State celebs add voices, faces to press campaign

The Illinois Press Association (IPA) lined up several prominent Illinoisans for its "Leader are newspaper readers" campaign.

Besides actor Dennis Franz (see previous post), participating are retired astronaut Scott Altman of Pekin, Secretary of Ttransportation Ray LaHood of Peoria, and Illinois basketball coach Bruce Weber of Champaign/Urbana, plus SIU presidenet Glenn Poshaard, Chicago Blackhawks president John McDonough and Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs Tammy Duckworth (pictured at left).

"There are two things that all of these Illinoisans have in common," said IPA executive director Dennis DeRossett. "They are all leaders, and they are all newspaper readers. That's not an accident. Leaders depend on the reliable, comprehensive and diverse information that newspapers provide."

Print ads are downloadable from IPA -- www.illinoispress.org

Who needs newspapers?

Paul Steinle and his wife Dr. Sara Brown set off on a journey to visit newspapers throughout the country to answer the question: Who needs newspapers? They have visited newspapers in nearly 40 states and have chronicled their findings on the website WhoNeedsNewspapers.org. Read their stories starting with Illinois' Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake -- http://whoneedsnewspapers.org/np_main.php?npId=ilnwh

News on the radio can thrive

Mark Twain said it about his own death: "The report is greatly exaggerated."

Those who say "radio is dead" are equally full of hype, according to a new article in The Communicator from the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA).

Plus, the examples of success are in Illinois, at Bloomington's WJBC-AM and -FM (pictured above), and at Champaign's WDWS-AM and WHMS/WUIL-FM.

There, the stations successfully attract sizable audiences with not only news, but solid and enterprising journalism and community-minded, public-service reporting.

Kevin Finch's feature, "Radio news on more than just a shoestring," is a well-written account of real-life radio work that contradicts the "conventional wisdom' that's a lot more conventional than wise.

Print pay walls increasing, responses to NYT vary

GateHouse Media's Peoria Journal Star and State Journal Register in Springfield have erected "paywalls" limiting free access to online contents, following several newspaper experiments -- most recently the New York Times.

A week ago, marketing experts from Washington University in St. Louis offered different reactions to the Times' attempt, with one forecasting a decline in audience and another pronouncing it a good business model.

Read the whole summary here --http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/22076.aspx

Columnist puts news, posts into context

Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts (above), who writes for the Miami Herald, last week had a terrific column about the venomous attacks hurled at CBS News reporter Lara Logan following the journalist's beating and sexual assault at the hands of a mob in Cairo's Liberation Square this month.

Besides standing up to the anonymous comment posters whose mean remarks mocked and dismissed the incident, Pitts defended her -- and all victims of such violence.

"The woman is a reporter and she was doing what reporters do: going places, sometimes dicey, difficult or dangerous places, in order to originate the information that allows the rest of us to opine from the comfort of our chairs," Pitts wrote. "We are talking about a real attack on a real woman who must now grapple with real consequences.

"It's as if some feel Logan's tragedy exists only as a vehicle for them to score political points."

Reading the whole essay: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/22/2080093/i-am-with-you.html

Understanding the participatory news consumer

According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project and the Project for Excellence in Journalism, almost two-thirds of Americans get daily news from a combination of print and web, and almosts half used multiple media platforms daily.

The Internet is generally a more popular source of news than print and radio, making it the third most popular news platform overall, behind only national and local television news.

The survey, "Understanding the Participatory News Consumer: How Internet and Cell Phone Users Have Turned News into a Social Experience," was based on responses from more than 2,000 American adults. Its findings include:

•Nearly 60% of Americans get daily news from both Internet and print sources.
•46% obtained news from four to six media platforms per day, while only 7% get news from a single platform.
•33% of cell phone owners access news on their portable phones.
•28% of Internet users have a homepage personalized with news sources, and 37% have participated in news creation, commentary and dissemination.
While the Internet is an increasingly popular news source, the survey found that Americans have mixed feelings about it. While more than half say it is easier to keep up with news and information today than it was five years ago, 70% feel overwhelmed by the amount of news and information available. In addition, nearly 75% of respondents have concerns that many news sources are biased in their coverage.

Young journalists' conversation yields 'benchmarks'

The national J-Lab convened a weekend meeting of a group of youong journalists, who came up with examples of stories that were inspiring or otherewise effective.

In the discussion, those gathered came up with a list of 10 ways "content providers" can produce good work. They are:

We can produce good journalism if we:

1) Challenge knee-jerk master narratives

2) Reach for new kinds of accountability

3) Add historical context

4) Impart a sense of community, sense of place

5) Seek authenticity

6) Have impact

7) Make the invisible visible

8) Strive for attachment vs. detachment

9) Do less harm

10) Anticipate the future

Editorial cartoon right on time

Cartoonist John Cole of the Scranton Times-Tribune created this excellent graphic commentary on thugs' treatment of journalists trying to cover events in Egypt.

Health care reform OK but information insufficient: business scholar

Health care reform will be good for Americans, according to Dr. Joel Rudin, a professor in the Management and Entrepreneurship Department at Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J.

However, what has not been good is how government officials have explained the policy, and that is impacting what U.S. citizens think of it.

Further, the news media are complicit in the sense that the press has not done its own due-diligence in independently explaining what the actual law will really do.

“Under health care reform, most Americans will have health insurance that is similar to my (New Jersey state) health insurance, but that won’t happen until 2014," Rudin said. "By then, the people who came up with this idea may have been voted out of office. If that happens it will be their own fault for failing to explain to the American people how much better and cheaper their health insurance will be.”

Sharing the blame in Americans' lack of knowledge about health care reform is the press, which can accurately and clearly explain the law -- but hasn't.

Struggling against Powers That Be

Duxbury (Mass.) Clipper editor-in-chief Justin Graeber wrote the following editorial for his weekly on Dec. 29, pertaining to an unusual-yet-not-unheard-of case of a small-newspaper journalist (Jessica L. Lloyd-Rogers, right) being squeezed out of doing the work:

At the Clipper we belong to a couple of professional newspaper societies, such as the New England Newspaper and Press Association, the group that gives out the Better Newspaper Awards each year.

We also belong to the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, and this group often sends out “hotline” questions via e-mail. It's always informative and interesting to see how other weekly editors around the country and around the world are tackling some of the same questions we are. For example, there was recently a free-wheeling and wide-ranging debate about charging for obits. (Just in case you were wondering, not going to happen at the Clipper while I'm alive.) But a couple months ago we got a very serious series of e-mails from an editor in Oregon. She was dealing with some serious pushback from officials as she tried to shine the light on a government that was used to doing their business in the dark.

The editor, Jessica L. Lloyd-Rogers of the Coast Lake News in Lakeside, Oregon, was an experienced freelancer who started the paper with her husband. It's got a very local focus on a town with a population under 1,500. Problem was, the city council didn't appreciate that tight focus.

Lest you think I'm exaggerating the level of the corruption in Lakeside or the threats Lloyd-Rogers and her husband faced, here are just some examples, outlined in the latest ISWNE newsletter.

• The chairman of the fire board is the live-in girlfriend of the fire chief.

• Two of the board members on the Water District Board are spouses of city council members.

• The city administrator doesn't meet even the minimum of the written job description, and gave herself a raise by pencilling it in after the 2008-09 budget was passed.

That's not even everything. They've also faced threats, including being libeled repeatedly by a blog backed by city officials unhappy with the paper. (Lloyd-Rogers said stories about a porn star with a similar name are being spread as if it's her.) They even got evicted from their office.

“I sometimes feel like an unarmed marshal sent into an Old West town run by bandits,” she wrote in the ISWNE newsletter.

The point here is that the over-the-top political incest described by Lloyd-Rogers isn't unique or even all that surprising. It's what happens in a community that is not aggressively covered by a local newspaper (there is apparently a daily that covers Lakeside, but they must be facing budget cuts or something.) This is what happens when no one's looking. People double dip. They cut favors for buddies or family members. They give themselves raises when they think no one's looking. That's why someone has to be looking. Think any other things Lloyd-Rogers described could happen in Duxbury? Not with the Clipper and other good local media on the case.

For Lloyd-Rogers' complaints in her own words, check out her story on page 1 of ISWNE's December newsletter -- http://www.iswne.org/newspdfs/dec10.pdf

Ted Koppel on the Sorry State of TV News

Check out this revealing look at the current state of television news by veteran newscaster Ted Koppel: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/12/AR2010111202857.html.

We, too, are bidden

A personal hero, newspaper columnist and labor activist Heywood Broun, was known for his progressive views and his passionate interests – from sports and books to poker and Christmas.

Seventy-two years ago this week, the liberal commentator wrote this piece for the old New York World-Telegram.


The angel of the Lord said to the shepherds, “And this shall be a sign unto you: You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

They made haste to go to Bethlehem to see the thing which had come to pass. “For unto you,” the angel said, “is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”

But as they journeyed to Bethlehem they fell into a discussion as to just how they should find the place where the infant lay. The shepherds were not folk familiar with the town, even though it lay a short journey from the fields in which they tended their flocks. Besides, they knew that many from the country roundabout had gone to Bethlehem in compliance with the decree of Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. Indeed, one of the group grumbled, “In Bethlehem there be many mangers, and how are we to find the one?”

And the youngest shepherd said, “It will be made known to us.”

The night was bright with stars and the way more easy than they had expected. In spite of the late hour many walked in the narrow streets of Bethlehem, and from all the houses there came a clatter. The shepherds stood for a moment in some perplexity as to the appointed place. The noises of the town were confusing to men who had been standing silent under starlight.

And suddenly, the volume of voices increased, and down the street there came a caravan of camels. Upon the backs of the beasts sat great bearded men, and with them they brought sacks of precious stuffs and huge treasure chests from distant kingdoms. The air was filled with the pungent tang of spice and perfume.

The startled shepherds stood against the wall to let the cavalcade of the mighty pass by. And these wise men and kings seemed to have no doubt as to their destination. They swept past the inn and dismounted at the door of a stable. Servants took the burdens from the backs of the camels, and the kings and the wise men stooped and went in through the low door of the stable.

“It is there the child lies in the manger,” said one of the shepherds and made as if to follow, but his fellows were abashed and said among themselves, “It is not right that we should crowd in upon the heels of the mighty.”

The youngest shepherd spoke up, insisting, “We, too, are bidden. For us, as well, there was the voice of the angel of the Lord.”

And timidly, the men from the fields followed after and found places near the door. They watched as the men from distant countries came and silently placed their gifts at the foot of the manger where the child lay sleeping. And the shepherds stood aside and let the great of the Earth go out into the night to take up again their long journey.

Presently they were alone, but as they had no gifts to lay beside the gold and frankincense, they turned to go back to their flocks. But Mary, the mother, made a sign to the youngest shepherd to come closer. And he said, “We are shepherds, and we have come from the fields whence an angel summoned us. There is naught which we could add to the gifts of wise men and of kings.”

Mary replied, “Before the throne of God, who is a king and who is wise, you have brought with you a gift more precious than all the others. It lies within your heart.”

And suddenly it was made known to the shepherd the meaning of the words of Mary. He knelt at the foot of the manger and gave to the child his prayer of devotion and of joy.

News media manipulated on ACORN: study

If you think you know what happened to ACORN, the network of community organizations attacked by politicians and video bloggers over the last few years, check out Michael Schudson and Julia Sonnevend's article “In ACORN’s Shadow” in the new Columbia Journalism Review.

Schudson, a professor at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, and Sonnevend, a Ph.D. student, examined a political science journal article summarizing a study 647 stories about ACORN during 2007-08, and they found that ACORN’s alleged voter fraud “was absurdly hyped for partisan advantage; the national media were steamrolled into promoting ... a ‘disingenuous controversy’; and ACORN twisted in the wind.”

Analysts Peter Dreier and Christopher R. Martin found that the press was "taken in all too easily by a very effective group of 'opinion entrepreneurs largely indifferent to facts or fairness."

Pulitzer Prize winner here Thursday

A longtime Chicago journalist who shared in the Tribune’s 2001 staff Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the airline industry will visit a few classes and take part in a Brown Bag It Q&A with students featuring free pizza and soda on Thursday, Nov. 11.

Patrick Olsen, who also worked for the Los Angeles Times, is a good example of a journalist who works in multiple media. Now Editor-in-Chief at Cars.com, Olsen oversees an editorial staff of almost 20 journalists reviewing cars, writing blog posts, and shooting photos and videos.

Olsen spent 11 years at the Tribune, including six years as the Page One Editor, and more than three years launching and helping to run RedEye, the Tribune’s tabloid aimed at 20-something readers. The winner of numerous journalism awards (including for Investigative Reporting, Professional Performance, Headline Writing, and Design), Olsen will briefly visit two 11 a.m. classes taught by Mohammad Siddiqi and Pearlie Strother-Adams in Simpkins rooms 214 and 309, respectively. At 12:30 p.m., Olsen will be in Simpkins room 327 for a casual "Pizza with a Press Professional" hour or so of Q&A mixed with slices and pop.

WIU's PRSSA chapter is co-sponsoring the appearance along with the department of English & Journalism.

Google invests $5 million in journalism

Google is often criticized for contributing to stealing the audience, if not the contents, of journalism, but in a move this week, the internet giant is making a contribution to help the practice of journalism, if not the platform of print.

And it's making the move because of journalism's importance to democracy.

"Journalism is fundamental to a functioning democracy," Gogle said in its blogged announcement. "So as media organizations globally continue to broaden their presence online, we’re eager to play our part on the technology side.

"We’ve granted $2 million to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which has a proven track record of supporting programs that drive innovation in journalism," they continued. "It will use $1 million to support U.S. grant-making in this crucial area. The other $1 million will augment the Knight News Challenge, which is accepting funding proposals from anyone, anywhere in the world, until December 1. Now in its fifth year, the News Challenge has supported projects like DocumentCloud, which aims to bring more investigative-reporting source material online so anyone can find and read it."

Details on the remaining $3 million to be invested internationally will be forthcoming early next year, Google said.

'Truth LIES here'

The November Atlantic out this week has a compelling story on the use and abuse of the Internet to not just try to control the flow of information, but to make it up.

Contributing editor Michael Hirschorn quotes the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan's line that we may each be entitled to our own set of opinions, but we are not entitled to our own set of facts.

"The Breitbarts, Gingriches, and 'bury brigades' are engaged in an enterprise uniquely enabled by the collapse of the center and the ubiquitous means by which information can spread instantly," Hirschorn writes. "It’s easy to welcome a time in which technology unleashes an ongoing town hall on any and all issues of the day, in which the wisdom of crowds holds sway. But the dislodging of fact from the pedestal it had safely occupied for centuries makes the recent disturbances in politics and the media feel like symptoms of a larger epistemological, even civilizational, rot."

Ex-Courier editor takes Ohio Press helm

The one-time Western Courier editor who led the student newspaper in its early days after WIU kicked it off campus has been named executive director of the Ohio Newspaper Association.

Dennis Hetzel, most recently the manager of northern Kentucky operations for Enquirer Media, will start his new duties on January 1.

Hetzel, who penned an editorial for which the newspaper was sued for libel and won, formerly worked at newspapers in Galesburg, Madison, Wisc., and York, Pa.

'Inside-the-Beltway' press out of touch?

Arianna Huffington may be a progressive, but her recent column recalling conversations with ABC-TV's Diane Sawyer and magazine writer Joe Klein is revealing.

Both Washington-based journalists are coming to realize that there's a lot of news -- and a lot of Americans -- being ignored by the Capitol-oriented corporate press.

"One thing I realized on this trip was how much time I spend immersed in the media back home -- reading newspapers and blogs and books, watching TV -- and how little time I spend immersed in other people," Klein conceded.

Huffington praises NPR's "StoryCorps" feature, which showcases regular people and how they/we offer as many lessons as the "inside baseball" perspective of too many members of the Washington press corps.

Check out the full Huffington post here -- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/joe-klein-and-diane-sawye_b_752674.html?view=print

AOL Thinking of Buying Newspapers

There's a fascinating story about how AOL is thinking about buying newspaper properties to enhance its Internet content at http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=137266.

Washington Post Scribe Moves to Daily Beast

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz is moving to the online news site, the Daily Beast. There's a great piece about the move of traditional print folks, like Kurtz, to the Internet on the Poynter Foundation web site, http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=192116.