TORONTO – If diversity was the overriding theme for Friday at the RTNDA annual conference, Saturday’s was enterprise reporting.
The very informative opening Saturday session at the Radio and Television News Directors’ Association annual conference at the Eaton Centre Marriot focused on enterprise reporting – those original ideas that reporters or producers think up which develop into stories only their station will then have.
Enterprise reporting has long been considered a risky proposition because so-called “agenda items” mostly prevent newsrooms from doing as much of it as they would like. It’s costly, the stories might not pan out and if you skip covering a mayor’s speech when your competitor carried it, well, that’s just scary, isn’t it?
There are the press conferences, the media scrums, the breaking news, the court dates to cover, too. As a radio or TV station, you don’t want to get caught not covering what your competition is covering, do you?
But what if that’s exactly the problem? What if because competing news outlets seem to move in a pack from one “agenda item” to the next, reporting it in similar ways, is the reason why ratings stagnate?
What if enterprise reporting is the main thing that boosts ratings for news programming. Then, if that’s the case, why don’t more TV and radio stations do it? Why is it considered risky at all? Why isn’t it a top priority, rather than something that has to be squeezed in?
Part of the reason is that resources are already stretched pretty thin in most newsrooms. There are places where reporters MUST be on many given days. Original enterprise reporting might take a reporter away from one of those places as he or she chases down their story, which is a competitive concern.
The session’s speakers were: Murray Brewster of Broadcast News Halifax; Heather Evans, executive producer news gathering, CBC Radio news; Mark Kelley, CBC News The National; Tony Panacci, supervising producer, The New VR.
Each talked about ways in which they try to get more enterprise reporting done and the plans and processes they have in place to make those types of stories happen. From Brewster saying it’s crucial to cultivate your contacts (calling his Blackberry a “magic” device for that) to Kelley’s cross-country camper trip during the last federal election (covering the election without ever talking to a politician) to Evans’ assertion that a search for balance between agenda items and enterprise reporting is fruitless (“There is no balance, that’s an excuse,” she said).
The session truly kicked into high gear, however, when Panacci said that he plans more original stories during ratings periods for his station, which does a breakfast show, noon news, six o’clock news and a late news program.
“Original reporting is what’s going to get ratings,” he said.
That’s when Kelley piped up, saying: “This is where the disconnect is. If (enterprise reporting) is what sells, what attracts viewers, (then) it is not a luxury.
“It’s not elusive or scary or risky when there’s a huge payoff for us,” he added.
“We can’t be afraid of not doing the same thing as everyone else… I think we need to have more confidence and courage in the reporters.
“Skip the press conferences and go out into the community,” he continued. When doing that himself, “I would get a better story and I usually found a story that would lead me to another – and you can’t find these in the newsroom, you have to get out there.”
Even John Roberts (right), chief White House correspondent for CBS News (and former MuchMusic and Citytv host) used original reporting as a major plank in his keynote speech on Saturday, all but saying it will save broadcast TV news. 
He talked about how CBS News will change its evening format, opting not for the traditional star anchor now that Dan Rather has stepped aside, but for several people in a format that more actively engages the viewer and perhaps involves an interactive aspect. Look for more visible emotion from the anchors, said Roberts, as well as, “a little bit of spice in the writing.” He pointed to the success of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, where his often acerbic take on the news resonates very well with viewers.
Roberts added that CBS will certainly not go anywhere near as far as Stewart’s show does, but added “we need to give the writing (of news stories) something called ‘edge.’ People are used to that – people are interested in how we say it, and not just what we say.”
The biggest change, he said, is that CBS plans to “give viewers more to chew on,” in terms of back story and getting deeper into the news headlines, which people pick up on the web during the day anyway. “This will be much more challenging for reporters and producers,” he said. “We can no longer just play for a tie with our competitors.”
In order to better the competition – not to mention pull in viewers that don’t watch broadcast news (like people under 30), the news has to speak to them. Broadcasters have to resist the urge to simply make sure they cover everything else their competitor did.
“It’s fundamental that we connect with viewers and listeners and offer them something special and distinct,” said Roberts.
There’s that enterprise reporting line of thinking again.
RTNDA Canada will soon have webcasts of many of its sessions available via its web site, www.rtndacanada.com.
– Greg O’Brien
