Identifying trouble spots for new reporters

A column from Jason Akst of the NIU journalism program:

Forget for a moment the mundane grammatical, stylistic and organizational problems that plague beginning journalists. They are important considerations, but in today’s rant I want focus on conceptual journalistic issues our students battle.

Why? So that, just in case we’re only partially successful at fixing everything below, you know where our training left off when you graciously and wisely hire our talented, bright young journalists.

Let’s talk about Me

"The story is not about you!" Ad nauseum, I emphasize that beginning news writers are not columnists. I include the part about how there’s no complete objectivity, but when we construct news stories, as much as possible, we’re supposed to be accurate, impartial, dispassionate, careful observers and transmitters of what happened.

Deaf ears. Perhaps because of Facebook, texting, blogging, K-12 emphasis on personal expression, all of the above, novice journalists find it increasingly difficult to keep themselves out of the story. The signals aren’t subtle. They write, "I think that …."

Numbers, schmumbers

No matter the topic, I emote, good stories are a smooth, potent blend of humanity and data. "Humanity" comes from good quotes, descriptions, narrative, etc.; "data" comes from information upon which those good quotes, descriptions, narrative, etc. rely. News revolves around reports, deaths/injuries, statistics, research … something that measures something.

They get the concept of compelling storytelling, and that’s important, but we’re supposed to tell nonfiction stories, and the nonfiction part comes from the numbers. They don’t like that, often don’t understand the information upon which stories are based, and struggle with incorporating information into the story.

According to this Web site …

We have created the monster that’s eating us. Even though students know that just about anybody can construct a Web site and make it seem real, they just can’t break away from using the Internet as primary – and only – source material.

I can’t tell you how many stories I read that say something like, "According to blahblahblah.com …." No mention talking with anyone at the Web site, no effort to talk to actual people. Just the idea that information on the Web is good enough is very troubling.

Report, yes; cheerlead, no

I blast editorialization because I think bloviating journalists (in places other than the Op/Ed section) give our profession the black eye we all-too-often deserve. Later we can debate a responsible level of advocacy, but in a basic news writing class, I focus on the layup, not the alley oop.

Interesting, however, is that when my students editorialize, overwhelmingly, they cheerlead rather than criticize. Over the past decade or so, the harshest media analysis seems to point mainstream media’s disinterest/inability to dissect and critique policy and policymakers in both public and private sectors. If anything, we should train our students to be more critical and less supportive.