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Suzanne Yada recommends you grow a pair

Jan 1, ’09 12:36 PM

From Suzanne Yada’s resolutions for journalism students in 2009, this bullet point:

“Grow some cojones.
Let me level with you. The world doesn’t need more music reviewers or opinion spouters. The world needs more people willing to ask tough questions. The first step to reversing journalism’s tarnished image is to have the guts to dig for information the public can’t easily find themselves, and be an advocate of unbiased, straightforward truth.”

A damn fine idea.  Knowing the classrooms and newsrooms she’s working in, it makes even more sense.

Bonus link: The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University is hiring a “Database Journalism Professor.”

SPJ’s News Gems blog to close?

Dec 31, ’08 7:05 AM

Jon Marshall’s News Gems blog at SPJ.org has been a quiet, consistent resource, chronicling high-quality reporting for more than three years.

Marshall is moving on to other endeavors:

“As we reach the end of 2008, I wish I could say that things have gotten easier for journalists. Of course they haven’t. But after producing this blog for three and a half years, I’m heartened by the tremendous stories we’ve had the honor of showcasing, from the first News Gem about nola.com’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina to brave reporting of the Iraq War to groundbreaking investigative scoops and beautiful profiles, narratives, photos and videos. I worried at first that there wouldn’t be enough good stories to fill the blog on a regular basis. I’ve had the opposite problem: too many great stories and not enough time to highlight them all.”

Read the whole thing.

Good luck to Jon, and a note to the SPJ: Don’t take down the blog, leave it up as an archive — it’s a tremendous list of stories that should stay in place.  Better yet, keep the blog going with new contributors.  I’ve enjoyed it, and learned from it.

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Wired Journalists in 2008: Were you in it to win?

Dec 29, ’08 12:02 PM

Howard “yes, he’s my boss” Owens follows up on the December 2007 post that spawned Wired Journalists with an update as the year grinds to a burly, overwhelming close. (Well, it’s been that way the last couple weeks for me, at least.)

Howard asks how wired you’ve become in 2008:

The post stirred a lot of conversation, but I only heard from a couple of reporters who were taking on the MBO program.  I’ve not heard back on progress from any of them in months.

Editors John Robinson in Greensboro and Linda Grist Cunningham in Rockford set up similar programs for their newsrooms.  Robinson, I know, rewarded at least two staff members for completing his list of “get wired” goals.

Of course, Howard framed this as an “MBO program” and to me, it’s always going to be more organic and harder to track than any checklist with accountability, so here’s my completely anecdotal analysis:

  • More journalists are using Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking and reporting tools to connect with their peers, sources, and readers.
  • More journalists are learning multimedia skills, whether it’s as simple as point-and-shoot video or as complicated as XML-to-Flash.
  • More journalists are getting curious about what all this new media talk is all about, even if that just means they’re curious enough to sign up for Wired Journalists (where there are now more than 3,000 members) and lurk.
  • All of this is good.

What about you?  How do you think journalists, in general, are doing at adopting (and adapting to) new technology? 

If Howard were to re-write his post for next year, what should the objectives for a wired journalist be in 2009?

Who’s hiring? Blogs.

Nov 17, ’08 10:23 PM

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo on plans for 2009:

“So January will usher in a new Democratic Ascendancy in Washington. And here at TPM we believe we are uniquely qualified to chronicle it. So to that end we are hiring two new reporter-bloggers to be based in Washington, DC, one assigned to the White House and one assigned to Capitol Hill. The Obama White House and the expanded Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill are unquestionably the political story of the next two years. And with your help we plan to be there on the ground and and here in New York, covering it in force, fully, critically and down to the minute.”

TPM is often the argument-ender if you find yourself stuck in a blogs vs. journalism debate circa 2004.  It’s journalism; it’s original reporting; it’s profitable.

Oh, and it has 10 employees.  And they’re hiring reporters. Right now.

See also: Josh Marshall on the growth of Talking Points Memo and independent media

via E-Media Tidbits

Reporting with Twitter: Orange County is on fire

Nov 15, ’08 4:27 PM

The Orange County Register is aggregating tweets about fires in the area right now.

This is advanced reporting with Twitter, jumping way ahead from using it as a tool to push out headlines, and serving a very different information need than the promotional / community building of a Colonel Tribune, as much as I admire that effort.

via @ksablan

Community-funded news launches at Spot.Us

Nov 10, ’08 4:48 PM

Fellow Knight News Challenge 2008 winner David Cohn took the wraps off the latest iteration of Spot.Us over the last few days, launching an engine for community-funded reporting from donation to publication.

Here’s the explanatory video:


Spot.Us – Community Funded Reporting Intro from Digidave on Vimeo.

I love the idea that Spot.Us could do at least three jobs:

  1. Provide news organizations with investigative/enterprise content they have less funding and staff to produce on their own.
  2. Provide freelancers (increasingly experienced and skilled freelancers recently out of a job at a newspaper, perhaps) with an outlet for reporting and quite possibly, a source of income.
  3. Provide readers with a request line for news in their community.

Plenty more floating around about the launch and the idea today:

On IdeaLab: Can the political press grow a spine with a little help from you?

Sep 15, ’08 4:53 PM

I interviewed Jay Rosen today on IM about his spinewatch project, which encourages journalists, bloggers, and citizens in general to point out moments when the political press on the campaign trail shows evidence of needing to grow one, or of having grown one.

Jay:

“But the rules and assumptions underlying the fact checking regime are vulnerable to challenge from any campaign that a) doesn’t care if it’s called out, b) is willing to deny in a flat, affectless way realities as plain as the nose on Jay Carney’s shellshocked face, and c) has incorporated attacks on the news media into the heart of its appeal to voters.

In response to this extraordinary challenge to one of the most legitimate “checking” functions they have, journalists need a stronger spine; they have to call out the strategic use of deception and the amazing retreat from empiricism that we have seen from the McCain camp. And if Obama starts doing the same thing, they need a stiff spine for that too.”

Read the whole thing, which includes details on how and why Jay is encouraging the use of Twitter, Publish2, and other tools to monitor the status of the backbone of the press.

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Interview: Chris Krewson on changes at Philly.com and the Inquirer

Aug 8, ’08 1:47 PM

Last night, I took an unceremonious break from my self-imposed Romenesko diet.

I had seen a stream of tweets and blog posts and shared links about something that sounded crazy coming out of Philadephia.

The word going around, more or less, was that the Philadelphia Inquirer was going to hold stories back from the Web, Philly.com, until the stories were published in print.

Here’s the memo from Managing Editor Mike Leary, as posted on Romenesko, that started all the action.  It includes this:

“Beginning today, we are adopting an Inquirer first policy for our signature investigative reporting, enterprise, trend stories, news features, and reviews of all sorts. What that means is that we won’t post those stories online until they’re in print.”

And here’s a sampling of reaction, from Jeff Jarvis, Steve Yelvington, and Howard Owens.

My own first thoughts?

“With Mark Potts, Yoni Greenbaum, and this Krewson guy I’ve been talking with on Twitter a bit lately involved, I have a hard time digesting this.  It sounds crazy.”

Cut to today, when Chris Krewson, Executive Editor, Online/News at the Inquirer, sat down for an IM interview with me.

The transcript follows:

Ryan Sholin: So a memo from Inquirer ME Mike Leary got posted on Romenesko yesterday. It seemed, well, kinda crazy to folks like me who watch newspaper and online news trends. Can you clarify what types of stories will be held for print-first publishing?

Chris Krewson: Let me clarify by saying this will be print-Web simultaneous publishing, never really print first.

We’re honestly mostly talking about features stories, restaurant reviews, big-name critics – but (this is an important change) NOT movie reviews, day-after-the-concert movie reviews or things of that nature.

Also, there’s an argument to be made that a major investigative piece will have a much larger potential audience at 6 am — combined with a strong print push — than if that same long, narrative-driven story is posted at 11 pm the previous night.

Since I arrived here in November ’07, we’ve tried hard to figure out how people actually use the paper and the Web site. obviously, that’s for different reasons. And we’re just trying to make sure we’re careful about what we do — roughly 75 percent of that will not change.

The other 25 will be us taking more care, making case-by-case decisions, armed by whatever information we have about how people use our products.

RS: To those of us outside the Philly.com/Inquirer/DailyNews world, it’s a little mysterious as to where the divisions are between newsrooms or web/print — can you elaborate on what the structure is like there? There’s a bit of an us/them current that some folks (Jay Rosen Steve Yelvington in particular) picked up on in that memo from Mike.

CK: I can sure try. But keep in mind that unlike nearly every other place in the country, it’s not one paper, one Web site. There’s the Inquirer, the Daily News and Philly.com, the site for both.

Philly.com has the Web producers, a separate Editor/VP and an executive producer. None of whom work for me.

Each newspaper has its own online desk; ours is focused on breaking news and special projects.

That brings up a whole host of challenges, but that’s why they hired me. :)

RS: So in a case like Daniel Rubin – he’s an Inquirer reporter with a popular blog, if I’ve got my scorecard right here – how might the change affect his blogging? Do you see this as a policy change for all your bloggers? Will they be expected to do a little *less* “beat-blogging” as they build enterprise pieces?

CK: Far from it.

As I tweeted earlier, we’re actively encouraging beat reporters to use their blogs.

This won’t affect Dan Rubin or any other reporter who wants to try out ideas, gather string for stories or columns, crowd-source or anything else.

We are saying, in effect, please don’t self-publish the full draft of your story or column on your blog before it runs in the paper.

And I think it’s in our best interest to know and control when we’re publishing our columns, for all kinds of reasons (some of which are legal).

RS: Have there been problems with columnist/bloggers floating full drafts online?

CK: I wouldn’t characterize them as problems, but it’s something we’re now discouraging.

RS: To jump back to the *types* of stories that are going to be held until morning, if that’s a fair characterization of the change, here’s what’s in the memo: “signature investigative reporting, enterprise, trend stories, news features, and reviews of all sorts…” So, trend stories? News features? What’s the benefit in holding those?

CK: Let’s turn that around. What’s the benefit in posting those in full?

I, for one, have been working in online news long enough to know what moves the needle online.

It doesn’t tend to be trend stories or news features, unless there’s some combination of pro sports, sex scandal or crime involved.

RS: That leads to my next (maybe last) angle on this: What spurred the decision? Is this coming from a revenue-side plea, or a negotiation, or a long series of brainstorming meetings? Was this a quick turn based on events?

CK: I do not know that for sure, having heard internal rumors that I’m loathe to spread because I do not know the truth of them. I do know that we’ve been talking for a while (and again, I’ve been here 8 months) about what makes sense to post, and what doesn’t. I’ve not officially heard of any one “tipping point.” But there was definitely little lead time (read: 2 hours, for me) that the memo was coming.

RS: So if there are “sides” here, and it seems like there are, this was a “news side” decision, and not a “Web side” decision?

CK: That’s a fair characterization.

RS: I think that answers a lot of what’s out there. Philly is obviously getting torn to shreds in the journo-blogosphere right now. Anything you’d like to add, or respond to here?

CK: Well, the beauty of Romenesko is that it gives you a look inside newsrooms at other places, some large and messy.

It’s important to remember that when you’re reading a memo, you’re looking through a pinhole, and maybe not seeing all kinds of things.

And many of those blog posts would have benefited from … more reporting. You, for instance, are the first to contact somebody in the newsroom to comment.

Which, you’ll notice, I’ve done. At length.

So, with that said, thanks to everyone for the interest. You’ll hear more in the days and weeks to come about how it’s going here.

RS: Thanks, Chris.

…

Thanks to Zac Echola and David Cohn for throwing some quick questions my way in the middle of the interview.

So there’s some insight, if not necessarily all the answers to what’s going on in Philly.  If you have unanswered questions, feel free to ask them here.  I’m sure a few folks involved in the decision will be watching, and hopefully they’ll jump into the thread to answer what’s left out there.

The Island of Alameda

Jul 21, ’08 5:48 AM

Local news blog in the East Bay by a former MNG reporter.

The Island of Alameda

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Wired Journalists in Cedar Rapids weathered the floods

Jun 30, ’08 5:22 PM

Remember back awhile when I mentioned how some seriously wired journalists were bubbling up to the surface at WJ.com?

Yeah, I specifically called out Matt Neznanski and Jason Kristufek, didn’t I?

Here’s Matt interviewing Jason about running the online operations at the Cedar Rapids Gazette during the floods:

“Q: Had you already put into place a plan for handling breaking stories, or were you working on the fly?
Jason: As far as having a template approach for display of a major breaking news event online, we were basically working on the fly. As far as a system for getting information into the newsroom quickly for immediate coverage, we had that part already covered.”

Read the whole thing at Wired Journalists.

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