I. Crisis Coverage: An Interactive CD-ROM Journalism Simulation
As mentioned in Chapter 9, crime and accidents, fires and disasters are
staples of news reporting. Almost every journalist working on a newspaper will
write these types of stories, and many cover such stories very frequently.
Unfortunately, gaining real-world experience with this reporting is virtually
impossible in the introductory newswriting class. Robberies, house fires and car
accidents do not fit neatly into a syllabus, nor does listening to a police scanner
and driving to such events fit neatly into a student schedule.
The exercises on p. x and p. xx in the workbook provide a good starting
ground for learning the fundamentals of crime and accident, fire and disaster
reporting, but they can’t simulate the newsgathering process. To help prepare
you better for both the crime and accident/fire/disaster genres, we have
included a CD-ROM simulation of an actual tragedy, the shooting of a police
officer and four bystanders in St. Joseph, Mo.
Tips for Using the Program
The simulation program puts you in the newsroom the night of the
shooting. After a brief introduction and beginning segment, you begin your
newsgathering at your desk in the newsroom. Your job is to get information
from paper, people and electronic sources as the night progresses and then write
up a story as more information becomes available (see the section for possible
stories/assignments). The simulation progresses from approximately 5 p.m.
until deadline at around 11 p.m.
The main interface is the newsroom cubicle. On and around your desk are
items to click on to get information, as the screen capture below illustrates.
Computer/email
Map/Reporters on scene
Tape recorder
Notebook
Phone
Phonebook
TV
Back issues
1. Clicking on the desk items
Just as in real-world reporting, sources develop over the course of a story,
and some will not be immediately available to you. For example, when the
scenario first begins, the reporters dispatched to the scene (under Map of Area)
will not be ready to talk to you yet, nor will a phone call to the police station or
hospital give you any information. Be sure to check back on these sources
multiple times as the night progresses and more bits of news become available.
The sources include the following:
• Television. You will watch actual news broadcasts from the night of the
shooting.
• Phonebook. Good reporters make good use of the phone. You will “call” some
of your sources, and they will give you quotes and information.
• Phone. Sources will call you with updated information throughout the night.
• Morgue. Background research is crucial to quality reporting, and you will
want to check to see if there are any related articles from back issues of the
newspaper.
• Map/Reporters. Three reporters will be on the scene, and they will give you
updates and quotes from eyewitnesses.
• Notebook. Reporters will bring back their notebooks with interview notes for
you to use in your story.
• Tape recorder. One reporter will bring back a tape recorded interview from
the scene.
• Computer. There will be email and WWW sources for you to use. In addition
to the information provided on the CD, you may wish to also do additional web
research.
Because these sources will be available at different times, be sure to click
on all of the buttons in the time periods between the TV clips.
2. Pacing Yourself
While the simulation covers a period of approximately six hours, it will
likely only take you between 30 and 60 minutes to run through the scenario. If
you are running the program during a 75-minute or longer class, you should not
have much difficulty in finishing the simulation during a full class period. If you
are trying to complete the program within a 50-minute class period, be sure to be
to class on time or early, take notes quickly and make good decisions about what
information you will likely not need to copy down. Remember the principles of
newsworthiness and definitions of news outlined in Chapter 1 (page/section 6)
and consider what information your readers will be interested in knowing.
3. Taking notes
We pointed out in Chapter 1 that accuracy is a cornerstone of good
journalism. It is especially important—and difficult—in breaking news stories
about tragedies, stories which are often on the top of page one and which will be
read by virtually all of your audience. So, be sure to take very careful notes.
This is not like a book exercise for which you can easily copy down and
doublecheck at a later time. Just as in real-world reporting, for many of these
sources, you will only have one opportunity to get the information right and to
decide what information and quotes to include in your notes. And, if you’re
using the TV sources, you won’t be able to replay those segments, so take good
shorthand and reconstruct your notes after each segment, as we suggested in
chapter 3, Interviewing. (Give specific page numbers or 1- or 2-heads?)
For your notes, you may wish to use a legal pad or regular or reporter’s
notebook. Or, depending on your writing and typing skills, you may prefer to
take notes on the computer, especially since you can later cut/copy/paste
segments from your computer notes into your final draft. In order to take the
computer notes, you’ll want to open up a word processing program before
starting the simulation and move the program’s window to the side of the screen
so you can click back and forth between the simulation program and the word
processing window when taking notes. Be sure to save your computer notes
often, in case your computer crashes.
4. Using the T.V.
Good news reporters watch their broadcast colleagues—and
competitors—all the time, especially during tragedies. So, you’ll be watching
several clips from the local TV station, which include selections from the local 6
p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts and cut-ins with breaking news before and after
those newscasts. In all, there are 10 video clips, some of which play
automatically and some which play when you click on the Check TV button. Be
sure to try all of your other sources before click on the Check TV button, since the TV
segment will jump you to a later part in the scenario.
Typically, a print journalist will not use quotes from radio or TV
broadcasts. Before you begin the simulation, be sure to check with your
instructor about using quotes from the TV in your story. Your instructor may
forbid you from using any TV quotes, or may allow you to sparingly cite such
quotes (ex: “In an interview with KQ2 TV last night, witness James Smith said, “.
. . “). Or, just for the purposes of this assignment, he or she may allow you to
quote the sources (not the reporters or anchors) as if you were interviewing them
yourself. You need to know the instructor’s wishes before you start the
simulation so you know how carefully to take notes during the TV segments.
You won’t have a chance to hear and see these segments again.
5. Adjusting Sound and Using Headphones
You’ll want to test the sound levels of your computer and make sure the
sound is working before you begin the scenario, since you’ll need to hear all the
audio and video clips well in order to write up your story. In addition, you may
want to bring headphones which fit your computer port to keep sound levels in
the room down and to muffle the sound coming from nearby computers. Then
again, the wide array of sounds and voices coming from a dozen or more
computers does help mimic the bedlam found in a newsroom near deadline!
6. Quitting/Restarting the Program
Because the program replicates the timing and flow of information in a
tragedy, you will not be able to jump around in the program or quit and later
restart the program where you left off. If you have to restart the program, you
will be placed back in the very beginning of the scenario. So, be absolutely sure
you want to quit before you click on the red EXIT button. Likewise, to prevent
the program from crashing and thus prevent you from needing to start over,
make sure you are working on a reliable computer with sufficient RAM
available.
For this assignment, your instructor may want you to only run through
the program once, just as you would only get one shot at gathering information
under deadline in any crime or accident, fire or disaster story. Or, your
instructor may allow you to run through the program multiple times to make
sure you find all of the sources.
III. Types of Articles and Assignments
In a situation such as this tragedy, the entire reporting and editing staff is
mobilized. Those who were off for the day or who had already put in their hours
are called back and the whole staff works together to produce the in-depth
coverage the readership will want and expect. Some reporters go on the scene
and collect information. Others are stationed at the police department, city hall
or the hospital, while still other staffers may research information in the morgue
or online. Using all of these resources, the staff produces not only one main
article, but also three, four or more sidebars which accompany it.
The simulation program lends itself well to writing a variety of different
stories and sidebars. Before you begin the simulation, you’ll need be clear about
exactly what type of article or articles your instructor wants you to write, since
the article’s focus will affect what notes to take and what sources to pay
especially close attention to.
The most typical assignment is covering the main story and using inverted
pyramid, the organizational format most often used for hard news stories like
crime and accidents, fires and disasters. Before you write such a story, be sure to
re-read Chapter 6 to review the principles for writing inverted pyramid stories.
Carefully consider what information is the most important, and put that
information early in the story. Don’t bury key information which may end up
getting cut or not getting read.
Inverted pyrmaid is not the only way to tell the story, however. The
example in Chapter 9 of the Kansas man who was killed by a police marksman
illustrates how a chronological approach sometimes works better. Your
instructor may choose to have you write a chronological story instead of—or in
addition to—an inverted pyramid account. To do this, you will probably want to
reconstruct a timeline and reorganize your notes to represent the order of events
which happened, not the order in which the information became available to
you. Your instructor may also assign you or give you the freedom to use one of
the other alternatives to the inverted pyrmaid outlined in Chapter 7.
Regardless of which story type you are assigned, you’ll want to remember
to include the key information and sources for crime and accident, fire and
disaster stories:
• eyewitnesses
• police or other officials in charge of handling the situation
• victims and friends and relatives of the victims (when possible and
appropriate)
Chapter 9 also stresses the importance of obtaining official documents for these
type of stories, such as an accident report, a fire marshal’s casualty report or a
police report. For this simulation, however, an official document is not available
before your deadline.
Your instructor may give you a word limit for your article, the same way a
managing editor, news editor or copy editor might tell a reporter in this
situation, “Make it x inches, no more, no less” since the number of column inches
of the story might already be set in stone by the time the writer finishes the story.
The editors and layout personnel would likely have been scrambling to assemble
all of the new shooting-related articles, photos and informational graphics. The
main story may be held until the very last minute so that the most current
information will appear in the next day’s paper. Consequently, there may be
precious little leeway given for the length of the article.
A word or inches limit is a restriction for the print newspaper only, of
course. Chapter 1 illustrates how the space limitations of the physical newspaper
don’t apply in an online environment. The print newspaper may only have
space for a 700-word article and two photos, but the online edition could have
1,000-plus words and virtually unlimited photos and graphics.
Your instructor may choose one of the following articles or exercises or
may choose yet another possible assignment.
Main story
Inverted Pyramid
Write a main news story which contains all of the important facets of the
story. This would be the story to run under the headline at the top of the page
one, if you were writing for the local newspaper (see notes in the next section
about what publication you are writing for).
Alternative organization
Consulting Chapter X, use a different organizational method for writing
the story, such as narration (chronological), vivid scenes, a focus structure or
anecdotes.
Early Online Edition
Readers in the community and readers across the state or country who
heard about the shooting are not going to be content to wait until the next
morning to find out more. As suggested in the first page of this book, the
reporter will need to create text—and perhaps prepare multimedia—for the
newspaper’s website so the readers can access that information very shortly after
the incident. They may return several times in the next 24 hours, expecting
updates.
In the CD-ROM simulation are two places where you will be able to stop
and write a story and an update for the online edition.
Wire story
Assume that you are responsible for writing a story which will go out on
the Associated Press wire and will likely be picked up by many of the daily
newspapers across the state. Write a 750-word story.
Sidebar Stories
Shooting injuries
Write a sidebar about the people injured. As detailed in Chapter 9, be
sure to include the names, ages, addresses and conditions of the victims.
Neighbor/Witness Accounts
Write a sidebar which focuses on the eyewitnesses and includes quotes
and anecdotes about the shooting and the shooter.
Killing the Shooter
Write a sidebar about the killing of the shooter, making sure to include
details about the event, eyewitness quotes and information about police
procedures and policy during and after a shooting
Historical/Contextual Piece
This type of sidebar could take one of several different paths. It could
look at the history of officers killed in the line of duty in the area. It could look at
other mass shootings in the area. Or, it could look at police officer deaths from a
national perspective, requiring you to go online and research statistics.
Practice and Follow Up
Writing Leads
Write a variety of different leads for a main story, following the advice in
Chapter 6 when composing an immediate identification lead, a delayed
identification lead, a multiple element lead and one or more flair leads.
Interviewing
Pick two sources mentioned in the simulation that you would like to be
able to interview in greater depth and write up 10 questions for that person. As
you learned in Chapter 3, you’ll want to phrase and order those questions very
carefully, especially since this situation is very sensitive. Because you will be
wanting detailed quotes, make sure that at least seven of the questions are openended.
Ethics
Interviewing
After reading Chapter 15, the ethical codes in the appendix and the section
about victims/witnesses in the Accidents, Fires and Disasters section, write a pro
or con essay about calling to interview the wife of the slain police officer. If you
would call the wife, explain your reasons why and what approach you would
take. If you would not call the wife, explain why and cite examples from the
ethical codes to support your decision.
Photos
On the CD is a folder titled “Photos.” Look at the photos and put yourself
in the position of a managing editor who has to decide what photos to include in
the newspaper. What photo would you put on the front page? What photo(s)
would you not print at all, and why? If the shooting had happened in another
part of the state, would that affect what photos you would not print? Write an
essay explaining your choices.
II. Telling the Story—Tips for Writing Your Article
Keep in mind one key tip in newswriting: listen carefully to your editor—
or, in this case your instructor—about what type of article he or she wants you to
write. For a spot news story like this, neither you nor your editor would have
time to do a rewrite.
In addition, make sure you understand the nature of the publication and
your audience. If you are wishing to replicate the actual situation, you can
assume you are writing for the St. Joseph News-Press, a independently-owned
daily which has a circulation of approximately 40,000 and serves the 70,000
residents of St. Joseph as well as people in the surrounding counties in northwest
Missouri. Your instructor may prefer you write the story for a larger paper, such
as the Kansas City Star, or a small, nearby weekly or for the Associated Press or
another wire service. Which publication you write for will help determine how
you write your story and what information you include.
Because most people will be writing an inverted pyramid account of the
main story, the majority of the other tips in this section are geared toward that
type of story. If you are writing a different type of story, you may want to refer
to the sections of the book which address that type of story in more detail.
Rank your information in order of importance
You will have a lot of information to deal with and try to fit into your
story. In order to try to write an inverted pyramid story, you may want to rank
or mark each fact or quote to help you decide what material will go near the
beginning, the middle and the end of the story and what information you
probably won’t need to use.
Prepare information for a summary lead
You may not end up using a summary lead in your final draft, but it will
be helpful to draft up such a lead to help you write the rest of the story. Using
the ranking mentioned above, write down the key answers to the questions:
Who
What
When
Where
Why
How
Decide which of these items need to be in lead (the why, for example, might not
be necessary or may be unknown). Put the most important of the 5Ws and H at
the beginning of the lead. As mentioned in Chapter 6, try to keep the lead to 25
or 30 words, and preferably to one sentence.
Write several alternate leads
Even if you think you are going to use a straight summary lead, you
should try other types of leads as well, since you may discover one of those other
leads works much better. Given the complexity of the situation, you may decide
to use a multiple-element lead. Maybe the best choice will be a delayed
identification, as shown in the I-70 accident examples in Chapter 9. Or, if you
are writing for the St. Joseph community, you may realize an immediateidentification lead is most appropriate. Or, after trying several lead types, you
may find that a flair lead which contains elements of description or narration
would work best.
Draw a map
If you are a visually-oriented person, sometimes drawing a map of the
scene or the area on a piece of paper can help you organize your thoughts and
understand what happened better.
Make a chronology
Even if you don’t use a chronological format for your article, having a
timeline of the events will help you understand the events and write your article.
Final Exam (Move this to the end, or perhaps place in IM material.)
Any of the above possibilities could work for a final exam. If your
instructor wishes to test your ability to gather information quickly and write
under deadline pressure, he or she may want to have you run through the
simulation and write up a story in the same sitting, which is feasible (but
challenging!) for a two-hour exam period.