"If your first instinct when coming upon a crime scene is thinking about a possible lede rather than tweeting what you see, this position is not for you."
-- The Indianapolis Star, in a new advertisement seeking a breaking news reporter mostly covering cops and courts.
How silly ads are for newspaper positions.
ReplyDeleteGracia rarely tweets and has less than 10 Twitter followers.
ReplyDeleteNothing like getting all of the facts and verifying before you start prattling.
ReplyDeleteImmediacy before accuracy! Gotta be first, even if you're tweets are unverified bullshit that you have to correct later.
DeleteTo be fair, reporting what you see with your own eyes already is verified. Police tape. Squad cars. Gawkers. Crying people. Smoke rising from a house. That doesn't mean you should reach any conclusions. You can't tweet that the crying people are victims. But you can report that you see people who are crying, and that you're going to check it out. The issue needn't be timeliness vs. accuracy. The real issue is whether people want to be bothered reading tweets about random sights and sounds before you've had a chance to make some kind of sense out of it all. Probably depends on the situation: reports of shots fired at a school? Yes. Structure fire with no reports of injuries? Probably not.
DeleteAnyone can report what they see. Paying subscribers would probably want more. Like the facts, context, a resolution, victim's status, overall impact...
DeleteI get the point, but why must newsrooms employ such a sneer when recruiting? "We are so hip to digital that we will ridicule anyone who isn't." Not only is any newsroom that still prints a paper especially disqualified from striking such a tech-superior pose, it's a simple turn-off. Who wants to work for people who employ mockery to find talent? This is not something reserved to Gannett, by the way.
ReplyDeleteTweeting is fine, but so is trying to find out what actually happened.
ReplyDeleteIf tweeting is all we ask for, then we might as well be somebody standing behind a police line watching. Report!
Perhaps Gannett's new HR guy can enlighten those who make the hires. Trying too hard to be in touch and cutting edge can mean appearing dull and out to lunch. Not a company young folks would want to work for if they want to truly develop as reporters and writers.
ReplyDeleteGannett has a new HR guy?
DeleteTweet a photo, especially from a fire or accident scene, and tell people more info is coming later, duh. That is reporting 101. The scene or you access can change in an instant. Shoot, then ask questions.
ReplyDeleteThe last thing I think about when arriving at a news scene is what my lede will be. What an absurd predicate in that ad. I start thinking of ledes when I sit down to write.
ReplyDeleteI want to know what genius posted that help wanted ad.
ReplyDeleteWhat this essentially means is "If you want to earn more than $25,000 a year, this job is not for you."
ReplyDelete