reporting – Page 9 – Survive Your Job In Television News

One of the youngest on staff: How to hang with the veterans and gain their respect.

When I started out in the biz, I was one of the youngest producers ever hired at the station where I worked. I was so young, my anchors were close to my parents age. So were many of the reporters and photojournalists, not to mention much of the production crew.

During the interviews leading up to this job a news director from another station told me, “You are impressive, but how will you manage anchors who make three times what you do, and are old enough to be your parents? How will you make them respect you?” Truth is, that question was much easier to answer in an interview, than to live out each day in a newsroom.

That is not to say that if you are young and driven you should not go for big opportunities. But you do need to have a small arsenal of techniques to handle the hazing headed your way. Keep the following in mind:

Respect is earned
Set expectations
Focus on team
Avoid running to the bosses

The first thing you need to understand as a newbie, is that you are not respected just because you were hired for a particular job. Respect is earned. News people are incredibly harsh critiquers. Our brains are wired to find weaknesses and anomalies. You will be picked apart, especially if you are young. Many stations are hiring people before they are ready for a particular job, because it can be hard to find someone at all. This is especially true of producers and writers. So you are going to have to come in, be professional and work your butt off. You have to earn respect by consistently doing good work, visibly pushing yourself to be better each day, and respecting those around you.

Which leads to my next point. Set expectations. Set them for yourself, and those around you. If you are a reporter, talk through your thoughts on how to handle a story with your photographer (if you are lucky enough to have one). Explain to your producer when you will call in and when you need script approval to ensure you can get your pkg in by deadline. Producers: You need to tell your anchors what you need them to do in terms of writing and/or copy editing the newscast. You need to sit down with the production crew when you get the job, and see what you need to provide when, and explain your goals for the newscast.

You also need to remember that you are part of a team and focus on that. This can be a really good thing for a newbie producer. You do not have to go it alone. You do not have to have all the answers. You just need to always clearly explain that you want to be part of the solution for any issue that comes up. For example, check in with your anchors regularly and ask if they are getting what they need. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart. That shows professionalism and maturity that will earn you respect quickly. If you are a reporter or photojournalist, ask your counterpart what they need from you to thrive at their jobs. Again, you will gain so much respect. The best part, you will have stronger allies when you do make mistakes, and, you will make them. You want a support system around you to help pick yourself up, dust off and heal the bruises. This is a hard biz, you need all the support you can get.

This also is a very small business. So, do not go running to the bosses and report issues unless it is dire. By dire, I mean you are about to put the station in serious jeopardy because of a fact error. If you tell “Mr. 20 years at the same station” to tag out with “13 News for You” instead of “News 13,” and he tells you to screw off, that doesn’t count. Write down what you told him and when. Then, it’s up to him to step in line. Often, newbie journalists panic when a veteran tells them no. The fear is they are questioning your authority and will get you in trouble. That is sometimes true. But, if you do what you are supposed to and deliver a message from management asking for that new out cue or for something to be included in a live shot or pkg script and the veteran blows you off, the veteran will eventually pay the price. Let that person hang him or herself, by him or herself. Write down when you told the person, then let that person sink or swim on their own. You cannot control that person if he/she is defiant. Focus on what you can control, and be ready if you are asked about the situation with clear documentation in hand. Then show what you did and ask what more can you do in the future to handle the situation better. That is not running to the boss, that is managing.

So hang in there newbie newsies. The hazing can be tough at times. But it does get easier. In fact, the person you thought was enemy number one, can and often does become your greatest advocate. You just have to earn your stripes.

When reality hits. Questioning why you want to be on TV

The smallest market that Nielsen ranks is Glendive, Montana, #210. It is among the more beautiful places you’ll probably never see. The Yellowstone River flows through the middle of town, according to the chamber of commerce, and you can see a triceratops skull found in 1991 and attend Buzzard Day, no date given.

Glendive is one of those places people would rather visit than live in, though. That’s probably why it only has 4,000 TV-viewing homes. I’m sure there have been some wonderful journalists who’ve gotten their start there. But being that Buzzard Day is listed among the top attractions, I’m thinking it was a lonely start.

So what do you do? You’ve gone to college for four years and made your parents proud. Someone has actually hired you based on a reel you’ll replay in ten years and cringe. And now it’s time to move to someplace like Glendive and become a full-fledged, paid journalist.

Most of us have been there. But the shock was much worse for the young woman who wrote to me recently, whom we featured in last week’s article. She actually had a job in one of the nation’s top markets doing “fun stories and the traffic.” Yes, she’s beautiful. But that didn’t keep her from getting laid-off. She’s managed to find a job way down the ladder. Not in Glendive. But way down the ladder.

“I am not only burnt out but discouraged,” she said during one of our e-mail exchanges, which she is allowing SurviveTVNewsJobs.com to quote.

See, she not only worked in that big market but it was also her hometown. The natural support network of friends and family isn’t there anymore.

On top of that, she’s come to the realization that she’s not a journalist. Among other reasons, she just doesn’t have the fire in the belly that’s required to persevere through all the indignities heaped upon you in that first TV news job.

“Yes I should be thick skinned and not let this run me down, but in reality I think my mental health is more important than keeping up a fake smile to get through this,” she said.

Early on in our e-mail conversation, she told me that hosting is actually what she’s meant to do, not reporting TV news or anchoring. I was actually relieved. Would you want a doctor or an attorney whom you could tell really wasn’t into their profession? It’s a recipe for malpractice. However, this young woman was being honest that she didn’t feel the calling to be a journalist. She isn’t going to pollute TV newsroom after TV newsroom with mediocre work just to have her face on television, all the while secretly yearning to host a talk show.

You may fill in the blank with the name of the colleague in your newsroom who meets that description here: ___________________. Extra points if you think TV news was originally just going to be a part of his or her five-year plan.

So I told her to go for it. God bless her for admitting she’s not journalist material. Plus, with media companies clamoring to create their own syndicated shows outside the Hollywood system and adding local talk shows adjacent to their morning or afternoon newscasts, there is a growing need for hosts with the skills to pull them off. This has the potential to be the best time for on-camera talent to work in local television since the days when stations produced their own children’s programming and hired a host to introduce movies.

In this young woman’s case, though, she’s under contract. I know how much she wants to leave and get on the host track immediately. But I urged her to either stick it out in her current reporting job or try to come to some mutual agreement with station management. Broadcast news is a small world. Word gets around. You don’t want to be known as the person who skips out on contract commitments.

However, fate ended-up coming to her rescue. Another company is about to buy her station. The ownership change, she says, is offering her an “escape.” She turned-in her resignation letter last week and hopes to return home soon.

Best of luck to her, wherever she’s reading this now.

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Matthew Nordin is an investigative reporter at WXIX-TV in Cincinnati. Join him on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @FOX19Matthew

When Reality Hits. TV News The Calling

Small Market, USA — No matter how many hours you’ve spent watching Diane Sawyer over the years and dreamed of anchoring Good Morning America or World News, for some people getting that first TV reporting gig results in a revelation: I wasn’t cut-out for this.

I recently got an e-mail from a young woman who was frank that journalism isn’t the part of the TV business she feels passionate about. Not only that, she worries she’s not doing a good job.

“I went to school, yes, but there’s things they don’t teach there,” she said in her first e- mail to me.

SurviveTVNewsJobs.com has agreed not to reveal the woman’s name or current market, which is small, in order to protect the relationship with her news director and allow her to be completely honest about her feelings in our e-mail exchanges.

“This is my first job outside my hometown,” she said. “I worked in (a large market) and loved it there…I did fun stories and the traffic. Well, I got laid-off and now I’m in (this small market) trying to keep-up my resume, but I’m finding that I’m starting to really dislike this job.”

Judging by how she ended that first e-mail (“you can be blunt with me,” she said), she was expecting the sort of tart-tongued tirade Holly Hunter’s character in Broadcast News would’ve delivered. She didn’t get that from me, though. I actually feel a lot of compassion for her. As I like to tell high school classes, journalism is like the priesthood. It’s a calling. If you don’t feel the insatiable need to be a journalist — if doing something else with your life would literally leave you depressed, thinking less of yourself, or feeling some other variety of intense and sincere mental anxiety — then this is not the career for you. Ok, I’m being dramatic. But you know what I mean.

So first, I had to make sure this young woman didn’t want to be a news anchor. If her desire is to go back to her big market hometown someday and deliver the news to millions of people, then reporting stories out in the field for years is the apprenticeship she’s just going to have to endure. When you’re an anchor, you have to know, based on your own experiences out in the field, which questions are and are not appropriate to ask your reporters in a breaking news situation.

For instance, in the first couple of hours of the Boston Marathon bombing coverage, I didn’t hear a single network or Boston anchor ask a reporter on the scene, “Was this a terrorist act?” That would’ve been irresponsible. We could all see the video. We could see that there were two explosions very close together and that white smoke rose from both. We could see that a lot of people were injured badly. But in those first crucial minutes on the air, your reporter hasn’t had a chance to talk with police. The officers who know anything are too busy to answer your questions and the PIO’s are likely in the dark, too.

What local Boston TV reporters did, which I thought was very good journalism, was describe the scene. I’ll never forget one of them saying in the early-going that he had seen victims who’d lost limbs and that we should prepare ourselves for fatalities. He told us what he saw. He didn’t speculate that this was a terrorist act. Are we bomb experts? Explosion experts? Most likely, no. Who’s to say that if x, y, and z go wrong underground that a utility explosion might not cause similar destruction?

My point is, when you’re sitting on a news set and guiding your station’s live coverage — and by the way, the teleprompter is blank — you’ve got to know what questions are inappropriate. Plus, as soon as persons of interest (yeah, I hate that phrase, too, but it’s a legal term of art we sometimes have to use) or suspects are named, you have to know on-the-spot as you’re ad-libbing which statements about them are fair in light of the on-going news story and which statements could get you and your station sued for defamation if you and the police are wrong. (See: Richard Jewell/Atlanta Olympics bombing coverage.)

The young woman hating her small market TV reporting experience never wants to be an anchor, though.

“Being an anchor, I never much cared for it,” she said in her second e-mail.

I told her not to feel bad, that I think a lot of people force themselves into the TV reporter box just so they can be on television. I really appreciated her honesty. I am also convinced her TV career isn’t over.

Next week, I’ll write about my advice to her about what she should do next. Based on that, she’s made a big decision that I’ll fill you in on, too.

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Matthew Nordin is an investigative reporter at WXIX-TV in Cincinnati. Join him on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @FOX19Matthew.

Are we too forgiving of mistakes? A call to demand credibility.

I keep watching the debates, and heck throwing up questions to encourage debates about the swearing anchor who got fired right after his first night. Many brought up the fact that EVERYONE knows (or should know) to assume a mic is always hot. Some say management essentially set him up. Many thought it was wrong that he ended up being essentially celebrated on the morning show circuit. At the heart of all of these debates is a simple, yet crucial quality all journalists must possess to do their jobs: Credibility.

As a rule of thumb, I try not to throw up a strong opinion about the industry much on survivetvnewsjobs. Frankly, who am I to say much, right? I’m just another longtime journalist who worked hard and had a mostly rewarding career in the biz. BUT, when I do editorialize it is consistently about one issue: Credibility.

I could go off on the fact that each time a new anchor debuts on-air, stations should require run throughs to prevent confusion and calm nerves. I could go off on the producer and/or director for not personally counting down the brand new anchor coming out of each commercial break so he would not get confused. Or I could go off on the anchor for not assuming the mic is always hot, even when he walks down the hall after the flipping newscast. (By the way, reading scripts and adding pronouncers so you can get through tough names ahead of time is very helpful) I could also go off on the industry as a whole for continuing to give very inexperienced journalists, roles that are simply too big, do it too quickly and with no training to get them up to speed. The sink or swim mentality has always been a part of TV news that begs for this kind of scenario. That’s why I constantly write articles about training issues.

But my focus in this article is this: How many industry leaders, from local news to network, are flippant about mistakes. I get “Live with Kelly and Michael” throwing this guy on TV. It’s a pure entertainment show. But the anchors on the Today show appealing to people to give him a second chance? Despite Today leaning more toward infotainment, many still consider it a news program. What does that say for their anchors’ credibility? It’s crazy, but not surprising. After all a CNN internal note and spokesperson’s statement hit the web essentially stating “So what if we screwed up on huge facts during the Boston marathon bombing. It’s ok because we then corrected the gaffes within the hour, so it was an excellent job.” In another memo, the AP reminds its staff about it’s one source policy. (Get another source too and really verify first source’s credibility) How about industry analysts using the same excuse: Consumers have a “responsibility” to know the information they are being given may be unverified when following Twitter and online websites. I get that this meant to include an average joe’s blog or twitter feed, BUT it’s too cavalier an attitude about news people online. How many stories has your station or network aired obliterating a doctor, company or law enforcement office for serious mistakes that resulted from lack of training or resources? Do we accept cheap excuses from them when we cover their mistakes?

So let’s get to the core of the importance of credibility. Everyone from the swearing anchor, on his first day, to the high powered execs at CNN and AP needs to understand that the entire industry’s future is on the line. It is an honor and a privilege to report news. This is not a reality TV show. Communities depend on the information. And they depend on it being right. If you want to be a star, go to hollywood or your local theater. You impact people’s daily lives in crucial ways. When will this industry openly admit this behavior is shameful? It is against everything a journalist is supposed to stand for. Make fun of that all you want, (many of you will) but I know a lot of journalists who still believe in the institution. Show pride, join them. Networks: Could you set the standard again? Is that really asking too much? Let’s start with this: Have two credible sources verify information before you run it? Is that really so hard to do even during breaking news? Is that really such a novel concept that you have to send out a memo saying it needs to start happening again? If a journalist tweets supposed “facts” without verifying information and running it past a manager, there should be discipline. Make it crystal clear that the errors will not be tolerated. Is that really so hard? It shouldn’t be.

I would love to know why the swearing anchor went into news. Does he feel a sense of social responsibility? I am calling him out because he seems to be eating up the publicity and seems unconcerned about the potential ramifications for the business he represents. I felt a little bad for him until he hit the talk show circuit. Now, he’s opened himself up for analysis and critique. I have also invited him to join our community and support network so he can grow with us, if he is a dedicated journalist.

Now I ask you: Is it better if he just wants to be on TV? Will he thrive more, because so many higher ups obviously view the biz as a type of entertainment or at least something you just throw on the air and hope it works?

If you believe being a TV journalist is a calling, please do every other like minded person a favor, post this in your newsroom somewhere. Then take a picture of the article hanging on the wall and post it to the survivetvnewsjobs Facebook page. Let’s show some pride for the “calling” that being a journalist really is for many of you. Who actually has the guts to demand that the entire newsroom, believe in themselves and expect more? Make a call demanding credibility. This industry depends on it!

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FYI, Beth Johnson, the founder of Survivetvnewsjobs wrote this article.