QUICK SHOW OF HANDS: Hold On Until It Gets Better, or Adjust to the New Normal?

Time to Vote: the standupkid QUICK SHOW OF HANDS

What do you think, local newsers?  Is all this firing and cost-cutting just a way to keep companies afloat until the car dealers start spending again, and then we can travel, have our two-person crews and maybe even pay the photogs overtime once in a while?  Or, is it something bigger?  Is the economy merely accelerating a change that was already happening:  that the financial model that fueled local TV has changed, and local TV news will need to do what it’s doing now, and maybe a lot more, to find a new way to make profit, and stay relevant?

Say It Ain’t So! A Little Less Alliteration from Ansin’s Anxious Anchors?

It was one of the most memorable lines in the 1987 film “Broadcast News,” when the alliteratively-named network newser Aaron Altman mocked his new nightly news nemesis and his penchant for peppy prose:  “A lot of alliteration from anxious anchors placed in powerful posts!”

Well, anybody who’s watched either of Ed Ansin’s “7 News” stations, WSVN/Miami or the layoff-laden WHDH/Boston, knows alliteration’s just the way they roll, with every routine rainstorm loudly labeled “wicked weather!”

It’s just the formula.  Or is it?  In Boston, a remarkable reduction in ratings recently, resulting in the removal of Randy Price as main anchor, has those in powerful posts pondering pulling the plug on all the alliteration in the station’s snappy scripts:  “Alliteration was used no less than seven times during Monday’s 11 p.m. news., and fewer times the following night – although the ‘cash and crash’ graphic used to describe the Medford bank robbery was cringe-worthy,” wrote the Herald’s Jessica Heslam.

The focus on fewer flashy lines in the station’s newscasts may have something to do with the sharp criticism coming from recently-released main anchor Randy Price, who called the incessant alliteration “mind-numbing” in a recent radio interview.  Price said sometimes producers would stretch so far to find a clever graphic, it would no longer serve the story, such as “Plane Plunge.”  As Price told WRKO radio, “I would have to turn around and say, ‘What does that graphic mean?’”

WSVN/Miami: Flashy Graphics, A Lot of Alliteration

Boston’s always been a bit more highbrow than Miami, where “Triple Trouble in the Tropics” and hurricanes “Packing a Powerful Punch” is still standard fare.  Would station owner Ed Ansin really respond to ridicule by issuing an alliteration reduction order, ditching the distinctive 7 style just like he cut ties to Randy Price?  Well, that would be a Major Milestone.

Sorry.  I’m done now.

I Give You a Hot Tip, You Flatter Me in Public: That Something You Might Be Interested In?

Seen This Before? If Not, It's Time to Get On the Twitter Stick

As a career reporter, I’m just not in the habit of surrendering information except in the form of stories, hopefully the kind that grab viewers’ attention, and send assignment editors and managers at competing stations into fits of swearing and desk-kicking as their run to their Nextels to scream at their reporters, asking why they didn’t get what I just had.  (Happens mostly in dreams, but it’s still a nice feeling)

At any rate, I’m willing to reveal an insider’s goldmine to all you local newsers who, maybe like me, agonize about the morning meeting and the inevitable glare of the news director with his, “and what’ve you got to offer today?”  Lately, I’ve had more to bring to the table.  And I’m going to tell you how I’ve done it.  And yeah, snarky tech-resisters, it involves Twitter.  So if you can’t handle that, just scroll on down and look at the pretty pictures of news choppers.

But before I go into detail, there’s a catch.  I’m going to want something in return.  So, to quote Bob Ryan on HBO’s “Entourage,” is that something you might be interested in?  If so, read on.

On Monday nights, for the Twitterati who find themselves suddenly putting ampersands before people’s names out of Twitter habit, the gathering known as #journchat has become a crowded, rowdy, and deeply informative experience.  Journalists, PR pros, and bloggers gather in on Twitter to ask questions of each other–to say, in essense, hey, give me hand here, what are YOU people all about?  The Q&A brings down walls and leads to a lot of common ground, funny lines, and–get this–story ideas.

"Is That Something You Might Be Interested In?"

If you’ve ever read a press release (and we all have) and wondered, “who the hell writes this crap,” well, an hour or two talking free-form and no-holds-barred with PRs can be revealing.  Many of them just don’t know what journos want or need.  You like phone calls or emails?  I recently griped about the hit-every-email-in-box-in-the-damn-newsroom syndrome with a “just between you and me” story pitch.  You go in, you say, “hey, I heard from somebody…” and stop when the other reporters smirk and eventually say in unison, “we got that email too.”  FAIL.

Anyway, my advice to you:  get on the Twitter, and check it out. (And while you’re there, don’t forget to follow me: www.twitter.com/standupkid)

Now.  Payback.  Next Monday, #journchat’s taking nominees for a guest moderator.  I think it’s time a local newser took the helm for a night, and with your help, I.  Can.  Be.  That.  Man.  All I ask?  Comment on this post and let the world know why I’m (just talking points here–you know, to guide your thinking) witty, smart, fair, and profoundly gifted at anticipating the changes roiling the world of local tv news–and PR.  Or something like that.

The deadline is Wednesday.  A raft of rave comments will–hopefully–show a groundswell of support for me as the next moderator du jour.  So, you know, throw a guy a bone.  If you want.  I’d appreciate it.  And even if you don’t, come join #journchat next Monday and learn some new stuff about PR, tv news, blogging and social media that might help you keep your job for another week or so.

So.  Tell me.  Is that something you might be interested in?