Thursday, May 28, 2009

Newsweek Remake

I had heard that Newsweek was dramatically redesigning its magazine so when I picked up the latest issue I thumbed through it looking for the changes. It has a new look but on that count, I found it too busy and cute. As for content, it's supposed to be "reported narrative" and "the argued essay," with "the straightforward news piece," according to a forward by editor Jon Meacham.

I'm not so sure what this means. It seems to me Newsweek already had "reported narrative" and as for the "argued essay," it's not what I want in a news magazine. I know I am probably wrong about this and wrong to say this but the "argued essay" puts me to sleep. I'd rather get it straight. Is this a response to the blogosphere? If so, it seems wrong-headed.

Newsweek also seems to have cut one of my favorite features, the "My Turn" column. Anna Quindlin has left so there's another favorite gone.

Meacham's argument that Newsweek is going to avoid stories where they can't "add to the conversation" seems solid. Moving the conversation forward is a good goal. I'll even forgive him for saying that newspapers have been forced into the "traditional newsmagazine model" but "there is only so much wisdom one can summon in a few hours." After all, he's carving out Newsweek's territory here. Plus he's right. Newspapers don't have time to be wise.

Michael Kinsley offers a much more insightful slam at Newsweek in a piece in the New Republic in which he takes the magazine apart feature by feature. As for me, I'm still picking it up. (OK it comes in my mailbox every week so it's easy to do). But I have my doubts whether this is a change for a positive or even a real change.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

ProPublica's Investigative Bloggers

ProPublica, the non-profit journalism organization that funds reporters to delve into national issues and then sells its stories to national media, is starting an investigative project with citizen bloggers that will look into the federal stimulus package. (Here's the story on ProPublica's site).

The idea of "Adopt a Stimulus Package" is to set bloggers to work following one project being funded by the stimulus package, say a local bridge, through to its completion. The reporters would find out how many people use the bridge, how the bridge was constructed, how many people were hired to build it, etc.

"We want to get reports from people across the country to help us measure the impact of the spending and to see what’s really taking place in their communities,” said Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica's managing editor.

I hate to say it but the idea makes a lot of sense. It would be impossible for reporters to tackle a project of this scope because of its sheer magnitude. By getting citizen journalists to do the grunt work, ProPublica can get a lot of detailed information. Assuming that reporters and editors provide some supervision (and fact checking) it could be a great way to wed reporting and blogging.

Of course, this is just another instance of how blogging (i.e. largely unpaid work) is taking over reporting and editing (paid work). But that ship has sailed already so maybe it's time to move on and figure out how to make these things work. I'll be interested to see how this one turns out.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Arizona Newspaper's Future in Doubt

The Gannet Co., owner of the Tuscon Citizen, a 138-year-old newspaper, is in court today to determine whether the newspaper must reopen after closing its doors on May 15.

The paper had bids from several potential buyers but Gannett decided to close the paper anyway, leaving just a small web operation dedicated to opinion and commentary but without any news or sports coverage.

Among several interested buyers, according to Newspaper Death Watch, was the Santa Monica Media Co., but they were unable to meet Gannet's price and couldn't get Gannett to come down in price. They may be behind the move by Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard to block the sale of the newspaper. The suit claims that Gannett Co. and Lee Enterprises violated antitrust laws by closing the newspaper. If the court rules in the Attorney General's favor, the newspaper could reopen but it seems unlikely.

Meanwhile, the website for the Arizona Citizen, proclaims that today "begins a new chapter in the history of the Arizona Citizen and tusconcitizen.com. Call it tusconcitizen.com, version 2.0, if you will." Hmmm. There's other things you could call it too but let's not go there.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Asbury Park Press reunion

I found myself surrounded my about 200 familiar faces on Saturday when I went to a reunion of past and present employees of the Asbury Park Press, my former newspaper on the Jersey Shore.

It was tremendous fun to see so many of my colleagues, many of whom had been laid off or bought off and many of whom have become very successful. There were several editors at the New York Times. There was Wally Stroby, who has written three mystery novels, and so wasn't too devastated by being bought out at the Star-Ledger. Steve Breen, an alum, who has won two Pulitzer Prices for his cartoons, was supposed to be a guest there but I never did catch up to him so I'm not sure. (Some reporter I am). Then there were my friends Matty Karas, a writer for VH1's "Behind the Music," and Michael Taylor, a writer for numerous television shows including "Star Trek Voyager," and "Battlestar Gallactica."

Mike is celebrated for having lost his job for having roundly and obscenely told off a copy editor who had ruined his copy. There may or may not have been a chair thrown in the incident. But boo hoo for him, he went on to live out this fantasy existence in Hollywood.

Plenty of people at the reunion had changed careers too. There were at least a couple of journalists turned lawyers among the group and one woman who told me she was currently brewing beer!

We heard about the tragedies among the employees as well: an editor who had died in his 40s, a former copy editor who committed suicide, a former coworker who lost his wife. But there were also plenty of joy: kids running around and babies and a few spouses. I contented myself with a photo of my family because I knew they would be bored and cranky if I forced them to come.

Behind most of the conversations was the slow death of newspapers. We all shook our heads and lamented about these kids today who don't read papers. We talked about how the Internet took away the classifieds. We discussed the fact that few people seem to understand that subscribers don't pay for the newspaper, they just bring in the advertisers. We talked about whether people would pay for content on the Web and whether it could possibly save newspapers.

It was a great party but it was also kind of a wake. Fortunately, we're all journalists so it was an Irish wake. It felt like a reunion of long lost, distant relatives, some of whom couldn't quite place each other. ("Is that Uncle Fred over there? Now who's that?") There was lots of beer, lots of toasts and despite the mourning, there was a whole lot of laughter.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Journalism Education Grapples With the Internet

It's puzzling that enrollment in many journalism programs, including Columbia's J-School, is increasing even as so many newspapers are dying.

I'm sure that much of this has to do with the Internet and the fact that many students are already blogging and creating their own videos and photos and so journalism seems a natural step for them.

I'm afraid my students choose journalism because they think they are being practical, as in, "I really want to be an actor," "I really want to be a filmmaker," "I really want to be a novelist,"...."but journalism is my backup." I quickly try to inject a little reality into that equation.

As Elizabeth Zwerling points out on OJR, journalism programs are responding to the demand by offering more online courses. Some are ending the distinction between traditional print media and online media as if they are two utterly forein concepts to each other. The University of Wisconsin at Madison's journalism school offers a "boot camp" for journalists of six core courses under the umbrella of "Mass Communication Practices." Advanced students choose either reporting or strategic communications (I'm not sure what that is exactly but never mind).

At Rugers, students can take a course on web design, exploring new media or a new course on multimedia reporting. Like many schools, Rutgers is examining how to instill "media intelligence" in its students.

All this is headed in the right direction but I think the universities that take a wholistic approach that includes multimedia and print have the right idea. This helps put to rest the debate over whether students need to learn basic reporting and writing skills (yes), get a good basic understanding of media, ethics and law (yes) or learn technological skills (yes).

Of course, all this means that all we old school journalists and journalism professors have to become new school. As Regina McCombs, an multimedia instructor at the Poynter Institute told Zwerling, "They have to learn new things. When you first are trying a new thing you say, 'I suck at this...You have to go through sucking at it."

She got that right. Zwerling goes on to say that she's promised her students she'll go on Facebook this summer. Um, OK. My students spent several minutes discussing how terrible itis that their parents have taken over Facebook, so I don't think they would be thrilled to know that I'm on Facebook. But I agree with her premise. We have to take the bull by the horns and start social networking. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go make some new "friends."

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Journalist Roxana Saberi Freed

The release of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi in Iran, who was jailed on trumped up spying charges, is a victory of sorts for journalists and for the U.S. Iranian officials apparently succumbed to U.S. pressure to free Saberi.

Saberi, 32, a freelance reporter for NPR and the BBC, had been held since January in an Iranian prison. She was first arrested for buying a bottle of wine but later charged with spying and working without a press credential, according to the New York Times. She had briefly gone on a hunger strike but stopped when it affected her health.

But as Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists points out, there are still at least six journalists imprisoned in Iran, none of whom received any trial, not even the kind of trial Saberi received.

The incident underlines again the danger many international (and some national) journalists place themselves in to do their jobs. Sadly, incidents like these also have the effect that repressive governments are looking for: It tamps down press coverage and that leaves governments more free to operate without scrutiny. That's a scary prospect at a time when there is less coverage than ever of the Mideast, particularly in broadcast news.

Nazanin Rafsanjani, another NPR journalist with dual American-Iranian citizenship told "On the Media," that the arrest made her think twice about plans to travel to Iran to cover the upcoming election. They decided not to go. "If it's a tactic to intimidate journalists," she said. "It's working."

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Job Prospects for young journalists

Every semester, I spend the last day of my news writing and reporting class discussing jobs. It's a sad, depressing discussion but I feel that somebody's got to do it.

I bring them coffee and doughnuts and this year I joked that the doughnuts would be the only sweet thing I would be giving them. It wasn't a joke.

Some 5,900 jobs were lost in 2009, according to the Pew Research Center's annual journalism report. Newspapers, magazines and broadcast companies are all shrinking. There are 47,000 newspaper journalists unemployed nationwide. (This is where my students began looking shell-shocked).

I also told them that some journalists are getting web-related jobs. An annual survey of journalism and communications graduates by Lee B. Becker of the University of Georgia, found that nearly 56 percent of students who graduated in 2007 with communications degrees worked in jobs requiring web skills.

Good technology skills and hands-on experience are crucial in getting a job, I advised my students. I told them that in some ways they have a better job of landing a job than I do because they would be applying for entry-level jobs, while I would be applying for upper-level jobs (yeah right) that might pay more (snicker, snicker).

I was reminded of the recent Princeton conference on the death of newspapers at which Star Ledger Editor Jim Willse spoke. After losing 40 percent of their staff, the newspaper has hired several entry-level reporters straight out of college. Willse was frank about the reason: they don't have to pay them very much. He was also frank that losing all those experienced reporters created a tremendous void for the newspaper. But the Star-Ledger, like most newspapers, was and is fighting for survival and you do what you have to do to survive.

Hiring young reporters to replace older, better paid reporters has been a tradition at many news organizations that run on the power of enthusiastic young people who are willing to work long hours for little pay. I remember one editor calling me in to tell me that he just interviewed a Columbia Grad who was willing to sweep floors. I felt like saying, "I've swept floors. I'm done."

But now hiring young people for little or nothing has been institutionalized. Look on any journalism job site and unpaid internships abound. If you're a journalism major graduating this spring, you could get an unpaid internship, work as a waitress or waiter at night, and commute into the city from your mom and dad's house.

This is how I started out. I worked at a low-paying weekly newspaper and then tutored and worked at a bookstore to supplement my measly income while I lived with my mom in New York. But let's face it, that plan doesn't work well in the long run.

My students are understandably frustrated at the idea of making no money after graduating. A couple of years ago all my students wanted to go to graduate school or law school. Now they want to all go out and get jobs to pay off all those expensive student loans they've taken to be in college. The only problem is there are so few jobs out there and even the ones that pay aren't enough to live on.

One student asked me to tell them about my own experience. Did I want to teach when I graduated from college and grad school? I told them that I wanted to be a newspaper reporter and I did get to do that and I had a lot of fun. But I quit that job when I had kids and went to freelancing and teaching. That worked until a few months ago when all my freelance jobs started drying up. Now I'm thinking of teaching high school.

I think they were pretty horrified by that as well. I guess teaching high school is a fate worse than death. But that's my Plan B and I might have to go there.

So my final words of wisdom for my crew of young journalists was to go for their dreams and not settle right away. I told them they should decide what they can't do as well as what they want most to do. If they know they would hate being an administrator or a bureaucrat they shouldn't do that. But they should decide what they are willing to do.

Follow your dreams, I told them, but have a Plan B just in case.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

The Boston Globe Lives On

The Boston Globe just announced that it reached a settlement with one of its largest unions that will allow it to remain open.
It's heartening that this major newspaper that has been operating for 137 years and that broke the priest-sex abuse scandal, will remain open at least for now. That's great news for Boston and the rest of the country.
Whether it's great news for the staff of the Globe remains to be seen. The Times Co. had asked for the Boston Newspaper Guild, representing 700 editorial, advertising and business staff to take cuts of a whopping 23 percent. The guild had offered cuts of 5 percent. Apparently the agreement is somewhere in the middle, according to the Associated Press.
Another issue was the lifetime job guarantees held by 470 employees, including about 190 guild members, that makes it harder for the Times Co. to lay people off. The guarantees were given to employees in 1994 when the Times Co. bought The Globe.
Lifetime job guarantees seem like a luxury no company can afford, especially newspapers. But employees should have some job protections in this era when there are such deep cuts in many companies but especially newspapers. Unfortunately, as The Globe case proves, newspaper owners essentially can hold the newspaper hostage with a gun aimed right at its head. If employees don't give in to their demands, they can kill the newspaper and then everyone loses.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Newspapers Dying: Why Should We Care?

We all know that newspapers are dying quickly but even the most avid proponents of newspapers among us don’t put it as strongly as Paul Starr who argues that newspapers are an essential component of our democracy, serving to keep governments in check and to reduce corruption and still serving as the main source of original reporting in our society. (Starr wrote a great article on this subject in The New Republic in March. )
Starr, a professor of communications and public affairs at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School and author of “The Creation of the Media,” and "Freedom's Power" was the keynote speaker at a conference on “The Newspaper Crisis” that was filled with doom and gloom and perhaps a few glimmers of hope.
The conference also featured two panels on the newspaper crisis in new jersey and possible solutions to the crisis. In those panels, Jim Willse editor of the Star-Ledger, detailed how his newspaper has dealt with cutbacks of 45 percent of its staff and Steven Engelberg, managing editor of ProPublica, discussed a non-profit model for journalists. (More on them in future blogs).
New Jersey is not immune from the effects of the decline of newspapers, Starr argued. The state “has long suffered a news deficit,” and with cutbacks at all the major newspapers. Where once there were 50 reporters covering state government in Trenton there are now just 15 and that means state residents get less news about what the government is doing and less news going to the general public. But there are many cities that may wind up with no daily newspaper at all.
Online publications do well serving people who want one type of news, Starr pointed out. If you want sports, you can find plenty of sports sites online. But while the sports fan who picks up the newspaper also gets a smattering of news if only from the headlines, the sports fan who goes online only gets sports.
While some online sites provide original reporting, most depend on newspapers for their content, Starr said. Now the Associated Press is hoping to get search engines like Google to pay them for content but no one knows if that will work or if it will provide enough money to really help newspapers. Other alternatives could be to make newspapers non-profits.
One model could be National Public Radio that depends on government and corporate grants and listener donations to survive. “It has become the last refuge of real journalism on radio,” he said.
Some countries, like France, directly subsidize the media. But that obviously has problems of its own because it could affect the media’s independence, Starr said.
Access to online news also depends on people’s income, education and political interest, Starr said. People who are already interested in news can find news sources online but it may be less accessible to less educated people who aren’t accustomed to finding information online. That means fewer people will be able to make informed decisions, Starr said.
“This is an old problem of democracy coming back in a new form,” Starr warned, “and the future of Democracy is at stake.”