The media's (and the public's) misconception of FIRST

Originally Posted by Dan Swando

Not to be bitter, but the media is completely braindead when it comes to reporting stories. After 10 years of being misquoted by news reporters about FIRST, you learn exactly how much you have to spoonfeed the story to the reporters. You practically have to write the story for them, otherwise they develop their own storyline about FIRST that has little to do with the message you're trying to convey.

So you have to spoonfeed to them about collaborating between students and mentors.
So you have to spoonfeed to them about Gracious Professionalism.
So you have to spoonfeed to them about inspiration of Science and Technology
So you have to spoonfeed to them about how FIRST is NOT @#%%@! BATTLEBOTS!
You have to spoonfeed to them stories of scholarships and leadership and problem solving.

YOU have to tell them how to do their jobs, sorry to say. Thus is the age of Fox Noise Infotainment.

I could not have said it any better myself, I work in the media, I am just a camera guy but I am the camera guy that shot the video of the GTR reigonals that aired in that story on 1114 and a week prior on the station I work for as a contract camera guy, we did a few stories on FIRST GTR this year and they turned out ok, I was pleasantly surprised actually and the phrase "robot battle" only got in once in the key so it was not bad this year.

I'm glad you used the term brain dead because that's exactly the case here, and it is very frustrating for the few of us left in this business that can actually think and use basic common sense, I would have thought reporters would have learn "something" in journalism school but it is obvious that is not the case.

You really have to like you say spoon feed them everything, keep it simple and don't give them too much and even then it is tough, I mean we are dealing with some people here who make close to $80-$100G's and can't use google and can't navigate the FIRST website.

There is also this trend with "agenda stories", which I hate with a passion, I can't make up the news, answers to questions to fit a pre-written agenda story...not if it's not happening.

Doing the gracious professionalism angle is a good one but that I'm afraid is way over thier heads to be honest, now you're into the complicated stuff.

What get's me so frustrated is when I tell a reporter something in very simple language and I try to keep it at a grade 6-7 level (seriously) and they keep asking me the same question over and over again trying to get me to say what they want to hear and then when the story goes to air the totally don't include the correct information that I gave then and I am left sitting there thinking "were they even listening?" and that is why now many times when a reporter asks me for some details I just say "read the press release" or "go to the website".....one reporter came up to me with notebook in hand and asked me to "just give me the basics" and I told the reporter that it would be much easier to go to the FIRST webiste and the reply was "there are like 400 links there and I can't go reading them, I don't understand anything on that website".

Makes me wonder how qualified today's media people are when they can't read a simple press release or navigate a basic website. I'm just a camera guy and I figured it out and I don't have the journalism degree.

Another big problem in today's media is how reporters are assigned and micro-managed to the point that even if they had a functioning brain it still wouldn't be of any use as they aren't allow much wiggle room on story content.

Reporters are also assigned "full stories" at 4pm for a 6pm newscast, the camera guy (me) shot everything and they get it handed to them at 4pm and have one hour to put it together and it might be something they have never heard of before and that compromises quality as well.

I must say though the coverage in Toronto media this year of the GTR regionals was reasonably good.

But no matter how many times you tell today's reporters that it's NOT battle bots....battlebots is going to get in there. Actually when the reporter asked me that question I told the reporter I don't know what battlebots is, I said that wasn't the event I was at....you should have seen the look I got