Tip of the Week Archive

Catch Those Mistakes Before They Go On The Air

Posted January 29, 2019 by Bill Wheelhouse

This tip comes from NPR, but its good for commercial radio & TV as well.

Click here for the full article.

The NPR Training Site has six tips for catching your writing mistakes & and protecting your credibility.

The article linked above goes in-depth on these six tips with links to a variety of helpful sites including news checklists.  More  

Tips On Improving Your Coverage Of The Local Economy.

Posted January 22, 2019 by Bill Wheelhouse

Our Tip of the Week comes from The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University.

To cover a local or regional economy, you need to know what makes it tick. Find a few lists, or compile them on your own:

• Fortune 500 companies based in your area

• Other local publicly held companies

• The largest privately owned companies in your region

• The 10 largest employers in your locality.  More  

Tips On Interviewing Prisoners

Posted December 18, 2018 by Bill Wheelhouse

Journalist’s Resource is out with a tip sheet on interviewing white-collar prisoners. They come from Eugene Soltes who shared what he learned while doing research for Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal. Here are the bullet points on that article and a link to the full discussion that adds good context to these suggestions.  More  

Does Your Newsroom Need More Unity? Some Games That Might Help.

Posted December 11, 2018 by Bill Wheelhouse

And our Tip Of The Week

Whether you are a reporter or manager, you probably feel at times like your newsroom is rudderless and lacking a clear sense of direction.   It happens almost everywhere.  Goal setting and the  related discussions often help in these instances.    Maybe you would like to get the news staff on the same page.   More  

Tracking Big Layoffs In Your Region & Across Illinois

Posted December 4, 2018 by Bill Wheelhouse

During the the final month of the year, we are going through the archives of Tip Of The Week.  Here is one to check every month.

 

In our Tip Of The Week this time, a way to keep tabs on potential layoffs in your area.       More  

The Art Of Interviews-Closing Them

Posted November 27, 2018 by Bill Wheelhouse

Tip Of The Week has been a IBANewsroom feature since we launched in June.  Here was one of the early tips.

This week’s tip might seem basic, but it’s always important, as someone once said, “to be brilliant on the basics.” A good infielder takes a lot of ground balls in practice.  More  

Newswriting: The Dreaded Passive Voice

Posted November 13, 2018 by Bill Wheelhouse

Thanks to Ken Keller.  A good chunk of this article came from an INBA Tune In back in the 1990’s (based on the original article mentioning Governor Jim Edgar.)

With Mr. Keller writing about passive voice 20 years ago, we know this is a perennial problem in broadcast and now web writing.   More  

Journalists Make Sure You Monitor These Things Election Day!

Posted November 4, 2018 by Bill Wheelhouse

You’ve worked hard this election season. Our Tip Of The Week comes from the Journalists’ Resource web site.   Here are some some pointers on what you should keep an eye out for on election day.

 

Monitor these things on election days:

  • Long wait times (Is the wait longer than 30 minutes?
  •  More