Roller Coasters & Roller Derby...

Inflection points that leave a mark

In mathematics, an inflection point is the place on a curve at which a change in the direction of curvature occurs. In other words, where Up becomes Down or vice versa. In a business sense it’s simply a time of significant change; a turning point. Whenever I hear the term I can’t help but imagine a seaside Roller Coaster with it’s seemingly never-ending inflection points, both frightening and thrilling. I also, for some strange reason, flash on Roller Derby. Not the current good, clean, fun recreational version of the sport, but the WWE-style rock ‘em, sock ‘em, Saturday night TV event edition of the late 60’s. Want to see inflection points aplenty, check out vintage roller derby on YouTube. Anyway…

Personal Inflection Point #1

My very first job in television came as a total surprise. I was still in school, barely 20-years old, and couldn’t believe KFSN-TV, the powerhouse station in Fresno, California, was offering ME the all important job of Assignment Editor. Sure, by then I’d already worked a couple of years for a local news-paper, which I assumed was the draw, but wow! A management position right out of the gate? I was on my way! Ah, but how quickly things change. Just a few short months later, by now deep into soul searching as to why I had ever thought taking the position was a good idea, I learned the real story behind their choice of me - nobody else would take it. I mean…nobody. By the time they got to me on the list of candidates the choice was body in chair or nobody in chair, and even at that, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a unanimous decision.

In case you’re not familiar, an assignment editor is the person responsible for discovering the news of the day and then figuring out how to get it covered. In big market newsrooms there are usually multiple people attached to this function but, back then, at KFSN, there was me and a very capable administrative assistant named Bobby Gish. It was my responsibility to, literally, know everything going on in our viewing area. There was no margin for error. Missing a story that your competition or the local newspaper covered was a constant fear that haunted me every minute of every day I sat on the desk. I remember convincing myself that there was a sort of three strike rule. Miss one story and you were on the radar. Miss another and your boss would quietly start the search for your replacement. If, god-forbid, there was a third swing and miss you could bet there would be a summons to the boss’s office and you’d exit with a small box in hand for your personal belongings.

It was a lot of pressure for a greenhorn like me to handle and, sad to say, I didn’t always handle it with aplomb. Bobby, in case this finds you, let me just apologize one more time for everything you had to endure. The kicked garbage cans, all the pen and pencil projectiles you were forced to dodge - I swear you were never the target - and the all too frequent phone slamming accompanied with cursing that led to that permanent tick under your right eye. I am SO sorry about that. It was a tough time.

In truth, the offer came at a time when I would have accepted literally any position at the station just to get my foot in the door. I had just faced up to the reality that I was NOT going to play Major League Baseball - a childhood fantasy long on delusion and woefully short on real possibility - and had set my sights on a career in television as the next best thing. And, of course, who could resist the prospect of all that power and control. I would choose the news to cover. I would decide which reporter got assigned to the story. And, through that process, I would shape the perceived reality of tens of thousands of Fresnans each and every night - well, at least Monday through Friday - as I saw fit. The prospect, the sell, it was all so intoxicating…and this is where the phrases “bait & switch” and “false or misleading advertising” come to mind on the order of the worst of those drug commercials now so pervasive on television. You know, the ones that tout the miracle treatments and cures off the top only to spend 75% of their allotted air time listing all the ways the product may actually maim and/or kill.

“So, congratulations Mr. Cheatwood we would like to offer you our assignment editor’s position which means YOU will get to decide what our news team covers each day and what stories we present to the audience. Isn’t that exciting? It’s the chance, the job, of a lifetime! Now, really small thing, hardly worth mentioning, but I am required to also tell you that the job may lead to sleeplessness, migraine headaches, severe pain caused by ulcers, extreme tachycardia, angina, and high blood pressure. You may experience feelings of rage, isolation, depression, and a total loss of self-esteem simultaneously, and may be susceptible to lifelong psychotic reactions prompted by flashing red or blue lights. So, do we have a deal?”

Tools of the Trade…

In order to achieve some semblance of that “all knowing, all seeing” capability required to adequately cover the news of the day and keep my job, there were two primary tools of the trade. The telephone, of course, to make the regular beat checks with appropriate agencies, but even more important was the stack of police and fire scanners located on the corner of my desk. Those little black boxes spewed forth an endless stream of language in what’s known as police ten code - numerical designations for common events. If you’ve never had the pleasure of spending 8-10 hours listening to ten code, let me paint the picture. Think back to the TV show Adam-12, or any other police based drama for that matter, which prominently features the radio traffic of dispatchers as setups for the story. You remember…

”One Adam-12 see the woman…possible 211 in progress at 237 Melrose. One Adam-12 proceed code two. Copy?”

Translation: “Hey guys some woman called in and said there’s a robbery (211) going on now at 237 Melrose. It’s important you get there quickly (code 2) but lay off the lights and siren cause we don’t want the perp to know you’re coming. Capeche?”

It was a continuous stream of that sort of thing, only with 50% more static and about 80% less decipherable than the TV version. I learned the codes and listened intently for those select few transmissions that, when delivered, would bring an instant focus and a greatly elevated heart rate as I scrambled to get my crew to the scene of whatever before anyone else could.

I should point out that this was a time in our business when breaking news, no matter how small or insignificant in the grand order of things, was absolutely KING. Local news everywhere was chock-full of 11-79s and 11-71s - injury accidents and fires. We loved ‘em! Flashing lights, yellow police tape, so easy to cover, twisted metal, and flames…oh my god the flames. Always the first question asked of a crew that had been dispatched to an 11-71 - did you get flames? An answer in the affirmative would evoke a newsroom cheer and an instant re-stacking of the next show’s rundown. Flames…nobody could turn away from flames. Ratings Gold!

Those were simpler times that demanded far less, or at least, that’s how we imagined it. Back then, we were still a novelty of sorts able to engage and enamor in the way a fireworks show does on the 4th of July. We were the cherry flavored medicine that turned the dull and boring news into something pretty painless and even entertaining.

Change IS a Constant…

Friedrich Nietzsche famously once said “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”, and, although the line always struck me as a last resort response from a perpetually bullied kid, akin to “sticks and stones”, his words proved true in my case. I persevered. I stopped with the temper tantrums. I changed. I lived to tell about it. Likewise, journalism has been through a number of important inflection points prompted by changing technology and consumer demands, and I’d like to think, by a growing maturity and sense of responsibility which has led to, at least in part, a transition from side show to essential lifeline. Gone are the scanners in newsrooms, the police ten codes, and, for the most part, an overreliance on cheap, meaningless breaking news - for the most part. What lays ahead, however, may be a change on an order never seen before. A shift that will be revolutionary, not evolutionary. So much more than just a denouncement of the old If it Bleeds it Leads* mindset, the hackneyed Ken & Barbie behind a desk motif, and the misguided belief that people will still actually tune in to newscasts at 6 & 11pm. Make no mistake, I’m talking a total tear down, refocus, and rebuild.

We’re Simply Not Qualified…

Two reports this past week seem to suggest the same. The first one is entitled - Review of the Impartiality of BBC Coverage of Taxation, Public Spending, Government Borrowing and Debt. Not kidding. I honestly can’t imagine anyone reading it voluntarily…not at all sure why I did. In short, the report is an examination of the BBC’s impartiality or lack of bias in its reporting on all those things listed in the world’s worst title. The good news is that the 50-page review found no systemic political bias in the reporting. What it did find, however, was much more of an indictment against the current state of journalism, at least in my opinion. The researchers found that the BBC’s reporters simply didn’t know enough about economics to effectively report on them, which created a bias all its own.

“We think too many journalists lack understanding of basic economics or lack confidence reporting it. This brings a high risk to impartiality. In the period of this review, it particularly affected debt. Some journalists seem to feel instinctively that debt is simply bad, full stop, and don’t appear to realize this can be contested and contestable.” Review of the Impartiality of BBC Report

This provides a broadly applicable cautionary tale. Too often reporters and producers are asked to make sense of stories and issues that would normally require an advanced degree to even contemplate. They do the best they can based on the knowledge they have, which is many times, woefully incomplete, producing an unintentional yet potentially damaging bias. Two things come to mind: How can we not have continuing education for all those involved in the editorial process by people who DO have the knowledge necessary to fully understand the complexities? And, where’s the dedication by news organizations to make sure they get it complete - and completely right - before putting a story out for public consumption? I hate to say this, but without the safety net of newspapers in most communities who for decades provided necessary depth and context on complicated stories, responsibility and accountability has to be dialed up MASSIVELY. Today, there’s no such thing as a “newspaper story”, which was another phrase, by the way, I picked up working the assignment desk that meant “too complicated for TV.”

By design, journalism, especially on the electronic side, has been a business for generalists who know a little about a lot. That needs to change. There’s too much at stake and, for the most part, the safety net of newspapers providing the details and context no longer exists.

The Coming Inflection? It’s a Doozy!

The second report I read this past week - The Roadmap for Local News (a better title than the other but still incredibly understated based on what lies within) - is even more radical and will, I guarantee, raise the hackles of a whole lot of you out there. It involves the notion of a new, civic brand of journalism and a cooperative civic media, overall, in place of the current legacy news organizations, which the report authors declare “is currently—and intractably - in decline.” It endorses a broad cooperative partnership between news organizations, governmental bodies, philanthropists, and most importantly, the population of the community served.

“The opportunity now is to shepherd and accelerate a transition
to an emergent civic media system. This new ecosystem looks
different from what it will replace: while the commercial market
rewarded information monopolies, what is emerging now are pluralistic
networks in which information is fluid, services are shared, and media
is made in cooperation with the people it seeks to serve.” Roadmap for Local News

In a nutshell, the report maintains that legacy media can no longer operate in its vacuum of independence and effectively meet the needs of its constituency. The authors don’t see it as an abandonment of traditional journalistic principles, just an expansion, an opening of the doors and an invitation for all to participate.

“This practice, which we call civic media, carries forward the most valuable traditions of American broadcast and newspaper journalism by dedicating itself to informing the public, elevating voices, and impacting public policy and the processes of self-government. But it also builds on that legacy by transforming who produces journalism and how they produce it, expanding journalism’s forms, and sharpening the definition of what it is for.” Roadmap for Local News

The report cites a few examples of civic media already in action around the country ranging from public office hours and pop-up newsrooms set up in public libraries by news organizations, to coverage of a first-year mayor with reporting guided by on-going solicitation of questions, concerns, and feedback from the public. You might call it messy and complicated. I call it refreshingly immersive.

An Old Bread Truck & A New Idea…

For me, a great example of this kind of journalistic approach came in 2016 when public radio station WUOT in Knoxville, Tennessee launched a community campaign called

They bought an old bread truck and went around the neighborhoods posing the question and getting people to write the answer on post-it notes, which became a huge visual part of the campaign. They held town halls, they probed the most frequent responses and worked to empower people with information that might help address their specific concerns. They fully engaged and made their news coverage a truly cooperative undertaking fueled - first and foremost - by the community. Loved it, and truth be told, tried to steal it several times on behalf of television stations I was working with to no avail. That sort of community engagement, sadly, is foreign to most in the legacy media business. I might as well have tried teaching Greek or Latin - I would have, no doubt, been much more successful.

The U.S. media is actually pretty unique in its disdain of this sort of cooperative journalism. The notion always prompts concerns of contamination, a loss of editorial freedom and the ability to hold the powerful accountable. Ironically, I was having this very conversation with a friend a few days before reading The Roadmap for Local News. He’s a consultant for the European Broadcast Union. We were talking about how different things are in Europe where there’s a preponderance of state sponsored news organizations. We both agreed, given the current state of the givens, that this country might never allow the widespread adoption of anything remotely similar. Imagine the UPROAR! And yet, I must say, I think the Civil Media idea has merit. A lot of merit. And, I don’t believe Civil Media organizations have assignment desks, so that’s a positive right there. Sorry, but it left a mark. I also think it doesn’t have to be the bastion of non-profit upstarts but, instead, could be adopted as a priority direction for our legacy media organizations so badly in need of their own lifeline for relevance and survival.

In the End…

Inflection points come in one of two ways: They hit you like the stomach turning drop of a Roller Coaster while your eyes are closed, or they’re spotted on the horizon by those who know their arrival is both natural and inevitable. One way is obviously better than the other. My advice, as per usual, is take it all in and, for at least a few moments each day, allow yourself to consider all options - the sane, zany, and even the distasteful - and welcome the future with eyes wide open. Be bold. Take the challenge, cause here’s the rotten little secret, the job is yours because nobody else will take it.

*Please forgive a very quick digression here but I really do need to get this off my chest. Way up there somewhere I used the phrase “If it Bleeds it Leads,” which I am often credited with creating. I most definitely did not coin that awful phrase. I can’t tell you how many times total strangers and even acquaintances have led conversations with…”oh you’re the guy who said…” I really didn’t. It predates even me. I believe, and I hope I’m not falsely accusing here, that distinction belongs to Pete Jacobus, then news director at KGO-TV in San Francisco. If that name sounds familiar, it was Pete’s crew in 1974 that infamously made their own headlines when they led a newscast with a severed penis found on the railroad tracks of a Bay Area train yard. The promos were legendary. In fact, according to a 60 Minutes story on tabloid journalism that same year, 55 percent of KGO’s news broadcasts were comprised of “fire, crime, sex, accidents, tearjerkers, and exorcism stories.” Crazy as that sounds, KGO was not alone. Newsrooms across the country pursued the same “formula”, because it worked. Oh, and to bring today’s missive full circle, I might add they were, no doubt, aided by eager young assignment editors living and dying by the Big Story of each and every day.

Change IS good.