Colin Mulvany (The Spokane, Wa. Spokesman Review) just posted some great tips on how to approach video storytelling. This isn’t the type of how-to that goes through what buttons to push and what menu items to click, but it provides some very helpful advice on adjusting to the video mindset and getting the most from your video stories.
Not so fast…just because they are “out there for everyone to see for free” doesn’t automatically give you the green light to run them as you please. While the first amendment grants us great leeway and courts have determined that prior restraint isn’t allowed (with rare exception…troop movements, etc.) this doesn’t give you carte blanche to scavenge in Internet for photos of little Billy scoring the winning run in yesterday’s extra-inning thriller and plant them on the sports page.
Although sites like Flickr encourage sharing of photos, it’s not without conditions. Flickr even allows various licensing levels to be selected by their users, further muddying the copyrights water. For instance, a user can set the license usage for their work as “public domain” if they so choose. If no licensing level is set though, does that mean they are automatically in the “public domain?” Can a newspaper claim a “fair use” exemption?
If the game becomes a legitimate news event, (such as a photo of someone during the game who is later abducted, murdered, killed in a car wreck on the way home, or even wins some great prize), you might have a better “fair use” defense for publication, but despite no clear copyright label, under current copyright law an image is copyrighted the instant it is created by the photographer, unless it was created under a “work for hire” agreement. Absent such an agreement (or any other written or verbal contract or permission), legally you are violating the image creator’s copyright, which is punishable by a fine of up to $150,000 per incident.
Of course most courts are lenient if you show a good faith effort to remove the photo that is in violation (especially on websites), but it’s a little harder to do in print…and an apology and correction won’t always absolve you of any monetary liability. Courts tend to see this as a copyright issue, not a freedom of press issue, and a photo does NOT have to be officially copyrighted or even labeled as such to invoke copyright protection, although if the copyright owner does not register their creation within 90 days of publication (their original publication on say Flickr, not YOUR re-publication of their images) it does limit damages that can be awarded to “actual damages” (which would be fair market value of the image). Also, for any NON-PUBLISHED images, the author has up to 5 years after creation to register their copyright in order to collect punitive damages.
Remember, all images are automatically copyrighted by their creator unless they are covered under “work for hire” rules, such as your editorial employees. Even a freelancer in your employ is not automatically covered by “work for hire” copyright rules, so make sure you have an agreement with the photo’s owner before you publish it…otherwise you may find yourself dealing with a copyright attorney.
If an article on high school kids and their yearbooks seems a little off-topic for a forum on community journalism, think again.
What’s happening here? We have a traditional medium – paper and pictures. Something all of us grew up with and looked forward for a year to receiving. But today’s Facebook/Twitter/Websavvy crowd is less and less interested in a medium lots of us thought would never die. It’s not that they don’t care about reading about themselves and their classmates, or seeing their pictures. In fact, they are probably more interested than ever. They’re just getting that in different ways, and a yearbook delivery system for that interest seems archaic to them.
Some day soon, these kids will be our primary target audience. Will kids who have rejected yearbooks have any interest at all in an ink-on-newsprint product? Read about the yearbook trend in this Dallas Morning News story
If you follow the Center’s Website, you’ve read a lot about the growth of community journalism in places you wouldn’t have thought of as being homes of community media – like New York City and Chicago and LA. And you know by now that community journalism is no longer a place – it’s an attitude. Even a few years ago, community journalism was journalism as practiced in communities – typically smaller towns or rural areas. No more. Now community journalism is an attempt by larger newspapers and TV stations to reclaim their local – community – roots, and thereby to reclaim their audience. To see the extent of what’s happening, check out this Pew research report, a content analysis of 46 metro areas that found 145 online sites that they defined as community journalism.
This writer finally did it — he gave up his daily newspaper subscription in favor of getting his news online. Even if you don’t encounter a lot of folk with this dilemma, what he has done will be more and more common. So take the time to read Mark Glaser’s blog post, Kicking Ink: The Struggles of a Print Newspaper Unsubscriber.
In a short video interview, Kevin Hessel from the Marin Independent Journal shares some of the ways he uses social media at the Marin (Cali.) Independent Journal to engage readers.
Jock Lauterer, who teaches community journalism at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, is an old friend of the Center and of Texas journalism. He has spoken at several of our seminars.
Follow the link below for a down-home look at several successful weeklies in North Carolina — weeklies that follow the same pattern of successful weeklies in smaller communities in Texas. You’ll enjoy Jock’s perspective on just what accounts for their success in those communities.
Click here for the story, “What’s the secret of N.C.’s successful weeklies?“
It’s always frustrating to read direct quotes from local officials that really don’t add much to the stories, such as when a local city or county official, trying his or her best to stay on point, is asked for reaction to a local measure that just passed and says, “We think this is in the best financial interests of our residents.” Or when a local craftsman, whose initiative and talent have produced murals that have spruced up some unattractive downtown buildings says, “I’m proud of all the community support we’ve received.” Or when the star or coach of the high school team says of a big win, “We just had to come together as team.”
Sure, these folks made those statements, and surely they’re accurate, but just as surely these lines don’t add much to the reader’s understanding of the issue. They don’t add insight to the story, and they don’t move the story along.
And moving the story along is what direct quotes are intended to do. Direct quotations are supposed to enlighten and entertain the audience and illuminate the issue being covered, not to mention indicating a sufficient probe into the situation at hand.
Sometimes, though, a reporter can settle for the first words that come out of the source’s mouth. One of the reasons for these types of accurate but non-meaningful direct quotes is that too often the reporters ask open-ended questions that fail to direct the nature of the response. The question posed might be, “What’s your reaction to the vote?” Or, “How do you feel now that the project’s completed?” Or, “Tell me what this victory means.” By asking this question, the reporter has left it up to the source to come up with a meaningful sound bite, and, depending on the source’s political position or articulateness or experience with news media, the results can be politically-correct or drab or, in the case of the coach or ballplayer, clichéd from too many nights of ESPN SportsCenter.
If the direct quotes illustrated so far are indicative of the best one’s available, it either means the reporter had a tin ear, didn’t have ample time or didn’t engage the source in a meaningful interview. And sometimes, in the latter situation, it’s because the reporter might not have been knowledgeable enough or confident enough or comfortable enough to ask more challenging questions.
Let’s take the first example, the local official who has touted the fiscal wisdom of the government’s vote, and let’s say it was to cut back on operating hours of the local library.
And let’s say the reporter is knowledgeable and confident enough but hoped to get a meaningful response from the open-ended question. Well, that obviously didn’t work, so here’s a follow-up, a close-ended question that more narrowly defines the range in which the official can respond: “How does the money saved justify the inconvenience to library patrons?” And if the source replies, “Well, it was a tough call.” Now, you’ve got something to work with, and to that the reporter could follow up with, “How was it a tough call?” And let’s say the response there is, “We know we’ve got a lot of elderly residents and working-class parents who’ll find it harder to get there on the reduced hours, but we had to make cuts somewhere.” Now your direct quote reads:
“It was a touch call,” Jones said. “We’ve got a lot of elderly residents and working-class parents who’ll find it harder to get there on the reduced hours, but we had to make cuts somewhere.”
And now you’ve got a direct quote with some meat to it, that comes from an official source and registers with readers who may support the measure and those who oppose it. And you’ve gotten some insight into how the local government works, which isn’t always the case when relying purely on what’s said at the governmental meetings. And, if there’s not much time for the interview, that’s the line of questioning that ought to kick-start the conversation instead of the open-ended question.
The same goes for the local artist. Instead of asking for his reaction, ask why he or she was motivated to undertake such an endeavor or how the project will benefit the community. Those questions will prompt some soul-searching by the artist that should provide insight to the readers. And if the answer is that “so many people have volunteered their time and money, it makes this project all the more rewarding,” then voila!
And the coach? Ask how the team, as initially described, came together. A simple “tell me how they did it” should kick-start that line of questioning. And if the reporter noticed that the team was more selective on pitches or made more passes before attempting to score, ask the coach how those actions contributed to the win. Bottom line, ask probing questions that prod the source to give more meaningful answers that will have meaning.
And the more questions that are asked that push for meaningful answers, the more follow-up questions should leap out at the reporter. And that translates into more interesting copy for your readers.
Remember, some of these sources may have a vested interest in staying as non-committal as possible, or they may not know exactly what it is the newspaper is looking for, or they may live in a world where the cliché is crystal clear to them but babble to your readers.
The key for the reporter is to engage them in conversation, to be inquisitive, and to be interested in finding out and understanding how and why your community thinks and acts like it does. Try it, and you’ll like it.
With all the discussion over ethics on Twitter and other social networks this week, I thought I’d post this entry from a few months ago by Steve Buttry, TCU alumnus and information content conductor at Gazette Communications. He offers some guidance journalists who participate in social networks.
Ben McClanahan shares some tips for newspapers for getting their sites indexed on Google News. He also links to a Google blog post that has some great information. Ben’s entire blog is dedicated to search engine optimization for newspapers, so check it out. He has tips on everything from Web headlines to search engine submission.