In this article we look at the steps involved in creating a news and current affairs programme for a national radio station. The information below is taken from a series of modules created for a training course delivered in Africa by one of the Media Helping Media team.

The following sets out some of the important steps involved in creating a radio news and current affairs programme.

All the elements listed below are taken from training modules on Media Helping Media (MHM), which in turn represent training courses delivered by MHM trainers worldwide.

Identifying the audience

The first step is to identify the audience and its information needs.

Advertisers use a tool called ‘audience segmentation’ in order to identify existing and potential customers. They then ‘target’ that group in order to sell their products.

They gather information about segments of society based on likes, dislikes, lifestyle, current product usage, interests, aspirations, and media habits.

A smart media organisation needs to do the same. It needs to know who it is creating content for and understand the interests and concerns of that audience.

Advertisers use segmentation to ‘superserve’ several audience groups in order to focus effort to achieve maximum return.

Journalists can adapt this strategy to ‘superserve’ clearly defined target audience groups whose information needs reflect those of the whole audience. Consider the diagram below.

Think of it like peeling an orange. Inside you’ll find nine segments. Each segment represents an audience group.

One segment might be farmers, another youth, and a third businessmen and women.

If you examine the information needs of each group you will find that there will be considerable overlap at the centre. This is your unique editorial proposition.

See our training module ‘Identifying the target audience and its information needs’.

Unique editorial proposition

The overlap in the segments shows about a number of issues that affect the majority of the audience.

Covering these issues will set you apart from the competition. It tells the audience that your station is where they will find the news and information that is most relevant to their lives.

You do this by planning editorial coverage that addresses those issues. This is about producing original pro-active in-depth journalism that digs deep and asks searching questions.

Gather your team and list the issues that impact the lives of your three main target audience groups.

Try to find at least 10 issues. Then try to find at least 10 topics on each issue, and finally try to find three original stories to illustrate each topic.

By the end of the exercise you will have 300 original stories. Revisit those stories twice a year and you have 600 stories, which is almost a dozen exclusive stories a week.

These stories are managed by your forward planning editor.

The graphic below shows this exercise carried out by MHM working with a media house in Africa.

See our training modules ‘Establishing a market differential with original journalism’ and ‘Strategic forward planning for media organisations’.

Themed weeks

Now you have a list of the issues, topics and stories you will be covering during the year you can introduce ‘themed weeks’.

Once a month you should consider tackling an important issue in depth with original journalism that explores angles ignored by others.

For March you might want to do Transport week, for April, Health week, etc. Below is a suggested year plan for monthly themed weeks starting March 2022.

Forward planning

In order to maintain a structured programme format, and to ensure a steady flow of original issue-led journalism that continues to inform the public, detailed and meticulous planning is required.

And that planning needs to be long-term planning, as opposed to planning for tomorrow’s programme or next week’s programme. This is often referred to as forward planning.

Your planning editor should have:

• A wall chart setting out the stories to be covered for the entire year.
• A list of all the agreed issues, topics, and stories the programme editors have decided to cover.
• A clear plan, agreed with senior editors, of what in-depth stories will be prepared for certain months – ideally following the model of a themed week examining a particular issue during one week of each month.

The planning editor is also responsible for keeping a log of follow-up dates.

This means that when stories are covered, a date is automatically put in the shared forward planning calendar setting out when that story should be followed up to find out what happened next. Questions will be asked about whether promises made by politicians etc were met.

Following up is essential because, otherwise, the audience is not fully informed. They will be looking to you to keep on top of a story – particularly if it affects their lives – and cover the story’s development.

Guest bookings

Working with the planning editor will be a news producer or researcher who is in charge of guest bookings. They are responsible for keeping a record of who is invited on to the programme. They need to ensure the best possible contributors, with a diversity of voices and views in an attempt to represent all strands of opinion across the country.

They need to keep a record of who was invited on to the programme, what was discussed, and their contribution.

The planning editor must attend all news meetings and must have a say in what is covered.

The person in charge of the day’s output – the editor of the day (EiC) – needs to be able to rely on the planning editor to supply at least one original story a day.

Shared planning calendar

A useful tool for the planning editor, and the whole team, is a shared online calendar. You can use any of the free options that are available. Google calendar works fine for this, but there are others.

The planning editor needs to set up the newsroom planning calendar and plot all the events that have been agreed so that everyone is aware.

News and current affairs meetings

A radio news and current affairs programme will typically have several news meetings a day.

The first will be immediately after the morning programme has been broadcast. This is the main meeting of the day. It’s a disciplined time-limited meeting led by the EiC. It’s business-like and follows a set pattern.

Five minutes – review

The first five minutes will be spent considering the programme that has just been broadcast.

In this section of the meeting the EiC will encourage discussion around what went well and what didn’t go well. Analysing your failings is the most important and useful part of the learning process, so that the news team, and the output it is creating, continually improves.

In this section of the meeting the EiC also attempts to draw out ideas about how to follow up any important developments or leads in the next morning’s programme.

Twenty minutes – planning

After the review the EiC will pass round a list of the stories she or he wants to be covered along with a list of the current stories covered by print, broadcast, online, and social media.

At this point participation is encouraged. This list will have been produced in advance by a newsroom researcher or producer working with the EiC. Everyone will be given a copy.

Presenters, producers, reporters and researchers are then invited to share their ideas about fresh angles to take on the topics set out by the EiC.

The team will also discuss story treatment such as whether a package, interview, or vox pop needs to be produced.

The EiC will then agree the story hierarchy in terms of importance to the audience.

At this point everyone involved in the production process will have a clear idea of what is expected for the next morning’s programme.

Twenty minutes – pitching

The EiC then goes round the room giving those gathered the chance to suggest story ideas.

Every journalist involved is expected to have a story idea. At first, people may find this challenging and uncomfortable, but the EiC needs to encourage collaboration and draw on the experiences and contacts of their team.

A journalist might not have a specific story idea to put forward, but they might have a point of view that is worth exploring. They might have read something hidden in a newspaper report that is worthy of following up. They might have a personal experience relevant to a current news story.

Five minutes – summing up

The EiC will then sum up what has been discussed and make clear what each member of the team is expected to do.

The entire meeting should last no longer than 50 minutes. Discipline and a sense of urgency is essential.

Minor update meetings

Three more minor update meetings take place over the following 24 hours. These should total no more than 45 minutes.

The afternoon meeting (15 mins maximum) follows the lunchtime TV and radio bulletins when the production team gather to check on the progress of the stories being produced for the morning and also consider whether any changes need to be made to the running order in light of news developments during the first part of the day. The EiC might be involved in person or via phone, video link, or instant messenger.

The next meeting (15 mins maximum) follows the evening news bulletins when the production team considers whether any adjustments need to be made in light of any breaking or developing news. Again the EiC will need to be consulted and informed.

The final news meeting will be early in the morning immediately before the programme is broadcast. The production team and anchors will meet briefly (15 mins max) to check the running order, assess any overnight developments, and go through the morning newspaper and website editions.

Planning meetings

As well as the daily meeting format suggested above, weekly forward planning meetings must be held. This is where the planning editor presents an update on the items being produced.

Broadcasting formats

Essentially, a radio news and current affairs programme has four main format types. These are:

The interview

This is where the presenter interviews someone in the news. It could be about the main story of the day. If it is the most important story this interview would take place immediately after the main news bulletin. It should be between around five minutes long, although this could be stretched to 10 depending on the seriousness of the topic. There will also be shorter interviews throughout the programme.

The reporter package

A package will be put together by a reporter or correspondent and will include a number of clips of people the journalist has interviewed. A package will typically be about three and a half minutes long and contain three or four clips. Each clip will be about 20 to 30 seconds long. The package can be pre-recorded or live.

The two-way

This is where the presenter interviews a reporter or correspondent covering a story. It is designed to tap into the journalist’s background knowledge of the story being covered and is sometimes used before a main interview. A two-way can vary from between 90 seconds to five minutes depending on the importance of the subject matter.

It is different in tone from interviews with outside contributors. When the presenter is interviewing someone from outside on a big story, the tone will often be adversarial, pressing the interviewee on important points. In a two-way with a reporter, the presenter is simply trying to draw out the most important facts in a neutral tone.

The vox pop

This is a mix of clips from members of the public who are giving their reactions/opinions on a news story. This should be no longer than three minutes long.

Structure of a current affairs programme

The main purpose of the show is to cover the news and get reaction to it. So the main ingredients are news bulletins, with interviews and longer reports about the individual news items.

There is more to it than that.

There will also be other information vital to the listener, including weather forecasts and sports news, plus perhaps business news, summaries of what is in the newspapers, programme trails for the rest of the network and so on.

These all need to fit together in a regular pattern, so that with familiarity, the listener gets to understand how the programme works. You can think of this as arranging the furniture of the show.

You will probably want your main news bulletins to happen on the hour, perhaps with summaries on the half hour. These are the first fixed points.

The weather and the sports news should also happen at exactly the same time each morning – just as they appear in the same place every day in a newspaper.

The audience likes predictability in the way the content is presented, so that they know when to tune in for the information in which they are most interested.

When you are happy with your programme structure, the task for the production team every day is to think about how the news stories and interviews fit in.

Running order

Every edition of the show works to a running order. A rough running order is produced at the very first programme meeting and then modified and updated as the day and the night develop.

The following is a rough outline for a two-hour-long radio news and current affairs programme.

Exploiting content for maximum impact

Your production team should include at least one person monitoring the live output being produced by the programme.

This person is looking for newsworthy clips to package for the news summaries on the half hour and the main bulletins on the hour, and to illustrate live studio debates.

Your programme needs to be a breaking news production line, continually delivering original newsworthy clips.

This production role should also share all the breaking news clips from across all output and on all appropriate social media channels.

Creating a programme trailer

In order to attract new listeners, you need to create compelling programme trailers to advertise the material to be broadcast in the following morning’s programme.

This is essential, and has to be factored into the daily work pattern. The trailer must promote the main story of the day; the one in which you are planning to invest most resources.

Creating the sort of trailer that will stop people in their tracks and make them pay attention can help win over new listeners, introduce them to the subject matter to be covered on your programme, and, hopefully, encourage them to spread the word by mouth and social media.

A promo trailer should be around 30 seconds maximum, the shorter the better. You want to grab attention. Give the audience a snippet of what is coming up. You don’t want to give them too much, but just enough that they think “I must tune in tomorrow to hear more about that”.

And you want your trailer to be shareable on social media, so the better it is, the more chance it has of going viral. Ask yourself would you share the trailer with your friends? If not, work on it some more. And keep working on it until you think it has the quality to go viral.

Recipe for a good trailer

So how do you create an attention-grabbing radio trailer? Here are a few suggestions.

Encourage your reporter and producers to always be alert to an audio clip that sets out the scale of the issue, but doesn’t give the solution.

For example, you might be doing a story about the rural economy and how people are struggling to survive.

You will have interviewed farmers and villagers. One might say something along the lines of “I didn’t know how I would survive”. Such a quote will make the audience want to know what happened next. What did the interviewee do to survive? Could it be relevant to the listener’s own predicament?

That clip is less than five seconds long, yet it is likely to resonate with thousands of people in a similar position. Of course your piece will no doubt have examined the issues the farmers and villagers face, and you will probably have covered how they coped. But save that for the programme.

The next trick is to package that clip, and perhaps another, with a carefully crafted text that explains WHY people MUST tune in to your programme in order to learn more.

The wording is important.

You could use ‘calls to action’ where your trailer invites the audience to ‘listen’, ‘take part’, and ‘assess’.

Words that suggest drama work well, such as ‘revealed’, ‘for the first time’, ‘life and death decision’.

But you must remain honest. You are in the business of facts not fiction. Never exaggerate.

Another benefit of trailers is that it could encourage your competition, both broadcast and print, to tune in so they can follow up your story. And that’s a good thing. You want them to be following your lead, you want to be known as the station that sets the news agenda. Because by the time they have heard your news item you will have already moved the topic by inviting guests to respond live on-air.

Because trailers should be part of your daily output, you should probably consider creating a template so that it can be used every day.

Something like:

“In tomorrow’s morning programme we will be looking at (here you can mention up to three items), and we will be talking to xxxx about xxxx (insert short clip here).”

The post How to create a news and current affairs programme first appeared on Media Helping Media.

This module was written for trainee journalists in Zimbabwe who were keen to learn how to produce in-depth video reports about life in their remote rural communities. It might be of use to others who want to learn how to produce longer news features. 

Why a story plan is important

Piecing together a news item without a story plan is a bit like trying to build a construction kit without the instructions. You might have some pieces of information for your report, but some might be missing.

Knowing what order to put them in can be difficult if you don’t have an outline showing where each element fits and what the item should look like when it is complete.

Knowing what you still need in order to finish your report, where to find those elements, and where to fit them into the story, is a challenge all journalists face at some time in the news production process.

You might have a great story idea, and you might already have one really good interview, but what parts do you still need to make the story complete? And what angles do you still need to explore to make it as powerful as it could be?

Talking to a colleague could be helpful. It might be another journalist who you choose to bounce your ideas off, or it might be your editor or a news producer.

So first you need a story, then you need a story plan, and then you need to find all the parts to make the item work.

Building the framework for your story

Before you include others, sketch out a framework for your story so that you have something to discuss.

Start with a blank piece of paper.

In the middle, jot down the main event or fact that has inspired your story idea. Draw a circle around it.

Let’s look at an example.

You might be covering a story about women in Matopo, Zimbabwe making jam in order to help their families and community survive the economic impact of the drought.

This is one of the many videos produced by The Mobile Community Zimbabwe – an initiative designed to help young people – many of whom were taking their first steps in their journalistic career – report on stories in their local communities.

Let’s take a look at how a story plan might help enrich and develop the story they produced (embedded below).

This story includes some great pictures. We have video of the women growing fruit, harvesting it, preparing it, and making jam, and we see the process through until the jam is bottled and ready for market.

The journalist creating this video has also gathered some excellent interviews with three women, one has a husband who is out of work, another has a husband who doesn’t earn enough to support the family, and there is a grandmother who is using the jam-making initiative to pay the school fees for her grandchildren.

But there are so many more facts that we could include if we had a story plan.

Try jotting these down in circles around the main story idea on your piece of paper. Such ideas might include:

The jam

• The cost of making the jam – where do they get the fruit? How long does it take to produce? What about the sugar, water, and the power required to cook the jam? What about the cost of the jars?
• The profit margin – the price of a jar of jam is $1, how much of this is clear profit? How is the money shared among the women?
• Selling the jam – where is it sold? Do they have to take it to market? How do they get it there? Are they supplying shops or individuals?
• The quality of the jam – how about filming some people tasting it? Perhaps the local children could be treated to jam on bread and then interviewed giving the jam marks out of 10?
• What about the nutrition angle? Is the jam a better product for selling than, say, dried fruit? What alternatives are there? Is it worth talking to a nutritionist?

The poverty and hunger angle

• The video commentary reveals that the jam making initiative is part of “a fight against poverty and hunger” in the community – so what impact has it had? And what other initiatives are being introduced? Here we could do with some data.
• What was the situation before and after the jam making initiative? How big an impact has it had on raising revenue? Are there any projections about how much it could help?
• How big is the community? What is the poverty level? How does Matopo compare with neighbouring towns and villages? Is it worse off or better off, and why?
• How does the situation in Matopo compare with the rest of Zimbabwe and regionally across Africa?
• As always, a map would be good. Of course many local people know where Matopo is, but even those who are familiar with the location like to see a map of where they live when they are watching a video or reading an article.

Male income and unemployment

• We discover from the piece that one husband is out of work, and that another doesn’t earn enough to feed the family (and has to be supported by the income from this community venture). Here we could try to find out more about the income of a working man from Matopo who travels to the city, his daily income and his daily costs. What is the average wage in the area?
• We could hear more about the unemployment problem. What is the unemployment figure in the area?
• We hear that one woman is widowed. What is the life expectancy for men in the area?

Setting an example

• The piece includes an interview with the local MP who tells us that he is keen to support the initiative. We need to find out how he intends to do this.
• Does he think it is a model that can be copied by other communities?
• Will there be financial help for the women?
• Will they become mentors for others who wish to follow their lead?
• What government grants or help are available for those wanting to start their own community cottage industries such as the jam making initiative?
• Are there any government quality-control issues with the production of home-made jam?
• Do they need a licence to sell?

You now have a story plan

You probably won’t want to follow up all the angles mentioned above. You might want to put some of the ideas in a diary with a follow-up date so that you can continue to expand on the issues raised in a series of reports.

The value of this exercise is that you think through the possibilities, discuss them with a colleague, and develop a story plan.

Having a plan will help you prioritise your effort and focus on the most important elements.

It will bring all the angles of the story together in a way that makes sense and leads to a logical conclusion.

It will help you explain the issues related to the story better, it will help enrich your story, and it will help you in your task of informing the public debate with original, in-depth journalism about the issues that are affecting the community you cover.

See our training module on story development.

What happens next?

With any story like this it’s worth having a follow-up date. It might be that you simply jot down a day in, say, three or six months time when you will revisit the story to see how the women are progressing. This will provide you with a valuable follow-up piece.

When you come to revisit the story you will have the archive from the original story, the hopes and expectations of the women producing the jam, and any promises made by the MP.

In three to six months you can measure what has developed against what was expected.

See our training module on forward-planning.

Social media sharing

You will obviously want to share your story on social media via YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and any other popular social media network used by your target audience group.

This is where you need to promote your story, not just share it. Tell people WHY they should watch your video.

Create ‘compelling calls to action’ such as “see fruit turn into dollars as women tackle poverty with jam”.

And then monitor the social media responses to your story and, if possible, weave them back into any follow-up stories you create.

Related training modules

Strategic forward planning for media organisations

Story development, ensuring all angles are covered

The post How to create a structured news report first appeared on Media Helping Media.

This training module was written for young people from remote rural communities in Zimbabwe learning how to record, edit and broadcast stories about their neighbourhoods using their mobile phones.

Applying journalistic rigour to everyday stories

The beauty of citizen reporting is that it can be fast and fresh, down-to-earth and uncomplicated, and, sometimes, reach areas not always covered by mainstream media.

It’s about reporting on something that people are concerned about, and presenting what they say in a way that those involved in the story can relate to.

It’s not, necessarily, meant to be complicated, or to looking stunningly professional. It’s not meant to try to copy professional media.

It often involves producing a report on a topic that, had it not been for you, the world would never have known.

And, free from many of the technical obstacles that might, otherwise, hold back others, citizen reporters can, sometimes, offer a perspective lacking elsewhere.

That’s all good. It offers another take on life. A view that is often hyperlocal, put together by enthusiasts, journalism students, activists or amateurs, and carrying the authenticity of the learning curve.

However, if we are to take our citizen reporting to the next level, and, instead of just covering stories as we find them, attempt to inform the public debate, we need to weave in elements of journalistic best practice.

We need to move from citizen reporting to citizen journalism.

Citizen reporting – the basic version

Typically, this is how citizen reporting plays out.

You’ve either stumbled across an important story, or you have been alerted to something happening. You might see an everyday event that you feel needs to be covered.

Perhaps the issue is unofficial roadblocks in Zimbabwe, where young people are preventing motorists from using urban back roads to avoid police checkpoints. The youths are demanding money from drivers.

It could be widows living in a remote village who are working together to make and sell jam in order to help their community survive.

Both are important stories.

Now, you could just set off, take a few shots, talk to a couple of people and edit together a short piece of, say, 1’30” to 2’00” that shows what is happening.

That would be fine. People might like to see the roadblocks and hear from the people involved. They might like to watch the fruit being picked and the jam being made. Nothing wrong with that.

They are interesting stories, they are local, they might have been missed by mainstream media, and people might be interested in viewing them.

And when the stories are shared on social media, people will probably click on them and share them with their own social network.

But the question is, could you have done more?

Did you ask the right questions? Did you dig around a bit to try to expand on what you saw?

Most importantly, will your reporting make a difference? Does it matter?

The challenge is to produce a piece of meaningful journalism that informs the public debate.

Producing citizen journalism that matters

It’s all down to planning. Let’s start with the editorial content.

Before you set off, spend some time thinking through what you might need in order to explore all the angles of the story.

If you have a colleague or friend you can talk to, bounce some ideas around with them.

You should be hoping to find answers to the six essential questions all reporters should be ready to ask. Those questions are what, why, when, how, where and who?

See our training module news writing for beginners.

Below are a few ways these simple questions could help you uncover information that might not otherwise surface from an ordinary interview.

• What: What is cause? What is the impact? What is the cost?
• Why: Why is it happening? Why does it matter? Why are people concerned?
• When: When did it happen? When will it be fixed? When will we know?
• How: How did it happen? How long will it take? How much did/will it cost?
• Where: Where did it happen? Where is the evidence? Where are those responsible?
• Who: Who is involved? Who is doing something about it? Who is affected?

You will probably think up many different variations on these six questions. But just considering these questions will ensure you are far better prepared than if you simply head off to the scene, smartphone in hand, trying to find someone who is willing to talk to you.

And asking just some of these six questions will also mean that when you return to edit your piece, you will have more interesting material to work with. You might also uncover a valuable follow-up angle so that you can revisit the story in the future.

There is nothing worse than returning from covering a story and realising you forgot to ask a crucial question.

Ensuring your citizen reporting looks good

Once you have planned your piece, you need to give some thought to the technical requirements.

What shots will you need? How will your piece start? This is often called the ‘establishing shot’ – which is the first few frames that introduce your audience to the story.

You will need to think about what ‘cutaway shots’ you might need. These are the short clips of detail that you might want to use to emphasis a point, cover an edit, or simply break up a longer shot.

And what shots might you need to end the piece? What image will work best with your final sentence?

Think all these things through before you go – or as you travel to the scene – and you will save yourself so much grief when you come to edit the piece later.

Give some thought to what sound effects might you need. It’s always good to shoot some background noise – ambient sound (sometimes called wild track) that can be used to help bridge edits when you return to your desk.

And gather enough material. Far better to have too many opening shots, details shots, close up shots and spare ambient sounds than not have enough.

Now we have content that is editorially and technically strong, we can start to piece together our report. This is where the citizen reporter starts to become a citizen journalist.

See our training module on interviewing for video journalists.

Adding context is essential

This next step is where you need to consider context. Context often answers the “So What?” question.

Numbers, data, statistics, history, geography and time are all valuable elements for adding context.

For example, let’s take the story of a fatal traffic accident on the road between Gweru and Bulawayo. A coach crashes. Many are killed and others are injured.

To put this story in context we need two of the elements listed above; numbers and history. Statistics would be good, too, but they might be hard to obtain.

Let’s keep it simple and start with the first two.

We need to find out how many are dead or injured. We also need to try to find out whether this is the worst accident of its kind, or whether it’s a common occurrence.

We need to find out how many such accident happen each year. Is this the worst year on record?

Numbers give us context. Without context the story lacks depth. Without depth we are not fully informing the public debate.

We can still do the story without the context. That’s fine. That is straightforward citizen reporting.

Publishing such a story is of value, and you might want to publish the raw version in the first instance to cover the breaking news story of the traffic accident. If so, go ahead, get a version out. Share it on social media. Let people know what is happening.

That’s a fine example of citizen reporting. However, a citizen journalist would want to develop the story. In mainstream media terms, they would now be covering the developing story.

Citizen journalists need to think through the story development angles.

Jot down a rough story plan

Before you set off, try to piece together a rough story plan.

Write down what you think the top line might be. Set out the questions you might want to ask. Think of the numbers you will need in order to add essential context, such as: How many? How much? How often? How long?

Consider where will you find two independent sources to help verify the story.

Imagine what you will need when you return in order to edit the piece.

List all the elements you will require. Far better to think these things through now, before you get to the scene, than kick yourself later for missing them.

You need to think of as many story angles and hooks as possible.

Write down all the possible related follow up stories that might be needed to fully explain what has happened. If you have time, research the background to the story.

Search online, post questions on Twitter and Facebook, try to gather as much information as possible, preferably before, but also after, you shoot the material.

A well-researched piece will be more likely to inform the audience than a first-impression piece.

See our module on how to create a structured news report.

Is the journalism you are producing ethical?

Next you need to check whether your work is ethically sound. There is an ethics section on Media Helping Media. Read through some of the training modules on that page.

Here are some of the main points to keep in mind.

Is your story accurate and fair?

Have you got your facts right? What about names? Have you got the right spelling? You may have to add text to your video to introduce the person. Ensure you get them to spell out their name and their title.

Have you inflated or promoted any information or angles to try to make things sound more or less dramatic than they really are? You must never dramatise information to try to sell the story to your audience.

See our training module on accuracy.

Is your story impartial and objective?

Did you manage to leave your own emotions at home, or did you take them with you when you shot the piece? Are you telling the story as it is, or are you pushing one particular line because you feel strongly about it?

You might feel passionate about an issue, but you must always rise above what you think in order to present the reality of the situation as it is. Doing so enables those who view your piece to make their own assessment of what is happening without being influenced by your particular take on things.

Have you tried to include different voices to reflect as many sides of the issue as possible? Have you treated people equally? Could you be accused of favouring one side in the story?

See our training module on objectivity and impartiality.

What about privacy and consent?

Do those you are talking to know how the material might be used? Do they realise it will be shared on social media and, hopefully, go global?

Could your filming be an invasion of their privacy? Are they okay with that?

What about the vulnerable? Are you thinking of interviewing minors or people with learning difficulties? Have you got consent from their carers?

You may not need that consent if you are carrying out random interviews in the street – sometimes called vox pops – but you should seek it if you are talking one-to-one with someone who could be described as being vulnerable and who may not understand the consequences of what they are saying.

See our training module on privacy and consent.

Taste and decency matters, too

Also, keep in mind that the pictures you are shooting, and the audio you are recording, will be seen by people of all ages.

Consider whether any images are too graphic. Could they upset, offend and disturb some in your audience?

Are there other ways you can shoot footage to tell the story without being too graphic?

Have you included some images that disturbed you when filming them? Is there anything gratuitous about your piece?

Always err on the side of caution. If you feel uneasy then your audience will probably feel uncomfortable, too.

And finally, uphold your integrity

• Is what you have produced a true and fair reflection of what you witnessed?
• Is it free from your own emotions and opinions?
• Have you been honest with those you interviewed, your audience, and yourself?
• Can you stand by what you intend to publish?
• Can you return to the scene, look people in the face and justify your actions?

If the answer to any of the above is ‘no’, then take a fresh look at your script, the clips you have chosen, the top line you selected, and the conclusion you have reached.

And be prepared to rework the whole package to ensure it really is a piece of informative journalism, rather than another item that adds to the the noise and confusion surrounding the issue you planned to cover.

See our training module on integrity for journalists.

Packing your bags before you go

On the practical level, there are some basics that you need to consider before heading off to shoot a story. Here are 10 considerations. You will probably be able to jot down more.

1. Is your phone fully charged, and have you packed your charger?
2. Have you got enough credit on your phone?
3. Does someone know where you are going?
4. Check latest news reports to see if the situation has escalated.
5. Have you assessed all the dangers?
6. Are you about to take any risks?
7. Could anyone object to you filming and want to stop you?
8. Have you enough cash with you?
9. Are you dressed appropriately (you don’t want to stand out)?
10. What might be a follow-up angle to the story?

What to do when you get to the scene

Look around, absorb, sense the mood, watch what people are doing before they realise you are covering the story.

Take lots of wild track – if nothing else, it will come in useful if you need to edit sound effects under some of your shots when you are putting the piece together.

Identify those you want to interview, talk to them, win their trust, explain who you are and how the material will be used – including how you plan to share the story on social media.

Check the background lighting and the background sound. If needed, ask the interviewee to move slightly so that the material you shoot is good enough to use.

If it’s windy consider putting a piece of sticking plaster over the microphone on your smartphone to reduce the wind noise.

Be ready to deal with knock backs

A common issue facing citizen journalists is that people sometimes refuse to talk, especially officials.

You might approach a police officer, ambulance worker, or fire officer and ask for details about an incident.

They might ask for accreditation: “Who are you and who do you work for,” they might say.

You might not be accredited. You might be a freelance working for yourself. As a result, they might refuse to talk to you.

The same is true with government officials. They might ask you to submit your questions in writing to their office and tell you that they will get back to you.

That’s just tough.

You probably won’t be able to change that attitude, so don’t bother wasting your time trying.

Instead, use your ingenuity and news sense to seek out other voices that will help you substantiate your story.

All you need to worry about is finding two independent sources to verify the information you are about to publish.

Those sources don’t need to be senior officials, they don’t need to be people in authority. It would be nice if you could talk to someone in those positions, but other voices will work.

Keep asking around, talk to more people, seek out disparate voices that can offer diverse perspectives.

Continue until you have those two sources.

At that point, you are ready to edit your piece of unique, in-depth, citizen journalism. And, if you have reached that point, well done.

Related training modules

News writing tips for beginners

News sources, numbers and the ‘so what’ factor

Interview tips for video journalists

Story development, ensuring all angles are covered

How to create a structured news report

The post From citizen reporting to citizen journalism first appeared on Media Helping Media.

This module is about producing original, in-depth, issue-led journalism designed to inform the public debate.

In a previous module about identifying the target audience and its information needs we dealt with the first stage in establishing a strong media business.

This second stage deals with producing content aimed at meeting the needs of that target audience group.

Establishing a differential

To survive in a fiercely competative media world a news organisation must offer something different. There are many demands for the attention of your audience. What you offer has to stand out.

For a broadcaster or publisher with a public service remit the role is to cover the stories that are often ignored by others. This doesn’t mean that your editorial proposition has to be worthy, boring and dull. Just the opposite – these will be stories about the issues that really concern your audience.

These stories will need to be produced in a way that uncovers angles and reveals information that will help your audience better understand the issues that affect them.

Such issue-led journalism is essential for informing the public debate.

It’s the opposite of simply repeating the information handed out in news releases, or reporting about official, stage-managed events.

Those stories have to be covered, too, but the role of the journalist is to dig where others don’t and to shine a light in dark places in order to uncover information that, otherwise, might remain hidden.

It means journalists have to set the editorial agenda rather than be led by an agenda set by others – that is the role of the journalist.

But setting the framework for that to happen is the role of the senior management team. This modules looks at how to do that.

Defining an issue-led journalism strategy

Image by David Brewer released via Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0

Gather your senior management team. Include representatives from editorial, commercial, technical and business development. It will be the same team that helped you identify the target audience in a previous exercise.

In that exercise we looked at the target audience profiles, and tried to imagine the issues that most concerned them. Now we turn to the part of the process where you list those issues.

Wherever this exercise has been carried out, the answers are roughly the same. The issues that most concern the target audience are usually:

• Jobs
• Homes
• Health
• Education
• Crime
• Environment
• Security
• Future
• Technology
• Transport

Your list of 10 issues might be different, but it will probably contain many of the above.

Note that politics and corruption are not listed as main issues, despite being suggested as such almost every time this exercise is carried out. This is because politics and corruption are often common to all issues, rather than being issues or topics in their own right.

Involve your senior editors

So, we have made a start. This list is the beginning of your unique editorial proposition which you will investigate on behalf of your audience.

However, at this stage, it all looks a bit dull. These are just words. We need more. So we move onto the next step.

Gather some of your senior editors and invite them to think of 10 topics for each issue. For example, let’s take health. Topics under the issue of health might include the following:

• Hospital waiting lists
• Abortion
• HIV/Aids
• Fake drugs
• Lack of medicines
• TB
• Malaria
• Health education
• Hospital cleanliness
• Quality of medical staff

Ask the editors to write down at least 10 topics for each of the 10 issues. So, we now have 10 issues, multiplied by 10 topics for each issue, which equals 100 ideas. But these are still words on a list.

Now comes the fun part.

Involve all your producers and reporters

The editors now hand this list to the reporters and ask them to think of at least three story ideas for each topic.

The reporters gather and discuss the ideas, thinking of how to illustrate each issues through examples reflecting the lives of the target audience groups identified earlier.

A reporter might know someone who has had a back-street abortion. They might have heard that hospital waiting lists in their area of the town are lengthy. Perhaps they have heard of someone who has become sick after visiting hospital. Or maybe they could imagine a scenario and then talk to people in the street to see if they know of such an incident and can introduce them to someone who can tell their story.

Let’s take the topic of health education. We might find that the list compiled by the reporters looks something like this:

• Young people unaware of the risks of HIV/Aids
• Stigma preventing people from admitting they are ill
• Illness spread through the poor preparation of food in hospitals

Whatever the story ideas your reporters suggest, at the end of this stage of the exercise you will have three story ideas for each topic.

So you now have 10 issues multiplied by 10 topics multiplied by three story ideas, which equals 300 possible stories.

These stories will be timeless, meaning that they are not related to a particular event or announcement.

They will have a long shelf life, meaning that they will not go out of date quickly.

And, most of all, they will be stories that are unique to your news organisation, and which you are likely to want to return to in the future in order to follow up developments.

You will be producing stories that, had it not been for your news organisation, would never have been told.

This is your unique editorial proposition, which is your market differential.

The Planning Editor

These stories are then managed by the planning editor, who has the responsibility for ensuring that all the story ideas are well planned, produced for multiple devices, and followed up.

S/he will keep a calendar with these stories plotted. Each story will have a follow up date. It might be three months or six months, perhaps even a year. But it is important that each story is revisited to find out what has changed since it was first covered.

Please refer to the training module about forward planning for media organisations in which we look more closely at the role of the planning editor.

So we now have 300 story ideas revisited at least once a year, which equals 600 stories.

This is about 12 original stories a week.

These are stories that your competitors won’t have. They will be forced to follow your lead.

However, by the time they do, you will have published the next set of original stories. They will be forced to follow again.

You will have taken control of the news agenda. This is now the central part of your editorial strategy to provide issue-led journalism that informs the public debate so that your audience can make educated choices.

This is responsible journalism.

And it is clever journalism, too, because, if your audience feels you are covering the issues that matter most to them, they are more likely to trust you and continue using your news services.

This will increase your opportunities for revenue generation.

Monitoring and saving costs

Now you have the list of issues, topics and stories, share it with your sales and marketing team so that they can build campaigns around the content they know you are planning to produce.

The strategy above also saves resources and costs.

You can often cover several well-planned stories in the one trip making sure you get the best value out of your journalists, technical teams and editors.

Becoming a news leader

When I did this with the Serbian broadcaster B92 in Belgrade in 2005, the competition started to ask where they got the news releases from – the competitors were accustomed to having all news delivered via the wires, through news releases, or via organised and stage-managed news conferences.

They found it hard to understand that the stories were produced through the process of journalism forward planning and not as a result of the process of public relations.

Once you have decided to produce issue-led journalism there will be no stopping you. You will be the agenda-setters.

I have carried this exercise out from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe and the results in all cases have been impressive.

The post Establishing a market differential with original journalism first appeared on Media Helping Media.

This module looks at how media organisations need to plan ahead in order to produce original content that not only informs the public debate – by examining the issues that are of most concern to the target audience – but also ensures the most efficient use of resources.

In a previous module which covered ‘establishing a market differential with original content’ we looked at how a media organisation can develop a content strategy aimed at producing more than 10 original stories a week. All the stories would be focused on the needs of a clearly-defined target audience.

Now we look at how those stories should be managed.

First of all, ask yourself this question: Are you in control of your news organisation’s editorial agenda?

You might think you are, but an examination of what prompts or stimulates you to cover news might reveal flaws in your news strategy.

It could be that the majority of the news you cover on any given day is directly or indirectly controlled by others.

A forward planning strategy, based on original, issue-led journalism, can reverse this.

Forward planning is not about the everyday diary events that all are aware of. That is day to day planning.

Forward planning is far more important in terms of setting your media organisation apart from the competition.

It’s fundamental to a converged newsroom strategy delivering content to multiple devices.

Typical sources of news

Let’s look at some typical sources of news:

1. The news wires that you subscribe to
2. Diary events that are in the public domain
3. News conferences called by politicians, businesses, NGOs etc
4. News releases sent by public relations companies
5. Following the stories the competition has produced
6. Dealing with unexpected events
7. Monitoring social media
8. Exploring unique angles to ongoing stories
9. Stories produced by examining data
10. Keeping in touch with contacts
11. Investigative journalism
12. Planned thematic coverage (such as health, environment, crime etc)

The problem is that some media organisations rely on the first six sources.

However, a modern, responsible media organisation, that exists to inform the public debate with thorough, objective, fair and accurate journalism, will spend time investing in the last six sources of news, particularly the final category – planned coverage.

And this is where the planning editor comes in.

Taking control of your news agenda

It’s worth analysing what prompts or stimulates the news decisions in your media organisation. The results might make uncomfortable reading.

It could be that the majority of the news you cover is stimulated by others.

In 2013, senior editors who have worked at three global news organisations were asked about the percentage breakdown for the news sources listed above.

Averaged out between the three interviewees, the answers given revealed the following news source dependencies:

• Wires 37%
• General diary events 10%
• News conferences 6.5%
• News releases 6.5%
• Following the competition 20%
• Unexpected events (breaking news) 9%
• Original journalism 11%

This means that 89% of the news agendas are stimulated, prompted or inspired by others, with only 11% of the news being classed as original.

The challenge for all news organisations, whether they are global, national, regional broadcasters or publishers, is to reverse this by taking control of the news agenda and increasing the amount of original journalism produced.

Allocating resources for forward planning

The first step is to set aside resources for planning.

This doesn’t necessarily mean hiring new staff. It could mean reassigning some staff by taking them away from following the leads of others and, instead, encouraging them to invest their time in producing original, investigative journalism that focuses on the needs of the target audience.

The first position you need to fill is that of the planning editor.

This person can do other tasks in the newsroom and need not be dedicated solely to the task of planning, however their job is to set out what will be covered tomorrow, next week, next month and three months ahead.

If you refer back to the modules about establishing a market differential, you will remember that we discussed how a news organisation can produce 10 original stories a week by introducing a simple content strategy focused on the needs of the target audience.

The planning editor is in charge of this strategy on behalf of the media organisation.

They control the content produced. They attend all news meetings and must have a say in what is covered.

The person in charge of the day’s output – the editor of the day – needs to be able to rely on the planning editor to supply at least one original story a day.

But the planning editor will need resources to produce this content.

Setting up a forward planning team

In the case of a TV station, the planning editor will need at least one reporter, a camera crew, and the use of an editing suite.

This small planning unit might even have an intern attached to the unit who works as a researcher, looks for new angles to stories on social media, and looks after the cross-promotion of the stories produced so that they get maximum exposure on all the news organisation’s outlets.

Prior to the setting up of the planning role, these resources would be dedicated to news on the day, and used to respond to the news agenda set by others (as set out above).

What needs to happen is for the news managers, as a team, to prioritise effort – see our training module in this series entitled “Prioritising production effort with a journalism value matrix”.

They will have agreed to the editorial priorities for serving the target audience with original, in-depth material. Once they have done this, they will find that there are existing resources – currently used covering stories that are not a priority – which can be freed and allocated to the planning editor and his/her team for the creation of content that provides a clear market differential.

Shared planning calendar

A useful tool for the planning editor, and the whole team, is a shared online calendar. You can use any of the free options that are available. Google calendar works fine for this.

The planning editor needs to set up the newsroom planning calendar and plot all the events that have been agreed.

For each event a follow up date needs to be set. It might be three months ahead, or six months.

An automatic reminder can be sent out a week before to remind the team that the story needs following up.

Every editor, producer and reporter should have write access to this calendar. When a story is covered by a reporter, s/he will be expected to enter one of three things in the calendar.

1. a follow up date when the story should be revisited to see what has changed
2. any dates mentioned in the piece for future meetings etc, and
3. new angles that emerged during the story research and production that need to be produced.

This shared, planning calendar is now an essential element of your centralises, command-and-control superdesk (please refer to our module on creating a converged newsroom).

The planning editor is the custodian and curator of this strategic asset. It exists for the purpose of producing original in-depth journalism.

But it has a revenue and a cost saving function, too.

Revenue generation

If the calendar is shared with the sales and marketing team they can plan advertising campaigns around the content being shared.

This advertising strategy must never influence the editorial decisions made, of course, but by simply knowing what thematic coverage is being planned, aimed at which target audience segments, the sales and marketing team will be in a better position to discuss deals with their clients.

Cost savings

And then there is the cost saving of planning ahead.

There will be times where a well-planned story can produce more than one item from one trip.

It might be that the planning editor is covering an issue such as hospital cleanliness. While on that story a reporter might cover two or three angles, such as disposal of hospital waster, infections caused by inadequate inspections and bad hygiene habits, or management corruption or incompetence.

With good planning, interviews, footage, and research can be managed in order to produce three stories from one visit.

These stories can then be offered as a mini series, running on consecutive days or weeks.

They would tie together nicely in an online special section under the category of health.

And they would link together well as related stories.

The planning editor not only helps a news organisation produce a content differential, but s/he also helps introduce efficiencies and revenue-generating opportunities.

It will take about a month before the efforts of the planning team start to filter through; only then will the benefit of prioritising news resources become evident.

As you start to establish a converged/integrated newsroom delivering content to multiple devices, you will find that one of the most important roles is that of the planning editor.

The post Strategic forward planning for media organisations first appeared on Media Helping Media.

A converged newsroom operates like a content factory, responsible for all intake, production and output. It gathers and processes raw material, creates different products, and then ensures they are delivered to the target audience.

In this module we look at how it is done.

The superdesk

This module is about the workflows and roles and responsibilities that make a converged newsroom run smoothly.

Below is a graphic setting out what a typical superdesk might look like.

Both intake (everything that comes into the news operation), and output (everything that is delivered from the news operation to the audience on multiple devices) need to be close together.

Ideally, representatives of both will sit around the same desk. If space is an issue, and one desk can’t be set up, then they need to be sitting close together. They need to be able to communicate and collaborate at all times in order to respond swiftly to changes in news priorities.

People give this desk different names. Some call it the news hub, some the news cog; it doesn’t matter what it’s called, what matters is what it does. For this series of training modules we are calling this desk the superdesk.

The superdesk is the newsroom’s central command-and-control. It’s where all the main news decisions are made. It serves as a responsive, dynamic focal point for everything to do with the smooth running of the news organisation.

Who sits around the superdesk?

Those sitting around the super desk need to be breathing the same air, hearing the same news alerts, and be taking part in impromptu news meetings, called to deal with the unexpected.

Choosing who sits at the superdesk is up to you. That decision will depend on your overall strategy and who the main decision makers are in your news organisation.

It will also depend on where you need to prioritise effort, the most popular platforms/devices used by your target audience, and the resources available to you.

However, there are a number of important roles that should be represented on the superdesk.

These are roles, not necessarily individuals. For example, the intake editor role will probably need to be covered 24 hours a day for a large news organisation. In that case, the intake editor position on the superdesk should be a seat, populated by different people as working shifts change.

The exceptions might be the planning editor and the cross-promotions roles. They might be positions that need to be filled during the daytime only.

You will need an intake editor role. This is the person who is responsible for everything coming into the building.

You will need an output editor role. This is the person who provide the quality control for everything going out of the building and who liaises directly with production.

You will need someone from the interactive team. They need to ensure the website is publishing all breaking and developing news updates. They will also report to the superdesk regarding all developments on social media.

You will need someone to manage resources, and someone representing planning.

There are other roles you could add, but let’s start with the main ones.

The intake editor

The intake editor acts as the eyes and ears of your news business. They are responsible for all the material that comes into your news production process. This will include the news gathering efforts of your own team of journalists.

It will also involve responding to stories that are being fed by wires services, and monitoring the stories being covered by the competition.

The intake editor has the authority to call an instant, stand-up impromptu meeting when there is breaking news, in order to help the output team adjust to new developments.

They are, essentially, looking out of the building at all the elements that will inform and feed your news operation.

They are not responsible for output. This is an important point. That role falls to the output editor.

The output editor

The output editor looks after quality control. They are also responsible for ensuring deadlines are met. They are the defender of the news brand. Nothing gets past the output editor that could damage that brand.

They ensure the material is accurate, that it’s objective, impartial and fair. Their job is to focus on production values. They need to ensure all platforms are served.

They can’t afford to be distracted by watching the competition, keeping up to date with the wires services, and responding to input issues and logistics. That’s why those tasks are the responsibility of the intake editor.

However, the two work closely together, although doing different jobs. They are in constant communication. Between them the main news decisions for the whole news operation rest.

Planning editor

We discussed the strategic role of the planning editor in the module about forward planning. The planning editor is responsible for managing the news organisation’s unique editorial proposition of in-depth, well-planned, investigative journalism, which provides your market differential.

The planning editor will attend all the main news meetings held at the superdesk. They will offer at least one piece of original journalism a day, probably more than that.

They will listen to what is happening on the day and will ensure that all the major stories are followed up. The shared planning calendar will help.

The planning editors role will not only take the pressure off the journalists working on the daily output, but it will also guarantee that there is a continuous stream of unique content produced on all platforms.

Interactive editor

Having someone from the interactive team sitting on the superdesk means that the online and mobile coverage will be able to respond faster to breaking news developments.

It also means that the superdesk will be informed about how the audience is responding to developing news, and it will provide a different perspective on newsgathering and how news should be covered.

Similarly, having someone from the social media team, will alert the superdesk to developments on the various social media platforms used by the target audience.

This will ensure that the online and other digital versions of your output are not just an after thought, but are a central part of all you do.

And that will show through in your production values, which, in turn, might encourage the audience to engage with your content more.

This will also help with cross-promotion because your on air presenters can be briefed to drive audience traffic to the online and on mobile versions for any added value content.

Resource manager

This role is sometimes called the production manager. This is the person who is responsible for all the resources required to produce the journalism. This could be the camera crews, the vehicles, and the edit suites.

The resource manager needs to respond quickly once the intake editor has alerted the superdesk of a new story development, and the editorial team on the superdesk decides that information is so important that resources have to be shifted from a lesser story.

Cross-promotions producer

Some newsrooms have a cross-promotions producer. Their job is to ensure that all output areas are aware of what others are doing and that content is exploited for the maximum benefit of the news brand and the audience. They will work across TV, radio, print, online and mobile where appropriate.

In some cases they will design teasers, in other cases they will make sure the material is produced by others. Essentially, they will ensure there are no wasted opportunities.

Next we look at the workflow for a converged newsroom.

The converged newsroom workflow

The roles and responsibilities outlined above are just a guide. You will need to design your own version of a superdesk so that it makes business sense for your media organisation.

But do try to keep intake and output as separate roles. And do ensure that you have a planning function. Once you have reorganised, the workflow is fairly simple.

As has already been stated, the superdesk is your newsroom’s central command-and-control. All the main news decisions are made here. It is responsible for intake, planning and output.

As you will see from the graphic below, once those decision are made the instructions are sent to production – ideally via a representative attending the superdesk meetings.

The production teams then ensure that the appropriate platform-specific value is added to the story based on audience needs, device/platform capabilities, and strategic business logic.

That means that if they are working on the web or mobile versions they will add interactive timelines, infographics, photo galleries, video, and other digital assets, where appropriate.

If they are working on the TV version they will create TV packages that can cross-promote the digital assets being offered on the other platforms.

Production will no longer be carried out in isolation but as a part of a coherent and coordinated presentation on multiple devices.

The post Convergence, workflows, roles and responsibilities first appeared on Media Helping Media.

Sometimes journalists become lazy. When this happens, the news they produce becomes superficial and shallow. They take information at face value. They fail to dig deeper. This is weak journalism.

In fact, in some cases, it stops being journalism, and becomes a production process where information is republished without any analysis, context or added value.

Journalists become channels for public relations material and propaganda, failing to apply any critical evaluation of the material being processed.

There are ways journalists can focus on the stories that really matter to their target audience, and invest time and effort in order to explore those stories fully.

This proactive journalism tool should help. It’s a tool used by Media Helping Media in media development and commercial media strategy work for several years. It’s been developed from an idea by Dr. Eric Loo, a journalist and senior lecturer in journalism.

Proactive journalism

There are five steps involved in proactive journalism.

The first, observing, is what most journalists already do; the problem is that many stop there.

That’s unfortunate, because there are at least four more steps to take in order to produce rich journalism that informs the public debate.

The other four important steps in proactive journalism are learning, analysing, reflecting and contextualising.

Let’s look at each in more detail, starting with observing.

1: Observing

This is what most journalists do every day.

They watch, listen, sense and absorb information, which they then put together to form a news story.

But even this simple step is often executed badly. Perhaps they are in a rush, or under pressure. Perhaps they think that the news release or wires copy they have been given works fine without any extra effort.

But if journalists just reproduce what they have been given, they are letting both their audience and their media organisation down. They can do better.

Even with the first stage in proactive journalism, journalists need to be digging deeper.

If you have been given a news release, or have attended an organised event and have just heard a speech, you don’t have a news story.

All you have at that stage is some material from which you can start to construct a news story.

Ask yourself whether what you have been told matches what you have witnessed?

If not challenge those circulating the information, and contact those affected. Is what you have been told reflecting the views of one particular group of people?

If so what other voices are needed to complete the story. Is the material critical of others? If so they need to be given the chance to reply.

Are those sharing the information with you making strong claims? If they are then what they are saying needs to be tested with independent data.

Your job is to listen to what those involved in the story are saying and question every assumption.

You must never accept information at face value. Most people will be trying to push their point of view; your job is to reflect those views in a wider context, not simply repeat them in isolation.

Try to get a sense of what might be behind the story in terms of the other actors involved. There will usually be at least two sides to every story, but often many more voices to be heard.

And never report what you have been given as fact, always use qualifying words such as ‘claimed’, ‘alleged’ and ‘said’.

So far the above is fairly straightforward, now let’s look at the next step, learning.

2: Learning

This is where you need to make sense of what you are being told. This will involve researching the validity of the information being shared.

You need to challenge everything. If you are in any doubt at all, you need to seek clarification.

You must never repeat what you don’t understand or can validate and justify. If the issue isn’t clear, you need to find new angles in order to help people understand old and current events.

The learning process means that you retain an open mind and strive to find new ways to explore the issue you are uncovering.

Make a list of all the points you don’t understand, and go through those points one by one until you are absolutely clear, and can explain even a complicated case or situation in plan and straightforward language.

As you do, you will uncover new angles, and you will become aware of information gaps that you will need to fill before you broadcast or publish the information.

At this stage you will have three elements to your story.

1. What you have been told,
2. What you have observed,
3. What you have learnt.

Now you can move on to the next step, which is analysing what you have got.

3: Analysing

A simple way to do this is to make a list of what you have so far. This will include what you have been told, what you have observed, and what you have learnt.

You need to list all the significant elements of a story and then assess the likely impact on the lives of the people involved and others indirectly affected by the events you are covering.

You should also consider the reach of the story in terms of how many people it will affect. It could be that there are far more people involved than was apparent when the story first broke.

And once you have expanded the material you have on the story, you need to step back and reflect on what you have found.

You now have;

1. What you have been told,
2. What you have observed,
3. What you have learnt,
4. What you have deducted through analysing the evidence you have uncovered.

4: Reflecting

This is where it might be helpful to consult someone. It might be the editor, a producer or a colleague. It doesn’t matter. You just need someone to help you assess what you have uncovered.

During this process you need to ensure that you have included all significant voices and views. You need to challenge all assumptions, especially your own.

Most of all, you need to ensure you apply editorial integrity, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and accuracy to your news gathering.

It could be that the story you thought you had has changed. It could be that the exiting top line you had thought up for a headline is no longer valid. It could be that the story is weak and needs to be dropped, or it could be that the story is the strongest your newsroom has covered this year and is going to win a prize.

You won’t be able to judge that on your own; including colleagues is essential if you are to reach the right conclusion as to the strength of the story.

Now you can begin to add context to your report.

5: Contextualising

This is where you need to offer information that will help the audience understand the significance of the news event you are covering.

The death of 10 people following flooding is tragic, but if the death toll was 1,000 the previous year, that information needs to be added to put the latest events into context.

The deaths will be devastating for the local community who have lost loved ones, their livelihood and perhaps their homes, but you need to know whether warnings were given in the past and why they were not heeded.

So you need to look for patterns. Has this story happened before? When? What was the outcome? You also need to look for local, regional, national and international comparisons where appropriate.

It might be that by taking a wider view you uncover a much bigger story. Does a recent controversial contract for a hydro-electric dam downstream have any bearing on flooding?

Check the archives, explore the history of the story, continue to research deeper in order to get to the root of the matter. This is all part of the process of finding out why a story is important and adding that context so that you enhance the understanding of the audience.

You need to find out where it fits into the bigger picture. You need to uncover the relationships between what you are covering and previous events.

It will be essential to find out what part politics and business plays in the story; perhaps there is a suspicion of corruption and dishonest dealing.

Story development

We discuss more about these ideas, and how they can be put into practice, in our training module about story development.

In that module, we take the story of flooding in Vietnam and apply two of the tools in this series – the proactive journalism tool and the story development tool – in order to squeeze all the information out of the event for the benefit of our audience.

This is because you work on behalf of the audience. They are not in a position to speak to the powerful and influential, you are. You work on their behalf. And to do your job properly you need to be professional in the way you treat the information you are sharing with your audience.

Extra workload

If, after reading this you are thinking that you and your journalists don’t have the time to do the above, consider whether it’s worth doing fewer stories better.

There are some tips on how to priorities effort in our training modules about story weighting and the journalism value matrix.

Whatever tools you use, your job is to inform the public debate. You do this by digging where others are afraid to dig, by scrutinising the executive, by holding the powerful to account, and by shining a light in dark places. All these actions are part of proactive journalism.

And if you are not challenging the information you are given, you are failing as a journalist and are just providing an outlet for PR (public relations) information and propaganda.

The post Proactive journalism, ensuring issues are fully explored first appeared on Media Helping Media.

In a previous module we looked at the topic of proactive journalism, where journalists are encouraged to observe, learn, reflect, analyse, and add context when producing news stories. In this module we look at story development.

This module is about thinking of the related stories, angles, or missing pieces of the story that can be produced in order to help explain the main story and enhance the audience understanding of the issue being covered.

For this exercise we consider a recurring story in Vietnam – flooding – and we look at the various angles that could be followed up. First we have the main story.

1: The story

This is fairly straightforward. We just need to ask the basic journalistic questions of what, why, when, how, where and who. So, in creating the main story we need to ask:

• What has happened?
• Why did it happen?
• When did it happen?
• How did it happen?
• Where did it happen?
• Who does it affect?

Asking these question should give us the main story and headline.

But responsible reporting that aims to inform the public debate with robust investigative journalism needs to go further. Let’s look at what we have to work on from the main story.

2: The facts

Now we can start to expand the story using the story development model. We need to start to piece together the facts, or the evidence. And these so-called ‘facts’ need to be examined, tested and proven to be accurate by confirming with at least two independent sources.

• What do we know?
• Is our information accurate?
• What is the source?
• Why are they sharing?
• What facts could be missing?
• What don’t we know?
• Who should we talk to?
• Why are they important?
• What could be hidden?
• Who is doing the hiding?

By this stage we will have built up a story plan which, when we discuss with our news team, will produce several ideas for follow up angles (related stories).

What we are able to piece together at this point are the following:

• Flooding fact file – a list of bullet points.
• Flooding maps – where the flooding happened.
• Flooding profiles – background information on the area most affected.

Having gathered some facts we now need to look at the data used to support the evidence.

3: The data

• What is the source of the data?
• Is it reliable?
• Can you verify?
• Check with officials, NGOs, campaigners, academics.
• Seek out regional comparisons regarding flooding in other provinces, regions, neighbouring countries.
• Find out what is the history of flooding in the area?
• Check whether any projections were made in the past that could have reduced the impact?

At this stage something interesting is starting to happen. As we dig deeper, new story angles are emerging.

Let’s consider just a few that might be inspired by point three.

• The flooding: campaigners warn that it could happen again.
• The flooding: comparisons between regions – how others are coping.
• The flooding: officials say relief and aid will arrive in time.

Now we need to get first-hand experiences to illustrate the story.

Of course we will have some personal experiences in the main story, but once we establish what has happened, and understand the scale compared to previous floods, we can now ask more intelligent questions when talking to the victims.

4: Who is affected?

• What is their story?
• Before the incident, during the incident, after the incident.
• Who do they care for and who still needs help?
• Who can’t get help?
• What help is offered?

At this point we will have a series of personal accounts of the flooding.

• The flooding: the victims tell their stories.
• The flooding: the annual disaster that has become a way of life.
• The flooding: the communities still stranded and in need of help.

Having spoken to people affected by the flooding we can now look at who is responsible, and what was the cause.

5: Responsibility

• Who or what was responsible?
• What went wrong?
• Why did it go wrong?
• Were all possible preventative measures taken?
• What are the authorities doing?
• Will it happen again?
• If not, why not?
• If it will, what can be done?

This should produce some fairly straightforward angles for story follow up, including:

• The flooding: Who was to blame? Officials, NGOs and campaigners point the finger.
• The flooding: Authorities say preventative measures planned.
• The flooding: Did local communities ignore warnings?

Having attempted to establish responsibility, we can also look at promises made in the past.

6: The promises

• In the present and in the past.
• Preventative measures promised.
• Local authority plans.
• Aid and relief offered.
• Infrastructure changes suggested after the last floods.
• Tackling the causes, deforestation, dams etc.
• Compensation offered to those affected last time.
• What fact-finding was carried out and what was done with the information.

Suggested follow up angles from the above include:

• The flooding: learning from the lessons of the past.
• The flooding: why preventative measures failed.
• The flooding: did the aid get through to those in need?

This is the stage where our archive becomes valuable.

We will have material from previous coverage of the flooding. We need to include this in order to provide context. Please refer to the other training module in this series about “Proactive journalism”.

All the above helps us assess the scale of the problem and try to establish an accurate view of the impact.

7: The impact

• Now and in the future.
• On crops and the general economy.
• The environment and whether it can recover.
• Health issues related to contaminated water, lack of medicine etc.
• Infrastructure, roads, railways, communications.
• Communities cut off.
• Families separated, unable to contact one another.
• Individuals missing, injured, bereaved.

Some story ideas resulting from the above considerations could include:

• The flooding: the economic impact on the environment.
• The flooding: the cost of repairing the infrastructure.
• The flooding: the impact on remote rural communities.

As the picture builds we are in a better position to view the consequences.

8: The consequences

• A complete solution, part solution, or no solution.
• Aid gets though, part aid gets through, or no aid gets through.
• Changes in lifestyle for some and what happens to those who can’t change.
• The economic future for all.

Such considerations could mean related stories being produced about:

• The flooding: prevention plans for future years.
• The flooding: the true cost of getting aid to those in need.
• The flooding: lifestyle changes required to cope with annual disaster.

As we continue to develop angles, dig deep and explore the topic we will start to develop some ideas of who might be accountable.

9: Accountability

• Who knew?
• What action was taken?
• Was it too early or late?
• Who is to blame?
• What local authority action was taken?
• Were there warnings given?
• Did the warnings reach those in danger?
• Were the warnings heeded?
• If not, why not?
• Is there any suspicion of any corruption?

The considerations above could lead to more related stories such as:

• The flooding: was enough done to prepare communities?
• The flooding: were warnings ignored and, if so, why?
• The flooding: the hidden factors that increased the likelihood of a disaster.

The question of corruption will come up as we start to assess accountability. We then need to look to the future.

10: The future

• What is the plan?
• What are the options?
• Who will it involve?
• What are the changes?
• Will they be phased?
• Is any adjustment needed?
• Is any training needed?
• What are the contingency plans?
• Is any education needed?
• What are the community plans?

This list provides us with several related story ideas, including:

• The flooding: future plans to prevent another disaster.
• The flooding: campaign to educate those living under the risk of floods.
• The flooding: community relocation plans to rehouse those at most risk.

Already we will probably have thought up 10 different angles on the flooding story with at least three related stories for each angle.

At this stage we should have at least 30 original story ideas that attempt to explain the complexity of the issue we are covering on behalf of our audience.

This is story development. This is in-depth, robust, responsible journalism aimed at fully informing the public debate. But all this material needs managing.

This task might be taken on by the planning editor. In an earlier module we discussed the role of the planning editor and his/her team. They will need to ensure the story is followed up.

11: The follow up

• Set a follow up date.
• Three or six months.
• List questions to ask.
• Note promises/targets.
• Check timetables.
• Keep archive.
• Revisit victims.
• Check with authorities.
• Interview experts.
• Arrange studio debates.

Of course the planning role will also produce new story opportunities, such as:

• The flooding: six months / a year on – what has changed?
• The flooding: from our archive – a special report on communities under water.
• The flooding: studio debate – the experts meet the public face-to-face.

And while all this is going on there will be a need to engage the audience in debate via the social media platforms used by victims, aid agencies, authorities, concerned relatives, and general public.

12: Engaging the audience

• Discuss on Facebook.
• Use other social media.
• Ask for experiences.
• Interview people.
• Stimulate debate.
• Ask questions.
• Offer answers.
• Publish fact files.
• Publish maps.
• Offer help and support.

And this part will also produce related stories, including:

• The flooding: How social media responded.
• The flooding: Your pictures of the disaster.
• The flooding: Interactive maps and timelines for you to share.

An example to apply to all big stories

The methods outlined above can’t be applied to every story; newsrooms don’t have the resources for that. However, such treatment should be considered for big, recurring stories or events where there is significant local impact, and where there is likely to be a growing archive of previously-prepared material.

To help us decide what stories deserve such detailed story development we can use two tools that are shared on this site. One is the “content value matrix”, and the other is the “story weighting system”.

Both are designed to help media managers and journalists focus resources on the stories that are of most value to the target audience.

The post Story development, ensuring all angles are covered first appeared on Media Helping Media.

Planning is essential for effective election coverage. The model below can be used as a checklist by editors or election coverage teams. It gives also some guidance on special editorial approaches to the campaign. Be careful, however, to adapt this model to local realities. Do not accept the argument that poorly funded media do not have the means to follow those rules. Journalism on a budget can be priceless.

Election planning checklist

1: Details

Check with the electoral commission regarding all the details of the coming poll: registration date, start and closing day of the campaign period, election day specifics (how the polling will be organized, timetable for election returns, etc).

2: Rules

Study the election rules: voting system, electoral laws, poll watching, laws governing international observation delegations, use of public opinion surveys, political advertising regulations, access to state media, electoral expenses limitations, etc).

3: Guidelines

Join other media, unions of journalists, publishers’ and broadcasters’ associations to agree guidelines, a code of conduct and a charter to be submitted to all political parties, committing them to respect journalists and protect them against harassment by party supporters.

Consider setting up an election media monitoring group comprised of respected, non-partisan figures charged with protecting the press from aggression and investigating any such incidents.

4: Audience awareness

Explain to your readers your reporting rules, how you are going to cover the campaign and why.

5: Budget

Budget the election reporting: an election campaign is usually good business for the media, but costs can run away with you.

You will need extra phone lines, faxes, additional cars and drivers, more overtime.

Plan carefully and allocate resources wisely. Underestimating your budget will get you into trouble. Keep a sensible proportion of your budget unallocated for contingencies.

6: Roles and responsibilities

Choose your team. Election coverage is the political desk’s golden hour but should not be its exclusive preserve.

All departments can be asked to perform duties according to their skills. Specialised writers will be commissioned to analyze issues on their beat (economics, health, foreign affairs, economics, labour, education), to compare competing political programmes, to scrutinise speeches and position papers, to track inconsistencies and expose propaganda.

The foreign desk, for instance, might be assigned to stories related to international observer teams, foreign press coverage, role of international organisations in the campaign, etc.

Some media organisations set up an election desk for the last weeks of the campaign. This option should be studied carefully especially in small newspapers.

The election campaign should not compromise reporting of other news.

7: Review procedure

Appoint an editorial panel: it will be charged with reviewing delicate questions that may arise as the campaign develops. It should include the editor-in-chief, the relevant department head, and a few distinguished commentators or reporters.

8: Operational issues

Plan technical and operational arrangements: pin down the advertising department (some pages should be considered ad-free during the campaign, precise guidelines should be given to acceptance and placement of political advertising), the production manager (s/he must provide for later deadlines on election day and for additional pages), and the distribution manager.

9: Staffing

Recruit additional personnel: young journalists to handle the information flow on election day, phone and fax operators, secretaries, drivers, etc.

10: Contacts list

Contact resource persons: they will be of much help to give expert advice during the election campaign and as soon as the results are public.

Election pundits, political scientists, public opinion analysts, should be on standby and attached to your particular media.

Appointments should be arranged in advance with political party leaders for election-night comments on results.

But do not overwhelm your readers with excessive punditry. Ordinary citizens should have their say too.

11: Media assets

Check your photo files: you should have as many pictures of candidates as possible stored in your photo library.

12: Backup systems

Plan for emergencies: what do you do if something breaks down on your side (your computer falls dead, your local journalist cannot contact you, one of your reporters is arrested or wounded, etc) and on the side of the government (failure in the collation of results, charges of irregularities, etc).

Planning is all-important, but never forget that your first responsibility is to the readers, the viewers and listeners.

13: Audience empowerment

Citizen’s groups which are formed to help voters use the power which elections put at their disposal are very useful. Take, for example, this advice given by Project Vote Smart in the US to American voters:

1. Remember who is in charge. In our democracy the citizen is the boss. Elected officials are temporary hired help.
2. View the election campaign as the politician’s job application.
3. Ask yourself if the candidates are giving you, the employer, the information needed to decide who is best for the job.

14: Clarity of content

Civic education: media must carefully and repeatedly explain the principles and techniques of voting and what the election will lead to (a new parliament, separation of powers, transparency, etc).

Media should introduce an open line to readers so they might ask questions on specific points of the campaign and air their views.

Run more interviews with voters not just “vox-pop” and quick quotes gathered in the street, but meaningful probing of how families are surviving in an economic crisis or how they deeply feel about education opportunities for their children.

15: Plans for polls

Public opinion polling: unprofessional polls are bad news, for voters and for media.

Never commission surveys that do not stick to the highest standards and never print them without fully explaining the conditions and the limits of the survey.

Expose any fraud in a political party or newspaper survey. Never forget that polls will never replace old-style political reporting.

16: Fact files

Start well ahead of election day: prepare profiles of major candidates, close-ups on most electoral districts (economic base, population profile, major problems, party dominance).

17: Backgrounders

Cover the issues: Pile up documentation on campaign issues (official figures, the state of the debate, major players and lobbies, etc.).

Cover those issues independently from party positions, report on issues that are neglected by political parties.

Too often issues are presented as just a conflict between opposing sides and not as objects of serious debate.

Always ask: What’s missing in the news today? Read everything, remember what the candidates said (and did) over a period of years not just days.

Do not confuse lobbying by interest groups or media-generated excitement with a grass-roots political movement.

Do not be afraid of repeating explanatory studies of difficult issues.

The “We’ve already done it” or “It does not interest anybody” cynicism should never be welcome in a newsroom. At election time is should be banned.

18: Style

Improve your sub-editors’ team: make stories and issues accessible to readers, de-code all political jargon, track down and annihilate all long words that render already difficult concepts totally incomprehensible.

19: Priorities

Beware of “pack” journalism: shy away from the tendency to follow candidates like a pack of wolves which leads to concentrate on the same events and interpret them in the same way.

This happens particularly when a candidate is seen as rising in the polls: when a candidate’s support increases sharply the coverage of his candidacy becomes more favourable.

20: Stakeholders

Keep in Touch with who is behind a party or a candidate: examine possible conflicts of interest. Look at a candidate’s record or promises and commitments: ask who has benefited or would benefit from a candidate’s proposals.

Follow the money: who is financing the campaign, what are the interests of those providing the money, and how will they benefit from the government (new legislation, regulatory power).

21: Variety

Use all forms of journalism: long reportage, analytical pieces, graphs, satire, sketches and cartoons, investigative journalism (who is behind a particular candidate, the role of special interests, etc), photojournalism, profiles, interviews, contradictory debates.

22: Propaganda

Open Space: Give politicians from different parties the possibility to write columns for your paper on a fair and rotating basis.

But stop this process at least two weeks before election day so as not to give undue advantage to one of the candidates and not to overwhelm your readers with party propaganda.

23: Stunts and tricks

Get acquainted with campaign tricks: Beware of stunts and cooked-up events designed just to grab headlines.

24: Overhype

Press releases: Do not just publish political parties’ press releases: check them, use them as a source for a more balanced story.

Do not run for “photo-opportunities”. Do not overhype controversy: a contrived rumour campaign can lead you far away from voters’ real interests.

25: Attribution

Be credible: Never forget that your long-term credibility is always at stake. Follow closely each candidate’s advertising campaign.

Some media have columns which scrutinise campaign promises and advertising techniques. Expose falsification and distortion wherever you find it.

Clearly identify and attribute any information coming from sources other than obtained from independent reporting.

26: Review process

After the election: review the way your team covered the campaign. Compare your performance with that of the competition.

27: Training

Train your staff in reporting a multiparty parliament or a coalition government. Follow up the candidates’ election campaign promises. Check their records against their commitments.

Keep an eye out for conflicts of interest: the type of legislation actively pushed by an MP can give you a tip on the identity of his financial backers.

The post Planning tips for effective election coverage first appeared on Media Helping Media.