Welcome to Episode 7 of the Reporters Shop Talk. My name is Stu Campaigne. I'm a reporter with BayToday.ca with Dave Dale, a veteran news reporter who has been sharing some insights in this podcast made exclusively for our members. And we've done six before this. It’s been a real pleasure to go over different topics as far as journalism goes.
Dave: Yeah, actually, it's almost like the old coffee rooms. We had the cafeterias. We had enough newspaper people to sit around and have lunch and shoot the shit.
Stu: We've got a bit of like, you know, Jedi Apprentice kind of thing going on here.
Dave: Oh, please.
Stu: I'm not even sure, I think it's Jedi plural. But that's why we have editors. Right.
So, yeah, there you go. We were bouncing around some ideas … What exactly makes a news story? I mean, I think even for some reporters, I think that, unfortunately, they're not really sure either. So maybe from your years of experience, how do you approach such a broad question such as that?
Dave: Well, measuring the value of a story for the news always comes down to its relative to what else is happening that day. So it's a sliding scale as far as I can tell. Something that I think might be a good news story on Tuesday, wouldn't even get a sniff on Friday depending on what's going on. So I think it's relative.
What do you think of that?
Stu: I think you're right, I think every story has its place. I think some days, the fifth story you're going to work on might be the second story some days. And it's unfortunate that sometimes things get ranked like that. But like you said, it's kind of a living, breathing thing we do. Nothing ever gets the coverage it probably deserves as it falls down that pecking order. Is that something you would agree with?
Dave: Yeah, definitely. If somebody that's not in journalism, like a general reader, asks why isn't this news? I would tell them it is news. But on that particular day, at that particular time, there was better news. That would be my first explanation to somebody, because that tells them, yes, they were not wrong. This is interesting, but not necessarily the most interesting thing that day.
Stu: That kind of fits in with another conversation you and I have had in recent weeks, it is not that we're ever trying to shirk our responsibilities, but we have talked about the stories we don't want to do, you know, and I don't mean we’re refusing to do them, but the ones that give you a funny feeling inside or something not quite right about them does not fit into it.
Dave: Yeah, we do have our [own] biased tendencies that we work through and we have to recognize and then deal with that. Like the least interesting thing for me, for the story or assignment that I would avoid, if at all possible, is, for example, covering a parade.
Stu: I would like to hear more about the parade.
Dave: I can't stand parades. I'm not sure if it's because I stood in the cold too often or I just have a cynical, cynical nature to myself. The thought of making a news story out of a parade, it bothers me for some reason. It's my problem because obviously a lot of people enjoy and appreciate parades. I just don't.
So I'd rather wash dishes that day.
Stu: Is it because you know how it's going to end? Is it because the parade really only has one option, that it can either completely go off the rails or just end up where it's supposed to?
Dave: I remember somebody being sent to a Christmas parade to take photos. It wasn't actually me, but I won't even mention them.
But they came back from the Santa Claus parade and they didn't have a photo of Santa. And it was, I think the editor, just kind of freaked out and said: “Who the hell would go to a Santa Claus parade and forget the shoot the Santa Claus!” And I just find that so silly, like the whole concept (Editor’s note: Dave doesn’t even like Christmas, so there are probably deeper issues at play here.)
Stu: I'm familiar with that. I shot the Santa Claus Parade and I didn't shoot Santa Claus because it was really, really cold. And I wasn't waiting for the end and I had everything I needed. I had crowd reaction shots. I had really tight shots on the, you know, other performers. I had wide shots. I had everything I needed. But it was sub-standard, I think I put in a picture of Santa from the year before.
And you really couldn’t tell the difference, it is the same Santa every year.
When you're breaking news there is an individual bias, but there's also that, on that day, you can't skip the Santa Claus parade no matter who you are, you got to go cover it.
But that's just because it's on that day and it sort of supersedes other things.
Dave: So, when you're measuring the value of a news story, it comes down to this for me: How many people will be interested in this and why? If they're interested in this, because it's going to inform their day and how they operate and it's a value that way, that is more value, I'd give it a higher ranking than if it's just interesting, like a car wreck, but there's no story behind it. People would be interested in the car wreck, but if there's no value in telling the story, it would have less ranking in my book. Does that make sense?
Stu: No, it does, it's fair enough. I wonder if there's ever been a time you can think of, you know, maybe recently, when you had kind of a fork in the road and you could really only give your attention to one of two stories and maybe you were wrong or and end up being you should have gone the other way. Can you think of something?
Dave: I can think of a couple, but I'm interested in hearing yours.
Stu: Sure. These are the more general, I'm thinking back over a few years. But, you know, it's something similar to what you talked about, where it was more like a shock value story, though probably lots of interest, but not much would come out of it right away. And of course, you know, we're always trying to cover everything we can. But I think it had something to do with geography where I couldn't possibly cover both, which is similar to your story about the deer rescue. You know, you were working on something else, but you ended up going a different way. That's kind of what I'm getting at.
I can't remember what it was, a boat capsized or something. It was like a spot news story. But then I had the option. And again, very generally, because I don't remember the exact circumstances, but I recall I had to take a phone call to do an interview and it was summertime and someone was going to their cottage, whoever the interview subject was. And I was unable to talk to them then, or they were out of communication for weeks and I had been assigned the story. And so what I did was, I did the interview.
And, of course, this is around the time when all the really stringent laws about driving with your phone in your hand. So I couldn't drive and talk to this guy, but I was trying to do both things. So I ended up putting it on speaker as loud as I could with the volume. And I put all my windows up and it was hot out that day and I yelled so he could hear me and I could barely hear him, and I didn't have anything to record with. And I just memorized whatever I could and eventually got to cover the capsized boat or whatever the case was.
So I got both stories, but I didn't get them both really well. And that's what I kind of mean with the: 'Should I have done just one or the other?' And I don't know what the answer is to that. I mean, I think I tried my best. I think I did a fairly good job with those stories, but I missed the spot news story, trying to get the interview for the other story. I knew I wouldn't get it all. So that's kind of a unique situation.
Dave: Well, that happens almost every day, really. You know, we'll be juggling three or four eggs and we're hoping not to drop one. But sometimes if you're juggling four, you're going to have to drop one to make sure the other three stay in the air.
So it's all relative, really, your manpower, resources, time. And what else is going on that day? Because there's no real strict measuring tool for what makes a news story.
Stu: Now, that leads to another question… do you ever have to circle back, so to speak. So if you've missed a story and the initial part of the story, how do you catch up? Because sometimes we have to do that. Is that something you're familiar with?
Dave: Yes. Sometimes you're forced to cover a story another outlet has already broke. So you're going to have a cover story to let your readers know you're on the job. But there are times when it's just no use doing the same story. You got to find a new angle, a new timeline that makes it interesting. You got to localize it in a different way. All the very basics of journalism … a story never dies, really. The story always continues. You just have to tell it in a different way. On Monday, you would tell it one way. A week later, you would tell it another way, the same story, but you would find timelines that make it more interesting and important for people to know. You would find an angle that is different than you would have done a week prior. You just don't tell the same story. You make it a news story and every story can be made a news story. You just have to have that sort of imagination.
Stu: Yeah, I find sometimes, you know, I read the other outlets, I read it in the major newspapers, even though they didn't break the story. I think the second story can sometimes be as equal, if not better, because there's been time to flesh out some of the, you know, the subjects and like you said, get a fresh angle on it that maybe, maybe is better than the original.
Dave: Definitely. A lot of times that's the case because time provides more information, also gives you an opportunity to reflect on the real value of the news. And you can see something, like a lot of times there's a giant hole in a story you could drive a truck through. You can answer that question with a fresh story.
Stu: So it isn't always, I mean, people often criticize media outlets just wanting to be first. But I think, you know, wanting to be best is the better angle, right? Yeah, being first is important. But I think being correct is better to me than being the first.
Dave: Definitely. Quality is more important than being first, but it's not really, I don't think, measuring something of being a better story, just being a fresher, newer, more interesting story based on that day. Right? Based on all the information you have and the day before, you didn't have as much information, so I guess it's the same thing, but it's depending on how you want to look at it.
Stu: I think a lot of it is point-of-view and personal preference. But the overriding thing, and what we do every day, is we're all trying to make the right decisions and not just personally, for the publication and for the readers. And you can’t always please everybody, that gets forgotten sometimes.
Dave: No, you definitely can't please everybody. Just it's helpful to look at it like it's a continuous storytelling process. When you do it for 30 years, you come across the same story at the same time of year. And if you're looking at it in a negative fashion, you're just repeating the same story over and over. But if you look at it in a journalistic value-added perspective, if you're covering the first fishing day story right now because you're open for fishing on New Year's Day, you can look at that like it's the same story every year. Or you could do a comparison to this year, last year against five years ago. And you can bring back people's memories. You can have some active sort of thought through the story. You can freshen it up with new angles. You can always do it different and freshen it up, and the stories are always being retold over and over again, but in different ways.
