I just finished watching the amazing documentary “Page One: Inside the New York Times,” which tells the story of how America’s great newspaper is trying to survive in an era when many of us first learn about news events from Twitter and Yahoo! News. The filmmaker tries to make his case that the Times is still needed because its reporters actually hit the streets and work the phones to gather news, as opposed to just copying and pasting and putting up links to others’ work, as critics of Gawker and the Huffington Post accuse those media outlets of doing.
In the end, it’s the story of how Times media reporter David Carr breaks a major story about the debauchery that was going on inside the executive suites at the Tribune Company. It is a triumph for the “Old Gray Lady” and all of us who consider ourselves journalists in the traditional sense of the word.
How many stories have you personally broken at your station in 2011?
If the answer is zero, I predict you’ll someday be like the people in “Page One” who make a secret editors’ list of who can be laid-off when the budget’s cut because, in this Darwinian media environment we now find ourselves working in, the editors can still produce a great paper without them.
And yes, anchors, I’m talking to you, too. I know you don’t just sit at a desk and read a teleprompter. I get frustrated with that perception, too, because I know all of the hard work that goes into helping produce a great newscast, doing the homework required to really know the stories you’ll be talking about on-air, and summoning the creative energy at ungodly hours to put in a really good television performance. I get it. But dozens of other anchors can perform as well or almost as well as you, too. So what is that extra ingredient you’re going to offer your station?
In their well-researched new book That Used to Be Us, Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum argue that even creative professionals like journalists will have to offer their employers something extra if they want to stay employed. You can’t just come to work, put on your makeup, and read the 11 o’clock news anymore. Even anchors with great ratings are being laid-off long before they’re ready to retire because their bosses believe they make too much money at a time when media companies are trying to figure out how to keep making profits.
I’m not suggesting anchors and reporters who’ve been laid-off in the Great Recession and afterward deserved it. I’m sure most of them worked hard and were valuable members of their newsrooms. But I am suggesting that your chances of being on the secret list of expendable employees in your newsroom rise greatly if you’re viewed as a run-of-the-mill journalist who doesn’t break stories.
Think about it. Why are so many TV newsrooms reviving their investigative units? Because investigative reporters dig-up original stories that keep viewers’ attention, are easily promotable by the marketing department, and differentiate your station from the three or four others in the market who also do news.
You want to be on that team.
You don’t literally have to be on that team. But as an anchor or reporter, you’d better have contacts in the community that are helping your newsroom advance the big stories of the week. For anchors, this doesn’t mean you have to turn a package on something new you learn. An e-mail to the newsroom with what you’ve found out and a phone call to the reporter on the story will show everyone that you’re truly a newsroom leader.
But do tweet about what you’ve learned and let your audience know that your reporter will have more on it in the next newscast. (You may want to hold this tweet until right before airtime so the competition doesn’t “share” your scoop. I will sometimes do this by scheduling a tweet to run at a specific time using TweetDeck.)
You might also consider writing a short story on your station’s website about the new angle to the story you’ve discovered. Viewers want anchors who are part of the fabric of their community. With your byline on the story, you’ll reinforce your value to the audience as someone who is plugged-in to the newsmakers and community leaders in your market.
If you’re the reporter on the story and you’ve learned this information yourself, don’t be afraid to let the audience know that you’ve been working the phones and the information they’re hearing is exclusive information. Also, well before the newscast, work with your producer to come up with ways to showcase this information, which may include a banner that touts the fact that it’s exclusive.
The anchor, reporter, and/or producer should also send an e-mail to the news director and marketing department after the newscast letting them know about the scoop. They may want to produce a “proof of performance” promo based on it. And, remember, these days you’ve got to market yourself within your news organization, too. You need the executives to know that you were the person responsible for that exclusive.
So how do you cultivate sources so you can be your station’s most valuable player? I’ll take a look at that next week.
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Matthew Nordin is a morning anchor/investigative reporter at WMBF News, Raycom Media’s NBC affiliate in Myrtle Beach, SC. You can follow him on Twitter @MatthewNordin.
