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April 25, 2007

Dear AP Sounding Board members,

A survey last week on AP coverage of the Virginia Tech slayings showed how well members' needs were being met in all formats and the direction to take in follow up stories.

Ten panelists responded with high marks for AP's speedy and full coverage, particularly in the face of great challenges on the first day.

While first-day photos "seemed pretty scarce," one editor wrote, another praised AP's "very fast" movement of photos from Virginia members on the day of the massacre and "timely" photos of the victims.

Web coverage "generated significantly more traffic than most AP feed stories," a multimedia editor said.

Another editor praised AP's timelines and interactives, especially a campus map that gave "a better understanding of where the shootings take place and the distance between the two sites."

"We were especially happy to receive early sends of AP video clips," a panelist said, allowing quick use on the member's Web site to publicize print coverage.

One panelist described the AP writing as "workmanlike" and said optional leads "rarely work very well." Another welcomed AP's optional approaches, saying they helped "keep the story fresh." Individual AP bylines were singled out for various stories, including the heroic professor, horrified reaction to the gunman's video and the Cho family statement.

"AP has done a solid job – unmatched, actually – with the main developments each day or overnight," a wire editor commented.

Other syndicated dispatches, including LATimes-WashPost, also won praise. Still, one editor noted how AP's reporting trumped that syndicate's story at a crucial time. "The AP came through shortly before deadline with the news that the shooter was a student. We dropped our combo plans and ran AP's piece. We looked to AP for the latest news each day after that."

Suggested follow ups included beefed up security at other colleges, more details about the shooter, the fate of the VT president and "other developments" boxes to cover updates in tighter wordage.

The survey questions and full responses follow. Many thanks to panelists for valuable input.

— Dave Minthorn

The questions:

1, How well has AP's coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings met your newspaper's needs in terms of stories, photos and graphics? Give specific examples if possible.

2, How well has AP's coverage met your Web site's needs, through such offerings as video, audio, a satellite map of the campus, timelines and interactive? Again, please give examples.

3, Have our main stories served your needs by keeping pace with developments, starting on Monday and continuing through the week?

4, Any comments on the quality of writing?

5, Optional leads: Have they been useful to you, starting with Day One, and continuing?

6, How would you compare AP's coverage with that of other services? What have others done that stood out?

7, Anything you'd like to see AP do differently or more of as we continue our coverage in the days ahead?

Dick Moss, director of local content/nights, Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle:

1, Photos seemed pretty scarce on day one – it seemed like there were pretty limited options. Graphics didn't seem to offer anything new on day two, and it was well into day three that they had a graphic with the list of victims – something the Virginia Pilot had on its cover that morning. I think AP graphics needs to get more aggressive about its response and follow-up to these situations.

2, From Traci Bauer, ME of multimedia: The AP coverage on our site generated significantly more traffic than most AP feed stories and the video. One comment: the AP headline on the story throughout the day had a different death toll than the story had. The AP headline on our homepage was reporting the gunman had killed one but the story had the death toll in the 20s for some time.

3, Yes, although day two stories seemed to lose focus on the progress of the investigation and instead focused pretty much on the shooter. We would have liked to have seen a more coherent day two story on the overall progress.

4, See No. 5. Other than that, I had no problems with it.

5, Frankly, I've found the optional ledes that were offered a bit flowery and overwritten.

6, AP has been more comprehensive and is quicker with the numbers, with one exception. AP seemed slow to reduce the number of injured to 15 on Monday night when McClatchy and some others had settled on that number fairly early in the evening. GNS seemed better at getting personal vignettes from the scene – the human element.

7, Deeper on how the investigation is proceeding and what they're doing. Is there going to be any fallout from the initial complaints about the official reaction? What is happening at other colleges as a result of this? Increased safety/protective measures? Our local colleges have been extremely reluctant to discuss this topic. Is that a typical reaction around the country?

Ken Tuck, managing editor, Dothan (Ala.) Eagle:

1, Good coverage. Quick to file stories that we used on our Web site. I liked the story about the gunman sending the video to NBC. You didn't have to watch the video hear the tone of the killer's voice. The writer did a good job of relaying that through his writing.

2, The timelines and interactives have been good. Having a map of the campus gives readers a better understanding of where the shootings took place and the distance between the two sites.

3, Yes. Good job by AP in covering this event.

4, Good quality writing. Interviewing students and getting emotion into the stories have made for good reads.

5, Yes. I like the optional leads. It gives newspapers something a little different from our Web sites.

6, It's been as good, if not stronger than others. Being a Media General newspaper, we have had the benefit of the Media General News Wire with stories, photos and graphics from newspapers throughout the state of Virginia, including the Richmond Times Dispatch. Combining the MG News service with AP coverage has made for strong coverage for our readers.

7, Keep doing what you're doing. Stories from survivors will make the coverage that much stronger. Keep digging and finding out more about the shooter. Readers want to know what was going on with that guy.

Kevin Whitmer, managing editor, enterprise, The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J.:

Comments below are from two editors who work with the wires at The Star-Ledger. As always, thanks for asking.

1, If we had to rely on AP alone, we could have given the reader the basic facts about the massacre the first day after the shooting, but that's about it. AP did not jump on the story Monday quickly enough or with adequate resources. There was a shortage of info about Virginia gun laws, the university itself (what's a Hokie?), first person accounts of the shooting.

2, Not applicable to us.

3, On Monday, AP kept on top of the developments, often TV news was quoting AP alerts, they moved updates as fast as expected, followed by pretty good writethrus. Particularly liked the stories AP has moved out of South Korea. And today, I think (I don't know this for a fact) that they are among the first with the story about the shooter being picked on in school.

– Good work sending updates and writethrus quickly, but too often the copy is updated for seemingly low level information, adding one comment from one official.

4, Workmanlike, but nothing very vivid, creative or inspiring. Matt Apuzzo better than most.

5, The OLs rarely work very well. They often come across as contrived and seem written without enthusiasm. Apuzzo's OL on Cho as the "question mark" was one of the better ones in recent months, but we went with his straight lead version.

6, AP is routinely quicker with updates than other services. The Chicago Tribune's work Monday showed real digging and creative use of available resources beyond information from officials. Relying on LAT and WP for information in stories as AP did in Tuesday's offerings maybe necessary to get details out, but it just shows AP did not have enough boots on the ground.

– I would rate AP's coverage (on a scale of 1-10) at 6. My personal favorites again have been the LATimes/Post stories and Chicago Tribune, too. Of course the winners in this tragedy are the young writers and editors at the Collegiate Times at Virginia Tech. The losers are predictable again – CNN and their brethren in news TV. Jarring, in-your-face wall-to-sickening wall-coverage that leaves you with a migraine. I think AP and the supplementals have done exactly what they should, reported on breaking news, and then probed beyond the numbers and headlines to come up with good stories about this tragedy.

7, Everybody has space problems. Try breaking out information from the mainbars and lengthy sidebars. Reduce the word count in graphics and put more emphasis on the art. Good work on getting Nikki Giovanni to talk about Cho. More like that, please. Excerpts, quote compilations, brief roundups, timelines are always welcome. Put more emphasis on what this means for/expected to happen tomorrow instead of what already occurred. Who decides whether VTech prez goes or stays, who is he, is litigation in the works? What's the gunplay rate in Va. compared to states with tougher laws.

– Yes, please. Keep in mind the indisputable fact that there is more happening in the world and cover other stories too, especially during the weekend.

Bill Rose, managing editor, The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post:

1. AP has been as quick as it could have been, once the early shock of this happening in an isolated place wore off.

2. We're continuing to rely on AP for its main story, videos and original audio slide shows on the campus shootings. We linked to the Virginia Tech campus map during the first day, and highlighted the Holocaust survivor/professor interactive as well.

Recently, the only concern we've had so far is the slowness of updating the victim profile multimedia. As of Wednesday afternoon there were only 15 of the victims featured and by late Wednesday night there was only 22. The WashingtonPost.com or NYTimes.com were mssing 1 or 2 as of Wednesday afternoon.

3. The mains have kept pace from a fresh wire standpoint, but we have used NYT and WashPost because we thought they were better written and provided more context and perspective.

4. See above.

5. The AP optional leads we scrutinized and didn't use. Again, we felt the big picture perspective approach of the two aforementioned papers served us best.

Paul Profeta, news editor, Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun:

1, Photos seemed to come over slowly. We had few if any of the night photos that appeared in several papers the next day. That could have to do with our 11:25 p.m. last page to press deadline. On Tuesday, photos also seemed to come over slowly. One of the convocation photos I used came well after the first choices were there. In fact I had chosen an earlier one but wasn't as happy with it.

The three maps of the Virginia Tech campus on Monday gave us plenty of options to work with.

2, I don't work with the Web enough to answer this.

3, The common cry in the newsroom Monday was how slowly we received new information on the massacre, especially for something that happened at 10 a.m. in the morning.

4, The writing allowed us to easily convert stories into our alternate story formats. I was able to break Monday's main story into three short pieces

5, I did not use any of the optional leads because they moved later.

6, I did not look at any other coverage.

7, I think we have had enough stories about the shooter's troubling playwriting. It was first mentioned on Tuesday and was still being written about on Thursday.

Steve Brody, wire editor, Lancaster (Pa.) New Era:

1, Very well. As an afternoon paper with a 10 a.m. (roughly) deadline for wire copy, we appreciate the speed with which the AP updated stories and the ample choice of photos it provided. The only quibble we had was with maps, which would have been a helpful addition for readers but contained outdated information.

2, Pretty well, as far as I'm aware.

3, Yes.

4, Smooth enough, given the kitchen-sink approach to the mainbars.

5, Haven't seen many, or perhaps any, of those.

6, AP has done a solid job – unmatched, actually – with the main developments each day or overnight. But I've seen few worthy sidebars for our purposes. The one on the heroic professor stands out.

To give an example of the kind of different story we often look for ... another wire service, McClatchy-Tribune, I think, did a piece on the cryptic "Ismail Ax" name and all the amateur sleuthing it inspired.

7, Please leave news out of maps, etc., so they don't look stale.

Nick Assendelft, assistant news editor/national desk, Detroit News:

1, The AP report was comprehensive. Graphics showing the campus and the shooting locations moved immediately, lists were available and stories updated in a timely manner, and photos were plentiful. I would have liked to see a file of quotes with reaction, updated as new stories were filed or new sources added. I would also have liked to see more information about the timing of news conferences, memorials, meetings, etc. I've found it extremely helpful when an editor's note is attached to the top of the story alerting wire editors to upcoming events. With a story that was changing as quickly as the Virginia Tech shooting story, it's nice to be able to keep other editors informed of when to expect updates or changes in the angle of stories. "Other developments" boxes would be helpful, similar to ones you used to move for the Iraq war. You didn't ask about story budgets. I like the separate budget on special occasions such as this one. They're convenient to print out and hand out to others who need to know. But can that also be incorporated into the main news digest, maybe at the end. It would be one-stop shopping for those watching the wires.

2, Offerings for the Web were complete, timely and helpful. Photo galleries are a big thing for our Web readers, so anything AP can do to offer ready-made photo galleries which we can link to immediately would be extremely helpful to telling the story to the visitors at our site. We linked often to interactives and multimedia offerings.

3, The main stories served us well. They were comprehensive and updated continually, though sometimes a bit too often with relatively minor updates or tweaks.

4, The quality of writing was good.

5, We mainly used the news leads, since events were changing so quickly. The optional leads on most other days for different news events are helpful, especially when a story breaks early in the news cycle. An optional lead helps keep the story fresh.

6, AP's coverage of the day's breaking news events were equal to, or better than the alternative wire services day in and day out. But in finding the "Hey, Martha" story, some examples from other wire services stand out. The L.A. Times, for example, moved a story before anyone about the roommate of the woman killed in the dorm. An interesting read. The N.Y. Times moved a story interviewing Cho's roommates before others did. Those stories stand out from the wall-to-wall coverage found elsewhere.

7, As the story loses steam, I would like to see more "Other Developments" boxes. We're cutting back on the space we devote to the story, as I'm sure many others are, too. So the developments box will help to wrap up the day's events, allowing us to use one or two stories focused specifically on a single issue. Plus, it makes it easier for our readers to digest lots of angles without reading a long story.

Bill Betterton, assistant copy desk director, Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, Ariz.:

1, Photographs moved on the wire from member papers in Virginia very fast on the day the massacre took place. Being in the mountain time zone, when photo editors arrived Monday morning around 9, photos had already moved on the ire. Throughout the week, AP staffers and members covered events in Blacksburg, as well as reaction from around the US and world, especially in South Korea. Photos of victims were also timely. Furthermore, the first photos we saw from the gun shop where Cho purchase the firearm came via the AP. Stories arrived in a timely fashion.

2, The additional online content is very good at this point. I was a little disappointed by how long it took to get a multimedia presentation in place on the day of the shooting. The original AP advisory on the multimedia said it would be posted "this evening." I would rather see a turnaround time of an hour or 90 minutes, even if it's something simple that is replaced later.

3, Monday's early stories were disjointed and lacked details until late at night.

4, In general the quality of writing was excellent. Many of the leads portrayed a chilling picture of the killer and incidents

5, We found in some cases that the optional lead took the story out of the flow of the day's action, but they were usually well done.

6, While the AP provided early lists of the victims, more complete lists were developed by news services such as the New York Times and McClatchy.

7, We found McClatchy graphics more informative and useful on the first day.

Michael Thompson, news editor, The Ann Arbor (Mich.) News:

1, The News is a p.m. paper Monday through Friday, and our deadline is 9:35 a.m. We publish morning papers on Saturdays and Sundays.

Coverage was generally good, and it improved during the week. We were disappointed with the main story available to us early Tuesday. I no longer have a copy, but I remember that the story began talking about "why," and mentioned a community "struggling" to understand, which seemed premature and applicable to any shooting story. The news was awful, but what we wanted to give readers was solid information about what had happened, which was still hard to find on Tuesday morning. The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times had strongly written stories with good information, and we planned to combine them with the latest from AP into a single mainbar for A1. Then AP came through shortly before deadline with the news that the shooter was a student. We dropped our combo plans and ran AP's piece. We looked to AP for the latest news each day after that.

We leaned heavily on AP for photos as well. Our first paper after the shootings was Tuesday's issue. We used Sam Dean's photo of students embracing in front of the War Memorial. Sam's picture conveyed what we needed for our first paper, which appeared more than 24 hours after the shootings.

In the past year, The News has severely contracted nation and world space. We devoted about an extra page to the shootings each day. Below is a summary of the stories and art we ran last week; it might help you get an idea of how we used AP and other wire services to cover the story.

Tuesday (first day of Virginia Tech coverage for The News)

A1: from AP, Adam Geller's mainbar (lead)

AP, Sam Dean photo of Tech students embracing (lead art)

Washington Post, story about what witnesses saw

Local story about a similar tragedy on the University of Michigan campus in 1981

Inside: from AP, text of e-mails sent to staff, students by Virginia Tech

Los Angeles Times, New York Times combination about Tech's response to the shooting

from AP, Gonzales hearings put on hold

AP, Chuck Burton photo of student signing a memorial at Tech, graphic of the Tech campus

Wednesday

A1: Los Angeles Times, Careful planning, but no motive seen (lead)

AP, Cho mug shot, Charles Dharapak photo of Virginia Tech vigil (part of a local and wire lead art package)

Inside: New York Times, Shootings rekindle gun control issue

AP, photos and short write-ups about victims

AP, Gerald Herbert photo of Bush at Tech ceremony, Eric Dinovo photo of students listening at Tech ceremony

Thursday

A1: AP, Matt Apuzzo's story about the airing of Cho's video (lead)

AP, Amy Sancetta photo of restaurant customers watching Cho's video

Inside: AP, mug shots and writeups of the victims

Los Angeles Times, Idea of collective guilt familiar to minorities

Friday

A1: Wire service combination story about campus threats

AP, Chuck Burton photo of an unidentified man looking at a Tech memorial (lead art)

Inside: Los Angeles Times, Cho tapes release triggers debate

Saturday

A1: AP, Cho's sister expresses family's grief

Inside: Wire service combination of developments

Sunday

Inside: Washington Post, reconstruction of the shootings

AP, screen shot of NBC airing Cho video

AP, graphic "Attacks on two sides of campus"

2, We don't control the Web site in the newsroom.

3, Very well. With major stories, we often look to the Post, Los Angeles Times and New York Times for strong writing and to AP for the latest news. Sometimes we use just AP if a story is quickly developing. Last week, we used material from all services.

4, We weren't happy with the mainbar from Monday night or possibly early Tuesday, but aside from that piece we were happy with the quality and happier with AP's updates. Two stood out: Matt Apuzzo's story about the screening of Cho's video ("Restaurant patrons cringed and mothers turned their children away. ...") and Allen Breed and Aaron Beard's later story about Cho's family.

5, I didn't see many of the optionals. The early mainbar might have been one. In general, optional leads are helpful; the Web seldom gives us a chance to break news unless it's local.

6, The Washington Post did a terrific job. Deborah Howell's latest ombudsman column describes that paper's efforts, which involved more than 70 reporters. The Post's writing stood out, particularly Ruane and Vargas' early story about witnesses' experiences, which was so compelling we ran it A1 even though one of our a.m. competitors in Detroit had run the same story A1. David Maranis' reconstruction was another strong piece, one we gave extra space to on Sunday.

AP's writeups about the victims were helpful. The mug shots AP provided were helpful.

7, If AP stays on top of the latest news and pursues stories related to the shooting, such as the state of gun control laws, mental health and public safety, we'll be happy.

Troy Turner, editor, The Daily Times, Farmington, N.M.:

1, We were satisfied with the quick movement of stories, although we were hoping for more photos sooner. The early shots sent were put to good use, and overall, we were happy with AP's response, and we put AP's work to use right away.

2, We were especially happy to receive early sends of AP video clips. We immediately shared them on our Web site and teased to the additional coverage from our print product. While we obviously were on standby for quick write-thrus, the video on such a breaking national story was a new addition to our offerings for our readers, some of whom work in distant oil fields, etc., with no TV but wireless computer connection.

3, Yes. The only additions we would have liked is that, being far away in New Mexico, we were searching for any and all connections. We, of course, found as many as we could on our end, but if AP had any kind of ability to better, quicker, break down the backgrounds of any victims, witnesses, etc., involved, and found them to be of key interest to a specific region, like ours, that would have aided us even more in our attempts to localize the story.

Overall, however, we found AP's work to be good reading.

5, Yes, they are helpful for updating our Web site while the story is developing.

6, Good.

Dave Minthorn, manager, AP News Administration, coordinates the questions and answers. Newspaper editors wishing to suggest a topic can send an e-mail to Minthorn at dminthorn@ap.org.

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