JRN 200: More On Public Affairs Reporting

Posted here is a handout given to JRN 200 instructors on how to define public affairs reporting. Instead of translating it for you, I thought it was direct enough to simply share with you. Here is the text:

The public affairs story assignment that culminates JRN 200 is meant to help students transition to JRN 300, where many of their stories will involve public affairs topics and issues.  Moreover, many of the JRN 300 students attending our session on “Thinking About Your Courses” said they would have liked more preparation for public affairs stories in JRN 200.

The draft below is meant to address this concern.  It first deals with the definition of “public affairs,” the kinds of local government institutions and processes that mostly make public affairs news, and the kinds of sources and stories student reporters can find.

Public Affairs:  A Definition

Many students are confused about the distinction between “public” and “private” when it comes to institutions and organizations they may be covering.  Some are even confused about what constitutes “government.”  So the definitions below are meant to help resolve these confusions.

1.      “Government” is made up of institutions and their operations that (a) use tax dollars and (b) derive their power from elections by citizens.  Government is the only  institution that has legal authority to collect taxes and, if necessary, to use coercion to enforce laws and rules.

2.     Public affairs is about the activity of government institutions, but is more broad than that: Public affairs involves any activities that in some way or other use tax dollars and/or impact governmental decisions.

3.     The implication of 2 above is that groups, businesses, etc., that try to influence government are also part of Public Affairs and therefore of interest for public affairs news coverage.

Local Government Institutions:

City/Township Governance:

1.      City Councils are elected by voters and have the power to enact “ordinances” that govern a number of aspects of civic life including law enforcement, fire protection, sanitation, etc.

2.     Mayor/Manager:  Mayors may be elected directly by voters or, in the case of smaller towns (e.g., East Lansing) elected from the city council.  An elected mayor has a full set of administrative officials to enforce laws.  In the case of smaller communities, a council hires a manager who serves at the pleasure of the council to do the same kind of administrative duties than an elected mayor would

3.     Courts:  These are district courts and circuit courts.  The district courts handle lesser crimes (dui, etc.,) while circuit courts handle major ones (murder, etc.)

School Districts: 

School districts are special governmental entities that perform a single task:  educating youth.  They have legal authority to raise tax revenue and expend tax dollars. 

1.    Boards of Education:  these are officials elected in the same way as city council members who have the power to make educational policy.

2      District Superintendent:  an official hired by the Board of Education to take on day-to-day administration functions.

Informal Business and Interest Groups:

1.      Although not governmental institutions, these groups often attempt to influence governmental policy.  Such groups include:

a.     Chambers of Commerce, Business Interest Groups, etc.

b.    Neighborhood Associations

c.     Unions, particularly public employee unions

d.    Issue Interest Groups such as Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, etc.

2.     Council appointed boards and commissions (e.g., recreation commission, etc.):  these groups make recommendations to councils on selected areas being considered.

Government Processes (relevant for news reporting) 

1.      Votes by councils/school boards on policy, finance, etc.

2.     Decisions by executive leaders/administration

3.     Citizen ballots on finance, etc.

4.     Trials in district and circuit courts

Public Affairs Story Sources

People Sources:

1.      Mayors/ administrators and their staffs.

2.     Elected council members/school board members

3.     Group/commission members

4.     Ordinary Citizens

Activity Sources:

1.      Official meetings of councils, commissions, school boards etc.

2.     Rallies, demonstrations, strikes, etc.

3.     Speeches, etc.

4.     Trials, sentencing, etc.

Document Sources:

1.      Web sites

2.     Official reports/studies

3.     Statistical data

Routine Public Affairs Stories

1.      Votes by councils and school boards and commissions

2.     Discussions by councils and school boards and commissions

3.     Interest group activity to influence 1 and 2 above

4.     Proposals by administrative officers

5.     Protests, strikes

6.     Court Activity

Reporting Skill Sets Needed

1.      How to cover and write stories involving some sort of meeting

2.     Interviewing

3.     Accessing and integrating documents into stories

4.     Sourcing beyond government actors for stories

5.     Fairness and balance in reporting controversy

Speech: A Nice Example

Just a nice example of a good lede, and thorough attribution, and a liberal sprinkling of facts and quotes, all of which are attributed.

Halloween used to be about costumes and candy, but kids are now being tricked to associate the holiday with a new treat — alcohol.

            Yesterday, Surgeon General Tom Izzo spoke at a PTA convention in East Lansing about how alcohol has bombarded Halloween.

            “Halloween and hops do not mix,” Izzo said.

            Izzo said the wide acceptance of alcohol could be part of the reasoning behind why young people drink.

            Izzo said according to the National Coalition on Television Violence, the average American child sees 75,000 drinking scenes on television before the age of 18.

            “Alcohol is the number one substance abuse problem among America’s youth,” Izzo said. “In fact, it is the only drug whose use has not been declining, according to our most recent National High School Senior Survey.”

            Izzo said according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, currently 4.6 million teens have a drinking problem.

            Izzo said alcohol affects most organs, and can be contributed to diseases such as hypertension and cancer of the esophagus.

            “Let us not make this year the year they robbed the kids of Halloween,” Izzo said. “For their sake and our own, let us keep Halloween sane, safe — and sober.”

Speech: What's New Is The News

The news, of course, isn't just that someone spoke; it's what they spoke about. In that sense, the following lede is correct but lacking:


U.S. Surgeon General Tom Izzo spoke at a Michigan PTA convention in East Lansing yesterday.


This next lede does that, but it still falls a bit short:

U.S. Surgeon General Tom Izzo spoke at a Michigan PTA convention in East Lansing yesterday about the issue of alcohol consumption among adolescents.

The problem here is you don't know what he said about alcohol consumption. Did he say he thought it was bad or great? That he thought it was awful? Or that he encourages all kids to get blotto?

You simply don't know based on what you offer. This next lede was much clearer:

U.S. Surgeon General Tom Izzo criticized the alcohol industry for targeting Halloween as their latest marketing opportunity at the Michigan PTA convention in East Lansing yesterday.

Note how it doesn't just say Izzo spoke about the alcohol industry; it says he criticized it. Correctly finding and using such a word to describe the contents of what he said is teh difference between a vague lede and an exact one.

Finally, just for the hell of it, let's look at what I thought was a very nice lede/nut graf/telling quote combo:

U.S. Surgeon General Tom Izzo delivered a passionate speech condemning the alcohol industry’s target of the traditional children’s holiday, Halloween, at the Michigan Parent Teacher Association meeting in East Lansing last night.

In the speech, Izzo shared his concern of the alcohol industry’s festive marketing techniques this year and how it’s association with Halloween is promoting dangerous alcohol consumption among youth.

“This year the alcohol industry has given new meaning to those innocent words of childhood. They are serving up new treats –and new tricks,” said Izzo.

So much to like here. First, a specific lede that I think fairly uses the work passionate. That word isn't based on your opinion; rather, it's based on your viewing his words in whole through conventional wisdom and factual basis. His argument had an edge to it, right? So, you're not offering an opinion, but an analysis.

That's the difference. An opinion is based on your feelings. Analysis is based on your reasonable interpretation of facts.

Second, the nut graf expands upon the lede. The lede says Izzo condemned the alcohol industry; the nut graf says how and why -- because of its marketing that promotes kids drinking.

Finally, you bring things full circle with your telling quote, so that readers don't have to take your word for it that Izzo was passionate and condemning -- you show the reader Izzo's words.

Speech: No Such Thing As A Small Mistake

Even the smallest gaffes in journalism matter. The audience is fair to ask, if they can't get the small things right, why should we believe they got the big things right?

So, there's no such thing as a small fatal.

Like in one of our stories, where within a quote we wrote that Izzo talked about "severing up new treats." What he actually said was, "serving up new treats" (italics mine).


That misspelling of serving creates a misquote. And a misquote is a fatal.

This is also an example of a spelling error that spell check won't catch, because the error creates a correctly-spelled but unintended word. After all, severing is spelled correctly, if we were trying to spell severing (which means, to cut up). Problem was,  we were trying to spell serving, as in, to deliver.

One more time: spell check is a supplement to -- but not a substitute for --  checking your story fact-by-fact, line-by-line, and quote-by-quote to ensure accuracy.

It happens. Let's just be sure that we learn from it, and do a better job of proofreading going forward.

Speech: The Evils Of No Attribution

In writing this story, one of us had this transitional paragraph:
 
Maybe it’s the level of acceptance in our country. Or perhaps it’s the fact that alcohol is glamorized. 

And that's a big problem. The first and most fundamental problem is that it's an unattributed statement. Who said that? We need to be clear that we are reporting and sharing our observations of what others say and do, and we're not simply preaching our own personal viewpoints.

Attribution helps make that crystal-clear. But the way we've written it here, it could easily seem like we're taking sides and just stating our opinions.

Let's think back to the early days of this class. We talked about attribution being necessary, unless the fact is one that's undisputed (such as, the sun rises every morning) or one witnessed by the reporter (you can just state the score of the football game you were covering, without adding, the scoreboard said).

But this goes an extra step: it's an unattributed opinion. First, the reasons for alcohol being popular among youth is not an established fact, like that two cars crashed at an intersection or a store went out of business. It's an interpretation by one individual: Izzo.

Second, we acknowledge that it isn't established by starting the sentence with, Maybe ... We can't be more clear that we're not sure.

This sure as hell needs an Izzo said somewhere.

Overall, we're still a bit sloppy on attribution. Attribution is important, so that the audience is clear where the information is coming from. Really, virtually every paragraph after the lede and nut graf should have some level of attribution.

And certainly, every graf that contains a fact or a statistic or a quote or an opinion must have attribution, without exception.

Attribution is important, because in journalism it's not enough to have information; we must be persuasive to our audience that the information is correct. One way we persuade people is by answering to our audience, this is how we know that. Because so-and-so said. Or it's according to this-and-that document. We didn't make this shit up; this is where it';s from.

That's attribution.

We're journalists. We don't come up with (or make up!) facts or statistics or quotes or opinions. We find those, and then we share those, and as we share those, we let people know from where we got those.

That last step is attribution.

Speech: How Do You Know ...

. . . this?

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 4.6 million teenagers have a drinking problem.

This is kind of a trick question. You DON'T know this because the NIAAA told you, or because you read their report. You know it because Izzo cited the report, right?

So, correct attribution would be something like this:

Izzo said 4.6 million teenagers have a drinking problem, citing National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism figures.

Be sure to attribute a source, or even the source of a source, if need be.

Speech: A Good Quote

This one was:

"Let us not make this year, the year they robbed the kids of Halloween," Izzo said. "For their sake and our own, let us keep Halloween sane, safe -- and sober."

Telling quote. It really got to the point of what many of you hooked your stories upon.

Then why did some of us use it so late in our stories?

The better a quote and the more it directly supports your central premise of key premises of your story, the more prominent and higher up that quote should be.

Many of you ended your stories with a great quote, like this one. I get the feeling that you're trying to create what in writing is called a satisfying ending; one that offers a conclusion.

In traditional English composition, such a conclusion is necessary. In journalism, since we start with the conclusion it is not. On most regular straight news stories, it's completely fine to simply let the story trail off, even if it seems like the ending is abrupt.

If you're writing in inverted pyramid style, you rank information in the order of importance, so your story should essentially trail off. If you're writing a chronology, you can stop writing just short of the conclusion since your reader will already know how things ended; they learned that in the lede.

The notable exception would be if you were writing some sort of feature narrative, which we really don't get into in this class. So, nyah.