Differentiate your newscast with an Investigative strategy.Today's busy viewer/user is topically driven.
Win daily coverage on the air and online by digging into the top stories of the day. Learn how in Tom's article,
Use of Topical Investigations to Increase Sampling, published in The Rundown newsletter.
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June 21, 2008
Keep Building the Medical Story Even If Early Answers Are Incomplete
By Tom Dolan
Users are best served when sites build stories as reliable information becomes available. In the Tim Russert death, it seemed as though everyone had to wait four days for why he died so suddenly. The shock of his death was tougher to take when everyone wondered could anything have been done.
400,000 die of sudden cardiac arrest every year in this country. Tim had recently passed a stress test and was on heart medication drugs. But in this ABC News medical piece, they explain how stress tests only check for cholesterol buildup in the middle of the artery. Their expert recommends a simple protein test that tracks artery inflammation and hidden plaque.
June 21, 2008
Great Video Sometimes Needs Great Graphic Support
By Tom Dolan
Many sites are loaded with great video from what may be the hundred year flood. But online and on air, users and viewers may be best served with graphic explainers that tell an equally important story: How and why it happened visually. These graphics also suggest further stories about why better levees were not designed given the '93 floods.
You can advance stories and gain users as well as produce a better user experience by giving them choices the way ABC News and USA Today do in the following examples. Sam Champion from GMA takes a boat ride then a flyover before showing how levees have been breeched at some 20 locations.
USA Today and usatoday.com routinely use this approach. In this web version, they have produced a very useful informational piece for everyone who lives along the Mississippi. They also aggregate links for safety tips on driving and survivng in flood zones.
April 23, 2008
CNN's "Magic Wall" Works
By Tom Dolan
One way CNN has differentiated its prime time political coverage is through Reporter John King's "Magic Wall." It is a graphics intensive touchscreen telestrator of sorts that goes far beyond any John Madden football analysis. The NY Times profiles John and his new tool.
Many remember NBC's Time Russert and his use of the now famous dry erase board to frame exactly where things stand on election night. John King takes this low tech/high tech reporting to a whole new level by showing what an election will turn on by turnout,county by county returns, or demographics. He uses touch screen graphics to highlight areas and explain the story in a story. Viewers and users seem to appreciate the stortelling technique because it is very clear, quick analysis as well as memorable. The online story is as much a personality profile but watch CNN in prime to watch him work it. The technology has a definite upside application for uses in other stories as the tool gets perfected. Good way to use your anchors to explain stories in your newscast and online.
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(March 19, 2008)
Reporting Beyond the "Horserace" in the 2008 Campaign
(February 24, 2008)
Employers Working Harder to Attract Best Employees
(February 24, 2008)
No Surprises -- If Your Reporters Are Really Reporting
(January 26, 2008)
Analog to Digital TV Switch--The Definitive FAQ and How to Get the Coupons
(January 05, 2008)
Average Credit Card Holder Loses $946.@ Year on Hidden Costs---And Doesn't Have to!
(January 05, 2008)
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(January 05, 2008)
How They Spend Their Time
(November 22, 2007)
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