Interviews and OMG, what's my lede?

This is one in an occasional series of thoughts I'll write about the JFresh.


I just had a great conversation with a JFresh4 who was telling me about their interview... s/he knew all about their interviewee's family... but I asked, "And so?"

Hmmm.  You see, this isn't only about the family as much as it is about the person sitting in class with you... the subject of your interview... the interviewee.

I asked what else had been asked - but s/he thought for a moment and acknowledged, well, "It was all fairly "safe" stuff."

And I asked, "What's your lede then about your interviewee?" 

There was a pause. 

Hmmm. 

You see this little assignment isn't so much about the safe things... rather you should probe, attack, strategically think to yourself what it is that you want to know that's different, provocative, unexpected... what's this person think or what might be hiding under the surface?

You're a bit of a detective and archaeologist.  And most of all - from what you learn you will become a story teller.

Find out and then tell us something about they way this person thinks or ticks, or gives them pleasure, or frightens them, or makes the hair on the back of their neck go stiff when they're happy or excited?  Why do they think/act this way?  What do they know that makes them the interesting/attractive/dynamic/ordinary/cute/appealing/intriguing person they are?

If, after the interview, you don't see a clear lede, go back, look at your notes and ask yourself if you did a good enough job?


Here's a question, maybe more of a riddle.

After the interview(s) you've conducted if you're having difficulty determining a good, strong, compelling lede imagine what is the next worst thing to happen?

Answer: It is imagining what you'll write as the first sentence of the next paragraph!!

And we've all been there... so don't despair.  Be compelling. Be strong.  Be a story teller.

Word play

Happy weekend campers.

This post has nothing to do with anything except to indulge my own amusement on the endless subject of wordplay.

I think this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0HfwkArpvU is fantastic... if you havent watched it (only a few minutes) you ought to right now!
It was made by talented folk at NPR and their avant garde partners Radiolab.  Watch it twice to dissect how brilliantly it was created.

Then for your Sunday amusement... I am sharing this list of words taken from Shakespearean drama... there is a caveat!  You may not practice using this list on any telephone call to your parents or in description of either Sally Ann or me.

To create a Shakespearean insult... (grab a dictionary!)
Combine one word from each of the three columns below,
prefaced with "Thou":

        Column 1            Column 2                Column 3

        artless             base-court              apple-john
        bawdy               bat-fowling             baggage
        beslubbering        beef-witted             barnacle
        bootless            beetle-headed           bladder
        churlish            boil-brained            boar-pig
        cockered            clapper-clawed          bugbear
        clouted             clay-brained            bum-bailey
        craven              common-kissing          canker-blossom
        currish             crook-pated             clack-dish
        dankish             dismal-dreaming         clotpole
        dissembling         dizzy-eyed              coxcomb
        droning             doghearted              codpiece
        errant              dread-bolted            death-token
        fawning             earth-vexing            dewberry
        fobbing             elf-skinned             flap-dragon
        froward             fat-kidneyed            flax-wench
        frothy              fen-sucked              flirt-gill
        gleeking            flap-mouthed            foot-licker
        goatish             fly-bitten              fustilarian
        gorbellied          folly-fallen            giglet
        impertinent         fool-born               gudgeon
        infectious          full-gorged             haggard
        jarring             guts-griping            harpy
        loggerheaded        half-faced              hedge-pig
        lumpish             hasty-witted            horn-beast
        mammering           hedge-born              hugger-mugger
        mangled             hell-hated              joithead
        mewling             idle-headed             lewdster
        paunchy             ill-breeding            lout
        pribbling           ill-nurtured            maggot-pie
        puking              knotty-pated            malt-worm
        puny                milk-livered            mammet
        qualling            motley-minded           measle
        rank                onion-eyed              minnow
        reeky               plume-plucked           miscreant
        roguish             pottle-deep             moldwarp
        ruttish             pox-marked              mumble-news
        saucy               reeling-ripe            nut-hook
        spleeny             rough-hewn              pigeon-egg
        spongy              rude-growing            pignut
        surly               rump-fed                puttock
        tottering           shard-borne             pumpion
        unmuzzled           sheep-biting            ratsbane
        vain                spur-galled             scut
        venomed             swag-bellied            skainsmate
        villainous          tardy-gaited            strumpet
        warped              tickle-brained          varlot
        wayward             toad-spotted            vassal
        weedy               unchin-snouted          whey-face
        yeasty              weather-bitten          wagtail

Have a great Sunday everyone.

Peter

60 Minutes rape - Katie Couric reports

Take a look at this link about The case of Beckett Brennan at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/04/17/60minutes/main20054339.shtml?tag=mncol;lst;1 and share your thoughts - how did she handle the interviews?  What would you have done differently?  Did she go too far or not far enough?  Did she handle the material sensitively?

JFresh App- Meg Omecene

The JFreshman Newsroom should be an interactive, real-time, unbiased news program. 

My local news station simply has an anchor reading the headlines, the meteorologist read the weather, and the sports broadcaster read the scores, an anchor read the traffic, and then a broadcaster reads a fluff piece. 

That one-sided lecture is what needs to change about news. Our JFreshman Newsroom should be a live broadcast linked to the Ohio website. People can tweet in questions for guests with a specific hashtag. For example, if the anchor is interviewing a football player, someone could tweet in his or her questions via #JFreshfootball. By making news interactive, students will be more apt to watch the program since the viewer feels that he or she has control over what is being conveyed.
Similarly, through the use of the twitter feed, it is easier to establish which stories viewers care about most. That way, if, for example, the sports stories are not receiving much feedback, they can be eliminated for a news segment. 
After the broadcast is completed, stories will be archived with a comments section in which viewers can leave feedback.

Through social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare, it is easy to track the subjects which Ohio University students find most relevant. Therefore, the six most-posted about subjects from around the Athens area will each get its own four and a half minute segments, giving ample time for the story to be developed. Currently, the quick mentions and headlines that many stories are given create misconceptions. My generation likes to be informed, and informed quickly. We will not waste time with just headlines; we want to be able to know enough about a subject to form an opinion about something and speak intelligently about it. In a forty-word summary of the story, the ability to think critically about current events is lost.
A challenge that must be overcome in the JFreshman Newsroom is media bias. Something that irks my peers and me is when we can spot bias in our news outlets. Therefore, if a political story is being covered, the segment should allow for two political bases to work together to create a broadcast without bias. 

I was deeply involved in journalism in high school. I was on the staff of my school’s newspaper for two years and was the editor for two years. As editor, I became skilled at using Microsoft Publisher for the layout of the paper. As a senior, I worked at Pittsburgh’s NPR station, WYEP/ Essential Public Radio. There, I became skilled at interviewing in real-world situations. After gathering audio clips, I formatted stories using Adobe Audition. I am also skilled in Photoshop and have had some experience using Final Cut. 

Thank you very much for your time and consideration with my application.

Arab Spring

Interesting tidbit about The Arab Spring from an E.W. Scripps School Alum, Lindsey Burrows.

http://design.org/blog/path-protest-interactive-timeline-arab-spring

To interact with the timeline discussed in blog...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/mar/22/middle-east-protest-interactive-timeline

Katy Andersen's JFresh Application :)

Katelyn (“Katy”) Andersen
Journalism 1010
University of You!

            News shows nowadays are incredibly boring, usually featuring one or more anchors reading a teleprompter, reciting the days’ events.  College-age students generally do not watch the evening news shows in that their interests and concerns are not addressed and their questions are not being answered.  In order to produce a top-rated news show for college-age students, it should be interactive, exciting, and engaging, leaving students wanting more.

            Imagine a weekly, one-hour interactive news show, dedicated to college students called University of You (#UofYou), and produced live on a different college campus every week.  College students would write in via social media to state why the newscast should be brought to their school.   The live newscast would include approximately 2 or more college-age anchors interacting with a live audience, as well as a staff of roving reporters all over campus recording events and gathering comments and feedback from the students.  In the live show, the anchors would introduce each segment of the news, followed by short pre-recorded stories and interviews in regards to world events, politics, environmental issues, business, health, travel, and more as they relate to the college-age adults.  In addition, during the week, anchors/producers and their support teams would gather information for the show, including but not limited to current events on campus, local celebrities, events throughout the community, students that make a difference, celebrating the successes of students, fashion trends on campus, music, art, theater, what sets this campus apart from others, and more.   Meanwhile, an edited live feed from Twitter, Google trends and/or other social media would be streaming on the bottom of the television screen.  The anchors would highlight and respond to comments from social media in addition to interacting with the audience and reporters.  Since college students get much of their news from the internet and social media such as Google and Twitter, trends for the week would influence choices for stories of the week.  I think this would be an awesome show on MTV or a channel targeted to teenagers and young adults.  There is no other show like it!

            In order to keep the college students informed, feeling connected and wanting more, the show should have a continuously updated web domain, Facebook page, Twitter account (#UofYou), and YouTube account.  In addition, there should be ongoing fun contests and giveaways for viewers and fans.  I would like to see a U of You Traveling Mascot (like a gnome) that is sent a week in advance to the campus that the crew would be filming at next.  On the U of You website, there would be clues as to where the mascot is hidden on the campus.  Whoever finds the mascot must hold on to it and present it at the live show to win a big prize (for example: a trip for two, tickets to a concert or a championship game, etc.)

            During high school, I was fortunate enough to be a part of CAVS News, a weekly news program, produced by the Broadcasting students at Chillicothe High School in Ohio.  Chillicothe High School boasts a professional fully-equipped broadcasting studio that broadcasts a weekly news program on the local cable network to Ross County residents.  I have four years’ experience writing scripts, developing shows, interviewing people (including local celebrities, professionals, and state and local politicians), filming shows and b-roll with professional cameras (Panasonic), anchoring shows, editing on Final Cut Pro, along with directing and producing.  I love the creativity involved in writing, producing and anchoring a show, participating in the heart of what’s happening now, and talking with people from all walks of life.  I am excited about this project and I appreciate your consideration

JFreshman Newsroom Application - Jeff Kassouf

            Today’s television news format is a broken mess, dominated by companies that are too large and cold to their viewers. When someone watches the news, one is force-fed information with little to no choice in what one is told. America has a fast-food restaurant of information, filled with filler and everything else a Big Mac encompasses. The dinosaur of network news doesn’t fit this century; the average person now has far easier access to information than ever before with the advent of new and more widespread technology such as the Internet and computers. This creates a highly selective population that knows precisely what it’s looking for-- a population that increasingly is the primary market for news and information.

            An industry must adapt to its consumers, or else it’s threatened by total extinction. For a new market that uses social media, search engines, and tags on Twitter and Tumblr, the old method of force-feeding the greasy, fattening Whopper of network news is simply not viable. Any teenager will tell you the same thing about network news: it’s pompous, outdated, boring and full of irrelevant and stupid “stories.” Rather than using the old, the market must look towards what is popular in order to survive.

            First, the standard news anchor would have to go; no more pompadours and silken ties, no more teleprompters and on-air scripts. The news anchor of the future must be real, relatable and down to Earth and must dress and be the kind of person that young people wish to see. They should ideally come up with most of their material impromptu (much like a “vlogger” on YouTube would) and use a list of citations and source material for references; small cues instead of whole sentences could also be used.

            It is imperative that the news anchor seem real, natural and young-- not forced, old and outdated. Their videos should all be either streaming live content from online or downloadable with a minor fee of a dollar or two; ad revenue would be shown in the video. Paid subscribers to the new news network would be exempt from the fees and advertisements.

            Second, the “news team” would encompass not a lead anchor and a few minor characters; rather, each reporter and news vlogger would be part of a larger network of news distribution. There would be no single man or woman saying “Good night and good luck…” at the end of every broadcast; instead, the team would tag their videos based on the information presented in the video and greet their viewer likewise. Popular reporters would be able to be “followed” in a very similar way that one can follow a blog on Tumblr or a Twitter account. A reporter would also “Tweet” news or whatever they wished to say from their reporters’ profile; the news would not solely be visual, video news, anymore. After finishing a video, a list of suggestions for related videos would appear, rated on significance; it would contain a thumbnail of the video in a central circle, with connections to other circles radiating out.

            The videos would be largely vlogger made and would contain whatever content the viewer was searching for. One could follow a comedy news show (The Daily Show), a serious program (NPR), or celebrity gossip (E!News). It would be entirely user determinant and up to the viewer. This is how network news can slim down and become the healthy salad that viewers are looking for and not the grimy hamburger they’re given.

JFresh App

Everyone gets his or her news differently with one common thread being the news itself. In order to get ratings, you must bring something to the table as a newscast. The show must set itself apart from others either with the material it presents or the newscasters themselves. The program I would produce for my friends and I would cover national as well as local news along with entertainment pieces. It would broadcast in the morning and at night what with the show being an hour in the morning and a half hour at night.

Whether it is online, a phone application, hard copy or the television, news is accessed everyday. In the modern, 160 character twitter obsessed world, journalists are having to learn how to “teach to the text message” or rather learn how to express a long article or news story in a condensed, yet interesting manner. As a producer, I would recognize that as the future of news and include that idea in all aspects of the newscast. An advertising team would be needed to cover all social media outlets. Through social media, our newscast would be very interactive with our fans. For example, offer free merchandise advertising the newscast for the first person to respond through social media.

The stories would be loosely traditional with a reporter delivering the news. The audience invites the newscasters into their home everyday and trusts them to deliver their information in a captivating yet informative matter. The audience must be able to see the reporter as their friend and to remain exciting, they would need to connect with the audience through public appearances, keeping a neutral stance on topics and running their own social media program.

The opinion that all news is bad news may be true but who doesn’t love a good heart-wrenching story? The influence for choosing stories would be balancing the happy stories with the sad as to leave the audience with a mixture of feelings, keeping them thinking but pleased with the program. My newscast would be composed of mostly shorter stories as to better fit the public’s attention span. An important aspect of the show would be to include the reporters going the extra mile. There would only be one reporter “behind the desk” that addressed the public in a friendly but formal matter. This reporter must become an icon and a household name. However, the other reporters would need to go out into the world and experience it before the audience does. It would involve mostly “lighter” or entertainment pieces because that is what I would want to see when turning on the television or watching online.

Throughout history, the general public has found it hard to see famous people including celebrities or reporters as “real people.” A good way to connect the public to our reporters would be to show them in a familiarizing light. For example, the newscast would air a weekly cooking show or a “day in the life of” segment starring the reporters themselves. During the summer, a rollercoaster review series would be a fun way to keep the audience entertained and fit the festive season. The series would consist of a travel journalist (preferably a familiar face) riding the rollercoasters and then reviewing the ride. For each season alike, the newscast would produce a series. Furthermore, people are more likely to watch a story if it involves something risky or shocking. Every night, the team would air a health story about a new virus or “what your grocery store is serving you.” This would be a good way to reach people of all ages. As for local news, we would cover local sports, crime around the town and gas station prices because in this day and age, who doesn’t love discussing gas prices?

The problem with present newscasts is what they do not cover. No matter how much one’s program tries to remain unbiased, a newscast almost always is. A goal that must be achieved to remain a ratings hit would be to deliver unbiased, unfiltered news to the world. For example, broadcasting to just a certain demographic would be only capturing half the audience you could have. If I were to produce a newscast, the final product would be as neutral as possible so as to appeal to all. A clear way to remain a respectful newscast would be to always make sure the sources are credible and the information accurate.

This newscast is basically traditional because I believe that when people turn on the news, tradition is what they expect to see. People do not want to be bombarded with “fluff.” The public just wants to hear their news in an entertaining format.

EXPERIENCE:

Spring 2012: Intern for The Sandusky Register – Assistant to the Web Editor

                                                                                               - Some experience with Final Cut Pro

Summer 2012: Intern for The O&P EDGE magazine (specializing in orthopedics and prosthetics) –Assistant to the Assistant Editor

What would you have done?

You must read the article below and then declare what you would have done if you had the ambassador's journal.
Vote "Yes" if you would have used its contents
Vote "No" if you would not have used its contents

Please vote in the comments section.  You may be called on in class to discuss your vote.

This first is coverage from Sunday's UK's The Telegraph... the second article includes CNN's defense

CNN 'disgusting' for using US ambassador's diary

US officials condemned CNN as "disgusting" after the television network secretly reported entries from a diary kept by the US ambassador to Libya and discovered after his death.

US Ambassador Christopher Stevens sits with the Libyan and US flags at his home in Tripoli in June 2012. Photo: Esam Al-Fetori/Reuters

By Jon Swaine, Washington

5:28PM BST 23 Sep 2012

CNN last week reported that Ambassador Christopher Stevens feared he was on an al-Qaeda "hit-list" before he was killed in an attack on the American consulate in Benghazi earlier this month.

They added that he was concerned about a "rise in Islamic extremism" in the city. Viewers were told that the information was obtained from a "source familiar with Ambassador Stevens's thinking".

This was in fact a journal of handwritten entries by Mr Stevens, which was found by a reporter on the floor of the compound where the diplomat was fatally wounded.

After being informed of the discovery, Mr Stevens's family repeatedly told CNN that they wanted to inspect the book before giving them permission for its contents to be reported.

However, after eventually agreeing to hand over the seven-page hard-back book through a third party, the network disclosed Mr Stevens's fears about al-Qaeda and security threats before the family's permission was granted.

It only informed viewers of the original source after being questioned by a media reporter for the Huffington Post, a news website, who had been tipped off about the journal's existence.
"Some of that information was found in a personal journal of Ambassador Stevens in his handwriting," Anderson Cooper told viewers on Friday. "We came upon the journal through our reporting and notified the family. At their request, we returned that journal to them. We reported what we found newsworthy in the ambassador's writings." The network was condemned as "disgusting" and "indefensible" for going against the family's wishes by Phillippe Reines, a senior aide to Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State.
He asked in a statement: "Whose first instinct is to remove from a crime scene the diary of a man killed along with three other Americans serving our country, read it, transcribe it, email it around your newsroom for others to read, and only when their curiosity is fully satisfied thinks to call the family or notify the authorities?"
A spokesman for the network said it had pursued details gleaned from the journal with its own reporting before broadcasting them. He accused the State Department of "attacking the messenger".
"CNN did not initially report on the existence of a journal out of respect for the family," the spokesman said. "But we felt there were issues raised in the journal which required full reporting, which we did."


And...

CNN's Use Of Christopher Stevens' Journal Is 'Disgusting': State Dept.

Posted: 09/22/2012 10:24 pm EDT Updated: 09/23/2012 11:57 am EDT

NEW YORK -- The State Department blasted CNN Saturday night for the network's handling of a personal journal belonging to late U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, which was removed from the site of the deadly Sept. 11 consulate attack.
State Dept. spokesman Philippe Reines said in a statement to The Huffington Post that "given the truth of how this was handled, CNN patting themselves on the back is disgusting."
The Huffington Post contacted CNN Friday afternoon after receiving a tip that it had removed Stevens' journal from the U.S. consulate in Benghazi following the attack that left Stevens and three others dead. CNN did not confirm that information, but later referred HuffPost to Anderson Cooper's on-air acknowledgment during his 8 p.m. Friday show that CNN found Stevens' journal and had used it in their reporting, a fact not previously disclosed.
Shortly after 1 a.m. Saturday, CNN.com posted an un-bylined story explaining that CNN had found the journal four days after the attack "on the floor of the largely unsecured consulate compound where [Stevens] was fatally wounded." The CNN.com story noted that the network notified Stevens' family "within hours after it was discovered," that the personal journal was only used for news "tips" later corroborated by other sources, and that it was then provided to a third party to return to his family. (The Wall Street Journal later revealed an Italian diplomat as the third party).
But the State Dept. has a much different view of what transpired, claiming the network "completely ignored the wishes of the family" in reporting on the contents of Stevens' journal before returning it to them. Reines wrote that CNN "ultimately broke their pledge made to them only hours after they witnessed the return to the United States of Chris's remains."
"Whose first instinct is to remove from a crime scene the diary of a man killed along with three other Americans serving our country, read it, transcribe it, email it around your newsroom for others to read, and only when their curiosity is fully satisfied thinks to call the family or notify the authorities?" Reines asked.
On Saturday night, CNN issued a second statement in its defense, arguing that the network "felt there were issues raised in the journal which required full reporting, which we did," and that "the public had a right to know what CNN had learned from multiple sources about the fears and warnings of a terror threat before the Benghazi attack which are now raising questions about why the State Department didn't do more to protect Ambassador Stevens and other US personnel."
"Perhaps the real question here is why is the State Department now attacking the messenger," read the CNN statement.
Reines, who considers CNN's handling of the journal to be "indefensible," wrote that it's "not a proud episode in CNN's history."
Reines' full statement is published below:

Given the truth of how this was handled, CNN patting themselves on the back is disgusting. What they're not owning up to is reading and transcribing Chris's diary well before bothering to tell the family or anyone else that they took it from the site of the attack. Or that when they finally did tell them, they completely ignored the wishes of the family, and ultimately broke their pledge made to them only hours after they witnessed the return to the United States of Chris's remains.
Whose first instinct is to remove from a crime scene the diary of a man killed along with three other Americans serving our country, read it, transcribe it, email it around your newsroom for others to read, and only when their curiosity is fully satisfied thinks to call the family or notify the authorities?
When a junior person at CNN called, they didn't say, 'Hello, I know this is a terrible time, but I'm sure you want your son's diary, where do you want it sent?' They instead took the opportunity to ask the family if CNN could report on its contents. Contents known only to Chris Stevens, and those at CNN who had already invaded his privacy.
When the seniormost levels of CNN were finally reached, they needed to be convinced to do the right thing. But not before they took a second shot at convincing the family to let them report on the contents. A family member made it crystal clear directly to CNN that they wanted Chris's diary and would not make any other decisions until then. But that wasn't fast enough for CNN, so they helpfully offered to send the family the transcript they'd already made and passed around, to put a rush on it for their own purposes.
It was then made clear to them, for what must have been the fourth time in the same call, that they wanted to look at it privately, together as a family before making any decisions. Period. CNN finally heard their request enough times that they had to accept it, agreed to abide by the clear wishes of the Stevens family, and pledged not to use the diary or even allude to its existence until hearing back from the family.
But the Stevens family was never given that chance. I guess four days was as long as CNN could control themselves, so they just went ahead and used it. Entirely because they felt like it. Anderson Cooper didn't even bother to offer any other explanation as to why the network broke its promise to the family. And only did so after being contacted by a reporter asking about the diary and their convoluted sourcing.
How do they justify that? They have yet to even try to defend the indefensible. Not a proud episode in CNN's history. I'm sure there are many good people in the CNN newsroom equally appalled by this decision and wondering who above them authorized this course of action.