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.

The President vs. The Reporter?

I DON'T WANT to lead you in either direction so I'll just ask the question: who is the jerk here?

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).