Along Anchor Row

Along Anchor Row

The first postings along anchor row come from Mike Walter. MIKE WALTER is a four time Emmy award winning broadcast journalist. For six years he was a popular weekday anchor at WUSA the CBS Station in Washington DC. He started Walter Media in 2009. He produced and wrote Breaking News, Breaking Down a multiple award winning documentary about journalists and trauma. The Multi-Platform Future Is Now 12/14/2010 I am in a New York newsroom as it bustles, just before the afternoon news show is about to begin. I stand behind the cameras. The anchors take their place on the set. The stage manager cues them. They do their introductions on a two shot. After the quick intro, the male anchor quickly turns to camera one and a tight shot. With loads of energy he pitches to a reporter in Washington for a live report. Back in the studio a reporter rushes to take his place on the set. After the live shot, the anchors engage the reporter on the set. He breaks down what's happened on Wall Street. Normally, a bad jobs report means a drop in the market. But the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up. He tries to make sense of this anomaly. To help with context, the anchors throw to an analyst who is live in another location in New York. They effortlessly weave the analysis and the first hand account of the reporter to provide a much richer picture of what's happening on the street. It's not all serious stuff from Washington and New York though. They'll have time to throw to another live report in San Francisco where a reporter talks about graffiti on sidewalks. Is it art or is it graffiti? That's the debate raging in the Bay Area. The back and forth with the reporter gives the anchors a chance to show their personalities. Before I know it, the show is over. Now you are probably wondering where am I? Is it: A. WCBS B. WABC C. WNBC D. None of the Above If you answered D, you are right. This isn't a local affiliate; it isn't even a TV station; and the show is going on line instead of on the air. I spent two days last week in this print newsroom, helping to coach reporters gifted at covering commodities and stocks. These are brilliant reporters, but they are not schooled on how to be comfortable on the air. So it was up to me to help them. As I stood there watching this news show, I was struck by the words of Jim Williams and Richard Boehne. I watched Boehne as he glanced into his crystal ball and outlined the future at the SPJ convention in 2008. Boehne is the President and CEO of E.W. Scripps. In his talk, he described a desperate world where only the strong survive. He said the Scripps goal was to make sure that whatever property they own in a market not only survives, but thrives. So it might be a television property or a print entity, but the key is to be multi platform and a player. My conversation with Jim Williams took place a few years before. At the time, he was Senior Vice President of the Associated Press. He was talking to me about jumping from WUSA to work at the Associated Press. The job sounded appealing. According to Williams, I would be their Anderson Cooper, jumping from big story to big story and providing coverage on line. He asked me a question that seemed even more prescient as I watched this newscast. "Everything is going online! In the future, when a big story breaks in Washington, are you going to want to watch WUSA with it's 12 reporters, or the Washington Post with hundreds of reporters?" The way the question was asked already indicated the correct answer. Watching this newscast, and taking into mind the resources of this print newsroom, I couldn't help but think if I were a producer, would I prefer to be working here or at WCBS? When I passed on the job with the Associated Press to sign a contract renewal at WUSA, the future seemed to be years away. As I stood in this newsroom in New York watching this newscast, I'm reminded of the line from the movie the Time Machine...."The future is now!" Editor’s note: If you have a comment or would like to reach Mike Walter, you can email him at mike@waltermedia.tv Are We Still Going In Circles? 11/2/2010 It's election day and so I thought I would write about the big Jon Stewart rally this weekend in Washington. There has been a lot of speculation about what impact it might have on the election. The pundits fail to talk about whether or not it will have any impact on Broadcast Journalism. Which means they may have missed the larger point. The event was off limits for some journalists, but because I don't work for a news organization....I decided I had to go see what all the fuss was about. Two huge banners flanked the massive stage. They read: Restore Sanity and/or Fear. We are all human sardines, as my wife and I take our place among the thousands. We got on the road early, but not early enough to get close to the stage. Our consolation, we are next to the first large screen tv. Which means of course, we will be able to see Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert on stage, even though they will be as big as ants. While everyone else here is in the present, my mind is traveling to the past. To Philadelphia in 2000. It's the Republican Convention. A convention that is so carefully scripted that there will be little in the way of news. There is no conflict, everything is tightly scripted, and there are lots and lots of smiles. I'm working at USA TODAY at the time. We are turning stories for a network of 22 stations across the U.S. So I do what everyone else is doing. I find Jon Stewart. The Daily Show is covering it's first convention. So it's a story. I ask Stewart for an interview. He's amiable, and agrees on one condition. I must interview him while walking in a circle. He's funny, I'm amused, so I agree. What I remember about this 10 minute interview is I was talking to a brilliant, hysterical man who was having a field day skewering the republicans and the media. I can't remember the most memorable sound bite verbatim, but it went something like this. This convention is so boring, so devoid of news that reporters like you are willing to walk around in an endless circle with me because at least they know I will say something perhaps interesting, probably controversial, and hopefully, funny. Let's face it, you won't find that from anyone else here. At the time I was delighted! I had someone who was interesting and funny, and it was a great feature story that was likely to get some airtime. If you had told me then, that Stewart was going to go on to stage a rally on the Mall some 10 years later, I would have thought you were certifiable. I mean, Stewart was laughing because the entire team from the Daily Show was sleeping in college dorms. That's all they could afford. At the time, my son was 10 years old. Now he's 20. Like so many in his age bracket, he is far more likely to watch Jon Stewart and the fake news than he is Brian Williams and the real news. At the event on Saturday, I sat next to some twenty somethings from Delaware. Next to them, were people who had flown out from Seattle and Chicago. I got the sense from all of them that they feel like they can count on Stewart, and that they are angry with the politicians and the news media for the mess this country is in. Back in 2000, Stewart had journalists walking in circles. In 2010, it appears he is running circles around us. I don't know what the political takeaway is from this weekend, but if my conversations about journalism with the people sitting next to me are any indication, then I think the news media needs to get away from the talking heads with the venomous tone and get back to the basics of good ole fashion storytelling. Otherwise, we've lost an entire generation to the man who made me laugh back in Philadelphia so many years ago. Editor’s note: If you have a comment or would like to reach Mike Walter, you can email him at mike@waltermedia.tv In Defense of Change 10/22/2010 In the last two posts, I suggested local television news might benefit from an infusion of outside thinking. Instead of producers moving up the ranks and becoming the newsroom leaders, what if you could tap people outside TV, who have been successful in other fields? Here is my thought...what if they could bring their vision, their passion, their ability to master difficult issues and their critical thinking skills to help an industry that keeps losing viewers each year. I can remember working at a dominate station back in the early 80's that routinely got 50 plus shares for one of its newscast. By 2002, here in Washington DC the Washington Times Media critic Chris Baker was breaking down the ratings for the local stations after the February book. Combined all four stations registered a 52 share. I haven't seen the local numbers lately here in DC, but I can only imagine that they have dropped further. Chances are, the experts I've surveyed won't get you a 50 share, but hopefully, they'll get you talking or thinking about the business you love. First, I tapped two successful entrepreneurs. They launched their own companies and succeeded. But he's more than that. First Michael Herson. • Michael is the President and Chief Executive Officer of American Defense International. • Michael served in the Executive Office of President Ronald Reagan. • In 1990, he became Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Management and Personnel. • In June of 1994, he won his party's nomination for U.S. Congress in the Sixth District of New Jersey. Herson gained national attention for being one of the youngest candidates in the country. • He has been quoted in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, The Hill and Roll Call. • When Michael launched his lobbying firm it was one of the smallest defense lobbying firms in the District. Because of his imagination, skill and dedication, he has now turned it into one of the largest. • This year he was selected as one of the top lobbyists in Washington by the Hill Newspaper. Now that you know a little about Michael, he wants you to know a little about why he thinks local television news is dying. Mike: Michael...given your experience, if you were to shift into the local television newsroom, what would you change? Michael Herson: "First, I would change the way it looks. It looks "local". When I'm flipping the channels, I can differentiate between local and national news in seconds, because the national news sets are more modern and more pleasing to the eye. Second, there is too much focus on local crime in local news. It's depressing." Mike: Why do you think viewership continues to slide? Michael Herson: "Local news isn't interesting and viewers can get the information from other sources like the web. I only watch local news to get weather and sports and information about road closures during special events in the city." Mike: You say that local news isn't interesting. As far as content, what could be done to make local news more interesting? Michael: "They either have to give me something the national news isn't giving me or give me national news as good or better than the national news shows. For example, the national news covers politics well. Why doesn't the local news do a better job of covering local politics? The national news covers major business stories. Why doesn't local news cover local business stories better? They should break into segments like the national news and create allegiance to the local news personalities like the the national news does with Brian Williams, etc. Maybe add a commentator or talking heads from time to time." Mike: What kind of insights did you bring to your field that you think leaders in the news business could also use to turn things around? In other words, how do you approach problems and attack them...and how could that translate? Michael: "In my field, the landscape changes every year, and I have to attack problems and service my clients differently every year. I need to turn chaos and downturns into opportunities. Local news needs to do the same thing. The world around them has been changing for decades but they are still the same." (read more of the post)

Feeding the 24/7 News Cycle