Electric Fishwrap

Who thinks a.m. cops calls, minor car accident or fire reports and routine meeting coverage are a waste of time? Who can think of a dozen other things they would rather do with that time?

Journalism is having a rough time with the transition to online content. As a result, Matt King argues that reporters are becoming less specialized and have less time to create quality content. King makes a compelling argument why we should cut back mundane tasks in newsrooms everywhere:

Overwork and unreasonable expectations = stenography. Stenography of some sorts (the sentencing of the principal child molester, the city council vote, etc.) is very important, but we need to stop doing so much of it. It’s important but it’s also about the easiest thing a reporter does, and there are people willing to do it for us for free.

King gives us a three-step program to cut the mundane work out of our day to give us more time to innovate and create (highly condensed, my emphasis):

1. It’s past time to understand 99 percent of car accidents, fires and arrests are the mundane details of life and people really don’t care, despite what page views say. In almost every instance these stories are cupcakes, eaten because they’re there, but wouldn’t be missed if they were not. Ever hear anyone crave a cupcake? This applies especially in non-competitive markets. …

It’s tantamount to flushing 10 hours of reporter time that could be spent talking to sources in cafes, or editing a cool video project, or writing a really strong narrative piece, or, in my case, playing with a spreadsheet.

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First off, I am very relieved that my former colleagues at the Loveland Reporter-Herald in Colorado are safe. A half-mile-wide wedge tornado bore down on the town of Windsor, Colo. Thursday morning and carved a wide swath of damage. Only one person was killed and it’s a miracle more were not taken. I believe this is a testament to the strength of our early warning systems and to the construction quality of our buildings.

Stormtrack storm chasers (here and here) had been watching the supercell (posts include technical jargon, also with great pics of radar with the hook echo visible), which had a rare northwest track, since it formed. It put on quite a show, gouging a path through Windsor and then headed toward Fort Collins.

Loveland was also under tornado warning for some time, and staff at the Reporter-Herald huddled in the downstairs hallway for about 15-20 minutes. (Guys, I hate to say it, but if that tornado was anything above an EF-3 that hallway isn’t going to cut it.)

—EDIT: Adding info from Jeff Masters’ Wunderblog. Masters says the damage appeared to be at least EF-3. Check out the great pictures and explanations of the hook echo on his site (animation of reflectivity here).—

Based on the damage from aerial shots from the Rocky Mountain News, Windsor has a long road to recovery ahead of them.

Some incredible video from KUSA is posted on the CNN site. Halfway through the video you can see egg-sized hail pelting the reporter, who is on an overpass of US 34 west of Greeley (I think?). Check out the other videos on that page as well. Just watching the video gives me chills and makes me thankful that Loveland didn’t sustain a direct hit from this monster.

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Also filed under “Stuff I Can’t Afford”

Reuters apparently sends its reporters out with this combo:

• Nokia N95 phone ~$580: Acts as 5 megapixel video camera, music player, email device and GPS mapper.
• Nokia Wireless Keyboard SU-8W, ~$110: Bluetooth capable to type up reports. Folds down to an easy-to-use size.
• Power Monkey charger ~$120: Uses our mortal enemy, the sun, to charge our electronic devices. For those times when we’re reporting from a very remote location, like Senegal.
• Tripod and mic for the camera, and assorted cords, ~$200

I could definitely see a need for the phone + keyboard in, say, a prominent murder trial. Imagine live blogging the trial, as Ron Sylvester did at his paper last year (link to blog post of his work last year. Sylvester blogs at Technolo-J. His old blog remains a treasure trove of good information).

Tip of the hat to AndyDickenson.net for the heads up. He also links a video on his site.

Yellow pages listings are down, so are newspaper revenues. Enter BizFinderNW.com, an online solution to the yellow pages, by the Spokesman Review.

The Spokane newspaper, which continues to win awards for the dead-tree and online divisions, added another trophy to the case with the first prize for innovation from the International Newspaper Marketing Association.

This couldn’t come at a better time (well, except a few years ago. That would’ve been a better time). Read Poynter’s writeup on the award and the S-R.com.

The twist at Spokane’s BizFinderNW.com, is to offer a listing with address, store hours, a map and a photo for free. Businesses can amplify on the listing or buy a display position if they wish. Like most local search ventures, there is room for user comments, though no news content per se.

This is a great way for newspapers to capitalize on community connections and remain afloat while offering advertising at competitive rates. I hope more news organizations take this approach.

Last year Ron Sylvester blogged for his newspaper’s Web site for the murder of a small-town sheriff (EDIT: Added link). I read along as the trial unfolded, and it was incredibly riveting. But sometimes it took a while for blog posts to appear on the Web site due to editing resources.

This time, Sylvester is covering another murder trial. The copy desk said “no more.”

People are going on vacation. We’re short-staffed. There was no time to sort through my updates each hour.

The trial: Ted Burnett is accused of killing Chelsea Brooks, a 14-year-old girl who was nine months pregnant, in June 2006, during a murder-for-hire.

Like any journalist with a passion, he thought around the problem. He started posting updates on Twitter. Usually his paper doesn’t cover jury selection, but this time they did. It was a capital murder trial. He wanted to know who was going to be on the jury.

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One of the most powerful pieces of journalism I’ve ever read is now in book form.

Final Salute by Jim Sheeler (Rocky Mountain News)

Sheeler with the Rocky Mountain News followed a Marine casualty assistance officer to the doors of families who were about to hear their soldier had died in the line of duty. Final Salute won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, and Todd Heisler’s compelling photos also earned the accolade (Heisler later went on to the New York Times).

After you spend an hour and half a box of Kleenex reading Final Salute, read the interview with Sheeler on why he decided to write a book. The interview itself is a powerful reminder of why journalists need to write these stories — and that we are people, too:

What emotional toll did writing this book have on you, after having already devoted so much time to the original story?

There were times when I’d be interviewing somebody and I’d start crying, and times when I was sitting at the computer late at night and it would happen again. There are scenes that will shake me all my life - hearing Katherine (Cathey) scream on the tarmac (as her husband’s coffin was removed from a plane). It’s a sound no one should have to hear, but, in a way, it’s a sound that everybody should hear. I know I’ll never forget it.

I hardly read the Rocky anymore now that I’ve moved to the Seattle area. After I read that story back in 2005, I emailed Mr. Sheeler and told him how the story made me feel. My husband, Eric, was in the Navy for six years. And while the Navy is not nearly as dangerous as the Army or the Marines, parting was always hard. Before each deployment I made Eric wear a shirt around for several days. While he was gone, I’d smell the shirt to remember him. I felt compelled to tell Mr. Sheeler that story. Mr. Sheeler saved all the emails he got and let us know when a book was coming out.

Here’s a link to the book: Final Salute on Amazon.com.

Following Ohio’s model, Washington state newspapers are going to share stories in the nebulous future. Right now, we have to call other newspapers to get copies of their stories if it doesn’t run on the AP wire. For instance, I was able to use material from the Kitsap Sun last week for a story on a local superintendent who is looking for work there (see result, which unfortunately the online version does not credit the Kitsap Sun).

I’m not sure why this is happening now, but I suspect it has to do with all of the recent layoffs at the Seattle Times and hiring freezes at other papers. My paper wants more local content, and while the stories are not written by local staff, it gives them an opportunity to fill the pages with local-enough content.

I think this is a good plan, though I wonder if this means that local bureaus can continue to cut more and more people because they have this new service to fall back on.

Read the study here. This pretty much sums up my experience:

Reporters who cover education believe overwhelmingly that the beat requires specialized knowledge. Yet 39 percent of education reporters surveyed in February 2008 by the Hechinger Institute say they’ve received no such training …

When I arrived at the SVH in September 2007, I had no idea what SIP, AYP, ELL or IEP stood for, let alone what they really meant. But I learned (School Improvement Plan, Adequate Yearly Progress, English Language Learners and Individualized Education Program).  My training consisted of meeting with people and using Google. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. Hey, I’m a resourceful person, I can find things out.

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Working on a blog shift here. Bear with me for a few days

Readers visit online news sources for their local news, no surprise there. But once you get into the details of commenting and networking, readers and editors diverge. This doesn’t sum up the entire report by the Associated Press Managing Editors, but it’s pretty close. The entire report is a whopping 89 pages long, but you can read the executive summary here.

I can’t say I am surprised. Throughout much of journalism history, editors have balked at using pseudonyms, and rightly so. But readers submit online comments with made-up names. Similarly, readers favored journalists joining the online conversation and presenting their opinions way more than editors:

In the editors, 27% thought it will be beneficial to good journalism online, 58% harmful, and 15% neutral. In comparison, 50% of the public said it will be beneficial, 36% harmful, and 14% neutral.

The good news: If people are looking for local news, they visit a newspaper Web site 37 percent of the time, more than any other traditional news outlet.

Also, 75 percent of readers regard online and print news equally, 15 percent of readers (24 percent of editors) trust print more, and 10 percent of the public and 3 percent of editors trust web reports more than print.

It would be interesting to compare this to historical data, but I would bet online credibility is increasing over time.