Prewriting
Successful reporters are:
*Smart
*Quick
*Curious
*Pleasant
*Honest
*Courageous
To be a successful reporter
The best reporters I know are bright, persistent, honest, personable, curious and courageous. If you asked them to explain their success, this is what they might say:
1. A good reporter is a generalist, able to deal with a number of topics and talk with a variety of people. He or she can see the unusual, the ironic, in the everyday. She can think through all the possibilities and organize a large amount of information to find the important parts.
2. A good reporter is quick. Once he is assigned a story, he goes after it. He makes the calls and keeps trying if he doesn't make contact. He remembers the sign that once hung in the Los Angeles Times newsroom: GOYA/KOD. Get off your ass/knock on doors.
3. A good reporter is curious. He or she takes pleasure in the new, and in the old, in the history or precedent that got us where
we are. He enjoys reading and appreciates the details.
4. A good reporter is pleasant. She adopts a friendly nature with those she meets. She is a grateful guest, with a belief in the basic goodness of people. She conveys to those she meets that she is tolerant of them and their ideas, even though she does not like them or what they stand for. She subordinates her ego and is a good listener.
5. A good reporter is honest. He seeks the truth and acts independently. He does what he says he's going to do, and doesn't do something he promised to avoid. He returns his calls, and he's willing to say no. He's obsessed with accuracy and double checks his facts with call-backs. He sees both sides to every issue. He doesn't treat people as a means to an end.
6. The good reporter is courageous. She approaches strangers. She takes pleasure in being good, in being first. She develops a skin to deflect the inevitable criticism. She is willing to make a mistake and willing to write something that may hurt someone. She has a capacity for tempered outrage.
7. As Jon Franklin, reporter, author and teacher, said: "Back when I first started, I thought intelligence was the most important attribute a reporter could have. I have since changed my mind. You do have to be intelligent, but the big thing is courage. Courage to open your mind and let the whole damned confusing world in. Courage to always be the ignorant one, on somebody else's turf. Courage to stand corrected. Courage to take criticism. Courage to grow with your experiences. Courage to accept what you don't understand. Most of all, courage to see what is there and not what you want to think is there."
The nature of news
Some of the lesser-known factors that determine
the news are:
Prejudice of management
Pressure from advertisers
Size of paper
News hole
What is news? Charles A. Dana, editor of the New York Sun, once defined it as, "Anything that interests a large part of the community and has never been brought to its attention before." In other words, news is what people are talking about. News is new. As Evelyn Waugh described it, "News is what the chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read."
1. Put another way, news is a change in the status quo. But does a change in the status quo guarantee that an event is newsworthy? Suppose Philip, a normally reliable 10-year-old, is late for dinner. That may be of consequence in his household, but it is not news. What if he is three hours late for dinner? Then he may be missing and that is news. Then his tardiness takes on community import, especially if he has become the victim of foul play. So, as this example illustrates, news is not just a change in the status quo.
It is a change of consequence in the status quo.
2. In a very real sense, news also can be defined as what
reporters and editors say it is. They are the gatekeepers,
allowing the accounts of some events, but not others, to reach
the reading public. And there are other factors that sometimes can
determine whether an event is news. These include the prejudice of the management, the size of the paper, pressure from advertisers and the news hole, or the space allotted to news.
3. Still, news professionals agree on at least seven main factors that help them determine if an event has consequence, if it is news. These are:
a) Impact—How many people does the event affect? How seriously does it affect them?
b) Proximity—An event will be more important if is closer to the readers. An earthquake in a far-off land is not as interesting as one that is close to home.
c) Timeliness—Is the event fresh? Is it new? The news must be timely to be of use to readers.
d) Prominence—Names make news, and big names make big news. Ordinary people are intrigued by the doings of the rich and famous.
e) Novelty—This is the new in news, the unusual. The "firsts," "lasts" and "onlys" have been the staples of the news business for many years.
f) Conflict—Conflict has been the currency of great literature, drama and movies for all time. From the stories of Shakespeare to those of Disney, conflict has played a crucial role. Newspapers are no different.
g) Audience—Who is the audience? The answer to that question helps determine whether an event is news at all, and if it is, where it will be played in the paper.
No comments:
Post a Comment