Comments on: Reporting skills. Duh.

By: Lolcats

Lolcats — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:50:39 +0000

I’m subscribing to his blog also. I’m a journalism student, and most of my peers must be reminded what their purpose as a journalist is. Its all about the stories, not the drama.

By: Derek Willis

Derek Willis — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 22:20:14 +0000

The thing that resonates with me about what Mark said is that the background in reporting is so important for doing effective public service journalism. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard a reporter recount the steps he/she took to get a piece of information when obtaining it and the data to place it in a larger context were readily available – if only the reporter knew what to ask for, how to ask for it and how to use it.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:56:02 +0000

That, William, is an argument I can fully buy in to.

By: William M. Hartnett

William M. Hartnett — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:53:23 +0000

Congratulations for joining the elite, which is to say quite small, group of regular readers of my very rarely on-topic site!

Observing the tardy and, as a result, often ill-considered manner in which so many actual newsrooms are going about the transition to multimedia storytelling, I maintain that we do need constant reminders that the basics still matter.

Under immense fiscal pressure, the easy, unthinking path for the news executive is to simply hire or flip existing FTEs with storytelling solely in mind, and with much less regard for the value of reporting.

Doing so defies logic, but, honestly, when have newsroom hiring and personnel decisions ever been made with only the purest logic in mind? In a period of panic, the more middling of managers will merely react to the brightest light and loudest noise in their immediate vicinity.