Category: Journalism

  • Can you tell compelling stories about important things?

    Can you tell compelling stories about important things?

    A journalist is the eyes and ears of the public. Given the time, skills and tools needed, journalists go out into the world to ask questions, observe what is happening and gather factual information to report it all to the public. 

    They tell this information through stories in written publications or in other ways like podcasts or videos. The public can access these stories on news sites, or on podcast and video platforms. Sometimes they are free and sometimes they are behind “pay walls” — they require payment fees or subscriptions before you can read or download them.

    Journalists tell stories in different ways:

    ● News stories inform the public about current events or issues. They report important facts and provide readers with the context to make sense of them. A reporter gathers information for a news story by doing research and conducting interviews. 

    ● Investigative reports and feature stories go deeper and are based on interviews and research. What distinguishes them from news stories is their purpose, and often their length. Rather than simply informing the public about current events, investigative stories expose an issue — like corruption, corporate wrongdoing, or systemic problems — that affects the public in some way, while feature stories go deeper into a topic and explore a new angle. 

    ● Opinion stories are written from one person or group’s perspective, so while they can be interesting and spark debate in a community, they do not include the “objectivity” that is central to regular journalism. We often call this advocacy journalism. 

    ● Native advertising is advertising that resembles journalism in style, tone and format so to sell readers on an idea, product or service without readers realizing that there is a commercial agenda behind the message. By making an ad seem like the news organization’s editorial content, readers are more likely to accept the ad’s claims as true.

    Helping people make sense of the world

    Good quality news and investigative stories are accurate, authoritative and balanced and they help readers make sense of events. To tell these stories, journalists must first make sense of events themselves and they do that by asking questions that people have and getting answers to those questions. Sometimes that means asking questions that seem basic or seem to come from ignorance. In other words, journalists often ask the questions many people might be embarrassed to ask themselves.

    But that’s the way they end up with an informative story that is well reported. Here are some ways to tell if a journalist has succeeded in doing that: 

    ● They use authoritative and clearly identified sources that enable readers to have confidence in a story’s accuracy. 

    ● They use quotes to bring a story to life and give it balance. 

    ● They provide readers with enough context to help them make sense of the event in question. 

    ● If a story portrays a some person or organization in a negative way, it should be clear they were given an opportunity to comment. 

    Using sources and quotes and providing context and opportunity for comment allows a journalist to tell the truth, be fair and serve the public.

    Take climate stories. When journalists cover the environment, the first truth is that climate change is happening. 

    Facts versus truth

    Telling the truth of what and whom climate change is impacting and why it is important means that a journalist must use facts, provide a source’s quotes in context and explain what the data says. 

    But what are facts? Facts are information that can be verified through data that is collected scientifically rather than based purely on opinion. When stating facts, a journalist should be able to back up those facts with data from a verifiable source and let you know when they can’t do that. They should also tell you the source of all the information in the story and what makes the source credible — their record of expertise or experience on the matter. 

    How do you know if a journalist has been fair? 

    In any story produced by a journalist, there are stakeholders — these are the people affected by a problem or involved in a story. To be fair, the journalist gives all the major stakeholders — the perpetrators and victims — a voice in the story.

    At the same time, the journalist should hold stakeholders accountable for their actions.

    The victims should be given the chance to tell their stories but the journalist should explain the context — why someone might believe what they do or have acted in the way they did so that the audience can form an understanding of the stakeholders and their actions.

    Journalists and the public they serve

    Ultimately journalism should serve the public. The journalist should provide news consumers with enough information to form an educated opinion, without being swayed by a journalist’s bias. To do that, the information should be easily understood and accessible — not bogged down with jargon or made overly complicated. 

    A story also needs to be newsworthy. It must be worth a person’s time to read or listen to or view it. That doesn’t mean that it has to be about an event that happened today or yesterday, but it should be relevant or interesting to the news consumer in some way. In journalism we call this “compelling.” Maybe what makes a story compelling is that it is about an event that has just happened or is about to happen. Maybe it is about something happening near your audience. 

    Or maybe what is happening or happened is significant — it will affect people in important ways. 

    But even if the story is about something happening now, is important and affects people in significant ways, the audience for it won’t find it compelling if it is told in a boring way.

    Telling stories worth hearing

    Journalists often look for three things to make an important story compelling:

    Human interest: The story focuses on the emotional or personal aspects, evoking empathy, compassion, or curiosity. 

    Conflict: There are people who are for and against something happening or have competing claims on something. We often see this in stories about politics. 

    Novelty: Something makes the story new or different. 

    How can all this help you find and tell compelling stories? Let’s take a look at possible environmental stories. 

    Ask yourself: What types of things are happening around you regarding the weather, the air you breathe, the water around you, the land you live on and the food your region or country grows and eats? Are any of these things threatened? Do you know of any communities suffering? 

    Do you know of any individuals or organizations who are standing up against these impacts? What are they doing and why? And have there been any big successes in terms of climate change that you can think of? Have you heard of any good news about the environment in your area? 

    You can think about your neighbors, your school, your friends, your family, or anyone you know! It doesn’t have to be something that seems big and someone can be an expert without a fancy title.

    Why tell true stories?

    Storytelling is the way that journalists can convey complex information in a manner that is relatable and accessible to an audience. 

    Ultimately, good journalism is not only about gathering information that is verifiable, it is also about telling stories about what is happening in a way that is relatable and accessible to its audience.

    If a journalist shines light on a problem or reports on an event, they can show through storytelling why it is important, who is affected, what solutions are out there and who the solutions benefit and what is delaying the solutions. 

    It is the quilt of these stories, sewn by the audience’s understanding, that forms the blanket of our reality. Like any good quilt, it includes the light and the dark, the details and the bigger picture, patterns and contrast. 

    Storytelling is the context that gives a journalistic product meaning and purpose. 

    Questions to consider:

    1. Why might an important story put someone to sleep?

    2. What does it mean to make a story “compelling”?

    3. In what ways do journalists serve the public?

     

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  • Higher Education Inquirer : Maria Ressa

    Higher Education Inquirer : Maria Ressa







    Higher Education Inquirer : Maria Ressa – Fighting Back Against Trump’s Authoritarian Algorithm With Truth (The Daily Show)




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  • Why have someone edit your story?

    Why have someone edit your story?

    Redundancy: Did you repeat anything unnecessarily?

    Accuracy: Did you make any factual mistakes or is anything misleading and can be read in a number of different ways?

    Sourcing: Were you able to show where your information came from and did you get the information from credible sources?

    Balance: Did you recognize multiple and opposing viewpoints or is the story one-sided and preachy?

    Organization: Did you bury the most interesting or important thing way down into your story? Did you wait too long to quote someone?

    Paragraphing: Are your paragraphs way too long? Long paragraphs are daunting to read, so try breaking them up. A paragraph can be a single sentence.

    Language: Is the story full of jargon normal people wouldn’t understand or long words only highly-educated people would know?

    Complexity: Is your story bogged down by too much information that isn’t really necessary?

    Clarity: Can a normal person understand the story on a quick read or is it confusing in any way?

    The editor’s role

    Ultimately the editor’s job is to make the story clear and readable. And both those things are hard to spot when you are the writer.

    Sometimes reporter balk at the suggestions editors make or the changes they insist must be done. When you have taken a lot of time and effort to report a story and have carefully worded and reworded your article it hurts to learn that it isn’t finished or that the editor thinks there are problems with it.

    But journalism is a collaborative process. It’s your story but it is also the editors story and the publication’s story. Your name will be on it — we call that the byline — but it will affect the publication’s reputation and that of the editor. Editors can find themselves fired or suspended if they publish a story that should not have been published. That’s the negative side of it.

    On the positive side, most editors genuinely want to make the story better — clearer, more powerful, a better overall read. And isn’t that what you want too? Over the course of my career, editors have saved me time and again by spotting mistakes I had inadvertently made. They have strengthened my writing and made me a better writer.

    Now if an editor suggests or insists on a change you really think isn’t necessary or will harm your story then fight against that. But do so respectfully and professionally.

    Ultimately the process isn’t meant to be fair. The editor has the final say. But if you can make a strong case and if you can show your editors why you care so much, chances are they will yield. Often this becomes a negotiation to find a way to word the material that satisfies both of you. But pick your battles carefully. No editor wants to work with a writer who fights every change or suggestion.

    A good partnership between a journalist and editor will help you write a great story and help ensure it stands up to the scrutiny of your audience.

     

    QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

    1. What is one way an editor can improve your story?

    2. If an editor wants change a story in a way you don’t like, what should you do?

    3. What traits do you have that would make you a good editor?

     

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  • There’s all kinds of ways to bleep out speech

    There’s all kinds of ways to bleep out speech

    This morning we woke to the news that the ABC television network in the United States had suspended late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel indefinitely over a statement he made about the accused assassin of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk. In July, the CBS network announced that it would end The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in May. Colbert has for years mocked and criticized Donald Trump. These two announcements got us thinking about all the different ways governments and those in power try to silence speech.

    The very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution begins with this phrase:

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …

    Because of that amendment, the world has long considered the United States the model for free speech — few countries live up to the standard that the United States has historically set. But across the world now, free speech seems to be endangered. So to put into perspective the many ways censorship can occur and in the many places we see this happening, we decided to offer up an assortment of News Decoder stories on this topic by both our professional correspondents and student authors.

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  • How to use quotes in a story

    How to use quotes in a story

    Journalists talk to people. It is an important way to get information, at a time when many people allow artificial intelligence to do that for them. Facts and figures and things you find on the internet or in documents tell only part of a story. 

    How many things have you told a friend or family member that you wouldn’t want to put down in writing? How many times have you been in a discussion with a group of people who had different takes on something that you all experienced? 

    Haven’t you ever had a surprising epiphany in the middle of a conversation?

    By talking to multiple people who have different perspectives and comparing those thoughts or comments or stories with facts and figures and reports, journalists try to get at the truth of something that happened or is happening. They are also able to instill into an article or podcast the passion and emotion missing from government or academic reports. 

    But once you are ready to write your story, how do you use the information you get from interviews and what do you do with those quotes? 

    First, do some interviews.

    Let’s understand why you even include quotes in a story. One, because it humanizes a story that would otherwise be a tedious read. 

    You could give me a whole argument of why pollution in a river is bad. But it hits me if someone says, “The last time I went swimming, I came out with hives all over my body,” or, “The river is right out our door, but I have to drive my son across the city to the public pool to swim because the river is filthy.”

    Second, including quotes from interviews you did yourself shows your readers or listeners that you didn’t just slap together the story. That gives you credibility in a world where people won’t trust much of what they read. 

    Now, you won’t get that if, instead of interviewing people yourself, you just grab quotes from articles in other publications. When you do that, the opposite happens. You give readers a reason not to trust you, because you are simply reprinting what you read elsewhere. That comes across as lazy and careless. 

    The same is true if you take quotes off press releases issued by some corporation, organization or politician. Worse, because if you don’t tell readers that the quote came from a press release you mislead them. You make it seem as if you spoke to someone when you didn’t. And often, public relations people are allowed to just make up quotes in those press releases; the CEOs or politicians never actually said them the things they are quoted as saying. 

    Bottom line: Avoid using quotes you didn’t get yourself. 

    Using quotes in a story

    So let’s say you did an interview or two. How do you use the quotes from that interview?

    First, understand that quotes are sacrosanct. Once you have quote marks around something someone says, don’t change what is inside those quote marks. You are telling your reader: This person said this exactly. 

    If the quote includes a lot of unnecessary words, what we call blah blah blah, you can’t just delete that within the quote marks. Some people use ellipses (…) to connect the important and relevant parts of the quote without bogging it down with the blah blah blah. Others just take part of the quote. We call that a partial quote. 

    Now, that’s a style preference. Personally, I hate to do that because when you do you expect your reader to trust you. They might instead think you are withholding good information because you don’t agree with it. You risk losing that important credibility you gained by doing the interview in the first place. 

    Instead, I paraphrase. That means that you take the quote marks off the quote and instead, you attribute it. That means that you tag the information with so-and-so said. 

    Not everyone has the the gift of gab.

    You might end up paraphrasing a lot in a story if the people you interviewed don’t have the gift of speech and are nervous and stumble on words or are really boring to talk to, but have good information to give you. You can get great information from boring people! 

    Remember your role. You are talking to these people because your readers or listeners don’t have access to them or wouldn’t want to talk to them. I’ve done hours long interviews where two quotes end up in the story. Those two quotes made it worthwhile but my readers would never have wanted to sit through those painful interviews. 

    And unless you can count on a readership of super-educated people who have great attention spans, keep those quotes short. Really, a quote can be three words: “I felt awful!” she said. 

    If a quote is long to the point where it becomes tedious, paraphrase. When you paraphrase, you can cut out the gobbledygook and even change words as long as you don’t change the meaning of what the person said. 

    That’s a never. 

    Never ever change the meaning of what someone says. If you must change any words from statements in an interview, you need to really understand what the person said and even more so, what the person meant to say. 

    To misquote someone word for word

    I’ve known journalists accused of misquoting someone when they had the statement word for word on a recording. The person simply couldn’t believe they would have said what they said, even though they said it. 

    Now you might think, great! The journalist caught the person. Some people call these “gotcha” moments. 

    But think about your role as a journalist. Isn’t it to get at a truth? And should you penalize people who maybe aren’t used to being interviewed and are nervous and might say things because their brains don’t really have time to work out their thoughts properly? People will feel compelled to impress you or say what they think you want them to say.

    The rule of thumb I go by is that I try to treat people the way I would want to be treated. I get nervous talking to people. I say things I wish I hadn’t said and don’t really mean. I’d be mortified if everything I said ended up in print in some widely read publication. In a class I once taught I caught a student texting on his phone and he told me he was posting what I had just said. That shut me up. 

    Meanwhile, just because someone says something, doesn’t make it true. There is no excuse for including inaccurate or misleading information in a story even if it is said by someone with a fancy title or a prestigious reputation. People can make mistakes, exaggerate and mislead. Quote marks aren’t a blank license to publish. 

    Quotes should pop out.

    Quote marks are like little neon borders around a piece of information. They should stand out. So avoid putting quote marks around basic facts like dates or times or an undisputed amount of money. Quotes should transmit emotion or opinions or ideas. Or as my friend and colleague Deidre Pike says, “Quote the memorable. Paraphrase the mundane.”

    But do you actually have to speak to someone to quote them in a story? A while back, I’d have said yes. But now so much communication is done by email or digital chats that it has become a standard form of dialogue. How many people hate talking on the phone now? Limiting yourself to only people you can talk to in person or by telephone or videoconferencing could limit the types of people you get, and the goal is to get the best information from the best people you can. 

    Transparency is important, though. Let your readers know that you interviewed the person over WhatsApp or LinkedIn or whatever form it took. (My disclosure: the quote I grabbed from Deidre Pike was from her response to a Linkedin inquiry I posted).

    But don’t do that as a default. You are less likely to get that great emotion and passion in a post than you would in person or the phone or on a Zoom call. So try for voice or in person interviews whenever you can. 

    Plus interviews are fun. That person-to-person direct communication builds a connection that you don’t get through instant messaging or email. Hearing someone burst out laughing is way better than an “LOL!” in a text. And while waiting for a message to drop you can’t tell if the person just got distracted because their dog jumped on their lap or the question troubles them and they are taking time to think. But if you are watching them, you can tell. 

    It is harder too to get those memorable anecdotes for a story that will bring it to life. And you can’t count on the uncomfortable silences that get people to open up. 

    Regardless of how you get your quotes, getting them is only the first step. Knowing how to use them in your story will make all the difference. 

    And you can quote me on that. 

     

    Questions to consider:

    1. How can a quote from an interview improve a story?

    2. Why would you paraphrase something someone says instead of quoting it directly?

    3. Why should double check information that an expert told you?

     

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  • For a great story, get out and report

    For a great story, get out and report

    Sure, you can Zoom someone in on your laptop or chat over WhatsApp. But when you go out to an event or interview you come back with so much more.

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  • How to amplify youth voice? Bring teens into the pressroom.

    How to amplify youth voice? Bring teens into the pressroom.

    Each year, Global Youth & News Media recognizes news organizations that are innovating in ways that include or help young readers and young journalists. 

    The France-based nonprofit, founded in 2018, seeks to reinforce connections between young people and news media. 

    This year, it held a global competition to find projects that could show how young people are helping news organizations survive in a world where too many of them are shutting down. 

    “I was looking at who was helping local news for a different project and noticed that nearly every journalism-related NGO I knew was doing something to help local news survive,” said Aralynn McMane, executive director at Global Youth & News Media. “And new nonprofits were emerging only for that purpose.”

    The problem, though, was that she didn’t see much sharing of that knowledge. So one of the aims of the competition was to create cross-pollination — highlight projects that could be replicated by other organizations elsewhere and provide a forum for the sharing of lessons learned. 

    “This was a particularly satisfying competition for us because we found so many great win-win cases of meaningful youth-local news collaborations from all over the world with lessons for newsrooms most anywhere,” McMane said.

    Can we fertilize the news deserts?

    News Decoder is deeply concerned about the emergence of “news deserts”: localities that no longer have any news outlets as profit-driven corporate owners pull the plug on local newspapers.

    A study in 2023 found that more news outlets in the UK were closing than were being launched. In Canada, between 2008 and 1 April 2025, more than 500 local news outlets closed in some 370 communities across the country, according to the Local News Map crowd-sourcing data initiative. Meanwhile, a report from the Brookings Institution found that in the United States in 2023, some 2.5 local news outlets folded every week.  

    That’s why I was honored to serve as one of 26 judges from 17 countries in the competition. While the entries taken as a whole gave me reason to hope, the winners left me inspired. 

    The competition found dozens of collaborations across six continents. They served to remind us of the vital public service mission local news organizations perform when they have the resources to do so. 

    Consider The Westsider in Melbourne, Australia. The staff there recognized the need for voters to be informed about the candidates in local elections and how they stand on important local issues. But to chase down dozens of candidates takes staffing that The Westsider doesn’t have. So with a small grant from a local journalism organization, the paper recruited 72 students from RMIT University to chase down every candidate running for a local office and ask them a series of questions. From that funding the paper produced a non-partisan voter’s guide. 

    Youth can tell important local stories.

    Another standout was Phralipen of Croatia, who collaborated with Youth Roma Congress to produce stories about the Roma community through reporting, multilingual content and participatory journalism.

    Then there was the Contra Costa Youth Journalism program in Northern California, a collaboration between the Contra Costa County Office of Education and Bay City News/Local News Matters, a news organization based in Berkeley, California. The program recruits and trains young people from underserved communities to be journalists and has published more than 70 stories from these areas as a result. 

    Katherine Rowlands, the founder and publisher of Bay City News and Local News Matters, said programs that bring young people into journalism are important.

    “It is critical to train and inspire the next generation of journalists so we create a pipeline of future reporters to inform, question and make sense of the world,” Rowlands said. “It is also really important for us to include these younger voices in the journalism we do now so that we more accurately reflect our communities and bring their issues to the forefront.”

    From Pakistan to Botswana, Bolivia to Tanzania, the competition identified news organizations finding ways to bring young people into their newsrooms to ensure that what young people do, and the issues that are important to them, are not left out of local news coverage. In the process, they are finding that for organizations that are short-staffed and short of funds, young people are a key resource that has been long overlooked.

    The entries were graded on the impact on the local community and transferability — whether the project could easily be replicated by other news organizations in other places. 

    One thing we’ve learned at News Decoder — and which the results of this competition clearly showed — is that young people are eager to have their voices heard and see journalism as an effective way to do that. 

    News organizations can benefit from their passion and energy and also from the perspectives they bring. 

    The full list of winners

    GOLD AWARD (most transferable, clearest on impact)

    • The Westsider with RMIT University (Australia)
    • Stamp Media (Belgium)
    • Phralipen and the local Roma community (Croatia)
    • The Greenline (Canada)
    • Časoris and Črni Vrh primary school (Slovenia)
    • Landshuter Zeitung/Mediengruppe Attenkofer podcast mies keck (Germany)
    • Bay City News Foundation with Contra Costa Youth Journalism (United States)
    • The Spotlight News with The University at Albany (United States)

    SILVER AWARD (transferability and clarity of impact)​

    • Casa de Nadie (Bolivia)
    • Nyugat.hu (Hungary)
    • Cable Newspaper Journalism Foundation (Nigeria)
    • Univerzitetski Odjek (Serbia)
    • Orkonerei FM Radio (Tanzania)
    • The Jersey Bee (United States)

    COMMUNITY AWARD (potential for community impact)

    • Daily News (Botswana)
    • Thinking Abyss (Greece)
    • Kashmir Times (Kashmir)
    • Risala Today (Pakistan)
    • SF Channel Bitegeere (Uganda)

    Full list of winners available on the Global Youth & News Media website.

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  • Do you live in a healthy media ecosystem?

    Do you live in a healthy media ecosystem?

    We are bombarded with information from news sites, friends, entertainment platforms and companies — through articles, messages, images, videos, ads and graphics. It can be difficult to know or even think about where the information is coming from. 

    Whether you realize it or not, this tsunami of information affects you: It shapes what you know about events, how you see the world and how you feel about people, issues and products. 

    In order to further understand big global issues such as climate change, and how it affects communities all over the world, it is helpful to understand how the media functions, what journalists do and how you can communicate about the climate crisis yourself. 

    The media can and, ideally, should perform a variety of critical functions in any society. It should: 

    • Keep the public informed of current events and issues; 

    • Foster informed debate and discussion on matters of public importance;

    • Hold powerful governmental and private actors to account. 

    Where media falls short

    In reality, the media often fails to do that in part because some foundational “building blocks” that keep media strong and independent have eroded. A World Bank How-To Guide on media development identifies five building blocks for a robust and independent media sector: 

    1. Infrastructure: Everything from transmission towers and cables, to news disseminators, to cell phone ownership should be publicly-owned or in a competitive landscape of corporate owners. 

    2. Professional Skills and Editorial Independence: A country must have enough journalism professionals trained to gather, produce and publish information according to ethical standards, and who are protected by law and policies from interference by governmental or business actors. 

    3. Financial Sustainability: Media organizations must have financially-sustainable business models that enable them to employ journalism professionals and fund the gathering, production and dissemination of news content. 

    4. Policy and Regulatory Environment: A country’s legal and policy framework must support and protect the gathering and disclosure of information, uphold editorial independence and protect journalists and their sources. 

    5. Civil Society and the Public: There must be a media-literate public, journalists’ unions and free press watchdogs to both protect the journalists doing their jobs and hold them to account for transgressions of ethical codes. 

    How healthy is your media ecosystem? 

    Many countries around the world lack some or all of the core building blocks of a robust media sector. As a result, the media content available in these countries is often poor, and the media fails to perform its good governance functions. 

    You can evaluate the state of the media sector in different countries by referring to a variety of online resources, including Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index and the Media Ownership Monitor. 

    But even in places where the press seems to have a great deal of freedom, the media most people consume might be in the control of a very few corporate owners and some of those corporations are privately held by one person or family. 

    Can you think of some reasons why governments and families might have an interest in controlling the media? 

    The short answer is that owning media enables you to control the message. You can influence: 

    • What information is supplied; 

    • How much information is provided on any particular person, issue or topic; and

    • How the information is presented. 

    A sustainable media ecoystem

    In a sustainable media ecosystem both government and private media owners would fulfill the “good governance” functions discussed above: keeping the public informed, fostering debate and holding the powerful to account. 

    Media owners do this when they put institutional safeguards in place to ensure that the people it employs can report on issues without restraint or fear of repercussion. 

    This is essential because a journalist is the eyes and ears of the public. Few people have the time or energy or attention to keep an eye on all the things their government does or all the decisions corporations make that affect their lives. 

    That’s why historically people subscribed to newspapers and why people now follow news sites and journalists on social media. We rely on journalists to go out into the world to ask questions, observe what is happening and gather factual information to report it all back to us. 

    In practice, many media outlets fall short of this goal. 

    Profits and the press

    One way reputable media organizations protect editorial independence separating the editorial aims of the organization from its profit making function; the organization’s business operations don’t interact with the employees who produce its media content. That leaves journalists free to pursue important news stories, even if doing so could hurt the media outlet’s ability to sell ads or risks losing subscribers. 

    By doing this, the media organization builds and maintains credibility; It becomes a place where people come for information they can rely on. This information helps them make important decisions about their lives. Is it a good time to buy a house? Can they feel safe where they live? Will they be able to keep their jobs or find new ones? 

    Unfortunately, many media owners have found that it might be more profitable in the short term to focus news coverage in a way that pleases core audiences and advertisers. That happens when media consumers decide they will pay only for information that aligns with their beliefs and reject media that contradicts what they wish to believe.

    Ultimately, we have to think of the media ecosystem as a buffet you can go to for your meals. If too many people choose only the foods that satisfy their cravings for the sweet and salty, not only will their own health suffer, but the people who stock the buffet will start eliminating healthy foods altogether. What seems like a lot of choice in what you consume will end up as a lot of the same and none of it healthy. 

    So what can you do to support a healthier and sustainable media ecosystem? 

    Understand who owns the media you consume. Diversify the sources from where you get your information and seek out contrasting perspectives. If you can afford it, pay for subscriptions to outlets that have a record of independence. Support organizations that fight for a free and robust press. 

    As a consumer of media, you have power you can exercise. Media producers rely on you to read or listen to or watch what they produce. If you choose to do so, you support what they are doing. If you don’t, you tell them a different message altogether. 

    Questions to consider:

    1. What is a media ecosystem?

    2. How many information sites have you visited in the last three days? Can you list them? 

    3. Pick one of those sites. Can you figure out who owns it? Is that company based in your country?

     

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  • Be the oasis in your “news desert”

    Be the oasis in your “news desert”

    Across the world, local news media are disappearing. In the latest development, the News Media Corporation in the United States, based in the state of Illinois, shut down 23 newspapers across six states. 

    This is a result of a long and gradual global disintegration of the media ecosystem. It began decades ago when corporate owners of newspapers and television and radio stations began to consolidate their outlets. Two-newspaper towns became one-newspaper towns. Then investment banks noticed how much profit these local monopolies generated from ad sales, and bought them up.

    The internet came around and decimated those ad sales and the investors owning the publications stripped them down so newspapers that had teams of journalists now had just a handful. We are in the final stage where the owners are simply pulling the plug and selling off assets. 

    So what to do if you live in a news desert where there is no local source of news? Start your own news site. That doesn’t have to be as daunting a task as you might think. You don’t need to be the New York Times or Guardian. Start small. Here are some steps:

    Get started.

    Create a mission statement. What are you trying to accomplish and why are you doing it? What is your motivation and what are your long-term goals? Who are you serving and how do you plan to do that? You can change your mission over time, but having a mission statement will help guide you when you confront choices and challenges. For an example, check out News Decoder’s mission statement.

    Establish a website. It can be super simple on the easiest and cheapest platform you can find: WordPress, Weebly, Squarespace — there are many. If you haven’t done this before, ask your friends and family to help you. I guarantee you have one friend or cousin or teacher who knows how to do this and can show you how (or do it for you!).

    Give it a name. One of my favorite local news sites is called Redheaded Blackbelt, which Kym Kemp has been publishing near the northern tip of California for almost 20 years. She has red hair and is a black belt. 

    Set up a schedule you think you can handle. If you are serious about this, you should consistently post to the site even if it isn’t every day. You want to build an audience and people need to count on you for information. Also it will help keep you going if you have a set schedule to keep to. You can start with one post a week. 

    Start reporting.

    Find something out that people would find important or interesting. It could be anything from what the local government is planning to do to the opening of a new hardware store. It could be a weird new vegetable showing up at the market. What is totally not interesting to someone in a big city might be just what people will talk about in your town. Think little!

    Learn more about finding and reporting a news story.

    Have fun with it. Snap photos of people’s pets and post them. That’s the first sure-fire way to get people to your site. 

    Learn more about taking engaging photos.

    Develop an ethics policy. This will be important if you become THE source for news in your community. People will want you to write about them, or not write about them, or write about them in a particular way. You need to be able to respond consistently so that it doesn’t look like you favor people or are biased against them. Be honest with yourself: What positions must you take? What positions won’t you take? Will you accept freebies like tickets to attend events and will you promise anything in return?

    Learn more about being an ethical journalist.

    Find out more stuff. How do you do that? Every time you go out, get chatty. Here is the question you ask: What’s happening? Now, when you ask that question, most people automatically say “Nothing.” But that’s because they assume you don’t really care and you are just being polite. So part of being chatty is being nosy and a bit persistent. Observe what is happening around you and notice what seems different. 

    Do this enough and when people see you, you won’t even have to ask. They will suggest all kinds of stories and tell you all kinds of things happening. On the downside, be prepared for people interrupting every conversation with “now, don’t publish this …”

    Note that whenever there is change, no matter how big or small, there is a story behind that change. Someone made a decision to do something. And people tend to like talking about the decisions they made or the actions they took. 

    Now this is important: When you are digging for news, you must tell people that you’ve got this little news site you started and that you want to post about whatever it is you are talking about with them. In a small community, it is super important not to create enemies with your news site (unless you plan to take down corrupt politicians). You want people to be excited you are writing about them. 

    That doesn’t mean that everything you post has to be flattering. It just means that you can’t be sneaky or spiteful or petty with your posts. Treat people with respect and they will respect you. For a local news site to survive you need the support of your local community. 

    Develop a growth strategy.

    Generate word of mouth. Once you begin posting, tell as many people as you can about your site and what you are trying to do. Not only do you want to grow an audience, but the more people who know what you are doing, the more people will tell you stuff that you can report on. When people come to you with news, that’s a lot easier than chasing it down yourself. 

    Recruit help. You can be a one-person shop, but over time that would be exhausting. From day one imagine your publication five years old and then 10 years old. Then imagine yourself doing this for those 10 years. The only way the publication will endure is if you have help all along the way. Look for young people who are looking for experience and old people with too much time on their hands. Find the people you know who are really bored at whatever job they have and want to be part of something interesting and important. Keep an eye out for frustrated writers and amateur photographers, artists and data nerds.

    And find those people who always attend local sporting events who can report on youth games. Just like posting about people’s pets, you will get all kinds of people flocking for news of their kid’s football or basketball games or the games of kids they know. 

    Think of funding sources. You might consider making your site a nonprofit. People would be more likely to offer you unpaid help that way. It would also enable you to ask for money from local funding organizations. If you think you might want to turn this venture into a business, start chatting up local businesses and seeing if they might support you by buying ads on your site. You don’t need to do any of that right away but remember, if you want the site to endure you will likely need to make some money from it to pay yourself and people who help you out on it. 

    Join organizations. With a news site you are both an entrepreneur and journalist, and there are organizations that will help you network and get you mentors and allies. Think about journalism organizations like the Society of Professional Journalists in the United States, the National Union of Journalists in the UK and Ireland and the Confederation of ASEAN Journalists in Southeast Asia. Also consider joining business organizations like the Chamber of Commerce or the Rotary Club. 

    Finally, have an exit strategy. The goal is to build a news site in a news desert so you should want it to last beyond you. There is a good chance you will grow tired of your venture at some point. Who will take it over? Might you be able to sell it at some point? It is never too early to think about these things if you want your news publication to endure. Don’t lose sight of the mission. 

     

    Questions to consider:

    1. What is a “news desert”?

    2. In what way would people in a small town be interested in different things than people in a big city?

    3. If you were to start your own local news site, what types of stories or events would you cover?

     

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  • Top Tips: Take good notes

    Top Tips: Take good notes

    The key to a great news story is a great interview. But all your work getting that interview will be wasted if you don’t have great notes. 

    When I first started out as a journalist, people didn’t always record their interviews. I rarely used a recorder. I found that it did something to my brain. Part of my brain would be worried that the recording wasn’t working. 

    When I became an editor, I found that I could tell when a reporter had used a recorder. The quotes in the story were often too long or too flat — they lacked something, maybe emotion or emphasis. 

    When you interview someone without taping it, you have to listen carefully. There isn’t any backup. And because it is difficult to take down everything someone says word for word, your brain works with your ears and your hand to take down what is most important – the essential facts and details, the emotion, the surprising things someone says. 

    If you have recorded that same interview, you won’t be doing that. You know you have a backup. And when you go back and listen to the recording, something is different. The statements all flatten out and you end up putting in the story what sounds most explanatory or most impressive. In other words, you can’t tell what was most interesting when you were sitting there or on the phone. 

    A recording is not enough.

    These days it is standard practice to record interviews, if for no other reason than we need the audio for podcasts or audio clips. 

    But for a great story and to be a great storyteller you should master the art of notetaking. When doing an interview forget that the recorder is on. Imagine it isn’t working (and it might not be working!) So here are some tips for taking notes: 

    First, don’t try to take down every word. Instead, listen for what is important. 

    “Quotes can be short,” said News Decoder Educational News Director Marcy Burstiner.

    Don’t try to write everything down word for word. It’s OK to paraphrase. Put quote marks only around actual quotes. If you didn’t put quote marks around something in your notes DON’T put the quote marks in your story. 

    Master shorthand.

    Second, create your own system of shorthand.

    Shorthand is a system of writing in a code that allows you to take down words fast and accurately. There are some standard ways of doing that and courses to teach you how. It was developed for stenographers. Before recorders came along, offices employed people to take down dictation. The boss would dictate letters and reports to their secretaries who would then type them up. But you can create your own system of shorthand.

    For example, instead of writing down the person’s name every time they start talking (when you are talking to multiple people at the same time) use their initials. You can also lv out the vwls of common wrds. 

    U can write in text message 4mat b/c that also wrks. I am not a fast writer so I came up with my own system early on in my career. I put ?? when I’m not sure what the person said but I don’t want to interrupt them. I put ** when I want to go back to it to follow up. I circle words or underline them when I sense it is important.

    For something outrageous I write !!

    Take lots and lots of notes.

    Writing down words and ideas cements them in your mind.

    Finally, use a pen and paper. There are a number of reasons to do this. If you are interviewing someone in person and you try to take your notes on a laptop or tablet, your head will be down half the time and you can’t circle stuff easily. 

    Second, there is some science behind the notion that we retain information better when we write things down hand to paper. 

    As a journalist, I was a messy note taker. That piece of paper in the photo image at the top of the story is an actual page of notes I once took. If I had time before I had to submit my article I would take the effort to type my notes onto a Word or Google Doc. Later I fell in love with spreadsheeting and would type my notes into a Google Spreadsheet, which would allow me to match up information with information from other interviews and sort them. This became handy when I was doing a story that involved a lot of interviews and complicated information. 

    When going to interviews I sometimes forgot a notepad and would have to grab paper anyway I could. I’ve taken notes in the margins of flyers and brochures and on the backside of stuff I got in the mail.

    But the best practice is to always keep a notepad on you, just as photographers always keep a camera on them. 

    Finally, when you are ready to start writing, write from your notes first before going to the recording. Use the recording to make sure you got your quotes right and that you paraphrased what the person said correctly. Trust that your brain and your ears and your hand will have taken down the best information and the most engaging quotes. 

    Questions to consider:

    1. Why take notes if you are recording an interview?

    2. What is the difference between quoting someone and paraphrasing something they said?

    3. How good a notetaker are you?

     

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