Unreported Stories

Reporters


Needed




One of the better reporters in Austin asked me, what are some of the under reported stories in Austin? Under reported in Austin? I'm shaking my head. Staffs have been cut, and the "beat" system may be dying in all media. KXAN TV (NBC), News 8, and KVUE TV (ABC) seem to have a beat system still. It takes a budget commitment. I'm a great believer in the beat system. Yeah, it's "old school", but it still works. It works if the report is on the right beat. Sometimes, management will think it is filling that slot only to find out that the reporter really wanted to do features.


Jim Swift (KXAN) is one of the last feature reporters standing. It's a dying breed nationwide. Make no mistake; however, Jim can cover hard news.


There is only one (1) health reporter in traditional media to my knowledge. She's at the Austin American-Statesman newspaper. What is, perhaps, the most reported issue at the national level right now? Health Care. Further, I'm aware of several health developments in Austin, but it is reporting via news release. That's not even a niche beat. Health used to be far more important. Perhaps it doesn't research well right now, but Austin never conforms to research elsewhere.


There are few, true education reporters. If a medium wants to grow an audience, produce compelling content about schools, not just the obvious ones like the closure of Pearce Middle School. There are few better pictures on TV than those of little kids. People always ask, why don't you show us some good news? There are many of these "good news" stories.


This leads me to say again and again that it IS legal to take pictures of students in the course of telling a story related to education. It's state law. SB 521 took effect more than a decade ago with the 1997-98 school year. It was signed into law by then governor George Bush. According to the bill, school districts are not required to get written parental consent before recording video or pictures, including a student's voice, if the recording is to be used only for media coverage of the school. If there are children in custody battles, etc., they can be identified easily, and removed from the setting.


The law allows wiggle-room for individual districts and campuses. Some, such as Eanes ISD, deny access to students. That means that Eanes does not the coverage that it once did. One thing I do find interesting--Eanes student athletes seem to get on TV a lot. Do we have our priorities right.


Another sadly under reported area is as they used to say “Under the Dome”. There are fewer and fewer members of the Capitol Press Corps. This is another area where, for many, is journalism by news release. Again, KXAN and KVUE have capitol reporters. This deserves more than a paragraph in a future post.


I'm a former crime reporter, and I think there is FAR too much crime coverage. We get enough violence in prime time. At one time KXAN did VO/Bites (voice-over/sound bites) on the crime and PKGs on some more meaty, related issue.

Under reported? Why does TV news leave it to the printed media to cover the music and entertainment industry in Austin. The moniker "Live Music Capital of the World" is wearing a little thin. City Hall reporters have done stories on the noise ordinance enforcement, most recently at the Unplugged at Shady Grove series. There have been other stories about a city Music Office. There are other under reported stories. Right now during the national debate about health care, maybe it's time for another story about health care for musicians? The minimum wage rose this past week as Austin musicians and singer/songwriters try to scratch out an existence. There isn't a reporter on that beat, and management apparently doesn't see it as an ongoing source of stories. It is, but, of course, I'm prejudiced.

Whenever someone moves on in a newsroom, that reporter's knowledge, contacts, and goodwill go too. Ideally, those beat positions should be filled with some overlapping allowing the new reporter a chance for some introductions.


Sure, there may be under reported niches. I think the media is straining to cover the basics right now.


© Jim McNabb, 2009

A Blast From the Past ...

Edison Carter Lives Here

As print and broadcast news operations evolve, bean counters, not journalists, rule. That’s a scary thought, isn’t it? But, it’s the bottom line that seems to be motivating news managers’ decision-making processes. More and more, it is leading to a new hybrid-sort of reporter. Lean profit margins lead to layoffs, but the news beast must still be fed. Who will feed it?

The answer seems to be a blast from the past: The “One-Man (or Woman) Band.

When I started in the business back in the stone age, KCEN TV’s news director handed me a black-and-white film camera (I got a cool Bolex with a three-lens turret because everyone else like the simple Bell and Howells.) and a black box with a “mag-stripe” sound camera in it. They sent me off to slay the dragon and feed the beast. Shooting my own film, I “wrote” as a shot and “edited” in the camera. It was very economical. For a “stand-up”, I’d stage it and ask someone passing by to look into the lens to determine if I was in the shot.

That’s the ticket now for NBC owned and operated TV stations and others big and small. The gear is now digital, but the concept is the same.

Did you ever see “Edison Carter” the reporter on the classic ‘80s TV show “Max Headroom”? We’re there. Edison Carter could have been what they’re calling a “backpack reporter” who shoots back stuff with a lap top computer live via broadband.
KXAN TV is using that technique now with varying degrees of quality. Tuesday (February 3, 2009) KXAN News aired the aftermath of a SWAT stand-off in Kyle. Viewers might have wondered about the jumpy, digitized quality of the video since no one indicated that they were using that technology. I suppose it’s common place now, so it doesn’t have to be explained. And they didn’t even have to send a live truck to Kyle to accomplish it.

Of course KXAN has used the one-man band concept for years. Jim Swift shot, edited, and wrote his own stories for years, not so much as a throw-back to the past but as a creative path. Also, the first Hill Country bureau reporter, David Harder (Now working for a Christian satellite network based in Cypress) did it all before finally getting a photographer. The station is going back to that philosophy now advertising for a “multi-platform bureau reporter”. “The position,” the ad says, “will originate from our Hill Country bureau and be responsible for field shooting/producing/publishing content for our TV and digital platforms.” In other words, a one-man-band. Only nowadays, that one man or one woman must play many instruments—some of them at the same time.

Further, News 8, the Time-Warner news channel, has utilized the one-man-band concept from the very beginning. It is noteworthy to add that News 8 over the years won many awards. They will use a reporter/photographer team on occasion.

The what-was-old-is-now-new-again concept is popping nationwide. TV photojournalists are being hired by newspapers to bring video to their web pages. But, is this a good trend? At least one professional photographer who cut his teeth here in Austin doesn’t think so.

“Management says that with the great technology of computers, one-man-bands are the way to go, and there's no reason for a 'two-man crew' anymore,” says Kenny Kaplan. “Of course you can do more with the computers, but the workload and stress is tremendous and the quality is going downhill. And you know what, they don't care! Saving money is their main goal. While quality was important not so long ago, you can say that those days are gone!” Kaplan was chief photographer and sports photographer at KVUE . He now works in New York City.

It’s the quality that concerns Kaplan. In the not too distant past, local photographers competed regionally and nationally in National Press Photographer Association contests and attended workshops to improve their craft. Perhaps, they still do, but Kaplan claims stations no longer support photographic excellence. Feeding the beast is more important.

You say, “Oh, Kaplan’s concerned because he’s a photographer. Nobody else cares.” Actually, people do care. Lou Prato in the National Journalism Review wrote of these same concerns more than a decade ago in April, 1995:

“Charles Cravetz, who oversees the five-state New England Cable News channel based in Boston, respects New York 1 but says the one-man-band concept is not for him. ‘I think it's a wonderful product for what it does,’ says Cravetz, ‘but I think you compromise your reporting and you compromise your videography.”

And Prato, a former news director and then professor, quotes a news director at that time in Houston: ‘You don't get good storytelling with one-man bands, for the most part, but you get good B-level meat and potatoes that is very, very cost effective,’ says Mike Crew, news director at all-news KNWS in Houston.” These words were written fourteen years ago before our current technology existed. His contemporary’s conclusions? As younger J-school graduate, they will embrace the “one-band-man” concept more and more. Prophetic.

But, what about the audience, the users/consumers of the media? Will the audience care? If the audience doesn’t care, all is well. If they do care, where will they go?

© Jim McNabb, 2009