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6.10: The News Day

  • Page ID
    294874
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    There are many similarities in the way different types of newsrooms – television, radio, print, online – function on a typical day. Most journalists in the 21st century need a variety of skills that can be used in any type of newsroom and should be able to produce stories for a variety of platforms. In most newsrooms, journalists may be expected to do many things, from writing stories to making videos, managing social media accounts, and taking pictures. Modern newsrooms demand a variety of specialised skills and follow a variety of processes.

    These newsroom processes are illustrated in the graphic below:

    Infographic showing nine steps of a newsroom’s daily workflow, from editorial meeting and assigning tasks to editing, publishing, promoting, and analyzing content performance.

    A news day at any type of news outlet usually includes a news conference, where editors, journalists, and photographers meet to discuss the day’s news.

    Usually, there is a short discussion of the previous publication, stories that performed well, and feedback received. Then a news diary is prepared, which is a list of stories for the day (or week or month). A typical news diary contains some details about the story, the name of the journalist, the name of the photographer, and an indication of where the story will be used. In converged newsrooms, some stories may be held back for the printed newspaper; others will go live online as soon as they are ready.

    In many newsrooms in South Africa now, and around the world, most stories go online immediately. The process is similar in most newsrooms – for example, in broadcast news, there would usually be a discussion of stories that will go on TV and which ones might go online immediately.

    Of course, the stories and the news diary will change during the course of the day (or news cycle). There may be gaps early in the day (such as for page 2 in the news diary example on the next page), new things may happen, some stories might not work out because they cannot be confirmed, or sources might be unwilling to talk. In the news diary example on the next page, the “world news” page is also left blank early in the morning, as the news editor is clearly waiting for more world events to happen during the course of the day before selecting some relevant stories.

    Deciding what to run (publish or broadcast), what to drop (not publish or broadcast), and what to hold (keep for later) is the job of the news editor, other senior editors, and producers (for broadcasting). They will choose and change the stories of the day based on importance, interest, new developments, and the time or space available.

    As and when journalists manage to get enough information and verify their stories, they will start producing, either writing and uploading to the web, or producing broadcasting clips. The stories then go through a process before they are published: they are usually checked by a number of people, who could include the news editor, sub-editors, and even the editor-in chief.

    Only once the story has passed all the checks will it be published or broadcast in whatever form the newsroom decided on. There will also be constant updating of social media pages, which need to be active throughout the day. On websites, news also needs to be updated regularly; people who view news online expect new news at regular intervals.

    A typical news diary for a printed newspaper that also has a website is shown on the below.

    A Typical news Diary

    The Daily News, News Diary for Monday 2 May 2022

    Social media:

    • Samuel to tweet from court during mayor’s corruption trial
    • Kgomotso to tweet from the Drakensberg, on snow patrol!
    Page Story Reporter Pic or graphic Publish online
    1 Mayor’s corruption trial – new evidence of Porsche bought cash James Moloto Pics Hold for print
    2 Background: How many people own Porsches in SA? How can they afford it? James Moloto Graphic Hold for print
    2 ?      
    3 Snow in the Drakensberg Kgomotso Dube Pics (gallery) Yes
    3 Justin Bieber to sing in town Sarah Smith Pics Yes
    4 Heist at Liberty Mall Jonathan Klein Pics Yes
    4 Fuel prices rise again Khanyi Khumalo No Yes
    5 Feature story: Good news story, Samaritan helps needy student pay for PhD Sarah Smith Pics Yes
    6 World news – to be updated at 14:00      

    Summary

    This chapter showed you how to put your story together, whether for print, online or broadcast. To be a credible journalist is not only about making sure that you tell factually correct stories, but also means that you need to be ethical in your journalistic decisions. Ethical journalism is discussed in the next chapter.


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