A writing journey we’ll take together

April 3, 2018

Bart Pfankuch

Better Writing
with Bart

Jim Stasiowski, a veteran writing coach whose superb writing advice appeared in the Bulletin for many years, has retired.

Beginning with this column, Bart Pfankuch, an investigative reporter for South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit public-service news agency online at sdnewswatch.org, will offer his excellent writing advice. He can be reached by email at bart.pfankuch@sdnewswatch.org.

We all know what they say about riding a bike, but I always wondered if the same holds true for writing.

During the past month, I’ve had the opportunity to find out.

After spending the past 12 of my 28 years as a journalist in the editing chair, I’m adjusting to a new gig in which I’ve returned exclusively to reporting and writing.

Here is my long story short. I’m a Wisconsin native who reported at newspapers in Madison and Eau Claire, Wisc., then in Jacksonville and Tallahassee, Fla. I edited two lifestyles magazines before serving as city editor in Sarasota, Fla. In 2012, I became editor of the Rapid City Journal in South Dakota. I left there last fall and in January, I took a job as investigative reporter for South Dakota News Watch, a new nonprofit, public-service journalism news service.

So that’s me in a nutshell — other than being a decent golfer and barbecue cook who is married to a drama publisher and who owns three dogs, a cat, a guinea pig, a chinchilla and a talking Amazon parrot.

One constant in my career has been my devotion to developing, honing and sharing my skill set as a reporter, writer and editor. While I cannot fully stand in the shoes of Jim Stasiowski or match his bounty of facial hair, I will note that I launched my first writing-coach program at the Jacksonville paper in 1998 and have presented at several newspaper conferences around the country. I have some coaching chops, so no need to worry that the only reason Staz “hired” me as his replacement for this column is because I can hold my liquor and possess a mean wedge on the golf course. Staz, by all reports, is fully enjoying his retirement — visiting friends across the West, sunbathing in Maui with his wife, Sharon, and playing golf poorly a few times a week.

I must admit that despite decades of newspaper experience, this new reporting job has me occasionally shaking in my loafers and facing some tough questions.

Can the editor write, and not just edit? Can the teacher do, and not just teach? Can I rediscover my voice among the cacophony of other writers whose thousands of words I have edited?

The answers — while true but certainly unsatisfying — are yes and no.

Using techniques honed through years of practice — methods I will share regularly in this monthly column — I feel I have been able to write with some coherence and clarity. My stories so far have a defined beginning, middle and end. They contain a few strong, telling details and interesting characters. I believe they make sense.

To accomplish those basic goals, I engaged a few of my tried-and-true methods. First and utmost, I did extensive research before I approached a source so I could confirm the essentials and spend more energy discovering the unknown, the story behind the story. I thought deeply about how to move a story forward and then developed a reporting strategy to generate fodder for great writing.

This approach worked well on my first assignment. I traveled to Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota to do a scene-setter on a fire that burned 54,000 acres in and around the park a month earlier. After a clip check, I settled on a “tick-tock” approach in which principal players in a dramatic event retell the story in a minute-by-minute fashion. It allows a writer to get in their heads and forces them to reflect on what they did, why and how it felt. I hoped it would be a fresh approach to a month-old news event.

The key to success was letting all the sources know of my plan in advance and cluing them in on specifically what I hoped to accomplish. A very helpful public affairs officer then arranged a table-top interview with the three key players, whom she prepped by sharing my tick-tock strategy days in advance.

Once I arrived, the sources were off and running. At times, they shared how they had double-checked facts in the days prior so they wouldn’t misspeak. They had thought through what the firefight was like and were prepared to share with me in fine detail what they did and when. After a 90-minute interview (which I taped for accuracy) and a drive with them through the fire zone, I had my tick-tock.

As I approached a keyboard and blank screen, it was clear my planning paid off. The structure was chronological, and the tension of the fire was abundant. I’m pretty happy with the piece, which begins with a dramatic cliffhanger. Perhaps most importantly, my editor and wife both liked it.

Still, I know I’m not in form just yet. I am conversational but wordy. I telegraph transitions and routinely break comma rules. My attributions are at times clunky. I was guilty of notebook dumping on an investigative piece about railroad safety.

As a writer, I am on an excursion of rediscovery. My hope is to provide a monthly column that writers and editors will enjoy but also find useful in honing their craft. We’re on this journey together, and I think it will be quite a ride.

How social media teams can and should combat fake news

April 3, 2018

Bulletin photos by Jonathan Polen
**‘If one person on a social media team is deciding on his or her own what to respond to, or what’s valid and what’s not, that is a little disturbing.’**
— Jane Elizabeth, Director of accountability journalism, American Press Institute

How social media teams
can and should combat fake news

By Jess DeWitt
Bulletin Staff

In an era beleaguered by fake news, having a strong social media team is the best way for newsrooms to combat the spreading of misinformation, according to Jane Elizabeth, director of accountability journalism for American Press Institute in Arlington, Va.

Elizabeth, who researched newsrooms after the 2016 election, said she wants news outlets to use social media teams better and to give them a bigger role.

“One thing that we kept noticing is that the social media team … really had very little to do with the elections and with finding the fake news that really arose during early 2016 and the run-up to the election,” Elizabeth said. “Which was very confusing to me because the social media team is on the front lines of these issues. There is no one in the newsroom that would know more about what’s happening on social media, about who’s sharing fake news, and how it spreads.”

Elizabeth gave a presentation, attended by about 30 people, on “Accountability Journalism” at the New England Newspaper and Press Association winter convention Saturday, Feb. 24.

Elizabeth noticed that not many newsrooms were using their social media team properly. She said creating engagement opportunities, doing live events, finding influencers in the community, and finding misinformation and correcting it, were the four main objectives on which social media teams should focus. But she said many of them are failing at that and instead are focusing on getting viewers.

“The thing that (social media teams) do most is post links,” Elizabeth said. “Post links to content, photos and stories, obviously. They are always, always posting things.”

They are also tracking clicks to find out how well those stories are doing in viewership, and responding to online comments.

“They were searching for stories that were doing really well from other media outlets, and seeing if they could match it,” Elizabeth said. “They were looking for click-buzzy stories out there that their competitors had, and then posting those links.”

But nobody was really responding to misinformation that was spreading online, which Elizabeth asked about in the newsrooms she researched. Those she asked said they rarely engaged commenters spreading misinformation because they said the comments were unfounded, and that they ignored them and instead focused on their news outlet’s mission.

“I wonder who is making that decision, if there is some sort of strategy for determining what is a valid comment, or what to respond to. If one person on a social media team is deciding on his or her own what to respond to, or what’s valid and what’s not, that is a little disturbing,” Elizabeth said.

Elizabeth said social media teams can improve on tackling that issue by making sure they have a deep understanding of metrics, a deep knowledge of existing and up-and-coming platforms, and have the skills of the most experienced reporters.

She ended with a question she has asked herself since doing her research: “What if social media teams had a strategy to spot and correct misinformation (during the 2016 election)?”

**Speaker Jane Elizabeth advocated improving how newsrooms use their social media staff to combat fake news more adeptly.**

Obituaries

April 2, 2018

Henry Frankel

Henry Frankel, 84, of Peabody, Mass., and formerly of Burlington, Vt., died Feb. 6 in Danvers, Mass., of complications from Parkinson’s disease.

Frankel owned community newspapers, which he later consolidated into The Burlington Citizen, which covered politics, local history and community events, and published editorials in Burlington and Chittenden, Vt. The Citizen went out of business in 1986.

He leaves his wife, Helene; three children, Donna, Alan and Steven; two grandchildren.

William Alfred Dempster Jr.

William Alfred Dempster Jr., 85, of Williamsburg, Va., and formerly of Hudson, N.H., and Chelmsford, Mass., died Feb. 9.

Dempster was advertising director for five different newspapers and was northeast director of Multi-Ad Services, based in Peoria, Ill. He also had been employed with the former Minuteman Publications, which covered Lexington, Acton-Boxboro, Concord, and Bedford, Mass.

Before Dempster retired in 1998, he had covered all of New England, New York, and Eastern Canada for Multi-Ad Services.

Dempster also was employed with the Malden Observer and the former Medford (Mass.) Mercury, and had covered the rag market for the former Boston Record American.

The New England Advertising Executives Association awarded him a lifetime membership on his retirement.

Besides his involvement in the newspaper business, he was the parks and recreation commissioner for Chelmsford.

He leaves his wife, Audrey; two sons, Wayne and William III; a daughter, Linda; three grandchildren; a brother; a sister.

Eliot Hallowell

Eliot Hallowell, 94, of Kingsland, Texas, and formerly of Concord, Mass., died Feb. 16 at CelesteCare in Llano, Texas.

Hallowell was a newspaper editor for the Montachusett Review, based in Fitchburg, Mass., and an advertising salesman for The Public Spirit of Ayer, Mass.

He also published a book of his poems titled “Dry Martini & Other Poems.”

Hallowell leaves five children; Jane, Beth, Anne, Joe and Kate; five grandchildren, Joanna, Paul, Koji, Sam and Lily; six great-grandchildren.

Barbara (Butler) Carroll

Barbara (Butler) Carroll, 87, of Southington, Conn., died Feb. 14 after a lengthy illness.

Carroll retired as human resource manager after 45 years with the Southington Step Saver.

She leaves her husband, Richard “Dick”; two sons, Patrick and Michael; four grandchildren.

Bill Beardsley

Bill Beardsley, 85, of Mashpee, Mass., died Feb. 21.

Beardsley was a sales manager for The Wall Street Journal. In 25 years with the Journal’s then-parent company, Beardsley headed its book division, Barron’s, the National Observer and The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly. He also was president of the stateside and international divisions of the Sales Promotion Executive Association.

He was a member of the Outdoor Writers Association and wrote a regular fishing column for the Falmouth (Mass.) Enterprise. He also broadcast fishing reports for WCIB-FM in Falmouth, Mass., and had stories published on various topics in many publications.

He leaves his wife, Marilyn; two sons, Bruce and Brian; four grandchildren.

Anne T. Corcoran

Anne T. Corcoran, 66, of Quincy, Mass., died Jan. 29 at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth. Mass.

Corcoran was a supervisor in the editorial department of The Boston Globe for 25 years. She was also a union activist and served 10 years on the executive committee of the Boston Newspaper Guild, formerly The Boston Globe Employees Association. Corcoran was president of the Boston Newspaper Guild in 1987 and 1988.

Corcoran was involved in Quincy politics. She assisted in campaigns for the late Paul Harold, a Democratic state senator in Massachusetts.

She leaves two sisters, Kathleen and Maureen; a brother, Patrick; six nieces and nephews; four great-nieces; a great-nephew.

William Joseph Whitney

William Joseph Whitney, 84, died at Mercy Medical Center in Springfield.

Whitney began his newspaper career on the copy desk of what is now The Republican of Springfield when it was known as the Union News and Sunday Republican. He was employed there for 25 years, and he eventually became city editor before retiring in 2002. He was known for writing the Sunday Drive Column and Just Browsing, both popular because of their humor.

He leaves his wife, Andrea; a brother, Pat; three nephews and nieces; two great-nephews.

Nino S. Secchi

Nino S. Secchi, 91, of Westport, Conn., and formerly of Greenwich, Conn., died Jan. 31.

Secchi joined the Greenwich Time as sports editor, then moved to the Port Chester (N.Y.) Item three years later. He was sports editor and a columnist there, and soon became the suburban editor of the Item.

In 1960, Secchi joined Greenwich-based American Machine & Foundry, where he handled a corporate newsletter, public relations and communications.

After he retired, he was a columnist for the Greenwich Time.

Secchi served with the Greenwich town meeting for 14 years. He was an alternate member of the Greenwich Planning and Zoning Commission. He was a member and treasurer of the Greenwich Republican Town Committee.

Secchi leaves three children, Lou, Steven and Joseph; three grandchildren, Taryn, Tristen and Taylor; two great-grandchildren.

Willie Wright Jr.

Willie Wright Jr., 82, died Jan. 23 at home in Manchester, Conn.

Before his retirement from The Hartford (Conn.) Courant, he was a circulation supervisor there for many years and a newspaper carrier there for more than 20 years.

He leaves his wife, Hilda; three sons, Willie III, Rickey and Mark; four daughters, Cathy, Helen, Betty and Pennie; seven grandchildren; four great-grandchildren.

Helen A. (Johnson) Douglas

Helen A. (Johnson) Douglas, 94, of Athol, Mass., and formerly of Orange, Mass., died Jan. 30 at Quabbin Valley Healthcare in Athol.

Douglas was a reporter a total of 12 years for the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, Mass., for the then-Springfield (Mass.) Union News, and for the former Orange Enterprise and Journal.

Douglas leaves a daughter, Susan; three grandchildren Michael, Gina and Megan; six great-grandchildren; a sister.

Peter Sudarsky

Peter Sudarsky, 88, of New York City, died Jan. 27 in the Mease Dunedin (Fla.) Hospital.

He had been a reporter for The Hartford (Conn.) Courant.

He leaves his wife, Roseanne; four children, Julie, Laura, Jennifer and Noah; six grandchildren; two brothers.

Fruma Dara Efreom

Fruma Dara Efreom, 72, of Warwick, R.I., died Feb. 17 at Kent Hospital in Warwick.

She was a reporter for The Kent County Daily Times, based in Wakefield, R.I.., and wrote for Grace Ormonde Wedding Style Magazine, based in Barrington, R.I.

She served on the Lincoln Park Cemetery Board in Warwick.

She leaves three children, Alana, Yael and Avi, and three grandchildren, Leo, Chloe and Jerome.

Horace ‘Rambo’ Bacon Jr.

Horace “Rambo” Bacon Jr., 81, of Springfield, Mass., died Jan. 26. at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield.

Bacon was a machinist for The Republican of Springfield for many years. He retired from there in 2002.

He leaves his wife, Blanche; two sons, Horace and Malvin; a special son, Seymour; two daughters, Sarah and Pauline; a special daughter, Lizan; 15 grandchildren; 19 great-grandchildren; three brothers; seven sisters.

John J. Thompson

John J. Thompson, 66, died Jan. 25 at Twin Oaks Nursing Home in Danvers, Mass., where he had received care for the past seven years after a lifelong battle with a variety of disabilities.

He had been employed on the sports desk at the Boston Herald.

He leaves his life companion, Lori Henry; three brothers, Clifford, Michael and Glenn; five nephews and nieces; several cousins.

Janice (Brennan) Sprogell

Janice (Brennan) Sprogell, 99, formerly of West Hartford, Conn., died Feb. 3 in Needham.

Sprogell was the first female proofreader at the then-Springfield (Mass.) Daily News.

She leaves three daughters, Katherine, Sarah and Mary; four grandchildren, Agostino, Dominic, Sarah and Charles; six great-grandchildren.

Erna Jane ‘E.J.’ Silke

Erna Jane “E.J.” Silke, 73, of Westbrook, Maine, died Feb. 9.

Silke was a local news correspondent for Cape Elizabeth, Maine, for the Portland (Maine) Press Herald,

She leaves her partner, Jeffrey; three children, Christopher, Brendan and Rachel; four grandchildren.

Robert Finley Delaney

Robert Finley Delaney, 92, formerly of Newport, R.I., Venice, Fla., and Washington, D.C., died Jan. 28. He also had lived on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

Delaney wrote columns once a month for Newport (R.I.) This Week, a weekly newspaper that covers Newport, Middletown and Jamestown, R.I., and for a Washington-based magazine about defense policy. He also wrote, edited and contributed to a dozen books, including “Your Career in the Foreign Service.” He wrote about 100 articles on international affairs for magazines and professional journals. He often wrote under the pseudonym David Finley.

He leaves five children, Flynn, Nancy, Carrie, Deirdre and Sarah, and seven grandchildren.

Margaret A. Coulombe

Margaret A. (Martin) Coulombe, 67, of Taunton, Mass., died Feb. 19 at Morton Hospital in Taunton.

In the 1980s. Coulombe was a suburban news correspondent for the Taunton (Mass.) Daily Gazette.

She also was an information editor for the F.W. Dodge Division of McGraw-Hill in Boston.

She leaves her husband, Tom; three daughters, Bonnie, Mary and Carol; three grandchildren; three sisters.

Jack Apfelbaum

Jack Apfelbaum, 93, formerly of Hamburg, Germany, and of Littleton, Mass., died Feb. 1 in his home.

Apfelbaum wrote a column for the Littleton Independent called Thoughts from the Sweat Lodge.

He also wrote engineering texts and two children’s books.

He leaves his wife, Eva; three daughters, Claudia, Ananda and Maya; a granddaughter.

James Edward Bransfield

James Edward Bransfield, 72, of Middletown, Conn., died at Hartford (Conn.) Hospital Feb. 24 of complications from surgery.

Bransfield wrote for the Middletown Press for 30 years. His last column was published four weeks before his death.

He leaves a son, Chris; two grandchildren, Clara and Henry; two brothers.

William Joseph Newman

William Joseph Newman, 94, of Springfield, Vt., died Feb. 22 at Springfield Health and Rehabilitation Center.

Newman wrote a human interest column for the former weekly Springfield Reporter.

He leaves a niece, Catherine; and was predeceased by a brother, Richard.

Rosemarie T. (Buttacavoli) Topor

Rosemarie T. (Buttacavoli) Topor, 83, of North Fort Meyers, Fla., and formerly of Norwich, Conn., died Jan. 29 at the Hope Hospice in Cape Coral, Fla.

Topor had been employed with the Norwich Bulletin before her retirement.

She leaves two daughters, Laurie and Leslie; a son, James; a brother, Thomas.

Francis Gros ‘Lou’ Louis

Francis Gros “Lou” Louis of Leesburg, Va., and formerly of Wilton, N.H., died Jan. 31 after a brief illness.

During his time in Wilton, Louis wrote a weekly column, opinion pieces and editorial content for local and statewide newspapers.

He leaves three children, Cheryl, Melissa and Brian; 10 grandchildren; a great-grandson.

Kristine D. ‘Krissy’ Housel

Kristine D. “Krissy” Housel, 50, died Feb. 15.

For 20 years. Housel delivered newspapers for the Seacoast Media Group, publisher of the Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald, Foster’s Daily Democrat of Dover, N.H., and four smaller newspapers in New Hampshire and Maine.

She leaves her mother, Lynda; her husband, Duane Sr.; two sons; Duane Jr. and Robert; a grandson; four siblings.

Mary Lou Nason

Mary Lou Nason, 62, of Old Orchard Beach, Maine, died March 5 at the Gosnell Memorial Hospice House in Scarborough, Maine.

She delivered the Portland Press Herald in Old Orchard Beach for several years.

She leaves four sons, Peter, Jerry, Dennis and Daniel; 13 grandchildren; two brothers; a sister.

Muriel Madeline (Whalen) Deck

Muriel Madeline (Whalen) Deck, 91, of West Hartford, Conn., died Feb. 13.

Deck was employed after her high school graduation with the newspaper company that publishes what is now The Republican of Springfield, Mass., and its sister Sunday newspaper.

She leaves five daughters, Karen, Kathy, Norma, Theresa and Patricia; seven grandchildren; four great-grandchildren.

The obituaries were written, at least in part, from published reports by Bulletin correspondents Ajoa Addae, Sydne Garcia, Angela Gomba, Nico Hall, Julia Hutchins, Kaline Langley, Mohammed Razzaque, Casey Rochette and Thomas Ward.

Transitions

April 2, 2018

MAINE

Steve Fuller has left as city hall reporter with The Ellsworth American to begin a job as assistant to the city planner at Ellsworth City Hall. Fuller covered city hall for five years after joining the American in March 2012. He initially covered the Bucksport area before transferring to the Ellsworth beat. Throughout his time at the American, he covered city government, crime, business and education in Ellsworth and the surrounding area, including the communities of Amherst, Aurora, Eastbrook, Great Pond, Mariaville, Osborn and Waltham. Before joining the American, he was a news reporter, assistant editor and editor during seven years at The Republican Journal of Belfast. His replacement is Kate Cough, who recently received a graduate degree in journalism from Columbia University and who joined the American Dec. 18.

RHODE ISLAND

Tim Britton, who has covered the Boston Red Sox for The Providence Journal since 2011, has left to cover the New York Mets for The Athletic, a website that covers professional and collegiate sports throughout the United States. Britton also has been an on-air talent for NBC Sports Boston. In the past, he has been a Q&A columnist at Baseball Prospectus and a beat writer for the New York Mets and the New York Yankees for MLB.com.

Jennifer Bogdan and Kate Bramson have left as reporters at The Providence Journal. Bogdan left to become deputy communications director for Gov. Gina Raimondo, and Bramson has become director of policy for the Rhode Island Senate. Bogdan was a health and social services reporter and a statehouse reporter at the Journal. Bramson was an economic development reporter there. Bogdan’s previous experience includes being a casino and tourism district reporter at The Press of Atlantic City, a watchdog reporter at the Utica (N.Y.) Observer-Dispatch, and a freelance reporter and photographer at the Prince George’s Sentinel, based in Lanham, Md. Bramson’s previous experience includes being a writer for the News Service at Brown University, a reporter at the Duluth (Minn.) News-Tribune, and news editor at Budapest Week and news editor at The Budapest Sun in Hungary.

VERMONT

Michael Kilian has been appointed executive editor of The Burlington Free Press and was scheduled to begin managing its digital and print news operations March 5. Kilian has been news director at the Cincinnati Enquirer since 2015, and had a previous stint at the Burlington Free Press as associate editor between 2010 and 2013. His previous positions as a newspaper editor date to 1990 and include employment with McLean, Va.-based Gannett Co. Inc. in Saratoga Springs and Utica, N.Y.; Salisbury, Md.; and Cincinnati. Kilian is replacing Denis Finley, who was fired after tweeting about a plan to add a third-gender option to driver’s licenses in Vermont.

Gaen Murphree left as a reporter for the Addison County Independent of Middlebury as of December to return to freelance writing. Murphree began writing for the Independent in July 2015. She covered Middlebury College, agriculture, environmental issues, and energy. She also wrote essays for the Independent’s Clippings column, which covered a variety of topics. Murphree has been a freelance writer in the past, writing for Mother Jones, the San Francisco Chronicle, Seven Days of Burlington, and the former Green Mountain Echo.

The Transitions were written, at least in part, from published reports by Bulletin correspondents Nadine El-Bawab, Nico Hall, Julia Hutchins and Thomas Ward.

Convention 2018

February 26, 2018

The winners and the audience at the New England First Amendment Coalition’s awards luncheon Friday, Feb. 23, are shown above, clockwise from top left: Todd Wallack, an investigative reporter with The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team, who received the Michael Donoghue Freedom of Information Award; Jane Mayer, a writer for The New Yorker, whowon the Stephen Hamblett First Amendment Award; the audience applauds an award recipient; members of the Hyde Square Task Force, who were presented the Antonia Orfield Citizenship Award: from left, Ed Harding, an anchor at NewsCenter 5, WCVB-TV in Boston, who emceed the awards ceremony, with task force members Mabel Gondres, Shayne Clinton and Celinda Miranda. The awards ceremony took place during the New England Newspaper and Press Association winter convention, which ended Saturday, Feb. 24, in the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel in South Boston. Please check the Bulletin website in the days ahead for more coverage of the convention.

Award Winners – Better Newspaper Competition

February 26, 2018

Access the complete list of award winners and judges’ comments!

Sean Corcoran

February 17, 2018

Sean Corcoran is an award-winning print and radio journalist and the Senior Managing Editor for News at WGBH News in Boston. Corcoran is a graduate of The George Washington University and the Columbia University School of Journalism. For the first nine years of his career, Corcoran worked as a staff writer for various New England newspapers. Corcoran moved to public radio in 2005 at WCAI in Woods Hole, where he reported and produced “Two Cape Cods: Hidden Poverty on the Cape and Islands,” a 20-part investigative series that won the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award — the highest award in broadcast journalism. His work has been recognized with various national and regional awards, including a 2016 Gabriel Award and a 2017 national Edward R. Murrow Award. Corcoran is the former news director at WCAI, and executive producer of the upcoming podcast, “The Forgetting: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer’s.” Corcoran also was the editor of the 2015 book, “The Long Haul: The Future of New England’s Fisheries.”

Saturday Keynote Speaker: Chris Goffard

February 15, 2018

‘Podcasts give you the voices of the participants. You feel like you’re in the same room with them, that they’re talking directly to you. There’s a powerful intimacy to that. You can hear subtle inflections in the voices that are very hard to capture in print.’

— Christopher Goffard,
Staff writer,
Los Angeles Times

Speaker touts podcasting as
a new lure to good journalism

By Nadine El-Bawab
Bulletin Correspondent

As digital media grow, so do the possibilities for using those digital platforms in journalism.

Christopher Goffard, author and staff writer for the Los Angeles Times will be the keynote speaker, on the subject of “Podcasts – Expanding journalism beyond our printed products,” Saturday morning, Feb. 24, at the New England Newspaper and Press Association winter convention.

Goffard is the host of a podcast, “Dirty John,” which has had more than 10 million downloads and was at the top of Apple podcast charts for a month. He shares a 2011 Pulitzer Prize for the Times’ coverage of a scandal involving eight officials looting more than $5.5 million from a California county’s poorest communities.

Goffard will discuss the importance of using podcasts and how they are increasingly becoming an important journalistic tool.

Goffard thinks that you can transfer to podcasting all of the basic skills you use as a journalist in any other medium.

The basic skills you have in terms of “how to find information, how to interview people, how to assemble your facts in a narrative are transferable to the podcast medium,” he said in an email interview.

His talk will be drawn from his personal experience with podcasting. Goffard learned how to transform a story into a podcast in three and a half months after having been a print reporter for 20 years.

Having spent the majority of his career telling stories in print, Goffard recognizes that every medium has its strengths and weaknesses, but he thinks that podcasts give the listener a special insight into a story.

Goffard said via email: “Podcasts give you the voices of the participants. You feel like you’re in the same room with them, that they’re talking directly to you. There’s a powerful intimacy to that. You can hear subtle inflections in the voices that are very hard to capture in print.”

“’Dirty John’ was a kind of experiment. We released the podcast along with a written version of the series. My hope is that the podcast draws people to the Times and they subscribe and become acquainted with the important work my colleagues have been doing,” Goffard said in the email interview.

“If the experiment increases news literacy even a little bit at a time when the mainstream media is under assault — if it helps people perceive the difference between a carefully sourced story and a random post on Facebook or Reddit — it’s done some good,” he said.

Goffard’s speech is scheduled for 9 a.m. on the second day of the convention, Feb. 24. The convention is being held at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel in South Boston.

He will also be part of a panel workshop at 10:30 that will give attendees valuable information on what it takes to create a quality podcast.

Click here to go to Dirty John.

Featured Speaker: Jeff Haden

February 15, 2018

Every challenge is an opportunity, and I know that sounds like a cliché, but that’s where most new industries, or new companies, or new successes, come from. (It) is when someone picks a new challenge and says, “How do I do that differently than what other people are doing?” ’

— Jeff Haden,
Contributing editor,
Inc. magazine

Speaker reinvented himself,
wants papers to do the same

By Jess DeWitt
Bulletin Staff

Looking at old problems in new ways is one of the keys to being innovative, according to Jeff Haden, a freelance writer and contributing editor for Inc. magazine.

Haden will be a speaker at the New England Newspaper and Press Association winter convention, which is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 23, and Saturday, Feb. 24, at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel in South Boston.

He plans to make innovation the theme of his speech, because it has helped him navigate his way through numerous industries during his career. He has written for numerous publications, including Time magazine and Business Insider. He also has a book, “The Motivation Myth,” coming out this year.

Haden has spent his career thinking innovatively and wants to express how important it is to tackle problems with that mindset.

“Every challenge is an opportunity, and I know that sounds like a cliché, but that’s where most new industries, or new companies, or new successes, come from. (It) is when someone picks a new challenge and says, ‘How do I do that differently than what other people are doing?’ ” Haden said. “So the opportunities are there, and so my goal with it is to get people (to) take a step back and say, ‘You know (that) we can do this, we can figure some of this out, we can take ourselves to new places if we want to; we just have to try.”

Haden loves newspapers, and part of the reason he is looking forward to the convention is how many people in the newspaper industry he will get to speak with.

But he said those in the newspaper industry need to think more innovatively.

That same mindset guided Haden in turning a 20-year career in the manufacturing industry into a career as a freelance writer, a field in which he had no prior experience.

Haden worked his way through college. When he graduated, he applied for jobs at manufacturing plants. He was hired by one that opened in his town as a materials handler, or as he described it, “mostly just manual labor.”

“I worked my way up and became a supervisor, then a manager, and worked in all kinds of different operational and administrative type of roles, and eventually got a job somewhere else where I ran a plant, and really liked it,” Haden said.

Despite enjoying the job of running a plant, Haden eventually began looking for something new in his career, which prompted him to “reinvent” himself.

“I wanted to write, which meant I had to start at the bottom. I had no writing skills except what I had written for work, but that’s what I wanted to do,” Haden said.

The career change would require innovative thinking on Haden’s part, and he was able to find a way into the field. He began ghostwriting for people or “writing material that other people were putting their names on,” because that was all he could get paid to do at first.

“I had this background in business, management, and leadership, all of that experience,” Haden said. “I was writing in that area and my advantage was that the people I was writing for could talk to me shorthanded. They didn’t have to teach me anything. I had been there, done that, and probably messed it up one time along the way, so I understood.”

The mindset Haden had when becoming a writer is the same mindset he said newspapers should have when trying to adapt for the future.

“I really just took the strengths I had and applied them to something different, which is I think what any smart business and what the newspaper industry should be looking at,” he said. “We (newspapers) have things we have to improve and do differently, but also, what are our strengths? What do we do really well? And how do we apply that in a new way to the environment we have so that our business model continues?”

Haden thinks that could be simpler than people realize.

“That doesn’t mean the operation side. That just means informing people, sometimes it’s entertaining people, connecting with the community, whatever those things are that the newspaper people feel that they do really well, whatever those outcomes are. So then how do we just apply those strengths to the changing environment and to the media landscape?” Haden said. “They don’t have to become something brand new. They just have to take what they’re really good at and say, ‘OK, how do we apply that to the new media landscape?’ Because good stories will always be good stories.”

Being a successful product of innovative thinking, Haden wants to encourage more people to go about their careers with that mindset.

“I am a good example of how, if you’re willing to work hard and try, lots of things are possible. If an average guy like me can do that, then imagine what people who actually have talent (and) skill can do.” Haden joked.

Haden is Inc. Magazine’s most read columnist, and is a LinkedIn Influencer.

“That is the only time in my life that I will be on the same list with Bill Gates and Richard Branson and people like that,” Haden quipped.

Haden’s success is part of what inspired him to write “The Motivation Myth.”

“My book is basically about achieving really big goals and how you find the motivation to stay the course, how you persevere, how you actually set your goals and figure out what you want to achieve,” Haden said. “So if there are things you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t, here’s a way to do so.”

Haden will present a session before his speech on how to get a book published.

His speech is scheduled for 2:15 p.m. Friday, Feb. 23. His session on the book publishing process is scheduled for 10:30 a.m.

Jeff Haden, Featured Speaker

February 7, 2018

Jeff Haden is a ghostwriter, speaker, LinkedIn Influencer, contributing editor to Inc., and the author of The Motivation Myth, a book that will be published in January by Penguin Random House. The Motivation Myth overturns the beloved (but false) idea that motivation leads to success; instead, small successes lead to constant motivation — and let you achieve your biggest goals while also having more fun.

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