Don Kobos started his local television news career at WGHP 8 High Point, North Carolina in 1974.
When Kobos retired in 2014, he had served 40 years total in the TV news biz, three decades off them at abc13 KTRK Houston as a reporter and then assistant news director.
Today, Kobos is guest blogging on mikemcguff.com with his op-ed on today's ever-changing local TV world and his advice to get back to the basics of journalism.
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Here is Don Kobos:
The Changing World of Local Television News—Why Not Back to Basics?
Since retiring from local television news after 40 years as a reporter and newsroom manager, I occasionally watch some of Houston’s television news broadcasts. What I’ve discovered has surprised and disappointed me.
Local television news is no different than any communications business. Continued advances in technology result in constant change. I've experienced this throughout my career. When I started in the mid 70s, the tools of our trade were a pen and paper, a microphone, a bulky film camera, and a reporter with the curiosity to get all the facts, which meant both sides of an issue. Then using the pictures shot by a photographer and limited audio quotes or natural sound, the reporter would write and present the story.
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| Don Kobos at WGHP 8 |
Granted every few years the tools for gathering that information and stories changed. Most changes improved the reporter/photographer team's ability to get stories on the air faster and easier. In my case, in the mid 70s big bulky film cameras became smaller, lighter film cameras.
A few years later video tape cameras were the revolutionary discovery. Then microwave technology arrived, and reporters and photographers were suddenly miles away at a story scene broadcasting live and answering questions coming from the anchorman at the television station.
The next advancements included helicopters and satellite capabilities.
Then before the turn of the 21st century came cell phones and the Internet, and suddenly the information highway changed the world forever. You get the picture.
However, instead of adding staff to feed the increase in live TV and online news programs, television stations started using the new technology by shrinking staff.
TV news operations started hiring “modern-day reporters,” usually less experienced in larger TV markets like Houston and also eliminating live news programs. Instead of including as much key information in the television news stories, most news operations started placing “the rest of the story” on their Internet sites. The move was done to encourage viewers to pick up their computers, iPads, or cell phones—the more digital readers, the higher advertising revenues.
The question I ask—how many TV viewers stop during or when the newscast is over and pick up their iPads or cell phones to read the other portion of a news story that is withheld from what they are currently watching on their TVs?
While it may appear beneficial to the consumer of news programs, in my opinion, this current trend has done more harm than good to the coverage and accuracy of local news.
How?
First, the search for experienced reporters and anchors these days is driven by the almighty dollar as it was when I was a news manager. News directors are being pushed by their bosses to find less expensive “multi-skilled” talent to deliver local news. Less expensive usually means less experienced news talent.
For example, in the ’80s until the early 2000s, TV reporters wanting a job in Houston, the nation’s 8th largest TV market, came with a resume of at least five to eight years. Starting annual salaries in the 90s were between $65,000 and $73,000. However, in the mid to late 2000s, reporters from smaller TV markets and with only two to four years’ experience were being hired with starting salaries between $50,000 to $60,000 a year.
“Battle-tested news warriors,” such as Houston’s Dave Ward, Tom Koch, or Phil Archer, who spent more than 40 to 50 years reporting, interviewing, and delivering important news information every morning, noon, or night are gone.
What you’ll discover is a whole new roster of news presenters. New, young, unfamiliar faces and personalities with far less reporting experience but with more technological expertise. These multi-talented hires supposedly can do it all—report, shoot video, interview, write, edit, and present stories—four jobs done by one person.
But I ask myself, how accurate and comprehensive are they?
These days the lexicon, the vocabulary, the simple words that explain the tools “modern-day reporters” need to present news and important information confounds me. For example, here are a few descriptions I recently found in a local Houston television station “want ads” searching for what it called a “modern-day” reporter. Job descriptions included words and phrases such as “content and data strategy,” “modernized storytelling,” “train reporters on innovative technology and real time data analysis to underscore content decisions,” or “incorporate use of analytics to guide news content and the aggregation of community resources.”
What does this all mean? What are “modern-day reporters"?
Reporters who don’t wear ties and sports jackets anymore? Reporters who wear tee shirts, blue jeans, and sandals? Are they “information gatherers” who use Zoom and never leave the TV stations? Does “content and data strategy” really mean get the facts and decide where to place a story in a newscast or on its Internet site? Does it mean giving a reporter more than one minute and fifteen seconds needed for a fuller and more accurate explanation? And is "modernizing story telling” already here?
Are future television news programs going to be delivered by talking robots?
Amazon already has Alexa, that tiny invisible lady who speaks several languages and sits in that 12-inch-tall tube-shaped device in some living rooms or kitchens answering requests from family members. Or there’s also Google Home which carries out commands in similar fashion. Wait a minute, haven’t we already seen this “dog and pony” show before? Max Headroom! You might remember, if you are a certain age, the sensation that fictional artificial intelligence cartoon character created when he was introduced to the world in 1985.
I know by now some of you reading this essay are saying “Get with the times, you’re an antique and behind the times, let go of ‘old’ journalism, let the technology of the 21st century take over.”
Yes, Zoom or FaceTime interviews have become a necessity during these days of COVID-19. New technology has made it easier for TV reporters—and for that matter many businesses—to do their jobs without interacting with someone in person, face to face. However, I believe despite all the advances in technology, the best way to truly cover the news today— whether on television, radio, news websites, or in newspapers— is to view “buzz words” with caution and a critical eye.
Instead study the way news was covered in the past.
Any good reporter worth a grain of salt will tell you getting out of the newsroom with your “new tech toys” is the best way to get the story or get answers. That means like the “gumshoe" reporters or detectives of a bygone era, start knocking on people's doors at their offices, at their homes, at their jobs, at city hall, county commissioners court, or the state legislature. It means confronting elected officials or subjects of stories with tough questions that provide voters and viewers what they want and deserve—answers and solid objective reporting. It means taking the time to get all sides of a story. It means having face-to-face interactions to assess unspoken meaning and the atmosphere surrounding some stories, to give a truer “feel of the situation.” And just as importantly, it means forming relationships and building trust that can lead to more credibility of the reporter, quicker access to future stories, and more possible news sources stepping forward.
- Don Kobos
KTRK-ABC
Reporter 1982-2000
Assistant News Director 2000-2014
