Sister Joan Chittister in her National Catholic Reporter column "From Where I Stand" this week mourns the loss not only of the late Tim Russert, but also his skills and the social consequences of his use of them.
"Tim Russert was trying ... to make citizens out of voters, thinkers out of listeners," Chittister writes. "He was trying to form a real democracy rather than simply throw pottage at herds of politicized sheep.
"He was not sensational, not confrontational, not destructive," she continues. "He was a real thinker. He was a real political philosopher for the age. A real journalist."
High praise for a guy who earned it.
Read the whole piece here -- http://ncrcafe.org/node/1914
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
'When journalists hate journalism...'
Online Journalism Review may be folding soon, but Robert Niles there posted a terrific analysis of the deep divide between journalism and television.
Taken with insightful comments to the posting, it offers positives and negatives about TV, traditional journalism and the loss of public service in a press mission that somehow drifted into Profits Uber Alles.
Check out Niles' piece here -- http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/200806/1497/
Taken with insightful comments to the posting, it offers positives and negatives about TV, traditional journalism and the loss of public service in a press mission that somehow drifted into Profits Uber Alles.
Check out Niles' piece here -- http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/200806/1497/
Friday, June 6, 2008
3 WIU grads accepted to UIS' PAR program
Three accomplished journalists who graduated from Western in May were accepted into the prestigious Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois-Springfield, director Charlie Wheeler said.
Journalism majors Jason Nevel and Drew Thomason and broadcasting major/Journalism minor Alex Degman will make up 15% of the 20-student program.
The one-year program combines classroom coursework and internships with professional news operations covering the Illinois General Assembly and state government. Grad students earn Master's degrees upon completion of the program.
Nevel was editor of the Western Courier, Thomason the Courier's web editor, and Degman a student reporter for WIUM-FM 91.3.
Journalism majors Jason Nevel and Drew Thomason and broadcasting major/Journalism minor Alex Degman will make up 15% of the 20-student program.
The one-year program combines classroom coursework and internships with professional news operations covering the Illinois General Assembly and state government. Grad students earn Master's degrees upon completion of the program.
Nevel was editor of the Western Courier, Thomason the Courier's web editor, and Degman a student reporter for WIUM-FM 91.3.
Essayist picked by Western SPJ wins national award
An Aurora high schooler picked by Western's Society of Professional Journalists chapter and WIU faculty as winner of the Midwest Region's High School Essay Contest also won the national award, SPJ announced.
Mark Brouch of Aurora Central Catholic High School won a $1,000 scholarship in the annual competition, which this year had the thme "Why Free News Media Are Important."
Mark Brouch of Aurora Central Catholic High School won a $1,000 scholarship in the annual competition, which this year had the thme "Why Free News Media Are Important."
Saturday, May 24, 2008
New Media Industry Leader Heads to Las Vegas
New media guru Rob Curley, recognized as one of the leaders in the online journalism field, is departing the Washington Post to head up new media at the Las Vegas Sun. He explains the decision in his latest blog entry at http://robcurley.com/2008/05/24/earlier-this-week-it-was-108-degrees-in-las-vegas.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
A trade for all America, this Journalism
I heard now-retired newspaper columnist William Raspberry talk about Journalism once – as a trade – reporting being as vital and hands-on as plumbing or wiring. For graduates (and acknowledging Hall of Fame baseball announcer Ernie Harwell) here’s a salute to Journalism.
Journalism is reporters teasing President Bush at a White House dinner and a child reading the funnies with a mom in White Hall, Ill. It’s the infamous newsroom bums such as Jason Blair and Stephen Glass, sure, but it’s also Sy Hersh, Helen Thomas and many others who keep finding truth and sharing it.
A quiet guy clipping a friend’s obituary – that’s Journalism. So is the pair of young Washington reporters churning out story after story until a President is shamed into resigning.
It’s America, Journalism; an epic poem, a play, a nation’s portrait – remade every day. It’s the New York Times and a community weekly. The color comics on Sunday, a small-town paper’s uptown web site, USA Today’s sports section, and the births and deaths in countless newspapers of record from coast to coast. And ink made from soybeans and newsprint that can soak up spills or be recycled, almost anywhere.
There’s a man in Moline who remembers a story he read by a courthouse newswoman or a kid in Morton who clipped a human-interest piece by a man who took risks for readers. That’s Journalism. So is the subscriber calling for extra copies of the paper with something about a neighbor in the Food or Arts section.
It’s a retired teacher phoning the newsroom with complaints about a typo on page C-6. And a grinning photojournalist giving a high-five to a violinist or gymnast after a first solo or balance-beam routine.
Journalism is “the first rough draft of history,” it’s said, a spirited sprint to record facts and feelings. It’s also an art and a craft to seize moments. Many are noticed – heroism or failure is seen, cheered or booed, and hopefully understood. Some become numbers; others memories.
In Journalism, democracy grows. The only race that should matter is the race to deadline. The creed is the AP Stylebook. Color is something distinguishing a feature story or photo.
Journalism is a foreign visitor asking about the late, great Carl Rowan or Molly Ivins, Hunter S. Thompson or Ruben Salazar. How could America produce and relish the likes of Randy Shilts and I.F. Stone, Vincent Chin and Margaret Bourke-White? Or the First Amendment itself, or SPJ or the Newspaper Guild.
It’s Herblock cranking out classic editorial cartoons and Henry Stanley exploring Africa in search of Dr. Livingstone. It’s a race to a radio for an immediate report from a scene, or someone standing in a hurricane for a weather forecast. Journalism also is the critic lecturing a painter about perspective, and a scientist trying to write a 600-word op-ed piece due tomorrow.
Journalism is jazz without music. Math without grades. Video games without violence.
A woman out West can’t tell you the color of her husband’s eyes but she knows the Dow Jones or the Consumer Price Index or her favorite CD is up or down. That’s Journalism. So is the corporate-minded Newseum in Washington, D.C. And the ex-reporter, still writing while circling the drain teaching at a college somewhere.
Journalism is continuity. A tip, then a source to verify. Desk to deadline to press time. Download, upload, podcast and blog. Idea to illustration. Pictures and stories to audiences’ eyes.
It’s rain soaking the stoop where the paper lies dry in plastic. And lightning making the radio crackle and the TV crawl with warnings. And the flash of email alerts and RSS feeds from keyboards in distant lands, humming like an huge engine fueled by and driving information.
Journalism is a sleepy carrier or a smart-aleck copy editor. The old-timer whose scoops increase every time he remembers the past. A woman celebrating a conviction of a crook or profits at a local factory or good prices for crops by throwing the paper in the air.
Journalism is the cool, clear eyes of Ida Tarbell or Ida B. Wells, the flashing brilliance of Mike Royko, and the daring exploits of adventurers as varied as Nelly Bly and Richard Harding Davis, Marguerite Higgins and Floyd Gibbons.
Journalism, just a job? It’s work, but more. As complex as the American spirit from which it benefits, it’s a trade, a business and, sometimes, even a faith.
Journalism is Tradition written in skinny notebooks. And Shame in missing a story. It is Courage in exposing the lousy treatment of veterans. It is Humor in Dave Barry making us laugh out loud. It’s Amusement in all the crossword puzzles, horoscopes and supplementary flavors that help the hard news go down. And it’s Emotion, going with what you got and working on a follow-up for tomorrow.
Names are Journalism, too. The Hawk Eye, High-Country News and Herald-Whig, the Picayune, Porcupine and Pantagraph; Pulitzer, Scripps and Hearst.
Journalism is a noisy, frantic newsroom where hopes and feelings run as rampant as relay teams or political candidates. It’s a corner pressroom with coffee-stained desks. It’s the endless lists of names in race results – from tracks or voting booths.
The griper and grumbler is Journalism, too. He wants to finish a novel or go on the radio or be on cable TV; nothing’s ever good enough; “whaddaya got today?” And he wants decent wages – and deserves them. Journalism is the newbie, too – the recent grad who goes from the Midwest to Texas on spec, just for an interview or tryout.
His Girl Friday and The Paper, The Daily Planet and the Daily Bugle, Walter Cronkite and Bill Moyers, CBS’s Edward R. Murrow on the radio or TV and the Guild’s Heywood Broun on picket lines or beneath headlines. Journalism is interns – with experience no bigger than the lumps in their throats – trying to begin a dream. It’s veteran scribes, too – tired old hands of 45, knees gone, praying to stay with the work they love.
Every week, day, hour – minutes now – Journalism is the story of David and Goliath, of Sinbad, Paul Bunyan, of Jackie Robinson and the Lord of the Rings.
It’s H.L. Mencken covering the Scopes trial, William Allen White writing a heart-breaking obit of his daughter, Grantland Rice describing the Army-Notre Dame game with the Four Horsemen – “Outlined against a blue, gray October sky …” – Ernie Pyle filing from World War II’s “worm’s eye view,” and John Hersey reporting from the ruins of Hiroshima.
Journalism is not a job description, it’s said. It’s a diagnosis.
This diagnosis is a trade for democracy, for America, this Journalism.
Through the centuries, Journalism has extended from James Boswell and Ambrose Bierce, plus the many nameless reporters at innumerable statehouses, cop shops and press boxes, through Marvel Cooke, Joe Galloway, Gene Roberts, Pete Hamill and Amy Goodman. Journalism is Reuters and Rolling Stone, Clarence Page and the AP, Red Smith and Daniel Pearl.
Sacrifices were made, lives given for Journalism. Don’t disgrace it; celebrate.
Journalism is reporters teasing President Bush at a White House dinner and a child reading the funnies with a mom in White Hall, Ill. It’s the infamous newsroom bums such as Jason Blair and Stephen Glass, sure, but it’s also Sy Hersh, Helen Thomas and many others who keep finding truth and sharing it.
A quiet guy clipping a friend’s obituary – that’s Journalism. So is the pair of young Washington reporters churning out story after story until a President is shamed into resigning.
It’s America, Journalism; an epic poem, a play, a nation’s portrait – remade every day. It’s the New York Times and a community weekly. The color comics on Sunday, a small-town paper’s uptown web site, USA Today’s sports section, and the births and deaths in countless newspapers of record from coast to coast. And ink made from soybeans and newsprint that can soak up spills or be recycled, almost anywhere.
There’s a man in Moline who remembers a story he read by a courthouse newswoman or a kid in Morton who clipped a human-interest piece by a man who took risks for readers. That’s Journalism. So is the subscriber calling for extra copies of the paper with something about a neighbor in the Food or Arts section.
It’s a retired teacher phoning the newsroom with complaints about a typo on page C-6. And a grinning photojournalist giving a high-five to a violinist or gymnast after a first solo or balance-beam routine.
Journalism is “the first rough draft of history,” it’s said, a spirited sprint to record facts and feelings. It’s also an art and a craft to seize moments. Many are noticed – heroism or failure is seen, cheered or booed, and hopefully understood. Some become numbers; others memories.
In Journalism, democracy grows. The only race that should matter is the race to deadline. The creed is the AP Stylebook. Color is something distinguishing a feature story or photo.
Journalism is a foreign visitor asking about the late, great Carl Rowan or Molly Ivins, Hunter S. Thompson or Ruben Salazar. How could America produce and relish the likes of Randy Shilts and I.F. Stone, Vincent Chin and Margaret Bourke-White? Or the First Amendment itself, or SPJ or the Newspaper Guild.
It’s Herblock cranking out classic editorial cartoons and Henry Stanley exploring Africa in search of Dr. Livingstone. It’s a race to a radio for an immediate report from a scene, or someone standing in a hurricane for a weather forecast. Journalism also is the critic lecturing a painter about perspective, and a scientist trying to write a 600-word op-ed piece due tomorrow.
Journalism is jazz without music. Math without grades. Video games without violence.
A woman out West can’t tell you the color of her husband’s eyes but she knows the Dow Jones or the Consumer Price Index or her favorite CD is up or down. That’s Journalism. So is the corporate-minded Newseum in Washington, D.C. And the ex-reporter, still writing while circling the drain teaching at a college somewhere.
Journalism is continuity. A tip, then a source to verify. Desk to deadline to press time. Download, upload, podcast and blog. Idea to illustration. Pictures and stories to audiences’ eyes.
It’s rain soaking the stoop where the paper lies dry in plastic. And lightning making the radio crackle and the TV crawl with warnings. And the flash of email alerts and RSS feeds from keyboards in distant lands, humming like an huge engine fueled by and driving information.
Journalism is a sleepy carrier or a smart-aleck copy editor. The old-timer whose scoops increase every time he remembers the past. A woman celebrating a conviction of a crook or profits at a local factory or good prices for crops by throwing the paper in the air.
Journalism is the cool, clear eyes of Ida Tarbell or Ida B. Wells, the flashing brilliance of Mike Royko, and the daring exploits of adventurers as varied as Nelly Bly and Richard Harding Davis, Marguerite Higgins and Floyd Gibbons.
Journalism, just a job? It’s work, but more. As complex as the American spirit from which it benefits, it’s a trade, a business and, sometimes, even a faith.
Journalism is Tradition written in skinny notebooks. And Shame in missing a story. It is Courage in exposing the lousy treatment of veterans. It is Humor in Dave Barry making us laugh out loud. It’s Amusement in all the crossword puzzles, horoscopes and supplementary flavors that help the hard news go down. And it’s Emotion, going with what you got and working on a follow-up for tomorrow.
Names are Journalism, too. The Hawk Eye, High-Country News and Herald-Whig, the Picayune, Porcupine and Pantagraph; Pulitzer, Scripps and Hearst.
Journalism is a noisy, frantic newsroom where hopes and feelings run as rampant as relay teams or political candidates. It’s a corner pressroom with coffee-stained desks. It’s the endless lists of names in race results – from tracks or voting booths.
The griper and grumbler is Journalism, too. He wants to finish a novel or go on the radio or be on cable TV; nothing’s ever good enough; “whaddaya got today?” And he wants decent wages – and deserves them. Journalism is the newbie, too – the recent grad who goes from the Midwest to Texas on spec, just for an interview or tryout.
His Girl Friday and The Paper, The Daily Planet and the Daily Bugle, Walter Cronkite and Bill Moyers, CBS’s Edward R. Murrow on the radio or TV and the Guild’s Heywood Broun on picket lines or beneath headlines. Journalism is interns – with experience no bigger than the lumps in their throats – trying to begin a dream. It’s veteran scribes, too – tired old hands of 45, knees gone, praying to stay with the work they love.
Every week, day, hour – minutes now – Journalism is the story of David and Goliath, of Sinbad, Paul Bunyan, of Jackie Robinson and the Lord of the Rings.
It’s H.L. Mencken covering the Scopes trial, William Allen White writing a heart-breaking obit of his daughter, Grantland Rice describing the Army-Notre Dame game with the Four Horsemen – “Outlined against a blue, gray October sky …” – Ernie Pyle filing from World War II’s “worm’s eye view,” and John Hersey reporting from the ruins of Hiroshima.
Journalism is not a job description, it’s said. It’s a diagnosis.
This diagnosis is a trade for democracy, for America, this Journalism.
Through the centuries, Journalism has extended from James Boswell and Ambrose Bierce, plus the many nameless reporters at innumerable statehouses, cop shops and press boxes, through Marvel Cooke, Joe Galloway, Gene Roberts, Pete Hamill and Amy Goodman. Journalism is Reuters and Rolling Stone, Clarence Page and the AP, Red Smith and Daniel Pearl.
Sacrifices were made, lives given for Journalism. Don’t disgrace it; celebrate.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Seniors (or those who plan to graduate): good advice
A post on the blog Innovation in College Media last Thursday is aimed at Journalism grads and it's mopre insightful than most comparable advice -- plus it's fairly applicable to a lot of fields.
Valuable for seniors thinking of preparing to search for jobs, and for undergrads a bit late out of the gate for internships, it's main thoughts are
* get real
* know the biz
* don't be stupid
* brand yourself
* don't blame others
* know where you want to work
* don't limit yourself
Check out the whole piece -- and comments -- here: http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2008/03/27/journalism-school-graduates-how-to-increase-your-chance-of-finding-a-job-and-decrease-your-chance-of-having-to-vent-on-angryjournalistcom/
Valuable for seniors thinking of preparing to search for jobs, and for undergrads a bit late out of the gate for internships, it's main thoughts are
* get real
* know the biz
* don't be stupid
* brand yourself
* don't blame others
* know where you want to work
* don't limit yourself
Check out the whole piece -- and comments -- here: http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2008/03/27/journalism-school-graduates-how-to-increase-your-chance-of-finding-a-job-and-decrease-your-chance-of-having-to-vent-on-angryjournalistcom/
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Newspapers' archaic but interesting technology shown
The old days years before computers -- heck, years before offset printing -- are glimpsed in a 10-minute video that's worth screening --
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/greenslade/2008/03/hail_to_the_past_of_hot_metal.html
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/greenslade/2008/03/hail_to_the_past_of_hot_metal.html
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Press wasn't all bad in runup to war: E&P
There's a lot of commentary about how the mainstream news media failed the public and their own mission in the months leading to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. However, Editor & Publisher chief Greg Mitchell in a column promoting his new book points out the "contributions by everyone from relatively unknown reporters to ... comic Stephen Colbert and singer songwriter Neil Young."
Check out Some 'Unsung Heroes' of Iraq War Coverage (published March 18).
Check out Some 'Unsung Heroes' of Iraq War Coverage (published March 18).
Environmental Journalism students visit wind farm
WIU grad student Catt Foy took this photo of the Crescent Ridge wind farm in rural Bureau County, where the Journalism 400 Topics class in Environmental Journalism recently visited.
The class blog is at http://qc-green.blogspot.com/
Monday, March 24, 2008
WIU alum advises Michigan State's daily
Omar Sofradzija, who attended WIU in the early '90s, has been named adviser to the State News student newspaper at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
He formerly worked at the Las Vegas Review Journal and the Peoria Journal Star.
He formerly worked at the Las Vegas Review Journal and the Peoria Journal Star.
State prominent in Student Press Law Center 'Sunshine Week' material
Illinois figures prominently in three compelling background stories generated from the Student Press Law Center in Washington, which stepped up postings to connect with Sunshine Week, marked by the Society of Professional Journalists and other news organizations.
There's the case brought by state newspapers about access to sporting events -- http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1716
... plus the piece about reporters' right to materials generated by student governments -- http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1714
... and, finally, the news story about the Naperville newspaper adviser apparently punished for advocating for high school journalists -- http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1713
There's the case brought by state newspapers about access to sporting events -- http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1716
... plus the piece about reporters' right to materials generated by student governments -- http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1714
... and, finally, the news story about the Naperville newspaper adviser apparently punished for advocating for high school journalists -- http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1713
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Turmoil at the Medill School of Audience and Consumer Information
Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism has been in the news lately for several reasons, including charges that the school's dean may have fabricated a story for an alumni publication. Check out the latest controversy—this time regarding a proposal to change the name of the school—on Eric Zorn's blog at the Chicago Tribune. Go to http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2008/03/medillname.html.
The Medill School of Information and Influence?
The Medill School of Information and Influence?
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Newspaper Next 2.0: Way Outside the Box
By Rick Edmonds, The Biz Blog (Poynteronline)
The route to "newspaper" survival keeps getting trickier.
Not so long ago, the combination of a solid news report and a reasonably enterprising advertising business was considered sufficient to sustain a newspaper.
The bar rose with such added online innovations as hyperlocal coverage and niche efforts aimed at such targets as moms and pet owners, all accompanied by increasingly sophisticated advertising.
Now the American Press Institute's influential Newspaper Next project has concluded, in a sequel to its original report, that it will take a great deal more for newspapers to flourish in the digital era.
The report says newspaper companies will have to venture farther afield and become the indispensable guide to everything that anyone in their local community needs to know to live there. And provide all kinds of solutions for all kinds of needs for virtually every local business.
Published online last week to very light attention by media news reporters, Newspaper Next 2.0 [PDF] is neither concise nor light reading. But there is worthwhile stuff for those willing to hunt through its 110 pages:
Business-side readers will want to scavenge the 24 case studies of new products piloted since the first report came out in mid-2006, along with the seven examples of how newspaper companies organized and financed innovation. Some of the efforts are truly unorthodox -- a newspaper-run consignment store for quality goods in Ogden, Utah, (page 64), which provides an upgrade from classifieds to get rid of that couch. Or QC.com (page 37), an ingenious version of online coupons at The Dispatch of Moline, Ill., that works both to attract and retain subscribers and draw in small-business advertisers.
Journalists may be more interested in the first few conceptual pages. They will find in a chart on page 7 that news is still part of the core in this concept of the future, but it is quickly dispatched as "not big enough" to be economically sustaining. Stephen Gray, managing director of the project, writes that newspaper companies need to redefine themselves as the "local information and connection utility" in their communities. Perhaps, as he writes later, a suitably big and audacious goal would be to create a wiki'ed "Localpedia," comprehensive but built with volunteered user content.
As he told me last fall, Gray found boffo demand for the road show consulting he did during 2007, coaching companies on how to implement Newspaper Next. However, many of the experiments have stuck too closely to traditional core competencies, making money, for instance, by reverse publishing online material into print, still the comfort zone for the ad sales force.
The result: the pace of change is unprecedented but not quick enough; most projects are too small and too slow to develop revenue on the scale needed. So the report urges newspapers companies to "make the leap" beyond news or even news and information. Newspapers should be venturing into unfamiliar territory like online promotions, e-mail advertising and tailoring events information into a personal planning calendar -- as well as finding creative solutions for business beyond traditional advertising.
The new report also contains a useful bonus chapter from consultant Gordon Borrell on maximizing online revenue. It expands on some ideas I wrote about last fall after interviewing Borrell -- newspaper companies venturing into local search with separate commerce-only sites or aggressively going after the nascent local online video ad business. Borrell thinks there is big money to be made there.
The route to "newspaper" survival keeps getting trickier.
Not so long ago, the combination of a solid news report and a reasonably enterprising advertising business was considered sufficient to sustain a newspaper.
The bar rose with such added online innovations as hyperlocal coverage and niche efforts aimed at such targets as moms and pet owners, all accompanied by increasingly sophisticated advertising.
Now the American Press Institute's influential Newspaper Next project has concluded, in a sequel to its original report, that it will take a great deal more for newspapers to flourish in the digital era.
The report says newspaper companies will have to venture farther afield and become the indispensable guide to everything that anyone in their local community needs to know to live there. And provide all kinds of solutions for all kinds of needs for virtually every local business.
Published online last week to very light attention by media news reporters, Newspaper Next 2.0 [PDF] is neither concise nor light reading. But there is worthwhile stuff for those willing to hunt through its 110 pages:
Business-side readers will want to scavenge the 24 case studies of new products piloted since the first report came out in mid-2006, along with the seven examples of how newspaper companies organized and financed innovation. Some of the efforts are truly unorthodox -- a newspaper-run consignment store for quality goods in Ogden, Utah, (page 64), which provides an upgrade from classifieds to get rid of that couch. Or QC.com (page 37), an ingenious version of online coupons at The Dispatch of Moline, Ill., that works both to attract and retain subscribers and draw in small-business advertisers.
Journalists may be more interested in the first few conceptual pages. They will find in a chart on page 7 that news is still part of the core in this concept of the future, but it is quickly dispatched as "not big enough" to be economically sustaining. Stephen Gray, managing director of the project, writes that newspaper companies need to redefine themselves as the "local information and connection utility" in their communities. Perhaps, as he writes later, a suitably big and audacious goal would be to create a wiki'ed "Localpedia," comprehensive but built with volunteered user content.
As he told me last fall, Gray found boffo demand for the road show consulting he did during 2007, coaching companies on how to implement Newspaper Next. However, many of the experiments have stuck too closely to traditional core competencies, making money, for instance, by reverse publishing online material into print, still the comfort zone for the ad sales force.
The result: the pace of change is unprecedented but not quick enough; most projects are too small and too slow to develop revenue on the scale needed. So the report urges newspapers companies to "make the leap" beyond news or even news and information. Newspapers should be venturing into unfamiliar territory like online promotions, e-mail advertising and tailoring events information into a personal planning calendar -- as well as finding creative solutions for business beyond traditional advertising.
The new report also contains a useful bonus chapter from consultant Gordon Borrell on maximizing online revenue. It expands on some ideas I wrote about last fall after interviewing Borrell -- newspaper companies venturing into local search with separate commerce-only sites or aggressively going after the nascent local online video ad business. Borrell thinks there is big money to be made there.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Courier a winner at ICPA
Western's independent student-run newspaper earned the most first-place awards in four years at last weekend's Illinois College Press Association conference in Chicago.
Congratulations to the Western Courier.
"The list of ICPA awards includes: 1. First Place, headline writing (daily) 2. First Place, feature story (daily) 3. First Place, news photo (daily) 4. 3rd Place, General Excellence (daily) 5. 3rd Place, headline writing (daily) 6. Honorable Mention, sports page design (all papers) 7. Honorable Mention, entertainment supplement (all papers) 8. Honorable Mention, critical review other than film (all papers)," said Courier adviser Rich Moreno.
"Additionally, the Courier won Third Place among daily papers (despite not being daily) for General Excellence," he added.
Despite publishing three times a week, the Courier competes against daily newspapers such as the Daily Illini at UIUC.
For the Courier's own article on the honors, go to --
http://media.www.westerncourier.com/media/storage/paper650/news/2008/02/25/Opinion/Look-Ma.We.Got.Awards-3230616.shtml
Congratulations to the Western Courier.
"The list of ICPA awards includes: 1. First Place, headline writing (daily) 2. First Place, feature story (daily) 3. First Place, news photo (daily) 4. 3rd Place, General Excellence (daily) 5. 3rd Place, headline writing (daily) 6. Honorable Mention, sports page design (all papers) 7. Honorable Mention, entertainment supplement (all papers) 8. Honorable Mention, critical review other than film (all papers)," said Courier adviser Rich Moreno.
"Additionally, the Courier won Third Place among daily papers (despite not being daily) for General Excellence," he added.
Despite publishing three times a week, the Courier competes against daily newspapers such as the Daily Illini at UIUC.
For the Courier's own article on the honors, go to --
http://media.www.westerncourier.com/media/storage/paper650/news/2008/02/25/Opinion/Look-Ma.We.Got.Awards-3230616.shtml
Plenty of opportunities in new JobFile listings
The Chicago Headline Club/Society of Professional Journalists' JobFile, produced by Bob Roberts in cooperation with the Illinois News Broadcasters, has a new list of job opportunities.
Check it all at http://www.headlineclub.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=14042
Check it all at http://www.headlineclub.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=14042
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
State Rep visits Environmental Journalism class
Illinois State Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia (D-Aurora) last Saturday visited WIU's Environmental Journalism class held over five weekends at Western's Quad Cities campus in Moline.
Chapa LaVia, shown at her computer at the upper right, is a member of the legislature's Environmental Caucus. She discussed areas that lawmakers have, can and should address, and urged citizens to get involved in environmental, conservation and other stewardship issues.
Photo by Bill Knight
Friday, February 1, 2008
Funding Restored to NJ College Paper
By CHRIS NEWMARKER – The Associated Press
MONTCLAIR, N.J. — Montclair State University's student government decided Wednesday to temporarily restore funding to the school's weekly student newspaper, after its decision to freeze the paper's funding a week ago was criticized as an attempt to stifle freedom of the press.
After more than five hours of deliberation, the Student Government Association legislature voted 12-0, with seven abstentions, to restore funding for printing and office supplies to The Montclarion for 30 days, during which time student government and newspaper leaders are expected to try to resolve their differences.
"What's most important is that Montclair State University will have a newspaper tomorrow," said Karl de Vries, the newspaper's editor-in-chief.
Editors found out when the spring semester began last week that the paper's funding had been frozen. The student government also contacted The Montclarion's publisher and told it not to print the paper's issue last Thursday; an online version was produced.
Editors said the budget freeze was punishment for the paper criticizing student government for regularly holding closed meetings, in possible violation of New Jersey's open meetings law.
Student government leaders say that they're not censoring the newspaper, but that the paper's editors overstepped their authority when they hired a lawyer to help them get access to the meetings.
The New Jersey Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Arlington, Va.-based Student Press Law Center criticized the budget freeze.
"You're not only hurting the newspaper staff, which is having their free speech cut off, but the campus, which is being denied a valuable source of information," said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the law center.
De Vries said the student government wanted the newspaper to turn over correspondence between the newspaper and a lawyer The Montclarion had previously retained to challenge the student government's practice of closing meetings. The government fired the lawyer in November.
Shayna Jacobs, The Montclarion's news editor, said that in the past, the association has required it to be the conduit to all correspondence to its attorney.
At the Wednesday meeting, association President Ron Chicken argued that the budget freeze wasn't about censorship.
Bryan Fucetola, an association legislator, argued that the newspaper broke student organization rules because it wasn't authorized to hire its own attorney and instead should have consulted the association's attorney.
Since the fired attorney had been paid for with association money, Fucetola said the student government had a right to see what editors had discussed with the attorneys.
"We just want to know what we paid for," Fucetola said.
But attorneys for the New Jersey Press Association and the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the editors had a right to expect lawyer-client confidentiality, and that the association could face serious legal troubles by shutting down a student newspaper.
Montclair State's student government controls the budget and in any given year provides a third to half of the money needed to publish the paper, available for free on the campus, about 14 miles west of New York City.
The university doesn't directly control the association, but after Wednesday's vote, Karen Pennington, the school's vice president of student development and campus life, said she was confident the administration would be able to successfully mediate.
_
On the Net -- The Montclarion:
http://www.themontclarion.org/
MONTCLAIR, N.J. — Montclair State University's student government decided Wednesday to temporarily restore funding to the school's weekly student newspaper, after its decision to freeze the paper's funding a week ago was criticized as an attempt to stifle freedom of the press.
After more than five hours of deliberation, the Student Government Association legislature voted 12-0, with seven abstentions, to restore funding for printing and office supplies to The Montclarion for 30 days, during which time student government and newspaper leaders are expected to try to resolve their differences.
"What's most important is that Montclair State University will have a newspaper tomorrow," said Karl de Vries, the newspaper's editor-in-chief.
Editors found out when the spring semester began last week that the paper's funding had been frozen. The student government also contacted The Montclarion's publisher and told it not to print the paper's issue last Thursday; an online version was produced.
Editors said the budget freeze was punishment for the paper criticizing student government for regularly holding closed meetings, in possible violation of New Jersey's open meetings law.
Student government leaders say that they're not censoring the newspaper, but that the paper's editors overstepped their authority when they hired a lawyer to help them get access to the meetings.
The New Jersey Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Arlington, Va.-based Student Press Law Center criticized the budget freeze.
"You're not only hurting the newspaper staff, which is having their free speech cut off, but the campus, which is being denied a valuable source of information," said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the law center.
De Vries said the student government wanted the newspaper to turn over correspondence between the newspaper and a lawyer The Montclarion had previously retained to challenge the student government's practice of closing meetings. The government fired the lawyer in November.
Shayna Jacobs, The Montclarion's news editor, said that in the past, the association has required it to be the conduit to all correspondence to its attorney.
At the Wednesday meeting, association President Ron Chicken argued that the budget freeze wasn't about censorship.
Bryan Fucetola, an association legislator, argued that the newspaper broke student organization rules because it wasn't authorized to hire its own attorney and instead should have consulted the association's attorney.
Since the fired attorney had been paid for with association money, Fucetola said the student government had a right to see what editors had discussed with the attorneys.
"We just want to know what we paid for," Fucetola said.
But attorneys for the New Jersey Press Association and the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the editors had a right to expect lawyer-client confidentiality, and that the association could face serious legal troubles by shutting down a student newspaper.
Montclair State's student government controls the budget and in any given year provides a third to half of the money needed to publish the paper, available for free on the campus, about 14 miles west of New York City.
The university doesn't directly control the association, but after Wednesday's vote, Karen Pennington, the school's vice president of student development and campus life, said she was confident the administration would be able to successfully mediate.
_
On the Net -- The Montclarion:
http://www.themontclarion.org/
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Americans’ esteem for journalism, professions falls
This column appeared in some west-central Illinois newspapers early this week.
By Bill Knight
People don’t become journalists to become rich or popular. It’s mostly a calling to let others know what’s going on – whether grade-school science fairs, local tax proposals, area sports or world-wide conservation.
Still, some college students are stunned when they see Gallup’s annual poll gauging people’s opinion of various professions’ ethics and honesty. The most recent one again shows journalists in the middle of a list of dozens of professions – from the appreciation of nurses (83% say they’re “high” or “very high” in honesty and ethical standards) to the disdain for lobbyists (just 5%). But the numbers can be shocking to a 21-year-old undergrad dreaming of covering crime, business or rock ‘n’ roll for print, broadcast, the web or some other future medium.
It explains the comment by a friend who used to work at the Boston Globe, when he heard that my college-age son might major in journalism: “God, no – couldn’t he just run a meth lab or something?”
Less genuine shame than a sort of newsroom gallows humor, such remarks can hide four key points concerning public opinion about journalists – and other professions.
First, most folks’ opinions about journalists – or “the media,” which could describe anyone from Ann Coulter and Michael Moore to area radio sportscasters and your hometown newspaper editor – are based on impressions they get from (you guessed it) the media. In novels and plays, movies and TV shows, even comic books and, yes, poetry, journalists are usually stereotyped to be virtuous, villainous or callous to serve the plot. (In decades of working as a journalist, for instance, I’ve never seen the cinematic device of a horde of unfeeling hacks shouting “How do you feel?” to some shocked witness, widow or other troubled innocent.)
Still, many people regard reporters as panderers of lies for profit, invaders of privacy, or water carriers for Authority – unless they happen to know a journalist. Then, their overall opinions may not change, but journalists people know from the neighborhood or church or bowling are treated like Congressional incumbents. Voters don’t much like Congress – except their own representative, which accounts for most politicians’ re-elections. People might even concede that the journalist they know practices the profession’s ethical code, which generally holds that journalists seek the truth and report it fully, act independently, be accountable and minimize harm. Still, that’s explained as the exception proving their opinion.
The second point is that most people associate journalists with disturbing content. A variation of the “blame the messenger” impulse, criticizing journalists for reporting on a lousy war, a slipping economy, a hometown loss or a pal’s DUI is like hating car salespeople because your vehicle needed a valve job after 150,000 miles. Bad news, sure, but some salesperson’s fault?
The other two points are a bit worrisome for the press but deeply troubling for society. Besides the tepid enthusiasm for journalists (23% “high” or “very high” esteem -- 12th out of 22 professions), there’s an eagerness to dislike journalists (26% say “low” or “very low” – the 9th worst). People seem more eager to dislike others.
Lastly, people’s opinions are uniformly trending negative, comparing the new poll to earlier ones. Every single profession previously measured, from the upper ranks (pharmacists: 71% “high” or “very high”) to the lower levels (advertising practitioners: 5%) has dropped. Clergy, physicians and Congressional representatives all fell 5% in a year.
People’s lost respect for the professions seems unhealthy – even if they’ve transferred that admiration to occupations such as the building trades, software engineers or other jobs.
As for aspiring journalists: You want to be popular? Consider nursing. You want to be rich? Think about being a lobbyist.
But neither one will let you tell your community stories about local heroes, shenanigans in Springfield, corporate corruption or the high school play.
For Gallup’s poll, go to http://www.gallup.com/poll/103123/Lobbyists-Debut-Bottom-Honesty-Ethics-List.aspx
By Bill Knight
People don’t become journalists to become rich or popular. It’s mostly a calling to let others know what’s going on – whether grade-school science fairs, local tax proposals, area sports or world-wide conservation.
Still, some college students are stunned when they see Gallup’s annual poll gauging people’s opinion of various professions’ ethics and honesty. The most recent one again shows journalists in the middle of a list of dozens of professions – from the appreciation of nurses (83% say they’re “high” or “very high” in honesty and ethical standards) to the disdain for lobbyists (just 5%). But the numbers can be shocking to a 21-year-old undergrad dreaming of covering crime, business or rock ‘n’ roll for print, broadcast, the web or some other future medium.
It explains the comment by a friend who used to work at the Boston Globe, when he heard that my college-age son might major in journalism: “God, no – couldn’t he just run a meth lab or something?”
Less genuine shame than a sort of newsroom gallows humor, such remarks can hide four key points concerning public opinion about journalists – and other professions.
First, most folks’ opinions about journalists – or “the media,” which could describe anyone from Ann Coulter and Michael Moore to area radio sportscasters and your hometown newspaper editor – are based on impressions they get from (you guessed it) the media. In novels and plays, movies and TV shows, even comic books and, yes, poetry, journalists are usually stereotyped to be virtuous, villainous or callous to serve the plot. (In decades of working as a journalist, for instance, I’ve never seen the cinematic device of a horde of unfeeling hacks shouting “How do you feel?” to some shocked witness, widow or other troubled innocent.)
Still, many people regard reporters as panderers of lies for profit, invaders of privacy, or water carriers for Authority – unless they happen to know a journalist. Then, their overall opinions may not change, but journalists people know from the neighborhood or church or bowling are treated like Congressional incumbents. Voters don’t much like Congress – except their own representative, which accounts for most politicians’ re-elections. People might even concede that the journalist they know practices the profession’s ethical code, which generally holds that journalists seek the truth and report it fully, act independently, be accountable and minimize harm. Still, that’s explained as the exception proving their opinion.
The second point is that most people associate journalists with disturbing content. A variation of the “blame the messenger” impulse, criticizing journalists for reporting on a lousy war, a slipping economy, a hometown loss or a pal’s DUI is like hating car salespeople because your vehicle needed a valve job after 150,000 miles. Bad news, sure, but some salesperson’s fault?
The other two points are a bit worrisome for the press but deeply troubling for society. Besides the tepid enthusiasm for journalists (23% “high” or “very high” esteem -- 12th out of 22 professions), there’s an eagerness to dislike journalists (26% say “low” or “very low” – the 9th worst). People seem more eager to dislike others.
Lastly, people’s opinions are uniformly trending negative, comparing the new poll to earlier ones. Every single profession previously measured, from the upper ranks (pharmacists: 71% “high” or “very high”) to the lower levels (advertising practitioners: 5%) has dropped. Clergy, physicians and Congressional representatives all fell 5% in a year.
People’s lost respect for the professions seems unhealthy – even if they’ve transferred that admiration to occupations such as the building trades, software engineers or other jobs.
As for aspiring journalists: You want to be popular? Consider nursing. You want to be rich? Think about being a lobbyist.
But neither one will let you tell your community stories about local heroes, shenanigans in Springfield, corporate corruption or the high school play.
For Gallup’s poll, go to http://www.gallup.com/poll/103123/Lobbyists-Debut-Bottom-Honesty-Ethics-List.aspx
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
"Shield law" on back burner in Senate
The Free Flow of Information Act (national shield law legislation) passed in the Senate Judiciary Committee in October 2007, and the National Association of Broadcasters is now urging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring the bill to a vote in the full Senate.
In a January 28 letter to Reid, Rehr says of the bill, which would set standards for when federal courts can and cannot force journalists to reveal their sources, "This legislation will help ensure the flow of important information to all Americans by allowing journalists to protect the identity of their confidential sources."
Rehr continues, "Broadcast journalists take seriously their responsibility of serving every local community with timely news and information. This bipartisan legislation strikes a careful balance between ensuring citizens stay informed and honoring the public interest in having reporters testify about their sources in certain carefully defined situations."
Those situations would include disclosures that could prevent imminent terrorist action or significant harm to national security. Rehr notes that 33 states and the District of Columbia have shield laws in place already, and 16 other states have recognized reporters' privilege in court cases. "However," he says, "there is no uniform set of standards in federal courts to govern when testimony about sources may be sought from reporters."
The House approved a companion bill in October, and Rehr is requesting Reid's support in bringing the bill, with its current language in place, to a vote in the Senate.
-- from Radio Ink magazine.
In a January 28 letter to Reid, Rehr says of the bill, which would set standards for when federal courts can and cannot force journalists to reveal their sources, "This legislation will help ensure the flow of important information to all Americans by allowing journalists to protect the identity of their confidential sources."
Rehr continues, "Broadcast journalists take seriously their responsibility of serving every local community with timely news and information. This bipartisan legislation strikes a careful balance between ensuring citizens stay informed and honoring the public interest in having reporters testify about their sources in certain carefully defined situations."
Those situations would include disclosures that could prevent imminent terrorist action or significant harm to national security. Rehr notes that 33 states and the District of Columbia have shield laws in place already, and 16 other states have recognized reporters' privilege in court cases. "However," he says, "there is no uniform set of standards in federal courts to govern when testimony about sources may be sought from reporters."
The House approved a companion bill in October, and Rehr is requesting Reid's support in bringing the bill, with its current language in place, to a vote in the Senate.
-- from Radio Ink magazine.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)