What if moving to a new job meant you couldn”t work for six months ““ or five years? That”s the reality for many broadcast journalists.
Beth Saboe starts work well before most of us are out of bed, as a morning anchor and a producer/ reporter in Bozeman, Mont. Her day starts at about 3 a.m. and she generally finishes in the late afternoon- long hours, but Saboe loves what she does. She”s a Montana native and wants to work in her home state.

When she started her first job, she made less than $18,000 a year. After a year, a competing station offered her a job and a bump in pay. She took the offer but it meant she had to sit on the sidelines for six months, because Saboe had signed a contract with a non-compete clause. The contract with her first station would not allow her be on the air for six months after she left their employment. “I was fortunate enough that they (the new station) were willing to hire me even though I wasn”t able to be on air,” she says. Many others are not so lucky.

Many broadcast professionals simply leave the business or move out of state if they want to find a different job. Some are even forced out of the business for six months to five years, even if the very station that holds their contract has simply laid them off. This past summer, New York became one of seven states and the District of Columbia to pass the “Broadcast Employees Freedom  to Work Act” or similar legislation.

A handful of other states already have bans or partial bans on non-compete clauses. Idaho is not one of them. AFTRA, the American
Federation of Television and Radio Artists, a union for broadcast professionals, plans to propose similar legislation in other states next year.
“Non-compete clauses have been banned in California for decades,” says AFTRA general counsel and director of legislative affairs Tom Carpenter, “and they have a vibrant market for talent.” He says, “The value of banning non-compete clauses is that employees can then make a commitment to stay in a community without forcing them to settle for an offer that pays them less.” He maintains non-compete clauses are unfair because they “force individuals to choose between taking less than they are worth or being unemployed or having to move.”

But the unfairness of a noncompete clause depends upon your point of view. KTRV News Director Kelly Cross says the noncompete
clause is the single most important protection the employer has. “It usually takes a substantial commitment of time and money to attract, recruit, and relocate good candidates,” Cross says. “As an on-air personality’s presence in the market matures, so does that person’s competitive value. In general, you want to keep good employees, in whom you’ve invested so much. The last thing a news director wants is to do the recruiting, foot the bill, nurture and mature a personality in the market – only to watch as his/her unbound employee
moves to a competitor across the street. I’ve seen that happen.

Unfortunately, a handshake doesn’t always cut it.” Carpenter disagrees. “Media companies have other ways to keep employees: longer contracts, first refusal clauses,” he says. “When employers say they are protecting an investment, it is not an expenditure they make at the
benefit of the talent. It is advertising.”

Stations can and do spend large amounts of money to promote their on-air talent. The same may not be true for behindthe-scenes producers, editors and videographers. Many of these professionals are also required to sign non-compete clauses, even those in starting level entry jobs.

According to Carpenter, major network stars don”t have non-compete clauses in their contracts, “and yet radio reporters who may be making less than $20,000 a year are routinely signed.” Cross says he does not ask behind-the-scene employees to sign non-compete clauses, but that other stations in Idaho do.

“I’ve been in the business 20 years,” says KTVB General Manger Doug Armstrong, “and I’m not aware of any competitive television market in America that doesn’t use non-compete clauses. As far as I know all news operations in Idaho use them and KTVB is no different. Our company respects and honors non-compete clauses from other companies, and likewise other companies honor ours.”

So what advice does Carpenter have for journalists like Saboe and others starting out in the business? “There are many things that are negotiable in a contract but probably not your non-compete clause,” he says. “If you want to live and work in Idaho, you will be bound to that station for the length of the time of that contract. You might be able to get more vacation time or days off, but non-compete clauses are a fact of life. That’s why we started the legislative campaigns.”

Joan Cartan-Hansen is producer, reporter and writer for Idaho Public Television, and serves as the treasurer of the
Idaho Press Club board.

Joseph Duncan’s appalling crimes made him one of Idaho’s most notorious criminals, and three reporters who covered his federal death penalty sentencing hearing spoke publicly for the first time at a recent Idaho Press Club forum about the professional and personal challenges they had faced.

“As a 32-year-old crime reporter, you don’t think you have any innocence left to lose, ” said Rebecca Boone of the Associated Press. “This case was so singular in its horrendousness … that it was hard to separate what was in the public interest and what was a personal tragedy.”

On Aug. 27, Duncan was sentenced to death for the 2005 abduction, torture and murder of 9-year-old Dylan Groene of Coeur d’Alene. Duncan also kidnapped and assaulted Dylan’s sister, Shasta, who was 8 at the time, and killed their brother Slade, 13, their mother, Brenda Groene, and her fiance Mark McKenzie. Duncan awaits sentencing in state court after pleading guilty to their murders.

California officials also are waiting to try him for a murder there. In addition to Boone, Alyson Outen of KTVB Channel 7 and Betsy Russell of The Spokesman-Review covered the trial from gavel to gavel. The Idaho Press Clubâ€s Southwest Chapter hosted the event at the Water Cooler in Boise. Todd Dvorak of the Associated Press moderated. The reporters recounted the obstacles that came up before the trial began:

• Media access to information about the trial was restricted by gag order.
• Documents that ordinarily would have been public record were sealed.
• U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge initially said he would close the courtroom to the public for portions of the proceedings.

“Judge Lodge told me how things were going to be, and I got to say, ‘I think the media would object to that, ‘ ” said Russell, who acted as the media liaison for the trial. Just about every media outlet in Idaho and The Spokes-man-Review filed an objection to Lodge’s restrictions on
public access, Russell said. Ultimately, Lodge opened the courtroom, except for the testimony of Dylan’s sister, Shasta, should she be called to the stand. She was not. Boone said the gag order was so strict some court officials thought reporters couldn’t talk to anyone. After making
arrangements to interview Steve Groene, Dylan’s father, she was approached by U.S. marshals about her own potential court appearance for breaking a gag order she was not bound by.

The most difficult moment for the reporters came near the end of the trial when the jury was shown a graphic video Duncan had made as he tortured Dylan. The reporters could have decided not to watch it, but they didn’t. “I thought I should see whatever the jury saw, ” Russell
said. “We had to know what the jury took into account in order to know if justice had been served.”

After seeing the video, each reporter then had to make her own decision about what information would become public knowledge.
“We can’t sanitize a case like this, ” Outen said. “But we simply could not reveal the nature of some of the crimes.” Outen had to run out of the courtroom for a live shot shortly after the video was shown. She was totally numb. “To be honest, I was just trying not to cry, ” she said.
“The things he did just hit me in a different spot … and I went on autopilot.”

Boone called her editor and told him he would have to filter what she wrote because she had lost the ability to distinguish “what was acceptable to the average reader and what was beyond the pale.” Russell said as difficult as it was to do, the writing helped her exorcise what happened from her thoughts. “Readers in North Idaho were counting on me to tell them what was going on, ” she said. “The death penalty doesn’t get handed down lightly.”

The hardest part came later, Boone said, when she found she had to sing along with the car radio or read the road signs out loud to herself because a lull in sound brought her mind back to the video. Despite the bad memories, she said the reporters were not the ones most affected by the tragedy.

“As much as we’re up here talking about how it affected us, we were watching it from a million miles away, ” she said.

This article first appeared in The Idaho Statesman.

By Melissa McGrath

If you’re a reporter at the Idaho Press-Tribune in Nampa, you no longer have to worry about fighting traffic to make it back to the newsroom and post that breaking news story — or the photos to go along with it. Every reporter has been equipped with a laptop computer, digital camera, digital audio recorder and microphone so they can write, photograph and transmit on the spot.

It is all a part of the Press-Tribune becoming a 24/7 newsroom that is trying to keep up with the demands of an online world. “We had to restructure our newsroom. We had to become a 24/7 newsroom,” said Vickie Holbrook, managing editor of the Press-Tribune. And the Press-Tribune isn’t the only media outlet becoming more creative in an effort to attract a larger audience and use the Internet to its advantage.

Holbrook joined Mark Danielson, general manager for the KIFI News Group, and Don Day, digital media producer for the KTVB News Group in Boise, for a panel discussion about the Internet’s impact on broadcast and print media at an event sponsored by the Idaho Press Clubâ€s Southwest Chapter. Even though it may seem like some forms of media are struggling more than others right now, the Internet is affecting all media outlets, Day told the audience of about 30 people.

“The newspaper is going through a terrible time,” Day said. “The reason I think it’s important for TV people to look at what’s happening in the newspaper industry is because we are next.”  To reflect the impact of the Internet, Local News 8 in Idaho Falls has re-branded itself as the KIFI News Group to become more than just a television station.

It is about being the No. 1 information provider in the market, whether that information is provided via television, the Internet, e-mail or another format, said Mark Danielson, general manager for the KIFI News Group. “You can be a little more creative than if it was just Local News 8,” Danielson said. “The Internet has changed the world. Today, I can start a TV station without a transmitter, a tower or a stick. I can start a newspaper without a printing press. I don’t need a $30,000 video camera to shoot video. “(The Press-Tribune) can do it for
200 to 300 bucks.”

Local News 8 has equipped each television reporter with the mobile technology they need to report, record, edit and transmit news footage on the spot, for example. “We’re going to be more the same than ever before — whether you like it or not,” Danielson said.

The panelists agreed that the Internet is forcing media outlets that traditionally focused on one form of media — print, television, radio — to expand to all forms of media. Newspapers are filming video and recording audio. Television stations are posting news articles on their Web
sites.

Holbrook encouraged college students who are interested in going into journalism one day to not focus on a single form of media, but to learn something about each of them. “If I was going to college today, I would learn about public relations, the Internet, uploading, code, and I
would learn marketing,” she said.

Melissa McGrath is a former reporter, and is the public information officer for the Idaho State Department of Education. She is the associate representative on the Idaho Press Club board.

Express Publishing Inc. of Ketchum, publisher of the rival Idaho Mountain Express and Guide, has purchased the assets of the Wood River Journal. The Express will continue to publish twice a week; the Wood River Journal name will now go on what previously was called the “Valley” section of the Wednesday editions of the Express.

The Express also has acquired archived copies of the Journal and its predecessors and its online presence. Express board Chairwoman Martha Poitevin Page said in an article published in the Mountain Express, “When the management of the Wood River Journal approached us this month, we were extremely pleased to have the opportunity to maintain local ownership of this valleyâ€s century-old newspaper history.”

Express Publisher Pam Morris said, “The archives are perhaps the most exciting part. Newspapers record history on the fly, and these archives stretch back to the mining days of the 19th century.” The Wood River Journal once was owned by state Sen. Clint Stennett, who sold it in the 1980s. Most recently it was owned by the Post Co., publisher of the Post Register in Idaho Falls as well as the Challis Messenger, Jefferson Star, Shelley Pioneer and Intermountain Farm & Ranch. The firm acquired the Journal in April from Lee Enterprises.

The Wood River Journalâ€s predecessor first started publishing 127 years ago. The Mountain Express was launched in 1974.

By Sydney Sallabanks

“We are in for nothing but change,” said Don Day, when asked about the future of the news industry. Day is digital media producer at KTVB News Group, Boise’s NBC affiliate. Apart from a brief stint in Seattle, he’s been keeping the station at the forefront of digital media since he graduated from high school in 1999.

Day says he can’t remember a time when he wasn’t fascinated by the news process. Eager to get involved, he simultaneously ran a newspaper and launched a Web development company as a student at Borah High School. A knack for news combined with digital expertise helped land him a job at KTVB immediately following graduation.

Born and raised in Boise, Day spends his work week developing digital media initiatives for the award-winning KTVB.COM and its online classified advertising Web site, ZIdaho.com. He spends his off hours blogging about Idaho’s radio airwaves on IdahoRadioNews.
com, which he founded in 2003. He also co-owns Day Power Media, a Web design and consulting company, and writes about local media for
LostRemote.com. Last May he joined the state board of the Idaho Press Club.

In between deadlines, Day makes time to discuss his favorite topic: News.

You often comment about the changing face of news, and you’ve even insisted that traditional printed newspapers will be non-existent within a matter of decades. What do you predict will happen? The way people consume media has changed in the last 10 years and will continue. There will be more things like alternative weeklies or commuter products, (newspapers targeted toward commuter train or bus riders, for example). I think the main exception will be small towns, because they are more insulated from changes in the media and they don’t have a heavy reliance on classified advertising.

How is that affecting television news? Daily newspapers used to rely on classifieds, but now that’s dwindling. It’s a problem in TV also, but TV is a bit less affected because they have the added advantage of being visual. Still, lots of people are watching on TiVo and bypassing the ads. If they’re watching shows on Hulu and not on TV, that means a dwindling audience for newscasts.

So what’s the solution to keeping quality journalism alive? It can sound like a lot of gloom and doom, but hopefully some innovation will be created out of this. One new trend is the “neighborhood blog,” a news site for a smaller audience. A great example is WestSeattle-Blog.com — they took a portion of Seattle that didn’t typically get a lot of its own coverage from the big dailies. They cover everything from small power outages on up. It has a small audience, but tons of traffic because it’s hyper-local.

Both inside and outside of the news industry, some express reservations about the blogosphere. How do you feel about it right now? I’ve been blogging for a long time, and the biggest concern I have is with the comments. People feel free to sit behind a keyboard and anonymously rattle off something pointed and negative about someone else. One of the first things I said on my blog was that there would be no room for personal attacks. I might be critical of a company or an approach, but not an individual.

KTVB is on MSN.COM, is linked to CNN and is one of Idaho’s first news outlets to Twitter. How are those tactics working?
We have a philosophy to be everywhere because people consume their news so many different ways. We’re trying to put news out as broadly as we can. We’re on MSNBC.COM and people can choose to put that on FaceBook or whatever. We have a well developed mobile presence and we share links with CNN. We want to make it easy for people to get their news any way they want. And I always wish we could do more.

What drives you to so closely follow what’s going on in the news industry?
The industry has the important responsibility to let people know what’s going on in the world.

You have a long history as a member of the Idaho Press Club. What made you take the leap onto the board of directors? I think it’s important for journalists in Idaho to have an opportunity to connect and to learn from each other. The club has produced forums that provide opportunities to learn about the industry and to learn from colleagues. It’s an important role for us to spread the knowledge around. When we get together like this, there’s a greater sense of community among colleagues.

IDAHO STATESMAN
The Statesman in September announced 15 layoffs, including six newsroom positions. Several other Statesman staffers have left in recent weeks. State government reporter Heath Druzin left to join Stars and Stripes in Germany. Feature writer Erin Ryan left to take a job with
Boise State University’s communications department. Copy editor Vanessa Childers left to move back to her home in Ohio.

THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Major layoffs at The Spokesman-Review were announced on Oct. 1, including more than 25 newsroom staffers. The paper’s editor, Steve Smith, announced his resignation along with the layoffs, and assistant managing editor Carla Savalli also resigned. Former M.E. Gary
Graham was named the paper’s new editor. Among the casualties in the layoffs were Idaho/Spokane Valley reporter Taryn Hecker, who had been laid off in the last round of layoffs a year earlier and then rehired. She promptly won a chili cookoff in Athol with her “Re-Fired Chili.” Also laid off was North Idaho reporter Erica Curless, who was on a sabbatical at the time studying equine massage in Colorado. She’s planning to make that her new career and also to freelance. Former Idaho reporter Amy Cannata, who had recently returned to the Spokane newsroom, took a voluntary buyout. The paper kept its one-person Boise and Olympia capitol bureaus and its Coeur d’Alene office, but may close its Spokane Valley office as it consolidates staff.

TIMES-NEWS
Four new colleagues came aboard the Times-News starting in early summer. Damon Hunzeker became the new general assignment reporter in the paper’s Burley bureau, where he’s joined by Ryan Howe, the new regional sports reporter and photographer. Reporter Ben Botkin returned to Idaho from The Rock Island (Ill.) Argus to cover the education beat, while Jason Saenz, a recent graduate of Houston Baptist University, is the newest copy editor on the news desk.

Making departures were environmental reporter Matt Christensen, now the city editor for the Winona (Minn.) Daily News, and crime reporter Cassidy Friedman, who left to pursue new projects on the East Coast.

IDAHO MOUNTAIN EXPRESS
Longtime Idaho Mountain Express reporter/editor Greg Stahl is leaving the Ketchum newspaper to work for Idaho Rivers United. At IRU he will work on communications and salmon recovery issues. The Express has hired Della Sentilles of Ketchum as a general assignment reporter. Sentilles has worked previously for the Express as a reporter, and is a 2006 graduate of Yale University.

TELEVISION

IDAHO PUBLIC TELEVISION
Alberto Moreno (a.k.a. Alan Austin), Director/Videographer/Editor, left to become a producer/director for the Big Ten Network for Michigan State University’s non-game programming. Thanh Tan joins IPTV as a new Producer/Reporter/Host. She was a reporter at KATU, Portland.

KIDK
Jolynn Thomas, anchor, left the business. Kris Keach, reporter, left the business. Danielle Leigh, reporter/anchor took a job as a reporter in Colorado Springs. Terry Miller, news director, retired. New at KIDK: Anthony Congi, reporter, came from Redding, CA. Jennifer McGraw, reporter, came from school in CA. Veronica Cardenas, reporter, came from school in CA. Jackie Pepper, weekend sports anchor/reporter, came from school in AZ. Ted Dawson, news director, came from Boise market.

KIFI
Hailey Higgens, morning reporter, came from Weber State in Utah.

KPVI
New at KPVI – Ty Brennan, reporter. He was an associate producer at KTVX in SLC.