Reacting to Breaking News in the Internet Era: Producing the Second-day Story on the First Day

Panelists: Justine Gubar, ESPN “Outside the Lines” producer; Rachel Wilner, San Jose Mercury News sports editor
Moderator: Rachel Bachman, Oregonian sports enterprise reporter

By Krysten Oliphant
2007 AWSM intern at The Detroit News

In the Internet age of streaming video and instant updates, newspapers face the daunting task of presenting new information in a second-day format.

With fan blogs and shows like ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” readers often know a lot about a topic before the morning newspaper lands on their doorstep, San Jose Mercury News sports editor Rachel Wilner said, so newspapers must do something to stand out.

“I think the best way to do that for newspapers is to make it our mission to tell readers something they don’t know,” Wilner said. “Reporting is the key to that. There are no more easy stories. There’s no more ‘I’ll just call three sources and bang out this news story.’ You have to go beyond that.”

Wilner said there are two types of breaking news: the kind reporters can prepare for and the kind they cannot. She said when reporters know news is coming, it is especially important to come up with information no one knows.

Rachel Bachman, sports enterprise reporter for The Oregonian, discussed a story written about a new academic center for student-athletes being built on the University of Oregon’s Eugene campus. Instead of covering it as a straight-news story, The Oregonian focused on the national trend of academic centers as the “jewel in the crown” of athletic facilities.

ESPN “Outside the Lines” producer Justine Gubar said her show faces a different struggle in that it usually focuses on more in-depth stories but still must address breaking news as it happens.

“What we excel at is re-purposing our material,” Gubar said. “When something breaks, we are able to reach into our archives and access materials that have been gathered for years and years and years.”

Gubar showed a segment aired during the firing of radio personality Don Imus by CBS for comments made about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team. It focused on past personalities who were fired over unsavory comments.

“Of course there are pitfalls in trying to produce the second-day story on the first day,” Gubar said. “We try to caution ourselves not to rush to air just because something is out there. Don’t succumb to the lure of speed.”

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