|
Are you in control of your news organisation’s editorial agenda? You might think you are, but a simple exercise could surprise you. Jot down the origins of the news events you currently cover. - Do you rely on the wires? Are your decisions informed by news releases sent out to all news organisations?
- How many of the stories you cover are the result of being invited to news conferences, again attended by other media organisations?
- What percentage of the news you cover are follow-ups from something one of your team has read in a newspaper or seen on TV?
- How many of the stories you cover are the result of your own correspondents digging deep, using their specialist knowledge and tapping into their contacts books?
I have carried out this simple test with several news organisations in recent years and the results are sobering. Typically, they read like this; 30% from wires, 20% press releases, 20% news conferences and other diary events (arranged by others), 15% breaking news and the unforeseen, and only 15% from original sources. Put bluntly, if this sounds familiar and accurately describes your news organisation, it suggests that you are only in control of 15% of your news agenda -- in a nutshell, 70% is controlled by others and 15% is unforeseen. The challenge is to reverse this --- and the way to reverse it is through forward planning. A former colleague of mine, who was head of newsgathering at one of the world’s largest news organisations, told me that 75% of all news on any given day is pre-planned with only 25% unexpected. Of course, there are exceptions. 9/11, the Tsunami, etc, but, generally this appears to be fairly typical. In some of the transition and post-conflict countries I have worked in since 2000, the opposite is true. There is virtually no forward planning. This has often been put down to national character, or the working practices of the local media. I was once told that the journalists in one country in the Balkans could not forward plan because they had forgotten how to look forward to the future. Understandable, but when it comes to building a meaningful news brand that addresses the issues faced by its audience, then that needs to change. In truth, the above are simply excuses, probably based on fear. However, an understandable concern is the editorial risk in going down the forward-planning route, because you have to free up existing resources, normally spent covering news on the day and following the pack, to invest in issue-led journalism and unearthing the stories that really effect the lives of your audience. Forward planning editor The first step is to set aside resources for forward planning. You will need a forward planning editor. This person can do other tasks in the newsroom and need not be dedicated solely to the task, but there needs to be someone who takes ownership. Their job is to set out a forward planning agenda that covers tomorrow, next week, next month and three months ahead. They attend all news meetings and must have a major say in what is covered. The person in charge of the day’s output needs to look to the forward planning editor to supply the bulk of the day’s news coverage. You will then need to allocate resources to this forward planning effort. In the case of a TV station, the forward planning editor will need at least one reporter, a camera crew and the use of an editing suite. This is the hard bit, because, prior to the setting up of your new forward planning effort, these resources would be dedicated to news on the day and ‘chasing fire engines’. Warning: It will take about three weeks before the efforts of the forward planning team start to percolate through; only then will the sacrifice of resources usually used for covering the same news agenda as the competition, be evident. In the next module, 'Issue-led journalism', we will look at what the forward planning editor does and how they help manage the news brand's editorial focus and act as guardian of that brand. Next module: Issue-led journalism
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
