The happy morning news anchors greeted me with this headline: “Shots fired in Green Bay.” Now that’ll make you sit up. Where? Who? Was it a school? I flipped to another station and got the grave headline: “Shooting on campus.” Which campus? Spousal Unit tuned the kitchen radio into the all-news station but all we got was “Shooting in Green Bay.”
The anchors reported that information was still coming in, police reports were not updated, reporters were en route to the scene, more information would be available shortly, we’ll keep you informed, and on and on…
Several hours later I learned the “shooting” was actually three shots fired. The incident was not on a school campus but on the east side of the city near the University campus. As for the immediacy, it happened overnight.
The producers and writers did their jobs well this morning. The headline “Shots fired in Green Bay” made my heart beat faster. Had they used the more accurate headline “Shots fired near University overnight,” I would have realized the incident was not ongoing,
When there’s breaking news at your business or organization, keep this in mind.
It might be a dumpster fire but it could be reported like this: “Rescue units and a tanker truck were called out overnight to a fire at XYZ Company…”
Is this wrong or misleading? Nope—and I would do the same thing if I were still working in a newsroom.
You owe it to yourself, your employees and your customers to learn how news is communicated and why reporters and editors do what they do. Before you see it posted on Facebook.
If you’re interested, find me at mkathrynschmidt@gmail.com.
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