Al's Morning Meeting

The Dart Center Web site has collected some valuable contributions from journalists who have covered shootings like this one in years past. Journalists note that often the stories that emerge quickly from such events turn out to be wrong.

For example, it was widely reported, and is still believed by some, that the Columbine shooters were targeting "jocks." The evidence, freelance reporter David Cullen says, just does not pan out.

Cullen says we will never get the media to stop speculating about Cho's profile completely, but there are responsible ways to channel it. Studies of previous school shootings list several common characteristics of attackers: 95 percent were current students, 73 percent felt threatened and/or bullied, and 100 percent were male.

Steven Gorelick, professor of media studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York, tells Dart:

Be very careful about the experts you select as sources. These kinds of high-profile stories are magnets for everyone from legitimate scholars and practitioners to self-proclaimed "profilers."

Serious experts are almost always quick to admit that there is no easy explanation for why and how something happened, especially before even the most basic information is released. Beware of the expert source who is just dying to be helpful. And perk up your ears when someone tells you: "I really need to get more information before I have anything useful to say."

Scott North, reporter and assistant city editor for The Herald (Everett, Wash.), adds:

In the race to get it first, don't forget the long view. It often helps to think less about gathering fact and more about creating relationships. Some of the best stories won't be told for days, weeks, months or, in some cases, years.

People in grief have long memories. You will want to be able to return to these people when they are ready to tell you what they've learned, not just what they know. The golden rule can't hurt you here. Approach people the way you'd want to be approached. Give them the respect and space you'd expect in the same situation.

If they talk with you, make this promise: No surprises. Read the quotes they've supplied back to them. Summarize how you may use the information. Make sure they have your contact information, and make sure you have theirs. The point is to start a conversation, and to continue it as time passes.

10 Myths About School Shootings

In his latest piece for MSNBC, Bill Dedman goes back to a 2002 study by the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education. The researchers studied case files and other primary sources for 37 attacks by current or former students, and also interviewed 10 of the perpetrators.

Among the 10 things Dedman reports:

• There really is no solid profile that applies to school shooters.

• Incidents like the Virginia Tech shooting rarely involve people "just snapping." They are preceded by a long period of planning.

• As we are seeing in the Virginia Tech story, other people noticed the person's behavior long before the attack. That is common in most cases of school shooters.

• Most attackers do no threaten others beforehand, and those who do threaten usually don't attack.

• Attackers are not all loners. In many cases of the past, attackers were active in school sports and such.

• Only one-third of previous attackers studied had a history of diagnosed mental illness.

• Most attackers had ready access to weapons.

• Many attackers left evidence of a long-held feeling of having been bullied or persecuted.

IRE's Resources for Covering What's Next

The Investigative Reporters and Editors' Web site provides great resources for journalists who want to go beyond the obvious to deeper stories surrounding the Virginia Tech shootings. It includes links to databases from The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR). The NICAR databases are very affordable (priced by market size) and are so valuable to have in your library when big news breaks.

Stories From the Front Lines

This week, I have conducted some interviews with journalists who are covering and coordinating coverage for the Virginia Tech shooting story. My hope is that by reading these interviews, you will be more prepared when big news comes to your town.

Here is an (edited) interview I did with Matt Tansey of WSLS-TV Roanoke, 11 p.m., special projects, investigative producer:

1.) What has surprised you most about your station's coverage of this story?

For me, it's the amount of positive feedback we've received from viewers about the compassionate and personal way our viewers perceive that we are covering this horrific event. In my mind, we are not covering this tragedy in a way different from how we have covered major car crashes, weather-damage stories, etc. We normally cover these events with what some would perceive as a more compassionate approach. The story is not the blood spilled, it's about the lives affected.

On a content scale, we are putting out a lot more than we are normally capable of doing. We live streamed newscasts, our wall-to-wall coverage Monday, ceremonies, and a special show we put on at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday night on the Internet, and simulcast much of Monday's work on our radio partners. This is due to the tremendous convergence effort of Media General affiliates/Web teams/newspaper partners, as well as working with our NBC Newschannel regional producer, who flew in from a conference out west early Tuesday to come in and help us out.

2.) What have you learned so far about covering a story like this that the rest of us could benefit from?

Having a team(s) come in from outside your market to help handle the story for other affiliates really lets us focus on what we need to do to get information out to our viewers in a timely manner.

The community also played a big role in our coverage. Throughout Monday, we got phoners from students on campus, as well as e-mails, pictures, cell-phone video that we could not have gotten without them. This incident shows the growing power of community reporting and its relevance to current newscast thinking/planning.

And do not overlook the importance of setting up a place for people to call who want to talk with someone. We used our 10 On Your Side Helpline center to bring in grief counselors for free help to anyone who needed it. Our phones rang seconds after we opened them. They did not stop for hours after. We also did this on Tuesday.

3.) How important have students/cell phones/blogs/contributed video been to your coverage?

Student pictures and cell-phone video played an important role in what we were able to put on-air during our wall-to-wall coverage on Monday. Some of the first images we received were from students showing police and ambulances on campus in places they normally are not. Student phone interviews on-air also helped us provide situational context to our viewers. They could tell what they saw better than we could.

Blogs have not been as important. We normally do not use them because of the difficulty in verifying the information posted on them. What we did receive hundreds of (and by the time this e-mail is written, probably more than a thousand) is e-mails from viewers expressing their feelings about what happened. We chose to share some of these on-air. We also did this during the Sept. 11 attacks. It helps humanize the event, so it's not just a picture from a far away place.

4.) How easy is it for outsiders to contribute to your coverage?

It depends on what is trying to be "contributed." We have a general news e-mail address that is publicly available for anyone to send an e-mail or pictures to. But just because someone sends something in does not mean we will put it on-air or online. We do have a verification process, especially when it comes to sensitive subjects.

We also allow people to post their thoughts on our Web site for public viewing. Those postings are checked by our Web team before they are allowed to be put on our Web site for vulgarity and other reasons.

5.) What protocols, policies, authentication have you gone through before you aired or posted outside content?

Without getting into specifics, there are certain people who check through viewer contributions before they are suggested to be put on-air or online. If something deserves additional consideration (such as for verification purposes), then we have no problem holding it until we can confirm the information.

6.) I imagine stories like this produce tons of rumors and theories. How do you keep unproven, unsubstantiated information off your air, considering that you are live for so long?

This goes to the heart of our news team. We have an experienced group of managers, anchors, producers, and reporters who can sort through what they have confirmed and what is speculation. If something sounds a little unusual about a piece of information, one of our team can usually discuss it with someone else before it gets anywhere close to going on-air or online.

The shooting coverage had two examples. During the wall-to-wall coverage Monday, we received multiple calls and e-mails about two Asians with personal pages on separate social-networking Web sites. Everything we received was pure speculation that these two could be the shooters. They had taken pictures with guns and posted them for public consumption. We even got a call from a supposed "investigative reporter" who "verified" that one of these two was the shooter. We did not put any of this information on, because there was no evidence to corroborate the speculation.

What we did was take screenshots of the Web pages from the social-networking Web sites, in case we could later confirm the speculation. These screenshots were e-mailed to a few trusted employees for safekeeping. At no time were there plans to go on-air or online with these. We have no problem not being the "first on" when this type of sensitive issue happens. It is more important to get the information correct and confirmed.

7.) Tell us what you can about the emotional state of your newsroom. What are you doing to help folks?

Day One was mentally and physically exhausting for many of us. I really felt for our live crews, because they had to fight a fierce wind storm. The shootings overshadowed 50,000+ people without power due to powerful winds that blew in over the weekend and continued on Monday.

Outside of our newsroom, our HR department brought in counselors Thursday for the WSLS staff. Our management team has encouraged anyone who needs a breather to call someone.

Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.