Episode 20: Ashleigh Barry Reporter, KXAS Channel 5 Dallas Dana Dobson: Hey there everybody! My name is Dana Dobson, and I am so excited that you’re here today to listen to Episode 20 of the Media Pro Spotlight podcast. This podcast is for business owners and marketing professionals who want to know how the traditional media works so they can get more publicity and work more effectively with journalists. It’s for anyone who wants to learn how to get the word out to audiences who aren’t already following us on social media, and who want, and need, big exposure so that we can achieve their most important business goals. This week’s guest is Ashleigh Barry, whose most recent gig was a general assignment reporter at KTVK/KPHO in Phoenix, Arizona, which is also known as Arizona’s Family. Before Phoenix, Ashleigh was a reporter at WBNS-­‐TV, which is a CBS affiliate in Ohio. She has also anchored at stations broadcasting in the Milwaukee, New York and Lubbock Texas markets. Ashleigh also has an extensive production background as a producer at the Fox News Channel, MSNBC and CBS. She’s impressive-­‐-­‐-­‐she has won several awards, including three Emmy’s and an Edward R Murrow Award. When she was at the university of Massachusetts – Amherst, Ashleigh served internships at both “The Today Show” and “Dateline” at the NBC studios in New York. I’m going to ask her about her Emmys, but before we get to the interview, though, I want to remind you that you can download a transcript of this interview and view other resources on my website, danadobson.com. Click on podcast, and then on Episode 20. And I want to ask you to do me a huge favor, which is to leave me a rating in iTunes. This really helps spread the word about the Media Pro Spotlight, so I deeply appreciate your taking a few seconds to do that. So now, it’s my privilege and honor to introduce Ashleigh Barry to the show. Hi Ashley. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for being here. Ashleigh Barry: Thanks Dana. It's a true pleasure to be here enjoying your show today. Dana: Great. Thank you so much. The way I usually like to get started is to ask you what you do. What your job is and what you do there? Ashleigh: I am a general assignment reporter. I most recently worked at the CBS station and the Channel Three station which his an independent station in Phoenix. They basically call it a duopoly. I covered everything from what you can imagine. Car crashes, fires to deep rooted investigations as well. I've been doing this for the past two years here in Arizona. Dana: You've been in a number of different markets that I see. Which his kind of typical for the broadcasting profession isn't it? Ashleigh: It is, absolutely. I didn't really take the path that most people do which is as soon as they graduate from college they'll jump right in, get on camera, go to the smallest market possible and work their way up. The way I started was sort of in reverse. I started as a producer and because I lived on the east coast, I worked my first job out of college was at Fox News Channel as a Production Assistant. I wanted to learn everything that went on behind the camera before I wanted to step foot in front of the camera because I wanted to be well versed in the field. I worked with Fox News Channel for about a year. Then I went to CBS Network as a Producer as well for another year. Then I decided, "Okay, it's time." At that point I started sending out my tapes, my demos. My first job was in Lovett, Texas. I worked at the CBS, ABC duopoly there as a weekend anchor reporter. I did that for a couple of years. Then I missed home. Missed the east coast. Texas was so far and I was still young and missed my family. I had a big family back east. I decided after two years it was time to go back. I went back and ironically I went to MSNBC and did producing there. A lot of my job in Texas was producing. Even though I was on camera, in the smaller markets you pretty much do everything. I wrote, researched, did everything. Did all my shows in that. I was very comfortable just going back to New York. I worked at MSNBC for awhile and this was right around 2003 so it's when we went to war. That's why they hired me as a freelance producer. I wrote a lot. I worked very closely with the war correspondents in that. That was incredibly interesting and eye opening. Then I ended up having an offer for another anchor position on camera. I went to a twenty-­‐four hour cable news station in New York metro area. I did that for about a year. Then I decided, "Okay, I really want to get back into reporting rather than just anchoring." I moved to Milwaukee. I worked at the CBS station in Milwaukee. Spent about six years there and another few years at the CBS station in Columbus, Ohio. Then from Columbus I went to Phoenix and spent a couple of years in Phoenix. This is where I'm at. To answer your question, yes there's a lot of moving around in the journalism field. Dana: You've been in every extreme of climate it sounds like. You went to very, very cold, freezing cold, to the absolute desert. Ashleigh: Absolutely and I can't determine which one I would prefer. I remember when I was in Columbus the wind chill was negative sixty so I had frost bite. I thought, "I want to move to Florida. I'm going to go to Florida. I need to be somewhere where it's warm. I can't stand this anymore." Well I got the opportunity in Phoenix. I came to Phoenix and I reported in a hundred and sixteen degree weather. I though, "You know I kind of want those days back where I was standing in snow all bundled up because it's so hot in Phoenix." The winters in Phoenix and Arizona make up for it. Arizona is such a beautiful landscape area. I've never seen anything like the west coast. Very different from the east coast. Yeah, I've been all around. I loved it all. Love it all. Dana: Have you noticed a difference in the kinds of stories that you put together or report on from metro to metro? Or are people people no matter where you go? Ashleigh: I would say that it's pretty universal. The stories are ... Everybody has a story to tell. The horrible, sad, tragic stories that happen everywhere in every city. Then there are the amazing stories. I recall a story that I did with a paralympic athlete. It was very timely because it was right before, it was about five months he was training for the real Olympics. That story, when I told his story and just that determination ... You take the good with the bad. That was a very good story and inspirational for me. As a journalist, it's difficult sometimes. You really have to compartmentalize because crime is crime. It can be very difficult as a journalist to focus on the positive when all you're covering is the negative. It can be trying, definitely. Dana: Yeah, I bet. Can you describe the job description of a producer versus what it was when you stepped in front of the camera? What does a producer do and how does she spend her day versus what you do as a reporter? Ashleigh: Interesting question. As a reporter you would come in, you're expected to have story ideas. We sit in the morning meeting we all hash out, "Okay, what's going on today? What have you researched?" As a reporter you bounce ideas off of the producers because they also have their ideas. As a reporter you're sent out into the field to conduct the interviews, to do the research, to tell the stories. Producers on the same level are back at the station and they're always calling making sure that you've done your research. Or, "What's the story angle?" Producers are pretty much in the station manning the ship, whereas the reporters are out there telling the story and conducting the interviews. Really we work in tandem. Having a producer is incredible important because they'll think of something that maybe you didn't think of out in the field. Maybe they saw something that was happening that might dove tale well with your story nationally or something like that. Producers do a lot of writing. Reporters do a lot of interviewing and writing and researching. Producers are expected to build a show so it's not just your story they're focused on. They're focused on all five reporters stories. As well as what's happening nationally, internationally. They're monitoring the feeds. They're researching what they want to put in their shows. As a reporter you're pretty much focused on that one story all day even though you have about a minute ten to tell that story, it takes all day to do that. A lot of times interviews don't work out. Or somebody cancels on you. You have to go to plan (b). You're expected to go to plan (b) within then to fifteen minutes because, "Hey we have a newscast at four o'clock. You need to be live and you need to have a story. "That's sort of how it works. Dana: No pressure! Ashleigh: No pressure. When you've been doing it for so long and you're so passionate about the story you're telling and you really ... If somebody has that passion and compassion to tell a story they can tell you to be on camera in five minutes and you just get up in front of that camera and do it. So yeah, no pressure. Dana: You have won quite a few Emmy awards. Ashleigh: Yes. Dana: Can you describe the work that was behind winning of those awards? Ashleigh: Two of the stories that I told, one was about a thirteen year old girl who's entire family, mother, brother, and mother's best friend were murdered and she was kidnapped. It was a really horrific story in Ohio. The killer kept her in a basement on a bed of leaves. He had a strange fascination with leaves. She had never told her story. His mother had never told her story. I worked for a year to gain their trust and they both ended up telling me their story. The mother has not spoken ever to anyone. As you can imagine a story like that, the details are pretty gruesome and horrific which I won't get into. A story like that, the public needs to know and understand ... I need to understand, the whole station ... Our entire city of Columbus just couldn't wrap their heads around how something like this could happen. Even the entire state. It made national news. I worked for a year to gain the trust of both the girl who at the time when I interviewed her was 15 I believe. Once she was released and survived. I also interviewed the mother and because of those interviews we did a one hour special. Our station did a one hour special, five part series telling their stories. That won an Emmy and a Murrow. That was my first Emmy. It was almost like when I won that, when I was nominated, the Emmy and the Murrow, it was like, "This is why I do what I do." This is recognized by some of the top journalists in the country. That was one story I did. The other one was fascinating where I also spent about six months gaining the trust of this family. It was a transgender child. It was a child who was born into the world as a boy, but about the age three realized ... Told his mother, "I'm in the wrong body." From then on the parents just had a horrible time trying to feel like they were accepted in the community. It was a very small town and they were both high profile people. I told the story of Jack becoming Jackie. It turned out that in that community those values were actually honored. It didn't come without obviously some roadblocks for this child, but in the end their story prevailed and they never had to move. The felt like they would have to move out of town because they felt like they would be chastised. They didn't even know what transgender meant. This was right around the time that transgender started to become a topic. It was really interesting. That was one of the other ones that I won which I was very proud of. Again it took a long time. In that station that I worked at in Columbus was just an amazing organization in that they really recognized true story telling. They allowed me to take a time, to take a week, to drive the three hours to the town where we told the story to gain the parent's trust. The same thing with the triple murder as well. Dana: Those were really powerful stories that you told, it doesn't get more real than that. You're really up in the higher echelons of story putting together there. I really admire your work. I now want to talk to you a bit about how you put stories together because I think a lot of our listeners don't really understand the mechanics of putting the package together. Of course they would like to understand how to pitch new stories, but can you talk about once you've got a story and all of the different pieces, how it's put together and how long you try to keep it within? Ashleigh: Sure, absolutely. What happens normally is that, and especially now these days, you have to keep it as tight as possible. In Phoenix they're rule was one minute 10 seconds, otherwise they say you'll lose the viewer. You have to keep it tight, you have to keep the most important information at the forefront and tell it very quickly. Once we have all the interviews and you've written your script, a lot of times, I think it's important to mention that when you're writing a script, that journalists do it in different forms. The way I typically do it, is I have all these sound bytes in my head with the interview that I have accepted and I formulate the writing in the story around those sound bytes. Other journalists will write the script and then just pop in the sound bytes with what they feel is most important. I like less track, meaning less of my voice and more of the sounds from the source of the story. Once you build your script with what I would say and then popping in the sound bytes, it's then all written together, we take it into the audio booth. We record it, you basically record your voice and stop when of course the sound byte is going to come in and then I would give it to my editor, and the editor has that script, and with that script they then edit the package together with the video that they have shot throughout the day. Whether it's video they shot or file video, if it's say a bigger national story that we're telling, then that's how they put it together. That's pretty much how a package works. Dana: Okay. That makes sense. Do you get pitches from people, or peer people and other people sending you pitches? Ashleigh: Every single day we get pitches. I would go through, especially when I was doing the veterans affairs hospital investigations. There were a lot of people that wanted to reach out to me and tell me their stories or their troubles within the veterans affairs hospital or what sort of road blocks they were hitting. It's very important to keep it as simple as possible. When somebody is pitching you a story and it's a four page press release or four pages of this is my heartache and that, we simply don't have time to go through all of that and give it the attention it deserves, to give that person the attention they deserve. If they hit you up really quickly with hey here are the bullet points, this is what's going on, this is an event that we're having, this is why it's important. Clear, concise, that is the easiest way for any journalist to really be able to dissect the information and 9 times out of 10 that person that's presenting that pitch is going to get the call back if they feel like their viewers will benefit from that story. Again, you have to keep it very simple. A lot of that can get lost in translation and quite frankly if you're going through ten pitches a day, if it's too much information, then it's going to get lost. Dana: How many emails do you get on an average day? Ashleigh: Oh, wow. I would say our assignment desk gets hundreds. That is obviously where everyone's directed for telling stories but as a reporter, I would say ten emails. Ten pitches a day. A lot of times those pitches filter not only through the assignment desk but they also work in tandem with the reporters so they'll send it to the reporters as well as the assignment desk. Really as far as having time to go through those, I read every single one, but the ones that have the pertinent information are the ones that ... You know, that have the bullet point right off the top, that grabs you as a journalist. Those are the stories that we're interested in. Dana: Right. Images of course are very important, and what you'll be taking pictures of while you're out on the story. Is it helpful when somebody suggests types of ways that the story can be illustrated or do you like to do that yourself? Ashleigh: Oh no, it's very helpful, and that's a great point. When a pitch comes in to a news room, it's really helpful if they have pictures to go with that story. If there are images that we can see right there in that email then we in our head will think oh this is something that the viewer will really be interested in, or this is all makes sense. I would absolutely recommend anybody sending a pitch to a newsroom, to absolutely try and say hey this is how we envision the story be told, or these are the elements that we have, what are your thoughts about that? How can we work together to send that message? Dana: Right. Okay. That's helpful. Ashleigh: That's crucial. Yes. Dana: Yeah. Do you have, and it's okay if you don't, but do you have any stories of when somebody pitched to you and it just turned into a big ole mess? I've got a friend who works for a local station who was promised by somebody that they would be able to get into a political event and when they showed up they actually didn't have permission. Do you have any stories like that, of when things weren't taken care of to help you do your story? Ashleigh: I wouldn't say specifically, but I do recall that there are times, and this is very important especially when you're dealing with hospitals, the HIPA violation and the HIPA rules. A lot of times you're ... Say there's a patient in a hospital that you'd be interested in interviewing. You have to go through public relations teams to borrow that interview. However, sometimes because of HIPA violations, they don't allow you to go in and speak with the patient. How do work around that? There have been some issues in the past, because of that, that I can speak to specifically. The best thing to do, is it's respect. It's all about respecting the public relations officials jobs, respecting the patients or whatever source it is that you're trying to interview. You can't be too forceful or you can't go in with a sense of this arrogance, like well I'm a journalist and this is what I need to do. No. That will never get the story told, and that's unfortunate because there's so many amazing stories but there are a lot of loopholes and there are a lot of things that you have to work through. Dana: Yeah. Exactly, so you just need to have all those ducks in a row. Ashleigh: Absolutely. Absolutely, ducks in a row, and that's why when I was speaking earlier to a typical day, there's a lot of phone calls, there's a lot of research, and you have to get that done before you even walk out the door, or while you're in the car, making sure that as you said, all your ducks are in a row. Dana: Mm-­‐hmm. Yeah. That's super important. Now when somebody wants to make a relationship with you so that you keep them in mind next time you need an expert or somebody to help you with resources for a story, how can somebody make themselves known to you in a trustworthy, credible way? What's the best way to build a relationship with you? Ashleigh: What always works really well with me is just being consistent, and checking in once in a while. Sending new pitches, even if it's something that the person knows maybe the station won't choose as a payout story, I would just continue to try and develop a relationship, a friendship in a way, with the person, with the journalist. In that, hey this is the story I have, or I have something that's coming up in the future, I will keep you in mind. I think that's really important to develop trust between the two. Definitely. Dana: Mm-­‐hmm. Ashleigh: So keep that relationship open, keep that line of communication always open with the journalist. Dana: Yes. Ashleigh: Follow the journalist, follow the news station. That's also I think important, to get a gauge for what exactly the brand of that station is, so that you're familiar with it, so that you know that there might be a story out there that you know the station will absolutely jump on. The brand is very important, because every station has a brand. Every station has a brand. Dana: Right. It was Arizona's family, what was there over riding brand? How would you describe it? Ashleigh: Basically how to empower families. A lot of financial stories we would do, education stories. Big in politics too, because that effects everybody. It was really just empowering people of the valley. How can we empower our valley viewers? Dana: Great. Yeah, and that's a strong brand and they work very hard on that. Ashleigh: Absolutely. Dana: Any other advice you would give to somebody when they're pitching for TV? I know a lot of people are confused about who to reach out to, is it the reporters, the anchors, the producer? I mean who is their best bet when they are going to a station and they want to build credible relationships, is it the reporter? Is it the producer? Is it the assignment editor? Who's the guy? Ashleigh: That's an excellent question. I would say the more, the merrier. A lot of times when you are sending a pitch it gets lost, especially to the assignment desk because they are so inundated with pitches. If there is an anchor, a particular anchor that the person trusts, or feels like they might be able to disseminate to the right person, send it to the anchor. Send it to the reporter. Do research on the staff. A lot of times I would get pitches because they read my biography and they saw that I was a strong animal advocate and that I served on the board of directors for the animal cruelty task force in Ohio. Even though it was in Ohio, I still got pitches here in Arizona because they did their research. And the humane societies, and certain rescue groups because they saw that I was kind of a go-­‐to person when it came to animals. A lot of times, in these biographies, there's a lot of information about the reporters and what their personal lives entail, what their volunteerism is. That's how I believe somebody who is trying to pitch a story will be able to learn more. Sometimes when anchors will send stories to me or to another reporter in the station who is say, heavily covering politics at the time. Say it's a story that has something to do with some kind of political event or venue or something. I think it's just really important to do your research with the staff. Dana: Right. Right, and watch the show everybody. That's probably one thing I see a lot of people not doing, is they don't even watch the show. [crosstalk 00:12:55] yeah. One last question here, and I just wondered if I could ask you to look into your crystal ball and give any theories of what you think is happening to journalism and TV and broadcasting and things like that. Do you see any trends emerging that might affect your life as a reporter in broadcasting? Any technological advancements that are ahead? Where do you think it's going? Ashleigh: Absolutely I do definitely see a trend, and the trend is social media. That is where people are getting their news most of the time these days, because everybody is so busy. Rather than getting it from the TV, their getting it on their phone. Now of course you have your DMA, which is the older generation, which is still watching the news at 10 and 11 at night, and 5 and 6pm. The younger generations and the ones that we're really trying to target are the ones that are getting the news and the information on the phone. We rely heavily on digital media, heavily on our digital media team, web content, a lot of Facebook live now, a lot of Twitter live. The best thing to do when you're trying to target an audience through Twitter or Facebook is also say hey, have an element that's coming up tonight at [inaudible 00:14:27] or tonight at 6, and say you're doing this Facebook live in the afternoon. We're going to have something that you won't see anywhere but in our 6 o'clock news cast. Therefore they have to turn on the TV to watch it. Dana: Nice. Ashleigh: Yes, digital media is definitely, it's a benefit absolutely, but it's also a little scary. As for journalists just because we want them to watch us on TV, but they're watching us on Facebook and Twitter. You really have to be creative to get them to still turn on the TV. Dana: Are you on Twitter? If somebody wants to get ahold of you can they find you on Twitter? Where's the best place for people to go social media wise, to learn more about you or get in touch? Ashleigh: Yes, absolutely. My Twitter handle is @ashleighnews and I also have ... And it's A-­‐S-­‐H-­‐L-­‐E-­‐I-­‐G-­‐H. News. It might be @ashleighberrynews, but you can just do a quick search on Facebook they'll be able to find my news personality Facebook page. Right now I'm in transition with jobs, but in the coming weeks I will have a lot of things coming up on social media. A very exciting time. Dana: Oh, good. Good. Yeah. I'll be watching you. I want to see how you do in this big adventure that's coming up for you. Ashleigh: That's right, that's right, Dana. Thank you so much. I really appreciate being on your show. It really is an honor that you asked me to do this. Dana: Thank you. It's an honor to have you and a real pleasure, and the best of luck to you. Dana: Well everyone, I hope you enjoyed our interview today with Ashleigh Barry. Now, I don’t know if you can tell, but she was actually speaking with me from her car (she wasn’t driving, so don’t worry) because she’s recently accepted a new assignment with the KXAS/Channel 5 news team, covering Dallas and focusing on the Dallas Police Department, and I have included a link to the Star-­‐Telegram article announcing her new post in the show notes so you can read more about it. Remember that you can download a complete transcript of this interview and view additional links and resources on the podcast page at my website, danadobson.com, click on podcasts, and then episode #20. So thanks so much again for listening, and I’ll see you next time. Until then, go get ’em, because your public awaits.