Old Beat Assignment We May Revisit

San Francisco Bay Area highlighted in red on a map of California (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Beat overview:

* Briefly describe an issue on your beat that is national. That is, an issue that - if written about - would run in a publication with nationwide circulation. It might run in a Bay Area publication without being localized or (less likely) in the Foghorn, but the rationale for its having been written is its national appeal.

* Briefly describe an issue on your beat that is local. That is, an issue that - if written about - would run in a Bay Area publication. It might run in the Foghorn without campus sources being added or (less likely) in a national publication, but the rationale for its having been written is its Bay Area appeal.

*Briefly describe an issue on your beat that is USF constrained. That is, an issue that - if written about - would run in the Foghorn. It might run in a Bay Area publication or (less likely) in a national publication, but the rationale for its having been written is its campus appeal.


You will draw on your sources, including the news sites and the Twitter feeds you follow, to provide this overview.

Curious about Beat Etymology and Sick of Google's Amateurism, I Turn to the OED

Sometimes Google lacks authority. I went back to my miniaturized version of the Oxford English Dictionary to find the first use of beat as "the action of the feet upon the ground" and also the first reference to a "course habitually traversed by a watchman, sentinel, or constable on duty." Now I'm satisfied usage moved from cops to reporters and not vice versa. I'm pleased that the sense of the word in both usages is that beat reporting is an exercise in dogged routine, in using up shoe leather.

Job Description for the Burning Man Beat

Burning Man & Arts Reporter Not ready to apply? Report this job  Job Description The Burning Man and Arts Reporter researches, writes and reports compelling journalism that continuously grows a fan base by informing and engaging readers.  Acts as a public ambassador through community outreach and connects with readers through social media. Provides thoughtful analysis of complex issues. Produces watchdog journalism that leads to change. Works with the content coach, content strategists and audience analysts to shape storytelling to meet audience needs and interests on every platform. Contributes to the community’s greater good through impactful journalism.   Burning Man is more than just an annual event. It’s a counterculture arts festival that is an economic driver, a year-round arts nonprofit and a lifestyle. This reporter is charged with covering all thing Burning Man year around. The key to coverage will be to focus on audience, understanding the nuances of those who attend, those who benefit and those who are in conflict with the event.  This position will include some general arts coverage as well. This reporter should be focused on acquiring new readers in the 25-45 year-old age group, looking and trying new delivery methods, topics and platforms. This reporter must be comfortable being one of our top branded reporters and versatile on all platforms, including social media.                                            Responsibilities: Creates storytelling that accurately informs, entertains and engages specific audiences and platforms through the use of metrics. Works toward becoming the community’s leading voice in area of expertise. Connects with the community through storytelling and outreach (social media, on camera, forums, community leadership, etc.)  Provides thoughtful analysis of complex issues. Works with content strategist and audience analyst to evaluate what's working and what's not, and develops ongoing plans to better satisfy audience needs. Collaborates with content team to provide all appropriate elements for stories (i.e. photos, videos and graphics). Captures basic photos and video as needed. Promotes personal brand, the brands of colleagues and the institutional brand. Coaches and mentors less-experienced journalists. Provides great customer service, helping readers find answers and solutions. Performs other duties as necessary.  Requirements: Bachelor's in Communications, Journalism or equivalent in experience and education. Five years of experience developing a personal brand and fan base. Ability to produce top-notch watchdog journalism. Proficient in Microsoft Office. Exceptional cross-platform storytelling skills Exceptional core journalism skills (reporting, producing, editing). Deep understanding of and curiosity about competition for our customers' time and money. Self-motivation and self-direction. Advanced knowledge of social media and how to engage fan base on digital platforms in the public space. Photo and video skills. Effective communicator; able to get along with diverse personalities. Able to multi-task and excel under intense deadline pressure in a rapidly changing environment. Knows how to use time effectively in an always-on workday. Works collaboratively within a cross-functional environment. Must embrace peer-to-peer feedback and training. Applies innovative, creative thinking to support the company’s goals. Writing, spelling, grammar, AP and local style. Industry knowledge. Organizational skills. Command of media law and Principles of Ethical Conduct. About RGJ Media: RGJ Media is proud to be a part of Gannett. We are an energetic and fast-paced media company with a sales team devoted to being a World Class Sales Organization. If you’re looking for a rewarding challenge, RGJ Media is the place to be! RGJ Media, a part of the Gannett Co. Inc., family, and a consultative media company that provides our customers with a means to deliver their advertising message to the right audience in the most effective way. From online to print to direct mail, RGJ Media encompasses an array of products including CareerBuilder.com, rgj.com, reno.com, and The Reno Gazette-Journal. About Us: Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) is an international media and marketing solutions company that informs and engages more than 100 million people every month through its powerful network of broadcast, digital, mobile and publishing properties. Our portfolio of trusted brands offers marketers unmatched local-to-national reach and customizable, innovative marketing solutions across any platform. Gannett is committed to connecting people – and the companies who want to reach them – with their interests and communities. For more information, visitwww.gannett.com. Gannett employees are hired, promoted and rewarded on the basis of talent, performance and dedication.  We cannot afford to deprive the company of capable people and will not allow harassment or discrimination based on race, creed, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, sexual orientation, marital status, ancestry, disability or veteran status. Gannett Co., Inc. is a proud equal opportunity employer

A Quick Slideshow about 21st Century Beats

History of Beat Reporting from chatila427




Steve Buttry and beatblogging

A Beat Reporter's Digital Day

English: Morning Oregonian, Monday, January 22, 1912 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

OREGONIAN MEMO DESCRIBES A BEAT REPORTER’S DIGITAL DAY

An unsigned, paper version-only memo (how ironic!) titled “Portrait of a Digital Day — Beat Reporter” is being given to Oregonian staffers as they meet with managers to discuss boosting the Newhouse newspaper’s digital efforts. The tipster who faxed it to me writes:

“It’s so wonderfully glib in describing a brave new world that some journalists would consider disturbing. It’s hard to imagine that the author ever put in much time as a reporter. And at the end, it says of enterprise work: It’s possible. It’s desired.”

Most media-watchers expect the Oregonian to eventually reduce its print publishing schedule and focus on digital.

Here is the memo:

PORTRAIT OF A DIGITAL DAY — BEAT REPORTER
The goal is to build audience on OregonLive.com by being the No. 1 place the market goes for news and information.

The keys for you are time management, attitude and agility. Your work flow will be your own.
Reorient your thinking to what you can deliver for the web today. Cover your beats, push information, don’t worry about where or whether a story will play in print. Editors will worry about that for you.

Consider social media/engagement, OregonLive.com posting of real-time information, visual storytelling.

Start with social media/engagement:

Set the table for the day with your readers/followers. Tweet early, let folks know you’re up and at ‘em. (Joe Rose’s tip: Twitter is always on via TweetDeck and iPhone notifications.) Don’t just use Twitter as an RSS feed; that’s no good for you or your readers — you need to engage. As you post during the day, Tweet. Watch for story ideas from your followers. Respond to questions. Retweet other stories of interest.

From Joe Rose, who spends maybe 10 or 15 minutes a day on Twitter, with a goal of 10 Tweets/day:
“This is where people increasingly gather to talk and share stories that I wouldn’t otherwise know about. When it comes to picking up story tips and crowd-sourcing, there’s nothing like Twitter.
“I use it to talk to readers, answer quick questions, develop sources and aggregate commuting-related stories that I think will get retweeted. Ultimately, that leads to more followers and readers.
“I see myself as a curator of a Twitter account. My hope is that followers will eventually find enough value that they will pull my account out of their catch-all home feed and give it its own column in TweetDeck.”

During the day:

Aim to post multiple times a day. How much might vary by beat, but consider a range of three to 10. Some days this will be far less, some days, more. This is not a quota, but a target to get you started as you build a new rhythm and workflow that’s digitally focused.

Start the day with an aggregation, perhaps. City Hall Watch is a great example for enterprise beat reporters. A short news item with some meat, followed by 4-6 links, some on our site, some outside. Kick off the news day with things that your readers might be interested in.

Work your beat per usual. Talk to folks. Do your thing. But instead of working through the day and saving information for a story you begin writing late in the afternoon, publish that information as you go. Make it short and punchy, and Tweet it.

If a good story pops up, write a quick version for OregonLive.com and post it as quickly (and accurately) as possible. If that’s all it needs, be done. Move on. If it has potential as a cover story for print, update the online version as you gather new info. (If it’s enough that the hed changes, or the information is that much better, do a new post with a new headline. In the old post, link to the new post. Tell readers where they can find updated information.)

New is best — always — but here are some other kinds of posts for beat writers, to establish expertise and make you a desired read:

* If you’re working on a story and have an interesting interview, do a quick post summarizing that and teasing to a story that’s to come.

* Tell readers something about what you saw behind the scenes of interest, maybe that’s not going to fit the story A scenic detail; a personal anecdote; some tangential information that’s not on point with your reporting but is interesting nonetheless.

* Have a story that you’ve published but have extra information from an interview or your reporting that didn’t make it? Turn that into a post and link back to the full story.

* Do a profile of someone? Maybe the next day take that story and aggregate it, plus profiles in other publications of that person. Or do a post on the reaction.

* Set up interviews to come. “I’ll be talking to Gov. Kitzhaber about the CRC this afternoon. If you were me, what question should I be sure to ask?” Give a little background, link to stuff you’ve already written. And you set yourself up for another post after:

* Here are two reader questions I put to the governor yesterday and his answers… Look for my full story on this online now/later today/in the next couple of days/etc.

* Do a poll. Easy to set up, fun engagement opportunity for users. Can unscientifically measure feelings on an issue. Sports does this very effectively.

* Set up an evening meeting: The school board will be voting tonight on a bond measure. Here’s the background. Link to previous stories we’ve done on the subject.

* Often beat reporter get all kinds of information that readers might find interesting but that we don’t. Maybe it’s reports, studies, events, speakers, etc. Post it. “This study crossed my desk today, and I’m not planning a full story, but I share it with you in case you’re interested. I’ve written about this topic before, and here are links to that and a link to this study.”

* Not attending something that might be of interest to readers? Ask them to tell you what happened. Ryan White has done this, and it’s a great idea. “I couldn’t go to such and such concert, but tell me about it. Here are links to reviews of previous shows here or in other cities.” Then do a new post writing those comments through. “I’ll be at the school board meeting tonight and can’t make XX speech by XX. Write in and tell me about it, and I’ll share with readers.”

* Do quick rewriters of lesser news items off your beat that won’t compete for print.
Engage with readers, not only in the posts but also check comments. Just take a spin through every couple of hours. If you’re drowning, tell an editor or online, and we can help.

Think multimedia/have your equipment:

Whenever you go out on a story, make sure you have the equipment to gather, photograph and post a story you might stumble across. For some, that might be an entire kit with a MacBook, video camera, audio recorder and MiFi — for others, it might be just an iPhone.

If you’re talking to a person, take their photo. We should have a mug at least with our posts. If they’re particularly colorful, shooting a quick clip video would enhance a reader’s understanding of that personality.

Never let a phone interview on a big story end without asking if the person would mind a videographer coming to talk to them. Leave open the possibility of other platforms, even if we don’t end up going that route. It’s a good habit to develop.

*Important note: Everyone in the newsroom should remember that they are deputized breaking news reporters. So often, reporter or editors will call the breaking news team to say, “I just passed a gnarly traffic crash.” But when asked if they stopped to talk to witnesses or take a photo, the answer is invariably no.

Enterprise:

It’s possible. It’s desired. Nothing digitally is designed to minimize our appetite for scoops and investigative work. But plan for it and think about it in new ways. Work with your editor so s/he knows the days you might be light online. Pick your shots and make sure they’re worthwhile. Don’t find ways to get out of doing digital work, because it’s a priority, too. Instead, find ways to use the digital platform to inform that enterprise reporting. Be bold. Engage the online and visuals team early to brainstorm ideas for digital.

Consider also:

* Documents. In the reporting process, there always are things we could post as we go, with a story or afterward that readers might dive into and offer questions about.

* Reader questions about a story, project, series. Turn those questions and your answers into a post. Other readers might share the question and appreciate the additional information.

* Minor updates. Often things happen with the subject of a story or an issue that aren’t quite enough for a full print story but make a perfect post.

Related articles

• Oregonian memo describes a beat reporter's digital day
• Why Nobody Is Talking About Your Email Content... and How to Change That
• #Social Media Basics: Tweet Your Way to Success - How to Promote Content With Twitter
• 20 Ways to Skyrocket Your Reader Engagement
• Portland's 'The Oregonian' to reward journalists for number of articles they post online

The art of the leak By: Ryan Grim November 14, 2007 09:32 PM EST
The knock on mainstream journalists, especially in Washington, is that they sit around and wait for the phone to ring, signaling the next leak and the next big story. Like so much of conventional wisdom, there’s a little bit of truth to that. A lot of breaking news is handed to reporters. Even the investigative torch that flamed a presidency turned out to be fueled in part by a senior-level FBI official with an agenda. This city isn’t bursting with ethically driven Daniel Ellsbergs. There are probably a thousand leaks a day here — and a thousand reasons. “In the end, the reason is that this is Washington, D.C.,” says Dale Leibach, a former spokesman with the Carter White House. In a town where information is currency and few opportunities exist for trading it aboveboard, it’s no surprise that a bustling black market has developed. And like all illicit markets, it has its unwritten rules and regulations. Those rules, though, depend on a nearly limitless number of outside factors that can change the answer to the fundamental mystery at hand: What is a leak? It’s all about perception. “When an organization is being run well, people tend not to look at things as leaks, but they tend to look at things as information specifically being put out for some strategic purpose,” says Chris Lehane, a spokesman for the ’92 Clinton campaign and later the White House. “When things are not well, the information getting out there is perceived as leaks.” That’s partly because bad-weather leaks differ fundamentally from fair-weather ones. “Morale matters,” says Brian Jones, a former spokesman with the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “It’s also a function of different factions popping up in a campaign. But if on the macro level morale is good, those factions are less likely to develop.” For a veteran campaigner, identities and agendas are more transparent. The civilian, though, can look at the way a source is identified for clues. The more sources on the same message and the more specific the ID — say, “senior administration official” — the more likely the leak is authorized. The vaguer the description — “a source familiar with” — the greater the chance that somebody’s talking out of school. While Leibach may be right that there are a thousand or more reasons to leak information, they can all be sorted into about three categories: malevolent, benevolent and accidental. Those three categories, in turn, can be broken out into at least 11 separate piles. The Drive-the-Cycle Leak: It’s not a fluke that a news outlet or two always happens to “obtain a copy” of a major speech early. Or take Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s leak of her third-quarter earnings to the Drudge Report. §  Notable Leaks On Tuesday, Drudge’s lead story was sourced to a “top Clinton insider” and claimed that Clinton’s team had warned CNN’s Wolf Blitzer not to gang up on Clinton in the upcoming debate. The Trial-Balloon Leak: Names of candidates for Cabinet positions are often leaked. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was floated as the next attorney general. The balloon was popped by Senate Democrats, who noted that Chertoff’s handling of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath would be an issue at confirmation.  The Expectations Leak: Bush’s people were masters of this strategy during his presidential campaigns, establishing such low expectations for their candidate before he went into debates against Vice President Al Gore in 2000 or Sen. John F. Kerry in 2004 that all he had to do was speak semicoherently to succeed. The Because-They-Wouldn’t-Say-It-on-the-Record-It-Must-Be-Newsworthy Leak: “Because of journalistic rules,” says Jones, “you just can’t put information out in a press release or call a press conference or just call a reporter and say it, so you have to be strategic.” That involves going directly to a journalist with some seemingly illicit gut-spilling. “The more conflict [reporters] have, and the more content they have, the more likely they are to take your leak.” The Agenda Leak: Linked to morale and office infighting, this leak is rarely good for the organization but serves the interests of specific people or factions. Just look at who’s getting slammed and who’s not. Take McCain: When he was imploding last summer, a steady stream of stories about internal feuding rushed out. From within, of course. The Slowly-Letting-the-Air-Out-of-the-Balloon Leak: This is Lehane’s specialty going back to the Clinton impeachment days, when the White House slowly leaked information so that the public wasn’t blown to pieces by one bombshell. Special prosecutor Ken Starr’s office, too, was a sieve during that time. Sometimes, though, reporters can mistake one type of leak for another. When McCain’s people started leaking that his fundraising number would be pitiful earlier this year, says Lehane, it backfired because most assumed his camp was simply trying to lower expectations — which has the countereffect of raising expectations in a “crying wolf” sort of way. When low numbers came in as promised, the story hadn’t been blunted. The Pre-emptive Leak: A corollary of the above, this is a strategy to disseminate damaging news extremely early in a campaign so that it’s an old story by the time it matters. Lehane cites an example from last decade. “In 1998, congressional Republicans had a report on Gore and campaign fundraising that was designed to be devastating,” he writes in an e-mail. The report “‘found’ its way to The Wash[ington] Times on a Saturday morning, which (a) tainted the report as it was covered initially in a right-wing publication, (b) diminished news value by having [the] Times preview it, (c) came out on a Saturday a.m. (good day to kill a story) and (d) allowed Gore operation to point to the leak as proof of the partisan nature of the inquiry and undermine its credibility.” The Accidental Leak: “It’s generally a good rule of thumb to be friendly with the press. [But] not everyone in the press is your friend,” says Jones. “It’s a transactional relationship.” Forgetting that can result in loose lips and is a surprisingly common reason for a leak. The I-Scratch-Your-Back-You-Scratch-Mine/Relationship Leak: An individual sometimes provides information which does not serve his short-term purpose and can adversely affect the interest of his organization — but which serves to support a long-term relationship with the reporter involved. This is often repaid with positive coverage of the leaker down the road. The Flip Leak: Sources can serve up others in exchange for themselves or their candidates. Lehane says a spokesman can tell a reporter who has a damaging story: “Well, you know, that’s an interesting story, but I think the more interesting story is this, and I’m more than happy to cooperate, but this thing can’t be about me.” The-Sucker’s-Bet Leak: “This is particularly endemic to Washington, D.C.,” says Lehane. “An individual provides information that really does not promote either his or her agenda or the organization but which makes them feel self-important, as they are providing information to the august Fourth Estate; often not done in an especially sophisticated way and where the leaker derives no benefit other than whatever solipsistic enjoyment they may get from seeing the coverage they helped create.” And we Fourth Estaters love them for it.
TM & © THE POLITICO & POLITICO.COM, a division of Allbritton Communications Company