Though less optimistic than five years ago, local broadcast companies and news directors are overwhelmingly confident in the future of local radio and TV, including local news. The latest RTDNA/Lawrence Herbert School of Communication at Hofstra University newsroom survey shows that local news directors believe in the importance of local news and the unique position of local broadcasters to provide news and information the community needs.
Local journalists are reckoning with a new reality: The greatest threat to working in journalism is public contempt for us as a workforce. Journalists should be able to go to work without fear of being attacked or intimidated. In addition to providing training on increased safety measures, journalists need legislative action to ensure violence is not an acceptable form of criticism and to penalize those who recklessly interfere efforts to seek and report the truth on behalf of the public.
Exclusives
Illustrating the devastating impact of opioid addiction on communities, highlighting the hope that recovery can bring, and unveiling the systems complicit in the epidemic’s spread, Murrow Award-winning reports this year covered the opioid crisis from every angle.
RTDNA members will judge entries in a TVNewsCheck–BEA challenge asking students to produce the news the way they want to see it. The winners will receive cash prizes and will be showcased at BEA’s 2019 annual convention in Las Vegas (April 6-9), which overlaps with the NAB Show (April 8-11).
The Radio Television Digital News Association and its Voice of the First Amendment Task Force are calling on its more than 1,200 members and their broadcast and digital news outlets to join the Boston Globe and more than 100 other local newspapers across the country on Aug. 16 in a coordinated editorial response to attacks from President Trump on the media.
Dan Shelley, executive director of the Radio Television Digital News Association, took to USA Today to call out Fox News Channel for its interviews with President Donald Trump — conducted by Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson — following his joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but praised Chris Wallace’s one-on-one with Putin.
With more than 100 documentaries, news series, digital projects, podcast episodes, news packages and more recognized this year, the 2018 National Murrow Award winners are fertile ground for new and seasoned journalists alike looking for examples of the best in the craft of broadcast and digital journalism. In looking at the list of winners from this year, a few patterns emerge. These commonalities are clues into what makes good journalism
The journalism organization does not directly address the Sinclair flap, saying only that “many questions about been raised recently about the degree to which the news … is truly local and truly independent.”
It should come as no surprise — although it is quite disturbing — that a new poll finds 77% of Americans believe responsible journalists report “fake news” at least occasionally. Thirty-one percent believe we report “fake news” regularly.
RTDNA and its Voice of the First Amendment Task Force have sent letters to the chairwomen and chairmen of the nation’s largest political campaign committees, Democrat and Republican, requesting that they urge 2018 congressional and state legislative candidates not to inflame the passions of those who may be predisposed to lash out at members of the news media.
March 11-17 is Sunshine Week, an “annual nationwide celebration of access to public information,” and a fitting way to follow last week’s RTDNF First Amendment Awards. The motto of Sunshine Week, spearheaded by ASNE and RCFP, is “Your right to know.” It is the public’s right to know where taxpayer money is going, how the public’s business is being conducted, and what actions elected officials are taking.
Yesterday, National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, said: “Many in legacy media love mass shootings.” RTDNA condemn her remarks and said today, in part: “We cannot make our communities better if we do not understand them, and as journalists we have dedicated our lives to uncovering challenges, understanding issues and uplifting each other’s voices. We are journalists and we do what we do because you have a need to know and understand the world around you.”
Today’s multi-media journalists are jacks and jills of all trades. They report, write, shoot, edit, post to social media and, after all that, arrive at tomorrow’s morning meeting with three more original hard news story ideas. With so much to do, MMJs are forever in search of ways to make the job simpler. Here’s one: Use your smartphone, which you already have with you on every assignment, to tell your story more creatively.
RTDNA on Thursday demanded that the press office for the Georgia State Senate rescind its threat to revoke press credentials for a WGCL Atlanta reporter who had the audacity to ask questions of a state senator in the public hallway of a public building, the Georgia State Capitol.
RTDNA and its Voice of the First Amendment Task Force are urging all journalists and news organizations to take extra security measures following the arrest of a man from Michigan for allegedly threatening to assassinate several CNN employees.
The nation’s largest retailer Wednesday removed from its website a controversial t-shirt that threatens journalists, shortly after RTDNA and its Voice of the First Amendment Task Force sent a letter to the […]
The RTDNA Voice of the First Amendment Task Force is expressing extreme concern about Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ refusal — again — to say his Department of Justice will not target journalists who protect the identities of their confidential sources.
Perspective On The Health Of Local News
Reports of the death of local journalism are greatly exaggerated, says RTDNA’s Dan Shelley. “I tend to view what’s happening now just as part of another cyclical shift in the business of journalism. We have seen this movie before. Waves of deregulation or other kinds of sea change have happened in the past, and journalism has adapted. While the previous waves did produce adjustments — which some skeptics and cynics still deride at every opportunity — the industry did, in fact, evolve. And guess what? The public is still being served well by the Fourth Estate.”
Changes in court rules can come slowly, but RTDNA continues to urge access at all levels.
Winners from across the country received their awards at Gotham Hall in New York City. RTDNA awarded 122 national Edward R. Murrow Awards in 15 categories.
The RTDNA Voice of the First Amendment Task Force is calling on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee to ignore a tweet from President Trump seeking an investigation into what he called “Fake News Networks.”
So far this year, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker at least 23 journalists have been arrested merely for trying to do their jobs. More troubling, criminal charges are still pending for more than half of them; at least 12, to be precise.
