Carole Simpson: 'Not Delighted' With Sawyer Move

Commentary: Why I'm not delighted by Sawyer move

Editor's note: Carole Simpson, who anchored the weekend editions of "ABC World News," is leader in residence and a full-time faculty member in the journalism department of Emerson College. A recipient of three national Emmy awards with 40 years experience as a broadcast journalist, Simpson was the first black woman to anchor a network evening news broadcast.

(CNN) -- Diane Sawyer now joins Katie Couric as anchor of a major network evening newscast, leaving Brian Williams the sole man.

Since I have personally worked for 30 years for the advancement of women in broadcast journalism, I guess I am supposed to be delighted. Why am I not?

Because it took so darned long -- and TV news is on life support.

No disrespect to Diane or Katie. I consider them friends and I take pride in their accomplishments. They have proven their talents and journalistic credentials. But, come on. We had to wait until 2009?

Women began entering television news in significant numbers in the 1970s during the women's liberation movement. In fact, I started my network career in 1974.

The major impact on the hiring of women resulted after 16 women filed a class action sex discrimination suit in federal court against NBC in 1975. Two years later in a $2 million out-of-court settlement, the network promised to act affirmatively and hire, promote and raise the salaries of a large percentage of women over the next five years.

CBS and ABC saw the writing on the wall and suddenly discovered many women -- inside and outside their news divisions -- qualified to be more than researchers and secretaries.

We women in television news thought we had "arrived" when ABC chose Barbara Walters to co-anchor the evening news with Harry Reasoner in 1976. It turned out to be a match made in hell. Harry was so upset about sharing airtime with a woman that he refused to speak to Barbara, except on the news set. The ill-fated experiment ended two years later when Harry left in disgust for CBS and Barbara was ousted as anchor.

While newswomen were continuing to move onward and upward in network television, it took another 16 years -- 1993 -- before we saw another woman in a network anchor chair. At CBS Connie Chung was paired with Dan Rather on the "Evening News."

During her stint as co-anchor, Connie was sent to Oregon to report on figure skater Tonya Harding's activities following an assault on her chief skating rival, Nancy Kerrigan. Dan Rather remained at the anchor desk.

Can you even imagine Dan spending days out of the studio reporting on someone like Harding? No, you can't. Chung was axed from the program after two years amid tension with her co-anchor.

In 2006, 13 years post-Connie, Katie Couric made history when CBS named her the solo anchor of the "Evening News." She had a rough time from the blistering criticism most women "firsts" have to endure. But she has held her own and grown in stature, enough so that ABC has given Diane Sawyer her shot.

It took almost 40 years for this unique state of affairs. So, why are women getting these opportunities now? Well, I'm a cynic. The reason is that broadcast television news is dying.

For more than 20 years, network newscasts have been called "dinosaurs." Media experts say the shows are in their death throes. Network news budgets have been slashed and employees have been fired and laid off.

The audience for network news has been dwindling year after year as viewers turn to cable or the Internet for their news, or avoid the news altogether.

I wish Diane and Katie the best. Millions of Americans still watch network news programs, but they are only a semblance of what they were in terms of quality and content.

With fewer resources and the death knell sounding, why not put women in charge of the network evening news programs? When things couldn't be worse, it's okay for women to be in charge. Sad to say, but I don't believe the evening network newscasts, nor Katie and Diane as the anchors, will be around for very long.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Carole Simpson.

Indpls. Christian Writers Conference Coming

I realize that attending this may not be practical, especially since it's over Grace's Homecoming Weekend, but it is an excellent example of a fine Christian writer's conference that includes a number of well-experienced speakers and workshop leaders and editors.

Serious writers should find at least one such conference to attend, as you can literally soak up years' worth of experience and savvy on the industry in just a few short days.

Please take the time to browse this schedule a bit, to look at the bios of the faculty, and to see the schedule.

http://www.indychristianwritersconf.com/

Is Facebook On the Way Out?

New York Times says Facebook may be losing its grip. Here's a short excerpt--click here to read the entire article.

Facebook Exodus

Kevin Van Aelst

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Facebook, the online social grid, could not command loyalty forever. If you ask around, as I did, you’ll find quitters. One person shut down her account because she disliked how nosy it made her. Another thought the scene had turned desperate. A third feared stalkers. A fourth believed his privacy was compromised. A fifth disappeared without a word.

The exodus is not evident from the site’s overall numbers. According to comScore, Facebook attracted 87.7 million unique visitors in the United States in July. But while people are still joining Facebook and compulsively visiting the site, a small but noticeable group are fleeing — some of them ostentatiously.

Leif Harmsen, once a Facebook user, now crusades against it. Having dismissed his mother’s snap judgment of the site (“Facebook is the devil”), Harmsen now passionately agrees. He says, not entirely in jest, that he considers it a repressive regime akin to North Korea, and sells T-shirts with the words “Shut Your Facebook.” What especially galls him is the commercialization and corporate regulation of personal and social life. As Facebook endeavors to be the Web’s headquarters — to compete with Google, in other words, and to make money from the information it gathers — it’s inevitable that some people would come to view it as Big Brother.

“The more dependent we allow ourselves to become to something like Facebook — and Facebook does everything in its power to make you more dependent — the more Facebook can and does abuse us,” Harmsen explained by indignant e-mail. “It is not ‘your’ Facebook profile. It is Facebook’s profile about you.”

The disillusionment with Facebook has come in waves. An early faction lost faith in 2008, when Facebook’s beloved Scrabble application, Scrabulous, was pulled amid copyright issues. It was suddenly clear that Facebook was not just a social club but also an expanding force on the Web, beholden to corporate interests. A later group, Harmsen’s crowd, grew frustrated last winter when Facebook seemed to claim perpetual ownership of users’ contributions to the site. (Facebook later adjusted its membership contract, but it continues to integrate advertising, intellectual property and social life.) A third wave of dissenters appears to be bored with it, obscurely sore or just somehow creeped out.

Want to Work as a Professional Tweeter?

Dr. Sauders has called to our attention this article about a communication-related profession that didn't even exist a few years ago. See the original article by clicking here.

More big businesses hire professional tweeters
Multinational corporations turn to social media to extend their brands

CHICAGO - People around the world interact with Alecia Dantico (pictured) all day. Usually, though, they don't know whether she's young or old, male or female.

What her followers on Facebook and Twitter know is that's she's a friendly, sometimes sassy, blue and gold tin of Garrett Popcorn. That's the icon of the popular Chicago-based snack food that has tourists and locals lining up around the block at locations here and in New York City.

And when Dantico sends out a "virtual tin" of popcorn to a fan over Twitter, she's breaking new ground in the way companies market themselves, joining a growing number of social media experts hired to man Twitter, Facebook and similar sites.

"My day starts on Twitter and it doesn't really end," Dantico says. She keeps her BlackBerry on at all hours to respond to followers in different time zones. "It's driving my family crazy, but that's OK."

Best Buy Co. Inc. riled up the social-media world earlier this summer with a job posting for a senior manager of emerging media marketing. One of the job requirements, as originally posted, called for applicants to have more than 250 followers on Twitter. (When that caused an online backlash, the electronics retailer opened the process of crafting a job description to the public.)

Multinational corporations, such as Ford Motor Co. and Coca-Cola Co., are beginning to use social media to increase positive sentiment, build customer rapport and correct misinformation, says Adam Brown, Coca-Cola's Atlanta-based director of social media.

"Having the world's most-recognized brand, we feel like there's an obligation or a responsibility when people are talking about us, we have a duty to respond," Brown says.

Dantico, who is getting a doctorate in communications with an emphasis in building brand identity in online communities, says she has seen an uptick in sales when she's tweeted from events since joining the company in June.

"I really believe in the power of conversation in social media," she says. "Some days we talk about the weather. Some days we talk about the 'Chicken Dance.' Some days we talk about recipes and parties and shipping Garretts to Cabo for a wedding."

She mentions popcorn in her Tweets, and has helped customers secure tins for special events, but never implores followers to go out and buy some. Successful selling through social media is much more subtle.

"Social media is all about being social," says Nora Ganim Barnes, a marketing professor and director for the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. "It's not called selling media. The biggest mistake companies make is using social media to hawk products. It's a turnoff."

Large Fortune 500 companies have been the slowest to adopt social media strategies, Ganim Barnes says. But not-for-profit organizations have been the fastest.

"It's free," she says. "And they've never had such access to media before."

Recent research by Ganim Barnes and colleagues, though, points to a rapidly growing familiarity with social media, even among the world's biggest brands.

"It's bigger than Twitter, MySpace, Facebook or blogs," she says. "It's about engaging people."

The lightning-fast pace of social media, and Twitter in particular, has forced businesses to act in a whole new way, says Brown, of Coca-Cola.

"If you don't respond within three or four hours, you might as well not respond at all," he says.

For example, a man on Twitter recently expressed annoyance at his difficulty in claiming an all-expenses paid trip he'd won through the My Coke Rewards program. He Tweeted, "Coca-Cola, bring down your drawbridge," Brown recalls. Within about a half an hour, Brown had engaged the customer on Twitter, got on the phone with him and resolved the problem.

Not long after, the man changed his Twitter avatar to a can of Coke Zero.

Like Brown, Scott Monty is working to create a social-media strategy for his company, Ford Motors, where he serves as digital and multimedia communications manager in Dearborn, Mich.

"The beautiful thing about sites like Twitter and Facebook is that it's a one-to-one conversation," Monty says. "You're addressing whoever wrote the original comment. But you're doing it in the public square."

Whether your business is large or small, Monty advises those interested in expanding to social media to stand back and listen before diving in.

"It's not the typical one-way push kind of conversation," Monty says. "You wouldn't burst into a cocktail party and just start handing your business card to people and leave. The online space is no different."

Dantico, with Garrett Popcorn, says she responds every time someone mentions her company on Twitter, whether it's positive or negative. And if one of her followers posts about having a bad day, it's not unusual for Garrett Popcorn to send over some treats.

"Popcorn is fun. My brand is fun," she says. "The conversations were already happening. My job was just to join them. This is the best job in the world."

'Checkbook Journalism' Rears Its Head Again

This article, from the LA Times, is about a practice most journalists refer to scornfully as "checkbook journalism" -- paying interview subjects for access to them. Generally it is considered highly unethical, and really a low-life practice on the part of journalists. How do you react? What is the right thing for a reporter or news source to do here, if you have a willing subject who agrees to be paid?

Media offering thousands of dollars for tidbits on 18-year-old kidnapping
By Los Angeles Times

ANTIOCH, CALIF. - At week's end, the street where Jaycee Dugard lived after she was allegedly kidnapped as a child 18 years ago by Phillip and Nancy Garrido was swarming with media. Satellite trucks parked in driveways. Cameramen and photographers tromped on lawns and knocked on doors.

Damon Robinson was in his back yard, talking with reporters across a chain-link fence, while another group lined up in the side yard, waiting to interview him.

Robinson eventually spoke with reporters from CNN, the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times about the years he'd lived next door to the Garridos.

Suddenly, a British reporter pushed to the front. He told Robinson that his deadline was approaching. He offered $2,000 if Robinson would give him "an exclusive." Robinson complied.

In the days since, locals who knew the Garridos said that they have repeatedly been approached by reporters -- American and foreign, print and television -- who have offered thousands of dollars for information and photographs of the Garridos, Dugard, now 29, and the two daughters she bore Phillip Garrido, ages 15 and 11.

Manuel Garrido, who lives in nearby Brentwood, at first spoke freely with reporters about his son's past. But now he says he wants to be paid. "No more free information," said Garrido, 88. "Other people are getting paid."

The elder Garrido said he had received $2,000 from one news outlet for an interview. "From now on, it's going to be more than $2,000," he said. "You're making big stories, and you are getting paid for it. Here I am suffering, so I should get some money out of it."

Concord resident Mark Lister, who knew Phillip Garrido and had some of his promotional business materials, said he sold one of Garrido's business cards, featuring a photo of Dugard, for $10,000.

VA Candidate for Governor Dogged by Thesis

There is a really interesting story playing out right now in the Virginia gubernatorial race. One of the candidates is having his feet held to the fire based on a paper he wrote while a student at a Christian university. Here is an excerpt--read the entire article by clicking here.

Thesis Issue Builds, McDonnell Tries to Move On
Former Colleagues Say Views Persist

By Amy Gardner and Anita Kumar, Washington Post Staff Writers

Republican Robert F. McDonnell's 20-year-old master's thesis continued to consume the Virginia governor's race Tuesday, with Democrat R. Creigh Deeds presenting the paper as his opponent's true beliefs and McDonnell insisting otherwise.

The Deeds campaign brought out four former Republican lawmakers who said the views expressed in the thesis mirrored the positions they saw McDonnell take again and again in the General Assembly. McDonnell reiterated that some of his views have changed, particularly regarding women in the workforce, and attempted to change the subject to education.

At issue is a 93-page research paper titled "The Republican Party's Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of the Decade," in which McDonnell laid out a conservative action plan to promote the traditional family in government. McDonnell wrote against working women, feminists and homosexuals, and he decried the absence of religion in the public schools, the rise of single motherhood and the creation of tax credits for child care to encourage mothers to work.

He submitted the thesis in 1989, two years before he was elected to the House of Delegates, while pursuing public policy and law degrees at Regent University in Virginia Beach.

Deeds has been highlighting McDonnell's conservatism for months, but his campaign pounced on the thesis as further evidence of it after details from the paper were first published Sunday in The Washington Post. On Tuesday, the four former lawmakers, who had previously announced their support for Deeds, used the thesis to talk about McDonnell's record. "It's the Bob I've always known,'' said former senator Martin E. Williams (Newport News). "My biggest shock is that he is running away from it, because I really do think it's who is he is."

Portland Online Startup Challenges the Big Guys

From Journalism 2.0:


Startup news site rocking the boat in Portland

Posted: 01 Sep 2009 10:49 AM PDT

Do a couple of self-proclaimed tech guys/news junkies stand a chance competing in a crowded online news media field? While it doesn’t seem plausible, the digital age has made it possible. And sometimes, that’s enough.

In Portland, Ore., the landscape is already crowded with stalwarts Willamette Week and the Portland Tribune and upstarts Portland Sentinel and Portland Mercury battling against the Oregonian and the local TV stations for the local news audience.

Enter ThePortlander. Somehow, without marketing or promotion, it’s catching on, and catching the attention of the big boys.

Jeremiah Kastner and Jeff Martens have no experience in journalism. While the site has been around for some time, a retooled version has struck a chord recently with a growing local audience.Kastner implemented a clean, modern design in less than a week (try that at a news company) and launched it earlier this summer.

Like any good entrepreneurial endeavor, the motivation stemmed from personal frustration. Rule No. 1, after all, in starting a business is to fix your own problem.

“We were really getting frustrated with the local news options,” said Kastner, whom I first met at Digital Journalism Camp Portland in August. “We are the demo we’re going after. We are tech savvy which means we don’t read printed newspapers - it’s just not gonna happen. But we represent a huge demo rising up. We don’t fall into the typical daily newspaper readership, but we don’t go for the alternative press either.”

Think about it: The average age for a reader of the Oregonian or a viewer of local TV news is probably pushing 60. The average age for alternative weeklies, with their focus on bars and live music, is closer to 20. That’s a pretty wide gap for a new publisher to attack.

“It’s like a newspaper, but it’s not,” Kastner said of ThePortlander. “Nothing locally caters to Generation X or Y. I looked at what the Portland Mercury and Willamette Week were doing and said, ‘they can do it, why can’t I?’”

Kastner, who says he “know just enough about coding to be dangerous,” retooled a Wordpress theme to get the look he wanted a couple months ago. Now he and Martens aggregate links to local news stories and post original content as time allows. They are recruiting local bloggers (10 have signed up so far) and looking for college journalism students as interns to help the operation grow.

They have already struck are negotiating a partnership deal with the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network and are in talks with the Oregonian about a potential collaboration, too. while it takes 12-15 hours a day to keep the site updated (it’s almost 50% original content, 50% cross-posted), the goal is to grow advertising revenues to support 6-8 people.

Technical innovations include an automatic process that posts links to new content on dozens of social networks. And ThePortlander released a functioning Facebook application last week, too.

“Here we are, no experience in journalism and we’re building a news site that is starting to rock the boat in Portland,” Kastner said. “When I look at big newspaper sites, it amazes me they’re having such a big problem.”

Granted, ThePortlander has a way to go catch up to the alternative weeklies, not to mention the big players in town. But there early success suggests there is still room in most cities and towns for new entries in the digital news landscape.

Expect to see similar flowers blossom in the coming months and years.

NOTE: The post was updated to reflect the new ratio of original vs. aggregated content (now 50/50), the number of community bloggers who have signed up (now 10), and the fact that the OEN partnership is still in discussion.