Jeff Sonderman
Nov. 6, 2012
4:31 pm
CNN | Tampa Bay Times
On an election night, one thing you can always count on is CNN coming up with some new off-the-wall gimmick to jazz up its broadcast.
You may recall in 2008 it was
holograms, with correspondent Jessica Yellin and musical artist Will.i.am appearing virtually on the New York set.
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Jeff Sonderman
Oct. 11, 2012
1:47 pm
Pew Research Center
Presidential debate watching is still primarily a television event, but many Americans are also using digital devices simultaneously to get more information or reaction, according to a new Pew poll released Thursday.
The poll focused on which media Americans used during the first presidential debate. It finds 32 percent of people under 40 used digital devices while watching the debate and the same number followed public reaction live online.
A majority (51 percent) of people under 40 got at least some coverage online or through social media.
This phenomenon creates a huge demand for news organizations to provide live second-screen coverage. The Washington Post tells me its
Politics app for the iPad saw a 44 percent jump in visits the night of the first debate, and a 600 percent increase in usage of its Forum section that tracks political players on Twitter.
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Tracie Powell and Andrew Beaujon
Sep. 20, 2012
11:16 am
NABJ |
NPR
The National Association of Black Journalists' 2012 Diversity Census examines management of newsrooms across the country. It paints a grim picture: NABJ found that African Americans, Native Americans, Asians, Hispanics and other people of color are represented in mid-level ranks but not in the upper echelons of TV news management.
According to the 2010 United States Census, non-Whites comprise nearly 35% of the U.S. population but the study finds that people of color fill only 12% of the newsroom management positions at 295 stations owned by ABC, Allbritton, Belo, CBS, Cox, Fox, Gannett, Hearst, Journal, Lin Media, Media General, Meredith, NBC, Nexstar, Raycom, Sinclair, E.W. Scripps, Post-Newsweek and Tribune.
ASNE's annual census found that
journalists of color make up about 12 percent of print newsroom staffs.
However, the NABJ survey's methodology is extremely unusual:
Information for all 295 stations was gathered by examining Google, individual station websites, Facebook, NewsBlues, TVSpy.com and by talking with industry insiders familiar with the respective markets and stations. Some of the information was gathered by calling stations directly and some came during conversations with current or former employees of the respective stations.
"While we may have missed a few people, one cannot dispute the fact that the management diversity at most of these stations is far from the estimated 35% diversity of the nation’s population," the study, authored by NABJ Vice President/Broadcast Bob Butler, says.
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Jeff Sonderman
Sep. 11, 2012
12:09 pm
Today is, of course, the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It was the biggest news event of a generation, but particularly iconic for television news.
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- MSNBC re-airs the original Today Show coverage of 9/11.
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Jeff Sonderman
Aug. 15, 2012
3:10 pm
RTDNA
TV news stations may be hiring (
staffing was up 4.3 percent in 2011), but salaries rose only 2 percent, according to an RTDNA/Hofstra University
annual survey. "That thin margin of growth suggests that a lot of the hiring in 2011 took place among relatively young, less expensive staffers," the survey report says.
Over the past five years of the surveys, the biggest total salary increases have gone to art directors (67 percent), news writers (31 percent) and news directors (17 percent). Weathercasters and sports anchors each pulled raises over 12 percent since 2007, but news anchors less than 7 percent.
The worst five-year pay trends have been for online or mobile specialists, whose salaries rose, barely, 0.6 percent since 2007, and news assistants, whose salaries declined 3 percent.
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Al Tompkins
July 27, 2012
7:50 am
Kevin Torres is a multimedia journalist for KUSA-TV, the NBC station in Denver. Usually he shoots, writes and edits his own stories.
On Tuesday, the key interview in his story was shot by the ABC station in town. On Wednesday, … Read more
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Steve Myers
July 26, 2012
2:30 pm
KMGH-TV | ABC News | Denver Post
KMGH-TV, the ABC affiliate in Denver, has taken the unusual step of publishing a story to contradict an ABC News report about accused theater shooter James Holmes.
ABC News' Russell Goldman and Dan Harris reported, "Accused movie theater gunman James Holmes is spitting at jail officers so frequently that at one point he was made to wear a face guard, sources told ABC News."
KMGH's John Ferrugia reported in response, "According to knowledgeable sources, reports that Holmes was spitting at guards in jail are 'simply false.' "
The New York Daily News appears to have been the first to report
that Holmes had been spitting at guards, publishing a story on Saturday. KMGH reported on Monday, however,
that Holmes was "eerily detached" in jail and his behavior hadn't changed since he had been arrested.
ABC News published its story on Tuesday, which spurred KMGH to come back to the issue again on Wednesday. That story cited a Monday evening broadcast:
The story claiming Holmes was in a protective headgear was reported Tuesday night, despite a report by Ferrugia on Monday that, “contrary to what some media organizations have reported, our sources say in the past 48-hours Holmes has been calm and docile in jail, just like he was in court. There have been no outbursts at all as he is in isolation.”
ABC News
ended up apologizing on Friday after investigative reporter Brian Ross speculated on the air that the shooter may have connections to the tea party, based on the fact that someone with the same name had posted something to a tea party website. It was a different man.
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Al Tompkins
July 25, 2012
11:32 am
When was the last time you heard of a local TV newscast airing a 10-and-a-half-minute story? How about airing that story four times as viewers and online readers caught wind of it?
You have to understand that WJBK’s Charlie LeDuff … Read more
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Steve Myers
July 16, 2012
10:22 am
PEJ | The Washington Post | Storyful
In a new
study about how YouTube has become a major platform for viewing news, Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reports that "at any given moment news can outpace even the biggest entertainment videos," although non-news videos generally rack up more views over time. News events were the most-searched terms on YouTube four of 12 months. The biggest news-related videos
follow the classic viral traffic pattern, rocketing in popularity over a short time and dropping off quickly. Popular entertainment videos have more staying power.
The report describes a complex environment in which citizens and professional news organizations post and share videos alongside one another, without much adherence to the ethical standards that govern TV news.
PEJ Deputy Director Amy Mitchell
tells The Washington Post's Paul Farhi that researchers don't believe YouTube is a substitute for traditional TV news; instead they see it as an emerging way of getting news about the world.
Storyful CEO Mark Little's take, however,
is that YouTube has edged out traditional TV news:
The platform is no longer simply a supplement to the daily news diet. (more...)
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