10 Ways Journalism Schools Are Teaching Social Media
June 19th, 2009 | by Vadim Lavrusik

Vadim Lavrusik is a new media student at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is @lavrusik on Twitter and blogs at lavrusik.com.

With news organizations beginning to create special positions to manage the use of social media tools, such as the recently appointed social editor at The New York Times, journalism schools are starting to recognize the need to integrate social media into their curricula. That doesn’t mean having a class on Facebook or Twitter, which many college students already know inside and out, but instead means that professors are delving into how these tools can be applied to enrich the craft of reporting and producing the news and ultimately telling the story in the best possible way.

And though many professors are still experimenting and learning how these tools can be used, below are the 10 ways journalism schools are currently teaching students to use social media. Please share in the comments others that you have found to be important and effective as well.


1. Promoting Content
Social media tools are bringing readers to news sites and in many cases are increasing their Web-traffic. This isn’t just through the news organizations’ own social media accounts, but those of their writers that tweet, post, share and send links to their organization’s content. Each writer has a social network, and using social media tools to promote and distribute content increases the potential readership of the article being shared.

Sree Sreenivasan, dean of student affairs at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, said this is one of the most basic and yet very important social media uses for journalists. Sreenivasan, who is teaching a social media skills course in the fall, said it is a way for journalists to engage their audience and point them to the information that you are gathering.


2. Interviewing
Though they are often frowned upon, email interviews have become regularly used by news reporters. But the same concept can be achieved through a Facebook message or chat, Google Talk, a short exchange via Seesmic, or one of the most useful apps in a journalist’s arsenal: Skype.

Paul Jones, a clinical associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, teaches journalism students how to use technologies like Skype for conducting interviews. “The thing you use for play is also the thing you use for work,” Jones said of the tool. A student can conduct and record the interview on Skype and later embed it within an online post.

Jones said that using services like Skype allows journalists to interview international sources quite easily – and affordably, not to mention that it adds a visual element to the text of the story.

3. News Gathering and Research
The power of real-time search is providing journalists with up-to-the-second information on the latest developments of any news, trends and happenings, worldwide.

Jeff Jarvis, a professor and director of interactive media at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism, said it’s important for students to know how to use real-time searches to gather information and keep up on what is breaking. This includes, but is not limited to, using search on Twitter, FriendFeed, OneRiot, Tweetmeme, Scoopler, and SearchMerge.


Sreenivasan said searches on social media sites can point journalists to supplementary information for their reporting. These sites can also help in the process of crowdsourced news gathering.

4. Crowdsourcing and Building a Source List
It’s amazing how many websites don’t include their staff’s contact information, and the WhitePages really no longer cut it. Luckily, because of the nature of social media in networking, most people post their contact info on their profiles. Social media tools are becoming vital in building source lists. One can track now fairly easily down a source on Facebook or Twitter and send them a message. (Of course, picking up the phone too still can’t hurt.)

Students are also being taught the power crowdsourcing using social media. A journalist can tweet a question involving their reporting or announce that they are looking for a source via their FriendFeed and get some remarkable responses. Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, earlier this month posted a FriendFeed request to his more than 2,000 subscribers to help him determine why he was receiving conflicting traffic figures for different URL shorteners, for example. He received dozens of responses to his question.


Jones from the University of North Carolina teaches his students the importance of not only finding sources using Twitter and Facebook, but keeping them. One of the important factors in getting responses is doing the same when others ask questions — you have to be an active member of the social network if you expect your peers to help you ask for help.

5. Publishing with Social Tools
There are many social media tools that journalists can use to publish information, and this variety is something that journalism professors are encouraging students to explore. Publishing via social media tools can be as simple as updating readers or “followers” on Twitter during a breaking news event or building an entire news site focused around Facebook connectivity and conversations about local news – something Northwestern University students created with “NewsMixer” as a project at the Medill School of Journalism last year.


Paul Bradshaw, senior lecturer of online journalism and magazines at Birmingham City University, said the most basic tools that students should know how to use are Wordpress for blogging and site building, Twitter for live updates, Facebook for posting articles or videos, Delicious for bookmarking, Flickr for photos or videos, and YouTube for video. All of these can be used from the field with a smart phone or laptop.

Jarvis also noted the importance of using these mediums to meet the audience where they exist: social networks. “We used to always have the audience come to us, but that’s not the cast anymore,” Jarvis told me.

According to Jones, it is important for students to practice publishing information on these networks to learn how social media works and how it can be applied. He’s teaching a class on vernacular video and virtual communities in the fall, in which all of the course material come from videos, as well as student assignments and responses.

6. Blog and Website Integration
Because so many news sites are incorporating live blogging into their daily dose of content and conversation with readers, Katy Culver, a faculty member in the journalism school at University of Wisconsin at Madison, had her students learn how to use CoveritLive, which can be embedded within a site.

Culver had her students use CoveritLive to cover a lecture on journalism ethics that had limited seating. She said the conversation on the live blog was quite fascinating and informative with students linking to content that the lecturers were discussing. She said using live blogging is a great tool for readers to get a chance to ask questions of an expert, reporter, or editor at a news organization. Tools like CoveritLive also include integration with Twitter, Qik for live video, or YouTube pre-recorded videos.


Jarvis from CUNY, who had his students use BlogTalkRadio to host live audio broadcasts, said it’s about hosting a conversation with the readers and using it within content creates an interactive experience.

This is also why it is important for students to learn how to integrate social media tools into websites. Jones had his students build a Ning social network that integrated various social tools, for example.

7. Building Community and Rich Content
Sure a journalist can use social media tools to have a conversation with their audience, but what’s the point? The greater goal is to build a community through engagement. Crowdsourcing, live blogging, tweeting — it’s about building a network around issues that matter to the community. In a way, social networks are the new editorial page, rich with opinions and ideas.

Jarvis said building community can be done by joining groups on social networks (though always be careful that you’re not somehow taking sides). Ultimately, he said, social media should help journalists do their job and be integrated into their reporting, but not take it over. Content is still king.

Jones emphasized the importance of creating rich content. “A tweet shouldn’t just be ‘I am eating a sandwich,’” he said. It should include a link with details that are useful to someone reading it. And retweets, he said makes the original tweet more rich and gives it credibility because someone else thought it was useful to share with their network. In a way, it is like the Associated Press wire picking up your story, Jones said.

8. Personal Brand
Students can’t stay in school forever — eventually they need to get jobs. Social networks can be used to build a personal brand that can help students land a reporting gig after college. But Jones emphasized this applies to students only, which is what he teaches.

He believes that a journalist is representing their organization and not their name, and that applies to their use of social media. Often times, he said, a journalists’ followers are following them because the news organization they represent has credibility, not necessarily them.

9. Ethics: Remember, You’re Still a Journalist
Sreenivasan from Columbia said there are no hard and fast rules for ethics and social media yet. But told me that what a person posts or shares or produces on social media reflects on the person’s judgment and students should be cautious. He used the example of broadcasting your affiliations on Facebook through notifications on your wall.


In some cases, a journalist may actually be joining an advocacy group as a way to gain sources, but their social network could interpret that they support the group or are involved in some way, he said. Keep in mind the horror stories of people not getting jobs because of their social media profiles and the things they put on them — remember that employers no longer just look at your resume. Also, take a look a Leah Betancourt’s post on How Social Media is Radically Changing the Newsroom.

10. Experiment, Experiment, Experiment
Sreenivasan, Culver, Jarvis and Jones all pointed to the importance of students experimenting with social media tools. For example, if Flickr isn’t meeting your needs, try another tool that suits your use better. Sreenivasan pointed out that we are all still learning the best practices of social media. Journalism students experimenting with these tools can learn how to apply them once they join the workforce.

Here are a few tips from Bradshaw for how teachers can encourage social media experimentation:

- Use the tools themselves to teach the class. Use them in any setting possible.
- Do it publicly and socially. For example, Bradshaw paired students up with “Twentors” to help students that were new to Twitter.
- Less talk, more action. Put the students out there and get them using the tools one by one.

Great source of info. and a question, how many deaths in Iraq since 2003? That is a very difficult question as it is open ended with no terms defined. So how many Americans have been killed, civilians and soldiers? How many allied troops and civilians have died? And the hardest one of all how many insurgents have died and how many Iraqi civilians have died? Compare these figures to the ones you get from here and tell me which place you'd like to live:
Interactive Map: New York City Homicides
This map compiles data on the latest major crimes, including murders, in the five boroughs.
http://projects.nytimes.com/crime/homicides/map?hp?th&emc=th
Related Article
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/nyregion/19murder.html
I really love the New York Times for this. See you Monday
Looked at most of your blogs this weekend just for fun and some are looking really good!

I have sent everyone an e-mail from Altnet, however Amano-san's continues to bounce with both wanna-be-ey-dwct@yahoo.co.jp and wanna_be_ey_dwct@yahoo.co.jp. There are more to follow. See you all Monday at 12:45 at the Oedo Line Tsukeji station, don't be late.

Every thing helps the newspapers dilemma:
| A.P. To Distribute Nonprofits' Investigative Journalism |
| from the live-to-pry-another-day dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Saturday June 13, @18:32 (The Media) |
| http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/06/13/2050210 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

The NY Times is reporting on the Associated Press's decision to
[0]distribute the investigative journalism of four nonprofit groups. This
ought to benefit both struggling newspapers, which have cut investigative
staff, and the nonprofits where, we can hope, many of those laid-off
journalists are plying their trade. It's refreshing to see this kind of
forward thinking coming out of an organization [1]not normally known for
its progressiveness. "Starting on July 1, the A.P. will deliver work by
the Center for Public Integrity, the Investigative Reporting Workshop at
American University, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and
ProPublica to the 1,500 American newspapers that are A.P. members, which
will be free to publish the material. The A.P. called the arrangement a
six-month experiment that could later be broadened to include other
investigative nonprofits, and to serve its nonmember clients, which
include broadcast and Internet outlets."

Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/06/13/2050210

Links:
0. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/13/business/media/13press.html?_r=2&ref=media
1. http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/08/121210&tid=217

You don't have to complete your video project until the 17th but the Obituaries are due this coming Tue. by 10:30 a.m. See you all on Wed. Clark

1!Photo Journalism covers a very wide field, all we can see, the visual. The journalists job is to take these picture and then as well tell the story that can't be seen. Difficult?, Yes, but somebody has to do the hard jobs:http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/05/29/arts/salgado-slideshow_index.html
Check this guy out, he is important!
May 31, 2009
ART
Back to Nature, in Pictures and Action

By JORI FINKEL
Los Angeles

SEBASTIÃO SALGADO sounds as if he’s slightly allergic to Los Angeles. It’s not just that this celebrated Brazilian photojournalist has been sniffling since he arrived in the city, explaining: “I was born in a tropical ecosystem. I’m not used to these plants.” It’s also that he peppers his description of the city with words like strange and crazy, noting that he was mesmerized by the sight of the endless stream of automobile traffic as his plane made its descent.

The urban sprawl of Los Angeles is, in any case, a far cry from the remote, sparsely populated jungle and desert locations where he has been traveling for his epic, ecological work in progress “Genesis.” Famous for putting a human face on economic and political oppression in developing countries, Mr. Salgado is photographing the most pristine vestiges of nature he can find: pockets of the planet unspoiled by modern development. He has visited the seminomadic Zo’e tribe in the heart of the Brazilian rain forest and weathered desolate stretches of the Sahara. Next up: two months in the Brooks mountain range of Alaska on the trail of caribous and Dall sheep.

But this brand of environmentalism is costly enough to send him back to major cities for support. That’s what brought him here for a three-day whirlwind of talks, meetings and parties. One night he gave a slide show featuring new work from “Genesis” to a sold-out crowd at the Hammer Museum. The next evening he was a guest of honor at a fund-raiser at the Peter Fetterman gallery in Santa Monica, where some of his new work appears in his show “Africa,” through Sept. 30. After that it was off to San Francisco for a benefit dinner given by Marsha Williams before returning to Paris, which he considers home along with Vitória, Brazil.

It might sound like a punishing schedule, but the 65-year-old photographer says he doesn’t mind and doesn’t lose focus on work even when flocked by art collectors and celebrity backers. Sitting down at the Peter Fetterman gallery, with his image of zebras in Namibia hanging overhead, Mr. Salgado compared his time away from nature to the potentially disruptive moment when he has to change the film in his camera, when he likes to close his eyes and sing so as not to lose concentration.

“I came here for special things, but my head is there, my body is there,” he said with an intent expression and a gentle Portuguese accent. “I might be sleeping in a hotel room in Los Angeles, but in my mind I am always editing pictures.”

For “Genesis,” an eight-year project now more than half completed, he is piecing together a visual story about the effects of modern development on the environment. Yet rather than document the effects of, say, pollution or global warming directly, he is photographing natural subjects that he believes have somehow “escaped or recovered from” such changes: landscapes, seascapes, animals and indigenous tribes that represent an earlier, purer — “pristine” is a favorite word — state of nature.

In this way “Genesis” is a grand, romantic back-to-nature project, combining elements of both the literary pastoral and the sublime. Mr. Salgado also describes it as a return to childhood, as he was raised on a farm in the Rio Doce Valley of southeastern Brazil — then about 60 percent rain forest — that suffered from terrible erosion and deforestation. Years later, in 1998, he and his wife, Lélia, founded the Instituto Terra on 1,500 acres of this land to undertake an ambitious reforestation project. His wife, who also designs his books and exhibitions, is the institute’s president; he is vice president and the institute’s most famous spokesman. Or, as Ian Parker wrote in The New Yorker, Mr. Salgado is more than a photojournalist, “much the way Bono is something more than a pop star.”

In short, while the Instituto Terra is the locally rooted arm of his environmental activism, “Genesis” is its globally minded, photo-driven counterpart. Since undertaking the series in 2004, he has visited some 20 different sites across 5 continents.

He began with a shoot in the Galápagos Islands that paid homage to Darwin’s studies there. (Mr. Salgado says his title, “Genesis,” is not meant to be religious.) “Darwin spent 37 to 40 days there,” he said. “I got to spend about three months there, which was fabulous.” He was thrilled to see for himself evidence of natural selection in species like the cormorant, a bird that lost its ability to fly after a history of foraging for food underwater, not by air.

Last fall he spent two months in Ethiopia, hiking some 500 miles (with 18 pack donkeys and their owners) from Lalibela into Simien National Park to shoot the mountains, indigenous tribes and rare species like a very hairy baboon known as the Gelada. “I was traveling in this area in the same way people did 3,000 to 5,000 years ago,” he said.

Well, almost the same way. He did carry a satellite phone, which made him the point person for receiving news of the United States election in November. “When we found out that Obama won, everyone driving these donkeys, everyone was jumping up and down,” he said. He called Mr. Obama’s election “a victory for the planet.”

He is cautiously optimistic about his own environmental work. “I’m 100 percent sure that alone my photographs would not do anything. But as part of a larger movement, I hope to make a difference,” he said. “It isn’t true that the planet is lost. We must work hard to preserve it.”

His earlier projects were also driven by a sense of urgency. Before becoming a photographer he did doctoral work in agricultural economics at the University of Paris and served as an economist for the International Coffee Organization in London. You can see this training in the scope and complexity of his photography.

“Workers,” a seven-year project completed in 1992, featured images of laborers from 26 countries, including his acclaimed pictures of the Serra Pelada miners in Brazil. “Migrations,” a six-year project spanning some 40 countries that was completed in 1999, focused on migrants, refuges and other displaced populations that are financially and often physically vulnerable. (Both series became coffee-table books.)

A Getty Museum curator, Brett Abbott, who is including “Migrations” in his 2010 exhibition survey of narrative photojournalism, called this “epic approach” one of the Mr. Salgado’s hallmarks: “Of all the photographers I’m looking at, he’s probably taken on the biggest conceptual frameworks. He’s always looking at global problems.”

In this way “Genesis” represents less of a departure than it might at first seem. Even though he recently switched to a digital camera for large-format printing, his pictures have a consistent sensibility. He still generates contact sheets. He still likes to backlight his subjects, emphasizing — or romanticizing, his critics say — their forms. He still works in black and white. And his work still culminates in photo essays that, through a network of smaller stories, reveal something about an entire species. His fundamental subject is social systems, and now ecosystems.

His longtime gallerist, Peter Fetterman, also sees a strong through line in his career. While initially surprised by the turn to lush landscapes (“When I first saw the contact sheets, I thought maybe I was in the wrong studio, or the Ansel Adams archive”), he called Mr. Salgado’s empathy for subjects an overarching trait. “Other photojournalists go in and out for a day,” Mr. Fetterman said. “Sebastião goes and lives with his subjects for weeks before he even takes a picture.”

Mr. Salgado also emphasizes the continuities between his various projects. “There is no difference photographing a pelican or an albatross and photographing a human being,” he said. “You must pay attention to them, spend time with them, respect their territory.” Even landscapes, he said, have their own personality and reward a certain amount of patience.

His goal for “Genesis” is to produce a total of 32 visual essays, which he hopes to display in major public parks as well as at various museums starting in 2012. “It’s my dream to show the work in Central Park, not in some building but outside among the trees,” he said.

So far financial support from the project has come from gallery sales and reproduction deals with magazines like Paris Match in France and Visão in Portugal. Two Bay Area foundations — Susie Tompkins Buell’s and the Christensen Fund — have lent support. Eventually, to raise money for printing, he plans to issue a limited edition of 20 platinum photographs, a first for Mr. Salgado, who is known for rather democratically printing as many pictures as there are orders.

That’s just one of the elements that makes “Genesis” seem like a legacy project: a veteran photojournalist’s carefully planned and well-meaning contribution to his children, grandchildren and the world at large. But he said he did not think it would not be his last. While admitting that he might not attempt another 500-mile hike over the Simien Mountains, he said he had no plans to retire any time soon.

“I don’t know any photographer who stopped working because he turned 70,” he said, adding that as a breed they tend to live a long time. He mentioned Henri Cartier-Bresson, who died at the age of 95, and Manuel Álvarez Bravo, who lived until 100.

“I was in Mexico City for Álvarez Bravo’s 100th-birthday celebration,” Mr. Salgado said. “He was sick, with his feet inside a tub of hot water, but he still had his camera. So he was photographing his feet.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 31, 2009
An article on Sunday about the photographer Sebastião Salgado refers to a benefit dinner thrown by actor Robin Williams. It was actually hosted by Marsha Williams, from whom the actor is currently separated.


Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

READ THIS! A great and funny into to leads:
A Word to My PR Homies: On Writing a Lede
June 1, 2009 · 16 Comments

Hey, holmes!

It’s Monday! I hope you wonderful PR folks are at your desks and beaming with delight. Ok, I hope you’re grimacing through the pain. “Beaming with delight” would mean you’ve been playing Hoover the SnowBlower with a piece of straw and an eight ball, and this is NOT what we do on a Monday. Not on a Monday morning, at least.

Hokay. So.

I’m sleeping right now, but if I were awake, I’d be seeing your press releases trickling steadily into my inbox like obedient school children. By the time I rise, I will probably have more than 100 new messages from you guys. That’s what Mondays are for me. I wish to goodness y’all would throw me a bone on a Sunday sometimes, but that’s another post for another day.

Today, I want to tell you how learning a little journo trick can make your press release easier for us to read and thus more likely to receive press coverage.

It’s called the lede.

The lede is the first sentence of a news article, and it’s what we’re now going to call the first sentence of your press release. In fact, it’s the first paragraph of the release, too, because (IMPORTANT) the first paragraph of your press release should be one sentence.

Back in J school, we were coached to and even competed to write the shortest, most informative ledes possible. The lede must contain the who, what, how, where, and why (or whichever of those elements is most important or interesting) and must do so within about 25 words.

What this boot camp-like J school training means for you, the PR pro, is that you have 25 words to 1) tell me about the product/client, 2) convince me it’s newsworthy, and 3) show me you care about my time and know how to do your job.

As a journalist, when I encounter a press release, I instinctively begin to read it as though it’s a news article. I don’t read the salutation. Unless I know you personally (and sometimes, even if I do) , I don’t read any introductory information or questions about my personal well-being. I go straight for the jugular because I have eight hours to find, research, write, edit, fact-check, and illustrate three stories.

Here’s the first paragraph of a typical press release:

“[Redacted], Calif. (May 29, 2009) – [Redacted], Inc., a leader in next-generation office productivity solutions, today announced [Redacted] for Android, the first complete office productivity suite offering for Android-based mobile devices. A demo can be seen at the upcoming COMPUTEX trade show taking place June 2-6 in Taipei, Taiwan where [Redacted] will be showing its mobile office product line-up with ARM.”

Taipei? I appreciate the location-based info, but this is a press release, in English, sent from the Valley, to a journalist for an English-speaking-country-based blog.

Also, I don’t need to know about next-generation office productivity solutions or the like. Between repetition and buzz words, this lede is sinking fast! Let’s fix it up!

Ok. Forget what the CEO thinks is cool and important. Pretend you don’t give a crap about the product. Pretend you’re some retarded, hungover hipster. Now, look at your release. What about this news item really grabs you as interesting?

Well, after going over the [Redacted] release, I can tell you it’s pretty groovy to get a Microsoft file to work and be editable on a Google OS. And it’s rad to have an MS Office-like group of apps like available on a mobile phone.

Here are the things I don’t care about (for the purposes of lede-reading): The date. The place (unless it’s a conference I’m attending; see conference mailing list for my contact info). The company or product names (Unless it’s Google, MS, Intel, IBM, etc., it’s true! Work with me here!). The company or product marketing-speak taglines.

All I care about is what it does and why it’s different from every dad-blamed product like it.

Let’s get down to the 5 W’s (who, what, when, where, why, how – the “how” is silent) for this release. A company I don’t care about (let’s be realistic) is giving Android device-users the ability to access MS Office files from their phones. The apps can even handle PowerPoint presentations. That is god-awesome.

Hokay. So.

Here’s the new lede:

Starting today, Android device users can access and edit Microsoft Office documents and files anytime, anywhere.

Sixteen bloody words, and you’ve got a journalist’s interest. Your no-name company slips down a couple ‘graphs as you allow the name-dropped companies to grab my attention. You told me it’s launching today, which means if I hustle, I might break the news first. And you told me the soul of the news itself: I can edit the docs on a phone. Rad.

If you feel a bit saucy, try a dash:

Starting today, Android device users can access and edit Microsoft Office documents and files – even PowerPoint presentations – from their mobiles.

Oh my god, the app practically walks on water when you put it like that! And in just 20 words!

Word to My PR Homies #2: Learn to write a hot lede.

Ledes in your releases will do wonders. Go ahead. Ask me how I know.

Only about 25% of readers who skim the first ‘graph of a news article will read it to the end. That was a 2001-era J school stat, so it’s probably totally screwed by now. As journalists, we have an attention problem because our readers do. Like you, we’re writing for an audience that doesn’t care and that has no time to read. Like us, they’re just out there, scanning for information that’s relevant to them.

A good, interesting, short, informative, exciting lede will help us figure out if and why we should read your release and cover it. You can do it!

I love you guys! Have an awesome rest of the day, and I truly look forward to reading the items you’re sending me today! Without you, I could never do my job. =)

Again which media is important? Who should you ask?How American Homeless Stay Wired |
| from the works-best-in-san-francisco dept. |
| posted by timothy on Saturday May 30, @19:12 (The Internet) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/30/2241228 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]theodp writes "San Franciscan Charles Pitts has accounts on
[1]Facebook, [2]MySpace and [3]Twitter. He runs a Yahoo forum, reads news
online and keeps in touch with friends via email. Nothing unusual, right?
Except Pitts has been homeless for two years and manages this digital
lifestyle from his residence under a highway bridge. Thanks to cheap
computers, free Internet access and sheer determination, the WSJ reports
that [4]being homeless isn't stopping some from staying wired. 'You don't
need a TV. You don't need a radio. You don't even need a newspaper,' says
Pitts. 'But you need the Internet.'"

Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/05/30/2241228

Links:
0. mailto:theodp@aol.com
1. http://www.facebook.com/people/Charles-Pitts/1340377541
2. http://www.myspace.com/poetcharles
3. http://twitter.com/poetcharles
4. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124363359881267523.html

For those that missed it, the Asahi Newspaper tour is taking place on Monday June 22nd. You should be at the main entrance to the Asahi building by 12:30 as we have to be at the tour area by 12:45. For those of you with other classes at that time, I will give you an absence form to give to your class teacher and you will not be marked absent. Hope to see you all there.

Hi I see that the sports stories are already coming for this weeks assignment which is actually not due until deadline of 10 a.m. Tue..
This is a new twist on Journalism school requirements from Tech Review the MIT mag:Thursday, May 21, 2009
U. of Missouri hopes to teach some iJournalism
By Associated Press

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) -- Gadgets such as the Apple iPhone and the iPod Touch are mainstays on college campuses -- largely for the devices' ability to help students escape the pressures of the classroom.

Now the nation's oldest journalism school is asking students to buy those or similar devices. Not to listen to shoe-gazing indie rock, or watch clips from "The Daily Show," but to download classroom lectures or confirm facts on the Web while reporting from the scene of a plane crash or town council meeting.

The new rule for incoming freshmen at the University of Missouri School of Journalism appears to mark one of the first times an American university is requiring undergraduates to buy devices like the iPhone. The policy has spurred a debate about the limits and possibilities of technology as well as corporate influence in academia.

Skeptics say the school is getting too cozy with Apple Inc., though administrators point out that they earn no financial benefit from the new policy. The university gets a 10 percent discount on Apple computers it buys, but other vendors such as Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. offer the same deal.

"It's like asking an engineer to buy a calculator," said Brian Brooks, associate dean for undergraduate studies. "We are doing this requirement solely to benefit our students' learning."

A description about the program on the school's Web site notes that "at least 50 colleges and universities nationwide make use of iPods in their programs." But it's not clear that any of those schools make it mandatory -- and at student expense. Private colleges such as Duke and Abilene Christian have given the devices out for free.

Brooks points out that an estimated 85 percent to 90 percent of the university's 30,200 undergraduates already own portable music players, with 85 percent of those devices being iPods.

Even so, graduating senior Maureen Scarpelli -- an admitted Apple disciple -- questions the school's endorsement of a particular product.

After similar complaints, the school clarified that it is requiring any Web-enabled, audio-video player like the iPhone or the iPod Touch, which is like an iPhone without the phone. So portable devices such as a Microsoft Zune or smart phones such as BlackBerrys can be acceptable. Just not preferred.

"There are alternatives to the iPod Touch, but none that we consider equally capable," the online program description concludes.

Among the uses envisioned by Brooks and other professors: students listening to lectures while at the gym or walking to class; using wireless Internet access to verify information while reporting stories; and watching instructional videos that otherwise would take up valuable classroom time.

Clyde Bentley was one of nine journalism professors who voted against the new policy (with 40 in support) at a recent faculty meeting. His primary concern was saddling students with an additional expense. He also questioned whether students who rely on portable devices to listen to Vampire Weekend or watch "The Colbert Report" will embrace the journalism school's intended uses.

"I had a student say that he used his iPod to get away from me," Bentley said, recalling previous attempts to offer podcasts of his lectures.

Brooks pointed out that by requiring portable electronic devices, the university can include those costs in financial aid packages. And the $229 student price of an iPod Touch is comparable to two or three textbooks, he said.

Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California, calls the new Missouri requirement "not only reasonable but admirable." He likened the debate to discussions several years ago over whether colleges should ask incoming students to buy PCs or laptop computers -- by now a largely moot point.

"Schools are usually far behind their students in embracing new technology. And faculty are usually behind the schools," Cole said.

"It really shows how both journalism and education are changing in transformational ways," he added. "The biggest effect the Internet will have is not how we play or communicate, but how we learn."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Check out the new photojournalism blog at the New York Times:http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/?th&emc=th

This is not only a heads up for journalists, it is a warning to everyone who relies on Wikipedia for research purposes.
Student's Wikipedia hoax dupes newspapers: report
ABC - May 7, 2009, 6:01 am
An Irish student's fake quote on the Wikipedia online encyclopaedia has been used in newspaper obituaries around the world, the Irish Times reported on Wednesday.

The quote was attributed to French composer Maurice Jarre, who died in March.

Shane Fitzgerald, 22, a final-year student studying sociology and economics at University College Dublin, told the newspaper he placed the quote on the website as an experiment when doing research on globalisation.

He quoted Oscar-winning composer Jarre as saying, "One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life.

"When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear."

The quote was posted on Wikipedia shortly after Jarre's death and later appeared in obituaries in major British, Indian and Australian newspapers.

Mr Fitzgerald told the newspaper he picked Wikipedia because it was something a lot of journalists look at and it can be edited by anyone.

While he was wary about the ethical implications of using someone's death as a social experiment, he had carefully generated the quote so as not to distort or taint Jarre's life, he said.

Mr Fitzgerald said he was shocked by the result of his experiment.

"I didn't expect it to go that far. I expected it to be in blogs and sites, but on mainstream quality papers? I was very surprised about," he said.

He said the hoax remained undiscovered for weeks until he emailed the newspapers that had been deceived to tell them that they had published an inaccurate quote.

The Irish Times said that despite some newspapers removing the quote from their websites or carrying a correction and the fact that it had been dropped by Wikipedia, it remained intact on dozens of blogs, websites and newspapers.

-*AFP*

Will paper papers disappear? We have discussed this in class and this is a step in that direction, however the cost is a little steep.
Kindle DX e-book reader aims to deliver newspapers
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 6, 2009 | 12:54 PM ET Comments29Recommend14
CBC News
Amazon.com's Kindle DX reader, with a larger screen than earlier Kindles, is made to read publications such as newspapers or textbooks. (Amazon)
Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. unveiled a new e-book reader with a larger screen on Wednesday, one the company says will make it easier to read newspapers, magazines, and large PDF documents.

Like the previous electronic book readers Amazon has introduced, the Kindle DX allows users to download books and periodicals directly to the device.

But its larger screen — which stretches 24.6 centimetres (9.7 inches) diagonally — is two and a half times the size of the widest Kindle display.

The device is available for pre-order in the U.S. for $489 US. As with the original Kindle and a second, wider-screen version called Kindle 2 introduced earlier this year, the new Kindle DX is unavailable in Canada.

Among the features of the device are an auto-rotating screen that turns the image as the device is turned, allowing users to view full-length maps, graphs or web pages more easily. It also features a built-in PDF document reader.

Those features appear to expand the marketing strategy of the Kindle beyond books and periodicals and more towards both textbooks and business communications.

Your assignment for Journalism is to find and write a story about something happening over Golden Week and it is due May 12th by 10 a.m. sharp. Today is World Press Freedom Day and here is an article about it:

Rwanda: World Press Freedom Day, a Day for Self Introspection

Gloria I. Anyango 3 May 2009
Email|Print|Comment
Share:

Kigali — Every day, as they tirelessly investigate and report sensitive and sometimes disturbing truths, journalists find themselves in undesirable positions.

Faced with conflicting loyalties, they can't help but get caught up in the fury of those that they directly or indirectly expose.


As a result, some of them always lead a life on the run as they protect their lives from threatening situations. This constant open exposure to danger and uncertainties called for a day that brings to remembrance the fact that journalists deserve the freedom to bring to the public independent news and information without worries of harassment.

The World Press Freedom Day, was declared on May 3rd by the United Nations General Assembly. This day was to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression as stated under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In the case of Rwanda, press freedom is present according to Article 34 of the 2003 Rwandan Constitution which states that, "Freedom of the press and freedom of information are recognised and guaranteed by the State."

The article further states, "Freedom of speech and freedom of information shall not prejudice public order and good morals, the right of every citizen to honour, good reputation and the privacy of personal and family life. It is also guaranteed so long as it does not prejudice the protection of the youth and minors."

However, in Rwanda's case the conditions for exercising these freedoms are determined by law. As a result the Media High Council, an independent media regulatory body was established.

According to Patrice Mulama, the Executive Secretary of the Media High Council, given the context of Rwanda and its history as well as the good legislation and constitution, the media is free.

"Rwandan media today is becoming free day by day," Mulama said, " every country and society has its own set of laws that determine press freedom. This all depends on the context of a given country and in our own context, the press is free."

However as the media develops step by step towards one that practices ethically and professionally, statistics show that close to 20 percent of journalists in Rwanda have a degree or diploma in Journalism and communication studies. This according to Mulama, is too small a number to have a completely professional press.

"Due to this, what has resulted are challenges of journalists; who are self-censored, who lack values that guide and protect them from endangering themselves by going overboard both in ethics and the law as well as who do not have respect for the standards of professional and ethical practice," he said.

Twenty-six year old journalist Maurice Munyentwali, who has worked for Radio Salus for 3 years and is also a correspondent for 'Grand Lac Hebdo'- a newspaper written in French is in agreement with the above.

"Rwandan journalists do not know how to fully utilize the freedom that they have,' Munyentwali said.

This he explained is probably due to the closed culture that Rwandans have and also attributed it to the country's history of genocide. As compared to the western media that took 400 years to achieve its freedom, Munyentwali says the context of the two is currently different.

"Our level of dealing with issues is different from the western media because of our history," he said. This he mainly attributed to the fact that unlike African states that constantly face wars and conflicts, the West does not.

"That's why the state has a duty to protect the public and its citizens through the Press Law from hate media that promotes and creates conflict and divisionism, just like it was prior to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi," Munyentwali emphasized.

Twenty- five year old Gilbert Ndikubwayezu, is a print journalist who is addicted to media and journalism practices.

He worked in a newsroom in Toronto Canada and has a taste of the kind of media freedom they experience. He describes his experience in Canada and compares it to that of Rwanda.

"Rwanda and Canada are two different contexts where the views that people have of the media is different. My three-month while here showed me that journalists are not the only people who need to know and exercise press freedom, but also the citizens in general must have an understanding of what a free society is and what freedom of expression means," Ndikubwayezu said.

He further said that the State must present to guarantee that both sides enjoy their full freedom of expression and that both countries have their own levels of press freedom.

In his own view he expressed that every country is on a continuous struggle to achieve the highest level of free media exercise standard.

Relevant Links
Central Africa
Rwanda
Press and Media
"To the best of my knowledge, no single country has ever achieved total press freedom. I take it as a continuous struggle, and I believe my country is on the same track," he said. He further underscored the fact that the Media as a whole plays a crucial role in the country's development.

"Press freedom must put journalists in an environment that allows them to report what they discover as good for the benefit of the society. Reporters must use this press freedom to unveil factually what they find as mistakes and errors in the functioning of the system, so as to play their role as watchdogs, who help in the country's development," he said.

Do you Twitter? The really short shot, in many cases can be a good thing, however, there is a down side, and that is the depth side, it sometimes can be way to shallow;
CASE IN POINT:
| Twitter Considered Harmful To Swine-Flu Panic |
| from the you-have-the-flu-swine dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday April 28, @02:36 (Social Networks) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/28/000200 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]judgecorp writes "Twitter is being criticized for [1]spreading panic
about swine flu. This is not just knee-jerk Luddism 2.0: it's argued that
Twitter's structure encourages ill-informed repetition, with little room
for context, while older Web media use their power for good — for
instance Google's [2]Flu Trends page (which we [3]discussed last winter),
and the introduction of a Google [4]swine flu map." On a related note,
reader [5]NewtonsLaw suggests that it might be a good idea,
epidemiologically speaking, to [6]catch the flu now vs. later.
Source for this and many geeky, nerdy and techie storied is slashdot.com, check it out if your are interested in cutting edge internet, coding, and other tech issues.

The afternoon is over and evening has come....and many of you have missed the deadline for this weeks assignment which is to send me an e-mail giving me some information on your back ground and why you are interested in the Journalism class. (To actually view the web sites, highlight and copy and then paste the Web address {URL} into the address strip at the top of your browser.
NEXT; A long article on The New Journalism which we will discuss in the next class. TRY AND READ IT...I would recommend that you read it on line at :http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/arts/design/26kenn.html?_r=1&th&emc=th< as you will then be able to see the pictures as well. And along with this you might like to view the new video of Bob Dylan song which is a free download to view on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001VNB56I/ref=s9_sims_gw_s1_p15_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=1J2QS9KDD1J49Z4VXGFA&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938131&pf_rd_i=507846April 26, 2009
ART
Stubbornly Practicing His Principles of Photography

By RANDY KENNEDY
“LISTEN, do I have time to feed my pig?” the photographer Danny Lyon asked, picking up the telephone one morning at his home in rural New Mexico. “It will only take about 10 minutes. I’ll call you back,” he said, adding: “That way I can start the day with a clean conscience.”

Among a group of revolutionaries whose work rose to prominence in the late 1960s and ’70s and transformed the nature of documentary photography — a group that includes friends and colleagues of Mr. Lyon’s like Mary Ellen Mark and Larry Clark — the idea of conscience has been imbedded more deeply in Mr. Lyon’s photographs than in those of all but a few of his contemporaries.

At a time when picture magazines were still a holy grail for young photographers, Mr. Lyon, self-taught, began his career as the first staff photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. A week after hitchhiking south in 1962 at the age of 20 he was in jail with other protesters in Albany, Ga., next to the cell of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And Mr. Lyon’s first book, the classic “Bikeriders,” made after spending more than two years as a member of the Outlaws motorcycle gang, was not just a pioneering example of New Journalism but, as he later described it, an attempt “to destroy Life magazine” and what he saw as its anodyne vision of American life.

His newest book, “Memories of Myself,” published this month by Phaidon Press, seems on its face to be the kind of comfortable, coffee-table retrospective that a revered 67-year-old artist receives at this point in his life. It is a selection of self-assigned — and largely unpublished — photo essays that he made while wandering from Chicago to Galveston, Tex., to Brooklyn to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, over almost four decades. But even this book is a product of political calculus, as Mr. Lyon described it. He has been traveling for many years to photograph a remote, impoverished region of China with a book in mind but with little idea of who would be interested in it.

“It’s not always easy to get these things published,” he said. “I’m pretty uncompromising and not very commercial.” So when Phaidon approached him a few years ago with the idea of a career survey, he offered a deal. “I basically said, ‘If you do the China book, you can do the retrospective.’ ” (Phaidon, which does not comment on its negotiations with authors, would say only that it plans to publish two books by Mr. Lyon, in addition to “Memories of Myself,” calling him a “great photographer.”)

It is the kind of bargain Mr. Lyon has been striking his whole life, especially during years when he was supporting a family of four while insisting on making the kind of work he wanted to make, a stubborn vision that has probably contributed to his photographs and independent films not being better known. Even now, with his work in important museum collections around the country, a survivor’s hustle remains and sometimes still comes in handy: a few weeks ago, at his dentist’s office in Albuquerque, he traded a nice print for a root canal. “The market has taken a body blow, and I needed the dental work,” he explained, adding, “I was so happy to do it.”

Like Mr. Clark, who blurred the line between observer and participant and wanted to confront middle-class viewers with the American underclass, Mr. Lyon has made a peripatetic attempt to photograph people who are generally unseen or unwanted, even hated, and he has never been able to approach it with a journalist’s distance. When he began his motorcycle work in the mid-1960s while at the University of Chicago, he writes in the new book, “I was a bike rider, a photographer and a history student, probably in that order.”

When he became involved in what many critics consider his most powerful work, “Conversations With the Dead,” based on more than a year photographing inside the Texas prison system in the late 1960s, he developed deep bonds with several inmates, including one who had been convicted of rape. Another, James Ray Renton, a talented escape artist who was later convicted of killing an Arkansas police officer, became an unlikely friend and devoted correspondent for more than 30 years. (In “Like a Thief’s Dream,” Mr. Lyon’s book about their relationship, he describes testifying as a character witness for Mr. Renton at his murder trial in 1979 and, in addition to his testimony, offering Mr. Renton some marijuana during a courtroom recess. Mr. Renton declined.)

“To some, he’s idealizing people who really are not good people at all — they’re just criminals,” said Larry McMurtry, who was teaching at Rice University in Houston in the 1960s and befriended Mr. Lyon while he was there working on the prison book. “But to Danny maybe they’re good people who just never had a chance.”

“He hasn’t really changed his principles any at all since he was young, when I first met him,” Mr. McMurtry added. “He’s an idealist, to a large extent.”

In a long, animated, tangent-filled telephone interview after he went to feed his pig (which turned out to be not his but a neighbor’s, borrowed to entertain Mr. Lyon’s visiting granddaughter), Mr. Lyon more or less agreed with Mr. McMurtry and asked: “Is there something wrong with me because of that? I don’t know.”

Raised in Kew Gardens, Queens, where his father, Ernst, an immigrant from Germany, was a doctor (one of his patients in New York was Alfred Stieglitz), Mr. Lyon ached to flee the conformity of an upper-middle-class life. He discovered “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” at a formative age and was fired by the intensity of James Agee’s prose even more than by Walker Evans’s pictures.

“Agee was a stone realist, and that had a huge impact on me,” he said. One of the new book’s more lyrical essays is a series of portraits Mr. Lyon took after driving to Knoxville, Tenn., in the late 1960s simply because he wanted to see Agee’s birthplace.

But a more important influence on Mr. Lyon’s work was Hugh Edwards, a pioneering but still underappreciated curator at the Art Institute of Chicago who gave Robert Frank — later to be a mentor and friend of Mr. Lyon’s — his first solo museum show and guided the careers of many young photographers. Mr. Edwards was an intensely private man, but Mr. Lyon once managed to tape record a late-night conversation with him. A partial transcript included in the new book, forming an intermission between photo essays, at times casts an interesting light on the tension between art and ideology in photography, a tension that exists in much of Mr. Lyon’s work.

“People who purvey ideas in pictures are nothing anymore than propagandists of one kind or another,” Edwards told him in the 1972 conversation. “A great picture is something that awakens a very different reaction from each person who looks at it.”

Mr. Lyon, who has been awarded two Guggenheim fellowships, one for his film work, has called his work advocacy journalism and does not deny that it purveys ideas — if only the idea that everyone should be more aware of the pain and struggle around them in a consumerist, media-saturated world that tends to encourage isolation and apathy. “I think I try to hide it,” he said of his worldview in his work. “But I’m a highly politicized person, and it’s in my blood.”

“If I work in China, it’s because I want to humanize the Chinese, whom we tend to demonize,” he said, adding with an emphatic laugh, “I’m trying to pump up the humanity.”

But Mr. Lyon’s approach has never been straightforward, and he said he felt a greater affinity with intensely personal photographers like Mr. Clark than he did with, for example, war photographers or photographers like Eugene Richards, a fellow former member of the Magnum collective whose searing work has focused on mental institutions, emergency rooms, wrenching poverty, AIDS and drug abuse.

“I wanted to change history and preserve humanity,” he writes in the new book’s introduction. “But in the process I changed myself and preserved my own.”

The essays in Mr. Lyon’s new book are often accompanied by diary entries or transcripts of taped interviews from the periods in which he was working, lending a Beat-inflected, often darkly funny sense of verité that can make the photos feel less documentary and more impressionistic.

Passages written in Galveston in 1967, where he spent time photographing transvestites, can sound like something from Denis Johnson’s ragged short stories. One follows an existential discussion at a bar called the Gizmo: “Joe had been arguing with the bar’s owner, Dixie, about whether or not he would ever break into the place and steal her money. It seems he did try, but was not able to get inside. Joe was extremely hurt that Dixie, an old friend, would think Joe would steal from her. Dixie was hurt that they’d ruined her door trying to break in.”

Though Mr. Lyon’s drive has diminished little throughout his career, he said it has finally begun to slow. He fishes quite a bit these days, in the Chama Valley in New Mexico and in Maine, where he has a cabin. He still turns down nearly every paying assignment that comes his way, though few do anymore because he makes himself hard to find. An Italian shoe company, he said, once paid someone $1,000 to track him down in New Mexico to see if he would do a fashion shoot, to which he agreed mostly because of the company’s tenacity. He paces himself more between the jobs he assigns himself.

“I think it is a kind of performance on my part,” he said of shooting. “It’s more like athleticism or something. I wouldn’t go near a war. But I function like that, and then when I do it, it’s very intense for me.”

He said he is quite happy with the new book, which he labored over despite its beginning as a kind of barter piece, adding, “There were a lot of sleepless nights over this.” As always, he said, he wished he could excise at least one photo the second it became too late. This particular one, taken around the demolition-derby scene in upstate New York, seems like a decent shot, a skinny, mulletted kid being hugged by a girl next to a gaping car hood, the kid seeming not to hug the girl back, maybe because his hands were greasy.

“I hated that guy,” Mr. Lyon said. “That guy was so creepy. I didn’t like him. I didn’t like his car.”

He laughed. “You put a camera in my hand, I want to get close to people,” he said. “Not just physically close, emotionally close, all of it. It’s part of the process.

“It’s a very weird thing being a photographer.”

Well welcome new cybercats. Your assignment for this week is a one paragraph introduction to yourself sent to me by this Sunday afternoon by e-mail. For a start please just write the paragraph directly into the body of the e-mail. We will work with attachments later as they can sometimes be a problem.
Following is a copy of a great News Letter for alternate Journalism. The hotlinks don't work in the copy but you can subscribe to the news letter with the information on the page, I think. If not, and you want to subscribe to the weekly. Let me know in the next class.


The Weekly Spin, April 7, 2009

CMD Reports

Lots of Opinion, Not Much Disclosure
by Bob Burton

The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) have more in common than being major industry lobby groups. Both have hired former Greenpeace activist turned PR consultant Patrick Moore to deflect environmental and public health criticisms.

Read the rest of this item

Weekly Radio Spin

Weekly Radio Spin: NATO Is Neato!

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, NATO raises its profile, ghostwriters, and hijacking choice. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin,'" DC Navigators. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

Read the rest of this item

Spins Of The Week

EDF Goes Nuclear on Greenpeace
Source: The Guardian (UK), April 1, 2009

An executive with the French government-owned energy company EDF "has been charged on suspicion of spying on the environmental group Greenpeace." The executive, "who previously worked as a police commander, is being investigated for conspiring to hack into Greenpeace France's computer system." Under investigation is whether EDF, "the world's biggest nuclear-reactor operator, hired a private detective agency run by a former member of the French secret services to illegally spy on environmentalists and infiltrate their ranks." EDF confirmed that it hired the firm, Kargus Consultants, but denies "ordering the use of any illegal spying methods." A Kargus employee admitted that he hacked into the computer system used by Greenpeace France's campaigns director in 2006. Greenpeace thinks the spying "could have been related to their campaign to block EDF's construction of a vast, new generation nuclear reactor in Flamanville" in northern France. Greenpeace France is tightening office security and saying the incident "shows just how frightened the nuclear industry is of transparency and a democratic debate." EDF recently bought British Energy and "nearly half of U.S. group Constellation Energy's nuclear power business ... in order to build power plants in Britain and the United States," according to Reuters.

CoalSwarm a Nerve Center for the Green Energy Movement
Source: San Francisco Chronicle blog "The Thin Green Line," March 13, 2009

The San Francisco Chronicle's website profiled "Ted Nace, director of the CoalSwarm website and an important part of the anti-coal movement that has been in the news in recent weeks." CoalSwarm is a "nerve center," a partnership with the Center for Media and Democracy within the SourceWatch wiki. Nace explains, "Anybody can post information. We've got 1500 articles on the [CoalSwarm] site, and it's been accessed hundreds of thousands of times. We have a separate article on each proposed coal plant and each existing plant, and whenever anything happens having to do with that plant, we post the news. Everything has to have a footnote to a published source, so people don't have to take our word for it. A movement needs information to run, and we're trying to put information at people's fingertips." SolveClimate blog also lauds CoalSwarm as "the one-stop-shop wiki for all the dirt you need on coal. ... As one supporter explained: 'It's putting information once the province of lobbyists into local activists' hands.'" CMD's SourceWatch wiki also hosts a major portal on Climate Change and the upcoming COP15 climate treaty conference.

Center for American Progress Hangs with the Neocons
Source: Jeremy Scahill, April 2, 2009

Investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill sees the liberal Center for American Progress teaming up with leading neoconservatives and going to bat for Barack Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan. On April 3 CAP is hosting a forum titled A New Way Forward in Afghanistan to release their report Sustainable Security in Afghanistan. Scahill notes the event includes "a leading neoconservative activist, Frederick Kagan, one of the lead proponents of the 'surge' in Iraq. In addition to being a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, which was basically Dick Cheney's bunker away from the bunker in the 1990s, Kagan was also a major figure in advocating the agenda of the neocon-Project for the New American Century, which molded the Bush administration's conquistador foreign policy. Kagan's brother Robert Kagan along with William Kristol started a new version of PNAC a few weeks ago, called The Foreign Policy Initiative. Another key figure in the group is Dan Senor (who is married to CNN's Campbell Brown), formerly L. Paul Bremer's righthand in Iraq."

NATO PR Push Targets Journalists, Youth
Source: The NewsMarket (via Marketwire), April 1, 2009

As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) turns 60 and some ask why the Cold War alliance still exists, NATO is launching new media and public relations efforts. The NewsMarket, an online source of b-roll and video news release footage, is providing NATO-produced videos to journalists. Not surprisingly, given Barack Obama's controversial plans to increase troops in Afghanistan, the NATO / NewsMarket channel features videos on "mentoring the Afghan Army" and "taking the fight to the Taliban," along with an interview of U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones, a proponent of NATO expansion. "NATO Public Diplomacy Division has developed a comprehensive strategy to engage with young audiences," according to the NATO / NewsMarket press release. NATO's youth outreach includes an "Internet TV" channel and "unconventional advertisement videos" posted to YouTube. NATO spent 500,000 Euros (U.S.$666,000) on the videos, which use the slogan "Peace and security. That's our mission."

"Product Safety Standards" for Cigarettes?
Source: Huffington Post, April 2, 2009

The proposed legislation to have the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulate tobacco is "window-dressing masquerading as legislation," according to Alan Blum, M.D., director of the University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society. Putting the country's most lethal consumer product under control of the FDA will perpetuate the myth long favored by the industry that cigarettes can be made safer. The industry itself long ago started a PR campaign to assure people it was possible to identify and remove any component of smoke that was found to cause disease, and went on to leverage public fear of smoking to market gimmicks like filters that were "just what the doctor ordered" and conferred "double-barreled health protection." Lobbying to remove cigarette ads from TV and put weak, unobtrusive warning labels on cigarette packs has also served the industry's interests by giving them legal cover and saving thousands in advertising costs while doing little to actually restrain tobacco promotion. With the passage of the "Marlboro Preservation Act," the FDA -- which already has difficulty assuring the public that peanuts and pistachios are safe -- would now be handed regulation of cigarettes. While well intentioned, the bill is misguided. It ought to carry its own warning: "This legislation is deceptive, and it will prove devastating to public health."

The Infinite Mind Was Not Aware

PR Watch has reported previously on conflict of interest issues surrounding psychiatrist Fred Goodwin, the former host of "The Infinite Mind" public radio series. In his role as host of the show, Goodwin talked up the advantages of antidepressant drugs while failing to disclose that he had received $1.2 million in fees for giving marketing lectures on behalf of pharmaceutical companies. After the funding was revealed publicly, Goodwin attempted to claim that he had informed the show's producer, Bill Lichtenstein, of his financial ties to drugmakers (a claim initially echoed by National Public Radio's "On the Media" show). Now Lichtenstein is claiming vindication, and NPR has issued a retraction and public apology for its claim that Lichtenstein knew. Goodwin has also backed away from saying that he disclosed the payments, claiming instead that he doesn't "see these things as a conflict of interest."

Smoking in the Movies: Under-the-Radar Cigarette Advertising?
Source: Pediatrics, March 30, 2009

A meta-study published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics concludes that viewing movie smoking scenes is a significant factor in smoking among older teens and young adults. In 1999, researchers interviewed thousands of 10- to 14-year-olds, assessing their smoking status and exposure to images of smoking, via movies. Follow-up interviews in 2006 and 2007 determined whether the former non-smokers had taken up the habit and compared their smoking status to their earlier exposure to movie smoking scenes. Those with the highest level of movie smoking exposure were twice as likely to have become established smokers as those with the least amount of exposure, even after controlling for a wide range of other factors. Researchers defined "established smoking" as having smoked more than 100 cigarettes in one's lifetime. They estimated that 34.9% of the youths' established smoking could be attributed to movie exposure. Smoking in the movies has come under renewed scrutiny. A 2005 study found that the amount of smoking depicted in movies diminished steadily from 1950 to 1990, but then increased so rapidly that by 2002, smoking in the movies was just as common as it was back in 1950. A 2006 study found that in recent years, depictions of smoking have shifted from R-rated to PG-13-rated films, and that major studio pictures account for 90% of movie smoking scenes. The 2006 study authors concluded that major film studios are "delivering the most new adolescent smokers to the tobacco industry."

Greg Gumbel Fumbles on Infomercials
Source: StinkyJournalism.org, March 30, 2009

Two years ago, CBS Sports anchor Greg Gumbel "signed a 5-year contract with Paul Doug Scott's EncoreTV to appear as host for, what turned out to be, a Florida infomercial company," reports Rhonda Roland Shearer. Gumbel's agent told her, "It wasn't supposed to be an infomercial. One is hesitant to say he was duped, but yeah, I was duped." Some of the infomercials are titled "Eye on America," a CBS News brand, apparently without authorization from the network. The infomercials use "an identical newsroom set and ... identical animation graphics" to the cable news shows they follow, and have aired on CNN Headline News, without the required disclosure that they are advertisements. Turner Broadcasting, which owns CNN, admitted that it only vets "national ads sold by Turner sales people," and the Gumbel infomercials were sold and placed by a local provider, Time Warner Cable. Even some of the companies behind the infomercials thought they were being profiled on a real national news segment -- albeit one that requires guests to pay a $20,000 to $30,000 "scheduling fee." One company boasted that its executive had been "interviewed on CNN / Headline News' 'Eye on America.'" The infomercials have flacked "a mind-numbing and illogical diversity of products," Shearer writes, including timeshare sales, barley products, Internet security software, small universities and "my personal favorite, a distributor of aluminum trusses."

Dewey Square Caught Astroturfing Again
Source: Halifax-Plympton Reporter (Marshfield, Massachusetts), March 27, 2009

The Halifax-Plympton Reporter received a letter to the editor urging "that people contact their congressman about the Medicare Advantage program," a "sort of privatized health plan paid for via the recipient's Medicare. Reportedly, there's some interest in doing away with the program." The actual, physical letter was in the name of a local resident, but it didn't mention any of the local Congressional delegation, which the newspaper's editor, Matthew Nadler, found strange. So, he called the man who had supposedly written and mailed the letter. "He had no idea what I was talking about," Nadler reports. Then, "I got a phone call Monday from a young man who said he was calling on behalf of the letter's non-writer. I told him what happened, and I think I had some pointed words about what was a pretty sleazy use of an elderly person. I asked the caller who he was and who he worked for. Which, not surprisingly, I suppose, he declined to tell me." However, Nadler could see his phone number, and traced it back to the Dewey Square Group, a high-powered, Democratic-associated lobbying firm. Nadler notes that "their Web site doesn't list their clients, but it doesn't take a genius, or a newspaper editor, to figure out they've been hired by someone with an interest in keeping Medicare Advantage in business." The firm's site "promises 'grassroots' communication," but, he concludes, "it looks more like Astroturf from here."

Television: Now with More Stealth Ads!
Source: Advertising Age, March 26, 2009

Local television stations are increasingly open to product placement. The Meredith Corporation's "syndicated hour-long lifestyle program 'Better' (named in part after the company's Better Homes & Gardens magazine)" includes space for local stations to add in sponsored segments. The "three-to-five minute videos" have pushed products related to "child-care topics such as baby-proofing the home, installing a car seat and visiting the doctor," for sponsors including State Farm Insurance, General Mills, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson and Kimberly-Clark. "National and local product integration is one way Meredith generates revenue from its 'Better' program. Up to eight minutes ... can be 'localized,' which could include the sale of local product integration, as well as sponsorship of news and entertainment features." CBS also has a "special unit ... aimed to spark discussions of product integration earlier in the program development process," while its new senior vice-president of branded integration and online is "branded-entertainment executive Greg Bennett." At the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Steve Bornfeld lists examples of what are -- or at least appear to be -- product placements in local TV news. "Channel 3's allergy prevention story, interviewing a St. Rose Hospital pediatrician who has been a station source more than once? No allegations of an arrangement," he admits. "But not knowing equals not trusting."

Airline and Online Lobbying on U.S. "Card Check" Bill
Source: PR Week, March 20, 2009

In the battle over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would make it easier for workers to join a union, "both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO are focusing on grassroots outreach." Before the bill was introduced, "the Chamber launched the Workforce Freedom Airlift program, a series of events that fly in local small business owners to Washington," to lobby against the bill. The first "airlift," on March 10, "brought in small business owners from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Nebraska, and Louisiana." Since July 2008, the Chamber has worked with Adfero Group on an anti-EFCA "social media effort," expanding "a virtual march on Washington that was created the last time the bill went to Congress in 2007." It "allows users to register for the march as avatars and send an automatic letter to their elected officials through a Facebook application." Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO is highlighting "YouTube videos of workers sharing their support" of EFCA, and running "an online contest that allows users to vote on the most outrageous statements from the opposition."

Courage, Bayer CropScience Style
Source: New York Times, March 28, 2009

Bayer CropScience has invoked the specter of terrorism in a bid to limit what information the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board can release at a public hearing into a chemical plant explosion in West Virginia that killed two employees. Bayer is claiming that "because it has a dock for barge shipments on the adjacent Kanawha River, its entire 400-acre site qualifies under the 2002 federal Maritime Transportation Security Act," reports Sean D. Hamill. "It has asked the Coast Guard, which has jurisdiction under the act, to review the public release of 'sensitive security information.'" Bayer appears to want to limit discussion of the potential hazards of methyl isocyanate, the same chemical made at Bhopal, India, notes Hamill. On its website, Bayer CropScience states that one of its core values is "integrity, openness and honesty" and that it is committed to "having the courage to tell the truth" and "presenting the unvarnished truth in an appropriate and helpful manner."

| Investigative Journalism Being Reborn Through the Web? |
| from the i-don't-want-to-go-on-the-cart dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday March 30, @15:22 (The Media) |
| http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/30/1625200 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Combating the stigma that investigative journalism is dead or dying, the
Huffington Post has just launched a new venture to [0]bankroll a group of
investigative journalists to take a look into stories about the nation's
economy. "The popular Web site is collaborating with The Atlantic
Philanthropies and other donors to launch the Huffington Post
Investigative Fund with an initial budget of $1.75 million. That should
be enough for 10 staff journalists who will primarily coordinate stories
with freelancers, said Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief
of The Huffington Post. Work that the journalists produce will be
available for any publication or Web site to use at the same time it is
posted on The Huffington Post, she said. The Huffington Post Web site is
a collection of opinionated blog entries and breaking news. It has seven
staff reporters. Huffington said she and the donors were concerned that
layoffs at newspapers were hurting investigative journalism at a time the
nation's institutions need to be watched closely. She hopes to draw from
the ranks of laid-off journalists for the venture."

Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/03/30/1625200

Links:
0. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/29/huffington-post-launches-_0_n_180498.html

Maybe a new final hope? From the New York Times:
Mother Jones Tests Nonprofit Model in Race to Survive the Recession
By TIM ARANGO
These days the leftist magazine views itself as a
defender of not just independent journalism, but of
journalism itself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/arts/07jones.html?th&emc=th

Find out what a pundit is before you read the following, as this is a special genre of journalism:
Why pundits always get it wrong
Paul Raven @ 02-03-2009
Have you ever wondered why the talking heads on television are so often utterly wrong in their predictions about the future?

According to a research psychologist from Stanford University, it’s because the people the media tends to hire as pundits are the sort of people who are psychologically predisposed to making predictions based more on their own beliefs than any rational assessment of the situation:

At first, Tetlock’s ongoing study of 82,361 predictions by 284 pundits (most but not all of them American) came up empty. He initially looked at whether accuracy was related to having a Ph.D., being an economist or political scientist rather than a blowhard journalist, having policy experience or access to classified information, or being a realist or neocon, liberal or conservative. The answers were no on all counts. The best predictor, in a backward sort of way, was fame: the more feted by the media, the worse a pundit’s accuracy. And therein lay Tetlock’s first clue. The media’s preferred pundits are forceful, confident and decisive, not tentative and balanced. They are, in short, hedgehogs, not foxes.

That bestiary comes from the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who in 1953 argued that hedgehogs “know one big thing.” They apply that one thing (for instance, that ethnicity and language are primal; ergo, any country that contains many ethnic groups will break up) everywhere, express supreme confidence in their forecasts, dismiss opposing views and are drawn to top-down arguments deduced from that Big Idea. Foxes, in contrast, “know many things,” as Berlin put it. They consider competing views, make bottom-up inductive arguments from an array of facts and doubt the power of Big Ideas.

Intriguing, no? But while foxes are arguably better than hedgehogs, here’s the sobering conclusion:

If there are three possibilities (say, that China will experience more, less or the same amount of civil unrest), throwing darts at targets representing each one produces a forecast more accurate than most pundits’. Simply extrapolating from recent data on, say, economic output does even better.

Unfortunately, extrapolated data doesn’t make for such good television… or blog posts, for that matter. Will the decentralisation of current affairs newscasting make this situation better or worse? [image by silas216]

I wonder if we could classify science fiction writers using the same dualism?

Here is a follow up to the story below which I put up yesterday and this my be the way things will go every were in the future:
February 27, 2009 12:48 PM PST
Hearst to publish its periodicals electronically
by Dong Ngo
Looks like the e-paper revolution is really about to start.
Hearst Corporation, one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, announced Friday that it has developed an electronic reader for newspapers and magazines, the way that Amazon's new Kindle does for books.

Soon you'll be able to read magazines and newspapers on an e-reader.
(Credit: theoprahmag.com)
The news, first reported by "Fortune", is really significant as Heart owns about 16 daily and 49 weekly newspapers and has influence on hundreds of magazines. Examples of those include the "San Francisco Chronicle," "O," and "Cosmopolitan."
It's unclear if the device Hearst has been working on has anything to do with the eReader that Plastic Logic unveiled recently but its principle seems the same. It's a handheld device used to read digital content, much like the Kindle. The main difference would be the Hearst's e-reader has a much larger size to accommodate the format of newspapers and magazines.
It's also speculated that Hearst's e-reader is going to be physically flexible and even foldable. The first version would come in black and while with the later coming in color and even with video-playback capability.
Once implemented, this would change the way newspapers and magazines are published. Instead of getting a print copy, you can just download the newest issues on the e-reader, wirelessly. No printing or paper is involved. Aside from the environmental factor, this would cut down about 50 percent of the cost to circulate a periodical.
It's also not clear when you can get the first issue of "Cosmopolitan" on this new e-reader but considering the recent launch of the Kindle 2 and the upcoming e-reader from Plastic Logic, Hearst's new e-reader will probably be launched in 12 or 18 months.
Dong Ngo is a CNET editor who covers networking and network storage, and writes about anything else he finds interesting. You can also listen to his podcast at insidecnetlabs.cnet.com. E-mail Dong.

Over the last three or four years we have discussed the death of the paper news paper. Well it seems in America it's closer then ever:

Crisis in the US newspaper industry
By Max Deveson
BBC News, Washington
If the economic crisis goes on much longer, will there be any newspapers left in the US to write about it?

America's newspaper industry has been badly hit by the downturn, and a number of titles face closure.

The latest casualty is the venerable San Francisco Chronicle, whose owners on Wednesday announced they were planning to cut a "significant" number of jobs to meet cost-cutting targets, and that if the targets are not met, then the paper would be sold or closed down.

The Chronicle, which was founded in 1865, soon after the gold-rush hit California, lost more than $50m (£35m) in 2008, and so far 2009 is looking even worse for the title.

Circulation fell by 7% in the six-month period running up to 30 September 2008, and advertising revenues are plummeting.

The Hearst Corporation - the Chronicle's owners - last month proposed similar measures for another of their titles, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

And the owners of Denver's Rocky Mountain News announced on Thursday that the newspaper would publish its final edition on Friday. The Tucson Citizen also faces the axe.

Biggest names

Without these titles, Seattle, Denver and Tucson would still be served by at least one newspaper each.

But the demise of the Chronicle would leave San Francisco with no paid-for newspaper (the city's other main newspaper, the Examiner, is given away free).

Even the biggest names in the US newspaper industry are feeling the recession's bite.

“ You take readers and advertisers who were already migrating away from print, and add a steep recession, and you've got serious trouble ”
James Surowiecki
New Yorker
The New York Times is struggling to service debts of some $400m, amid dwindling cash reserves and plunging revenue. Last year it had to mortgage its gleaming new headquarters (built in 2007 with much fanfare) to bolster its cash flow.

The Tribune Company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun and many other titles, filed for bankruptcy in December, and although its newspapers remain in publication, the repercussions of the bankruptcy filing are likely to lead to restructuring.

Three other newspaper companies have also filed for bankruptcy in recent months: the Star Tribune Holding Corporation (which owns the Minneapolis Star-Tribune), the Journal Register Company (which owns the New Haven Register and a number of other titles in the North-East), and Philadelphia Newspapers LLC (which owns Philadelphia's two top newspapers, the Inquirer and the Daily News).

Although some companies are doing better than others, and some companies (like Tribune Co) took on more debt than was advisable, the bankruptcies and closures are all attributable to an industry-wide malaise.

And the reasons for that malaise are not hard to figure out.

Free content

Newspapers used to get their income from two sources: their readers (who either paid by subscription or at the newsstand) and advertisers.

As more and more newspapers started making their content available on the internet free of charge, the first source of income dried up, as readers stopped paying for articles that they could get free on the web.

Newspapers hoped to make up for the sales decline with increased advertising revenue, as the market for online adverts exploded.

But the rise of classified advertising websites like craigslist.com cut into newspapers' revenue stream, while the recession has led to a drastic reduction in the amount of advertising companies are willing or able to pay for.

"You take readers and advertisers who were already migrating away from print, and add a steep recession, and you've got serious trouble," writes the New Yorker's James Surowiecki.

Of course, print circulation losses are being partially offset by increases in online readership.

The problem for the newspapers has been finding a way to turn increased readership into increased revenue.

"It's said that for every dollar the newspaper gets in print advertising, that same dollar translates into the equivalent of less than a dime in its online counterpart," says Professor Neil Henry, Dean of the Journalism School at the University of California, Berkeley.

He worries that the widespread cost-cutting and possible closures threaten to devalue journalism - and democracy - in America.

"An important and vital part of democracy is vanishing before our very eyes, whether the public realises it or not," he told me.

Time magazine's Walter Isaacson suggested in a recent article that newspapers and magazines should adopt a system of micropayments.

Readers would pay a couple of cents for an article, a bit more for access to a full day's edition, and a couple of dollars for a monthly pass.

But as Michael Kinsley explains in the New York Times, micropayments are unlikely to generate enough revenue to make up for the advertising shortfall.

"The [New York] Times sells just over a million daily papers. If every one of those million buyers went online and paid $2 a month, that would be $24 million a year. Even with the economic crisis, paper and digital advertising in the Times brought in about $1 billion last year. Circulation brought in $668 million."

"Two bucks per reader per month is not going to save newspapers."

No crisis?

Other commentators have suggested that newspapers could reorganise themselves as not-for-profit trusts, backed by rich patrons, and stop relying on sales or advertising for their revenue.

Professor Henry warns that this could cause problems of its own.

"What happens if journalism must depend for its survival solely on the altruism of rich people, whose own special interests may invariably sway coverage?"

His faculty is experimenting with a new business model.

"We are developing a number of... local news sites in digital format for neglected communities in the Bay Area, in which our students are producing content from our reporting classes for academic credit and as paid interns... There's a long way to go, but it's a start - and it's truly galvanizing our students, faculty, and local communities."

Whatever model the newspapers of the future adopt, the current crisis is likely to put at least some titles out of business, with only the strongest surviving.

Less competition could mean more business for the survivors and the industry is likely to consolidate, with cities and regions being served by fewer newspapers; we could perhaps see a truly national newspaper market develop in the US.

But with US newspapers competing with one another, as well as with international news providers (including the BBC), there would still be plenty of choice for news consumers.

"With even half a dozen papers, the American newspaper industry will be more competitive than it was when there were hundreds," writes Michael Kinsley. "Competition will keep the Baghdad bureaus open and the investigative units stoked with dudgeon."

The "crisis" in the newspaper industry may, therefore, be more of a crisis for the journalists and publishers who are currently facing job losses and bankruptcy.

But if it is merely the quantity, but not the quality, of journalism that declines then - for readers - there may not be a crisis at all.

REACTIONS TO THE EVENTS AT THE CHRONICLE
I see this as an opportunity squandered. Here was the paper atop Silicon Valley that should have seen the changes in our world clearer than any other, that should have anticipated the importance of October, 1994, when the commercial browser was introduced, that could have reinvented itself over a luxurious decade and a half. But now, instead, it's hurry-up-or-die for the Chron.
Jeff Jarvis,

As much as I'd like to think a major city can survive without a newspaper, I'm not super-excited to try the experiment personally. San Francisco has some of the nation's most tech-savvy citizens, but are they really ready to get their local news only from virtual sources? If the Chronicle gets shut down within weeks, as seems to be Hearst's intention, they may have no choice but to find out the hard way.
Jen Phillips,

The trend towards reading news online is better established in the technophiliac Bay Area than elsewhere. It no longer seems so unfathomable that the Chronicle might close. The shame is that not many people might mourn its passing.
Owen Thomas,

Here's one way of looking at this somewhat shocking news: This is Hearst trying to strongarm the union into complying with whatever demands they try to shove down their throats. They are basically saying "concede to layoffs, loss of vacation and severance, or we will shut it down." The question is, how will the union members respond to these bullying tactics? Will individuals hope that their jobs won't be the ones cut, or will they call Hearst's bluff? Another way of looking at it: They're broke as all hell, and they will shut it down. Which seems to be the most likely scenario.
Brock Keeling,

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7913400.stm

Published: 2009/02/27 02:08:10 GMT

What do you think about this from Slashdo?
| AP Considers Making Content Require Payment |
| from the you-see-there-is-this-thing-called-web-2.0 dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday February 23, @13:30 (The Media)|
| http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/23/1657242 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

TechDirt is reporting that the Associated Press is poised to be the next
in a long line of news organizations to completely bungle their online
distribution methods by [0]making their content require payment. While
this wouldn't happen for a while due to deals with others, like Google,
to distribute AP content for free, even considering this is a massive
step in the wrong direction. "Also, I know we point this out every time
some clueless news exec claims that users need to pay, but it's worth
mentioning again: nowhere do they discuss why people should want to pay.
Nowhere do they explain what extra value they're adding that will make
people pay. Instead, they think that if they put up a paywall, people
will magically pay -- even though the paywall itself is what takes away
much of the value by making it harder for people to do what they want
with the news: to spread it, to comment on it, to participate in the
story. Until newspaper execs figure this out, they're only going to keep
making things worse."

Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/02/23/1657242

Links:
0. http://techdirt.com/articles/20090220/1802393852.shtml

Well I have been reporting and telling you that Journalism is in a crisis but some say there is a bright side and I hope so.
Web not killing journalism, improving it
Paul Raven @ 12-02-2009
We’ve heard plenty of worrying from journalists about how the death of print newspapers will be the death of journalism itself, so here’s a contrary view from within the same camp. Jim Stovall of JPROF suggests that the medium of newspapers is actually part of the problem, and that journalism will be improved once it is no longer chained to the printing press.

He provides a number of reasons for optimism, of which I think this is the most telling:

More reporters. Students in my experience are wildly excited about this new age of journalism. I am honored to be the faculty adviser to the Tennessee Journalist, the student operated news web site of the School of Journalism and Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee. More than 35 people regularly show up at our weekly staff meeting (only the editors are required to come) and the numbers are growing. The number of our majors has grown from 350 to 450 in just one year.

What has caused this, I wonder? The tempting conclusion is that the ease of self-publication has made people less intimidated by the idea of producing writing in public, but maybe it’s also to do with the erosion of the media monoculture - the web has provided a space for dissenting voices and niche interests that newspapers couldn’t support, tied as they are to physical locations.

Whatever the cause, it’s good to see some optimism. Journalism was born out of the desire to learn and communicate, and it looks like that desire has been increased rather than eroded. Who knew? [via TechDirt; image by Annie Mole]

What the future might bring:Cheaper to give away Kindles than print the New York Times
Edward Willett @ 03-02-2009
According to an analysis by Silicon Alley Insider, it actually costs the financially struggling New York Times Company about twice as much money to print and deliver the newspaper over a year as it would cost to send each of its subscribers a brand new Amazon Kindle instead. And an inside source tells them their estimate of the Times’s printing costs is so low it’s “not even in the ballpark.” (Via Instapundit.)

Bottom line: “as a technology for delivering the news, newsprint isn’t just expensive and inefficient; it’s laughably so.”

No, papers can’t–yet–force everyone to read their content on some sort of hand-held device. But in the future, why not? Subscribe, and get a free ebook reader to which stories are uploaded regularly as they’re posted. Bonus: you can use the reader for other kinds of content, too. Which would also drive ebook sales. Win-win.

(And I say this as the former editor of a weekly newspaper, who once swore up and down that nothing would ever replace traditional print…a former newspaper editor, I might add, who now reads his local newspaper’s digital edition exclusively.)