and via slashdot:
| Print News Fading, Still Source of Much News |
| from the fact-checking-the-next-media-casualty dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday December 26, @10:22 (The Media)|
| http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/26/1341218 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
CNet's Dan Farber took a look, not only at the popular news of how print
media is dying a slow death, but also what contribution to the news print
journalists are still making. According to research quoted, while the
physical publications are quickly becoming a thing of the past much of
the news that makes its way into circulation via blogs and other means
still [0]originates from the hard work of those print journalists. (We
[1]discussed a similar perspective on the news a week back.) "While the
Internet is growing as the place where people go for news, the revenue
simply isn't catching up fast enough. The less obvious part of the
Internet overtaking newspapers as the main source for national and
international news is that much of the seed content--the original
reporting that breaks national and international news and is subsequently
refactored by legions of bloggers--comes from the reporters and editors
working at the financially strapped newspapers and national and local
television outlets. [...] As the financial pressures mount--the outlook
for 2009 is dismal--and the cost cutting continues, we can only hope that
the original news reporting by top-flight journalists is not a major
casualty."
Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/12/26/1341218
Links:
0. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13953_3-10128881-80.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
1. http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/20/2124218&tid=149
Friday, December 26, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Interesting article on the future of Newspapers in the New Yorker:
THE FINANCIAL PAGE
NEWS YOU CAN LOSE
by James Surowiecki
DECEMBER 22, 2008
TEXT SIZE:
SMALL TEXT
MEDIUM TEXT
LARGE TEXT
PRINT E-MAIL FEEDS
RELATED LINKS
The Balance Sheet, James Surowiecki’s blog.
KEYWORDS
Newspapers; Advertising; Internet; Technology; Business; Economic Crisis; Recession
hen the Tribune Company announced that it was filing for bankruptcy, last Monday, Sam Zell, the man who bought the company a year ago, for $8.2 billion, said that its problems were the result of a “perfect storm.” You take readers and advertisers who were already migrating away from print, and add a steep recession, and you’ve got serious trouble. What Zell failed to mention was that his acquisition of the company had buried it beneath such a heavy pile of debt that any storm at all would likely have sunk it. But although Zell was making excuses for his own mismanagement, the perfect storm is real enough, and it is threatening to destroy newspapers as we know them. Layoffs and buyouts have become routine. The Miami Herald and the San Diego Union-Tribune are reportedly on the selling block, while lawmakers in Connecticut are trying to keep two newspapers there afloat. Even the New York Times Company has slashed its dividend and announced that it would borrow against its headquarters to avoid cash-flow problems.
There’s no mystery as to the source of all the trouble: advertising revenue has dried up. In the third quarter alone, it dropped eighteen per cent, or almost two billion dollars, from last year. For most of the past decade, newspaper companies had profit margins that were the envy of other industries. This year, they have been happy just to stay in the black. Many traditional advertisers, like big department stores, are struggling, and the bursting of the housing bubble has devastated real-estate advertising. Even online ads, which were supposed to rescue the business, have declined lately, and they are, in any case, nowhere near as lucrative as their print counterparts. Papers’ attempts to deal with the new environment by cutting costs haven’t helped: trimming staff and reducing coverage make newspapers less appealing to readers and advertisers. It may be no coincidence that papers that have avoided the steepest cutbacks, like the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, have done a better job of holding onto readers.
Newspaper readership has been slowly dropping for decades—as a percentage of the population, newspapers have about half as many subscribers as they did four decades ago—but the Internet helped turn that slow puncture into a blowout. Papers now seem to be the equivalent of the railroads at the start of the twentieth century—a once-great business eclipsed by a new technology. In a famous 1960 article called “Marketing Myopia,” Theodore Levitt held up the railroads as a quintessential example of companies’ inability to adapt to changing circumstances. Levitt argued that a focus on products rather than on customers led the companies to misunderstand their core business. Had the bosses realized that they were in the transportation business, rather than the railroad business, they could have moved into trucking and air transport, rather than letting other companies dominate. By extension, many argue that if newspapers had understood they were in the information business, rather than the print business, they would have adapted more quickly and more successfully to the Net.
FROM THE ISSUECARTOON BANKE-MAIL THIS
There’s some truth to this. Local papers could have been more aggressive in leveraging their brand names to dominate the market for online classifieds, instead of letting Craigslist usurp that market. And while the flood of online information has made the job of aggregation and filtering tremendously valuable, none of the important aggregation sites, to say nothing of Google News, are run by a paper. Even now, papers often display a “not invented here” mentality, treating their sites as walled gardens, devoid of links to other news outlets. From a print perspective, that’s understandable: why would you advertise good work that’s being done elsewhere? But it’s an approach that makes no sense on the Web.
These mistakes have been undeniably costly, but they’re not the whole story. The peculiar fact about the current crisis is that even as big papers have become less profitable they’ve arguably become more popular. The blogosphere, much of which piggybacks on traditional journalism’s content, has magnified the reach of newspapers, and although papers now face far more scrutiny, this is a kind of backhanded compliment to their continued relevance. Usually, when an industry runs into the kind of trouble that Levitt was talking about, it’s because people are abandoning its products. But people don’t use the Times less than they did a decade ago. They use it more. The difference is that today they don’t have to pay for it. The real problem for newspapers, in other words, isn’t the Internet; it’s us. We want access to everything, we want it now, and we want it for free. That’s a consumer’s dream, but eventually it’s going to collide with reality: if newspapers’ profits vanish, so will their product.
Does that mean newspapers are doomed? Not necessarily. There are many possible futures one can imagine for them, from becoming foundation-run nonprofits to relying on reader donations to that old standby the deep-pocketed patron. It’s even possible that a few papers will be able to earn enough money online to make the traditional ad-supported strategy work. But it would not be shocking if, sometime soon, there were big American cities that had no local newspaper; more important, we’re almost sure to see a sharp decline in the volume and variety of content that newspapers collectively produce. For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime—intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on—and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can’t last. Soon enough, we’re going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is. ♦
ILLUSTRATION: CHRISTOPH NIEMANN
THE FINANCIAL PAGE
NEWS YOU CAN LOSE
by James Surowiecki
DECEMBER 22, 2008
TEXT SIZE:
SMALL TEXT
MEDIUM TEXT
LARGE TEXT
PRINT E-MAIL FEEDS
RELATED LINKS
The Balance Sheet, James Surowiecki’s blog.
KEYWORDS
Newspapers; Advertising; Internet; Technology; Business; Economic Crisis; Recession
hen the Tribune Company announced that it was filing for bankruptcy, last Monday, Sam Zell, the man who bought the company a year ago, for $8.2 billion, said that its problems were the result of a “perfect storm.” You take readers and advertisers who were already migrating away from print, and add a steep recession, and you’ve got serious trouble. What Zell failed to mention was that his acquisition of the company had buried it beneath such a heavy pile of debt that any storm at all would likely have sunk it. But although Zell was making excuses for his own mismanagement, the perfect storm is real enough, and it is threatening to destroy newspapers as we know them. Layoffs and buyouts have become routine. The Miami Herald and the San Diego Union-Tribune are reportedly on the selling block, while lawmakers in Connecticut are trying to keep two newspapers there afloat. Even the New York Times Company has slashed its dividend and announced that it would borrow against its headquarters to avoid cash-flow problems.
There’s no mystery as to the source of all the trouble: advertising revenue has dried up. In the third quarter alone, it dropped eighteen per cent, or almost two billion dollars, from last year. For most of the past decade, newspaper companies had profit margins that were the envy of other industries. This year, they have been happy just to stay in the black. Many traditional advertisers, like big department stores, are struggling, and the bursting of the housing bubble has devastated real-estate advertising. Even online ads, which were supposed to rescue the business, have declined lately, and they are, in any case, nowhere near as lucrative as their print counterparts. Papers’ attempts to deal with the new environment by cutting costs haven’t helped: trimming staff and reducing coverage make newspapers less appealing to readers and advertisers. It may be no coincidence that papers that have avoided the steepest cutbacks, like the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, have done a better job of holding onto readers.
Newspaper readership has been slowly dropping for decades—as a percentage of the population, newspapers have about half as many subscribers as they did four decades ago—but the Internet helped turn that slow puncture into a blowout. Papers now seem to be the equivalent of the railroads at the start of the twentieth century—a once-great business eclipsed by a new technology. In a famous 1960 article called “Marketing Myopia,” Theodore Levitt held up the railroads as a quintessential example of companies’ inability to adapt to changing circumstances. Levitt argued that a focus on products rather than on customers led the companies to misunderstand their core business. Had the bosses realized that they were in the transportation business, rather than the railroad business, they could have moved into trucking and air transport, rather than letting other companies dominate. By extension, many argue that if newspapers had understood they were in the information business, rather than the print business, they would have adapted more quickly and more successfully to the Net.
FROM THE ISSUECARTOON BANKE-MAIL THIS
There’s some truth to this. Local papers could have been more aggressive in leveraging their brand names to dominate the market for online classifieds, instead of letting Craigslist usurp that market. And while the flood of online information has made the job of aggregation and filtering tremendously valuable, none of the important aggregation sites, to say nothing of Google News, are run by a paper. Even now, papers often display a “not invented here” mentality, treating their sites as walled gardens, devoid of links to other news outlets. From a print perspective, that’s understandable: why would you advertise good work that’s being done elsewhere? But it’s an approach that makes no sense on the Web.
These mistakes have been undeniably costly, but they’re not the whole story. The peculiar fact about the current crisis is that even as big papers have become less profitable they’ve arguably become more popular. The blogosphere, much of which piggybacks on traditional journalism’s content, has magnified the reach of newspapers, and although papers now face far more scrutiny, this is a kind of backhanded compliment to their continued relevance. Usually, when an industry runs into the kind of trouble that Levitt was talking about, it’s because people are abandoning its products. But people don’t use the Times less than they did a decade ago. They use it more. The difference is that today they don’t have to pay for it. The real problem for newspapers, in other words, isn’t the Internet; it’s us. We want access to everything, we want it now, and we want it for free. That’s a consumer’s dream, but eventually it’s going to collide with reality: if newspapers’ profits vanish, so will their product.
Does that mean newspapers are doomed? Not necessarily. There are many possible futures one can imagine for them, from becoming foundation-run nonprofits to relying on reader donations to that old standby the deep-pocketed patron. It’s even possible that a few papers will be able to earn enough money online to make the traditional ad-supported strategy work. But it would not be shocking if, sometime soon, there were big American cities that had no local newspaper; more important, we’re almost sure to see a sharp decline in the volume and variety of content that newspapers collectively produce. For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime—intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on—and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can’t last. Soon enough, we’re going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is. ♦
ILLUSTRATION: CHRISTOPH NIEMANN
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Check it out:http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/08/hp-and-asu-demo-bendable-unbreakable-electronic-displays/
You now have outstanding assignments: 'A Radio Report sent to me as a .wav attachment in an e-mail, a watch sports story, a story about what will disappear through new tech. over the next few years, and finally a report on your expierience at the FIFA events in Japan. The first three are late. Good luck and work hard.
You now have outstanding assignments: 'A Radio Report sent to me as a .wav attachment in an e-mail, a watch sports story, a story about what will disappear through new tech. over the next few years, and finally a report on your expierience at the FIFA events in Japan. The first three are late. Good luck and work hard.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
From Tech Innovation
My first job as a journalist was at Supermarket News, the leading publication for grocery executives. I worked out of a bureau in San Francisco that included several other journalists who reported on the fledgling computer industry. While I was attending the opening of Safeway's first gourmet supermarket, my colleagues were watching Steve Jobs unveil the first Macintosh. It didn't take me long to figure out which was the more exciting and important industry to report on. So when I got the opportunity to switch publications, I jumped.
Over the next two decades I covered Silicon Valley—first for trade publications, and later for Forbes, Fortune, and Business 2.0. There were two things I especially liked about my job. I met some of the most amazing people on the planet, and I got to watch digital technology creep into every aspect of our lives—PCs, cell phones, music, movies, cars, and more.
For the last three years I have been covering the field of social innovation as managing editor of Stanford Social Innovation Review, and I'm happy to see that digital technology is starting to have a bigger impact in the social sector. William Brindley, the CEO of NetHope and the subject of our most recent interview is one of the reasons that phenomenon has occurred.
Brindley leads a group of techies from the world's largest humanitarian NGOs who are finding creative ways to use technology to improve the way that humanitarian aid is delivered. The group has helped create suitcase-size devices powered by solar cells that provide internet and phone service anywhere in the world, and is developing easy-to-use hand-held devices for field workers charged with monitoring agricultural production in Africa. Nonprofits still trail for-profits in their use of technology, but with the help of people such as Brindley they are closing the gap.
My first job as a journalist was at Supermarket News, the leading publication for grocery executives. I worked out of a bureau in San Francisco that included several other journalists who reported on the fledgling computer industry. While I was attending the opening of Safeway's first gourmet supermarket, my colleagues were watching Steve Jobs unveil the first Macintosh. It didn't take me long to figure out which was the more exciting and important industry to report on. So when I got the opportunity to switch publications, I jumped.
Over the next two decades I covered Silicon Valley—first for trade publications, and later for Forbes, Fortune, and Business 2.0. There were two things I especially liked about my job. I met some of the most amazing people on the planet, and I got to watch digital technology creep into every aspect of our lives—PCs, cell phones, music, movies, cars, and more.
For the last three years I have been covering the field of social innovation as managing editor of Stanford Social Innovation Review, and I'm happy to see that digital technology is starting to have a bigger impact in the social sector. William Brindley, the CEO of NetHope and the subject of our most recent interview is one of the reasons that phenomenon has occurred.
Brindley leads a group of techies from the world's largest humanitarian NGOs who are finding creative ways to use technology to improve the way that humanitarian aid is delivered. The group has helped create suitcase-size devices powered by solar cells that provide internet and phone service anywhere in the world, and is developing easy-to-use hand-held devices for field workers charged with monitoring agricultural production in Africa. Nonprofits still trail for-profits in their use of technology, but with the help of people such as Brindley they are closing the gap.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Citizen Journalists Provide Glimpses Into Attacks
By BRIAN STELTER and NOAM COHEN
The attacks in India served as another case study in how
technology is transforming people into potential reporters,
adding a new dimension to the news media.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/world/asia/30twitter.html?th&emc=th
By BRIAN STELTER and NOAM COHEN
The attacks in India served as another case study in how
technology is transforming people into potential reporters,
adding a new dimension to the news media.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/world/asia/30twitter.html?th&emc=th
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Well guys here it is again and am still waiting for the pod casts ( wav. file attachment) news report:
Investigative journalism to make an online come-back?
Paul Raven @ 22-11-2008
Following on from Tom M’s mention of Spot.us, the New York Times has an article on the organisations that may well end up replacing it. Local news websites like VoiceOfSanDiego.org are looking to beat both the current newspaper and web news models by returning to solid original journalism on the matters that matter:
“Voice is doing really significant work, driving the agenda on redevelopment and some other areas, putting local politicians and businesses on the hot seat,” said Dean Nelson, director of the journalism program at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. “I have them come into my classes, and I introduce them as, ‘This is the future of journalism.’ ”
The problem being that, currently, online advertising doesn’t provide enough income to run a proper newsroom, even with the lower overheads of the straight-to-web model. But will that always be the case? I’d be a lot more tolerant of internet advertising if I felt I was getting decent content as a result of it.
Investigative journalism to make an online come-back?
Paul Raven @ 22-11-2008
Following on from Tom M’s mention of Spot.us, the New York Times has an article on the organisations that may well end up replacing it. Local news websites like VoiceOfSanDiego.org are looking to beat both the current newspaper and web news models by returning to solid original journalism on the matters that matter:
“Voice is doing really significant work, driving the agenda on redevelopment and some other areas, putting local politicians and businesses on the hot seat,” said Dean Nelson, director of the journalism program at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. “I have them come into my classes, and I introduce them as, ‘This is the future of journalism.’ ”
The problem being that, currently, online advertising doesn’t provide enough income to run a proper newsroom, even with the lower overheads of the straight-to-web model. But will that always be the case? I’d be a lot more tolerant of internet advertising if I felt I was getting decent content as a result of it.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Got the following from Futurismic.com a very good source.
Tomorrow’s news: Journalism’s future will look like … ?
Tom Marcinko @ 18-11-2008
As Ed Wood said, future events such as these will concern you in the future. With newspapers shriveling up on our breakfast tables, and TV spewing out tabloid and opinion, what’s going to happen to investigative journalism? Reporter-maven DigiDave says:
What we need right now is 10,000 journalism startups. Of these 9,000 will fail, 1,000 will find ways to sustain themselves for a brief period of time, 98 will find mediocre success and financial security and two will come out as new media equivalents to the New York Times…. I don’t know what that organization will look like or who it will be - but that’s what we need and we face some serious challenges along the way.
Dave’s behind Spot.us, a venture in “community-funded reporting.” People submit tips and fund pitches, and the resulting stories can be used by anyone under Creative Commons. About 10 projects are on the boards. A pitch on the after-effects of a year-ago oil spill on San Francisco Bay’s beaches has raised $500 and needs $300 more. Sounds like slow going, but it beats whining about the good old days.
[Story tip: Journerdism]
Related posts
Flux of facts - the fate of news in a wired world (0)
WIRED autopsies crowdsourcing experiment (0)
Secret Motel Art (0)
Queen Rania of Jordan opens communication with the West… via Youtube (0)
Mixed messages: Wired in two minds over Estonian “cyberwar” story (2)
Tomorrow’s news: Journalism’s future will look like … ?
Tom Marcinko @ 18-11-2008
As Ed Wood said, future events such as these will concern you in the future. With newspapers shriveling up on our breakfast tables, and TV spewing out tabloid and opinion, what’s going to happen to investigative journalism? Reporter-maven DigiDave says:
What we need right now is 10,000 journalism startups. Of these 9,000 will fail, 1,000 will find ways to sustain themselves for a brief period of time, 98 will find mediocre success and financial security and two will come out as new media equivalents to the New York Times…. I don’t know what that organization will look like or who it will be - but that’s what we need and we face some serious challenges along the way.
Dave’s behind Spot.us, a venture in “community-funded reporting.” People submit tips and fund pitches, and the resulting stories can be used by anyone under Creative Commons. About 10 projects are on the boards. A pitch on the after-effects of a year-ago oil spill on San Francisco Bay’s beaches has raised $500 and needs $300 more. Sounds like slow going, but it beats whining about the good old days.
[Story tip: Journerdism]
Related posts
Flux of facts - the fate of news in a wired world (0)
WIRED autopsies crowdsourcing experiment (0)
Secret Motel Art (0)
Queen Rania of Jordan opens communication with the West… via Youtube (0)
Mixed messages: Wired in two minds over Estonian “cyberwar” story (2)
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Here is a good talking point for next class:
Newspapers Are Dead; Long Live Newspapers
Source: American Journalism Review, November/December 2008
"Newspapers are in trouble for reasons that have almost nothing to do with newspaper journalism," writes Paul Farhi. "Even a paper stocked with the world's finest editorial minds wouldn't have a fighting chance against the economic and technological forces arrayed against the business." Farhi says newspapers "remain remarkably popular" but suffer from "the flight of classified advertisers, the deterioration of retail advertising and the indebtedness of newspaper owners." The Internet, he maintains, has expanded newspaper readership while sapping "newspapers' economic lifeblood. The most serious erosion has occurred in classified advertising, which once made up more than 40 percent of a newspaper's revenues and more than half its profits. ... Craigslist and eBay and dozens of other low-cost and no-cost classified sites began gobbling newspapers' market share a few years ago. What they didn't wipe out, the tanking economy did." In the same issue of American Journalism Review, journalism professor Philip Meyer writes that economic pressure will transform today's general-audience newspapers into "The Elite Newspaper of the Future," offering "analysis, interpretation and investigative reporting" to "the educated, opinion-leading, news-junkie core of the audience" who "will insist on it as a defense against 'persuasive communication,' the euphemism for advertising, public relations and spin that exploits the confusion of information overload."
Newspapers Are Dead; Long Live Newspapers
Source: American Journalism Review, November/December 2008
"Newspapers are in trouble for reasons that have almost nothing to do with newspaper journalism," writes Paul Farhi. "Even a paper stocked with the world's finest editorial minds wouldn't have a fighting chance against the economic and technological forces arrayed against the business." Farhi says newspapers "remain remarkably popular" but suffer from "the flight of classified advertisers, the deterioration of retail advertising and the indebtedness of newspaper owners." The Internet, he maintains, has expanded newspaper readership while sapping "newspapers' economic lifeblood. The most serious erosion has occurred in classified advertising, which once made up more than 40 percent of a newspaper's revenues and more than half its profits. ... Craigslist and eBay and dozens of other low-cost and no-cost classified sites began gobbling newspapers' market share a few years ago. What they didn't wipe out, the tanking economy did." In the same issue of American Journalism Review, journalism professor Philip Meyer writes that economic pressure will transform today's general-audience newspapers into "The Elite Newspaper of the Future," offering "analysis, interpretation and investigative reporting" to "the educated, opinion-leading, news-junkie core of the audience" who "will insist on it as a defense against 'persuasive communication,' the euphemism for advertising, public relations and spin that exploits the confusion of information overload."
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Thursday, October 09, 2008
From CBC:
Journalists easily manipulated, says veteran U.S. newsman
Seymour Hersh says bloggers now more effective than mainstream media
Seymour Hersh will kick off the Shaw Festival's fall lecture series on Sunday in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. (Brad Barket/Getty Images)
Groundbreaking U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh contends that journalists have allowed themselves to be manipulated in their coverage of U.S. politics in recent years.
"My profession failed us when it came to understanding what George Bush and Dick Cheney were doing in Iraq," Hersh said Thursday on CBC cultural affairs show Q from CBC's Washington, D.C., studio.
"Generally, we didn't do our job, which was to be skeptical and give them the greatest scrutiny we could, to hold them to the highest possible standards. We didn't do that. We went along with them and became part of the team," said Hersh, who will kick off the Shaw Festival's fall lecture series at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., on Sunday.
And journalists are still being manipulated, he added. "We have a man in office [in the U.S.] who's demonstrated no capacity to get anything done with any success, and we've just given him $700 billion U.S. to ease the world's credit crunch. Of course, we've found out over the past weekend that they're only just figuring out what to do with this money."
It's not a new situation, he said, giving examples from his career as a reporter in the New York Times' Washington bureau and as Washington correspondent for the Associated Press.
"When you have editors who want stories and are willing to take risks, you have a great newspaper," he said. "But most of the people who get promoted [to top editors] fit the corporate model, are malleable and predictable … less interested in stories and more interested in not making waves."
Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin have been telling American voters to ignore what they call the liberal media.
Hersh pointed to a revolution in journalism that's been sparked by the Internet. Bloggers, he noted, have replaced the mainstream news media as cutting-edge news gatherers.
The public began learning about Sarah Palin, he said, "when bloggers in Alaska started flooding the Internet with accounts of some of her doings and the mainstream press picked it up. We have a new phenomenon at just the right time .… We don't know what to make of it … but I assure you, it is the future in terms of journalism."
He also noted that the public's appetite for celebrity gossip has resulted in the blurring lines between news and entertainment. "I don't care what they [reporters] think," he said. "I want to know what they know."
But Hersh, whose coverage of the My Lai massacre and coverup helped end the Vietnam War, believes in the power a single piece of writing can wield.
He also believes it's the duty of journalists to be unbiased in their reporting, and this objectivity shouldn't undermine reporting the truth.
"By 1967, I was convinced that the only objective thing to say about the [Vietnam] war was that it was a disaster," he said. It was corrupting America, it was murdering people."
Journalists easily manipulated, says veteran U.S. newsman
Seymour Hersh says bloggers now more effective than mainstream media
Seymour Hersh will kick off the Shaw Festival's fall lecture series on Sunday in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. (Brad Barket/Getty Images)
Groundbreaking U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh contends that journalists have allowed themselves to be manipulated in their coverage of U.S. politics in recent years.
"My profession failed us when it came to understanding what George Bush and Dick Cheney were doing in Iraq," Hersh said Thursday on CBC cultural affairs show Q from CBC's Washington, D.C., studio.
"Generally, we didn't do our job, which was to be skeptical and give them the greatest scrutiny we could, to hold them to the highest possible standards. We didn't do that. We went along with them and became part of the team," said Hersh, who will kick off the Shaw Festival's fall lecture series at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., on Sunday.
And journalists are still being manipulated, he added. "We have a man in office [in the U.S.] who's demonstrated no capacity to get anything done with any success, and we've just given him $700 billion U.S. to ease the world's credit crunch. Of course, we've found out over the past weekend that they're only just figuring out what to do with this money."
It's not a new situation, he said, giving examples from his career as a reporter in the New York Times' Washington bureau and as Washington correspondent for the Associated Press.
"When you have editors who want stories and are willing to take risks, you have a great newspaper," he said. "But most of the people who get promoted [to top editors] fit the corporate model, are malleable and predictable … less interested in stories and more interested in not making waves."
Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin have been telling American voters to ignore what they call the liberal media.
Hersh pointed to a revolution in journalism that's been sparked by the Internet. Bloggers, he noted, have replaced the mainstream news media as cutting-edge news gatherers.
The public began learning about Sarah Palin, he said, "when bloggers in Alaska started flooding the Internet with accounts of some of her doings and the mainstream press picked it up. We have a new phenomenon at just the right time .… We don't know what to make of it … but I assure you, it is the future in terms of journalism."
He also noted that the public's appetite for celebrity gossip has resulted in the blurring lines between news and entertainment. "I don't care what they [reporters] think," he said. "I want to know what they know."
But Hersh, whose coverage of the My Lai massacre and coverup helped end the Vietnam War, believes in the power a single piece of writing can wield.
He also believes it's the duty of journalists to be unbiased in their reporting, and this objectivity shouldn't undermine reporting the truth.
"By 1967, I was convinced that the only objective thing to say about the [Vietnam] war was that it was a disaster," he said. It was corrupting America, it was murdering people."
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Just a reminder that your assignment this week is to listen to two or three of the New York Times podcasts and perhaps a couple of the NPR ones. Also take a look at this rather long opinion article:
Don’t let the facts spoil a good story
Ben Goldacre
The Guardian,
Saturday September 13 2008
Here is a cautionary tale for anyone working in research. “Captain Cook and Lord Nelson seem unlikely figureheads in the fight against climate change alarmists,” said the Sun. “Lord Nelson and Captain Cook’s ship logs question climate change theories,” announced the Telegraph. Oh that’s handy. So perhaps we can just keep on burning oil regardless then? “The ships’ logs of great maritime figures such as Lord Nelson and Captain Cook have cast new light on climate change by suggesting that global warming may not be an entirely man-made phenomenon.”
I spoke to Dennis Wheeler, a geographer at Sunderland University and the man whose research triggered this coverage. Is he a leading figure in “the fight against climate change alarmists”?
No. “But now I’ve had emails from cranks around the world thinking I’m some kind of anti-global warming conspiracy theorist and a friend to them. I’m most certainly not. The newspapers grossly and crassly misrepresented everything we are doing.”
In fact, Wheeler had spoken only to the Sunday Times, which covered his work accurately. The rest of the newspapers copied the quotes, and the information, but rather grandly decided to change the purpose and the outcome of his research. “It was odd reading articles which were written as if a reporter had spoken to me - I wasn’t fully aware of the extent to which the media copy each other’s newspapers - but worse was the brazen way they distorted our work. Not a single one of the journalists from any other newspaper contacted us to see if their take on the story was correct.”
In fact, the journalists concocted all kinds of connections entirely for themselves. “Ships’ logs, and thousands more like them, have revealed that recent global warming is not so unusual after all.” Is that true? “No. As I pointed out to the Sunday Times, the ships’ log books I work with only give us information about wind force and wind direction, they basically do not give us information on temperatures, and if they do it’s very scant and unreliable. We’ve simply never claimed indirectly or directly to have any direct evidence on changing temperatures.”
More from the Telegraph: “The records also suggest that Europe saw a spell of rapid warming, similar to that experienced today, during the 1730s that must have been caused naturally.”
Wheeler? “Your heart just sinks. Well, the central England temperature series, for example, have shown us that the 1720s and 1730s are a period of fairly rapid warming, but that’s in recovery from the Little Ice Age, and we’d like to know more about that, but this has been known about since 1974. What we are trying to do is to shed a fresh light - a bit of background - on these long-known changes in temperature.
“Somewhere at the end they do quote me, but by then the headlines have done their job, and the message is lost in the willingness of so many people to believe global warming is not a major issue. And by the end it was unclear what my quote meant anyway, in its new context.”
How did the papers quote Wheeler? Thus: “Global warming is a reality, but our data shows climate science is complex. It is wrong to take particular events and link them to carbon dioxide emissions.” I could see how that quote might get misunderstood.
“Only out of context. I wasn’t talking about the scientific community, I wasn’t talking about climate change theory being wrong, I was talking about the media and others getting things wrong. Any new weather event is currently explained away as yet another facet of global warming, but there has always been freak weather. Like most people, I find it hugely irritating when people draw too much from single events.”
If you’re an academic and your work has been “grossly and crassly misrepresented” by the newspapers, then I’m always very pleased to hear from you.
Don’t let the facts spoil a good story
Ben Goldacre
The Guardian,
Saturday September 13 2008
Here is a cautionary tale for anyone working in research. “Captain Cook and Lord Nelson seem unlikely figureheads in the fight against climate change alarmists,” said the Sun. “Lord Nelson and Captain Cook’s ship logs question climate change theories,” announced the Telegraph. Oh that’s handy. So perhaps we can just keep on burning oil regardless then? “The ships’ logs of great maritime figures such as Lord Nelson and Captain Cook have cast new light on climate change by suggesting that global warming may not be an entirely man-made phenomenon.”
I spoke to Dennis Wheeler, a geographer at Sunderland University and the man whose research triggered this coverage. Is he a leading figure in “the fight against climate change alarmists”?
No. “But now I’ve had emails from cranks around the world thinking I’m some kind of anti-global warming conspiracy theorist and a friend to them. I’m most certainly not. The newspapers grossly and crassly misrepresented everything we are doing.”
In fact, Wheeler had spoken only to the Sunday Times, which covered his work accurately. The rest of the newspapers copied the quotes, and the information, but rather grandly decided to change the purpose and the outcome of his research. “It was odd reading articles which were written as if a reporter had spoken to me - I wasn’t fully aware of the extent to which the media copy each other’s newspapers - but worse was the brazen way they distorted our work. Not a single one of the journalists from any other newspaper contacted us to see if their take on the story was correct.”
In fact, the journalists concocted all kinds of connections entirely for themselves. “Ships’ logs, and thousands more like them, have revealed that recent global warming is not so unusual after all.” Is that true? “No. As I pointed out to the Sunday Times, the ships’ log books I work with only give us information about wind force and wind direction, they basically do not give us information on temperatures, and if they do it’s very scant and unreliable. We’ve simply never claimed indirectly or directly to have any direct evidence on changing temperatures.”
More from the Telegraph: “The records also suggest that Europe saw a spell of rapid warming, similar to that experienced today, during the 1730s that must have been caused naturally.”
Wheeler? “Your heart just sinks. Well, the central England temperature series, for example, have shown us that the 1720s and 1730s are a period of fairly rapid warming, but that’s in recovery from the Little Ice Age, and we’d like to know more about that, but this has been known about since 1974. What we are trying to do is to shed a fresh light - a bit of background - on these long-known changes in temperature.
“Somewhere at the end they do quote me, but by then the headlines have done their job, and the message is lost in the willingness of so many people to believe global warming is not a major issue. And by the end it was unclear what my quote meant anyway, in its new context.”
How did the papers quote Wheeler? Thus: “Global warming is a reality, but our data shows climate science is complex. It is wrong to take particular events and link them to carbon dioxide emissions.” I could see how that quote might get misunderstood.
“Only out of context. I wasn’t talking about the scientific community, I wasn’t talking about climate change theory being wrong, I was talking about the media and others getting things wrong. Any new weather event is currently explained away as yet another facet of global warming, but there has always been freak weather. Like most people, I find it hugely irritating when people draw too much from single events.”
If you’re an academic and your work has been “grossly and crassly misrepresented” by the newspapers, then I’m always very pleased to hear from you.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Investigative journalism 2.0
Tom James @ 02-09-2008
Self-described new media whore Paul Carr has an interesting take on the future of investigative journalism and publishing - the problem:
Talk to a random sample of journalists and they’ll tell you the same thing - no one commissions investigative journalism any more.
Talk to any editor and they’ll tell you why; it costs a fortune to produce and rarely adds anything in terms of circulation or bottom line.
In an era of plummeting circulation and competition from free online news sources, as far as a cost-benefits analysis of newspaper investigations goes, it’s all cost and no benefit.
Basically another example of the problem of monetizing content that costs a lot to produce but little to reproduce. After dismissing one Web 2.0 business that attempts to address the problems of investigative journalism called Spot Us Mr Carr proffers his own solution:
I’d kill it. Take it out to the shed and put a bullet through its brain. Its been sick since the mid-80s and watching it try to struggle for twenty more years is embarrassing at best and cruel at worst.
…
Walk in to any bookshop and go to the politics, culture, biography or current affairs section. Now tell me investigative reporting is dead.
…
Of course these are the big stories - what of the smaller, more immediate ones? TV news. It’s there first, it has money and access and it has a 24 hour cycle to fill, meaning that every lead gets followed and reported no matter how apparently inconsequential.
…
Online news sources have their part to play too, although, frankly, they can be divided into two camps - brand extension for established media companies or total horseshit. Blogs have a role - but it’s confined to fact checking and uninformed gadflyery.
This gadfly likes Carr’s idea of idea of a cheap, subscription book-service, slightly more in-depth than a typical article in The Economist but less heavy than (for example) the 464 pages of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army and you would also get a tighter, more focused, and original piece of reporting:
I’d approach an established publishing house with a business plan - a new imprint that publishes short (40,000 words maybe), low cover price (£4.99 tops) books, each written by a recognised investigative reporter and each dealing with a single investigative subject.
Also recommended is Paul Carr’s recently published book Bringing Nothing to the Party: True Confessions of a New Media Whore. It combines hilarious gonzo journalism with genuine insight from Paul Carr’s experience as a wannabe Web 2.0 entrepreneur.
Tom James @ 02-09-2008
Self-described new media whore Paul Carr has an interesting take on the future of investigative journalism and publishing - the problem:
Talk to a random sample of journalists and they’ll tell you the same thing - no one commissions investigative journalism any more.
Talk to any editor and they’ll tell you why; it costs a fortune to produce and rarely adds anything in terms of circulation or bottom line.
In an era of plummeting circulation and competition from free online news sources, as far as a cost-benefits analysis of newspaper investigations goes, it’s all cost and no benefit.
Basically another example of the problem of monetizing content that costs a lot to produce but little to reproduce. After dismissing one Web 2.0 business that attempts to address the problems of investigative journalism called Spot Us Mr Carr proffers his own solution:
I’d kill it. Take it out to the shed and put a bullet through its brain. Its been sick since the mid-80s and watching it try to struggle for twenty more years is embarrassing at best and cruel at worst.
…
Walk in to any bookshop and go to the politics, culture, biography or current affairs section. Now tell me investigative reporting is dead.
…
Of course these are the big stories - what of the smaller, more immediate ones? TV news. It’s there first, it has money and access and it has a 24 hour cycle to fill, meaning that every lead gets followed and reported no matter how apparently inconsequential.
…
Online news sources have their part to play too, although, frankly, they can be divided into two camps - brand extension for established media companies or total horseshit. Blogs have a role - but it’s confined to fact checking and uninformed gadflyery.
This gadfly likes Carr’s idea of idea of a cheap, subscription book-service, slightly more in-depth than a typical article in The Economist but less heavy than (for example) the 464 pages of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army and you would also get a tighter, more focused, and original piece of reporting:
I’d approach an established publishing house with a business plan - a new imprint that publishes short (40,000 words maybe), low cover price (£4.99 tops) books, each written by a recognised investigative reporter and each dealing with a single investigative subject.
Also recommended is Paul Carr’s recently published book Bringing Nothing to the Party: True Confessions of a New Media Whore. It combines hilarious gonzo journalism with genuine insight from Paul Carr’s experience as a wannabe Web 2.0 entrepreneur.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Here's something I'd like you to look at and listen to too: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/multimedia/podcasts.html
As you can see this is an internet page with a list or directory of New York Times podcasts. I'd like you to listen to at least four different podcasts. Try and pick a variety of different kinds so you will get a better idea of how they are done. Making your own podcast as an assignment for the class will be something that we will be doing this semester.
As you can see this is an internet page with a list or directory of New York Times podcasts. I'd like you to listen to at least four different podcasts. Try and pick a variety of different kinds so you will get a better idea of how they are done. Making your own podcast as an assignment for the class will be something that we will be doing this semester.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Here's more from the Center of Media and Democracy Newsletter on fake news:
Yet Another Kind of Fake News
Source: MinnPost.com, August 18, 2008
As more newspapers and other media outlets cut staff, public relations and advertising make gains. The Minnesota-based firm ARAnet provides "free print and Web content. ... More than 65 of the nation's top 100 newspapers, including the Star Tribune, use" ARAnet content, which "carries client messages." ARAnet president Scott Severson says his firm provides "high-quality consumer content" that "just happen[s] to be underwritten by our clients." ARAnet clients pay $4,500 for content creation, tracking and reporting; media outlets use it for free. One ARAnet article "offered to auto sections" was sponsored by Lexus. Severson explains, "The article was about safety systems and mentioned Lexus. The best advertising doesn't look like advertising." It also doesn't carry clear disclosure. ARAnet's "online articles typically are identified as sponsored content," but its "print articles merely carry an 'ARA' designation, similar to the 'AP' identifier that runs with Associated Press articles." Other ARAnet clients include Home Depot, Microsoft, Best Buy and UPS.
Yet Another Kind of Fake News
Source: MinnPost.com, August 18, 2008
As more newspapers and other media outlets cut staff, public relations and advertising make gains. The Minnesota-based firm ARAnet provides "free print and Web content. ... More than 65 of the nation's top 100 newspapers, including the Star Tribune, use" ARAnet content, which "carries client messages." ARAnet president Scott Severson says his firm provides "high-quality consumer content" that "just happen[s] to be underwritten by our clients." ARAnet clients pay $4,500 for content creation, tracking and reporting; media outlets use it for free. One ARAnet article "offered to auto sections" was sponsored by Lexus. Severson explains, "The article was about safety systems and mentioned Lexus. The best advertising doesn't look like advertising." It also doesn't carry clear disclosure. ARAnet's "online articles typically are identified as sponsored content," but its "print articles merely carry an 'ARA' designation, similar to the 'AP' identifier that runs with Associated Press articles." Other ARAnet clients include Home Depot, Microsoft, Best Buy and UPS.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Thursday, July 03, 2008
This is long but you should read it, so here from the New York Times:
July 2, 2008, 7:14 pm
Save the Press
On the lobby wall of the newspaper where I got my first reporting job are the Thomas Jefferson words that journalists like to trot out as Independence Day nears:
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Of course, Jefferson also said the only reliable truths in newspapers were the advertisements, and that he was happiest when not reading the papers.
But as to his iconic quote, it’s no secret that we’re trending toward the former. And anyone who cheers the collapse of the newspaper industry should consider why Jefferson put aside his distaste for the vitriol and nonsense of the press for the larger principle of healthy democracies needing informed citizens.
Last week, almost 1,000 jobs were eliminated in the American newspaper industry, perhaps the bloodiest week yet of a year where many papers are fighting for their lives. You read about the great names — the Baltimore Sun, the Boston Globe, the San Jose Mercury News — as if reading the obituary page. Rich cities like San Francisco can no longer support a profitable daily paper.
Columnists, reporters, editors, cartoonists and photographers — including some colleagues here at The Times — who brought to life the daily narrative of a city or region have been swept aside. What started as layoffs and buyouts is edging toward closures and bankruptcies.
And here’s the great paradox: all of this bad news is coming at a time when the audience and reach of many newspapers has never been greater. The Internet may kill the daily newspaper as we know it, but it’s allowed some papers to increase their readership by tenfold.
Those who revel in the life-threatening trauma that newspapers are going through, saying they brought it upon themselves by being too liberal, too sensationalistic, too banal — choose your insult — miss the point. People are not deserting these complex and contradictory summaries of our collective existence. Not by any stretch.
Measured purely by number of readers in all formats, many newspapers have never been more successful.
Newspaper Web sites attracted more than 66 million unique visitors in the first quarter of 2008 — a record, and a 12 percent increase over a year ago, according to a Nielsen Online analysis. Forty percent of all Internet users visit a newspaper site. A visitor, it should be noted, is different from a reader, but it’s the measurement of choice.
The Web is the future. And yet, because online advertising accounts for only about 10 percent of total ad revenue, newspapers are hemorrhaging money. In its present form, and even in best-case projections, the Web format will never generate enough money to keep viable reporting staffs afloat at some of the nation’s biggest papers.
That’s the business model crisis, an old story by now, the millstones of capitalism crushing an outdated format. Something new will emerge, a print and Web model.
In the meantime, print reporters strap on the old Webcam, charge up their podcast recorder, grab their notebook and dutifully try to cover a story that now needs to be presented in three formats, or more.
What’s the alternative — the National Public Radio model? It’s possible that some civic-minded nonprofits will end up owning one or two of the nation’s great papers, and operating them as trusts, hands off.
But that’s a limited solution, fraught with problems of control and flexibility, and it won’t keep reporters at city hall in Sioux Falls or the statehouse in Santa Fe.
Another response is goodbye, and so what. Look at the auto industry numbers from this week, with General Motors slouching toward bankruptcy.
Besides, there’s plenty of gossip, political spin and original insight on sites like the Drudge Report or The Huffington Post — even though they are built on the backs of the wire services and other factories of honest fact-gathering. One day soon these Web info-slingers will find that you can’t produce journalism without journalists, and a search engine is no replacement for a curious reporter.
And just how much do most contributors at the The Huffington Post make? Nothing! “Not our financial model,” as the co-founder, Ken Lerer famously said. From low pay to no pay — the New Journalism at a place that calls itself an Internet newspaper.
Yes, the Brentwood bold-face types who grace HuffPo’s home page can afford to work for free, but it’s un-American, to say the least.
Long ago, I was a member of the steelworkers union, and also a longshoreman. If any of those guys on the docks heard that I was now part of a profession that asked people to labor for nothing, they’d laugh in their lunch buckets — then probably shut The Huffington Post down. Doesn’t the “progressive” agenda, much touted on their pages, include a living wage?
We could be left with a national snark brigade, sniping at the remaining dailies in their pajamas, never rubbing shoulders with a cop, a defense attorney or a distressed family in a Red Cross shelter after a flood.
My lament this Fourth of July is to ask readers to see newspapers as not just another casualty in the churn of business. Sure, reporters say stupid things and write idiotic stories. Everyone stumbles. But on its best days, a newspaper is a marvel of style and wit, of small-type discoveries and large-type overstatements, a diary of our deeds.
We may still prove Jefferson’s preference wrong: perhaps a nation can function without newspapers. But it would be a confederacy of dunces.
July 2, 2008, 7:14 pm
Save the Press
On the lobby wall of the newspaper where I got my first reporting job are the Thomas Jefferson words that journalists like to trot out as Independence Day nears:
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Of course, Jefferson also said the only reliable truths in newspapers were the advertisements, and that he was happiest when not reading the papers.
But as to his iconic quote, it’s no secret that we’re trending toward the former. And anyone who cheers the collapse of the newspaper industry should consider why Jefferson put aside his distaste for the vitriol and nonsense of the press for the larger principle of healthy democracies needing informed citizens.
Last week, almost 1,000 jobs were eliminated in the American newspaper industry, perhaps the bloodiest week yet of a year where many papers are fighting for their lives. You read about the great names — the Baltimore Sun, the Boston Globe, the San Jose Mercury News — as if reading the obituary page. Rich cities like San Francisco can no longer support a profitable daily paper.
Columnists, reporters, editors, cartoonists and photographers — including some colleagues here at The Times — who brought to life the daily narrative of a city or region have been swept aside. What started as layoffs and buyouts is edging toward closures and bankruptcies.
And here’s the great paradox: all of this bad news is coming at a time when the audience and reach of many newspapers has never been greater. The Internet may kill the daily newspaper as we know it, but it’s allowed some papers to increase their readership by tenfold.
Those who revel in the life-threatening trauma that newspapers are going through, saying they brought it upon themselves by being too liberal, too sensationalistic, too banal — choose your insult — miss the point. People are not deserting these complex and contradictory summaries of our collective existence. Not by any stretch.
Measured purely by number of readers in all formats, many newspapers have never been more successful.
Newspaper Web sites attracted more than 66 million unique visitors in the first quarter of 2008 — a record, and a 12 percent increase over a year ago, according to a Nielsen Online analysis. Forty percent of all Internet users visit a newspaper site. A visitor, it should be noted, is different from a reader, but it’s the measurement of choice.
The Web is the future. And yet, because online advertising accounts for only about 10 percent of total ad revenue, newspapers are hemorrhaging money. In its present form, and even in best-case projections, the Web format will never generate enough money to keep viable reporting staffs afloat at some of the nation’s biggest papers.
That’s the business model crisis, an old story by now, the millstones of capitalism crushing an outdated format. Something new will emerge, a print and Web model.
In the meantime, print reporters strap on the old Webcam, charge up their podcast recorder, grab their notebook and dutifully try to cover a story that now needs to be presented in three formats, or more.
What’s the alternative — the National Public Radio model? It’s possible that some civic-minded nonprofits will end up owning one or two of the nation’s great papers, and operating them as trusts, hands off.
But that’s a limited solution, fraught with problems of control and flexibility, and it won’t keep reporters at city hall in Sioux Falls or the statehouse in Santa Fe.
Another response is goodbye, and so what. Look at the auto industry numbers from this week, with General Motors slouching toward bankruptcy.
Besides, there’s plenty of gossip, political spin and original insight on sites like the Drudge Report or The Huffington Post — even though they are built on the backs of the wire services and other factories of honest fact-gathering. One day soon these Web info-slingers will find that you can’t produce journalism without journalists, and a search engine is no replacement for a curious reporter.
And just how much do most contributors at the The Huffington Post make? Nothing! “Not our financial model,” as the co-founder, Ken Lerer famously said. From low pay to no pay — the New Journalism at a place that calls itself an Internet newspaper.
Yes, the Brentwood bold-face types who grace HuffPo’s home page can afford to work for free, but it’s un-American, to say the least.
Long ago, I was a member of the steelworkers union, and also a longshoreman. If any of those guys on the docks heard that I was now part of a profession that asked people to labor for nothing, they’d laugh in their lunch buckets — then probably shut The Huffington Post down. Doesn’t the “progressive” agenda, much touted on their pages, include a living wage?
We could be left with a national snark brigade, sniping at the remaining dailies in their pajamas, never rubbing shoulders with a cop, a defense attorney or a distressed family in a Red Cross shelter after a flood.
My lament this Fourth of July is to ask readers to see newspapers as not just another casualty in the churn of business. Sure, reporters say stupid things and write idiotic stories. Everyone stumbles. But on its best days, a newspaper is a marvel of style and wit, of small-type discoveries and large-type overstatements, a diary of our deeds.
We may still prove Jefferson’s preference wrong: perhaps a nation can function without newspapers. But it would be a confederacy of dunces.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Here is a very good statement by web anthropologist Howard Rheingold .quoted from Futurismic, on the function of Journalism:
A smart mob is not necessarily a wise mob.
The technology itself does not guarantee peace or democracy. It really requires a literacy. It requires an informed citizenry. Journalism plays a role in that. Journalism brings to the people news they need to know about the workings of the State. And it helps bring public opinion to the policy makers to know that they cannot make policy that goes against the majority of opinions of the citizens.
A smart mob is not necessarily a wise mob.
The technology itself does not guarantee peace or democracy. It really requires a literacy. It requires an informed citizenry. Journalism plays a role in that. Journalism brings to the people news they need to know about the workings of the State. And it helps bring public opinion to the policy makers to know that they cannot make policy that goes against the majority of opinions of the citizens.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Just to let you know that the Asahi Shimbun tour has been set for July 7th Mon. at 11 a.m. This tour is worth 50 points for your course work and can change your final mark a lot so please make every effort to attend. I will give you exemption papers so that you can be excused from any classes that you have at that time. The tour will last for about one hour.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Training helps bloggers hone professionalism
By CARYN ROUSSEAU
Associated Press Writer
Miami real estate agent Lucas Lechuga began blogging to share his knowledge of the local market. He didn't bargain for a $25 million defamation lawsuit when he wrote that a Miami developer had gone bankrupt decades ago.
In Lake Geneva, Wis., commodities trader Gary Millitte registered the Internet domain name LakeGenevaNews.com eight years ago, but is so worried about the legal boundaries of writing online that he still hasn't started the ultra-local news site.
Non-journalists entering the world of blogs, online feedback forums, online videos and news Web sites provide information that newspapers and other media can't or don't. But many are now turning to professional journalists for help with dilemmas they're facing: When is something libelous? What's the difference between opinion and news? And how do you find public documents?
About a dozen would-be reporters navigated the basics of journalism at a recent training offered by the Society of Professional Journalists in Chicago. The group plans similar seminars this month in Greensboro, N.C., and Los Angeles.
Lechuga, who didn't attend the training, said it would have been a good idea. Having jumped into the world of online publishing with a finance degree, he said the claims against him - which are still pending - arose from a question of semantics, and he would have chose his words differently if he had a second chance.
"It would definitely have been something that would be worthwhile and I'd (have) been able to prevent this," said Lechuga.
Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., which supports working journalists, praised the effort to offer training to so-called citizen journalists.
"I think that what we're moving toward is some king of positioning between amateur and professional," Clark said.
Amateurs have long contributed to professional news reports, including the film of John F. Kennedy's assassination and photos from the Virginia Tech massacre last year, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2004, Clark said.
Now, many distribute their content on their own, and some have gotten into trouble, said Clint Brewer, the national president of SPJ.
Geoff Dougherty, editor of the Web site ChiTownDailyNews.org and a presenter at the SPJ program, is trying to prevent that by offering his reporters online training.
With a $340,000 Knight News Challenge, he's creating a team of 77 to report on the smallest of meetings in every city neighborhood - gatherings that mainstream news organizations don't cover.
"I see us in five years as the go-to source for Chicago news," said Dougherty. "It's a big goal."
Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, said more than 100 judgments valued at $17 million have been handed down against bloggers over the last three years - about 60 percent for defamation, 25 percent for copyright infringement and 10 percent involving privacy.
"It's the tip of the iceberg," Cox said. "Bloggers are being asked to write checks. The threats against bloggers are very real. The costs are very real."
Other groups offer help, including NowPublic.com - a site that gathers photos, video and news tips from the public and distributes them to news organizations, including The Associated Press. NowPublic, funded with venture capital, offers resources for contributors and helps them learn to police themselves, said co-founder Michael Tippett.
"A lot of our members are aspiring journalists," Tippett said. "They'll get half of it right. We'll push them to getting all of it right."
MJ Tam, who has blogged about motherhood for eight years and attended the Chicago workshop, said she worried about how far she could go in rating baby products.
"I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing," said Tam. "How far can I take criticism? What's considered libel? I need those basics."
---
By CARYN ROUSSEAU
Associated Press Writer
Miami real estate agent Lucas Lechuga began blogging to share his knowledge of the local market. He didn't bargain for a $25 million defamation lawsuit when he wrote that a Miami developer had gone bankrupt decades ago.
In Lake Geneva, Wis., commodities trader Gary Millitte registered the Internet domain name LakeGenevaNews.com eight years ago, but is so worried about the legal boundaries of writing online that he still hasn't started the ultra-local news site.
Non-journalists entering the world of blogs, online feedback forums, online videos and news Web sites provide information that newspapers and other media can't or don't. But many are now turning to professional journalists for help with dilemmas they're facing: When is something libelous? What's the difference between opinion and news? And how do you find public documents?
About a dozen would-be reporters navigated the basics of journalism at a recent training offered by the Society of Professional Journalists in Chicago. The group plans similar seminars this month in Greensboro, N.C., and Los Angeles.
Lechuga, who didn't attend the training, said it would have been a good idea. Having jumped into the world of online publishing with a finance degree, he said the claims against him - which are still pending - arose from a question of semantics, and he would have chose his words differently if he had a second chance.
"It would definitely have been something that would be worthwhile and I'd (have) been able to prevent this," said Lechuga.
Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., which supports working journalists, praised the effort to offer training to so-called citizen journalists.
"I think that what we're moving toward is some king of positioning between amateur and professional," Clark said.
Amateurs have long contributed to professional news reports, including the film of John F. Kennedy's assassination and photos from the Virginia Tech massacre last year, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2004, Clark said.
Now, many distribute their content on their own, and some have gotten into trouble, said Clint Brewer, the national president of SPJ.
Geoff Dougherty, editor of the Web site ChiTownDailyNews.org and a presenter at the SPJ program, is trying to prevent that by offering his reporters online training.
With a $340,000 Knight News Challenge, he's creating a team of 77 to report on the smallest of meetings in every city neighborhood - gatherings that mainstream news organizations don't cover.
"I see us in five years as the go-to source for Chicago news," said Dougherty. "It's a big goal."
Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, said more than 100 judgments valued at $17 million have been handed down against bloggers over the last three years - about 60 percent for defamation, 25 percent for copyright infringement and 10 percent involving privacy.
"It's the tip of the iceberg," Cox said. "Bloggers are being asked to write checks. The threats against bloggers are very real. The costs are very real."
Other groups offer help, including NowPublic.com - a site that gathers photos, video and news tips from the public and distributes them to news organizations, including The Associated Press. NowPublic, funded with venture capital, offers resources for contributors and helps them learn to police themselves, said co-founder Michael Tippett.
"A lot of our members are aspiring journalists," Tippett said. "They'll get half of it right. We'll push them to getting all of it right."
MJ Tam, who has blogged about motherhood for eight years and attended the Chicago workshop, said she worried about how far she could go in rating baby products.
"I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing," said Tam. "How far can I take criticism? What's considered libel? I need those basics."
---
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