Who Would Lie About an Obituary?

IF SOMEONE CALLS in an obituary to a newspaper, hoping to get a notice about their loved one printed in the paper, what is the responsibility of the newspaper? Should the newspaper fact-check that information, or assume that no one would joke about such a story?

Turns out a guy in Brookeville, PA didn't want to get fired from his job after he took time off, supposedly mourning the death of his mother. To support his story, he contacted the local paper and asked for an obituary.

The newspaper could not confirm the details with the funeral home at deadline, so they ran the story.

The next day, relatives called to deny the story. Then, the supposedly deceased woman stopped by the office.

Did the journalists err in this situation?

(By the way, the dude who submitted the false obituary was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct. And the image above is of the 80s death metal band, Obituary.)

Jennifer Midberry: "Work On Developing Your Style."

Jennifer Midberry thought she might grow up and become an elementary school teacher. Or a social worker of some sort. Then she won a photo contest while being a student at Bucks County Community College. She met a few professional photojournalists who were encouraging and she meandered her way into being a professional shooter herself.

She's managed to build a career that allows her to see the world and tell stories about issues she cares about.

"People open their doors to journalists," Jennifer said. "Being a journalist lets you see things most people wouldn't ordinarily see."

Here are a few things she said that stood out for me:

• You need to take the initiative. When 9/11 happened, she went to New York City and documented the aftermath of the attack, despite not working for a news organization. Because she was there, she was able to sell the images she made. And that lead to her first full-time shooting job.
• "Being a journalist means you get to see everything as it happens," she said. "You get to be on the front lines of history."

• Following 9/11, she was upset about the portrayal of the Islamic community and Muslim-Americans by the media. This made her want to travel to the Middle East and learn more about this culture that was being maligned.

• She does not believe that objectivity can exist in the media. "You're always documenting from a certain perspective," she said. "We have a lot of control over the messages conveyed in photos."
• "The role of the press is to draw attention to social issues," Jennifer said. "We keep government accountable, and we offer different perspectives."

Jennifer offered this advice to those interested in photojournalism:

• Everyone studying photojournalism will develop similar technical skills. It's how you see, compose and visually tell stories that will make you stand out. "Get technically proficient and then forget about it," she said. "Work on developing your style."
• "You can do a lot with very simple equipment," she said.
• You will have assignments involving topics you don't care about (Jennifer doesn't care for sports). So she tried to shoot them in her own style.
• You need to have commitment and drive, and you need to take the initiative if you are going to succeed.
• As a female photojournalist, she tried to use her size and gender to her advantage.

Did the Police Have the Right to Evict the Press?

Around 1:00 am this morning, police gave final warning to the Occupy Philly protesters to evacuate Dilworth Plaza, next to City Hall.

Before the police issued their final warning to the protesters, however, the police told journalists that they had to vacate the area and watch the events unfold from across the five lane street, probably 150 feet away from the entrance to the Occupy Philly encampment. From the press vantage point, it was almost impossible to see the actual protest site.

Did the police have the right to evict the press?

Were the police simply ensuring that journalists did not interfere with the police work?

Or were the police trying avoid a situation like that at the University of California, Davis, where video of a campus police officer pepper-spraying a group of protesters became a viral phenomena?

Oops. That's Not What We Meant.

A BALTIMORE TELEVISION station reported on Black Friday events and accidentally put "Black Holiday Shoppers" in the lower-third (rather than labeling them as "Black Friday Shoppers").

Does the newscast have a responsibility to apologize to their audience?

In the age of the Internet, when information is old news in a matter of moments, do the media have to have every fact immediately correct? Or, as a society, have we just accepted that what we learn from the media may or may not be true?

Is that a problem?

How would you handle the Black Friday mistake - or better yet, this incredible story?

Did The Media Get Joe Paterno Fired?

HOURS AFTER THE Penn Sate University board of trustees fired football coach Joe Paterno and the university president for their actions (and inaction) connected to the child sex scandal involving a former PSU football coach, students rioted in the streets. Among the ways they released their anger and frustration was by knocking over a television live truck.

The students, according to some reports, believe that the media got Joe Paterno fired.

“I think the point people are trying to make is the media is responsible for JoePa going down,” a PSU freshman told the New York Times.

While acknowledging that the rape of helpless children was awful, many people spoke to the media and wrote op/eds saying that the media put their focus on Joe Paterno rather than the actual suspect in these cases because focusing on the alleged perpetrator would not sell newspapers or draw eyes to newscasts or websites.

"You know what will sell, though?" a blogger/ journalist wrote. "The downfall of an American icon. A man who has spent 60 years building the reputation of a football program, a university, a whole town doing the 'legal minimum' but not his 'moral duty' being pummeled both in writing and by cameras and microphones everywhere he goes. I can guarantee you, if Penn State was coached by some no-name, the stories churned out would be about the victims and the men who perpetrated these crimes."

Did the media focus on the wrong person in this situation?

Or did the media act responsibly, reporting all angles?

Should You Cut The President Some Slack?

THIS ISN'T NEW but it is a modern classic. In the wake of Kanye West hijacking Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV video music awards, President Obama called West a jackass.

The moment was videotaped as the president was being prepped for an interview. The president and the reporter were simply conversing as lights, cameras and mics were being set up.

The president asks for some slack after everyone laughs. Is it too late to ask that the statement be off the record at that point?

Is this news?

Topless Journalist Reports on Naked Drunk Driver.

A REPORTER IN Ohio covered the court case of a woman arrested for drunk driving and speeding. The accused drunk driver was nearly naked when arrested.

This report brings about a number of questions:

• Is the drunk driver story actually newsworthy?
• Were the photographer and videographer attacked?
• Did we need to see the reporter topless in the car?
• Is it acceptable for journalists to air the surveillance video?
• Is this "story" handled responsibly?

Marc Zumoff: "When You're an Intern, You're in The Farm System."

MARC ZUMOFF WAS not the most popular kid in high school when he was growing up in Northeast Philadelphia. He was heavy and socially awkward.

"I wasn't really that dynamic," Zumoff said.

That lasted into his time while a student here at Temple.

Now, however, he gets paid to talk about basketball as the voice of the Philadelphia 76ers. He's one of around 30 professional basketball play-by-play announcers in the country. He gets front row seats, flies first class, stays in the best hotels and eats at high-end restaurants ... as his job.

His message to you?

"If you have similar aspirations," he said, "go for it."

What do you need to do to reach your dreams? Here's Zumoff's advice:

• Believe in yourself.
• Start reaching for your dreams now. "Have a personal mission statement," Zumoff said. "Everything you do should lead to that goal."
• Join associations and make friends. It doesn't matter how good you are if you can't get your foot in the door. You need to know people.
• Do an internship. "It's a great way to make contacts," he said.
• While interning, be a model citizen. Dress appropriately. Be polite. Take the initiative and do the work required of you with a smile, and do it before you're asked to do it.
• Your bosses are watching. Interns get promoted. "Two of my former interns are now my bosses," Zumoff said. "When you're an intern, you're in the farm system."

• Talk to people doing what you want to do. Ask them how they reached their position.
• Try writing letters. You want to stand out.
• Make the connections when making connections. Who do you know in common? And ask folks who they can connect you to.
• Build a network of positive people who can help you in your career.
• Kiss asses? "Yes," Zumoff said. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

Here are a few other things he mentioned:

• If he talks about the NBA lockout, he, the team or his company could be fined.
• Eric Snow did not fall asleep on air.
• Charles Barkley was everything a professional basketball superstar was not supposed to be - relatively small and sort of heavy. But he was awesome.
• Same for Allen Iverson. "He did what he did and he shouldn't have," Zumoff said, referring to Iverson's talents despite his relatively diminutive size. "He lived and played with reckless abandon."

• While attending Temple, Zumoff drove heavy equipment trucks at a scrap iron/ steel yard.
• He spent his first five years after college in radio news.

What stood out for you?

Can A Reporter Have An Opinion?

CAN YOU ROOT for a cause and report on it at the same time?

That's the situation that Philadelphia Daily News reporter/ editor/ blogger Will Bunch finds himself. He has reported on the Occupy movement while at the same time, he serves as a fellow at a left leaning think tank. He's been tweeting his support for the Occupiers.

Is there anything wrong with that?

“I think my editors are really proud to have someone writing with a point of view," Bunch told FoxNews.com. "The Daily News is fairly unusual, we’re not that big on boundaries. The new editor, Larry Platt, encourages us to be more opinionated."

The newspaper has defended Bunch's actions. The paper's ombudsman, the conscience of the paper, wrote:

Bunch identifies himself as having "a progressive point of view." His writing for the Daily News, as well as his books and his work for Media Matters, confirms this. As a reader, I know where Bunch is coming from, just as I know where Sean Hannity is coming from. That's good enough for me.

The ombudsman is supposed to look at the paper's actions from an objective perspective. He answered my initial question in his column on Monday:

Can a reporter have opinions, strong ones, and still be credible on hard news? I believe that's possible, and know that Bunch knows the difference.

Do you agree?

Do you think the ombudsman would have taken Bunch's side if the politics were reversed?

Steve Esack: "Any Assignment I Do, I Do to The Best of My Ability."

STEVE ESACK HOLDS a grudge.

The Northeast Philly native went to the Community College of Philadelphia before transferring to Temple (c/o '96). He took a reporting job at a weekly newspaper in the 'burbs before landing a gig at the Philadelphia Daily News.

As a desk clerk.

He answered phones and delivered mail.

But he wanted to be a writer. When he approached the executive editor of the newspaper, the editor told Steve, "You won't get anywhere because you went to CCP and Temple. You're not an Ivy Leaguer."

That just pissed him off.

He did a two-year stint at the Inquirer as a suburban correspondent and then went to the Allentown Morning Call, where he is now the education reporter.

In 2010, Steve won the Ernie Pyle Award for a 5-part feature series about a high school football team and their new coach.

Here are a few things that stood out for me from his visit to class:

• If you have any fears about approaching people and asking them questions, get over that now. If you want to be a journalist, you have to be able to socialize and make connections with people.
• "This business has always been about people," he said. "And it will always be about people."
• His father was a police office and his mother ran a corner grocery store.
• He tries to distance himself from stories but he's not a robot. "Sometimes it's impossible for me not to get angry, pissed, upset, sad, whatever," he said. "If you can feel and see the emotion in a story, put that in the story. You know your readers will feel it too."

• When he was a general assignment reporter, his editors would throw stories at him. And he always followed up on the leads. He's never turned down an assignment.
• He suggests that you pitch stories rather than wait for editors to hit you with assignments. You'd much rather do the stories you're interested in, rather than the random stuff your editors may come up with.

• Steve shoots images and video with his iPhone for the stories he writes.
• He says you should learn how to edit video.
• If you have multiple skills, you will be employable in journalism. And Steve said that you won't likely have to do the old bounce around from small media outlet to slightly larger, to slightly larger outlet, before reaching your dream outlet.

• Winning awards is great (The Ernie Pyle came with a bundle of cash) but awards are subjective. It's just the judgment of a group of folks. Being honored does not signify to him that he has reached a pinnacle of his career. But it did feel good to win.
• He still hustles on every story. "Any assignment I do," he said, "I do to the best of my ability."

He forgot to mention in class but the Allentown Morning Call offers a bunch of internships - paid and unpaid. Check them out here.

What stood out for you?

Can The Public Really Help The Newsmakers?

A NEWSPAPER IN THE UK is now posting their story budget for the next day's paper, hoping that readers will see the story list and contribute to it.

Is this a good idea?

"What if readers were able to help newsdesks work out which stories were worth investing precious reporting resources in?" the national news editor of The Guardian wrote yesterday. "What if all those experts who delight in telling us what's wrong with our stories after they've been published could be enlisted into giving us more clues beforehand? What if the process of working out what to investigate actually becomes part of the news itself?"

Is this a bright move, inviting citizens to become active participants in journalism? Or is this a gimmick?

Is this a ploy to get citizens to do the actual legwork that journalists used to do?

The story list began running today. Check it out here.

Can You Say That On-Air or In Print?

LAST WEEK, THE Washington Post discovered that, for many years, presidential candidate Rick Perry leased a hunting camp that he had a racially offensive nickname for. Here is the lead of the Post's story:

In the early years of his political career, Rick Perry began hosting fellow lawmakers, friends and supporters at his family’s secluded West Texas hunting camp, a place known by the name painted in block letters across a large, flat rock standing upright at its gated entrance.

“Niggerhead,” it read.

Other media outlets followed the story and repeated the name, including the New York Times.

Should the media use the term in print? On air?

Does running the term perpetuate the awful connotations, or do we reduce it's power by repeating it?

When Are the Protesters Newsworthy?

Protesters have camped out in New York City since September 17, and more than 1,000 have been arrested so far.

During the first week of the "occupation" by a group organized under the banner "Occupy Wall Street," there was virtually no coverage by the mainstream press.

"The recent protests on Wall Street did not involve large numbers of people, prominent people, a great disruption or an especially clear objective," NPR's executive editor told their ombudsman, the person in charge of determining whether the network has performed properly.

Media coverage is beginning to pick up now that the protesters are becoming more active - 700 protesters were arrested on Saturday when they attempted to occupy the Brooklyn Bridge.

Still, little has been reported about protesters staging rallies in Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Does it matter that the original crowds were much smaller than expected? Does it matter that the protesters lack a specific mission, or an accepted leader?

Should the media be reporting on the acts of civil disobedience?

Bob Ford: Newspaper Sports Reporters Should be Writing About "What Does It Mean?"

"IF YOU THINK you know your path in life, you're wrong," said Philadelphia Inquirer sports columnist Bob Ford.

He said that he had six majors (art history, psychology, English and a few others) while studying at the University of Maryland. He landed on journalism after learning there were academic advisors, and one suggested that path.

He graduated and got a job at the Easton Star Democrat on Maryland's Eastern shore. His first story was a duck calling competition. He next went to the Delaware County Daily Times as a Phillies beat writer. He moved to the Philadelphia Inquirer as a Sixers beat writer, then segued into general assignment sports reporting (Olympics, World Cup soccer, Tour de France, etc). In 2003, he became a sports columnist, opining on just about everything, though mostly about the big four professional sports teams.

As a sports writer, he's traveled to 14 countries and visited nearly every large city in the United States.

These days, he blogs, appears on video and tweets.

Here are a few things he said that stood out for me:

• The thirst for information has never been higher than now. The Inquirer has never had more readers than now. Many people just read online, as opposed to in print.
• "If you can write," he said, "there will be a place for you somewhere."
• The Internet, because of the rush to push out content, breeds a lack of reflection and thought.
• Bloggers get stuff wrong sometimes and that is regrettable. "When you're driving 100 miles per hour, you're more likely to have an accident than when you're doing 25," he said.
• The reality is that ten seconds after a story breaks, no one remembers who had it first.
• In the age of the Internet, newspaper sports reporters and writers should be focusing on this: "What does it mean?"

• As a beat writer, he had to pull his punches/ choose his battles sometimes. Seasons are long and he'll spend much more time with the players than with his actual newspaper colleagues.
• When Charles Barkley said, "This is the kind of game that makes you want to go home and beat your wife," Bob and longtime Daily News beat writer Phil Jasner offered Sir Charles a mulligan. Charles declined and it became a huge story.
• Joe Morgan once threatened to kick Bob's ass.
• How do you resist only writing controversial stuff to draw audiences? Recognize that during your career, you'll write thousands of stories, not one.
• Every story you do is like a job interview.

• For future sports writers (and journalists in general), Bob said you should be getting experience now. Start a blog. Write for the school paper. Freelance. Get clips that prove you can actually do this.
• After graduating from college, he sent his clips to around 60 newspapers.
• You should develop as many multimedia skills as possible. Modern journalists need to multi-task.

What stood out for you?

Talking Sports With Bob Ford.

ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, Philadelphia Inquirer sports columnist Bob Ford (above) will visit class. He'll talk about just about anything - from his start in journalism to his stint covering the Sixers, from landing the sweet gig of opining about the day's sporting events to whether the Phillies should bring Jimmy Rollins back next year.

But since many of you are interested in becoming sports journalists, let's think proactively. What's the next step for sports journalists?

Well, some people say that game coverage is an unnecessary item in the daily newspaper since most people (who care) watched the game or checked online or on the evening news to get the scores. What do you think?

One of the big issues facing sports journalists today is the increased competition from journalists working within the professional sports leagues. Rather than using the traditional media outlets to reveal information, all of the major sports teams and leagues (MLB, NFL, etc) now have their own reporting staffs.

Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks recently wrote:

In the year 2011, I’m not sure I have a need for beat writers from ESPN.com, Yahoo, or any website for that matter to ever be in our locker room before or after a game. I think we have finally reached a point where not only can we communicate any and all factual information from our players and team directly to our fans and customers as effectively as any big sports website, but I think we have also reached a point where our interests are no longer aligned. I think those websites have become the equivalent of paparazzi rather than reporters.

(Read his whole post here ... it's a pretty fascinating perspective).

On top of all that, now we have athletes tweeting and facebooking everything directly to their fans.

What's the role of the sports journalist in this age of information overload? How should sportswriters make themselves stand out?

Does Good Video Make It Newsworthy?

THERE WAS A dramatic rescue of a motorcyclist trapped under a car as his bike went up in flames.

A local television station has raw video of the rescue (see here). The video has since run on newscasts around the world.

Is it a big story? Or is it simply dramatic video?

What newsworthiness criteria qualify this story as an international phenomena?

The Journalists Messed Up Journalism?

A WRITER AT the Daily Californian, the student paper at the University of California, Berkeley, says that the problems currently facing journalism are the responsibility of journalists.

"It’s our fault," he writes. "Our job was to report the news, and we did that. But we got complacent, and we stopped evolving, and soon the concept of a news article became far removed from what you, as a person, valued."

He argues that journalists have focused on drawing eyes to their outlets by running stories about puppies and celebrities, often at the cost of the "the important part of journalism."

He writes:

Journalism isn’t a business, and a news article isn’t a product. Sure, advertising is a business, and it has been so intertwined with newspapers over the last century that it’s hard to think of journalism without advertising. But journalism isn’t advertising.

Journalism also isn’t about putting out a newspaper every day or every week or every second, if that were possible. That’s just a means to an end.

What is that end? Transparency and accountability: the free-flow of information required to keep democracy alive. Journalism is about informing people so individuals can make active, smart decisions about the world they live in and improve society as a whole.

The commenters either cheer on the writer, or say that he is idealistic and naive.

What do you think?

Is it enough these days to go out there and do important, relevant journalism? Or do we need to be aware of what will attract an audience?

Should The Media Have Access to Police Scanners?

Police in Jacksonville, Florida have removed police scanners from local newsrooms.

The police department previously rented the scanners to the news outlets (radio, TV and newspapers) but now the police are refusing access. The story above is from July, when the threat of losing the scanners became known.

News outlets have relied upon scanners for years as a why of monitoring breaking activity in their regions. Some news outlets believe the police are trying to control the information that news outlets can obtain. The police say that they are collecting the equipment because of budgetary reasons.

Many of the news outlets are asking their readers and viewers to inform them when news breaks.

Should the news outlets have access to police and fire radio signals and reports? Should that information be public?

A Story About Beyonce As a National Distraction From Recent Troubles?

AFTER BEYONCE SHOWED off her belly at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, letting people know she's pregnant, people tweeted at a rate of 8,868 tweets per second, a record for the social media service.



The story above says that people needed Beyonce and her news in the wake of recent national issues - bad economy, earthquake, hurricanes, etc.



Is that true? Or were the news folks just looking for an excuse to talk about Beyonce, and try to draw those viewers in?



Is her pregnancy news?

BE AFRAID! THERE'S A HURRICANE COMING!

WAS THE HURRICANE coverage responsible?



Did your local newscasts in the Philadelphia region do a fine job of keeping people aware of the storm and potential dangers?



Or did they primarily build fear with their 36 hours of non-stop storm coverage (most of the local stations ran live, local news from early Saturday through Sunday afternoon).



And what about the video above? Is that news?

Should Journalists Bother With The Donald?

APPARENTLY, DONALD TRUMP was upset after getting skewered by Seth Meyers (and President Obama) at the White House correspondents dinner over the weekend.

“Seth Meyers has no talent,” Trump said Sunday, according to the New York Times. “He fell totally flat. In fact, I thought Seth’s delivery was so bad that he hurt himself.”

During Meyers' nearly 20 minute presentation, he mocked Trump repeatedly.

"Donald Trump has said he's running for president as a Republican," he said, "which is surprising because I thought he was running as a joke."

The president also mocked the reality TV star, casino mogul and potential presidential candidate. Obama referred to Trump firing Gary Busey from his reality show, opting not to send home Meatloaf instead.

"These are the types of decisions that would keep me up at night," Obama said. "Well handled, sir."

Trump, of course, has been the public face of the "birther" controversy, with some people alleging that Barack Obama was not born in the United States America. Obama revealed his long-form birth certificate last week and Trump took credit for the president's actions.

And rumors of Trump running for president have been swirling for weeks. The Donald has not said whether he will run or not.

Are the media being Charlie Sheen-ed, conned into giving coverage to Trump? Are they only supporting his TV show by constantly talking about him?

Should the media cut back their coverage of Trump until he actually says that he is or is not running for president? Or is this just too easy to have fun with?

"Interviewing the Data," with Sabrina Rubin Erdely, Alfred Lubrano & Dylan Purcell.

SOME JOURNALISTS ARE uncomfortable with numbers. Data and statistics can be difficult to comprehend, and they can be interpreted in many ways. But they can also be used as support for stories, making trends and observations credible in the eyes and ears of the audience.

"Numbers are authoritative," Inquirer staff writer Alfred Lubrano said yesterday in class during our discussion of Data & Journalism. "But you have to find a balance. People like to read about other people."

"What I don't want," said Dylan Purcell, the Inquirer's computer assisted reporter, "is a story that reads like the stocks pages."

Sabrina Rubin Erdely, a Rolling Stone contributing editor, added, "The goal is to put a human face on a phenomena, and to anchor the story in numbers."

Sometimes the numbers and the initial premise of stories do not line up. Sometimes, there is just not enough statistical evidence to support angles or ideas. And those stories usually wind up getting scrapped.

Rubin Erdely spoke of a story she recently considered - about crime decreasing in urban areas where murals were painted. While the idea sounded great, she could not find any reliable studies that proved the thesis.

Lubrano emphasized that he tries to verify all data that he finds, whether through other data or by speaking with the people who generated the numbers.

"At the root, we want solid statistical evidence," he said, "not journalistic hyperbole."

Purcell referred to it as "interviewing the data." The idea is to avoid "dirty data" that has been manipulated for a specific purpose, and to understand how the information was gathered. He referred to the Inquirer's recent package on school violence. The school district reported a 30 percent decrease in school violence over two years. But Purcell expanded the data over a five year period and found that the decrease was short term, and possibly exaggerated by the methods of reporting.

The Inquirer team, with Purcell pouring through the numbers, spent about one year gathering data, interviews and other information for the seven-part series that ran during a full week.

"I start out knowing nothing," Purcell said. "Then I have to become an expert and present that data to the world."

Prior to the panel discussion, some people were involved in a training seminar with the Metropolitan Philadelphia Indicators Project (below). MPIP is a gigantic database that allows you to set your own variables, build maps and study reports broken down by your own specific guidelines.What stood out to you during the discussion?

Using Data to Create Good Journalism.

ON TUESDAY, WE'LL have a few guests in class talking about using data, statistics and research to strengthen their journalistic work.

Sabrina Rubin Erdely is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and a writer-at-large for Philadelphia magazine. She has won numerous awards for her work, much of which is centered around investigative journalism. (Click on the links above to find some of her stories).

Alfred Lubrano is a Brooklyn native and Columbia University graduate who has been a staff writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer since 1995. Lubrano, who wrote a book about blue-collar folks with middle-class goals, frequently covers social justice issues in the region.

Dylan Purcell, a Temple University graduate, is a computer assisted reporter at the Inquirer. He deciphers the numbers, finds stories and develops creative ways to tell stories. Most recently, he collaborated on a seven-part series on school violence in Philadelphia.

The speaker's panel is actually the second half of a two-part event. Earlier in the morning, journalists will be meeting with the folks who run the Metropolitan Philadelphia Indicators Project (MPIP), here at Temple.

MPIP is an enormous database of information concerning the region. There is also a mapping system attached to the site that allows users to isolate geographic areas and find numbers based upon their specific criteria.

As always, come prepared with questions. There will be numerous professional journalists sitting amongst you, so be awake and polite, wear nice clothes, bring resumes and stick around after the discussion to say hello to these good folks.

Consumer Reporter Nydia Han: "If You Plan to go Into TV News, You're Going to Work Hard."

NYDIA HAN WANTED to be a magazine writer. But after interning at a San Francisco television station while she was in college, she became hooked on TV news.

"I loved the immediacy of it," she said during her visit to class yesterday. "I really saw the power of TV news, and the ways it can contribute to the world."

Her path to becoming an anchor and consumer reporter for 6ABC's Action News, one of the most popular local newscasts in the country, was not easy. The southern California-native had/ has hints of the Valley girl accent of her youth. One potential employer told her that she had too many wrinkles on her face - when she was in her low 20s. One of her college journalism professors actually suggested she stick to print.

But she persisted. Despite the boatloads of rejection.

She landed a job in Pocatello, Idaho. She was a one-man band there - shooting her own video, performing interviews, editing the packages and doing live shots by herself. It was tough work but working at a smaller market station taught her numerous skills and career lessons.

"At a small market station, you can make mistakes and not get fired," Han said.

She moved on to Oklahoma City where she became a tornado-chasing news and crime reporter. She also started doing consumer affairs stories there, and that led to her next gig as a consumer reporter in Houston. She came to Philadelphia in 2002.

She finds consumer stories to be tremendously rewarding.

"You can genuinely help people," she said.

Here are a few other things she said that stood out to me:

• She said, "Don’t get into journalism if you’re just looking for a glamorous, high-paying job.”
• It can take a long time to get to the point as a journalist when you earn a high salary. At her first job, she earned $14,000 annually. She bought her clothes at Walmart.
• Crime is not her favorite thing to cover but some reporters love it. There is an adrenaline rush when covering breaking stories. And the viewers care, she said.
• In news, you might work a story all day and then right before the newscast, something else will break. You'll have to jump to the breaking story. The previous work may never be seen. It happens.
• "At the end of the day, TV news is a business, too," Han said. "We want to do good community journalism but we have to win our time slot."

• Every day, she makes phone calls to potential sources, she performs research, logs tapes, writes stories and sets up interviews. Plus, she acts as a weekend anchor and weekday fill-in anchor.
• She gets ideas for stories from emails, phone calls and on facebook.
• Her goal is to find stories that will have the greatest impact.
• Most of her stories run about 90 seconds. Some run for around 2:30. And she often begs to get an additional 10 or 20 seconds.

• She suggests you do multiple internships. And do one at a smaller market where you'll get to try numerous tasks and really be of use (you might even get on air).
• "Start looking for internships as soon as you can," Han said.
• During your internships, befriend a few reporters. Learn from them and after the internship, keep in touch with them.
• Take the initiative. Do stuff. Offer to help. Get involved!

• The future is online, she said.
• "If you plan to go into TV news, you're going to work hard," she said.

(by the way ... here is a link to her facebook page).

Move Closer to Your World, My Friend.

ON TUESDAY, NYDIA HAN, a reporter and anchor at 6ABC, will visit the class.

Han has been at 6ABC (a.k.a. Action News) since 2002. She has covered a wide variety of stories in the region and around the country. She currently serves as a weekend anchor and consumer affairs/ investigative reporter. You can find some of her recent work here.

She is a Southern California native who speaks Korean fluently. She graduated from the prestigious Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

We'll open the floor for your questions, so think about what kind of information you can draw from her. Wonder what her daily life at work is like? What is it like being a female journalist, or an Asian-American journalist? How does she decide what subjects to cover in her consumer affairs segments? What are the secrets behind newscasts that the audience doesn't know?

FYI: Action News has been the most watched newscast in the Greater Philadelphia region for decades. And there are numerous Temple grads at the station, including several reporters (David Henry, Cathy Gandolfo, Jeff Skversky, etc), producers and the station president, Bernie Prazenica.

Why Journalists Must Remain Independent.

A LA SALLE UNIVERSITY professor held a symposium that involved strippers.

The student newspaper found out about the stripper event (which involved students paying $150 for an ethics seminar). But the university told the student journalists that they could not publish any information until a full investigation was performed by the university.

Should the students have run the news story anyway? Can the university censor the newspaper?

The faculty advisor told the Inquirer, "This is a private university. La Salle publishes the paper and is responsible for its contents. There was never resistance to the idea of doing the story, only to publishing it prematurely."

Unlike the Temple News, the La Salle student newspaper is not an independent operation. It is an organization owned and operated by the university.

City Paper ran the story. Since the story was then public, the La Salle students wanted to run the story. University officials were still reluctant.

The university finally gave in but set up parameters: the story could not run above the fold, which would place the story in the windows of honor boxes, creating a perceived importance.

The La Salle students protested by leaving the top half of the newspaper blank and running the paper as in the image above.

What would you have done?

(the image above comes from the Inquirer)

Should the Bloggers Get Some Cash?

THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY of the Huffington Post, bloggers have worked for free.

In February, HuffPo was purchased by AOL for $315 million. The site's founder, Arianna Huffington (above), retains her position and she pockets the cash.

This week, a former blogger filed a class action lawsuit against the Huffington Post and AOL.

“In my view, the Huffington Post’s bloggers have essentially been turned into modern-day slaves on Arianna Huffington’s plantation,” said Jonathan Tasini, the former blogger. “She wants to pocket the tens of millions of dollars she reaped from the hard work of those bloggers."

The HuffPo lawyers said:

"Our bloggers use our platform — as well as other unpaid group blogs across the web — to connect and help their work be seen by as many people as possible. It’s the same reason people go on TV shows: to promote their views and ideas."

Should the bloggers be compensated?

Or did they accept the agreed upon payment - an audience?

University Newspapers Are Still Popular?

DO YOU READ the school newspaper?

According to a Washington Post story, student newspapers are still popular - 85 percent of students surveyed read the print edition of their campus paper in the past month and 72 percent had read the paper online.

The reasons why they read the papers: they are free, they are portable and they speak to the very specific community.

Why do you read (or not read) the Temple News?

Who Wants To Be a News Anchor Anymore?

OVER THE LAST few weeks, several notable network news anchors have announced that they will be stepping down in the near future. Among the big names: Katie Couric, Glenn Beck and Meredith Viera.

What's going on? The network anchor position used to be the ultimate destination for broadcast journalists. Is this a sign that network journalism is no longer relevant?

“The prestige has diminished, the money has diminished and the audience has diminished,” Mark Feldstein, a professor of broadcast journalism at George Washington University, told the online entertainment site The Wrap.

Feldstein says that the big name journalists can actually succeed without the network support - the journalists are their own brands now.

Do we need network journalism anymore?

Do you aspire to work at the network level? Why?

Gotcha Journalism?

NBC NEWS WITH Brian Williams was nearly tricked by an Army press release stating that the new standard-issue headgear for soldiers would be a Stetson cowboy hat.

NBC ran a story despite it being an April Fool's joke.

Is it newsworthy?

Would You Put Tiger on the Cover?

TIGER WOODS WAS featured on the April cover of Golf Digest. Is there anything wrong with that?

In 2009, Woods was found to have had affairs with around a dozen women while married to his wife. The father of two young children took five months away from golf to seek treatment for his sexual addictions. Many of Woods' sponsors pulled their endorsement deals with him because of what he seemed to represent.

Should magazines avoid him on the cover because of his adulterous past?

"Tiger Woods is an extraordinary golfer, and the mastery of golf is what our magazine is all about," the editor of Golf Digest wrote after receiving angry letters from subscribers. "He is finally a man who has confessed his mistakes--publicly--and vowed to turn things around--in particular to be a conscientious father."

Does Woods deserve a second chance?

Is the magazine pulling a PR stunt - putting a controversial figure on the cover in hopes of getting attention and selling more mags?

Principle of Journalism: Keep Mickey Mouse Happy?

THERE'S A NEW SHOW launching on ABC this week and it sort of takes place in Philadelphia.

While Body of Proof is filmed in Rhode Island, it is a Philadelphia tale. They show Philly skyline shots and scene-setters but the location filming is actually done in Providence.

6ABC did a full news story on the new program, even sending a reporter to Providence to interview the show's stars.

Is it a news story that Philadelphia is sort of the setting for a new show? Or is this just promotion for their parent company, Disney?

The Royals: "The Longest Running Soap Opera in Britain."

ROS COWARD BECAME fascinated with Princess Diana not just because Diana was royalty, but because of what she represented.

Diana Spencer married Prince Charles and entered the media spotlight during an era fueled by a new brand of celebrity-obsessed journalism encouraged by Rupert Murdoch's The Sun.

"Murdoch changed British journalism," said Coward, a journalist, educator and author. "He created a less deferential attitude."

The down-market rag had paparazzi tailing Diana (not so much Charles) everywhere and salacious stories about her life filled the newspapers.

"It was a time of a new journalism and she was a new woman - young, fashionable, sensational," Coward said.

The stories about Diana seemed to follow soap opera plot lines with themes of familial relations, sexual relations, body image comfort, women in the workplace, etc. She lived under constant press scrutiny as Diana coverage garnered higher circulation. She was dubbed "The Princess of Sales."

Coward said that many female journalists, including herself, sympathized with Diana, recognizing themselves in the young princess. When Diana died in a car crash in 1997, Coward cried as she wrote her column.

The press turned against the Royal family after Diana's death, Coward said. The Royals appeared cold in the face of death. At the same time, all coverage of the Royals was good for sales. So coverage continued.

With the upcoming nuptials between Prince William and Kate Middleton, the British media (and some American media) are going crazy again.

The British press tend to focus on feature stories, Coward said, so the Royals are more than simply tabloid fodder. Speculation about the family, the wedding, their children, etc are all common topics in even the most respectable of British newspapers.

She said that the BBC sets the standards for all journalists, especially broadcasters, but even the BBC is rather obsessed with the wedding.

What did you think of Ros Coward and her analysis of the British media's coverage of the Royal family?

Thursday: British Journalist and Educator Ros Coward.

BRITISH JOURNALIST AND EDUCATOR Ros Coward will visit the class on Thursday and discuss media coverage of the British Royal Family, a very timely subject given the pending wedding of Kate Middleton to Prince William, the future king of England.

Coward has worked in television, reported for newspapers, written for magazines and she has authored several non-fiction books, including Diana, The Authorized Portrait.

Her specialties include coverage of the royals, confessional journalism, environmental issues and the state of modern feminism.

She documented her efforts caring for her mother, who suffered from dementia. She wrote an academic article about the rising popularity of autobiographical journalism. And she serves on the board of directors for Greenpeace UK.

She is a faculty member at Roehampton University but she is currently a visiting faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania this semester.

She'll lecture about coverage of the royals and then we'll open the floor for questions. Think about what information you can draw from her:

• How is the British media different from the American media?
• Are the royals newsworthy?
• Is the constant presence of the journalist in news stories good, or is it a distraction from the actual news?
• Can a journalist also be an activist?

Click on the links throughout this post. Learn about her. Come ready to ask questions.

Are the Royals Newsworthy?

ARE YOU EXCITED for the royal wedding between the UK's Prince William and Kate Middleton?

BBC America is planning 184 hours of related programming prior to the actual wedding. TLC has 89 hours of content ready to air. All of the US network news operations are planning to send their crews to to London and run special programming, in addition to the non-stop, live coverage of the nuptials.

An estimated two billion people are expected to watch some or all of the actual wedding and reception (the rumor is that the reception will have disco and 80s music).

CNN will have 50 journalists and staff on scene for the wedding day on April 29. CNN currently has 50 people covering the tsunami/ earthquake/ nuclear meltdown in Japan.

Is the royal wedding that big of a story?

(FYI: On Thursday, Ros Coward, a British journalist and educator will speak to the class about coverage of the Royals in the British press).

Should Journalists Root for the Home Team? Part II: The Sports Edition.

ESPN COLLEGE FOOTBALL analyst Kirk Herbstreit, a native Ohioan who was a star quarterback at Ohio State University, moved out of the state recently because he felt loads of negativity from fans.

Apparently, they chastised him whenever he said anything verging on critical of Ohio State University football.

"Nobody loves Ohio State more than me," Herbstreit told the Columbus Dispatch. "But I've got a job to do, and I'm going to continue to be fair and objective. To continue to have to defend myself and my family in regards to my love and devotion to Ohio State is unfair."

Is it wrong for fans to expect their hometown heroes to root for the hometown teams, even if they are journalists?

Should objectivity exist in sports? It's not like football is the war on terror or the state budget. Shouldn't sideline reporters just own up to their team preferences?

(related story: Should ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews have accepted a high-paying endorsement deal from Reebok, provider of equipment for many of the teams she covers?)

Should Journalists Root for the Home Team?

A FEW WEEKS AGO, Inquirer editorial page editor (and TU adjunct) Paul Davies wrote a column about the opening of the massive expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

"Would you invest $786 million in a business that lost millions every year, charged more than most of its competitors, and left many customers angry and unwilling to return?" Davies asked. "Well, you just did."

He wrote that the center is full of cronyism, inside politics and union mismanagement and it is hurting the city and state (since the money to build and expand the place came from public funds).

Today, the chairman of the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau has a letter to the editor in the Inquirer:

"Unfortunately, as a result of that column, a major convention customer whose business is worth $54 million in spending for the city is now questioning our ability as a convention destination," Nick DeBenedictis wrote.

He argued that the negativism of the Inquirer and Davies will cost the center (and therefore city and state) millions of dollars.

He concluded by writing, "We should all be rooting for the home team, and encouraging customers to choose Philadelphia."

Was Davies wrong to be critical of the Convention Center expansion? Should he have championed the larger facility?

Can a journalist be a watchdog for the public and a civic booster at the same time?

(the image above is from the Flower Show at the Convention Center)

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