Current Trends in News Coverage on Radio

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

There was a time that almost any radio station you walked into had a news teletype just hammering its little heart out somewhere in the building, and at appointed times through the broadcast day, someone sat at a microphone and read some of what came off of that chattering machine. And you could tell the also-rans from the go-gettums by listening for the actual delivery of LOCAL news. Home grown. Not off the teletype!

What is happening today in radio... particularly in the markets that used to be "feeder teams" in the radio talent farm system. What happens in radio today in Muskogee, OK or La Crosse, WI or Rome, GA or Gettysburg, PA or maybe Port Angeles, WA. Is there any locally produced, locally voiced news on the radio today? Does anyone come out of "J-school" and actually get their first job at a radio-only operation (by that I mean not affiliated with a local TV station.)

And then for brave participants in the conversation.... what do you see happening over the next five years in "news on the radio".

And... this conversation will likely include some references to things that compete today... like local Internet based coverage of local events. It used to be a reasonalby safe investment to beef up radio news coverage because for someone to compete and steal your audience, they had to make a significant investment... like buy or build another radio station. Today a person who use to do radio news could set up shop back in his home town and do an on-line podcast of local happenings.... but if it seemed to be succeeding, you could wake up some morning to find that six other people jumped onto your bandwagon with very, very low start up costs.

Would you advise your child to consider seeking a Journalism degree today?

 

[TheBigA]

Would you advise your child to consider seeking a Journalism degree today?

I'm very involved with the college where I went to school. It has a nationally known and respected program in communications. They aren't training people to rip & read. They're training people for the multi-platform world of audio-video-text reporting. They're teaching accuracy, checking sources, and presentation. They're teaching web design. If you're generating news content, a big part of it will go on the web. More people in Washington DC get their local news from WTOP.com than any other site, including TV and newspapers. Colleges are also teaching entrepreneurism. They're teaching students that if you're a journalist, you need to find a way to monetize what you do. Communications is an art and a business. You need to know it all. It's far more complicated than when you went to school. But then again, radio made journalism more complicated when Pulitzer and Hearst got started.

 

[Avid Listener]

Doing a rip & read newscast was never very difficult. It was a good job for someone with good pipes, nice diction, and enough sense to check the pronunciation of obscure words. But to actually gather local news, to listen to a police scanner and rush to the scene of breaking news to report it, that took some special skills. Or to patiently sit through boring government meetings in order to find out what was going on, and to meet with sources to get information, that took a different set of special skills. I knew more than a few real reporters back in the day. Their work was hard, it took a lot of hours, and not every day's workload resulted in even one story good enough to go on a local newscast. In even a medium sized city, it took a staff of reporters to find enough local news to fill a local half-hour TV newscast, which also included sports, weather, and commercials. It takes an operation with fairly deep pockets to have a team of reporters on staff earning enough to make a living. To attempt a solo enterprise doing real local news on a podcast takes someone who can afford to indulge in an expensive hobby.

However, a Journalism degree is an excellent credential for working in marketing or advertising, or writing features for publications or website, or many other career options that provide a good living. Unfortunately, being a local news reporter for a radio station is not one of those paths. It is, at best, an entry-level position to build a resume in hopes of moving up to a better job.

 

[radiophiler]

It's very sad for me to view the medium size radio market where I grew up and for there to be NO real local news reporting on the radio anymore. The Clear Channel "news/talk" AM pipes in news from outside the market. That's it. Very sad.

This is the reason I support abolishing the cross-ownership limits for TV-radio and newspaper-radio. Why not give companies an opportunity to be true "multi-media" companies. It could only improve the chances for finding some REAL, LOCAL news on the radio. CBS is already using synergies between its TV stations and all-news or news-talk radio stations in large market. What difference would it make if that sharing occurred between a newspaper and a radio station or even among a newspaper, TV AND radio stations.

The argument against that is loss of media "voices" in markets. Radio news, with some exceptions which are becoming fewer and fewer each year, is mostly dead. One of the reasons is the expense of a real radio news department for a radio station or group of stations. Sharing news content would reduce the cost for radio stations. Imagine if a radio station could rely upon reporting from its TV sister station. Radio news anchors could use the audio gathered by "multi-media" journalists shared with the TV station.

Here's something that might also help all-news radio in the largest markets: eliminate the band limits in the ownership rules. In the largest markets with the most signals, a company can own eight stations, but no more than five can be in one band (AM or FM). By allowing the eight stations to be in any band in any combination might encourage an owner like CBS to work to gain additional FM signals for its all-news stations in some markets, therefore possibly allowing the format to be successful for more years due to a presence on the FM band.

I think the future for news on the radio will be entwined with young journalists learning how to deal with video, audio and text reporting. No more silos: you're a TV journalist; you're a radio journalist; you're a print journalist; you're a web journalist. To be successful, they'll have to learn how to do it all. Paired with the ability for companies to own all of each type of delivery vehicle (TV, radio, newspaper, web), this could boost the prospects for meaningful radio news.

 

[TheBigA]

Sharing news content would reduce the cost for radio stations. Imagine if a radio station could rely upon reporting from its TV sister station. Radio news anchors could use the audio gathered by "multi-media" journalists shared with the TV station.

Around the same time the FCC eliminated local news requirements, they also banned cross ownership of radio and newspapers. Terrible decision. Newspapers spend a lot of money creating local news content. It's become even more expensive, and subscriptions for newspapers are down. Every time it comes up to eliminate the cross-ownership ban, as it did a few months ago, it's shot down because of concentration of media. But that's the only cost-effective way to do real news reporting. It makes no economic sense to have lots of reporters covering the same fire in a small town. There's no difference between one reporter placing his story in the paper and the radio, vs. having a radio reporter doing a rewrite from the newspaper story. So why not eliminate the middle man. But the government and media critics disagree, and so there's less news on the radio.

 

[Avid Listener]

I wonder how much of a Freudian slip is involved in referring to any part of the news media "creating" the news. Technically, that is an accurate statement when applied to the idea of simply writing stories down. But there are some serious, and negative, implications about news being "created" rather than simply reported.

 

[TheBigA]

I wonder how much of a Freudian slip is involved in referring to any part of the news media "creating" the news.

I didn't say "creating the news." I said creating news content. There's a difference.

 

[boombox4]

And then for brave participants in the conversation.... what do you see happening over the next five years in "news on the radio".

Would you advise your child to consider seeking a Journalism degree today?

My answer is definitely NO. Waste of money. The job market is not there. You can start your own news and issues related blog without even a high school education if you want -- if you've got the talent (and some high schoolers do)... The internet has in a way become the great equaliser.

Then you've got automation -- which we went over in another thread... yes, it is definitely in the picture here also.

The LA Times apparently just had it's first computer-sourced and computer-written and computer-posted news story a couple months ago. I.E., a computer program sourced the reports of the earthquake online, wrote the story by itself, and posted it to the LA Times website, all by itself. Automation will replace most news journalists.

Even many of them on radio.

NOAA already has computerised voices. It's only a matter of time before the technology sounds so real and is so accurate that news readers on the airwaves will not be needed, because a computerised voice will be cheaper.

I can see where a programmer will be able to customise the perfect male or female radio voice, using controls on the flat screen. It'll all be plug-and-play. You will even give be able to give them a name, or a computerised face for the website. Just like Max Headroom, only better. I would not be surprised if someone isn't working on this now.

Even if a computer doesn't source and write the news stories, it will be easy enough for someone to just feed in the copy and let the computer read it on the air at the Top of the Hour.

I'd aim my child towards one of the trades, or a degree in software, medicine, engineering, or even law. But never journalism. And I minored in it.

 

[JeffM]

Only one local station group here still has a "news department" (three guys who also double on everything else.) The lead among them is awful, punctuating his newscasts with snarky asides (he wants to be the next Paul Harvey,) and plugs for a tourist attraction he helps operate. The other two are much better, but are DJing or engineering other shows during the key morning hours. One station out of the four produces all the newscasts for the whole group, with cross-IDing, so if you are listening to K-DOG, you hear W-CAT news.

The other two groups have cross-plug agreements with TV stations, so their newscasts are done by the TV morning-news teams. Actually not a bad system, as both TV stations involved have won numerous journalism awards and provide quality material. As for the newspaper, they do nothing but flex their lawyers; threatening lawsuits against any station that uses "rip-and-read" material...even though the "news" station has an AP wire and gets the same news from the same source.

All that's missing is competition. That went out with the days when stations sent reporters around town in "woodie" station wagons with taxi-type two-way radios.

 

[joebtsflk1]

I'd aim my child towards one of the trades, or a degree in software, medicine, engineering, or even law. But never journalism. And I minored in it.

Agreed...don't go into journalism as a major! Likewise, I graduated from j-school. It might be OK to take a few courses in it, maybe up to minoring, as writing skills transcend all mediums, and can be valuable in many lines of work. But the trades or a more technical degree like you said above is a much better bet.

 

[TheBigA]

Then again, I believe if your kid WANTS to do something, then they will put up with the negatives. Every day lots of people try to become singers, either by entering contests or just playing poor playing gigs around the country. Most of them will never make it. That doesn't mean they shouldn't try.

 

[Avid Listener]

Am I missing something here? When I majored in journalism in college, many years ago, the journalism degree was presented as a valuable tool for any sort of career that required effective writing of non-fiction. The admissions counselor at my school made it clear that most journalism majors have no intention of becoming news reporters, and few of them follow that career path. Over the years, I've worked with people who wrote product instruction documentation, catalog sales copy, magazine articles, and lots and lots of of other things I can't think of to make this list even more complete. A degree in journalism might not open doors, but the skills one learns while getting the degree should enable one to enjoy a very good career as a non-fiction writer, even if the "journalist" never once works as a news reporter. I don't think that the ability to be a good non-fiction writer is no longer a valuable career skill.

 

[boombox4]

Am I missing something here? When I majored in journalism in college, many years ago, the journalism degree was presented as a valuable tool for any sort of career that required effective writing of non-fiction. The admissions counselor at my school made it clear that most journalism majors have no intention of becoming news reporters, and few of them follow that career path. Over the years, I've worked with people who wrote product instruction documentation, catalog sales copy, magazine articles, and lots and lots of of other things I can't think of to make this list even more complete. A degree in journalism might not open doors, but the skills one learns while getting the degree should enable one to enjoy a very good career as a non-fiction writer, even if the "journalist" never once works as a news reporter. I don't think that the ability to be a good non-fiction writer is no longer a valuable career skill.

What you say concerning the usefulness of a degree in journalism is great in theory. But the reality is that writing jobs are few and far between -- especially when one considers the considerable amount of work it takes to earn a four year degree in anything, much less journalism.

I applied for numerous "technical writing" jobs, "proposal writing" jobs, etc. etc. The writing skills needed for those particular jobs turned out to be secondary to the expertise in the actual field, or prior work experience with that company. And if you take a good look at most manuals, tech books, instructions, etc. that one comes across in the day-to-day world: most of them are shoddily written. Abysmal, sometimes. Many of them aren't even written in the U.S. by someone to whom English is a native language. But they get the job done.

Even some textbooks in college read like they were written by someone who was high on drugs. But they also get the job done. And apparently that's all that matters. The quality in writing that one can gain from a degree at a decent school of Journalism is simply not required for most non-fiction, non-journalistic writing jobs.

In journalism school they teach you to write concise, clear English that is simple enough to be understood at the 12 year old reading level. If the journalism instructors are good, you will have excellent writing skills. Then you can go out and find work as a waiter or janitor who can also write well.

A journalism degree is about as useful as a History degree or English degree -- it's great for putting on the wall. And useless for getting a good job -- unless you're lucky. And who needs a costly, semi-useful degree to get lucky?

What a degree in journalism can teach you about writing, you can learn in a good Writing 101 course at a junior college.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Great contributions to a topic that is much wider than the Original Post question.

Education goals and requirements appear to be a "moving target". Students get advice that is 20 years behind the times from their parents, social circles that your parents look to, and teachers. By the time a student finished education, processes through the dating-and-mating years and is ready to focus on career and go for the Golden Ring, another 20 years have gone by and so you set an educational path that is now 30 to 40 years out of date...... if you haven't been paying attention as you float through the process.

I'm listening to MY KIDS who are now at that age where they are mumbling: "An who's bright idea was this to get THIS degree?" and sometimes mumbling with a smile: "How lucky can I get!"

So from listening and reading, here are a few things I have assembled into my little bag of advice.

1. GET A DEGREE! ANYTHING! I was late getting mine. It was a sad day when a close friend said: "I would get my company to hire you, but you have to have a degree. Not necessarily in what we do. Anything. Cow Milking for all we care. It's just a rule we have: No degree, no hire." (The good news: He left that company, went with another. He hired me there. I started taking night courses and got the degree!)

2. The days of going to work on "the production floor" and working your way up to the executive offices are gone... at least in large and publicly traded companies. They hire "X"-number of folks every year with MBA and they become the flunkies, the entry level people in the management ranks. Some move on. Some move up from there.

HOWEVER!!! We are a discussion group focused on radio. If you are young and you are sure you will always find a way to be in radio, you can hope to cheat on a few of the conventional wisdom rules. But there bunches of us out here who will quietly whisper in your ear: Never assume you can or will spend an entire career in radio. If you are working for people who know that is all you WANT to do, and all you are PREPARED to do, you become a serf. Only when they recognize you have the skills and training to jump ship do they worry about what YOU want. (Some never do!)

In another thread a bunch of broadcast engineers are discussing whether a young person should go to a school that trains "Broadcast engineers" (and production.) NO! Get an Electrical Engineering degree. If radio does not work out, go design space rockets or solar power plants or computer clouds.

Major in Journalism? Only if you plan to get a Master's degree in something with broader appeal.

 

[TheBigA]

A journalism degree is about as useful as a History degree or English degree -- it's great for putting on the wall. And useless for getting a good job -- unless you're lucky. And who needs a costly, semi-useful degree to get lucky?

Depends on what you consider a "good job." Is it one that pays a lot of money, or one that allows you to do what you enjoy? It's rare you get both. I don't believe ANY degree gets you a job. Everyone wants to see experience. Majoring in journalism allows you to get internships at places that will qualify as experience when you're looking for that first job. Majoring in history or English probably won't. Those are considered "academic" degrees. Like economics vs. accounting or business administration.

Once again, the kid has to decide what's more important: Doing what he likes, or getting a "good job." That's the tough decision, one that he'll probably have to live with for the rest of his life.

 

[davideduardo]

Once again, the kid has to decide what's more important: Doing what he likes, or getting a "good job." That's the tough decision, one that he'll probably have to live with for the rest of his life.

That is a good point. And it is one worth repeating as many who enter college can't tell the difference between work and intellectual gratification / satisfaction.

I had the... I was going to say "good fortune" but that would be simplistic... I had the strange luck to go to college about 8 years late. I had not finished high school, but had the experience of station ownership and management behind me. So I mixed classes to create my own "radio major" by taking psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, statistics, music, calculus, computing (with punch card decks), a variety of business courses ranging from law to accounting and even Spanish literature. It would not have gotten me a degree, as there was no qualifying major. But it helped me immensely in future years. It was also major fun.

 

[Avid Listener]

What you say concerning the usefulness of a degree in journalism is great in theory. But the reality is that writing jobs are few and far between -- especially when one considers the considerable amount of work it takes to earn a four year degree in anything, much less journalism.

I applied for numerous "technical writing" jobs, "proposal writing" jobs, etc. etc. The writing skills needed for those particular jobs turned out to be secondary to the expertise in the actual field, or prior work experience with that company. And if you take a good look at most manuals, tech books, instructions, etc. that one comes across in the day-to-day world: most of them are shoddily written. Abysmal, sometimes. Many of them aren't even written in the U.S. by someone to whom English is a native language. But they get the job done.

Again, I'm talking about a long, long time ago. The curriculum for a Bachelor's in journalism back when I was in college was a certain amount of language and writing courses, along with almost every "Intro to..." in the school's catalog. The result was a knowledge background that was a mile wide and an inch deep.

You are correct that they too often hire people who know the content but who can't write instead of someone who can write well and learn the content. And, you're right about the terrible results. I've also had to sit through way too many training videos that featured experts with no camera presence instead of professional actors.

Still, if a kid has to get a degree in something, a journalism degree is a great preparatory degree to lead to a Masters in a specific field. There are few things more pathetic in life than a 40-something adult trapped in a career selected by a 17 year old kid.

 

[Small Market Guy]

Lots of stations have live and local news. Maybe it's just one guy doing news for a whole cluster, but they do exist and they do great work.

And a journalism degree is still better than a comm degree.

 

[FredLeonard]

A journalism degree is a waste of a college education. Get a liberal arts degree. Learn about people, society, language... Most important, learn to learn. Work at the college newspaper. That will teach you all you need to know about reporting, writing and editing. Work at the student radio station if you want to work in radio to learn about radio.

Are they still emphasizing writing in J-schools? Doesn't seem so. J-schools stopped emphasizing writing when they dropped their focus on print. I see stuff now that should not get a passing grade in a high school English course, let alone a college journalism course.

And the real journalism "schools" are completely gone. United Press International and outfits like City News Bureau of Chicago.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Still, if a kid has to get a degree in something, a journalism degree is a great preparatory degree to lead to a Masters in a specific field. There are few things more pathetic in life than a 40-something adult trapped in a career selected by a 17 year old kid.

If someone decides at age 27, 37 or 47 that the career selected the 17 year old is a trap, what is to keep one from changing? When I came through school they were beginning to talk about the concept that we might change careers (more than once?) during our lifetime. I took them at their word.

Unfortunately, I can tell you that some of the people in Human Resources didn't get the memo and didn't buy in. Some of them look upon career changes as a negative. I missed a few opportunities I would like to have tried because the HR people were lacking in a sense of humor.

I jumped the fence several times. The 17 year old kid that I once was...... was not able to trap me.

If your dream is to be an anchor in a major TV market, or work for one of the national network news teams, I suspect a J-school degree is a minimum. A master's in something is advisable. And I was surprised to learn of a couple of faces we see on TV with regularity were Rhodes Scholars and I was not aware of that before.