This post is inspired by a discussion developing over Bronson Pettitt's recent post on how newspapers should stop dragging their feet when it comes to blogging.
"The point is blogs are now and have been for a few years an inevitable part of newspapers and it's time for the uninvolved ones to stop pussyfooting around and get with the program," Bronson writes.
I shared my feeling that smaller newspapers -- the papers that would perhaps benefit the most from blogs as a source of community news and commentary -- will probably be the last to "get with the program." I don't think I'm alone in holding that opinion, either.
But why? Why would smaller newspapers -- say, newspapers the size of the Fairmont Sentinel, the Marshall Independent, the New Ulm Journal, the Faribault Daily News (all around 8-10,000 and dropping in circulation, I believe) -- be the last to take advantage of resources such as blogs, or videos, or podcasts, or anything of that nature? (Note: I don't mean to pick on these newspapers -- they are all just southern Minnesota newspapers that happen to fit the description of small community papers and that I'm generally familiar with.)
I have my own opinion about the matter. What about the rest of my fellow classmates? This is assuming you agree with my original point about smaller newspapers being the last to adopt what would help them the most -- and maybe you don't even agree with that point. If so, I'm interested in hearing your opinion as well.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
"Shattered Glass" and online journalism
I'm writing a paper on the film "Shattered Glass" for my Ethics and Press Criticism class, and to some extent, what I'm writing about ties in with the concept of citizen journalism and online publications, however indirectly.
For those who haven't seen "Shattered Glass": It's a movie based closely on real-life events surrounding New Republic associate editor Stephen Glass in the late '90s. Glass was an exceptionally promising writer in his mid-20s who also sold stories to such publications as George magazine, Harper's and New York Magazine. He had a tremendous knack for, time after time, finding story ideas, situations and people that seemed almost too good to be true.
It turns out they were. Glass was finally busted in May 1998 when some suspicious readers of his piece "Hack Heaven" discovered that none of the sources, people or organizations listed in the article appeared to exist. Further research by The New Republic indicated that 27 of Glass' 41 articles for the magazine were either partially or completely fabricated.
It's a fascinating story and "Shattered Glass" is a gripping film. But how does it fit in with this class?
It wasn't the New York Times or the Washington Post or the Associated Press who discovered Glass' deception. It was Adam Penenberg, who was then working for Forbes' online web publication Forbes.com.
Okay, so Forbes' web publication isn't exactly a blog and Penenberg wasn't exactly a blogger without any training in journalism. In its own way, however, this incident foreshadowed what was to come. In 2003, The Wall Street Journal's Tim Hanrahan and Jason Fry pondered the issue, writing:
Penenberg's reply is equally as interesting. (The blog post is from Nov. 10, 2003 — some scrolling down will be required to find it.) Penenberg writes:
It's kind of funny how two different topics — Glass' fabrications and citizen/online journalism — can share common ground like this. I thought Penenberg's views were especially worth sharing with the rest of the class, including his assessment of the way internet news was treated in 1998. It's interesting to see how perception of online journalism has changed in only 10 years.
UPDATE: Just for kicks, here is a link to the story that finally did Glass in:
Hack Heaven
Unfortunately, it's difficult to find too many of Glass' other stories, even online. Apparently many of them were quite entertaining, and they become even more so when one realizes that these articles -- fabrications and all -- made it past fact checkers time and time again. Interestingly enough, several of Glass' earlier stories came under fire from various people and groups, some of whom accused him of dishonest reporting, etc. TNR editors, however, stood behind Glass, who was a rising star at the time.
For those who haven't seen "Shattered Glass": It's a movie based closely on real-life events surrounding New Republic associate editor Stephen Glass in the late '90s. Glass was an exceptionally promising writer in his mid-20s who also sold stories to such publications as George magazine, Harper's and New York Magazine. He had a tremendous knack for, time after time, finding story ideas, situations and people that seemed almost too good to be true.
It turns out they were. Glass was finally busted in May 1998 when some suspicious readers of his piece "Hack Heaven" discovered that none of the sources, people or organizations listed in the article appeared to exist. Further research by The New Republic indicated that 27 of Glass' 41 articles for the magazine were either partially or completely fabricated.
It's a fascinating story and "Shattered Glass" is a gripping film. But how does it fit in with this class?
It wasn't the New York Times or the Washington Post or the Associated Press who discovered Glass' deception. It was Adam Penenberg, who was then working for Forbes' online web publication Forbes.com.
Okay, so Forbes' web publication isn't exactly a blog and Penenberg wasn't exactly a blogger without any training in journalism. In its own way, however, this incident foreshadowed what was to come. In 2003, The Wall Street Journal's Tim Hanrahan and Jason Fry pondered the issue, writing:
Forbes's sleuthing showed that online publications could have equal or higher standards of accuracy than established print outlets. Moreover, even though Forbes Digital Tool did the hard work, most people first read about Mr. Glass's firing in the Washington Post, with a credit to Forbes for getting the ball rolling. That's because Forbes Digital Tool--a Web site!--had held off on running the story in an effort to be thorough and fair, and essentially tied the Post after The New Republic issued a press release. In any case, Mr. Penenberg's digging ended one of the biggest journalism frauds of the past 30 years."
Penenberg's reply is equally as interesting. (The blog post is from Nov. 10, 2003 — some scrolling down will be required to find it.) Penenberg writes:
We beat the Washington Post. Pete Danko, in Print Media in Glass Houses (Wired News) got the chronology right: "When the Washington Post ran a story on the fraud in its Monday editions [May 11, 1998], it took superstar media critic Howard Kurtz until the 11th paragraph to credit Forbes Digital Tool, and even then he said merely that The New Republic editor Charles Lane 'began his investigation after receiving inquiries from a reporter for the Web site of Forbes magazine.' As it happened, the online expose was up at midnight Sunday, and it had a lot more juice than the Post's Monday-morning version." (Note: Kurtz wrote a front page story for the Post a few days later in which he fully credited Forbes Digital Tool.)
.....
Hanrahan and Fry lift an old quote of mine from the same Wired story. "I feel strongly that we've been dissed by traditional media so often, maybe this whole incident will show that we deserve some respect."
They disagree. "Trusting or not trusting new media is less of an issue," they counter. "In many cases, the same reporters and columnists write for online and print, with the same voice and standards. Bloggers rip both equally."
But that wasn't the case in 1998--which was, I should point out, when I offered my opinion to Wired. At the time, Internet news was viewed as the ugly stepchild to print, even if the online news organization was tethered--usually tenuously--to a traditional media outlet. Practically no one was writing for both online and print at the same time. Most print reporters didn't want anything to do with the Internet. They thought it was a step down. And you certainly didn't see online reporters moving to print: No one would hire them. That happened later.
It's kind of funny how two different topics — Glass' fabrications and citizen/online journalism — can share common ground like this. I thought Penenberg's views were especially worth sharing with the rest of the class, including his assessment of the way internet news was treated in 1998. It's interesting to see how perception of online journalism has changed in only 10 years.
UPDATE: Just for kicks, here is a link to the story that finally did Glass in:
Hack Heaven
Unfortunately, it's difficult to find too many of Glass' other stories, even online. Apparently many of them were quite entertaining, and they become even more so when one realizes that these articles -- fabrications and all -- made it past fact checkers time and time again. Interestingly enough, several of Glass' earlier stories came under fire from various people and groups, some of whom accused him of dishonest reporting, etc. TNR editors, however, stood behind Glass, who was a rising star at the time.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Entertainment art in newspapers
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I love when newspapers go all out for movie reviews and other entertainment-related stories. The results, at least from an artistic standpoint, are often incredible.
It's not always feasible, or a wise idea, to dedicate a majority of a section front page or even the entire section front page to something like a movie. But sometimes blockbusters come along that allow graphic designers and page designers to flex their creative muscles and produce fantastic results like this:
The ability to create fantastic artwork to accompany stories is one advantage traditional print media still have over the internet -- so far. Most newspapers, for various reasons, may run special artwork with the print edition but not use that artwork on their web sites. This may change in the future. For now, though, one wonders why newspapers don't make better use of one of the only advantages they still have in a changing world.
(Note: these pages can all be found on www.newspagedesigner.com, a site I plugged in an earlier post. I can't recommend strongly enough heading over there and browsing the site, which is constantly being updated with new images.)
It's not always feasible, or a wise idea, to dedicate a majority of a section front page or even the entire section front page to something like a movie. But sometimes blockbusters come along that allow graphic designers and page designers to flex their creative muscles and produce fantastic results like this:
The ability to create fantastic artwork to accompany stories is one advantage traditional print media still have over the internet -- so far. Most newspapers, for various reasons, may run special artwork with the print edition but not use that artwork on their web sites. This may change in the future. For now, though, one wonders why newspapers don't make better use of one of the only advantages they still have in a changing world.
(Note: these pages can all be found on www.newspagedesigner.com, a site I plugged in an earlier post. I can't recommend strongly enough heading over there and browsing the site, which is constantly being updated with new images.)
Monday, February 11, 2008
Thoughts on 'Amateur Hour'
So I finally got around to reading Nicholas Lemann's article "Amateur Hour" in The New Yorker, and frankly, I was surprised at how mild Lemann was in his criticism of citizen journalists and bloggers. The title and subtitle of the article gave me the impression the author was an angry writer foaming at the mouth, ready to rip into the new media world. Lemann's article, however, was generally very fair to citizen journalists and not as antagonistic as I was expecting. His main message seemed to be pointing out it's possible citizen journalism isn't and won't be everything it's built up as being.
I'm not sure yet if I agree or disagree with that conclusion. Having said that, Lemann did provide an effective defense of the above point, providing, for example, a portion of a citizen-journalism story that was apparently selected in a contest to determine the top two citizen journalism stories. Surprise, surprise! The story didn't appear to be especially good. This led Lemann to the following conclusion: "The content of most citizen journalism will be familiar to anybody who has ever read a church or community newsletter — it's heartwarming and it probably adds to the store of good things in the world, but it does not mount the collective challenge to power which the traditional media are supposedly too timid to take up."
I'm not necessarily endorsing Lemann's views here, but I do think he made some good points worth considering in "Amateur Hour."
I'm not sure yet if I agree or disagree with that conclusion. Having said that, Lemann did provide an effective defense of the above point, providing, for example, a portion of a citizen-journalism story that was apparently selected in a contest to determine the top two citizen journalism stories. Surprise, surprise! The story didn't appear to be especially good. This led Lemann to the following conclusion: "The content of most citizen journalism will be familiar to anybody who has ever read a church or community newsletter — it's heartwarming and it probably adds to the store of good things in the world, but it does not mount the collective challenge to power which the traditional media are supposedly too timid to take up."
I'm not necessarily endorsing Lemann's views here, but I do think he made some good points worth considering in "Amateur Hour."
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Who's relying on whom?
The Center for Media Research has a "Research Brief" blog with a recent post about ... well, blogs. Specifically, it reports on a survey of journalists that indicates most in the journalism profession believe "blogs are not only having an impact on the speed and availability of news but also influencing the tone and editorial direction of reporting."
To me, that seems to be reporting the obvious. What I found more interesting were a few statistics buried further down in the report. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said blogs were at least "somewhat helpful" in "getting new story ideas and angles;" nearly 70 percent of reporters check one or more blogs on a regular basis; a significant minority said blogs were at least "somewhat helpful" in getting information on breaking news and sources; and finally, more than 20 percent of reporters admit to spending at least an hour a day reading blogs.
That's a lot of reporters spending a lot of time reading blogs during the work week. Maybe they're all just wasting time on those blogs and not really doing any work. I doubt that's generally the case, however.
Surveys can ask reporters for their thoughts on blogs, but it's even more revealing to ask them about their daily habits, actions and routines. And reporters' actions indicate that blogs are here to stay as a source of story ideas, sources, news and, of course, opinion. Ultimately, this survey indicates that traditional news media are increasingly relying on blogs, either out of choice or necessity.
Stop and think about that for a minute. It's a pretty astounding admission, and certainly more intriguing than the headline "Blogs Influence Availability of News, But Not Quality." It also provides an interesting problem for those who dismiss bloggers by claiming they only feed off of and rehash actual reporting that traditional news media has done. In some cases (perhaps even most), that is probably true. But it's clearly not true in all cases -- otherwise so many traditional reporters wouldn't be relying so much on blogs, as this survey indicates they are starting to do.
To me, that seems to be reporting the obvious. What I found more interesting were a few statistics buried further down in the report. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said blogs were at least "somewhat helpful" in "getting new story ideas and angles;" nearly 70 percent of reporters check one or more blogs on a regular basis; a significant minority said blogs were at least "somewhat helpful" in getting information on breaking news and sources; and finally, more than 20 percent of reporters admit to spending at least an hour a day reading blogs.
That's a lot of reporters spending a lot of time reading blogs during the work week. Maybe they're all just wasting time on those blogs and not really doing any work. I doubt that's generally the case, however.
Surveys can ask reporters for their thoughts on blogs, but it's even more revealing to ask them about their daily habits, actions and routines. And reporters' actions indicate that blogs are here to stay as a source of story ideas, sources, news and, of course, opinion. Ultimately, this survey indicates that traditional news media are increasingly relying on blogs, either out of choice or necessity.
Stop and think about that for a minute. It's a pretty astounding admission, and certainly more intriguing than the headline "Blogs Influence Availability of News, But Not Quality." It also provides an interesting problem for those who dismiss bloggers by claiming they only feed off of and rehash actual reporting that traditional news media has done. In some cases (perhaps even most), that is probably true. But it's clearly not true in all cases -- otherwise so many traditional reporters wouldn't be relying so much on blogs, as this survey indicates they are starting to do.
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