Fundamentals of Interactive Journalism

Tonight I’m going to be live blogging a panel held at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism that features several reporters from various outlets around the city who cover the in’s and out’s of City Hall. The panelists for the evening are:

Azi Paybarah from the NY Observer’s PolitickerNY.com blog
Grace Rauh from NY1
Fernanda Santos from the NY Times
Liz Benjamin from the NY Daily News

And here we go…

5:57 p.m.: None of the panel has arrived as of yet.

6:00 p.m. : Room is starting to fill up. Two panelists have arrived and are mingling with Asst. Professor Doug Muzio and Prof. Sarah Bartlett.

6:04 p.m. : Third panelist, Azi Paybarah, arrives, food in hand.

6:06 p.m. : Final panelist, Fernanda Santos, from the New York Times, files in.

6:08 p.m. : Here we go! Introductions from Sarah Bartlett.

Azi blogs at the NY Observer.

Santos has been with the Times since ‘05, and previously was at the Daily News for 3 years covering cops/crime.

Grace Rauh was primarily a newspaper reporter, who started at the Oakland Tribune. Currently at NY1.

Liz Benjamin runs the politics blog for the Daily News.

First question of the evening from Prof. Bartlett:

What do you think the top two or three stories will be for the next 12 months?

Azi: “Billion dollar” campaign for Mayor Bloomberg.

Rauh: The mayoral campaign and the budget.

Benjamin: Gov. Patterson and whether or not he can “get his head out of his butt” and run the state. State campaigns are already picking up for 2010. The Gillibrand seat will be up in two years

6:10 p.m. Question

How do you pick and choose your stories?

Santos: Our realities are very different. Azi and Liz’s blogs are great resources for me Times has 3 reporters at city hall with a division of labor. “I can’t deal with working inside an office”. 3 reporters gives us flexibility. Much more interested in covering the human side of the mayor’s decisions. At the Times, we have to do a mix of breaking news and enterprise stories. When it comes to the later, we have to sell it a lot more to the editor.

Rauh: At the Sun, I spent  alot of time pitching stories and trying to get a nugget that would lead to a big story. Now that she’s switched to tv, you have to really go to the place where the newsmakers on. Still learning to report the broadcast side of things.

Benjamin: Bloggers like me and Azi fill the space in between the tv and print media. Aggregate blogging is big as is doing value added bloggin. (Digression: Bloomberg forgot Sully’s name at press conference today and called him “Captian Cool”. Santos says Bloomberg has a problem with name.) Azi takes video snippets to post to on his blog, which gives a new level of oversight to the public.

Azi: There is a desire to hit on themes. Say, for example, the mayor continues to flub names, it might not be the news of the day, but it’s a repeated theme that can be picked up and woven into larger stories down the line. It’s like reading a person’s Twitter feed.

Benjamin: We play off each other. The video at X event reminds me of something the mayor did over here. The blog allows you to pull things together in an interesting collage. The blog format makes it harder to go back and write the standalone news column. ”

6:22 p.m.

How do you develop sources in a public place like City Hall?

Benjamin: Stay away from City Hall!

Azi: Avoid the Starbucks near City Hall.

Benjamin: Big events like caucuses are great places to network. Bars are a great place to network

Santos: There are the main players that everyone hits on, but there are also the people who aren’t on the fringes but who are involved. Bill Cunningham used to be the go to as a press operative from the mayor, but there are other people who can be talked to. The overwhelming number of quotable officials are white men, so there’s an effort to try to seek out alternative voices.

Santos on Benjamin: “She’s a drinker.”

Benjamin: “This business moves on booze.” Everybody has some kind of party, especially during the holidays.

Rauh: For people new to the area, it can take some time to build up sources. When starting new, schedule as many meeting as possible. Lunches get canceled often, so breakfasts end up being good places to establish sources and contacts. You also want to talk to people who aren’t immediately in the news at the moment, because they could be at any time.
When you’re at a smaller publication, the relationships are very critical to getting things done.

Azi: Tougher for a tv reporter because they’re more visible. Bloggers and print reporters can find it easy to keep their face out of the press. Best way to find people is to get there early and get stay late. Use Facebook, gchat to make yourself accessible to the readers. That can lead to deeper sources.

Benjamin: Politics is about trafficking in information.

Santos: A lower level political operative can often be just a good a source as a major player. We don’t do a lot of super local stories, but the stories often start with something more obscure and see how it plays out across the city or nationally. Meeting big people face to face is important. Getting the meeting is great.

Benjamin: At the base of what we do is a curiosity about people and stuff. Reporters “are nosy as hell”.

6:35 p.m.

Are City Council members good sources?

Rauh: The mayor’s press operation is pretty tightly held and it can be hard to chip away and get info.

Benjamin: “The council leaks like a sieve.”

Rauh: Everyone is trying to maneuver for their own interests, so they can sell people out, etc.

Santos: You get a lot of stuff from the council members since they have different viewpoints. They also want to have their name in print.

Azi: Council members can be great. “Here’s my email. Here’s my phone. Here’s my wife’s phone.”

Rauh: Officials often like to be on tv as well.

Benjamin: In a lot of ways, the term limit story may not have been so big if the economy hadn’t tanked. David Yassky took a lot of heat for his vote on the Bloomberg term limit vote.

Santos: Yassky was hurt by sitting on the fence and then saying he was going to do one thing and then ended up doing another.

Azi: For a lot of people who voted for Bloomberg’s term limits, they may not want that to be the last thing people remember, so they have an incentive to be out working on their image.

Santos: Bloomberg showed with people who voted against his term limit extension to perhaps show his magnanimity.

Benjamin: Some of these people have never had jobs outside of politics, so that’s useful to remember. It may be the only thing they know, so things become personal. “It’s power at the base of it, and money.”

(From L to R: Liz Benjamin, NY Daily News; Grace Rauh, NY1; Fernanda Santos, New York Times; Azi Paybarah; New York Observer. Photo Credit: Michael Preston, New York City News Service)

6:44 p.m.

What’s the hardest thing about your job?

Santos: “Figuring out what’s bullshit and what’s real.” I get disgusted with the crap, but you can’t always say that. Outside of the game of politics, these are real people.

Azi: The hardest thing is not working. Monday, you feel like you have to something ready. But at some point, you have to realize that you have to have a life. In one sense, I’m going to keep working at having a job but having a life as well.

Rauh: Things are a little slower in CA. You have to figure out how to be a good reporter and pour yourself into your job but not let it take over your life. It’s also challenging to try to take the policy story and connect to it what it means to the public. “You can get int a bubble mentality.” You want to cover politics not just as a horse race, but not at the expense of telling the story and how it really affects people.

Santos: It’s very hard to realize that you can’t always think of everything that could go into a story.

Benjamin: As we get to more interactive media, it’s hard to accept that you’re not a fly on the wall, but that you are actually a part of the story. There is no such thing as objectivity in this. A lot of things can become very personal. “It’s bloodsport”. You can get used. You try to figure out what people are gaming you on. Dealing with the chess of raw politics is hard.

6:55 p.m.

Student questions begin – What did you think of the Caroline Kennedy/Patterson issue? How can you figure out if you’re being used and stop it in time?

Azi: Mentions Clark Hoyt’s Public Editor column from last Sunday’s New York Times about the reporting on the Kennedy/Paterson story.

Benjamin: I’m going to hazard a guess that everyone on the panel know who made the calls involved with that story. The message was so muddled out of the governor’s office that it was hard to figure out what’s going on. It’s maddening. “He’s lost all credibility with the press corps” because we know who it is.

Benjamin: When someone like the governor wants to leak something, you have to put it out there. That’s our job.

Santos: Someone within the governor’s circle leaking things and the question is, “Why would they do that?” The message is sometimes what’s between the lines.

Rauh: I don’t think any news org. thought about if they should run the story or not. “We want to be used”. It’s a competitive environment and so there is a premium on getting things and exclusivity.

7:03 p.m.

What stories do you think aren’t getting enough attention?

Santos: I don’t think there are enough focus on the way City Hall decisions really affect people in a tangible way. Those stories are missing from the paper and you need time and shoe leather to get.

Azi: I want agree and disagree with Santos at the same time. Budget stories are under reported. It’s hard to work with the numbers. I couldn’t tell you what’s going on with the City Hall slush fund scandal. “It’s not in the DNA of many papers at the moment to stay on budget stories.” Council hearings are a place where a lot of these things get aired. There was a meeting tonight about the impacts of the stimulus on NYC and very few people were there covering it.

Benjamin: It’s follow through. The news cycle is so crazy now that things get lost, like follow up.

Video of Benjamin and Ruah talking about the lack of follow up reporting that occurs:

7:14 p.m.

What are the obstacles do you face as bloggers?

Benjamin: At first, people would ask if I would put this in the paper, but now getting things in the blog now is accepted. There’s still a bit of reluctance about some news going in there as it tends to be more inside baseball and they may want stories to have a wider audience.

Azi: Timing and technological connections are an issue as is the fact that people still are less respectful of bloggers.

Benjamin: “The pace is punishing. It’s like working for a wire service.” A blog is kind of like that.

Hear Benjamin and Azi talk about the challenges they face:

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7:19 p.m. Question

What’s up with Hiram Monserrate?

Santos: It was a total political ploy. Hiram played both sides.

Benjamin: The girlfriend thing is winding its way through the court. There is a protection order in place that the judge has not removed. The Democrats will be in a real pickle should Hiram avoid a felony conviction and become subject to a lesser charge.

7:27 p.m.

Have any of you ever felt compelled to run for office?

Panel en masse: No!

Question from Doug Muzzio:

What’s the one piece of advice you would give to new journalists?

Santos: You’re not going to be the best at every aspect of reporting, so figure out what you can be best at. Learn how to do it all, but focus on your strength.

Rauh: Take people out. “Not like on a date”. Invite people for coffee or lunch if your publication would pick up the tab. I’ve never gotten a job in the field by an application. See if you can get in front of the editor.

Santos: Know what you can do. Don’t overreach. Don’t be afraid to move.

Rauh: Be open about different opportunities.

Azi: Seriously think about if this is what you want to do. If you want to do it, then you have to identify your audience and tailor your work to them.

Benjamin: I’d echo all of what was just said. I placed an ad in E & P “situation wanted”. I would urge that you get out of the city because there’s more of an opportunity to hone your skills and cut your teeth. It could be beneficial to get outside of the NYC media market and get another worldview.

Santos: Don’t overlook community papers as they can be great ways to get started. People at the big papers often look at the small papers as sources for stories.

And that’s the end of the panel. Prof. Bartlett thanks the panel for their time and they exit to applause from the audience.