How do you disconnect?

Have you seen the phone commercials lately where someone is stuck doing something “boring” so they check their phone?

These commercials bug me a great deal because what about what’s happening in front of you? We’re so connected via social media and our phones that we may be missing something important right here. We could be missing life.

If you’ve read this blog for any sort of time, you know this is an issue near and dear to my heart. I want to explore it again, so tell me: How do you disconnect? How do you ensure you’re not missing something right in front of you? Or do you keep yourself connected all the time?

Share your thoughts in the comments or send me a tweet @jenconnic. I may use it in an upcoming post.

When will we ever learn from our mistakes?

I felt like my brain was about to explode watching the coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing last week. I was enthralled with the story, but the reporting and coverage of it just hurt.

It wasn’t just the misinformation spread by more than one news organization and journalist. It was how trained journalists pursued the story. Did everyone forget Journalism 101 while covering the story?

It also makes me wonder if we as journalists have learned anything because I feel like I’ve been repeating the points I’m about to make for quite some time, including after the Newtown shooting.

To tweet or not to tweet the scanner

Never have I seen so many people listening to (and tweeting) the scanner for a police operation.

I’m a big fan of the police scanner. If I’m covering something at the scene, the scanner helps me understand what I’m seeing better. But I also have been around enough cops and firefighters to understand the lingo and the codes you’re going to hear on the scanner.

I also know that it’s the heat of the moment and there are going to be things on the scanner that are exaggerations. Some things also are flat out wrong. It’s why you don’t report from the scanner from an active scene and confirm things.

We have a service in New Jersey called the BNN where people send messages of what they’re hearing on the BNN. I cannot count on two hands the number of alerts have turned out to be exaggerations or flat out nothing.

Should you live tweet the scanner? Of course not. A million times no! Especially if you are not at the scene and cannot see what is happening. I always thought of the scanner as something that gives me leads and supplements what I see with my own eyes. But we need to remember that it’s investigation in process, which means things discussed could turn out to be false.

Misinformation travels at a million miles per hour

Tweeting from the scanner means that misinformation was out there, including the names of suspects who were not really suspects at all. It’s all over Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and everywhere in between. That share and retweet button is pretty easy to use, but it doesn’t take long to think before you hit it.

Ask yourself who this person is who is posting information and how much you trust them. Are they sourcing their information? Because there was lots of information without clear sources throughout the week.

The Atlantic has an excellent article about the anatomy of one of these misinformation disasters from the week.

If your mother says she loves you…

Too often I saw posts on Twitter attributed to Reddit or as crowdsourced. That’s fine. I’m a big fan of Reddit and of crowdsourcing and both have helped me as a journalist and as a social media producer.

But what happened to confirming those sources? They’re not official police sources. They’re just random people and we don’t know their background. In some cases we don’t even know who the people are because of the anonymity of the Internet.

If I had a photo from someone that says it’s of a suspect, I’d want to confirm with an actual investigator or official. I’d want someone I trust to tell me it’s true. It seems some sources were not doing that, and that just helped create more misinformation and some news organizations to be just wrong.

So we’re wrong, now what

Of course people are going to be wrong at some point. Even Woodward and Bernstein were wrong at least once. I’ve been wrong. There can be miscommunication between us and our sources. Our sources just have the wrong information or it changes between when we talk to them and the story is published. It happens, though the severity of it the last week was at a pretty bad level.

How journalists react to being wrong, to me, is important. Do we say “our bad” or do we “stand by our story”? I think it says more to admit you were wrong than to defend your stories and reporting when you know it was bad. We’re human and make mistakes. Own up to them and it will earn you more credit with the public.

That doesn’t mean anyone should make a habit of being wrong. Just own up to your mistakes.

Will we ever learn?

It seems after big news stories like the Marathon bombing, we’re dissecting what went wrong and how we can do better. But then lots of people fall into the same habits and we repeat mistakes.

I had an editor at The Hour who once told us that the public trust is like virginity. Once you lose it, you can never get it back.

If we keep making the same mistakes, we’re going to lose the public’s trust. What are we as journalists and as an industry if we don’t have the public’s trust?

Related articles

• Crowdsourced manhunt shows promise, problems (usatoday.com)
• Breaking News Is Broken (slate.com)
• When Following Breaking News, Why it Helps to Think Like a Journalist (pbs.org)

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.

Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, and several years ago my colleague at the Herald News Heather Appel and I worked together on a package about his visit to Paterson days before he died. The package was for the 40th anniversary of King’s death and included Heather’s story on his visit and a video I shot and edited with one of the people influential in bringing King to Paterson. It was a rewarding experience getting to meet and listen to one of the people who helped bring King to Paterson. It’s living history to me.

After I left my position at the Herald News, though, there were lots of website changes. I thought my video was lost forever. I didn’t burn a copy of it for myself (I still kick myself). Today, though, Heather posted the YouTube version of the video on Facebook. I was amazed to see the video was still out there.

If Ernest Hemingway could do it, so can I

Today I realized how long it’s been since I wrote on this blog — 2 1/2 months. In January I had lots of ideas of things to write for the blog and other things I wanted to do. I had intentions to write a “these are my 2013 goals” post, but it never got done.

It’s been a very blah couple of months for me. My energy is zapped, and it’s hard to build yourself up and do something creative when you feel down. That’s funny to me since my creative outlets often have helped my energy and depressed moods.

But I’ve also come to realize how hard it is to be creative in today’s technology age.

I sit down to write and get nothing done because there are too many distractions. New e-mail pops up. There are Twitter and Facebook notifications. And there are far too many other distractions online to cause someone to procrastinate. The distractions keep piling on each day.

I could just turn off the Internet while I work. I’m sure lots of people do this. But there’s just something about the keyboard and the laptop that doesn’t do it for me when I want to write something more than an article or a blog post, when I want to write a fiction piece. And I’ve had a story floating in my head for months.

I recently finished “The Paris Wife,” which is a fictionalization of the relationship between Ernest Hemingway and his first wife. I had one of those eureka moments as I read about how Hemingway would go off and write — he was just doing it in notebooks by hand.

Lately I’ve found it’s easier to work when I have just a journal and pen in front of me. There are no distractions, just the paper and the pen. I don’t like to do this except to scratch down a scene or an idea too often because then I’d have to retype the whole thing. It seems like more work.

But isn’t that what great authors like Hemingway did many moons ago? If they can do it, so can I.

My thinking is it’s the first draft. The first draft is never the final draft. If I write it down, I can’t go back and edit right away. And when I do type it, it’s a chance for me to edit the story too.

I’m just hoping my hand doesn’t fall off.

More on fixing local news

John Robinson wrote a response today about the responses to his original post about fixing local news. I came across the original post via Steve Buttry’s post and wrote my own response about listening to the community.

And John’s post also talks about listening to the community.

Talk with people in the community. They’re the ones who you are trying to serve. Don’t survey them. We have enough surveys. Talk to them about what they need and how you can serve them. When was the last time you — a newsroom journalist — asked someone what you could do for them? Not a source. Not a relative. But a regular person who might or might not bother to read your prose. If you haven’t, how will you know if what you’re doing is what is helping them?

Make sure you read his entire post. It’s a good read.

Perhaps 2013 for journalists, especially those on the local beat, is the year we devote to listening.

How to change local news? Listen to your community

I read Steve Buttry’s blog post today on what beats local news should cover with great interest, mainly since local news has always been my biggest passion. One of the reasons I’m so passionate about local news is because I find it to be the best way in journalism to help people, something I’ve always worked to do. And you’re not going to help people unless you listen to them and what their important issues are.

It pains me to see that so many local journalists don’t really listen to what their communities want, what issues are most important to them. Certainly there are things that we should always cover, but, as Steve points out, perhaps we should rethink how we do it.

But listening to your community isn’t just about talking to your sources or even talking to people at meetings. The people who are at those meetings have agendas and I’ve always believed to never fully trust a politician, even a local politician. They have to earn your trust, but at the same time you always need to check out what they’re saying.

Listening to your community is meaning you need to be in the community, talking to people. Go where those people are. Let them know where you are. But also eavesdrop, something we all need to be good at in journalism. Read comments on articles, and really read them. Don’t be dismissive of questions or comments and be open-minded. Be involved by asking your own questions of your audience and people in the community. Ask them about what’s the biggest issues on their mind, what they’re most curious about. Use social media, monitoring what people are saying in the community that way too.

And walk around. Always walk around. You see so much more walking around a community than you do driving through it. You’re not going to see much if you parachute into a community, as so many do (and I admit I have done in the past too). I used to be accused of being handed stories in Westport and Millburn-Short Hills, but I never was. I observed a lot and then asked questions. I’m thankful I always received answers rather than “I can’t talk about that.”

But never be dismissive, especially if you think something is “boring.” Traffic issues, including pedestrian problems, have always been a problem in every community I’ve covered. But who wants to write about crosswalks and speed humps and stop signs? But it’s what people care about because it affects their every day life. Think outside the box in how to cover it, too. One of my favorite projects I ever did was a video on what it was like to drive over a speed hump in Millburn-Short Hills. Everyone talked about speed humps both positively and negatively, but it’s another thing to show people what the experience is like.

If one thing is universal in journalism is that everyone hates to cover planning and zoning. Who wants to sit through those meetings? But development issues always are of major interest to people. It’s how their neighborhoods are changing and therefore their lives. It’s beyond NIMBY, and it’s certainly beyond covering those planning and zoning meetings. Knowing how to read an application and break it down and explain it to people is a great skill. I actually always have been interested in covering these issues because I know how important they are, even if it could be boring. Plus covering it enough means you can spot trends — like people designating their homes as “historic” to curb the mcmansion trend, which is something I wrote about in Westport.

As far as meeting coverage, which Steve addresses in his post, I do think you can’t completely escape it. Something always happens at a meeting, and you can’t make up for it if you miss it. I skipped a Board of Finance meeting back in Westport because there was nothing of note on the agenda. Instead, the board decided to discuss school funding matters after the meeting had been adjourned. In other words, no one from me to school officials to parents knew this was happening, which was its own drama in its own right because it violated freedom of information.

There are lots of ways to cover meetings other than your straight stenographer process and giving us the score. What are the issues beyond the meeting? How does the meeting work? Why should people care enough to go to those meetings? Who is at those meetings constantly and why are they there? Is the meeting process broken and how can it be fixed?

I could write so much more about how to better cover local news as someone who has both done it (and I like to say quite successfully — my sites have always been called “the gold standard”) and as someone who consumes it (frustratingly so, since I never know what’s happening in my city). But the key here is to listen. It’s good to have a plan on what to cover, but it’s also good to be flexible and change your plans based on what you see and hear.

Quick update: I realized after I hit publish that there are many news organizations that have established community newsrooms in a variety of forms. I want to applaud those efforts because those kinds of things will help any journalist understand how best to serve their community.

Changes in news coverage, introduction of social media and the NHL lockout

Before I write the rest of this post I have to say I am a hockey fan and I want the NHL lockout to end. I want to watch top-level hockey sooner rather than later.

But this post is about the power of social media and how it has changed the world, especially in sports and its coverage. The lockout is a prime example to show how things have changed.

I’ve been through three lockouts as a fan — the one that erased half of the 1994-95 season, the one that canceled the 2004-05 season and the current lockout. The 2004 lockout doesn’t seem that long ago, but in the world of journalism and social media it was.

I was still a reporter at a daily newspaper that barely had a website in 2004. Facebook was around, but I didn’t have an account. You still needed a school e-mail address to be part of Facebook then. MySpace was the rage. Never mind Twitter. News could be covered on a 24-7, but it was more for the top national brands and cable news networks.

In other words: We didn’t have the access to news quite that we have today.

So the news of the lockout came slower than it does today. There was no one live tweeting a press conference with the NHL or NHLPA. There weren’t people posting constant observations from outside the negotiating rooms.

I went to a lot of AHL games back then, but that’s how you knew what was happening with the team’s prospects. Fans didn’t have the access quite like they do today to the information and news about those teams. You had to rely on what people who went to games thought, and many times you were relying on people who weren’t watching hockey for a living.

Of course fans came back after the lockout. We didn’t have reason to be angry about things that were said or done because we didn’t have the access to what was being said like we do now. There was no social media campaign by the players or owners to make the other side look evil.

Fast forward to today. Now fans have unbelievable access to news, information and even people because of social media and the way news is published. Video of games and players is everywhere and quickly. We know what is being said by the commissioner and the head of the players union as soon as they’re saying it, even if we’re not next to a TV carrying Canadian sports channels. Someone tweets what’s being said and that’s retweeted and then retweeted again and again. On top of that players are on social media expressing their feelings about the lockout and, in some cases, engaging with fans about the lockout.

It shouldn’t be a shock the level of frustration and anger from anyone who loves the NHL is much higher than it was in 2004-05. Social media connects fans. They have started protests and expressed their anger. People frequently will respond to the NHL’s Twitter and Facebook account about the lockout, saying they need to fix it now. And with the number of fan blogs today, there are plenty of places for fans to express their opinions on the lockout.

The result? A study found the damage to the NHL’s brand because of the lockout is at an alarming level. From the article:

A disastrous map would be the one Level5 created following the BP PLC oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. It was the worst the company had seen – until it got around to the NHL this month.

But I wonder if the NHL and the NHLPA is listening or even realizing how the world has changed in the years since the last lockout. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, the owners, NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr and the players are taking a gamble on the fans returning. ”We recovered last time because we have the world’s greatest fans,” Bettman said last summer.

But that gamble is a losing bet. It’s always been a losing bet. It’s worse than spending $50 on Megamillions tickets expecting to win. All they had to do is look at the reaction on social media and compare the climate from 2004-05 and today. But it appears all involved had, and still have, their heads in the sand, not listening to the fans (aka the customers) and even the experts who say the lockout is killing the brand.

I can’t say I won’t be back as a fan. I know I will be even as I’m frustrated and angry with the current situation. One friend professed to me the other day he’d immediately buy tickets. But there are plenty of other people I know, passionate fans, who are angry or are disinterested. It’s going to be a hard sell to get them back and it’s going to be an even harder sell to get back the fans the league has gained in the last couple years.It’s not unreasonable to think the NHL will go from record highs in attendance and revenues to record lows. It could hurt some teams significantly, some of the same teams who are endorsing the lockout.It’s easy to say the lockout ending and saving some of the season would fix some of the damage, but I don’t know how much it would help now. So much damage has been done.The lesson here for everyone — whether you’re in journalism or you’re a brand — is that you cannot ignore the outside world. You have to adapt to changing technologies and news cycles. If you don’t, you are doomed to failure.