Bart Feder, Tribune’s SVP of news, says that while stations can take a page from digital news and become “more authentic and gutsier,” their big advantage is their proximity to their viewers. “We talk about the second screen, but we are the second screen a lot. We are the companion. That puts the onus on us to continually call the audience back.” Key is to move away from the long-standing practice — and mindset — that producing stories for on-air broadcasts comes before all else.
Jonathan Mitchell, news chief at KNTV San Francisco, explains how the NBC O&O built what today, he says, is the biggest investigative unit in the country — and at the same time created an enterprise culture in the newsroom.
An NAB session outlines how to apply traditional journalistic ethics to the use of social media in both collecting and distributing information. The discussion focused on best practices for using social media as part of the profession, even if there is no way of formally encoding them. “We are not giving you all the answers,” says SPJ’s Andrew Seaman, who recently participated in updating SPJ’s Code of Ethic to extend to social media. “The only absolute we have in the code is do not plagiarize.”
Covering emergency-related stories has become more complicated for stations. “Security is a much bigger issue than people recognize,” says KDSK’s Marvin Danielski. And Hearst Television’s Barbara Maushard says being “really responsible” is of primary importance in covering emergencies now that incorporating information from platforms such as social media — and distributing it digitally as well as on TV — becomes increasingly common.
While waiting for the government to develop regulations for drone use by news outlets, NAB Show attendees are urged to adopt safety protocols and have proper insurance coverage so they will be prepared.
