Is Black Friday A News Event?

Across the country last week, print, online and broadcast journalists documented the Black Friday shopping phenomenon as though it was a presidential election.

Some outlets revealed where the best deals could be found and when. Other outlets harkened back to previous years when Black Friday shoppers became unruly and sometimes even violent.

Is Black Friday a news event? Are the journalists providing a service to their audiences or are they just promoting retailers, many of whom are their advertisers?

Denise James: "The Words Provide Context to What You See."

Denise James testified before city council when she was a teenager growing up in Detroit. The area newscasts covered the event and she wound up on air.

"They didn't get me," she remembered as she spoke to class on Tuesday.

She felt the newscast misrepresented her sentiment. And that sparked an idea in her mind.

"I could do that and I could be a more clear megaphone for people," she said. "I could assist people and get their voices out there more accurately."

She went to Michigan State University and then landed a job at WGPR, the first wholly African American-owned television station in the United States. It was a small station but a huge television market, so Denise reported alongside seasoned veterans, and she learned from them.

She spent a few years as a broadcast journalist at stations in North Carolina and then came to 6ABC, where she was a reporter for more than 23 years. She has since left the station and now she runs her own media company.

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

• In broadcast journalism, a pen and notepad are almost as important as the camera, she said. "It's still about the writing," Denise said. "Content is king."
• Broadcast journalists write to sound and video. "It's my job to not get in the way of the marvelous images," she said. "I'm just a boat to deliver the messages. The words provide context to what you see."
• The reporter's job is to make the audience relate to the story, to help create that universal experience.
• It's important to be curious. You need to go beyond your personal interests.

• When you are writing, you need to pay critical attention to your presentation. Use active verbs. Vary the sentence length. And be aware of tense - most TV news is in the present or future tense.

• Journalists must remain ethical. Always. "The perception of impropriety can be worse than the impropriety itself," she said.

• Be careful what you put online. "If you don't brand yourself, someone else will," Denise warned.

• Talent is absolutely necessary but you also need something that will make you stand out when applying for jobs. Get involved with student groups, the school newspaper and TV station, and do internships.
• Start networking now, Denise implored. Even your classmates might help you get your foot in the door in the future. "Who you know might let you know if a door is opening," she said.

Stay Inside During Storms. Unless You Are a Journalist.

This ia a montage of reporters covering Hurricane Sandy from a CNN story.

I present it to you without comment. But I'm interested in your thoughts.

(FYI ... the video originally posted here was removed from YouTube. This one is quite similar.)

Anderson Cooper: In Order to Be a Success, You Need to Outwork Everyone Else.


After Anderson Cooper graduated from Yale University, he had difficulty finding a job in broadcast journalism. So he gathered some video equipment and shuttled off to war zones – Burma, Bosnia and Somalia, among other places, and packaged his own news.

Eventually, he began selling his stories. Then ABC News hired him.

Now, Cooper, who visited Temple University yesterday to receive the Lew Klein Excellence in the Media Award, reports for 60 Minutes, he hosts a daily talk show on CBS and he anchors a show on CNN. He works around 14 to 16 hours per day.

“I don’t do much else,” he said, though he added that the long days don’t bother him. “It doesn’t feel like work to me.”

His style of journalism has generated a mass following, largely because he reports on ideas and events in a factual manner and then adds his own critical eye. He’s received criticism for his brand of journalism, like the time he saved the life of a child who had been pelted by bricks after a devastating earthquake in Haiti.

“This kid is 10-years old and he has a severe head wound,” Cooper recalled, explaining how he scooped up the child and carried him to safety. “Some people attacked me for being too involved. But this was not altering the event. It was helping a kid.”

It’s important not to alter a situation, he said, or to even create a stir because the cameras are rolling. When people start acting for the camera, he shuts it down, as what he strives for is authenticity. Which is why he lets the news impact him on a personal level.

“I don’t think you should go home and brush it (the job) off,” he said. “Seeing everything and thinking about it makes your reporting all the more real.”

Even after 20 years in journalism, after witnessing devastation after devastation, he tries not to be hardened by what he sees and experiences.

“You can get lost in the horror and hate,” he admitted. “But then you miss the kindness and compassion.”


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

• “It’s an extraordinary feeling to run to something that everyone else is running away from,” he said.

• “Accuracy in reporting is more important than ever before,” Cooper said.

• His mother told him to follow his bliss. So he did. He took a chance by travelling overseas to war zones to report.

• He got his first job by being there, and by being aggressive.

• In order to be a success, you need to outwork everyone else, Cooper said.

“That’s why I don’t take vacation now,” he said. “Because I know there are a lot of people waiting to take my job.”

 • He came out as being gay when he was in high school, and he said that he has long been open about his sexuality. He just always thought it was a personal issue, one that didn’t need to be discussed on the global stage of his television shows.

“When you’re reporting,” he said, “you don’t want to be the story.”

Plus, in many of the places he reported, being gay was not socially acceptable.

Having his personal life splashed around the world could have endangered his life.





Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)