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80 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Why is covering local govt. important?
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It affects your life more than you know any other govt. insititution. *Mostly funded by property tax
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Two Basic Local Govt. Forms
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Weak Mayor System, Strong Mayor System
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Weak Mayor System
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Mayor is merely ceremonial position
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Strong Mayor System
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Mayor appoints most department heads and often represents the city. (Journalists often focus on this system due to the power).
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What is the city manager a special case
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deals with day-to-day govt. activity (professional administrator)
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Form and Coverage
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The form of govt. can influence how you cover it.
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How do you frame govt. stories?
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Frame stories less on govt. and more on problems of real people
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Every Beat has a Cycle (for local govt.)
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The Meeting, Follow-up Stories, Politics/Proposals/and Backhall Bickering, The Advance
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What is the core of govt. beat?
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The Meeting, often most important but rarely most interesting
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The Meeting
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Know the agenda, Know the time/location/purpose, Record all major business transacted (votes, postponements, etc), Get quotes to illustrate people's emotions *Never wrtie a meeting in chronological order, focus on most important
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Son of the Meeting
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Look out for locals affected by decisions sense and record the crowd sze and attitude, Look for unusual departures from the agend esp. in the "new business" part, Watch for "passing the buck" or directions to staff/attorney to put stuff till the next meeting or to table it forever.
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Writing the story
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The type of lede and structure, summary lede, mult. element lede, or something completely different
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The Process from Cops to Court
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1. The Incident 2. The Investigation 3. The Arrest 4. Pre-Trial Trivia 5. The Trial
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The Incident
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Are there suspects? Anything odd or unusual? Blotter material or pullout?
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The Investigation
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Active searching or questioning of winesses/suspects. Follow the detectives, chase witnesses yourself. People affected.
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Pre-Trial Trivia
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Is there a grand jury? Hearings (evidentiary, venue, motions, etc)? It's all about discovery and maneuvering.
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The Trial
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It's like "the game" or "the meeting" with lawyers, strategies, key witnesses, jury decisions, appeal, etc. And a lot of sitting. Important to know the players.
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Covering Courts
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2 Judiciary Systems-- 1. Federal 2. State 2 Types of Law-- 1. Civil 2. Criminal
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What does covering courts start with?
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It all starts with jury selection or voire dire. Depending on the case, this is a story in itself.
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Where does each side lay out its "theory" of the case.
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After the Opening Statement
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Grand Jury
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Decides if sufficient evidence to go to court, good investigative tools, they sum, act as a tool for District Attorney
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Jury
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Decides guilty or not
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Types of Feature Stories
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Interpretive, Sociological, Informational (Service), Profil, Trend, First Person (Participatory), Inspirational, Commemorative, Seasonal, Stranger, Localize, Lists, Gimmicks, Odd Hobby/Occupation/etc., Mix and Match
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How do you write a feature story?
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Think Theme, Structure, Voice/tone/etc., Quotes, Anecdotes, Facts & Statistics, Detail, Scenes, The END!
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Think Theme
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Theme emerges: go back and reinforce, What is it I'm trying to say here? Make sure you gently hit on theme
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Structure
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What's the best way to tell a story? Obvious vs. invisible
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Voice, tone, etc.
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Think point of view, word choice. Quiet vs. loud, pacing and all other tricks of good writing...short sentences is fast etc.
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Quotes
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Add character and tension, think dialogue, not quotes, quotes add support
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Anecdotes
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These vignettes bring your story to life: always get back w/interviewee, they'll remember more later!
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Detail
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Pick the telling observation
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Scenes
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Think in terms of fiction, scenes, character, dialogue, this is very different between feature and newswriting
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The End!
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A good feature has an ending, commonly end on one really strong quote, This is not the inverted pyramid, this is telling a story!
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There are no rules but you have to...
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justify breaking them
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Powerful verbs
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make all the difference! Separates pros from amatures!
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Touch of Humor
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good, but let the story tell itself
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Covering Elections
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The big national races, Not just about the Pres., There will be drop-in's, local races really stir the partisan faithful and often more interesting, Look for interesting ways partisans are communicatoin with eath other with undecided
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Understand some key concepts
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1. Follow the money 2. Issues and Image 3. Polls, Pundits, and Professionals 4. Framing- One interpretation over another 5. Debates
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Preparing for Election Day
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1. Exit Polls 2. Know where candidates will vote 3. Know where candidate will be that night 4. Know how you'll get results, how you will report them Online? Live?
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Post-Election
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Analysis, Pitch the story forward where possible, strategy and political junkie stuff is fun, Use graphics/maps/mulimedia/etc.
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Computer assisted reporting (precision or analytic journalism)
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The use of computers to gather and analyze info for news
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What techniques do we use in journalism?
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Social Sciences- Find trends in large amounts of data
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Where to find info...
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email, social network, online info
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How to analyze it...
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spreadsheet
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1952 Election
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Walter Cronkite- CBS 1st example of C.A.R. w/univac to show election results.
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1967
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mainframe- journalists 1st use of C.A.R.
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Phil Meyer
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wrote book, Used mainframe computer to analyze survey results to understand riots, 1970 analyzed sentencing patterns in court, Miami Herald tax assessments
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Knowledge was slow to spread
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investigative reporters and editors helped train journalists to light a fire
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C.A.R.: The Pulitzer
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1989 AJCs Bill Dedman won Pulitzer for story on home loan practices or red-lining, Series called "The Color of Money"
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Never steal someones words, but always...
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shamelessly steal ideas!
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AJC story
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first C.A.R. story to win PP, 10 years later, 1 story a year won PP every year
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To do C.A.R.
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3 Basic Tools, 3 Advanced Tools
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Basic C.A.R.
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Online databases, spreadsheet programs, database management software
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Advanced C.A.R.
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Mapping software, Statistical software, Network analysis software (how people connect)
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How to C.A.R.?
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1. Get access to data 2. Formulate story ideas 3. Ask the data questions 4. Do reporting and writing 5. Remember the story is about people, NOT members!
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C.A.R. stroriesare everything from...
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public opinion polls to census data to restaurant health scores, etc.
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How to Write the Story-- Numbers
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Keep the # of digits in a graph below 8, Memorize key #'s on your beat (ex. population and budget), Round off a lot, Think in ratios, Find Analogies
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Public Opinion Writing
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How we know what other people think? Random sampling is vital, Survey size should generally be 600-1200 people
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NCPP
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who did the poll? How was it done? When was the poll done? What's the mafgin of error? Know the question wording and order. Push Polls?
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Comparisons
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must be fair, mostly use 'per capita'
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Public Opinion poll (pop)
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fear is that pop will influence pub opinion, bandwagon effect or underdog effect (basically cancel votes out, polls don't effect pub opinion all too much
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What does media do a bad job of
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pursuasion, but good job at what to think about
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Framing of stories base on...
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economy and national security
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What do you write on?
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Things the public responds to according to public polls (circles of life)
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Spiral of Silence
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more in minority? Less likely to speak. Eventually, minority opinion dies- fear of isolation
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Good Journalism=
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fair presentation of all opinions
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Talk Radio=
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Not fair- 1 opinion and it's always "right."
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3rd Person effect
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We tend to think we're uneffected by media content, BUT that others are
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We're immune but...
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others are swayed, comes more into play with violence (violent vidoe games: example)
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People are more likely to support laws against video games and stuff...
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3rd person effect
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More indifferent=
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more easily pusuadable more important to you= less pusuadable
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Faith and Values
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The "Religion Beat," be curious about the beat, think broadly, avoid religious journalism, remember that religion and journalism share the 1st amendment
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Get it Right
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be careful of your facts, more people attend or watch a sport than attend a religious ceremony
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Sports (3 types of stories)
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Game/event coverage, Human interest/feature stories, Columns and Blogs
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People are more likely to support laws against video games and stuff...
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3rd person effect
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More indifferent=
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more easily pusuadable more important to you= less pusuadable
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Faith and Values
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The "Religion Beat," be curious about the beat, think broadly, avoid religious journalism, remember that religion and journalism share the 1st amendment
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Get it Right
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be careful of your facts, more people attend or watch a sport than attend a religious ceremony
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Sports (3 types of stories)
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Game/event coverage, Human interest/feature stories, Columns and Blogs
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Covering Sports
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Use note-taking system, Think about ledes form the beginning, Write contingency leads before the game, Ideally lead is ready by the end of the game
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Steal from the Best
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Read from the best people in the field, learn what they cover/how they write/takes on it
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