By Samuel Siringi
Bureau Chief, The Daily Nation
Eldoret, Kenya
Hosted by The Kansas City Star

I have learned many new skills and values and had many enlightening experiences during my Alfred Friendly Press Fellowship. But for purposes of this essay, I discuss two of the key skills that I plan to share with colleagues in my home newsroom.

Multimedia story-telling
Adoption of the multimedia concept, story telling across various platforms, is a practice that is taking root in American newsrooms. Over time, there has been a migration of readers from the print media (newspapers and magazines) to the new media, mainly the web. This has also occasioned an exodus of advertisers to the web media. To remain afloat, newsrooms are now asking reporters to start telling their stories across all the possible platforms, leading to the establishment of the now popular multimedia sections. Under this arrangement, some reporters write for the newspaper while they shoot video for the web editions. As Chip Scanlan, a teacher at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, “Journalists must master new ways to gather, distill and present news across the spectrum of print, broadcast and online media. Print media journalists can no longer stick to use of notebooks to tell their stories. Rather, they must learn how to use cameras, audio and video recorders and to edit it for posting on the web.”

The new media concept is one that my home newsroom is eager to implement, if only to ensure it remains competitive while keeping all its customers. I, therefore, took special attention in learning how to work with the video camera – shooting, editing and publishing.

During my stay in The Kansas City Star newsroom, I spent time in the multimedia section, where I attended daily planning meetings and shadowed one of the reporters, Dave Heling, to assignments. I also attended three seminars/workshops on multimedia training, which enabled me to appreciate the new story-telling platforms. One of them was the Keystone Multimedia Workshop in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania while the other two, Introduction to Essential Media and Multimedia Storytelling and Mastering the Machines were offered at the Chicago UNITY Convention, 2008.

I do not envisage any problems in sharing my experiences on multimedia reporting with my professional colleagues. In fact, Nation Media Group, early this year, created a whole new division of digital media and is seeking to adopt the idea of multimedia convergence in full.

The company’s determination to encourage reporters to walk the path of multimedia was underlined recently by a response I got from the group’s training editor, Dr. Peter Mwesige. Responding to my proposal that I wished to start posting video clip news on the Daily Nation website, Mwesige asked me: “Can we start now?” Being one of the top editorial managers, his answer was a clear indication that the newsroom was receptive to the idea. Of course, there are some reporters who, having reported for only one medium for their entire professional life, could be reluctant to embrace multimedia reporting. Yet, this is an idea whose time has come. The measure of success for this plan would be the number of video clips appearing on the Daily Nation online edition after I return home.

Coaching of reporters
A reporter’s ability to churn out a complete, fair and accurate story, I learned, largely depends on the coaching ability of his assigning editor(s). As an editor, it is essential to lead a reporter through the process of a story-writing assignment – by being a trusted listener and creating good rapport.

At the Poynter Institute, I found two teachers – Chip Scanlan (senior faculty) and Keith Woods (dean of faculty) - who proved to me that, indeed, writing is the byproduct of a rational series of editorial decisions. Scanlan educated me that an assigning editor can help a writer to find focus in copy by asking five tough questions about a suggested story idea: Why does it matter? What’s the point? Why is the story being told? What does it say about life, the world and the times we live in? What is the story really about? These questions, once correctly answered by a reporter, help find focus for a story and eliminate unnecessary ideas from a writer’s notes.

When I informed Woods that I needed to coach and improve the writing skills of reporters with whom I would work, he became more specific. He advised me to first identify specific weaknesses of individual reporters then tackle each of their individual weaknesses, one at a time, while ensuring that subsequent stories by the writers do not have the same errors. For example, I could start by working with a reporter who has a problem getting his leads right. After the writer masters the lead-writing skill, I can then start coaching him/her on how to write better nut graphs.

At The Star, I had an opportunity to work with two fantastic editors who reinforced the coaching skills learned at The Poynter Institute. A case in point was a story I wrote about a Kenyan woman, which was eventually published on the front page of the features section (FYI). My assigning editor was Keith Robinson, the deputy features editor. The subject of the story, Rosemary Bichage, had been horribly injured in the 1998 United States Embassy bombing in Kenya. She lost a leg while many of her body parts were seriously deformed.

After coming up with the idea, I thought the story was rather straightforward. I was stunned that we had to hold three meetings before it was ready for publication. In the first, Robinson helped me to identify the possible news sources to be interviewed, their telephone numbers and questions to ask them. We also discussed how to access background information from the internet and in-house search engine, Merlin. After conducting the interviews, we held another debriefing meeting before I could write a draft. Lastly, we met and discussed the draft’s focus, transitioning and final quotes that I needed to get from interviewees.

Through this process, I learned that a good rapport with the assigning editor would reduce the frustration copy editors have in dealing with stories that are either incomplete or inaccurate. In my home newsroom, stories are sometimes “killed” by the chief copy editor because of issues such as lack of accuracy, balance and freedom from libel.

Without a doubt, suggestions for better coaching would be well received in my home newsroom. First, I have an opportunity to “show by example” by implementing the coaching approach myself. Secondly, this is a concept that my editors should eagerly accept given that it would lead to better and reliable copy getting into the hands of copy editors. It would be most effective if the assigning editor(s) spent more time helping reporters find focus, right transitioning and logical flow in copy.

Another way through which I would share my experiences would be through teaching at the Nation Media Lab, an in-house training school for potential recruits. The trainees would likely embrace my teaching given their desire to learn. I am returning home with books and reading materials that will be distributed.

In addition, between September 15 and December 15, I will hold at least four training workshops. In the first month, I plan to hold one workshop in Eldoret and another in Kisumu city, for invited writers from the region. Those from competing news organizations will also be invited, resulting in a wider reach. Fortunately, Kansas City Star Education Writer Mara Rose Williams will be in Kenya from September 15 to October 12 to help bolster my teaching. At the other workshops, I will invite former Alfred Friendly Fellows who are based in Nairobi.

Finally, I will compile a report highlighting my experiences during the period of the fellowship. The report would contain analyses of the best practices that I learnt from my fellowship in the United States.

All in all, my experience in the United States, at a time in which the media is undergoing a period of great change, in which old-hand journalists are literally being pushed out of newsrooms, was an eye-opener, to say the least.