Selina McNeal called the police just before 2 a.m. on Wednesday because the superintendent of her apartment building was screaming obscenities and breaking glass in the hallway. She briefly opened her door and spotted him, completely naked, she said.
Minutes later, eight uniformed police officers arrived, pouring out of an elevator. As Ms. McNeal hid under the bed, she heard a struggle and officers yelling, “Shoot him! Shoot him!” Then came a series of shots. “Pop, pop, pop, pop,” she said.
In a matter of seconds, the police officers shot and killed the superintendent, who they said had pointed a gun at them. One officer grappled with the naked man before the shooting started and was shot in the chest during the struggle, the police said. His bulletproof vest stopped the slug.
On Thursday, the police said the man, identified as Victor Hernandez, 29, had fired the bullet that struck Officer Christopher Wintermute on the left side of his chest and lodged in his body armor. Mr. Hernandez’s killing was the fifth deadly shooting by the New York police in a month.
A review of surveillance footage recovered at the scene and body cameras worn by seven of the responding officers showed that Officer Wintermute was first to arrive at the building’s second floor, the police said.
There the officer encountered a naked Mr. Hernandez in “a shooting stance” at the end of the hallway, said Deputy Chief Kevin Maloney, who leads the Force Investigation Division.
As the two men grappled, Officer Wintermute yelled for backup. Three of his colleagues responded and fired 17 rounds at Mr. Hernandez, Chief Maloney said. Ten bullets hit him.
“I did not want him dead,” Ms. McNeal said, hours after she first called the police. “I just wanted to find out what was going on.”
Mr. Hernandez, a father of two and the son of a police officer, had become the building’s superintendent fairly recently, his family members and neighbors said. Ms. McNeal said that before she called 911, Mr. Hernandez had been yelling in the hall for about 20 minutes, making vulgar threats about a woman.
The police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, said on Wednesday that the officers arrived at about 1:50 a.m. and fanned out to search the second-floor hallway of the building, at 2785 Frederick Douglass Boulevard, and encountered a naked man with a gun. “A violent struggle immediately began and shots were fired,” the commissioner said.
Image
Victor Hernandez in a photo posted to Facebook.
Chief Maloney said Mr. Hernandez had been the subject of six domesticcomplaints in the past. He was last arrested in 2014. He has never been accused of any crime involving drugs, weapons or violence, officials and family members said.
Ms. McNeal said that when she briefly opened the door and saw Mr. Hernandez, she did not see a weapon in his hands. “I saw something that looked like a laptop or a tablet,” she said.
During the shooting, Ms. McNeal said, she was hiding under her bed in tears. After the shots rang out, she heard officers shout, “Watch the fire.” Shortly afterward, she said she heard them yelling at one another, “Where is the gun?”
After the confrontation ended, Ms. McNeal again opened the door and saw Mr. Hernandez lying on the floor face up. The police later told her that what she thought was a tablet was actually a firearm.
“I’m still crying,” Ms. McNeal said. “I close my eyes and it’s all I can see and hear.”
Image
The vest that stopped a bullet during the confrontation in Harlem.Credit…New York Police Department
Mr. Hernandez’s family members and neighbors remembered him as a dedicated father to a 6-year-old daughter and an older son, a caring relative and an ambitious man who worked hard.
His aunt, Ana Martinez, said Mr. Hernandez grew up in the Crotona Park East neighborhood of the Bronx. He had taken the police officer and firefighter exams and was studying at Bronx Community College, she said.
Mr. Hernandez’s ex-wife lived in the Throgs Neck neighborhood of the Bronx, Ms. Martinez said. The two had been fighting over custody of their children, and the domestic accusations stemmed from arguments between them, Ms. Martinez said.
The ex-wife, Jaimily Hernandez, declined to comment.
Mr. Hernandez’s mother, Maria, has spent 19 years as a New York police officer, most recently in the Bronx, and he wanted to follow in her footsteps, according to Ms. Martinez. Mr. Hernandez also had relatives who were law enforcement officers in Milwaukee, Florida and Puerto Rico.
Given that Mr. Hernandez came from a law-enforcement family, Ms. Martinez said, she doubted her nephew would have acted violently toward police officers, and she disputed the characterization of him as emotionally disturbed or violent.
“They’re depicting him like he was some kind of psycho or something and he was a menace to society, but he was a person,” Ms. Martinez said. “His mom was on the force for 19 years. She served that city for 19 years, and they murdered her son.”
In a tribute posted to Facebook, Mr. Hernandez’s younger sister, Melissa, said her brother had been her best friend and her protector, an industrious, creative and loving person.
Mr. Hernandez “was always good at everything,” she wrote. He learned to play piano by ear, taught himself to make high-quality videos and had strong technical and mechanical skills.
“My brother could do so many things, and it was always clear to me that he was destined for greatness,” wrote Mr. Hernandez’s sister, who declined to comment further. “Unfortunately, he’ll never get to use any of his many skills.”
Hours before the shooting, Mr. Hernandez ate dinner at a cousin’s house, Ms. Martinez said. He had also picked up his mother from the airport, where she had returned from a vacation in the Dominican Republic.
Over text message, his mother, Maria Hernandez, said, “His only contact with the police before this was domestic with his wife.”
She declined to comment further, saying: “Just know Victor was a kind, gentle soul. And my entire world.”
In Harlem, neighbors said Mr. Hernandez seemed in public to be a quiet, calm person.
Pedro Ramos, 44, who lives on the seventh floor of the building, said he had befriended Mr. Hernandez.
“He was a sane, good guy,” Mr. Ramos said with a tone of disbelief.“This shocks me.”
Jerome Selassie, 55, who owns the corner store across the street from the site of the shooting, said he saw Mr. Hernandez often and never knew him to be violent.
“I saw him last night, at around midnight,” Mr. Selassie said. “He was running to his apartment because it was raining. He waved at me. That was the last time I saw him. He looked O.K. to me.”
Image
The police officer who was shot in the incident left Mount Sinai St. Luke’s hospital in a wheelchair on Wednesday.Credit…James Keivom for The New York Times
Officer Wintermute, 32, has been on the police force for seven years, working most of that time on patrol in the 32nd Precinct in Harlem. His wife is also a police officer.
During the struggle with Mr. Hernandez, Officer Wintermute was punched several times in the face and took the impact of the bullet hitting his Kevlar vest, officials said. Mayor Bill de Blasio said he was in “good spirits” after the shooting, and he was released from Mount Sinai St. Luke’s hospital a few hours later.Fellow officers applauded him as he was taken in a wheelchair to a waiting police van.
Officer Mulkeen was the second officer to be killed by “friendly fire” this year. In February, Detective Brian Simonsen was hit in the chest and killed as he and other officers were firing at a robber in a cellphone store in Queens. The robber turned out to have a fake gun.
The police said Wednesday’s incident was the 47th time this year officers have discharged their weapons in confrontations with civilians. Ten of them have died.
“It’s high in the last couple of weeks, but it’s part of where we’ve been consistent in the last couple of years,” Chief Maloney said.
Ms. Martinez said Mr. Hernandez sometimes expressed fear for his mother’s safety because she was a police officer. But his family also feared for his.
“We always told them if the police stop you, you make sure you be respectful and give them whatever they want because you don’t want them to shoot you,” Ms. Martinez recalled. “It’s hard when you have minority children, especially boys, and you have to tell them that.”
Susan Beachy contributed research.
Correction:
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misspelled the given name of a resident who called the police. She is Selina McNeal, not Selena McNeal. It also misstated the age of a man who was killed. He was 29, not 27.
Active voice makes it clear who is supposed to do what. It eliminates ambiguity about responsibilities. Not “It must be done,” but “You must do it.” Passive voice obscures who is responsible for what and is one of the biggest problems with government writing. Don’t confuse passive voice with past tense.
In an active sentence, the person or agency that’s acting is the subject of the sentence. In a passive sentence, the person or item that is acted upon is the subject of the sentence. Passive sentences often do not identify who is performing the action.
Passive voice
Active voice
The lake was polluted by the company.
The company polluted the lake.
New regulations were proposed.
We proposed new regulations.
The following information must be included in the application for it to be considered complete.
You must include the following information in your application.
Bonds will be withheld in cases of non-compliance with all permits and conditions.
We will withhold your bond if you don’t comply with all permit terms and conditions.
The permit must be approved by the agency’s state office.
Our state office must approve your permit.
More than any other writing technique, using active voice and specifying who is performing an action will change the character of your writing.
Identifying passive sentences
Passive sentences have two basic features, although both may not appear in every passive sentence.
A form of the verb “to be,” such as “are,” “was,” “were,” “could be,” or “have been”)
A past participle (generally with “-ed” on the end)
Use passive voice when the law is the actor
In a few instances, passive voice may be appropriate. For example, when one action follows another as a matter of law, and there is no actor (besides the law itself) for the second action, a passive sentence may be the best method of expression.
You might also use passive when it doesn’t matter who is doing an action. For example:
“If you do not pay the royalty on your mineral production, your lease will be terminated.”
Sources
Charrow, Veda R., Erhardt, Myra K. and Charrow, Robert P., Clear & Effective Legal Writing, 4th edition, 2007, Aspen Publishers, New York, NY, pp. 173-175.
Garner, Bryan A., A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, 2nd edition, 1995, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, pp. 643-644.
Garner, Bryan A., Legal Writing in Plain English, 2001, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 24-26.
Garner, Bryan A., Garner’s Modern American Usage, 2003, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, pp. 892-893.
Murawski, Thomas A., Writing Readable Regulations, 1999, Carolina Academic Press Durham, NC, pp. 73-75.
Our first instinct is to pull images and music from the internet. Everything is right there for the taking and many who create content think about using what’s accessible and seems available. Borrowing can quickly solve a variety of editorial problems.
But not all material on the internet is free to use and it may be illegal to just grab and go.
Copyright is a law that protects creators of works that include text, books, photos, graphics, artwork, music, and anything that has a copyright symbol next to it.
Copyright extends for the life of the author plus 70 years. There are some efforts underway in Washington to change the copyright law and reduce the number of years a creator can hold on to copyright.
But the bottom line is that the law, and basic fairness, require us to honor copyright.
That means that we can’t borrow material freely from the internet unless the creator clearly states that you can use the work.
Fee for Use
If you want to use an image or music and the creator does not indicate that you may borrow it, there’s likely a fee to use it.
Copyright and Creative Commons
On the other hand, the good news is that some content creators are eager to have their work used and distributed even if they don’t get paid.
Most, however, want credit.
The Creative Commons License was established in 2002 to make a wide variety of content available from willing content creators who want to get their work seen and heard, but may also want credit. The Creative Commons 4.0 license requires you to attribute the photo, or piece of music or artwork. You must link to the site where the image came from and you must give credit on your site to the creator.
Flikr,Unsplash, SnapFish, 500px , postimage, and other sites that will probably start up by the time you read this, offer photo sharing of one kind or another.
Many of the photos posted on these sharing sites ask for Creative Commons attribution. They make their work available under a Creative Commons License.
In most cases, even with Creative Commons, the creator wants credit. You can freely use these images, but you must credit the creator either on the image, or somewhere in the printed material or the text on the website or the brochure. There is often a request for you to link to the creators site, or Wikimedia where the image may have been posted.
You can find images with Creative Commons licenses indicate via Google and Bing search engines.
When you use images on Google there is a tab for settings.
On Bing there is a tab for License.
On Google
Click on Advanced Search and it will take you to this page:
Choose: “free to use or share, even commercially”
If you plan to modify the image or graphic make sure that you choose: “free to use, share or modify, even commercially.”
You’ll then get a range of photos that you can use for free. But you must if it is an attribution license, you must give credit to the creator.
If you use Bing once you choose the subject that you are searching, images will come up and the list of headings in the bar at the top of the images will include the word: License.
You can also find images through Wikimedia or Wikipedia
Some people will allow you to use the images without attributions. But be very careful. To find the license you may have to click through several layers to check to see the requirement.
Pixabay features a wide range of photos posted by photographers. They are free, but you can leave a donation for the artist. They ask for coffee money.
Photo by Gellinger, Courtesy Pixabay, Creative Commons License
Public Domain
On Wikipedia, and elsewhere, you may find works labeled Public Domain. The federal Office of Copyright defines public domain this way:
“The public domain is not a place. A work of authorship is in the “public domain” if it is no longer under copyright protection or if it failed to meet the requirements for copyright protection. Works in the public domain may be used freely without the permission of the former copyright owner.”
U.S. Government agencies maintain photo and video archives and most of the work is in the public domain.
This Department of Defense photo for example is free for you to use. It’s always a good idea to give credit to the photographer and the agency.
Popular music generally requires the payment of royalties to the artists, composers, arrangers, producers and anyone else who had something to do with the production of those works.
Licensed Music and Music for a Fee
ASCAP and BMI provide licensing for music and it is possible to purchase the rights, or a license, to use something that fits the creative bill.
But in most cases, the cost is prohibitive unless you have a blanket license to use a certain amount of music.
If you use music in a video that you post on YouTube and the creator has not authorized the use, it is likely that YouTube will challenge your right to use it and it may block your video.
However, there are new sites cropping up all of the time and there is a wide range of choices for music selections.
Stock music is available for a fee and there a many sites that offer this service including:
There are many sites that also offer free music. There is generally a stipulation that requires that you honor the Creative Commons License and credit the creators.
Again, by the time you read this there may be many new sites.
Fair Use in News and Reviews
From the American Bar Association
Vol. 28No. 6
By Pierre Vudrag
Pierre Vudrag practices media and sports law in Southern California.
Fair use is a doctrine that is used to encourage criticism and commentary of copyrighted works. It is based on the concept that one should be free to use portions of copyrighted materials without asking permission from the copyright owner. It is an equitable principle that is frequently used as a defense by those sued for copyright infringement.
Determining fair use. To get a general sense of how fair use is applied, one must understand a set of fair use factors outlined in the lineage of case law dealing with copyright infringement. These factors are weighed in each case to determine whether a use qualifies as a fair use, often through varying court decisions with an expansive or restrictive meaning that could be open to interpretation. If a use is deemed not to be a fair use, then one would essentially be infringing on the rights of the copyright owner and may be liable for damages. Unfortunately, even if you strictly follow these factors and the copyright owner disagrees with your fair use interpretation, your dispute may have to be resolved through litigation or the payment of licensing fees.
Fair use in the general sense, with no hard-and-fast rules, is the use of copyrighted material without permission from the appropriate copyright owner for a limited and, as the courts deem, “transformative” purpose so as to comment on, criticize, or parody such copyrighted work. Specifically, the Supreme Court emphasized that the transformative nature of the use determines whether the material has been used to assist in the creation of something new, rather than merely copied verbatim into another work. In other words, one must ask: (1) has the material taken from the original work been transformed by adding new expression or meaning? and (2) was value added to the original, thereby creating new information, or new aesthetics, or new insights and understandings?
Generally, two categories are used when making a fair use—commentary or parody. Typically, when focusing on news and editorial reviews, one would look to the first category, commentary. When commenting on or critiquing a copyrighted work, fair use principles would allow one to reproduce some of the work to accomplish one’s intent.
Courts have generally used four factors in resolving fair use disputes, which are laid out in Section 107 of the Copyright Act: (1) the purpose and character of the use; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion taken; and (4) the effect of the use on the potential market.
The purpose and character of the use. The “purpose and character” factor is the determining factor in many fair use decisions, as it allows the court to take a subjective look into the potentially infringing party’s intentions behind the use. Particularly in cases involving news reports, footage, reviews, and sports highlights, this factor typically favors the party claiming fair use for various reasons.
The first thing that we need to know is that copyright protection does not protect factual information conveyed in the copyrighted work, meaning that publicizing the scores of a sporting event or other factual information such as injuries, retirement, and so forth is considered fair use and does not constitute copyright infringement. What helps to strengthen a fair use argument in a case not involving the use of mere factual information is the use of the copyrighted material for the purpose of legitimate news commentary. For example, when using a clip or photograph to report the results of a sporting event or other factual information, courts have regarded the use of copyrighted material as fair use when the use is (1) brief quotations only; (2) presented in a news report; and (3) presented in a newsreel or broadcast of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.
Nature of the copyrighted work—published or unpublished. The scope of fair use is narrower for unpublished works because an author has the right to control the first public appearance of his or her expression. Therefore, you have a stronger argument in favor of fair use if the material copied is from a published work rather than an unpublished work.
Amount and substantiality of the portion taken. A general misunderstanding of fair use application has led to the “seven-second rule,” which many clearance representatives follow. A brief use of footage may not be deemed fair use unless all fair use factors can be applied. But the amount of footage used is a key factor in determining if a use is not fair, as highlighted in a key 1977 court case. The Second Circuit found that a CBS affiliate’s use of a one-minute-and-15-second clip of a 72-minute Charlie Chaplin film was not a fair use when used in a news report about Chaplin’s death. The court deemed that the portions taken were “substantial” and part of the “heart” of the film. The court’s analysis may have been different if CBS had used only a limited portion of the footage to simply enhance its news commentary on Chaplin’s death. The Second Circuit’s ruling is a clear indication that this type of use will never be considered fair use.
Effect of the use on the potential market. One of the most important fair use factors is whether the use deprives the copyright owner of income or undermines a new or potential market for the copyrighted work. If a copyright owner feels that he or she has been deprived of income, this is likely to trigger a lawsuit. This is true even if you are not competing directly with the original work.
Does fair use apply? Although the four-factor test of Copyright Act Section 107 provides a firm foundation for understanding which uses are fair uses, courts have infamously favored different factors in different cases, resulting in very unpredictable outcomes. There is a sizable gray area in which fair use may or may not apply.
So how does a news organization invoke fair use while falling within the permitted guidelines established by case law and without invoking potential litigation? The simplest way is to get permission from the copyright holder, but this is not always possible given the fluidity and immediacy of news reporting. To invoke fair use when using noncleared third-party clips, the news organization should follow these guidelines: (1) make sure the use is for a legitimate news report; (2) only use the clip when reporting on a fairly recent news event (usually 24 to 48 hours); (3) make sure that the use is a brief use of the clip to underscore the reporting of the news; (4) make sure there is actual commentary or criticism by a news reporter or anchor of the action appearing in the clip (there has to be a “transformative use” of the copyrighted material); (5) if reporting on a sporting event, make sure the event has been concluded, meaning it may not be fair use if the game has not been completed; and (6) make sure the materials are used in a bona fide news program.
More Information about the Entertainment and Sports Industries Forum
This article is an abridged and edited version of one that originally appeared on page 1 of Entertainment and Sports Lawyer, Fall 2010 (28:3).
For more information or to obtain a copy of the periodical in which the full article appears, please call the ABA Service Center at 800/285-2221.
Periodicals:Entertainment and Sports Lawyer, a quarterly newsletter; Journal of International Media and Entertainment Law, a biannual journal.
CLE and Other Educational Programs: Forum Annual Meeting, October 13–15, 2011, New York, New York.
Follow the prompts at the top and enter your search.
You can skip down to the bottom where it says: usage rights. Click on the arrow and the following choices come up.
Choose: “free to use or share, even commercially”
If you plan to modify the image or graphic make sure that you choose: “free to use, share or modify, even commercially.”
You’ll then get a range of photos that you can use for free. But you must give credit to the creator.
If you use Bing once you choose the subject that you are searching, images will come up and the list of headings in the bar at the top of the images will include the word: License.
A drop-down menu provides the same choices that appear on Google Images.
Always choose a commercial license and if you plan to modify make sure that you choose the license that allows you to modify the image.
Music
Popular music generally requires the payment of royalties to the artists, composers, arrangers, producers and anyone else who had something to do with the production of those works.
Licensed Music and Music for a Fee
ASCAP and BMI provide licensing for music and it is possible to purchase the rights, or a license, to use something that fits the creative bill.
But in most cases, the cost is prohibitive unless you have a blanket license to use a certain amount of music.
If you use music in a video that you post on YouTube and the creator has not authorized the use, it is likely that YouTube will challenge your right to use it and it may block your video.
However, there are new sites cropping up all of the time and there is a wide range of choices for music selections.
Stock music is available for a fee and there a many sites that offer this service including:
There are many sites that also offer free music. There is generally a stipulation that requires that you honor the Creative Commons License and credit the creators.
NEW YORK, Sept 12 (Reuters) – BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, Sept 12 (Reuters) –
Put your byline underneath
by Chris Valentin
Quotation Marks
Periods, commas, question marks and exclamation points go inside the quotation marks.
Example:
Billy Collins stood in line to vote and looked up when someone asked why he came out to vote early, “I haven’t voted in 30 years and now I’m here.” he said.
Use a comma before the quotation.
Example:
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell warned residents about the dangerous hurricane heading their way. She said, “This is not a drill.”
The first letter of the first word in a quote is capitalized.
Example:
N.B.A. star LeBron James and other prominent black athletes and entertainers started a group aimed at protecting African American voting rights and encouraging people to vote.
“Yes, we want you to go out and vote, but we’re also going to give you the tutorial,” Mr. James said. “We’re going to give you the background of how to vote and what they’re trying to do, the other side, to stop you from voting.”
Write out percent.
Put Links Under Facts or for Attribution.
Example:
It is difficult to tease apart the reasons that the virus ebbs and flows in this way, and harder still to predict the future.
But as winter looms, there are real reasons for optimism.Nearly 70 percent of adults are fully vaccinated, and many children under 12 are likely to be eligible for their shots in a matter of weeks. Federal regulators could soon authorize the first antiviral pill for Covid-19.
“We are definitely, without a doubt, hands-down in a better place this year than we were last year,” said Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research at Boston University.
Attribution
A 14-year-old boy was grazed in the head Thursday by a bullet as he stepped off an MTA bus in Harlem, officials said.
The teen was exiting the M1 bus on E. 139th St. near Fifth Ave. when shots rang out just before 10 a.m., cops said.
Dashes Between Words
Compound words use dashes when the two words used together and express a specific concept. Often they are adjectives before the noun they describe.
Example:
The hard-hit neighborhood in Brooklyn hopes to find an investor.
It became cost-effective to shop at the neighborhood grocery story.
Quinceañera is a coming-of-age celebration.
Use hyphens to separate the numbers and words if the phrase is an adjective.
Dawn is 17-years-old.
The girl was 17
Exercise:
Kyrie Irving has finally opened up to the public about his future in the league and why he’s not vaccinated.
In an Instagram Live, Irving disclosed not only did he have no plans to retire from the game, but also that his vaccination status has nothing to do with the Nets or the
Punctuate: Don’t believe I’m retiring, don’t believe I’m gonna give up this game for a vaccine mandate the Nets star said Wednesday night All these people saying all these things about what’s going on with me and it’s just not true.
Punctuate:
I certainly think in a lot of instances we’ve gotta be a phasing out these zoos — definitely the circuses and the rodeos and all that because of the barbaric behavior, the inhumane behavior towards the animals he said. Eventually we’re going to have to start phasing out zoos, or at least some of the animals that are housed in zoos
Sliwa, who’s facing Democratic nominee Eric Adams and is considered a long shot in the race, conceded he’s not an expert on the subject, but added that he’d look at the issue on a “case-by-case” basis if elected mayor.
Write your slug- the shorthand for your story at the top.
Put your name and your contact information underneath.
Give us a working title for your story.
Then put your byline, by Alpha Romeo.
Write all your copy flush left.
Leave two spaces between paragraphs.
Spell out numbers one through nine. Use numerics for 10 and up.
Write percent instead of %.
COVID is all caps. We follow the AP style.
Give us a dateline rather than inserting a date at the top of your story.
Dateline: Here’s what the AP says about datelines:
Datelines should convey the spirit of the reporting; they are not restricted to cities and towns. Census-designated places, townships, parks, counties, or datelines such as ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE or ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER may be used if appropriate. But do not designate neighborhoods or other places within a better-known jurisdiction as the dateline. For instance, NEW YORK should be the dateline, not BROOKLYN or CENTRAL PARK.For bylined stories, a reporter must be reporting from the dateline on the story. When there are multiple bylines, at least one reporter must have been at the scene, and a note at the end of the story should explain the locations of all bylined reporters. If the story has no dateline, no note is needed at the end of the story explaining the reporters’ locations.
8. How to write a dateline:
Datelines on stories should contain a place name, entirely in capital letters, followed in most cases by the name of the state, country or territory where the city is located.DOMESTIC DATELINES: A list of domestic cities that stand alone in datelines:
QUEENS, September 3, 2021
NEW YORK, September 23, 2021
ROCKLAND COUNTY, September 23, 2021
Stories from all other U.S. cities should have both the city and state name in the dateline, including KANSAS CITY, Mo., and KANSAS CITY, Kan.
All kinds of stories make a good report. But some will pan out and others won’t. We all bring personal history, individual interests and perspective to the job of reporting. You can bet that if you’re curious about something, others will find it interesting too. Once you have a story in your sights, just remember that as journalists we temper what we bring to the table with a strong measure of objectivity, and an even stronger dose of fairness.
Define A Good Story So how do you define a good story? Think about your day and the challenges that you have. Think about your friends and family and how the commute to school or work affects them, what’s happening in their neighborhoods. How do they juggle kids and work, or kids and school? What does the drama in Washington, and President Trump’s tweets have to with them? You can turn anything into a story. But the best stories have: • A little drama • A little conflict • Pure joy • Surprising new facts • Need-to-know information • Entertainment value The stories don’t have to extend beyond your college or community to have meaning and impact. But remember you approach the world as a video storyteller now and that means that the stories require interesting video. 1. DRAMA: A father races into his family’s burning home to save his children. He dashes through the flames again and again and brings five children out to safety. But neither he nor the firefighters can save the sixth child who is asleep in a room at the back of the house. Although it is grim, it is a true story and breaking news reporters find themselves covering a version of this tragedy again and again. 2. CONFLICT: A community garden is set for demolition to make way for an athletic field. The gardeners and their plants provide a beautiful visual for video, and the conflict is clear. People want to continue to garden and people want to stop them in order to use the land for another, equally valid, purpose. 3. JOY: A young ballerina from your community wins a competition and lands a job with a prestigious ballet company. The debut of rare Siberian tiger cubs at a local zoo also falls into this category. Some stories bring smiles to the faces of your viewers and offer opportunities for creative shooting, writing and editing. 4. NEW INFORMATION: A doctor tries a new medical procedure in which he uses stem cells harvested from fat. He says that injecting one’s own stem cells into arthritic joints can ease pain and improve movement. 5. NEED TO KNOW INFORMATION: The city council considers a sales tax hike. There’s a meeting where politicians, merchants and consumers will testify. A timetable and the items covered by the tax will be revealed. 6. ENTERTAINING INFORMATION: Beyoncé comes to your community to film music video. You have the opportunity to visit the set and report the story. In this category you’d also include fashion, new restaurant openings, or lifestyle segments that highlight new trends.
Enterprise
Some reporters like to come up with their stories and that’s called enterprise reporting. You might have a lead on an unreported element in breaking news, discover the cutest puppy in the neighborhood, get an exclusive interview with an interesting character, learn from a source about a Ponzi schemer or discover a contractor ripping off homeowners.
Unique Reporting News directors value enterprise reporting because it produces unique reporting that they can promote. Original reporting gives an organization bragging rights and allows them to draw in viewers with the promise that they’ll see something special that the competition doesn’t have. Any reporter can produce enterprise work, but covering a specific beat or area means you can develop the sources and knowledge that tend to trigger new story ideas. Investigative, consumer, political, medical, business, entertainment, environmental, life-style, and technology reporters typically generate enterprise stories. The list expands or contracts depending upon the size of the newsroom. But people with wide-ranging interests and curiosity have tremendous opportunities. You can report about virtually anything, if you come up with the story.
Competition Competition plays a big role in newsrooms. While producing a news broadcast requires that you work hand in hand with colleagues, and you have to play nice in order to retain your job and succeed, people vie for the best stories and the stories that lead the newscast. General assignment reporters, those who do the important breaking and daily news stories, often view “specialist” reporters suspiciously by daily news reporters. “What makes them so special? Why do THEY get extra time,” the rank-and file reporters often grumble. Enterprise Reporters But while enterprise reporters have the opportunity to take control of their daily destiny, they frequently work longer hours to dig deeper than the reporters who pick up an assignment and bolt to“run and gun” to cover a breaking news story. Enterprise reporters depend upon sources to tip them to news stories. The hardest working reporters have the best sources. They also have the curiosity to follow leads, ask questions and uncover stories, and the tenacity to work at those stories a long time.
Quick Turns You’ll turn some stories around quickly. Others stories will take weeks or even months of research and shooting and editing and writing before they’re ready. But if you realize th importance of face-time on the air, you’ll juggle. You’ll produce other stories that can get you on the air or on the web quickly while you’re working on your blockbuster.
Think about the atmosphere, what you heard and how other people reacted.
What was the most important point made. Lead with that.
Make sure to give us the basics. You want to avoid giving us a list of items, but you want to cover all the bases and answer the questions:
Who
What
Where
When
Why
How
Make sure you spell names correctly and that you use titles. Titles are only capitalized when they precede the name of a person.
Here’s what the AP Stylebook says about titles:
titles In general, confine capitalization to formal titles used directly before an individual’s name. The basic guidelines: LOWERCASE: Lowercase and spell out titles when they are not used with an [more…] Chapter T ; Updated on Aug 27, 2018
capitalization In general, avoid unnecessary capitals. Use a capital letter only if you can justify it by one of the principles listed here. Many words and phrases, including special cases, are listed [more…] Chapter C ; Updated on May 21, 2002
titles Capitalize or use lowercase according to guidelines in titles in Stylebook’s main section. Job descriptions, field positions and informal titles are lowercase: coach John Calipari; forward Alex [more…] Chapter Sports Guidelines ; Created on Feb 03, 2015
legislative titles FIRST-REFERENCE FORM: Use Rep., Reps., Sen. and Sens. as formal titles before one or more names. Spell out and lowercase representative and senator in other uses. Spell out other [more…] Chapter L ; Updated on May 01, 2020
nobility References to members of the nobility in nations that have a system of rank present special problems because nobles frequently are known by their titles rather than their given or family [more…] Chapter N
religious titles The first reference to a clergyman or clergywoman normally should include a capitalized title before the individual’s name. In many cases, the Rev. is the designation that applies [more…] Chapter R
religious titles The first reference to a clergyman or clergywoman normally should include a capitalized title before the individual’s name. In many cases, the Rev. is the designation that applies [more…] Chapter Religion Guidelines
academic titles Capitalize and spell out formal titles such as chancellor, chair, etc., when they precede a name. Lowercase elsewhere. Lowercase modifiers such as department in department Chair Jerome [more…] Chapter A ; Updated on May 01, 2020
preacher A job description, not a formal religious title. Do not capitalize. See titles and religious titles. Chapter Religion Guidelines
military titles Capitalize a military rank when used as a formal title before an individual’s name. See the lists that follow to determine whether the title should be spelled out or abbreviated in [more…] Chapter M
minister It is not a formal title in most religions, with exceptions such as the Nation of Islam, and is not capitalized. Where it is a formal title, it should be capitalized before the name: Minister [more…] Chapter M ; Updated on May 29, 2002
minister It is not a formal title in most religions, with exceptions such as the Nation of Islam, and is not capitalized. Where it is a formal title, it should be capitalized before the name: [more…] Chapter Religion Guidelines ; Updated on May 29, 2002
recipe titles Recipe titles that appear in stories or regular text are not capitalized (unless the recipe title includes proper nouns). Recipe titles at the top of actual recipes are written in all [more…] Chapter Food Guidelines ; Created on Jan 15, 2016
editor Capitalize editor before a name only when it is an official corporate or organizational title. Do not capitalize as a job description. See titles. Chapter E
composition titles Apply these guidelines to the titles of books, movies, plays, poems, albums, songs, operas, radio and television programs, lectures, speeches, and works of art: — Capitalize all [more…] Chapter C ; Updated on Feb 02, 2018
Roman Catholic Church The church teaches that its bishops have been established as the successors of the apostles through generations of ceremonies in which authority was passed down by a laying-on of [more…] Chapter Religion Guidelines ; Updated on May 01, 2002
shah Capitalize when used as a title before a name: Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran. The Shah of Iran commonly is known only by this title, which is, in effect, an alternate name. Capitalize Shah of [more…] Chapter S Load More
