I need to ask more questions

To me, I did nothing as bad or as controversial as some of the things I've talked about in my last two blogs on my own journalism experiences. This one just shows I need to be a little bit more careful when I report information. This past Monday, I covered the Columbia City Council meeting. I reported on the city thinking about raising parking garage rates in downtown because they've made a lot less money on this than they previously had thought they would. The situation has city officials wondering how they can transfer money over to the parking garage fund.

A couple of officials think they've come up with a plan. They want to transfer $400,000 from the city's parking meter fund, which makes a much greater amount of money for the city.They want to transfer that over to the city's general fund. After that, the city can then take that money and use it to help pay off the struggling four parking garages in downtown. The findings during the council meeting came during the 'reports' section of the agenda. In the web story I posted that night on komu.com, I reported the city had moved the money over. At the meeting, it sure sounded like they planned to do this. Unfortunately for me though, they never voted on anything. Good thing the morning producer called and asked me about it and asked if we should change it. I had already gotten back to my house and had started to prepare for bed.

What did I learn from this? You need to be much more careful with the way you word things. I'm not sure if the city officially transferred the parking meter funds over to the general fund or not. I'm not sure if mayor Bob McDavid has the authority to just do this, or if the city council has to vote. What did I need to do? I needed to ask the representatives after the meeting what became of this!!!! That would have cleared things up for me and allowed me to report the story the right way in the first place.

I say this issue did not impose as big of an ethical issue as my last two journalism experience blogs because nobody appears upset with me in how I reported the story for the 45 minutes it appeared online wrong. I'm very thankful the morning producer called and asked me about it because then we would have reported it wrong in the morning five or six times in a row. In a morning newscast, you run the same story six or seven times because the show goes on for at least two hours. Ours goes three. Then as more people could have heard it, they could have questioned whether or not I truly reported something that happened or not. Then I could have gotten in trouble!! Crisis averted.

 Mayor Bob McDavid has the task of figuring out where the city will get money to pay off the downtown parking garages.

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My American Hour: Listening to 'This American Life'

My goodness...first off...I cannot believe 'This American Life' could devote an hour long to a news story called 'Petty Tyrant.' I mean this in a good way. That seems like something only shows like '60 Minutes' or '20/20' could do on television. If only great television shows can do one news story and tell it for one hour, I'm sure only great radio shows can do the same thing. Think how much time that would take. It would have to take an incredible amount of work, and if only one reporter tells the story, he or she would have to devote large quantities of time to the piece each and every day. Hopefully he or she wouldn't have to edit the thing too!

I'll be honest. I had never listened to a podcast before on 'This American Life.' Off the bat, you can see how a television story and a radio story differ. First, you usually hear more music as nat sound in your radio story than in your T.V. story. Television has the luxury of using nat sound to help describe a situation without necessarily saying something about it. In radio, you don't have the television there to make it easier for the viewer to understand. You have to describe the scene right before if you want to use nats. At one point during the piece, I heard the reporter say "That's Carl Stroc." It sounded like she described the person as if we could see them. I wonder whether or not she meant to do that. I also noticed a little bit more music in this piece than I'd probably here if somebody decided to do an hour long television story on it. Because radio journalists don't use as much nat sound, they need music to balance that out. After her lead, the reporter put in a five second music nat pop. I loved it.

If anyone knows why NPR reporters speak in such a monotone voice to where a story can put you to sleep, please let me know. I've wondered this before...why people doing stories for this station have no inflection or anything else. Then again, anybody who does public radio never really speaks with much inflection. I find that interesting more than anything else. Also, I know this piece goes on for an entire hour, but the anchor intro goes on for five minutes!!!! Holy cow. I'm not sure a television show could ever get away with an anchor intro that lasted that long. The anchor intro also sounded so informal, so conversational. It reminded me of my best friend standing five feet away from me telling me something.

I also did see some similarities between it and television. I heard a soundbite where the reporter followed it up with a couple more questions. I know this would definitely happen in a television story as well, and I know if this were, it would have been a shot with both the reporter and the source in it. You can tell because you can hear the reporter's voice. If a photographer would just do a closeup on the man telling the reporter something, you'd be hearing a constant voice from somewhere else but not being able to see it would be weird.

I also feel like I can tell where the commercials start in this piece. The reporter often ended with some nat sound and faded it out. I'm sure in radio fading out music and fading it back in has to be much more important than doing that in television. One final note with the music, it also seemed very 'light hearted' for such a serious story. I don't think a television reporter would ever use such 'cheery music' about a boss who pretends to have sex with his secretaries. All in all, you can see how a piece in radio transitions and flows differently than a piece in television. Hearing these challenges gives me a greater amount of respect for those that do radio.

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Steve Raucci: the man that ridiculed his coworkers.
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Another ethical issue

As I sit here writing about another personal news situation where I found myself questioning my ethics afterwards, I think about my past Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, when I covered the state auditor race in Missouri and Republican challenger Tom Schweich's party. I got to Clayton, a St. Louis suburb, where he held his watch party, and I stayed there until about 12:30 Wednesday morning. Tom only talked at a couple of points during the night, and each of them didn't last very long. He came out at one point and told the crowd he and his men were still in the back 'crunching the numbers' and that he appreciated everyone coming out. Later on in the night, he came out a second time to tell the smaller crowd that he didn't see how Democratic incumbent Susan Montee could come back. The sticky situation of the night came next.

After he came out a second time, I got in position for him to address the crowd for a third time and to tell them he'd won. We kept waiting and waiting, and he didn't want to say anything before the official results were in. Keep in mind, the restaurant where his party took place didn't have any huge barriers between the 'war room' in the back and all the people drinking in front. So after about five minutes, I decided to go back to the room where Schweich and his men had been the entire night. Sure enough, by the time I got back there, Schweich and Montee were talking over the phone. Montee had called to concede the race.

I started recording as soon as possible and once he hung up the phone, he jumped up in the air and flailed both his arms upward in celebration. It looked rather funny to the outsider because you don't see that type of reaction every day. After coming out the door, he told me not to use that shot. He said he hadn't seen the camera. I laughed because he seemed so excited right after he hung up the phone. By no means did he seem vicious when he told me this. Now though, came decision time. 

As a journalist, what do I do in a situation like this? I just got my best shot of the night. The scene seemed very light hearted. Do I persuade Tom into letting me use it? Not say anything and just laugh it off? Or do I not use the video at all? I went with option number two. I decided to use the video because I felt like I hadn't defamed him. Also, I knew Schweich would never see the video. He lives outside St. Louis. I knew my consequences would probably be fairly slim.

Also, my teacher told me in class, if a source does something and then tells you not to use it, it still counts as 'on the record.' However, if I had to do it again, I would have told Schweich what he did still counted as 'on the record.' I never did that. Our teacher told us you can use everything a person says or does unless they tell you 'off the record' before they do the action or give the sound bite. He told me not to use it after I had shot the video. However, I made it sound like I planned on not using it. As I said before, I would have done things differently if I had to do it all over again, and I feel like I would have been able to persuade an easy going guy like Schweich into using it if I just talked to him. I also know there could be repercussions on more serious issues like this in the near future if I don't take the right precautions.

Tell me what you would have done in this situation
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The journalist I strive to be

After watching the piece Diane Sawyer did called 'Prostitution in America,' I wonder myself how many prostitutes live in Columbia. I know the middle of Missouri doesn't seem like a very populated area compared to other parts of America, but cities like Jefferson City and Columbia do have a decent urban population.   

While watching the video, I felt very sorry for Jessie who feels like people stop on her in the business, and she seems like she'd rather be doing something else. I tried though throughout it to think more along the lines of how hard it would be to do a story like this. I tried to think of this as if I sat in Sawyer's position. I first thought to myself, how in the world do you find Jessie? She seemed so open to talk about her job? I guess it would have to take a very long time to do. After all, if you listen to Sawyer's anchor intro, she says she's been working on the story for over two years. This piece has 'HFR' written all over it just like every other piece '20/20' does.

I wonder if Sawyer found Jessie online, if she had to call Reno Police before to see if they had any tips on her. Jessie seems like she acts very professional in her job and seems relatable to a woman that works in an office building. Regardless, another question comes to my mind as I write this piece. Would I ever be able to find a story like that and a woman who'd be that willing to talk to me about it? Would only a Diane Sawyer or Barbara Walters be able to do this piece because they have been two of the best woman journalists on the planet over the last 30 years?

This question reminds me so much of the first topic I wrote about, a story HBO's Bryant Gumbel did on president Barrack Obama. Could I have ever done as good a story as he did because I'm white? Would my news director have given the story to somebody else instead of me? I find it hard to believe that Jessie would open up to me as much as she did to Sawyer, but then again, I could be wrong. The only thing I do know for sure, I'd love to have my news director come up to me and tell me that they want me to do a story like this. I'd feel honored that they'd have that much trust in me in such a 'sticky situation', especially if I'm not of the same race or gender as the source. 



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