As part of News Literacy Week, we're showing you the process of how an idea becomes a story at WPTV Newschannel 5.
Due to Covid-19, meetings are held on Zoom rather than in the newsroom conference room.
First, a morning zoom meeting is led by our dayside executive producer, Andy Delancey. Our managers listen to the “story pitch”.
That might be a news tip within your community that we’ve fact checked. At this point, we talk about getting all sides of the story.
For this story we follow reporter Matt Sczesney. He's suggesting a story about the expectations for business owners and baseball spring training.
With the story approved, it’s time to team up with a photographer, who will gather the video for the story. Once that's complete, he sets up interviews for the report.
Matt’s groundwork leads him to interviewing the owner of Jumby Bay Island Grill in Jupiter in-person, right down the street from where spring training takes place. Also, he interviews a representative from the Palm Beach County Sports Commission on Zoom.
Now, the writing process starts.
“I’m pulling out quotes that will probably be used in the story or at least online,” said Sczesney.
Online is where WPTV web director Adrienne Stein steers the conversation for this story.
“If we could get a soundbite like that and use that on social. You know, send in a few lines,” said Stein.
Matt could post to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, plus write a full story for WPTV.com
Matt then gets his story approved back at the station. Delancey must approve what’s said in his story, and possibly show the story to other managers to get even more eyes on it to ensure we’ve represented our community fairly.
Then the story is off to be edited by the photographer teamed up with Matt. Her name is Brittany and she makes sure the story is edited under deadline.
Eventually, roughly 8 hours after the process started, it’s showtime. Matt’s story airs, it’s online and we’ve now showed you how a story is pitched and reported here at WPTV.