J-School is for Losers

I recently read an article titled “The Vigilante Journalist” that was an interview with Matt Taibbi, a national reporter who writes from the left-libertarian perspective, whose column is the reason for over a million-plus subscribers to the Rolling Stone’s. When asked whether any sane young person should consider a career in journalism Taibbi replied:

If you have no real knowledge or skill set and you’re lazy and full of shit but you want to make a decent wage, then journalism’s not a bad career option. The great think about it is that you don’t need to know anything...I can’t believe people actually go to journalism school. You can learn the entire thing in like three days.

His advice to those going into journalism is to go to school for something concrete like medicine or science, then use that knowledge as a wedge to get yourself into journalism. Because what journalism really needs is more people reporting who actually know something instead of a bunch of liberal arts grads who write about health care like they are doctors.

Even though I’m not going to school for journalism I have had the privilege of taking a few journalism based courses and I must say that while the basics are easy there is no possible way that anyone can learn the entire ins and outs of journalism in simply a matter of days. While I see, and respect, where Taibbi is coming from with wanting those who write about the news to actually have background knowledge about what they are writing about, I can’t help but feel that he is a little off in his assertions. Maybe he has never taken an editing and design class, perhaps he should try it before he speaks so loudly.

Fly-By Viewers

According to the article “Online Salvation?” published by the American Journalism Review, Internet revenue is growing at a double-digit rate. Last year newspapers collected nearly $2.7 billion. This is the kind of news that “soothes beleaguered publishers and journalist.”

As print circulation and advertising increases, the newspaper industry and news providers generally look towards online where Web sites run by local newspapers are typically the most popular sources for news and online advertising in their local communities. What seems like a bright light for news agencies is actually proving to be a dark cloud. According to the article:

Online newspaper audience seems to have all but stopped growing...Newspaper Web sites are attracting lots of visitors, but aren’t keeping them around for long. The typical visitor to nytimes.com...spent an average of just 34 minutes and 53 seconds browsing its richly detailed offerings in October...about 68 seconds per day online.

Hard-core news visitors tend to linger longer online, but they are a minority. Greg Harmon, director of a newspaper research firm, estimates that as many as “60 percent of online newspaper visitors are fly-bys, people who use the site briefly and irregularly.”

I found this to be a quite suiting article as we are about to judge local newspapers on their Web sites. It sounds like now, more then ever, news organizations need to focus on what makes a good Web site in not only attracting viewers but keep them. It doesn’t do a lot of good when a reader is on your site for barely a minute a day, it especially won’t do much good if advertisers start finding out that online ads aren’t a good investment plan. I think that newspapers should really focus on their Web sites to make them not only user friendly and appealing to the eye, but full of useful information. They need to find ways to get readers to their sites for reasons other then simply browsing headlines for the possibility of a current event news quiz. They need to draw readers to functions that they actually want to utilize.

Does Anyone Else See the Elephant in the Room?

According to the article “Making News, Without Saying a Word” The Associated Press ran a news article about Paris Hilton’s supposed desire to publicize the plight of elephants in northeastern India. Only later they found that the quotes and the linking of Hilton to the story were completely falsified. The article noted that “as journalistic blunders go, it wasn’t quite up there with Dewey Defeats Truman” but it was still a horrific error.

While it is a fact that elephants are getting drunk on farmers’ homemade rice beer, then going on rampages, it is not true that Hilton made any statements about the issue at all. She was quoted as telling reporters that:

The elephants get drunk all the time. It is becoming really dangerous. We need to stop making alcohol available to them.

The quote showed up in numerous places after The Associated Press ran their article. An A.P. spokesman said that they received the quotes from a highly regarded reporter who inappropriately lifted the quote from the World Entertainment News Network Web site without waiting for verification. Upon further investigation, the World Entertainment News said they got the quotation from Daily Star, a British tabloid.

The Associated Press hastily withdrew the article shortly after releasing it but the damage was already done. Hilton’s publicist stated that “this is just another example of people putting words in Paris’ mouth.” She went on to say that quotations shouldn’t be lifted from anywhere without verifying them.

While I always knew that people were often misquoted or their quote was misrepresented, I never thought that The Associated Press would make such a mistake as to not verify the quote at all. Even though they pulled the story the story immediately it doesn’t detract from the fact that they screwed up, big time. The fact that the quote actually came from a tabloid, best known for their gossip, and made it all the way into a news article circulated by The Associated Press is both astonishing and scary. To think that someone could completely fabricate a story and have it turn into factual news makes me wonder what we will hear in the future. One can only hope that news organizations will learn from this blunder and check their sources more thoroughly, before running a story.

Free the News

According to an article published by the Freepress, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said he “intends to make access to The Wall Street Journals’ Web site free trading subscription fees for anticipated ad revenue.” News Corp. has signed an agreement to acquire Dow Jones & Co., and Murdoch believes that:

A free model, with increased readership for wsj.com, will attract large numbers of big-spending advertisers.

The Web site, which is one of the few news sites around the world to successfully introduce a subscription model, has around 1 million subscribers generating about $50 million in user fees. After conducting several studies Murdoch expects that by making the Web site free they will have at least 10 million-15 million in every corner of the earth.

True, wsj.com was a very successful subscription Web site, but why stop there if there is the possibility for even more success, not to mention revenue. I for one don’t want to have to pay for my new. It’s my news so let me have it. The fact that the wsj.com was a subscription Web site actually turned me off from The Wall Street Journal all together. There are thousands of other places that I could get the exact same news, for free, so of course I went other places and I have a feeling that advertisers had the same mentality.

Big Brother China

According to the article “Oh, (Big) Brother” fake journalist are posing a big problem in China. These fake reporters are posing as reporters in an effort to blackmail and extort people by using the threat of negative press coverage. In an effort to remedy the situation:

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The authorities are building a database of overseas reporters’ profiles for the reference of interviewees.

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The database is coming under question because of China’s extreme limitations on media – threatening reporters, monitoring their communication, and censoring their stories. The database seems to take on “an ominous Big Brother quality.”

I tried to imagine what the situation would be like if here in the United States we had a similar problem and came up with a similar solution. Would there be such an outrage since we don’t have a history of censorship? Would the database simply be swept under the rug with little attention? Or would it be totally opposite and demand more of an outcry then it does in Chine because we pride ourselves on our freedom of speech? I don’t really know if I have the answer or could even foresee what that answer might be. Maybe the answer isn’t the question at all. Maybe we are getting to caught up in China’s censorship to remember the issue at hand, people are posing as reporters to harm blackmail people for money. I remember how outraged the U.S. was in with FEMA’s attempt at fake reporters.

Where Did Your Information Come From?

According to the article “Waterboarding is something of which every American should be proud” Deroy Murdock, contributing editor to National Review Online, wrote an article stating that not only should American’s be proud of it but that:

Though clearly uncomfortable, waterboarding loosens lips without causing permanent physical injuries and unlikely even temporary ones.

But according to medical experts on the effect of torture, waterboarding results in both short and long-term negative consequences for mental and physical health including the possible risk of death.

Murdock tried to justify his reasoning in that:

Waterboarding makes tight-lipped terrorists talk. At least three major al-Qaeda leaders reportedly have been waterboarded...waterbarding is not used on American citizens...it is used on foreign Islamic-extremist terrorist, captured abroad, who would love nothing more than to blast innocent men, women and children into small, bloody pieces.

Murdock went on to state that “there is nothing repugnant about waterboarding.” But contrary to Murdock’s assertions the director of Program for Survivors of Torture said:

To think that abusive methods, including the enhanced interrogation techniques [waterboarding], are harmless psychological ploys is contradictory to well established medical knowledge and clinical experience...[including] panic attacks, depression and post traumatic stress disorder...There is a real risk of death from actual drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs from inhalation of water.

Perhaps Murdock missed the memo about the whole death possibility, an actual occurrence in some cases, involved with waterboarding when he decided to release his opinions. I feel the fact that he wrote a column with such unfounded statements, which can easily be contradicted with the slightest bit of research, is a perfect example of the impact credibility has on a story. Reading his factual assertions that were proven to be false makes me as a reader highly cynical of anything else he has to say. If I were to come across another article written by him I wouldn’t waist my time reading it.

The Advertisers are Lurking

AZCentral has started to put two green lines under words in stories called “Vibrant In-Text Advertising” indicating that the word has been sold to an advertiser and when you place your cursor over the word a box showing an ad with flash on the screen. If you click on the box it will take you to a more complete advertisement for the company. According to the article “Three words per story are for sale now on AZCentral.com” Ford Motor Company owns football, American Express owns Texas, and Pitney-Bowes owns business.

AZ Central says that there was a lot of negative reaction to the concept internally but they haven’t heard or seen a single reaction from an external reader.

I think this article raises an ethical issue of whether it is justifiable for organizations to sell their stories to the highest bidder. I feel that it blurs the lines between news and advertisements even further and in my opinion just might backlash on the companies selling their words. As a consumer I don’t want to be bombarded by advertising embedded in what I am trying to read. If I had to constantly dodge ad boxes popping up just to read a story I would mostly likely give up on the source completely and turn my attention somewhere else, anywhere else.

Where Have All the Readers Gone?

Newspaper circulation across the industry fell almost 3 percent compared to the year before. The Audit Bureau of Circulation reported the drop and in the article “More Readers Trading Newspapers for Web Sites” cited the decline was due to the growing shift of readers to the Internet.

An analysis of 88 major papers found:

...that in the last two years, about half had seen no significant change in combined print and online readership, or showed an increase.

Because newspaper Web sites, unlike their print counterparts, are drawing a lot of young adults the industry is hoping it will have an impression on advertisers. But since advertisers have generally not considered an online reader to be as valuable as a print reader, it remains to be seen what effects the numbers will have.

I think this is an excellent case of going where the money is. Young readers equal advertiser dollars and even though those advertisers may not immediately recognize those readers I think that in years to come it will be hard not to. With more and more newspapers being read online I could see a dramatic change in advertising dollars being shifted from print sources to online sources.

Maybe News Consumers Aren’t the Problem

News consumers may not be so pop culture obsessed after all according to the article “Public Tunes out Ellen DeGeneres Controversy.” The study found that while DeGeneres’s pet adoption melt down generated a fair amount of news coverage last week, overall the public expressed relatively little interest:

Only 5% paid very close attention and another 13% paid fairly close attention. Fully 59% said they were not following the story at all.

Most of the public is even saying that DeGeneres was over-covered by the media and even those who were paying fairly close attention to the story overwhelmingly said it was overdone.

The main story last week that caught the public’s attention was the news coverage about the danger of an antibiotic-resistant staph infection. The staph infection story was placed at the top of the weekly news interest index, but the overall coverage of the story was less then the actual public interest. More then a quarter of Americans aid very close attention to this story and 18% listed it as the single news story they followed the closest while only 3% of the national news was actually devoted to this story, making it only the 9th most heavily covered story of the week.

In other news last week, the public continued to pay close attention to the Iraq war, in spite of limited coverage, the presidential campaign, which was most heavily covered, and other issues like U.S. economy, the Pakistan bombing and Iraq policy.

I found it very interesting, and even a little refreshing, to see that is a world where Britney Spears gets more news coverage then the Iraq war that consumers may not be completely to blame. I think news outlets place too much emphasis on what they think consumers want to read about. This article just goes to show that sometimes it’s the news outlets fault, not the consumer, for space that should be devoted to hard news stories going to fluff stories dealing with pop cultural issues instead of world issues.

Video Killed the Newspaper Star

After reading the article “Will Newspapers Survive?” published by the Boston Globe I came to wonder the exact same thing.

After working in the newspaper world for 20 years Jeff Jacoby, writer for the Boston Gobe, noted that:

One of the first things I learned in this business was how eager some people are to express their disdain for it.

Today’s press critics aren’t saying anything that hasn’t already been said before because newspapers have always drawn fire, but they have also always drawn readers. Now, increasingly, they don’t. In years past everyone grew up in homes where newspapers were read everyday, but that is no longer the norm:

The percentage of Americans who read a paper every day has fallen from around 70 percent in 1972 to 35 percent today...newspaper circulation has been dropping for 20 years. What’s worse, the rate of decline seems to be speeding up.

So, who killed the newspaper? The conventional answer is that the Internet is the culprit. Readers by the millions have migrated to the Web, where news and information are supplied for free right at their fingertips. But is the rise of the Internet really the cause of the decline in newspapers? Jacoby says that when he started in the news industry 20 years ago readership was already on the slide and the absence of newspaper habits among young readers was already prompting concern. So if the Internet isn’t the cause, what is?

“I nominate not the computer screen, but the TV screen,” says Jacoby. It’s the rise of television and a generation raised on TV mindlessness that is creating a generation less equipped to read a newspaper.

I have to agree with Jacoby that it isn’t the Internets fault for the decline of newspapers, but the laziness created in the wake of television. Too many kids are raise on TV or “babysat” by TV, which creates a type of mindless zombie that goes throughout life not wanting to think for them self. It’s a lot let work at the end of the day to come home and tune into the TV, forgetting about everything else, then it is to pick up a newspaper and actually do more work in readers, digesting and understanding its content.

Google Saves the Day

How do I get there? I don’t know – Google it?

Whether it is across the county or across town Google Maps has become a staple in the lives of many travelers. According to the article “Newsrooms use Google Maps to improve wildfire coverage” now Google Maps is helping newsrooms improve the coverage of the California wildfires with interactive maps allowing journalists to chart the fires and their damage.

These fire maps have been used by the Los Angeles Times, the Union-Tribune’s SignOnSanDiego.com and KPBS-TV in San Diego to help their viewers get more information on where the fires have been and where they are heading.

Earlier this year Google introduced the “My Maps” function, which allows non-programmers to build and share customized Google Maps, allowing journalist to put up a map whenever relevant wildfire news occurs. A staff writer for the Los Angeles Times describes how their paper utilized Google Maps:

There were certain kinds of information that we started with. How many acres has this fire burned? How many firefighters are on the line? Are there injuries? Have there been homes destroyed or damaged? Where is the fire moving.

SignOnSanDiego’s Web team used its fire map to show shelters and burned homes, as well as fire origin points and burn areas.

SignOnSanDiego.com's fire map

Once available, the fire maps proved to be wildly popular with online readers:

An assistant chief with the Los Angeles Police Department said that ‘we had your map up at the emergency options center.’

Once Google noticed how much traffic the fire maps were getting they increases their server capacity to make sure the maps could be displayed quickly and reliably to the people depending on them.

The fire maps challenged news organizations to break from conventional news to deliver needed information to the public in the most timely and engaging ways technology would allow. The article noted that “This ability to deliver information, in this new way, unfiltered and up to the minute, was really important to people.”

Being a consumer of Google Maps myself it was very interesting to read how they have actually integrated themselves into a news source. It is a perfect example of Web 2.0 in that consumers want up to date information on things that pertain to them and they don’t want to simple read the news, but interact with it. The fire maps allowed readers to not only read about where the fires are but actual use a tool that allows them to get the current information that they desire whether it be simple where the fires are, where the fires are heading or where they themselves can go for shelter after being stuck by disaster.

Too Many Errors

In a question and answer style article “Talk to the Newsroom” published in The New York Times their deputy news editor, Philip Corbett, faces the question of why there seems to be so many more errors in The New York Times these days.

One such question was about the attention to grammar:

What’s with all the grammatical errors in The Times?...over the past couple years I’ve gotten the impression that many of your writers must not even have graduated from high school! Particularly striking is the number of errors relating to agreement between noun and verb.

Corbett responded by noting that the question seemed to have that everything-was-better-long-ago theme and that while many readers believe that there were fewer factual errors, typos, and grammatical lapses in The Times back in the old days he honestly doesn’t know if that is true. It’s that perception that worries him though. While he notes that it is possible that there are really more mistakes not than there were 20 or 30 years ago:

I truly don’t believe it’s because today’s writers or editors are less talented or conscientious than our predecessors. But I do think The Times today tries to do more than it did years ago. There is more late-breaking news, more variety of sections, topics and stories – and now...there’s the Web site, with constant updating of news and a whole new range of offerings...it may be that our effort to give readers more means that we fall short of perfection even more than we once did.

Another question dealt with copy editing in the Internet era:

Are there any copy editing errors or concerns that occur exclusively in the online version of The New York Times? Anything you didn’t have to think about back in the all-print-only-print days?

Corbett believes that the biggest challenges for copy editors posses by the Web site involve time and volume. Newspaper editors have always worked under tight deadlines but with the Web the deadlines is always here because of constant updates. The Web site also included a huge amount of material, far beyond what appears in the paper. Corbett noted that:

Our Web editors are always balancing the desire to be fast with the need to maintain our high standards of editing. Generally, I think we do a good job with the balancing act, though there are times when an error will slip through that makes us wish we had taken a few extra minutes.

While such errors happen in print too the difference is that it’s the final edition we have to live with the goof for 24 hours until it can be corrected. At least on the Web, errors can be fixed as soon as they’re spotted. One place for such errors are our blogs, which raise special issues for editors:

Like everything on nytimes.com, blogs are held to the same standards of accuracy and fairness that we apply to news articles. But the tone and writing style can be very different...Editors have to be able to allow a blogger’s voice and style to come through, while still maintaining Times standards.

I agree with Corbett in that while there may be more errors in the times it is definitely is not due to slacking editors. News organizations offer so much more to their readers then they did in the past, they have to. Readers demand up to date information and they want ways to interact and find their own news. It is because of this that newspapers are doing so many more things then ever imaginable in the past and I would much rather have many different news tools to pick from and interact with then one that is edited perfectly.

Nonprofit Investigative Journalism

The article “Group Plans To Provide Investigative Journalism” tells the story of Paul E. Steiger, who was the top editor of The Wall Street Journal for 16 years, and a pair of wealthy Californians who are assembling a group of investigative journalists willing to give away their work to media outlets.

The nonprofit group, Pro Publica, will pitch each project to a newspaper or magazine in hopes their work will make the strongest impression:

The plan is to do long-term projects, uncovering misdeeds in government, business and organizations.

Nothing quite like this has ever been attempted before and Pro Publica will be something of an experiment by trial and error. Steiger is hopeful as he notes that “It is the deep-dive stuff and the aggressive follow-up that is most challenged in the budget process.”

Pro Publica plans to establish a newsroom in New York City and have 24 journalists along with a dozen other employees and will become a training ground for investigative reporters. Pro Publica is created in the wake of newspapers routinely publishing articles from wire services and subscriptions to major papers’ news services. However, except for fairly routine news wire services articles, the largest newspapers have generally been reluctant to use reporting from other organization. But experts say that “resistance is breaking down as business is squeezed financially, and newspapers make greater use of freelance journalists.”

While I know there are other services on a smaller scale like Pro Publica I have to wonder about the long-term outcome for them. Sure they will be very successful with aspects of news reporting that smaller news rooms don’t have the time or money to spend on, like in-depth and follow-up work, but I have to wonder how much of a living they can make off of that type of news alone. Most newspapers are centered around a local angle so it will be interesting to see the outcome of Pro Publica's success.

News For the New Generation

The article “ABC Reshapes the Evening News for the Web” tells about how executives at ABC have recognized that they have opportunities online that they don’t have on television, like the ability to test new forms of news delivery and new types of storytelling. One such online segment is a video account of ABC News correspondent Bill Blakemore’s recent trip to Greenland to see the effects of global warming. The video diary segment is the first of three documenting his trip and is aimed at the network’s afternoon Web cast.

ABC realizes that making their content relevant online is a good way to attract the younger audiences who are less likely to tune in to the evening news on television. However, ABC is the only major broadcast network that is using the staff of its evening newscast to produce a separate and distinct daily program for Web audience:

The 15-minute segments can run long, and they purposely look raw and personal, as if they were made for MTV rather than ABC.

The Web casts have evolved into an original program that incorporates video blogs, first-person essays and interviews that cover many of the same stories as its television sibling, just often in a different way. The ABC Web cast “resembles a younger, more technologically advance version of the traditional 6:40 p.m. report.” It is intended in part for people who view Web pages on iPods and cellphones – aimed directly at pleasing the coveted 25- to 54-year-olds.

ABC is definitely on to something. By realizing that the current news situation isn’t working for reaching a younger generation they are able to create a new one. In customizing the news to fit into the daily lives of younger audiences it creates a personalized aspect that speaks directly to the younger generations.

What Do We Need Copy Editors For Anyway?

According to the article “Just sack all the editors” published by the Baltimore Sun, copy editors have made a big mistake by coming to work in the evening after all the important people at the paper have gone for the day. They work late into the night creating remarkably clean newspapers and because they see no reason to “trumpet their achievements” their work often goes unnotices.

This was brought to attention when Joseph Lodovic, the president of Dean Singleton’s MediaNews, voiced the following statement:

We have to find ways to grow revenue or become more efficient by eliminating fixed costs. Why does every newspaper need copy editors? In this day and age, I think copy-editing can be done centrally for several newspapers.

The article cleverly paralleled Lodovic’s comment on copy editors to that of meat inspectors by saying that they are costly, don’t generate revenue and by reducing their number you can save a few bucks:

Sure, a little E. coli will get into the hamburger, and you may have to recall a few million pounds of meat, and a few soreheads may file multimillion-dollar lawsuits – but really, all you were doing was eliminating some fixed costs...Doesn’t the public understand that maintaining a satisfactory profit margin depend on reducing costs?

Most newspapers are made up of intensive local coverage so they need local copy editors, not centralized editors located miles away. The article asks the question of how copy editors working five states away are going to recognize when a “photo desk has supplied for the James F. Smith obituary a photo of James T. Smith” or that an article “has located Savage in Anne Arundel County rather than Howard.”

Many times it isn’t just errors in grammar and usage that the copy desk catches, but also local details that can enhance or diminish the credibility of the report. Just as noted in the article “Hats Off To The Unsung Copy Editor,” readers have no tolerance for carelessness. The work of a copy editors is just as important to readers as is the work of reporters because what it really comes down to is credibility and no matter what the article is written about if there are errors there are losses of readers.

Judgment Call

“5 Weeks After He Disappeared, Still No Obituaries for Fossett.” The article published by The New York Times explores the nightmare of most editors who handle obituaries; writing about someone who is, in fact, alive.

The disappearance of well-known adventurer Steve Fossett, while flying across the Nevada desert over five weeks ago, has created an unusual predicament:

When a person vanishes without a trace, when, if ever, should a news organization publish an obituary?

Adam Bernatein, writer for The Washington Post, began preparing an obituary almost immediately, but it has not yet been published because he hasn’t been officially declared dead. The Post is not alone, other major newspapers took similar steps and have also held back because of danger in presumption:

We don’t want to put anyone in the grave, so to speak.

But when do you decided? For Time magazine, the time came on Oct. 3, when the government halted the search for Mr. Fossett. However, the end of the search did not prompt other news organizations to move forward.

Situations like this are rare but hard to navigate. Newspapers were hesitant to presume John F. Kennedy Jr. dead after his plane crashed in 1999, but most major publications ran obituaries within four days.

Even after reading the article I have no idea how I would respond to running an obituary in such a situation. There will ever be a clear answer so I guess it’s just a judgment call. My first thought was to wait because once it’s out there you can’t take it back. There is no, “Oops my bad,” in journalism. But at the same time you don’t want to find yourself being scooped by your competitors for the sake of the family. I personally don’t think that you should ever publish an actual obituary on someone if there is never a confirmed death. While the concept needs to be addressed I don’t think it needs to be done in the form of an obituary.

Getting "The Gist"

According to “Getting It Wrong, Letting It Slide” published in the Miami Herald, the mightier the news organization, the likelier it will stand by ethical blunders that would otherwise shame a first-year reporter. One such example involves The New York Times Sunday Magazine when allegations of “gross distortions in what appear to be verbatim interviews.”

The Times magazine runs a regular Q&A feature which interviews reported that the questions they’re apparently answering in print weren’t the ones they were asked. Instead, things they said were sliced, reshuffled and published out of sequence and out of context.

One of the disgruntled interviewees was NBC News heavyweight Tim Russert who complained that the published version of his Mother’s Day interview was:

Misleading, callous and hurtful, and inaccurately had him extolling his father at the expense of his mother, who had recently died.

The Times responded by saying that:

The editor of the column assure themselves that the Q-and-A reflects accurately the gist of the whole conversation and contains actual quotes, both questions and answers.

Contains actual quotes sure, but what about the question inserted that were never asked? Not to mention representing the speaker as saying things they did not mean on the basis of getting “the gist” of it.

And you wonder why the public doesn’t trust you?

Are you kidding me? That was all I could think after reading such an article. How can newspapers get away with this? There is no excuse for letting a newspaper, I don’t care how big they are; get away with such a blatant lie in my eyes. It is bad enough that they are splicing quotes, taking things out of context and rearranging answers, but when you report someone as answering a question that you didn’t even ask you are stepping into a whole new territory of unethical behavior. I agree with the article in asking why you think the public doesn’t trust news sources anymore. It saddens me to reach such an article and only makes me want to read the news even less.

CBS + Gossip = ????

Gossip Web sites and blogs have become must-have acquisitions for mainstream media companies. AOL is the proud owner of TMZ.com and Yahoo! acquired celebrity news site OMG.com Now according to the article “Gossip Websites – Talk Is Cheap, But Celebrity Gossip Can Be Priceless” published in The Independent, some have accused CBS of jumping on the bandwagon.

CBS, one of America’s biggest radio and television networks paid a reported $10 million last week for little-known celebrity gossip blog DotSpotter.com, which bills itself as “The Pulse of Pop Culture” and offers readers a mix of gossip, news, pictures and videos.

Why the purchase of a gossip site that has only 350,000 visitors a month? Alex Burmaster, Internet Analyst for Nielsen/NetRatings offers an idea:

I suppose CBS are banking on DotSpotter becoming much bigger and are getting in now before prices get ridiculous, something that often happens when the ‘next big thing’ is touted around online.

One must be careful because gossip sites publish material that is much more risqué then traditional printed news and the bigger the site the more likely it is to come under legal scrutiny. Take Perez Hilton’s recent legal issues with Britney Spears’ record company.

With such big risk involved one might ask why traditional news medias are taking it. Simple. Gossip sites attract the illusive demographic, which is gold to advertisers, the 25 to 34 year-olds. While it is a smart move from an economic stand point it has to make you stop and wonder. Why are hard news medias associating themselves with celebrity gossip sites that have virtually no credibility. Sure it allows you to reach a younger generation in advertising dollars but that’s about it. The news organizations are reaching them on a news level and, if anything, they are discrediting themselves by putting their name on such Web sites.

Secrecy of Jail - That is the Question!

According to the article “Protecting a Free Press” published by the Savannah Morning News, “Confidential sources can be the lifeblood of news articles.” Historic journalism like the abuse at Abu Ghraib may not have been written if reporters had to reveal where they obtained their information.

The promise a journalist makes of secrecy to a source could sometimes mean choosing between keeping their word or going to jail. According to the article such a decision “inhibits the free flow of information that citizens need to make sound decisions in a free society.”

It is because of such instances that many individual states have shield laws which provide varying degrees of protection. This freedom of the press varies from state to state even though it should be addressed at the national level.

According to the article:

Some sources who talk to reporters about wrongdoing in the public or private sectors fear retribution. A federal shield laws keeps the lines of communication open, keeps the public informed and keeps reporters from getting locked up for doing their jobs.

Shield laws are an incredible important and powerful tool that journalist need to posses if they are to be able to write on issues that are high profile. Many sources wouldn’t feel safe releasing information they know due to the fact that it could resulted in them loose their jobs or even worse being physically harmed. Just as the identity of jury members is often withheld for safety reasons, journalist should be able to withhold the identity of a source for safety reasons.

This creates a fine line that journalist have to walk in that by not releasing the source of their information they face the risk of not being believed. It could also create skepticism among readers of whether a reporter is even reporting the truth or just making up stories and attributing them to unnamed sources.

What's In a Journalist?

“Senate Bill Aims to Define Who Is a Journalist” was a headline from the Washington Post that immediately caught my eye. Dealing with the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007, one of the biggest issues is just who is a journalist, or as the bill phrases, a “covered person.”

According to the bill a journalist or covered person is someone who:

...engages in journalism...that would cover those working for major news organizations as well as individuals putting out their own blogs or newsletters.

The Senate bill also included a list of who is not a covered person:

...an agent of a foreign power...anyone who is reasonably expected to possess, control, transmit or receive foreign intelligence information while such person is in the United States...anyone who, because of past actions, is excluded from participating in federal grants, aid or procurement or non-procurement activates.

This article was surprising to me in that the Senate bill actually accepts individuals that put out their own blogs. I would have thought that from a journalistic standpoint, bloggers would be looked at as being below news worthy and not included in forms of protection given by the laws for journalist. In today’s society where everyone seems to be blogging it is both a asset in that it is keeping up with the times but also a possible detriment in that anyone can publish a blog about anything, true or false.

Britney Domination

Imagine the surprise of author Jake Halpern when he was invited by CNN to discuss his book on America’s deleterious obsession with celebrities, “Fame Junkies,” only to be told he had been bumped:

It was certainly a delightful irony when, upon my arrival, I was told that my segment had been canceled due to breaking news...Britney Spears just lost custody of her kids.

The article “Bumped for Britney” published by the Colombia Journalism Review noted that according to Halpern, in 2004, network news gave five times more coverage to Martha Stewart than Darfur. While networks may get ratings spikes by flooding the Britney zone one has to think, “Enough already.”

Producers and reporters must inform and educate on issues of public relevance, especially since the public’s interest tend to follow news coverage. It’s time to remember as viewers we are not only consumers, but citizens as well.

The celebritization of news media is due partly to the need to drive viewers to consume advertisers’ products and services in an attempt to increase the value of their own advertising space. News media has become too involved in the advertising game and too worried about their bottom dollar. News and stopped being news and journalist have shifted into this celebriality where Britney is suddenly more important than the war in Iraq.

Baiting Your Audience

According to the article “Newspapers: Hook ‘Em Online” Luring new readers means connecting with them on the Internet through blogs, live online chats and interactive databases.

Jim Brady, vice president and executive editor of washingtonpost.com, said that due to a steady decline in newspaper advertising and circulation, building communities of readers online is essential:

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We’re in a battle every day for traffic. People are very, very sporadic on how they use the Web and the sites they go to.

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Another key way to attracting readers is by creating online databases. A person can go online to explore a database that allows them to search public records by typing in an address and receiving information on what a neighbor paid for their home.

Attempting to attract readers by targeting them online is a genius movement in the news world because so many of their readers are online consumers. They frequent blogs, live in online chat rooms and use interactive databases to search for all of their informational needs. Reaching out to an audience by starting on their level is a great way to gain attention, understanding and appreciation because it is from a level playing field that they know and are already fluent in.

Whose Kos? Moulitsas's Kos!

Reporters ought to be more thourough when sourcing information to Web Sites was the introduction into the article “Who speaks for a website?” published by the Online Journalism Review. Markos Moulitsas, from the DailyKos, raised an important issue to which all journalist who cover the Web ought to show greater sensitivity to. Moulitsas complained about the Wall Street Journal article which claimed that Moulitsas’ Web site held a position on campaign finance reform that is actually the opposite of Moulitsas’ position.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time it has happened. This summer, Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly attacked DailyKos over selected comments and diaries that appeared on the site, claiming that the site supported those views. While neglecting to note that those posts were from readers who have no financial or editorial relationship with the site.

With thousands of readers posting diaries on the DailyKos each week it is possible to attribute just about any political position to someone on the website. But that’s the key: the attribution ought to be given to the person on the Web site, and not the Web site itself.

It is because of this issue that the old newspaper/TV model doesn’t apply to Web communities. If a reporter appears in the news pages of the Wall Street Journal, reporter at other papers can attribute that report to “The Wall Street Journal” without providing the byline of the actual reporter who wrote the piece. This is because that reporter was assigned that piece by the paper which pays them and edits them.

This is not the case with copy being published on DailyKos and the thousand of other Web communities. Reader sign up for an account and after a one week wait can start posting diaries to the website. While a site’s editors might read it in consideration for linking to it from the site’s heavily-read front page, there is no other staff editorial review of the diary. The topics aren’t assigned by DailyKos and, aside from a handful, aren’t paid for either. Unless a diary contains copyrighted material or violates the site’s rules for posting, it will remain on the site, even if it conflicts with the owner’s political beliefs.

Attributions of reporters that appear on sites like DailyKos to the site itself is like attributing a CNN report as cable television’s views. To be fully accurate news reports should cite the individual author of information found on the site, rather than just the site itself.

Due to this issue Moulitsas has declared “No one speaks for Daily Kos other than me. Period."

Journalist ought to respect this and sharpen their procedures for attributing information from online communities that allow publication from readers, as well as paid staff. Readers have a right to know the source of the information in your stories, which demands that you not overlook, or withhold, relevant context about the identity of a source.

From Hard Print to Screen Print

According to the article “An Evolution from Journalism to Blogalism” in the Free Press journalism as we know it today isn’t always what journalism was especially if you look back to the beginning. It has come a long way with print and broadcast, but media is changing again, and in a big way. The earliest forms of journalists in America had no pretense of objectivity as the goal was, and still is, to sell stories the public wanted to read. Whether it was rumors of witchcraft or accusations of questionable lineage, early journalism was often little more than gossip.

The Associated Press was formed to reign in the madness of such journalists and eventually it subsided and news became not only routine, but virtually unchallenged.

Howard Owens, ex-newspaper publisher, describes how the business of news settled itself into that certain way of doing:

We developed inverted pyramids both to fit wire service needs and because the nature of the print package sometimes required stories to jump, so we wanted to get news up top. We developed certain professional standards related to the content of the story because with mass production, we essentially had only one chance to get the story right. We had to put premium on accuracy and fair mindedness.

Owens goes on to note that times have changed, and are changing rapidly, at once progressive and regressive. Competition between news providers is steeper than it has ever been with a multitude of avenues for deliver from radio and broadcast to cable.

Then you have the bloggers, disorganized, unschooled, undisciplined, and free of editors, publishers or conglomerates. They are under the direction of their own conscience and the immediate response of their readers, who will and do respond immediately, adding their own information and commentary to the mix.

It’s an information free-for-all the world has never seen and you have the Great Media Divide. There are journalist and Old Media, with their pesky responsibilities, self-imposed regulations, advertiser sensitivities, and publisher/owner biases. All of which the public is rather sick of. Then there are the bloggers, with nothing but what freedom of the press was intended for in the first place, “blowing the whistle on abuses of power.”

So how does journalism survive itself in the age of New Media? The way it has in ages past, the way everything survives: it adapts. One must think, behave and report like a blogger while, somehow, keeping with standards and practices, professional pedigree, and certifications. Adopt, understand and use new technology before you engage the audience where the audience is. The world is changing again, and as a journalist you must change with it.

I think it is very important to change and adapt with new situations in whatever form of career path you choose. It is incredible important within the journalism field because in today’s world if you don’t go with the flow you will get left behind and ultimately forgotten. New styles of media have created a demand for a certain type of journalism. You can no longer ignore these changes and expect to continue on as if nothings changed. You either sink or swim, and when the water level is rising and the currents are changing you had better be one heck of a good swimmer.

Web Politics

According to the article “Political Candidates Stick to Traditional Media” published in MediaWeek, political candidates from both parties are demonstrating a stubborn devotion to traditional media, along with a cautious streak that is holding them back from truly embracing the Web as an outlet for political ad dollars. Even though Americans’ media habits are rapidly changing a group of panelists that spoke during the Mixx Conference predict that most spending will remain on TV and other tried and true outlets. Richard Kosinsi, vp of political advertising estimated that most candidates were planning to spend around one percent of their total media budgets online, versus the seven percent that most mainstream brands typically spend on the medium:

When it comes to paid media, candidates are about seven years behind. While many candidates have embraced social media platforms such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube to state their case to the online audience, (where they often don’t have to spend a dime) when it comes to true advertising they are not quite there yet.

According to Rob Shepardson, founding partner of the agency SS+K, who helped advise Senator Barack Obama’s campaign:

Most candidates consider the Web an excellent place to fundraise and to engage activists, but aren’t convinced about its effectiveness in persuading voters. That’s still where the question is. It’s about getting people out on a cold night in Iowa...that’s the biggest challenge.

According to the article, those holding the decision power for candidates’ media campaigns too often rely on what they’ve done in the past, whether it worked or not:

What we are seeing in this election...is the dominance of political game by the same consultant. This is the only profession where you lose again and again and get rehired.

On a positive note, the article offers a flicker of hope for those looking for political spending on the Web:

We’re still early in the race. Right now, candidates are still in raise and save mode. That could change as the fields thin out and TV inventory potentially gets tighter next year.

I sure hope that political candidates turn to the Web. While I would hate to get political SPAM on Facebook I would have to question candidates that don’t use it as an avenue to reach voters. Especially when trying to reach a younger, technologically savvy generation. Web advertising is advertising for the new generation and by ignoring such an avenue it sends the message that political candidates don’t care about the new generation and don’t want to waist their monetary funds on them, which is a big mistake.

Readers in Control

How would you like to see in the news? Ever wish that sometimes you could pick what made front-page headlines or what didn’t for that matter? Now, thanks to the Internet, you can because social network news websites are making it possible by allowing users to vote on what they consider news. The article “Who Controls the News? On the Web, You Can” published in the Christian Science Monitor this week reported that:

The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) decided to find out what the difference between what editors of The New York Times considered a top story as opposed to the readers...

The readers PEJ decided to pole were from three user-driven sites: Del.icio.us, Digg and Reddit as well as Yahoo News’s Most Recommended, Most Viewed, and Most E-mailed. The PEJ report mentions that:

In a week when the mainstream press was focused on Iraq and the debate over immigration, the three leading user-news sites were more focused on stories like the release of Apple’s new iPone and that Nintendo had surpassed Sony in net worth.

According to the article while this may generally be seen as more proof that the Internet is corrupting the news and that people aren’t paying attention to the stories that really count, journalist should not go on the ledge over the PEJ report. The main reason is due to the one glaring flaw in the voting which is that it doesn’t account for the age of the visitors to each site. Usually their users are much younger than online readers of tradition media and when you are 25 and single what you consider important is very different from if you were 35 with three kids and a mortgage.

The article still notes that the PEJ study does show that when Web users are given the opportunity, they do make different news choices than professional journalist do and they get their news from very different sources. One example given of the changing face of journalism is DailySource where Web users suggest what stories should appear on it. Along with traditional news sources, it also features video from sites like YouTube and material from blogs.

The site allows users to submit an article and editors take them into consideration when selecting the top stories. The creator of DailySource, Peter Dunn, a journalist and former media coach and consultant said that:

Instead of relying on the stretch resources of one paper people could get high-quality articles and information from over a thousand publications including daily papers, television network site, newsmagazine, journals, blogs and others. But it’s more than just news. I would love to see these local daily sources become a place where people could find resources and share stories about their communities and share ideas about how to solfe problems...

These types of hybrid news sites as well as social networking sites illustrate the decentralizing power of the Internet where people are no longer content to be told what the “news is”. Today readers have their own minds and their own ideas and they want to share them. Those we are smart will listen and jump on the Web 2.0 bandwagon. Readers want to become part of what they are reading. They want to be involved and given the opportunity to interact with everything, including their news.

A Wall Street Magazine?

“A Wall Street Journal Magazine” the headline alone was enough to catch my attention in this week’s news. The article by The New York Times reported that next year Pursuits, a glossy monthly magazine about the lifestyles of the rich, will be created by The Wall Street Journal in hopes of drawing more ads for expensive consumer goods. Robert Frank, a columnist, blogger and author about wealthy America is the leading candidate to become editor of Pursuits.

The first issue will appear next September as an insert in the Journal’s Saturday edition and will go to about 800,000 Journal subscribers in the 18 metropolitan areas where the newspaper sells the most copies. Pursuits will also be available to all readers on The Journal’s Website.

In a Dow Jones news release Marcus W. Brauchli, The Journal's managing editor, said:

Pursuits will offer compelling journalism, vivid imagery and an unmatched guide to wealth, fashion, collecting and travel.

The news of Pursuits comes after Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation, mused publicly about turning the entire Saturday edition into a magazine.

While I must agree that the idea of Pursuits is an innovative idea and an excellent move towards attracting a younger generation of readers the thought of turning the entire Saturday edition into a magazine is quite disturbing. One of the reasons The Wall Street Journal is so successful is because it has such a high reputation among news readers. I’m afraid that Rupert Murdoch might take the success of Pursuits to far when it comes to the rest of The Wall Street Journal.

Where Did All the Ethics Go?

In response to one of my previous blog postings I came across the article "A Newspaper Defends Naming Jurors" published by The New York Times. It refers back to an article published by The Connecticut Post on September 9, 2007 that dealt with the jury selection process in a court case involving the death penalty. Accompanying the story was an illustration of 18 empty chairs with personal information about each juror including their name, hometown and occupation. After the article was released two of the jurors mentioned were excused from duty after expressing concern for their personal safety. I bogged on this issue and posed the question of just who exactly the newspaper was trying to inform and whether they were in the wrong for doing so.

In The New York Times article I learned that James H. Smith, editor of The Connecticut Post, was defending his decision to publish the story. His reasoning stemmed from the fact that there is no law prohibiting the publication of jurors' names, though sometimes judges will decide not to make the names public. Mr. Smith offers no apologies for the article and stated that:

The U.S. Constitution calls for a public trial with an impartial jury. How do you know if the jury is impartial if you don't know who they are and something about them?

I don't agree with Mr. Smith's reasoning and after hearing the facts of the case I am given a clear idea why the jurors feared retribution. The defendant, Russell Peeler Jr., was convicted of ordering his younger brother to kill Leroy Brown, 8, and his mother, Karen Clarke, in 1999. Mr. Peeler Jr. wanted Leroy Brown killed because he was scheduled to testify against him for killing his mother's boyfriend. The jury was to decide if Mr. Peeler Jr. should spend life in prison or die by lethal injection. With such high stakes one could easily understand why a juror would not particularly want the public, including friends of Mr. Peeler Jr., to know any information about them including where they were from.

A journalism ethics professor from the University of Maryland commented on the release of juror information by saying that:

It could also expose them to pressure from advocates on both sides of the death penalty. Newspapers need to balance the public's right to know with the potential risk of harm to jurors.

There were other alternatives to write about that would have given just as substantive details about the jurors without specifically naming them. You can still get a feel for a person and their impartiality by learning their background without specifically knowing their name. I very much stick to my originally response to hearing of the article in that journalistically and ethically a line was crossed and poor judgments were made. As a reporter it is your job to be objective and ethical towards all parties involved. By publishing such personal information about the 18 jurors the article was no longer simply informing the public.

Just Who Are We Trying to Inform Anyway?

I recently read an article entitled “Jurors excused, mistrial denied in Peeler case” published by The Connecticut Post that was commenting on an earlier publication by The Post. The article released the names, hometowns and personal information about 12 jurors and six alternates in the death penalty hearing for Russell Peeler Jr. on the front page of its Sunday edition. A Superior Court judge excused two jurors, fearful about their safety, from duty after the publication was released.

State’s Attorney Jonathan Benedict said:

This was an exercise of colossal misjudgment by the Connecticut Post.

One of the jurors excused told the judge she was shocked to see her name in Sunday’s newspaper stating, “I had no idea the Connecticut Post would do that, I am now concerned about my safety.” Another juror was excused because she was concerned about the safety of her children.

This incident is incredibly shocking to me especially after hearing that the jurors were “...told not to tell people [they] were on the jury.”

While I’m sure the case was an extremely high profile one and the identities of the jury members speculated about during the time leading up to the trial I see no reason for having not only their names but also their hometowns and personal information published in a newspaper. After learning that the jurors themselves were told to keep their identity a secret it makes me wonder how the media even learned of their names. Then there is the fact that background work had to be done on each of the eighteen members to even have something to write about. Maybe it’s just me but I basically see a big “Here they are, come and get them” headline and it makes me wonder just what news should actually be news. I’m sure that the public is much more interested in what’s going on with the actually case; at least I know I would be. What difference does it make to me as a reader that I now know who the jurors are, where to find their parents, and little bits of personal information about them? Does it mean that if I don’t like the outcome I’m suppose to pay them a person visit, since after reading I’d be able to?

It leaves me wondering what we as readers really want in the news and questioning where our ethics have gone. Should someone really have the right to make others fear for their safety and the safety of their families just to try and entertain readers?

High School Denies Freedom of the Press

What ever happened to freedom of the press? This is the question I was left with after reading the article “School Apologizes After Banning Reporter from Game” originally published by the Winchester Sun. According the newspaper a Kentucky school was apologizing to its local newspaper after banning one of its reporters at the Homecoming game as a form of punishment. The Principal at George Roger’s Clark High School refused to allow a reporter into the press box because he didn’t like an article the newspaper ran earlier that day.

The article in question was about four white students from George Roger’s Clark who gave a fellow black student a racially charged note. According to the mother of the student who received the note it depicted racially violent pictures and statements like “the south will rise again.” After learning of the incident a story was published by the local newspaper. The banned journalist commented, “Reporting the news is their job and the action Principal Gordon Parido took was shocking.”

The banned journalist recalled how he:

...got a phone call saying, you’re banned from the press box tonight and I said you’re kidding right? He said no, Mr. Parido doesn’t want you to be in the press box.

When he questioned the reasoning behind the action he was told that it was because the principal didn’t like the story he published in the paper very well. Since the banning of the reporter Principal Parido has called and apologized to him and while relations seem to be smooth between the school and the newspaper it is still disheartening to hear of such a response by a school district.

It seems to me that such an incident at a school would demand action from the media and not publishing the story would be punished. If my child attended George Roger’s Clark High School I would definitely want to know of such an occurrence and I would be outraged if it were to simply be swept under the rug. I remember in my hometown when a “Hit List” was discovered at the middle school that physically threatened the lives of specific students and it made the front page of many newspapers. While it does present some ethical dilemmas, like publishing the names of those on the hit list, it shouldn’t in anyway be questioned on whether or not to make the issue public.

The most shocking part about this article to me was not only the fact that the principal banned the reporter to punish the paper for reporting on the incident but that the principal had the authority to do so in the first place. News is news and everyone has the right to know about it, especially when it happens on school grounds that are funded by tax payer’s money. Reporters should not have to second guess every word they right to prevent offending or upsetting someone that could later retaliate against them.

Facebook's NewsFriends

I can’t live without my Facebook! I’m sure that most of you have either said or thought these exact words at some point over the last few years. Making it hard to remember what life was like before Facebook in a world where one had to call up friends and actually talk to them to keep in touch and find out what was going on in their lives. Today you can do almost anything on Facebook without actually doing it. From stalking...I mean...learning about your friend’s day-to-day lives to catching up on the latest movies and books just by checking out what your friends have to say about them.

For some, is seems like a big waist of time indulging in such trivial matters but for all of you out there that thought Facebook was for entertainment value alone prepare to be shocked. Facebook is now the latest one-stop-shop for, you guessed it, the news. While sifting through the hits on my RSS feeds I came across a story from News Gator Daily entitled, “Hello Facebook? Say Hello to Your NewsFriends.” The article discussed Facebook’s newly added free application called NewsFriends. Which allows users to easily find, read and share blogs, news, videos and podcasts with their “friends.” It’s simple to use and along with your own chosen feeds it automatically allows you to get the same news that your friends are getting.

As stated in the article by Richard MacManus of ReadWriteWeb:

“NewsFriends is not designed to be the main news reader for power users of products like FeedDemon or NetNewsWire, but it’s a great complement to those products when those users are spending time on Facebook.”

NewsFriends is provided by NewsGator Technologies and is a great way for Facebook-junkies who aren’t currently using a dedicated RSS reader to get all the benefits within a familiar environment. Where you can “post” your favorite articles and comments on a profile page or check out which of your friends was the first to subscribe to a Web site.

I think that in a world where younger generations aren’t spending half as much time skimming news pages as they are their friend’s pages, myself included, that bringing the news directly to them is a great development. Facebook is on their level; they know Facebook and are not intimidated by it. By placing news outlets in a very familiar place it not only allows younger generations easy access to them but also just might create an environment where the free flow of news content become like second nature.

To add the free NewsFriends application to your Facebook account click here.