(Not So) Basic Journalism Skills: The Context of Context

In journalism school you learn a lot of things - what makes a story newsworthy, how to put your story together, AP style, etc. What isn't covered in depth is how to put your story into context for your viewers or readers.

Many of the stories we cover aren't just one-day deals. They're an issue that's built up over days, weeks, months, even years. And even if it's day one of coverage, nine times out of 10 we'll revisit the story somewhere in the future.

When you're immersed in those stories day in and day out, or even week in and week out, it's easy to take for granted that everyone knows what's going on. But that's simply not true.

There's always going to be that one person who's been living under a rock. And you can't rule out those people who watch or read every day and still can't keep it straight. Context is for them.

According to Journalism.org, the Pew Research Center's project for excellence in journalism, "Journalism is a form of cartography." Basically, we have to map it out for our audience. You can't start at point F and expect your story to have relevance. For example you can't go cover a protest over the verdict in George Zimmerman's murder trial without revisiting the verdict, and you can't revisit the verdict without explaining the charges, and the charges don't make much sense if you don't know why they were filed in the first place.

Even for those viewers/readers who've been following a story since it's inception, it's nice to lay out a timeline of events for them. That's not to say that you have to devote a lot of time or column space to those details, but in the words of my assignment editor you need a peg to hang the story on. It cuts down on confusion and helps set the tone for whatever you're covering.

There is a movement that seeks to put the context back in the news. They're calling themselves The Context Movement, and they recently had a panel at SXSW. You can read some cliff notes of that by clicking here. This group is trying to find a solution to what it calls "episodic" stories and is trying to answer this question: Why are we serving people the news without the background narrative necessary to make sense of the news?

The trend I see is that newscasts are filled with more and more content, but the context is decreasing. When you have about 12 minutes you can work with and there are 10 reporters each providing you with three minutes of content that your viewers are expecting to see, things get dicey. Fortunately, in most cases context can be provided with one sentence. It's not ideal, but it gets the job done.

In cases where you need more than a sentence but don't have the time or space, there is an easy solution. As I mentioned in Part 2 of this series, all aspects of journalism are converging in one place - the internet. We're all becoming multi-media journalists rather than a print or broadcast journalist and as such we should embrace the online counterparts of our shops. When you don't have time to break down three years of back story for today's version of your story, do it on your website and let people know they can find it there.

If you take nothing else away from this post, remember this - your audience can't take anything away from your story if they don't have the necessary information to do so. Set the scene; plot your course; start at point A. Context isn't a hard concept and it isn't difficult to incorporate. If you make it step one of your creative process, the rest is easy.

Sh*t Crazy Newsroom Callers Say

Caller: "I missed your 5:00 news. Did y'all have a story on those cops quitin'?"

Me: "We actually had that story yesterday at 5:00."

Caller: "Oh. Well I called *the other station* and they didn't do the story at all. They told me they didn't think it was a story. Can you believe that?"

Me: "Ma'am, do you have a question or something about the story?"

Caller: "No. I just wanted to let y'all know *the other station* didn't do a story on it."


Disclaimer: Some names and locations have been changed or omitted.

(Not So) Basic Journalism Skills: Grammar Lesson

By the time you get to college, professors generally assume you learned all you need to know about grammar in high school.

You would probably be surprised by the amount of basic grammar skills that either aren't absorbed or are forgotten. I'm not.

Obviously print journalists rely heavily on their grammar skills as they're tasked with telling stories using only words. But broadcast journalists aren't exempt from having good grammar ... or at least they shouldn't be.

Speaking conversationally doesn't mean you can dip into street slang or local dialect. In fact, both of those things detract from your credibility. Why should someone listen to and/or trust a person who doesn't speak correctly?

Unfortunately, most colleges don't require or even offer a grammar class for journalism students. The closest thing I got was an advanced editing and reporting class I took for my print major. Broadcast students weren't required to take those because they focused mostly on print-related things. However, in this day and age, can we truly separate ourselves that way? Yes, I work in broadcast, but I still have to know how to write, and I post stories to our website in PRINT format. And more and more print journalists are being required to turn broadcast-type stories for their online versions.

Is there a difference in the writing styles? Absolutely. But the same rules of grammar apply to both.

In the four years I've been working in this field, I've seen a lot of grammatical issues -- some over and over again. Here are the three I correct on a daily basis: Which versus That; Then versus Than; and Affect versus Effect. It's also not uncommon for me to correct misused apostrophes and commas; hyphens seem to be either not used at all or in all the wrong places; and, unfortunately, I still see subject-verb disagreement on occasion.

Probably the biggest concept for aspiring journalists to learn, whether they want to work for a newspaper or in television, is to write in active voice over passive voice. Using passive voice is not grammatically wrong, but it lends a slower pace to the story. Things are acted upon instead of your characters, if you will, performing some type of action. To put it bluntly, passive voice is boring and doesn't invite your readers or viewers to finish the story.

There is no easy way to overcome the grammar learning curve. I've actually considered putting together a pocket guide for grammar or launching a series on here. Honestly, though, who has the time? It would be a never-ending, miles-long project that would surely drive me insane.

So I guess the best advice I can offer you is to get an AP Stylebook if you don't already have one. It covers most of the common grammatical issues as well as some not-so-common ones. If you want to go the extra mile, pick up a copy of Working With Words.

In this business, words are your business. To make it, you've got to be well-equipped.