I am thinking this morning about the news problem we have discussed, regarding availability of radio newscasts 7-days a week. But there is another news problem very worthwhile to think about. I’m talking about news content.
Some news sources have political agendas and will omit stories or parts of stories, or will favor certain kinds of stories to satisfy their agenda. We may not notice the difference unless we become super aware of what is being reported by many sources.
One example of omission I noticed just last week was with regard to the new Republican Senate opening their season with a reading of the Constitution. There are two parts of the news coverage I heard on alternative internet sources which were not included by the local newspaper, in a story that occupied half a page. None of the representatives showed up to hear the reading, and very significant, several parts of the Constitution were skipped. The paper made it sound like a glorious moment of splendor for the flag.
What I am doing right now, talking about comparative news reporting, is called “journalism review,” and that’s something that was once the basis of its own newspapers and broadcasts, but has now disappeared entirely.
We may be small, but I don’t think we want to be unwitting propaganda voices for someone else’s agenda.
Editorial License
News reporting is, and has always been, subjective. That is to say, regardless of the pure intent of the reporter, the translation of the story goes through every listener’s and reader’s personal filter: the brain. And because we all translate words into mental images and because we all have slightly different experiences, the translation from person to person is subjectively different.
The intellectual requisites to say that bias exists in news reporting is thin at best. Of course it does. The bias of news reporting is the normal and systematic interpretation of events as seen through the eyes and other senses of the reporter. The reporter’s personal experience comes into play at some point in the creation of the story. Journalistic review is a process where only the actual facts of the story can be examined. When the bias of the story comes into play. that process is called editorial review.
Organizations like NPR have found the sting and the hard line between the two over the Juan Williams firing. When the lines become blurred between journalistic review and editorial review, then you add news organizational bias, one has the recipe for a credibility disaster. That’s when reporting the news becomes the news.
And let’s not confuse talk radio with news radio anymore. Talk radio is pure editorial expose’. In recent times, news organizations have taken the path of mixing the genres to gain a segment of the audience. And all the while trying to convince the public, they are just reporting the facts; albeit as they see the facts.
We live in an imperfect world ruled by imperfect people with imperfect intellect. The responsibility of citizens of a democratic republic is to learn and know the accepted societal mores and standards, and to apply that bias in a responsible and productive fashion. This is the model for news consumers as well. To expect more, or hold to a higher standard, news reporters is unrealistic. What standards do we use for ourselves?
Having practiced in the role of a journalist for over 20 years, I know that leaving personal bias out of my reporting was like looking at the outcome of a math problem. You either got the answer right or wrong. And the listener, viewer or reader was the final destination of my reporting. They get to decide how I did. And believe me when I say, perception IS reality.
“Word-smithing” the news is a daunting task when reporting the events of the day. And criticizing the content IS criticizing the writers and reporters. It’s personal. I suggest before your criticism becomes the point of your editorial spear, you venture into the professional realm of journalism yourself for a moment or two. Who knows, you may be the next Chet Huntley, David Brinkley or Walter Cronkite.
Journalisticly Yours
Enjoyed your scholarly treatise on the probably subjective nature of news reporting.
I could claim a background as a journalist if I wanted to be pretentious, because I was several years “news director” at a daytimer. But in the spirit of honest reporting I will reveal that the “title” only meant that I was the one with the “privilege” of opening the sacks of news releases that came from everywhere. There was no extra pay for this, I did no hiring or firing, and there were five of us who “ripped and read” from the teletype machine.
One time a “gung ho” aspiring news genius came to work and because I wasn’t “re-writing” my news copy but chose to “read it raw,” he urged that I be fired. The boss totally ignored him and life went on at the low power salary.
Assignment: Mr. Johnson. Please solve our news situation. Please organize a 7-day-a-week news service for part 15 stations. You yourself could be the main anchor. I’ll volunteer to open the sacks of mail.
Assignment: Mr. Johnson.
Assignment: Mr. Johnson. Please solve our news situation. Please organize a 7-day-a-week news service for part 15 stations. You yourself could be the main anchor.
That would be great!
News Bias and Journalism
Carl and Marshall,
Much of what both of you are saying rings true with me based on observation and experience.
As one who has been interviewed for both print and broadcast media I must sadly state that my policy has been for over twenty years to not participate in an interview. A notable exception occurred recently when I consented to Carl’s request and the main reason for this is that based on my communications with him and listening to his work I knew I could trust him. He does not cut people off mid sentence, he doesn’t pretend to be the only expert on the topic of discussion, and he makes both himself and his guest look good. This is rarely the case with commercial media where the reporters act as if they know more than the guests when, in fact, they don’t and are rude to their guests.
Reporting on subjects with which I am familiar generally contain major errors, for example the distinction between semi-automatic and automatic firearms is often ignored. Semi-automatic weapons are legal and automatic weapons are not….big difference. Reports on energy topics almost always get power and energy wrong. For example compact florescent bulbs are reported as “saving 70 watts of energy per bulb”. When wrong statements such as this are in a report then the credibility of the entire report and that of the reporter fail.
A personal experience with a TV reporter illustrates my general experience with this. I consented to a taped interview and the reported outlined what questions he would ask. When the tape rolled, he began by asking a question we had not discussed which was outside of my area of expertise. My answer was “I am not qualified to comment and this interview is over”. Another bad experience with the print media taking my comments out of context which made me appear as an idiot led to my policy of no interviews at all, period, over and out.
But this goes beyond my personal pride in that I have learned to distrust what I hear and see in the media. Marshall’s point about the filters of the reporters, editors, and listeners is certainly valid but what I have experienced and witnessed in reporting goes way beyond this. Intentionally emphasizing one side of a topic and playing down or not even reporting the opposing side goes beyond filtering and, in my mind, does not fulfill the function of journalism which literally means recording what happened.
My wife will often ask me if I heard such and such on the news. My usual reply is “Yes, but let me tell you what NPR didn’t.” She is amazed at how much is not reported and challenges me to document what I add, which I do.
I agree with Carl about not forwarding biased or agenda driven news either through part 15 or person to person. The media reporters are mostly just entertainers and I am not at all interested in their opinions. They are failing to objectively report the news and it doesn’t surprise me that networks and papers are losing their audience. We are not as stupid as they think we are. As the great Joe Friday stated “Just the facts, ma’am”.
Thanks for tolerating my rant but I believe accurate and complete news reporting is vital to our country’s well being and am disappointed in what we have available in the main stream media.
Neil
“7-day-a-week news service for part 15 stations”
Carl and others,
In the process of developing new skills and an understanding of how things really work, I suggest you all put your collective talents to work and produce a newscast or two for your own station. Pre-record the cast and post it here for others to critique. Make the entire presentation no longer than 3.5 minutes, including open and close. Use the presentation you are comfortable with and use whatever source suits you.
Since your listener is the only judge of your product, it seems fair to inform and entertain those of us here. Your audience awaits. If you can cut the mustard here, you might be network bound. It worked for Mr. Ted Williams.
The world wide web has added unfathomable dimension to news coverage. People like “The Drudge Report” began a whole new genre of information reporting. Today there are literally thousands of personalities (I use the term loosely) who sell their wares to an unsuspecting population of unwary sheep. A news flash: the wolves have always been there. Whether Dan Smoot and “The Smoot Report” or Garner Ted Armstrong and “The World Tomorrow”, putting a period at the end of YOUR sentence has been done for decades, whether we recognize it or not. Today ideologies from folks like Cloward and Piven are beginning to take over CPB, NPR and your local college radio outlets. And because these reports come from the very pinnacles of academia, many are given instant credibility. Even though, they promote constantly questioning any authority that is contrary to their own.
As I indicated before, the aforementioned is not journalism, it is editorializing. Opining on a well supported point of discussion doesn’t make it truth. And real truth has no degrees of alacrity or shades of gray. Ignorance is the only opening any enemy has to overcome the masses. Untruth and lies propagate with equal speed to the truth these days. We must be vigilant and aware that swallowing any old medicine can kill you. I’m just sayin’…
Just the Right Medicine
You bring just the right medicine, Mr. Johnson, Sr., by resurrecting the lost art of EDITORIALIZING, which may be the exact role you should play in the new Part15.us News Network.
Actually, there are some very learned commentators putting out their sincere thoughts, but, and you said it, it’s a matter of whether we buy what they say.
I’ll wait and see whether any other members are first to present their sample newscast, but if they do, I’ll join the chorus.
You also triggered this idea… somebody could negotiate to become the AUDIO voice of, say, The Drudge Report. Or any other report you happen to like.
I absolutely loved Garner Ted and enjoyed following how he made perfect sense right up to the point where he didn’t.
Maybe I’ll just do international traffic reports.
Getting small to be big
Was listening to a long time broadcaster talking about how to gain local market share.
His comment was that he had listened to some podcasts recently and he was struck by how many podcasters try to take on large issues and try to have a national focus.
“Where’s the local guy?” he asked, “Why don’t these people talk about what’s going on in their own front yard, their own street, their own neighborhood? That would be a service that people need – not another Adam Corolla! Listeners want to know about what’s going on in their own little world and who’s serving them? Nobody! The local radio station is syndicated, the local news paper runs nothing but wire stories and the local TV station shows “Cheers” reruns 24/7″
My experience with a very small newspaper really bear this out. Our little rag came out twice a month with eight pages of hyper-local coverage. Community news, high school sports, elementary school art, school lunch menus, land use hearing reports, crime reports, dog catcher reports, over-the-back-fence reports and movie reviews for a 30 square block area. The readers loved it and the local businesses advertised.
If you have a station operating then you probably know your radio foot print – what’s the news in that little circle? You might be surprised at the richness of the news and events in your own little world. expand that circle just a little and add streaming to reach those in your ‘fringe’ areas shoot for 100% penetration of your own 30 block area.
Set up a simple web site like scwis.com or use blogger or a similar service to set up a blog like scwis.blogspot.com and engage your community as the local “king of all small media!”
Assault the Guest
Radio8Z gave a fair review of the sorry state of content from npr, but it’s probably not controversial to suppose that politics are at play. There is a move to de-fund public broadcasting, and our political climate is such that critics get crushed, so it stands to reason that the network would become very friendly toward power politicians. The question over whether there’s any real “public” appeal is another matter, perhaps it should be called NGR (National Gentry Radio). The rest of us can form one of those LPFM Chinese committees and start NRR (National Riff Raff Radio).
There is a still podcasting fellow (name withheld) on one of the liberty type networks who did the most terrible blind-side of a guest ever heard. His program started with a pleasant introduction of a female attorney from the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). A number of civil exchanges went by, but then he started calling her and her organization names, making totally discourteous and un-approving remarks, and despite her attempting to save grace by explaining each point he inferred, he stopped listening to her and entered total destruct mode. If I can find that program, it is classroom quality to demonstrate what an idiot can do with a microphone, I’ll post it on line for scholarly interest.
A Eureka Moment
SCWIS, your comment very much describes the “global” slant that everyone has taken in their news reporting, and although what I am about to say is probably already obvious in what you and others have said, it gives me personally a “eureka moment” of realizing WHY everyone has gone global.
It’s the internet effect. The internet is totally global, and forces all content to be global, even as it struggles to be local. This world view has infected ALL media as all media pairs itself with a website, and no one has the self discipline to remain true to the confines of what’s local.
Even Part 15 stations, which are ULTRA local, become globalized by having a WWW stream, website AND programs of a global scope.
As Marshall and SCWIS have pointed out, it is we, us, personally, who must take the responsibility of establishing a local news desk.
There is one station here who does ferry reports. That sounds like a wonderfully local service. Who was that?
The Internet Effect
“…it gives me personally a “eureka moment” of realizing WHY everyone has gone global.
It’s the internet effect. The internet is totally global, and forces all content to be global, even as it struggles to be local…”
Carl, if you mean by “everyone” the formerly local commercial broadcast stations then I would not agree that it is because of the internet effect lest I misunderstand what you mean by this phrase.
It is a matter of economy. Subscribing to a syndicated or centrally produced news or weather source is cheaper than doing it yourself and these sources are not going to cover local events. A major player in the Columbus, Ohio AM market has had “local” weather reported live by a guy behind a microphone in New York for over 15 years. It was done in a manner which leads the listener to believe he is in the Columbus studio. They now contract with a local TV station for this service.
At present, there is no local news available here that I know of after 7 PM. Information on weather emergencies or breaking news is not available. Last year, when a tornado warning was sounded and a tornado was sighted nearby, there was no live AM alert or reporting (according to posts at Radio-Info on the subject). TV stations still have local coverage but not AM radio.
Our local TIS station used to announce upcoming community events and would broadcast leader board results from the Memorial Golf Tournament held here but no longer do so (someone may have told them this is not legal).
SCWIS’ tale of his local rag is valid and this would be a welcomed addition to local radio. Perhaps a small operator such a part 15er could form an alliance with the local paper as a news source It would be radio as it used to be.
Neil
Combining Ideas
Neil, I agree that finances have much to do with the loss of localism in news, but I think you’ve simply added detail to why the internet effect is changing the landscape.
Economy is still a concern to the part 15er because he/she needs to invest time and effort to prepare a report, and this may not be justified by less than a few listeners.
Let’s take the ferry report. If you’re on the ferry, you can’t hear the report.
If an ice storm takes out local power, you’ll have to deliver the news door to door.
If traffic radar is seen down the block, it might be politically unwise to broadcast a report.
If the neighbors are heard arguing, why can’t it be reported? If one of them was Brad Pitt it would go national.
Getting one’s hands on reportable local news can be a full time occupation.
And on the weather, local weather is already known by everybody. The only weather people wonder about is tomorrow’s weather, and if you can get it, so can they.
My conclusion is that local news for a small station will be only an appearance and not a serious news bureau.
Local Reporting
Carl,
Re “Combining Ideas”, OK. I agree.
While reading your post an idea came to mind regarding the availability of news, reminiscent of my story about broadcasting a baseball game which was available to the public by other media. Can part 15ers provide a unique live report not generally available to the public? Here’s a thought: most large communities are served by amateur radio weather nets which report directly to the local NWS as spotters observe severe conditions. This is my personal source for information during severe weather since it is the fastest way to get information. Perhaps, with a scanner or ham radio, the net could be patched into a part 15 station.
From the amateur radio perspective, it is legal to retransmit amateur radio activity on commercial stations as long as no reference to the station or broadcast is made in the content of the transmissions. But, in general it is not legal to disclose the content or even the existence of non-broadcast radio traffic. I don’t pretend to be current on the regulations so if anyone considers this check out the rules first.
Neil
And
Let’s take the ferry report. If you’re on the ferry, you can’t hear the report.
If you’re on the boat you don’t need the report 🙂 actually, vehicle holding areas like ferry terminals seem like great opportunities to reach a captive audience
If an ice storm takes out local power, you’ll have to deliver the news door to door.
Our transmitters will run on batteries and so do radios
If traffic radar is seen down the block, it might be politically unwise to broadcast a report.
But you can remind folks to “Drive safely and drive the legal limit when on Fourth street”
If the neighbors are heard arguing, why can’t it be reported? If one of them was Brad Pitt it would go national.
Perhaps you could report that there was some evidence of “for worse” at 3:00 am but that all is quiet in the neighborhood now.
Getting one’s hands on reportable local news can be a full time occupation.
Set up a voice mail tip line, put up some outdoor web cams and digital time lapse photography, set up a police scanner and use VOX software to record the action
And on the weather, local weather is already known by everybody. The only weather people wonder about is tomorrow’s weather, and if you can get it, so can they.
Remember the saying “everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it?” Well, everybody still talks about the weather!
My conclusion is that local news for a small station will be only an appearance and not a serious news bureau.
Serious is as serious does
News Media Penetration
A recently published research paper points to where people get there news these days. The four major media sources were:
1) Radio
2) Television
3) Newspaper/Print
4) Internet/Mobile Devices
Dead last is radio, exceeded only slightly by newspaper/print, next is Television, and finally the top of the heap is the Internet and Mobile devices. Media consumption is changing. Consumption is being driven by technology used by consumers. The research does not speak to where consumers get there music entertainment from. But, most thoughtful people can imagine that consumption is changing in that venue as well.
In my own research on media consumption and changing trends there appears to be consistent concerns coming to the forefront. Consumers are asking question when they are looking for news and entertainment. They are:
1) What?
2) So what?
These questions, of course, point to each consumers personal tastes and interests.
Additionally, the success of media from this day forward may be based on content that is 1) convenient, 2) ubiquitous, and 3) habitual.
If what we do with our Part 15 micro-stations takes these parameters into account, is it possible we could have listeners that the “Big Boys” only wish they could have? And additionally, within these parameters it doesn’t matter whether your station is a combination of terrestrial, online and has a mobile app. It seems to me, you need to get listeners wherever you can. That’s how your efforts become “viral” (“Idea Virus” – Seth Godin).
I truly have an appreciation for the anecdotal evidence offered here. However, we need to be reminded that anecdotal data has its defined scope and short-comings.
Philosophically, media is for consumption, otherwise it is a wastefully practice with little to show for itself.
Glowing Example
There is a glowing example of a Part 15 / streaming radio station that totally reflects its local area.
http://kpah.com
Every program is about Pahrump, Nevada, including talk shows with town politicians and local residents giving their from the gut opinions, plus the occasional conversation about nearby Area 51.
It’s extra fun to listen to.
Neo-Pessimism Being Set Aside
You have heard that Arthur Schopenhauer is the philosopher of pessimism, and I am the philosopher of new-pessimism, but it hasn’t worked here.
SCWIS, every one of your rebuttals is workable and doable, and I love it.
Neil, I am relieved that you found agreement with my “combining of ideas,” and I like the idea of using the various other mediums you talked about, within the rules, which you mentioned, and a study of such possibilities would be interesting. In addition to the ham related resources, is there anyway to tie CB or PRS (Personal Radio Service) into legal news tools?
Even if we use an idea Marshall put forth earlier of each doing one newscast, maybe we could each do one a month. I mean, your newscast wouldn’t be local to most other members, but maybe some of the stories could be exchanged (?)
Police scanners? People are being arrested and sentenced for recording police activity. How could it be done safely? (Ah, pessimism is back!)
FH Tiny Radio
Wow, Friday Harbor Tiny Radio, the station with ferry reports, does a SUPER job of being local!
http://fhtinyradio.com/
There’s even a Ferry Cam!
All the music is locally made.
Good work.
I like his player on his
I like his player on his homepage too.. only this time it didn’t start on it’s own as usual, had to launch the winamp to get the tunes
Cloward and Piven
If I ever knew about Cloward – Pliven, the memory faded, but Marshall mentioned their influence in the public sector, and I looked it up I think on Wiki…
Ah yes, I remember from that jog to the memory back in the 1970s when there was this husband and wife couple who would attend public meetings and deliberately start everybody arguing, then once the disruption had ruined the meeting, they happily left. That was maybe the “Cloward – Pliven Style.”
The managers of the local TV stations held a public meeting together at a university auditorium, to invite public input about challenges that were being filed to the stations renewals. It could have been an interesting meeting, or maybe it was just show, but the male member of the destruction team seated himself in the very center of the audience, waited until things reached a questions from the audience part, and somehow made statements that caused eruptions of angry shouting and soon the meeting collapsed into name calling and accusations, but the guy who started it had quickly made a dash out the back with a smile.
Is that what you recall, as being a signature of Cloward – Pliven?
Yes
Police scanners? People are being arrested and sentenced for recording police activity. How could it be done safely?
By recording and listening yourself (perfectly legal) and then reporting summaries of what you hear – just like reporting the speed trap – “you might have heard sirens last night, turns out an uninvited guest was perusing the contents of a garage on Third street so the owner asked the local public servants to intervene – be sure to lock your doors tonight!”
You Seem to be Saying
SCWIS
You seem to be saying
News after the fact
NOT
News in progress.
Yes!
News as it happens won’t work for us or our audience. People just want to know what’s going in their neighborhood and they’re not holding a stopwatch!
The news in my semi-monthly newspaper was three weeks old and folks still lapped it up.
Richard Cloward & Frances Fox Piven
“Cloward and Piven’s (original) article is focused on forcing the Democratic Party, which in 1966 controlled the presidency and both houses of the United States Congress, to take federal action to help the poor. They argued that full enrollment of those eligible for welfare “would produce bureaucratic disruption in welfare agencies and fiscal disruption in local and state governments” that would “deepen existing divisions among elements in the big-city Democratic coalition: the remaining white middle class, the working-class ethnic groups and the growing minority poor. To avoid a further weakening of that historic coalition, a national Democratic administration would be constrained to advance a federal solution to poverty that would override local welfare failures, local class and racial conflicts and local revenue dilemmas.” They wrote:
“The ultimate objective of this strategy—to wipe out poverty by establishing a guaranteed annual income—will be questioned by some. Because the ideal of individual social and economic mobility has deep roots, even activists seem reluctant to call for national programs to eliminate poverty by the outright redistribution of income.”
Michael Reisch and Janice Andrews wrote that Cloward and Piven “proposed to create a crisis in the current welfare system – by exploiting the gap between welfare law and practice – that would ultimately bring about its collapse and replace it with a system of guaranteed annual income. They hoped to accomplish this end by informing the poor of their rights to welfare assistance, encouraging them to apply for benefits and, in effect, overloading an already overburdened bureaucracy.” -Wikipedia-EN 2011
Their theory of wealth/income distribution sounds vaguely familiar to the beginning of European unrest (fascism, socialism) that led to the start of World War II and other events in history. Congressional oversight of the budget of NPR will probably bring them back from the brink. Many Americans are looking to their local media to give a fair and educated picture of what has happened and where we are headed. Public broadcasting should report the public discourse on events and happenings, not establish and forward the political theories of a couple activists from over 40 years ago. The “Great Society” wasn’t so great after all. As we are beginning to discover, the bill has finally come due and we are out of money. I’m just sayin’.
Dude!
Ice cream headache.
Wikipedia? Really?
Let’s save our dissertations on wealth redistribution and the birth of Facism for a nice political web site.
Come on, back to Part 15 and low power broadcasting, please…
This Academic Discussion
This academic discussion about news gathering practice for the small station continues to be very interesting. In most cases I agree with SCWIS on the suggestions made, but will belabor a few points.
On summarizing a police action in the neighborhood, one must have access to a report of what actually happened. I see police actions all the time, day and night, up and down the streets and involving homes or residents, but in the end I neither know what happened nor would know whom to ask.
Another matter, running news stories after the fact, is done to perfection by I.N.N., the International News Net, who prepare the next days 9 AM newscast by about 4 PM the previous day. Their stories tend to be milestone stories, that will go toward forming the history of the time. But there are certain times when immediate reporting would be of great value.
In 2006 a major ice storm was moving south out of Oklahoma into southern Missouri and heading northeast up the Mississippi Valley. I was just discovering streaming radio, and tried to find live reports about the progress of the storm, but ALL the stations were running canned programming and the only reference to the weather was the usual thumbnail briefs that we always get. EXCEPT for KSWM in Aurora Missouri, who had two station staff sitting at a big wide window WATCHING trees fall from the ice and taking phone calls from the surrounding area in which listeners described eye witness of power lines going down, power transformers blowing up, and more trees collapsing, some right on top of buildings. Roofs caved in. It was perfect live news reporting.
Decoding the News
I may have de-coded something we’ve been talking about, and in submitting my report it may relate to several other things we’ve been talking about.
By “Cloward-Piven” we may have meant “Glenn Beck.”
By co-incidence the actual Professor Frances Fox Piven, now age 78, appeared recently on Democracy Now! (1/14) hosted by Amy Goodman, to express her fear and concern for being so persistently attacked on the air by Glenn Beck for a 45-year old sociology paper she wrote.
Democracy Now! is a clean journalism program that does not shape the news to a special agenda, and is free to air at democracynow.org.
My Apolgies
To those with sensibilities about issues involving our current societal and cultural issues, my comments and posts are never intended to offend. Please accept my heart felt apologies if you were offended.
Just because our perception of news content and delivery is open and democratic, doesn’t mean that for Part 15 use we are excused from doing the research and understanding the “not so obvious truths” of the stories. Every news writer has his own perception of the news. Perception is, for each individual, reality. For Part 15 coverage of the news, we become embroiled very quickly in the same daily debate the big boys are involved with. To think otherwise lacks wisdom.
And whether the story is 44 years old or four days old, the listener doesn’t care. They want the truth. And, not my version of it.
Not Offended
I don’t know if anyone was offended, I didn’t pick up on it if they were, but certainly not me. For my part this discourse about journalism, its content and forms of delivery has been interesting and in fact educational, as some of what’s been going on in the news has become more clarified as a result.
It even occurs to me that you made the point early on that journalists cannot be truly impartial, you said it was impossible NOT to be subjective, which I think is the same thing, and I made the point that news agencies bend the news to fit an agenda, which is another way of saying a “belief system.”
Great thread, according to this reviewer.
Starting Point
On January 28 I put a notation in this thread about how beautifully an ice storm was reported by KSWM in Aurora Missouri. Now I have an idea how part 15 stations could network this example.
WHAT IF something popped into the news in the locality of SCWIS up there in Bellingham, Washington State. Suppose by pre-agreement we could establish contact through Skype, mp3 e-mail file, telephone or some other way, and get a DIRECT REPORT FROM THE AREA!
In such a way there could be an interlocking network of part 15 stations ready to report from their location.
Give it some thought and please submit your POV about this idea.
I see what you are getting at, and a nice police scanner blog
Last things first, nice scanner blog with nice disclaimers and nice examples of reporting about what is heard rather than revealing what you hear:
http://blogs.bellinghamherald.com/scanner/?p=356
First thing last, a breaking news hook up for any of us to share emerging information would be a great hook for listeners
“Breaking news, from the low power news network”
A good environment might be something central so we all check the same place, has the ability to “alert” us in some way, and that allows some real time two-way conversations, and maybe a place to store and download prerecorded reports.
Or something
Proposal of the Day
SCWIS
Yes. A central point would make it work, and guess what part15.us is? A CENTRAL POINT !
So what about some variation of this…
What if part15.us actually WAS THE LOW POWER NEWS NETWORK, except all you would be would be a central clearing house.
What you could have is a window or a page where news stories could be dated, described, and linked as mp3 files.
Maybe after 24 or 48 hours you could delete a story so it wouldn’t get too cluttered.
Right now there would be a lot of good weather stories flooding in.
Regarding the police scanner suggestion, I need to learn more about that, and will probably be back with questions.