From Columbia Journalism Review. Notice the note at the end, inviting journalism students to contribute. Take them up on it!
Hope Dies Last
I want newspapers to survive, but will they?
By Mallory Carra
I wasn’t even twenty-five years old and I was working for the New York Daily News. All of my friends and family called me their “big-time reporter.” Except at that moment, I was the big-time New York reporter crying in a bathroom stall, thinking, “I hate this.” If this was what it’s like at the “top,” why had I worked so hard to get here?
It was a weird thought because I was living my dream. I had been living and breathing journalism since high school; I loved writing, telling stories, and talking to different people. I found joy in writing for my high school’s barely-there newspaper. I worked myself ragged as a writer and sports editor of NYU’s student paper, but I loved every minute of it. Sometimes I still can’t believe I did all of that for free, yet when I got the chance to do it for a top paper for a good salary, I didn’t want to do it at all.
Was it because of the newsrooms I had worked in or the people I had worked with? Yes and no. I’ve worked in three newsrooms in different parts of the country. Each had their own personality, but all of them tried to fight the future. It’s enough for me to understand why newspapers are dying.
During my post-grad internship at The News and Observer in North Carolina, I pitched a story about Facebook privacy concerns. I spent an hour explaining Facebook to my assigning editor, who still couldn’t wrap his head around it and treated the story like intern busywork that should never see newsprint. After I left, my final draft was turned into the millionth “Facebook is popular” trend story, six months before the Facebook privacy backlash began in 2005.
After that, I spent two and a half years working for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, a newspaper that was trying to catch up with the Internet. Reporters were required to blog, though some of the reporters had trouble understanding what a blog was in the first place, confusing posts with print articles on the Web site. Colleagues and I tried to rebel against the weekly post requirement. We had the freedom to write how and what we wanted, but they controlled when? Wasn’t that against the point of blogging? At least this newspaper’s editors understood the importance of their Web site and tried the best they could, even if they were a few years behind. Reporters blogged, we recorded audio and video, but, most of all, complained—a lot.
At the Daily News, a photographer made a slideshow to go with one of my stories. My supervisor proudly circulated the link around the section, but his boss had a very simple response to the multimedia effort: “Why?” Yet this same person also suggested I create a Google Alert with my name to see if blogs picked up any of my stories, as if it would be an honor and a reward. I found it odd that one of the largest newspapers in the country needed the reassurance of bloggers. After all, everyone at the paper acted like they were unaffected by falling circulation numbers, saying that this is New York and newspapers can’t possibly be dying here because people always have read papers and thus always will. Reporters and photographers mention the paper’s circulation rank at least three times a day in conversation to each other, sources, recent hires, and anyone who dare cross them.
But that mantra won’t stop the numbers from falling, the layoffs from coming, the readers from preferring the Internet, and the ads from not selling. The people at the paper kept telling me how everyone wanted to be in my position. After six weeks, I didn’t want to be there anymore. Three months later, I’ve been laid off from a temp receptionist job and my job search has stalled as the economy crumbles. All I can do now is read blogs in my pajamas all day, but I’m thankful for the chance to be a reader again and see what all the fuss is about.
It’s different on the other side. The only newspaper I read is the free one handed to me before I get on the subway, because I can’t afford to pay for one. My mind drifts during long, jargon-filled online news articles and I enjoy their succinct and snarky blogs more. I follow CNN, AP, and The Onion’s Twitter feeds. My job hunt is fueled by online job postings on various Web sites and attempts at networking. I check CNBC.com for updates about the falling stock market and which company is laying off how many today, because newspapers frustrate me by providing yesterday’s information.
My main concern is how newsrooms will move forward—if they ever do. A lot of people who love reading the hard copy and want coupons, but what happens when that group dies off or the economy gets worse? Why buy a bulky stack of paper filled with yesterday’s news when you can log on and get today’s for free? I’ve attended too many journalism conferences where the theme has been convergence and editors talk about how “blogs are the future.” They’re not the future anymore; they’re now, and the Internet will rule more of how we get news in the years ahead. Where have these editors been?
Reporters need to stop regarding the Internet as a pest they’re not paid enough to provide for and accept that, in addition to their daily duties, this is the new journalism. Owners need to remember that, along with the flashy appeal of the Internet and big profits, newspapers still require good journalism and even better journalists. Newspapers, even without the “paper,” can still remain a news authority, but they need to start acting like one and stop acting like the great-grandfather trying to impress the cool kids.
My current interest in journalism has shifted to the Internet, blogs and social media. News doesn’t necessarily come from news sources anymore. Everything on the Internet has the potential to become something big, even if just for a day. That works out well for marketing ploys and blog book deals, but it also helps promote stories from all over that might have ordinarily flown under the radar. I’m not sure how things will evolve, but I’m excited to see how it does and that’s what still has me interested in the industry. The Internet facilitates creativity. and I think newspapers have the potential to do so much with it. And I’d love to be a part of it, if they ever do.
I want this to happen, so much that it’s hard for me to stop caring for the profession I loved so much in college, but cried about hating in the bathroom. Maybe things will get better when the economy bounces back. Maybe newspapers will start to have the backing to utilize the Internet the way they want and should. Maybe a new generation of editors and reporters will embrace the Internet and save newspapers from dying. Right now, though, I have as much hope for newspapers as I have of finding a non-journalism job while equipped with a journalism degree in this economy—none.
____
In July, we invited laid-off and bought-out journalists to reflect on their experience in the form of a letter to colleagues. Now we are issuing a similar invitation to the young people who’ve come into the profession in the last five years or so, and the young journalism students who soon will. We invite them to air their concerns and hopes about journalism, too. The central questions: What do you see in this business that makes you still want to pursue it? How do you imagine people will get quality news five years down the road? How will you try to fit in? Send your submissions to editors@cjr.org. We’ll publish these periodically under the headline “Starting Thoughts,” and we’ll archive everything we publish here.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Clever Groaners -- Fun With Words
Many people are interested in the Stock Market these days. Here's a report from October 31st.
"Helium was up, feathers are down. Paper was stationary. Fluorescent tubing was dimmed by light trading. Knives were up sharply. Cows steered into a bull market. Pencils lost a few points. Hiking equipment was trailing. Elevators rose while escalators continued their slow decline.
"Weights were up in heavy trading. Light switches were off. Mining equipment hit rock bottom. Diapers remain unchanged. Shipping lines stayed at an even keel. The market for raisins dried up. Coca Cola fizzled.
"Caterpillar stock inched up a bit. Sun peaked at midday. Balloon prices were inflated. And batteries exploded in an attempt to recharge the market."
"Helium was up, feathers are down. Paper was stationary. Fluorescent tubing was dimmed by light trading. Knives were up sharply. Cows steered into a bull market. Pencils lost a few points. Hiking equipment was trailing. Elevators rose while escalators continued their slow decline.
"Weights were up in heavy trading. Light switches were off. Mining equipment hit rock bottom. Diapers remain unchanged. Shipping lines stayed at an even keel. The market for raisins dried up. Coca Cola fizzled.
"Caterpillar stock inched up a bit. Sun peaked at midday. Balloon prices were inflated. And batteries exploded in an attempt to recharge the market."
Investigation Flat, Police Sharp, Damage Minor
Count the ways in which the writer had fun with this story!
Mystery piano in woods perplexes police
By Josh Levs, CNN
(CNN) -- Was it a theft? A prank? A roundabout effort to bring some holiday cheer to the police? Authorities in Harwich, Massachusetts, are probing the mysterious appearance of a piano, in good working condition, in the middle of the woods.
Discovered by a woman who was walking a trail, the Baldwin Acrosonic piano, model number 987, is intact -- and, apparently, in key.
Sgt. Adam Hutton of the Harwich Police Department said information has been broadcast to all the other police departments in the Cape Cod area in hopes of drumming up a clue, however minor it may be.
But so far, the investigation is flat.
Also of note: Near the mystery piano -- serial number 733746 -- was a bench, positioned as though someone was about to play.
The piano was at the end of a dirt road, near a walking path to a footbridge in the middle of conservation land near the Cape.
It took a handful of police to move the piano into a vehicle to transport it to storage, so it would appear that putting it into the woods took more than one person.
Asked whether Harwich police will be holding a holiday party in the storage bay -- tickling the ivories, pouring eggnog -- while they await word of the piano's origin and fate, Hutton said with a laugh. No such plans.
Harwich police have had some fun, though. Among the photos they sent to the news media is one of Officer Derek Dutra examining the piano in the woods. The police entitled the photo "Liberace."
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Traits of a Good Reporter-- WashPost
Here's a very stimulating piece by the ombudsman of the Washington Post. View the original (many live links) by clicking here.
The Traits of a Good Reporter
By Deborah Howell
Sunday, November 23, 2008; B06
Good reporters are the heart of news gathering. If it's news, they have to know it. Without them, the public wouldn't have the news and information essential to running a democracy -- or our lives. Whether the story is local, national or foreign, it has to be gathered on the ground by a reporter.
What makes a good reporter? Endless curiosity and a deep need to know what is happening. Then, the ability to hear a small clue and follow it. When Post reporter Dana Priest first heard "a tiny, tiny piece" of what turned out to be the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal, she couldn't ignore it.
She and colleague Anne Hull methodically followed the story until Army officials were shamed and did something about the poor care of many Iraq war veterans. Hull and Priest also have a quality essential to good reporting: empathy. They cared about those soldiers and had the ability to tell the story in a way that touched readers.
Retired Post executive editor Ben Bradlee thinks a reporter's most important quality is energy: "They've got to love what they're doing; they've got to be serious about turning over rocks, opening doors. The story drives you. It's part of your soul."
Reporters go where the story is -- even if it's over a mountain pass in Afghanistan on horseback in a blinding blizzard. That's what Post reporter Keith B. Richburg and photographer Lucian Perkins did in late 2001 to find the front lines of a war between the Taliban and its enemies.
When dark smoke was billowing out of the telephone company building in downtown Minneapolis -- 10 minutes before deadline -- Minneapolis Star reporter Randy Furst was on the story. He ran to the building and burst into a board of directors' meeting and asked the company president what was going on. The company flack called me the next day to complain about Furst's behavior; I thought it was great.
Good reporters are committed to telling the story. Associated Press reporter Terry Anderson ignored his boss's advice to leave war-torn Lebanon; he felt that he had to stay. He was kidnapped in 1985 and spent 6 1/2 years in brutal captivity.
Post foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid is a veteran of armed conflict in the Middle East; he was wounded by gunfire while working for the Boston Globe. What drives him? During wars, "work is all there is. I struggle with how you get beyond the pain of what you see to say something more. For me, every few months I try to figure how I could leave the profession, if for no other reason than to salvage soul and sanity."
But he hasn't, and he will go back to Iraq soon. "If you don't do it, the story might not be covered. Or it might not be covered the way you think it should be. Maybe it's equal parts responsibility, curiosity and ambition, hopefully more of the former than the latter. It's obligation, too. We're one of the few newspapers with the resources and ambition to still cover the story. And if we don't do it -- as the story recedes from the front page, as staffing dwindles, as money dries up -- no one else will."
Bob Woodward, The Post's most renowned reporter, believes that good reporters do not let speed and impatience hinder them. They have the discipline to go to multiple sources at all levels of a story and get meticulous documentation -- notes, calendars, memos. "You go down lots of holes that don't lead anywhere," but "in the end, what always matters is information that is authentic and can be analyzed and documented."
Most reporters don't go to Afghanistan or get shot at. But it often takes the same mental toughness to cover the police or hold local government officials accountable. District police reporter Theola Labbé-DeBose puts it this way: "I think what makes a good reporter is the dogged, unshaken belief that there is some way to obtain a seemingly impossible piece of information."
Good reporters are savvy enough to find sources they can trust -- think Deep Throat -- and, as Ernest Hemingway said, they have built-in b.s. detectors. Don't lie to a reporter; you'll be caught. Say you can't answer.
Woe to officials who want to make public decisions in private. Jim Shoop, a reporter on the old Minneapolis Star, found out about a secret meeting of Twin Cities mayors who were discussing setting up a metropolitan sales tax; he arrived early and curled up inside a portable bar in a corner of the room. He got the story.
Sometimes it's important just to hang out and build trust. Post Metro reporter Josh White was trying to find a stripper with drug problems befriended by the rogue FBI agent Robert Hanssen before he was caught spying. White visited most of the strip joints in town and got a lead that sent him to Columbus, Ohio, where he knocked, unannounced, and met her mother and toddler. After three days, the stripper came home to find White on her couch with her son in his lap watching TV. She gave him the story.
Good reporters know how to get access to people and documents; in the old days, a fifth of whiskey to the right janitor could get you a report lying on a city hall desk. Now a cadre of Post database and investigative reporters plows through mounds of hard-to-obtain government documents, looking for stories of fraud, patronage, waste and wrongdoing; they create spreadsheets and do the painstaking work of looking for patterns. The ability to sort out conflicting information is one of the hallmarks of good reporting.
Metro reporter Keith Alexander, reporting on the case of two girls who were found murdered and stuffed in a freezer in their home, spent days going over court files to find why their mother, accused of killing them, had been allowed to adopt them. The files told him the sad stories of their biological families; he was able to track them down and tell a deeper story of the tragedy.
A reporter's first commitment is getting the story for readers; it trumps almost everything. That's the reason they sometimes miss their wedding anniversaries or their children's birthday parties and keep on reporting until they are wheeled into surgery (see Shadid) or delivery rooms.
Reporting is a calling. If reporters didn't have it (along with good editors), how would you know what was going on in your communities, the nation and the world?
The Traits of a Good Reporter
By Deborah Howell
Sunday, November 23, 2008; B06
Good reporters are the heart of news gathering. If it's news, they have to know it. Without them, the public wouldn't have the news and information essential to running a democracy -- or our lives. Whether the story is local, national or foreign, it has to be gathered on the ground by a reporter.
What makes a good reporter? Endless curiosity and a deep need to know what is happening. Then, the ability to hear a small clue and follow it. When Post reporter Dana Priest first heard "a tiny, tiny piece" of what turned out to be the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal, she couldn't ignore it.
She and colleague Anne Hull methodically followed the story until Army officials were shamed and did something about the poor care of many Iraq war veterans. Hull and Priest also have a quality essential to good reporting: empathy. They cared about those soldiers and had the ability to tell the story in a way that touched readers.
Retired Post executive editor Ben Bradlee thinks a reporter's most important quality is energy: "They've got to love what they're doing; they've got to be serious about turning over rocks, opening doors. The story drives you. It's part of your soul."
Reporters go where the story is -- even if it's over a mountain pass in Afghanistan on horseback in a blinding blizzard. That's what Post reporter Keith B. Richburg and photographer Lucian Perkins did in late 2001 to find the front lines of a war between the Taliban and its enemies.
When dark smoke was billowing out of the telephone company building in downtown Minneapolis -- 10 minutes before deadline -- Minneapolis Star reporter Randy Furst was on the story. He ran to the building and burst into a board of directors' meeting and asked the company president what was going on. The company flack called me the next day to complain about Furst's behavior; I thought it was great.
Good reporters are committed to telling the story. Associated Press reporter Terry Anderson ignored his boss's advice to leave war-torn Lebanon; he felt that he had to stay. He was kidnapped in 1985 and spent 6 1/2 years in brutal captivity.
Post foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid is a veteran of armed conflict in the Middle East; he was wounded by gunfire while working for the Boston Globe. What drives him? During wars, "work is all there is. I struggle with how you get beyond the pain of what you see to say something more. For me, every few months I try to figure how I could leave the profession, if for no other reason than to salvage soul and sanity."
But he hasn't, and he will go back to Iraq soon. "If you don't do it, the story might not be covered. Or it might not be covered the way you think it should be. Maybe it's equal parts responsibility, curiosity and ambition, hopefully more of the former than the latter. It's obligation, too. We're one of the few newspapers with the resources and ambition to still cover the story. And if we don't do it -- as the story recedes from the front page, as staffing dwindles, as money dries up -- no one else will."
Bob Woodward, The Post's most renowned reporter, believes that good reporters do not let speed and impatience hinder them. They have the discipline to go to multiple sources at all levels of a story and get meticulous documentation -- notes, calendars, memos. "You go down lots of holes that don't lead anywhere," but "in the end, what always matters is information that is authentic and can be analyzed and documented."
Most reporters don't go to Afghanistan or get shot at. But it often takes the same mental toughness to cover the police or hold local government officials accountable. District police reporter Theola Labbé-DeBose puts it this way: "I think what makes a good reporter is the dogged, unshaken belief that there is some way to obtain a seemingly impossible piece of information."
Good reporters are savvy enough to find sources they can trust -- think Deep Throat -- and, as Ernest Hemingway said, they have built-in b.s. detectors. Don't lie to a reporter; you'll be caught. Say you can't answer.
Woe to officials who want to make public decisions in private. Jim Shoop, a reporter on the old Minneapolis Star, found out about a secret meeting of Twin Cities mayors who were discussing setting up a metropolitan sales tax; he arrived early and curled up inside a portable bar in a corner of the room. He got the story.
Sometimes it's important just to hang out and build trust. Post Metro reporter Josh White was trying to find a stripper with drug problems befriended by the rogue FBI agent Robert Hanssen before he was caught spying. White visited most of the strip joints in town and got a lead that sent him to Columbus, Ohio, where he knocked, unannounced, and met her mother and toddler. After three days, the stripper came home to find White on her couch with her son in his lap watching TV. She gave him the story.
Good reporters know how to get access to people and documents; in the old days, a fifth of whiskey to the right janitor could get you a report lying on a city hall desk. Now a cadre of Post database and investigative reporters plows through mounds of hard-to-obtain government documents, looking for stories of fraud, patronage, waste and wrongdoing; they create spreadsheets and do the painstaking work of looking for patterns. The ability to sort out conflicting information is one of the hallmarks of good reporting.
Metro reporter Keith Alexander, reporting on the case of two girls who were found murdered and stuffed in a freezer in their home, spent days going over court files to find why their mother, accused of killing them, had been allowed to adopt them. The files told him the sad stories of their biological families; he was able to track them down and tell a deeper story of the tragedy.
A reporter's first commitment is getting the story for readers; it trumps almost everything. That's the reason they sometimes miss their wedding anniversaries or their children's birthday parties and keep on reporting until they are wheeled into surgery (see Shadid) or delivery rooms.
Reporting is a calling. If reporters didn't have it (along with good editors), how would you know what was going on in your communities, the nation and the world?
Friday, November 21, 2008
Young Evangelicals -- Videos Invited
Young Evangelicals: We Want Your Videos
In connection with our recent national survey of young evangelicals, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly invites evangelicals ages 18-29 to send us 1-2 minute videos http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1207/evangelicalvideos.html about their attitudes on religion, politics, and America's role in the world.
In connection with our recent national survey of young evangelicals, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly invites evangelicals ages 18-29 to send us 1-2 minute videos http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1207/evangelicalvideos.html about their attitudes on religion, politics, and America's role in the world.
Jerry Jenkins Reveals 'Writing Cave'
Are you interested in seeing the "cave" where Jerry Jenkins (pictured) goes to write when he's on deadline for a book or an article?
For an "inside look" at Jerry's working environment, click here.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Focus on the Family Folds Four Print Publications
From CTI:
Focus on the Family Folding Four Print Publications
Brio, Brio and Beyond, Breakaway, and Plugged In will turn into online magazines.
Sarah Pulliam
Focus on the Family will stop publishing four of its eight magazines, the ministry told Religion News Service.
The ministry, founded by James Dobson, announced earlier this week that it will cut around 200 positions on it's staff of about 1,150.
Adelle M. Banks writes:
The print edition of "Plugged In," an entertainment review guide for parents, will continue through its online version, Schneeberger said. Three other publications, Breakaway, Brio, and Brio and Beyond, which were aimed at teenagers, will be revamped into online content.
"The content that was found in those publications will still be available online, but it will be targeted not at teens but at parents," he said.
One of the four remaining magazines, Citizen, will be reduced from 12 issues to 10 issues a year. Earlier this fall, the ministry cut 46 other staff positions by outsourcing the department that filled orders and distributed books.
Focus on the Family Folding Four Print Publications
Brio, Brio and Beyond, Breakaway, and Plugged In will turn into online magazines.
Sarah Pulliam
Focus on the Family will stop publishing four of its eight magazines, the ministry told Religion News Service.
The ministry, founded by James Dobson, announced earlier this week that it will cut around 200 positions on it's staff of about 1,150.
Adelle M. Banks writes:
The print edition of "Plugged In," an entertainment review guide for parents, will continue through its online version, Schneeberger said. Three other publications, Breakaway, Brio, and Brio and Beyond, which were aimed at teenagers, will be revamped into online content.
"The content that was found in those publications will still be available online, but it will be targeted not at teens but at parents," he said.
One of the four remaining magazines, Citizen, will be reduced from 12 issues to 10 issues a year. Earlier this fall, the ministry cut 46 other staff positions by outsourcing the department that filled orders and distributed books.
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