t happen every day, of course.

So the Ugliest Man on Local TV (hey, I said  I have a face for radio;-) is quite interested in your thoughts on whether you watch or skip the news because it’s too depressing – and what might get you to tune in.

By the way, The Associated Press tonight reported the results of a study that found young people suffering “news fatigue,” as they get bombarded with snippets of breaking news, repetitively. (http://www.ktvz.com/Global/story.asp?S=8409270).

It said “that participants yearned for quality and in-depth reporting but had difficulty immediately accessing such content because they were bombarded by facts and updates in headlines and snippets of news.”

As Linda Ellerbee said, “And so it goes…” 😉

Another teen tragedy, alas

Read all about it – and the dozens of comments on it – at http://www.ktvz.com/global/story.asp?s=8388713.

This time, because of a snarky but well-timed criticism of some partial info we got from school district, I had the never-fun task of calling the family – hoping so much a spokesman or friend would answer. Instead, it was the teen’s stepmother, who was relatively gracious, considering what that family is going through, who helped straighten out the info.

We’ve had about 40 comment postings so far – but 25 THOUSAND viewings of the comments. Clearly, these totally unrelated teen-death tragedies have struck a major nerve, and people not only want to speak out but read what others say – good, bad and, yes, ugly. I’m not sure I’m drawing a firm enough line on the personal attacks people feel the need to send out, often protected by the much-abused anonymity, but there have been enough good wishes, thoughtful remarks and cogent discussion that it’s worth the hassle.

I think. 😉

People who think we relish bad news should see how bad I was trembling after that phone call. I offered condolences, I asked if there was anything we could do, I said I can’t imagine what they’re going through – and I can’t. It’s one thing for a beloved football and wrestling star to run away from a police stop and die in a mysterious manner. But for a clearly troubled teen, close to graduation, to flee police, SHOOT AT THEM and eventually take his own life, despite police efforts to end it peacefully – that one hangs just as heavy, if not heavier.

Bad choices. But then come the armchair quarterbacks, the parent-blamers, the police-blamers, the society-blamers, and those who defend against them. It’s almost like a badly choreographed opera – predictable in its sour notes and occasional sweet sounds.

To me, above it all, is the sweet sound of a community getting to weigh in – again, good, bad or ugly. I’d love to set rules of decorum, but that’s like trying to arrange the world to one’s liking.

It’s too messy for that, but with that mess comes all the joy as well. You can’t separate them.

Enough ruminating. Thanks to NHL, it was a longer day at the station, oddly enough, and emotional for me, as well. Hoping for a few calmer days…

 

Tragedy, tech and spell-check

This is not going to become a blog full of daily, lengthy defenses/explanations of our work at NewsChannel 21. But while I sit here with police scanner up, trying to help the night crew figure out just what’s going on in a pursuit/search/?? out Pronghorn/Powell Butte Highway way, it seems like a good time to state a few things “for the record.”

1. We, as did other media, offered extensive coverage of an unusual, tragic sequence of events in which a star Culver athlete ran from police at a Bend traffic stop and somehow suffered fatal injuries.

It was suggested we were calling him a hero when he set a bad example. I weighed in there, I’ll weigh in here. To some extent, this reminds me of the Tyler Eklund incident last year, when we didn’t lead the attention on that young man, we simply followed an emotional outpouring from the community. When hundreds show up at an impromptu candlelight vigil at the Culver High football stadium, something has struck a major-league nerve. Rumors are flying. We won’t report them, and will delete comment postings with them as soon as we can. Everyone has enough pain up there to need any more inflicted by those who abuse the anonymity.

To separate the way this young man lived from how he died is difficult, but must be done, no matter what the cause of death is found to be. The more that young people can be reminded that even the best among them make bad choices – and a single bad choice can lead to tragedy – the more the danger of further tragedies is lessened.

We will go wherever this story goes, painful as it may be, and are very thankful for a remarkably honest set of information and heartfelt revelations by coaches and family. It’s not an easy time to be on camera and share your deepest emotions. How could we not pay attention? How can anyone watch and not be moved?

2. We’re beta testing some new things at KTVZ.COM, and it always reminds me of the frustration of not being able to solve everyone’s technical problems. We’re working to fix the small typesize and other usability matters. Your patience is appreciated, input welcomed and venting – well, if you must.;-)

3. Some kindly point out typos – others have gone so far as to question our commitment to our craft. I pulled my hair out the other day when I realized that the spell-check that’s done when I finish and post an article only checks the headlines and captions! I have to run a manual, “click the icon” spell-check for the story itself to be checked! So from now on, I will, of course, and you’ll see fewer typos. I hope…;-)

Story choices and the never-perfect formula

Other day, got an e-mail from a nice lady:

Has there been any news reports on the new Sonic Burger opening in Bend? Just curious about it since the last couple days cars have been lined up down the highway waiting to get into the restaurant. I didn’t see anything about it on your website.

My reply:

Well, no, we haven’t covered the latest restaurant opening frenzy in Bend. The paper had a photo and caption, just adding to the hordes who got the word through word of mouth or passing by. We figured it was pretty well known and didn’t need a “free ad” from us- heck, even read a blogger waxing poetic over their little ice cubes.

Her reply – again, in a tone so much appreciated compared to the nasty, accusatory stuff we all too often get:

I appreciate your reply Barney, but I see it in a completely different way. So here’s an example of how one reader/viewer thinks: 
It’s not just the latest restaurant opening frenzy in Bend; it’s so much more. It’s a traffic congestion story for one. On Wednesday, May 21st, traffic was backed up coming from the North as far back as the jail. It became such an issue that the highway department lit up a big flashing sign warning drivers of a heavy traffic area. Peoples lives and commutes were being effected.
You’re not the paper. Who cares what the paper had; not everyone looks at the paper. Is it your norm to pick and choose stories based on what the paper is doing? Isn’t every single news story you do a “free ad” in one way or another? Does KTVZ support the economy in Bend? What about the jobs that are being provided for by Sonic? 
Who cares if you were criticized for doing a story on Trader Joe’s. Shouldn’t dictate how you handle something now. I believe the majority of us appreciated hearing about a new business opening in that area of Bend. Progress is beautiful. Improvements are wonderful.
People in North Bend and Sisters now have a quality fast food restaurant on “their” end of town. It’s been a long time coming. This is a big deal to us. A piece of land in our town is now bursting with life after years of being vacant and depressed. It’s nice to see improvement there after watching the Tom Tom close and the truck stop shut down. I love that things are happening there again.
Sonic has a really good bacon cheese burger toaster. My son really likes them and wants to go get one right now.
And last but not least…It’s a happy story as opposed to sad or scary…which is primarily what we’re used to hearing. We need more happy, exciting and fun in our lives right now. Times are hard. You’re missing out on all the fun. Let’s hear it for Sonic. Welcome to Bend.

And again, my reply:

…you make all your points very well. One thing I forgot to tell YOU was – I’m NOT the news director and am only one voice in about four (news director, show producers) on what we do/don’t cover. And I win some, lose some. Every day I do a list of 30 or so story ideas, and on good days, roughly a third turn into stories. There’s always hundreds more story ideas than there are time in the show, reporters not already tied up, time conflicts etc.
Yes, the paper influences what stories we do and how we treat them, to some degree. So does radio, our TV competition, etc. We don’t necessarily DO or NOT DO stories based on what others do, but it DOES play a role – as it does for every media outlet.
We sure don’t want to look like we’re chasing the paper (or anyone else’s) tail – some folks think we just rip stories out of the paper and read them – nothing could be further from the truth. Give me two stories of roughly equal importance (a judgment call there!), one that other media outlets have had and the other newly discovered by us, and we’ll always do the latter – we don’t want to look/sound like everyone else.
 This is a worthwhile discussion…”

…and I went on to ask if I could post it here. Haven’t heard back, so I figure it’s safe, leaving out her name (I’ll add it if she’s comfortable with it.)

So, let me add on a few thoughts. Some folks think we should cheer good economic news. Others think we should spend more time on the bad things folks do. Heck, we did what I thought was an innocuous story on the crummy weather heading into the weekend, and … well, here’s the post by someone labeled “Stay positive”:

Can we keep the negative news confined to the TV broadcast please? Why does everyone in the world with an internet connection need to know that we’re having bad weather during the first big weekend of the summer season? What good does that do for the Realtors and tourism-driven businesses?”

That prompted the predictable reaction from other commenters of “what in the world???” – and I have to admit, I even wonder if it was tongue-in-cheek? Surely, no one expects us to tilt our coverage to not tell outsiders the weather isn’t perfect every holiday?

We also had a story recently about a USA Today article that referred in its headline to Bend as “the new Boulder.” The reaction in postings was strong, and predictable – many incredulous that anyone could do a nice write-up about Bend – asking if he’d ever even VISITED the place – and others pointing to the long, familiar list of problems here (housing prices dropping like a rock, not enough well-paying jobs, a city government running short of cash, etc. etc.)

It all reminded me of one of my first stories at The Bulletin, back in 1991. Talked to authors of a book called “50 Fabulous Places to Raise Your Family.”

They started with a list of 250 or so metro areas. They thought they’d have trouble narrowing it to 50 – they had trouble coming up with 50 – and they decided they needed to talk to newcomers, because in just about every city listed, the longer folks had lived there, the more incredulous they were that anyone would ever think that town was a good place to raise a family!

That’s because the longer you live somewhere, the more familiar you are with its shortcomings, the more you take for granted its niceties – or miss what it was like when you arrived (wishing someone had shut the gate behind you).

People in Bend like to think that’s something unique to here. It’s a universal trait. Reminds me also of what a fired city manager told me years ago, after he got the heave-ho after many years in the job: “Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.”

So if you do a positive story about the place you live, you’re a chamber-of-commerce suck-up, a member of the Good Old Boys. If you do a negative one, you’re unfairly attacking, etc. etc. It’s gone from “you can’t please everyone” to “good luck pleasing anyone.”

But still, we keep trying. 😉 What do you think? What if you were a news director – what would be your guiding principles about “free ads,” story selection, etc? Because if nothing else, the Internet has made it possible for everyone to play the role of “news editor,” picking what topics they’re interested in, etc.

Thunder, lightning and article comment wildness

The trick with blogging, I’ve decided, is to do it often enough you get in the groove and don’t feel every entry has to be stellar, Shakespearean and for the ages.

Yeah, right.

I’ll be talking a lot here about my favorite Website and the changes and permutations there. Er, here. (You see, our plan is to insert this blog INTO the Website, and to do that for several folks at the station. Me first, of course;-) Thanks to my UPS, despite thunder and lightning, I feel safe ruminating for a few.

We began an article rating and comment system earlier this year, and just changed to one provided (in beta test) by our Website provider, World Now, through its partner, JS-Kit. Already, my wish list is growing (bigger typeface! No gray on white! etc.) but I do like much about it – especially that it’s built-in to our CMS (content management system), not a bolt-on (though my pal Karl Sanford in Palm Desert built a heck of a bolt-on;-)

Anyway, I’m not “pre-moderating” the comments in the new system, like I did before. But I think the ability to vote on others’ comments or mark them as offensive have kept a little bit of the wild and weird and nasty from emerging.

So far.

You see, I’ve likened anonymous article comments to an open-mic night in a place with all the lights out. Some will say worthy things, and others will, in essence, belch into the microphone, abusing the anonymity.

Always been that way.

So the comments I see each day have been interesting, enlightening, entertaining, head-shaking, bizarre, sad, depressing, and frightening in either the “these people don’t live here I hope!” or “Boy, would we get sued posting this” way.

Still, as I told all in the co. I work for, lack of dialogue of this kind makes a Website seem, cold, sterile, one-way and old fashioned. It’s worth putting up with the crazies or near-crazies to hear what people think, feel and say. It’s actually resulted in on-air stories some times. And like this blog, it’s also allowed me/us to clear the air and explain things on occasion.

I’ve also learned that I don’t have to weigh in a lot and, for example, defend the station or myself from non-constructive, harsh, unfair criticism – others do it for me, without me ever asking to. It’s sort of a self-regulating mechanism.

I surely can understand how the corporate world is scared, especially in a legal sense, of such unfettered dialogue. The point I’ve tried to make is that these conversations are happening anyway. Wouldn’t you like for them to happen within earshot, rather than behind your back – so you can be aware and take action, even respond and explain?

And of course, the answer usually is, “Well, yeah, but…” and the buts are all very logical and understandable, but they don’t reflect the reality of what my favorite new media blogger, Jeff Jarvis calls “news as conversation.”

People have too many time pressures, too many options for gathering information the old ways to think we can just take the old styles and put them in this new medium. We are not the gatekeepers of information any more, and it’s naive to think so. We just want to be their favorite hangout, a good source of information and a lively dialogue spot – enlightening and entertaining, and yes, sometimes aggravating.

Such is life…;-)

Blog and blog and blog again

So here I go, blogging again – I’ve been trying this since before the word “blog” existed, remember Microsoft Publisher, anyone?

 

Anyway, I’ve tried several blog or Web-publishing programs over the years, and want to try this one, too.

I have a better reason to do so this time. As many of you may know, this is also the title of my twice-weekly (Monday and Friday) segments on NewsChannel 21 at 5, in Bend, Oregon.

That’s fun, but I love give and take, and room to, well, be the Babblin’ Barn many know I can be.

I also want a chance to engage in more dialogue with our viewers and Website visitors (I’m very proud of KTVZ.COM) about what I/we do, why, how, etc. Some folks couldn’t care less. Others, I’ve found, are intensely curious about TV journalism, and media in general, and find darn few places to ask questions and get answers. I hope this will become one of them.

(WordPress has given me some funky stuff – for some reason, every time I tried to insert a photo, what it appears to have done is opened a new window with the old post – but no sign of a pic. At one point, that meant I had like SEVEN photos in the one posting! What’s up with that?

Anyway, glad to be here, and hope we can share a little dialogue of the friendly, helpful, interesting kind. I’m looking forward to it.