Results matching “each week jack”

A cacophony of voices from across the web have begun to take issue with that holdover from legacy media, the op-ed page.  

Ezra Klein, Washington Post domestic policy blogger, posted an indictment of the Washington Post's op-ed page on Monday.  

"I don't really understand why my op-ed page, or all the other op-ed pages, waste so much real-estate publishing talking points from politicians," he lamented.  He went on to argue that op-ed pages should post pieces written by experts "for a different purpose...than those written by political experts."

Is Obama trying to avoid the White House press corps? Articles published last week and this in the New York Times and Washington Post suggest that the president's team has been less than willing of late to organize meetings with those news outlets who have traditionally covered the
 
"President Obama hasn't held a full-scale news conference since July," said WP's Howard Kurtz. Rather, said NYT's Peter Baker, he has "taken questions from unemployed workers in Ohio, students in Florida and a cancer survivor in New Hampshire. He took questions from YouTube users, Senate Democrats and even House Republicans." But not from the White House press Corps, and this decision "is no accident," according to Kurtz. 

Gerald Posner, chief investigative reporter for The Daily Beast, has a history of plagiarism, according to Jack Shafer in an article published yesterday in Slate. Shafer and a Slate reader found eight separate examples of plagiarism from publications like The Miami Herald, Texas Lawyer, and a blog run by the Association of Health Care Journalists.

Shafer broke the initial story last week, uncovering seven sentences Posner had copied from an article that first appeared in the Miami Herald on February 2nd. During an interview with Shafer, Posner acknowledged that he had plagiarized. The Daily Beast Executive Editor Edward Felsenthal confirmed it was plagiarism and removed the copied text from the website.

It has been a rough couple of years for the newspaper industry with the recession taking its toll on the financial stability of many organisations. In the past year alone at least ten publications have filed for bankruptcy and many have been forced to close their doors. With newspapers treading fast to try to keep their heads above water many have cut back funding for more costly types of news. One of the first things to go has been investigative journalism, considered by many publications to be a luxury. The time and investment of multiple resources in a single issue is something that many publications simply can no longer afford.

These cuts have raised alarm bells. The potential loss of 'the fourth estate' and 'government watchdog' have united many in the cause to protect the practice of journalism, even if the business and profitability of it is doomed to fail.

One method suggested to preserve this type of journalism is to run as a non-profit organisation. Seeking the status under the claim that journalism is a 'public good' publications are free from commerical pressures and the disappointment of dwindling circulation figures, relying only on donations from those who feel the cause worthy enough.

It is at this point that the Texas Tribune enters the scene. The online-only news site launched early last week as a non-profit venture in an attempt to fill a gap in quality local journalism in Texas. The Editors Weblog spoke with editor-in-chief, Evan Smith to look at Tribune's website and non-profit ambitions in closer detail.


The inspiration:
The big name in non-profit news is ProPublica. Led by former Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger, the organisation began publishing in June 2008 and has consistently drawn in large sums of donations, with key sponsor the Sandler Foundation contributing annually. ProPublica, which will write an article then offer it to a newspaper to publish, has carried out some impressive investigative feats to date, most notably its collaboration with the New York Times, published in August. The 13,000 word article which cost an estimated $400,000 to produce examined the events that took place at the Memorial Medical Centre following Hurricane Katrina. The piece highlighted the importance of such investigative journalism and made the need to save it even more apparent.
 
The Texas Tribune aims to achieve something similar on a smaller and more political scale, offering Texans a news source designed to compliment local newspapers that already exist: "We've made a point of not presenting this as a binary choice: A or B. We believe it's additive: A and B. Read your local paper and read us. In fact read as much stuff as there is out there" says Smith.

"We're simply presenting ourselves as one in a series of things that you need to read and listen to and view and access if you want to be a thoughtful and engaged Texan." 

In his first posting on the website Smith talked about what the Tribune was attempting to achieve: "What we mean to do on an ongoing basis is right there in our stated mission: to promote civic engagement and discourse on public policy, politics, government, and other matters of statewide concern."

In ProPublica fashion, the Tribune has said that all the information published on its website is up for grabs for other media organisations as part of a content-sharing plan designed to aide other reporters who might not have the time to look into an issue in depth.  Matt Stiles, one of the Tribune's staff reporters writers told Poynter Online in an interview: "Ultimately, we'd like to tell every paper in the state, 'If you like this data set, just take it'."

"I hope reporters will come see the information, download it, remix it and be creative with it."

The build up:
In July this year Smith announced he was leaving his position as editor-in-chief of established Texas Monthly magazine to take up the post as CEO and editor of the Tribune. A few months later, the Tribune added Elise Hu, Emily Ramshaw and Matt Stiles to its list of experienced journalists.

In an interview with Poynter in September, Ramshaw talked of her decision to join the project: "I feel, and still feel, that the newspaper business is in serious crisis. I'm not content to cling to a deck chair and go down with a sinking ship."

Ramshaw worked for The Dallas Morning News for six years, the last three of which she was state investigative reporter.  "We're trying to prepare for the next incarnation of journalism. If this venture is going to work, it's going to work because serious, talented journalists were brave enough to take the risk," she said.

The Tribune has built up a selection of notable reporters willing to do this and Chairman and co-founder John Thorton had been quoted as saying: "We didn't hire journalists out of work. We hired reporters who their editors were pissed off that they lost them."

Smith and Thornton worked hard on securing donations, with Thornton himself donating $1 million to the Tribune. In early October the founders confirmed they had received a further $750, 000 in grants from the Houston Endowment and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Tribune is now only slighty short of the $4 million target it needs to continue running for two years, with a current total of $3.7 million.

The sum is considerable for a start up website, as paidContent's Staci Kramer has noted: "Unlike some of the new crop of local and regional news startups, the Tribune is launching with enough money for a well-paid staff of 16, including 11 reporters," referring to salaries of $315K for the editor in chief, and up to $90K for seasoned reporters.

As for promotion of the site itself, Smith told the Editors Weblog just how useful social networking sites have been. Regular updates for the public on the status of the site via Facebook, Twitter and the site's own newsletter built up a sense of curiosity over what exactly they had in store for last Tuesday's launch.
 
"We've been very aggressive on Facebook and Twitter both to promote the content and also to connect with our community of followers" said Smith. "We've also used both to aggressively push for funding. We've generated quite a lot of memberships in the Tribune which are much like memberships in public radio by pushing over Facebook and over Twitter messages that relate to our fundraising campaign, and they've been very successful," he says, citing the 1400 founding members who have given between $50 and $5000 to the Tribune out of their own pockets.

What does the site look like?
The website debuted with top stories on the mistreatment of disabled children in public schools, the Democratic lean of El Paso in an otherwise Republican state, and the results of a poll carried out by the Tribune and the University of Texas.

The site itself is divided into ten pages, the organisation of which differ from your average news website. Offering 11 databases under a section titled 'Library' for further reading, the databases contain information ranging from federal campaign donations, gubernatorial appointees and lawmaker spending. In addition to this there is a complete electoral directory of every Texan senator and governor- the site essentially offers a single space for complete personal and political data on the '242 occupants of the state's highest offices'.

It is clear that a lot of time has gone into collaborating this research, and according to the Nieman Journalism Lab, the Waco Tribune-Herald has already taken advantage of the new resource and published some Tribune content. 

Aside from the databases, the site boasts eight of its own blogs and links to some 25 others; has a 'topics' section where stories can be found based on theme; a calender, where information about local events can be found or submitted; and a 'Tweetwire', a Twitter feed from all Texan politicians on the website's front page.

Compared to the recent launch of another local non-profit news website, Oakland Local, the Tribune's website is much more sophisticated. The Texan team have embraced the capacities of the internet and technology to their full, utilizing social media, widgets, videos, blogs and mobile applications- something Smith believes to be key to the way in which the use of media is changing.

"In consumption of media people are paying more attention to online media today then ever before," say Smith. "I look at my almost 13 year old daughter and how she consumes media and it's not at all in print it's almost entirely online and I think that's the trend line."

Smith suggests that publishers need to adapt to measure up to this changed method of consuming news: "You cannot simply go out and record the news, present that to people and believe that that's going to be enough. You need to give them the tools to better understand their world, to better know their state, to better know the people they elected, to better hold them accountable and that often is all not simply conventional reporting but the amassing and presenting of data that allows people to access the world in which they live from a more detailed level."

Why will the Tribune succeed where others have failed?
Whilst successful local non-profit news publications do exists, the Voice of San Diego and the MinnPost to name a few- there are also notable failures such as the Rocky Mountain Independent and InDenver Times, two online start-ups founded by Steve Foster earlier this year. How will the Tribune ensure that it doesn't suffer the same fate?

Smith says that the Tribune essentially has a better business plan, arguing that the RMI and InDenver Times failed because they were run by journalists, not business people and "didn't really have a plan for how to make the model sustainable."

Part of the reason the Tribune is choosing to remain online-only is because "the cost of printing a print publication for postage and paper and print facilities is so expensive that you reduce your overhead dramatically and therefore make it much more likely that your business model will sustain."

Of course the Tribune's has also managed to raise a healthy budget, further insulating itself against some of the problems faced by other publications. "Money is, as in all things, the mother's milk of your operation," Smith says, continuing on to mention that the having the financial capacity to buy the latest technology and hire top journalists will "go a very long way to allowing us to do our best work."

Smith's views bear resemblance to industry commentator Alan Mutter, who recently critized many online non-profit publications for not being business-minded enough. Mutter accuses these publications of "a suicidally stubborn determination on the part of the organizers to be in the business they want to be in, instead of attending to the business they need to attend to," and he argued early last month that, "A business, especially a start-up, requires far more than passion for the work. It requires close attention to the nuts and bolts of raising money, making sales and controlling expenses."

How will the Tribune navigate ethical issues?
A nagging question over the non-profit model is how publications will be able to resist influence from major donors. Smith argues that the seperation between donors and the editorial team is no different to the situation between advertisers and editorial: "I edited a magazine for nine years in which we had big advertisers who also happened to often be the subject of stories and the transactional economy that supports the operations of a for profit publication has no relationship what-so-ever to the journalism inside, or it shouldn't anyway, not at a good magazine and not at a good newspaper."

"Just because someone advertises doesn't mean you go easy on them or you go hard on their competitors."

Nevetherless, the non-profit news model is still in early stages and very dependent on the income from donors. Even for-profit news publications have not been immune to advertsing clients flexing their muscles in tough financial times, with a Detroit paper recently being accused of reporting on private health care following a request from client Humana (who subsequently purchased an ad next to the story).

What would Smith do if he was approached by a donor to cover a particular story? 

"Donors don't expect that were going to write about their issues or about their enemy's issues in a negative way, they're not looking for us to take sides- they're supporting the principle that hovers above all this activity: that journalism in the public interest has value."

"Any donor who is unhappy with the coverage we provide because of such an expectation is welcome to his or her money back," he says, adding: "I'd rather lose my funding then lose my integrity."

So are non-profits the next incarnation of journalism?
The wider debate on whether or not non-profits are the future of journalism has been raging for a while. Online magazine, Slate's Jack Shafer has weighed in for the negative: "In the current arrangement, we're substituting one flawed business model for another. For-profit newspapers lose money accidentally. Nonprofit news operations lose money deliberately."

Thornton, the Tribune's chairman, hit back at the remarks: "I call it the Stockholm Syndrome. They are sympathizing with their advertiser-captors."

So who is right? Is the non-profit model the future of journalism?

Yes and no. It is unlikely to become a general solution for newspapers simply because of the huge sums of money involved, but for nieche reporting and more time/fund consuming journalism such as investigative reporting, it could definiatley be a viable option.

The idea compares favourably at least to the suggestion of government bailouts. As Thorton wrote of the "obvious fox-in-the-henhouse issues that arise--to mix animal metaphors--from government watchdogs funded out of government coffers."

As the first serious, state-focused news site with a decent enough amount of money behind it and what seems to be the right attitude toward embracing the capacities of the digital age and the changing face of journalism- whether or not the Texas Tribune succeeds will be key to the way in which the non-profit model is viewed.

As Tribune reporter Christe Hu suggests: "Journalism is at a crossroads right now. We're seeing not just survival of the fittest but a 'mutation of the species.' "

"I think the non-profit model has just as good a shot as anything else."

Reporters from America's leading daily press and cable networks flooded into New Haven, Connecticut last week, following the news of the discovery of murdered Yale grad student, Annie Le's body, hidden inside a wall in a campus building where she worked. With the latest development that Raymond Clark III was arrested and charged with Le's murder yesterday morning, the level of attention the story has received from national, as well as international press does not appear to be letting up anytime soon.

Credit goes to the university's own student news website, The Yale Daily News, partner to the college's newspaper,  which has been praised as being one of the best sources for information throughout this tragic series of events, for its unsensational and accurate daily online reports.  In another commitment to journalistic ethics, the New Haven Independent chose not to name suspect Raymond Clark III before he was arrested and charged, referring to him as the "person of interest" instead, and only supplying details that would not lead the public to him.

Following up on an invitation last month, two of the three bidders for the Boston Globe have visited the newspaper in the past week. A group headed by Stephen Taylor, whose family owned the Globe before selling it to The New York Times Co., and Platinum Equity, a California-based firm that recently purchased the San Diego Union-Tribune, met with the newspaper's management team, the Globe reported.

Recent changes to media laws, which have given accredited journalists permission to observe family court proceedings, are causing much confusion within the courts. That there is much uncertainty surrounding the meaning of the laws was demonstrated last week at the family courts at London's Royal Courts of Justice. Journalists were refused entry into the courts as court staff were apparently unaware of the changes to the law, while lawyers and other parties came out as explicitly adverse to press presence.

Late last week, Mediaite hosted its first 'Mediaite Office Hours' session in order to answer to the hostility it was met with during the first week of the site's launch. Senior Editor Glynnis MacNicol and TV Editor Steve Krakauer hosted the one-hour segment. Having only been meant to appear sporadically and unannounced, editor-at-large Rachel Sklar ended up spending most of the hour with the hosts. The motivation of Office Hours is to make Mediaite staffers available to converse with those critics who disapprove of the celebrity journalism obsessed website and tackle criticism head-on.

During the first Office Hours sitting, MacNicol explained that despite all the negative publicity that ensued in the week of the website's launch, not a single critic had emailed to complain to the site. She reported with some satisfaction that the critics have fallen silent since they have complained about everything there is to complain about.

From today, web users will be able to access more than two million pages of 19th and 20th century history by browsing a selection of 49 British and regional newspaper titles, courtesy of the British Library.

Included in the collection are archives from the Graphic, an illustrated weekly publication which ran from 1869 to 1932. Writing on October 13 1888 after the Jack the Ripper murders, one journalist said: "To the general public it is some comfort to reflect that the late atrocities were aimed at a particular class, and that their object was not robbery. Educated persons, who have many interests and subjects of conversation, can, perhaps, scarcely realise the impression made by these occurrences on poor and ignorant people, whose lives are usually monotonous and uneventful."

Yesterday's meeting between Boston Globe management and the Boston Newspaper Guild continued until past midnight and talks are set to resume this afternoon after the parties failed to come to an agreement. The meeting was purportedly about how to implement the 23% pay cut which was imposed last week following the guild's narrow rejection of a package of concessions which had been proposed by parent company the New York Times, but seems to have turned into a negotiation session.

The Globe reported that president of the Boston Newspaper Guild Daniel Totten and other guild leaders brought an offer of resolution to management, which sparked deep discussions over the mix of wage and benefit cuts needed to save the $10 million that the Times company has demanded. Today also sees the start of a hearing before the National Labor Relations Board after the union filed an unfair labour practice charge against management following the announcement of the 23% cut.

Social networking site, Twitter, has confirmed it plans to cash in on its popularity by offering a range of new paid-for business services. Cofounder Biz Stone revealed the company would be going ahead with plans to offer commercial accounts on sale to business customers looking to use a premium version of the site.

Based in San Francisco, Twitter launched in 2006 as a free text service where registered users can send messages of up to 140 characters in length to their network of followers.

The Russian division of Human Rights Watch (HRW) declared that coverage of events in Georgia-Southern Ossetia is breeding "propaganda and disinformation".

Tatiana Lokshina, a HRW spokesperson, said that both sides of the conflict are misinforming the public about the situation.  HRW said that one of the reasons for this is the absence of correct data about the number of victims.

Vsepolog Bogdanov, a member of the Russian Union of Journalists, said that the coverage features opinionated material that is "not information", reported gipp.ru. He mentioned that the situation might get more complicated if instead of a "balanced" approach reporters include one-sided points of view.

Guardian blogger Jack Schofield wrote that Georgia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has resolved to posting information by using Google Blogger. Other blogs include State Minister for Reintegration and Russia and Georgia At War.

Last week, the Georgian military attempted to overtake the pro-Russian Southern Ossetia region. Russia responded by sending its forces into Georgia, reported Reuters. Two Georgian journalists, Alexander Klimchuk, and Grigol Chikhladze, who writes for Newsweek, were killed while reporting the events.

Source: gipp.ru, Reuters, The Guardian, RBC News
See also:
Russia: Authorities call upon national media to abstain from promoting extremism

The Los Angeles Times' monthly magazine is undergoing a series of changes, transferring control from its newsroom to its business operations and replacing its entire editorial staff. Editors and reporters have objected to the proposed changes, fearing that the magazine "would become less a work of journalism than a lightweight vehicle for currying favor with advertisers," writes Richard Pérez-Peña of the New York Times.

Pérez-Peña describes a scene of internal chaos, marked by secrecy - Editor-in-chief Russ Stanton was kept uninformed of the changes - and dissent.

Relying on unnamed LA Times executives, Pérez-Peña says the paper has been planning the makeover for months while concealing the plans from everyone in the newsroom. It wasn't until last week that Stanton and other editors were informed. Stanton has asked the paper's publisher, David D. Hiller, and its president, Jack D. Klunder, to change the name of the magazine - Los Angeles Times Magazine - to avoid any association with it.

The Los Angeles Times has gotten into trouble before for blurring the line between business and journalism. In 1999, editors and reporters protested a magazine section about the Staples Center, a sports arena, after learning that the paper shared the section's profits with the arena, according to Pérez-Peña.

The reformed magazine is due out August or September. Executives have yet to respond publicly to editors' complaints.

Source: The New York Times

How fast is fast in journalism today? Fresh off their creation of the Publish2 Election News Network in Knoxville, Tennessee, Publishing 2.0’s Scott Karp and Jack Lail at Knoxnews.com have set a new base time for launching an innovative feature on a newspaper site: 48 hours from start to finish.   

A week before the Tennessee primary, the two brainstormed about using Publish2, Karp’s Web startup, to aggregate election coverage from around Tennessee and the web, and then post it on Knoxnews.com. Lail suggested recruiting some bloggers from the Knoxville Blogger Network to aid the journalists.

Operating on a principle of “keep it simple,” Lail and Karp had the Publish2 Election News Network up and running in 48 hours, subtitling the webpage as “links to the best election news we can find.”

In an article, Lail called the idea an experiment [that’s] a bit out there as far as “news coverage” of an election.” However, it is an experiment that seems to be paying off.

A key lesson from their experiment is that innovation is faster when it is not centralized.  Jack Lail’s is continuing to experiment with Publish2, but rather than call an editorial meeting for each feature he wanted to add, he made the call individually to incorporate the new feature, in this case, a use of the publish2 bookmarking system to tag other relevant blogs onto an existing story.  

As Dave Cohn points out, “Trying stuff is cheaper than deciding whether to try it.” In other words, it is much more effective to experiment than to remain indecisive and miss the boat.

Two other newspapers, The Herald News in New Jersey and thenewstribune.com in Washington, registered almost immediately to incorporate the Publish2 election service in their respective sites.  Both publications (see photo above of The Herald News site) then immediately began changing and upgrading the service, setting an equally fast pace for innovation.

Sources: Publishing 2.0, Random Mumblings

Editor & Publisher’s Steve Outing collected a series of opinions from newspaper industry specialists, trying to figure out theoretically and practically where newspapers are going, and how to get there.

It’s been a big week for The New York Times.  On the heels of their new multimedia branding campaign, the Grey Lady continues to surprise with their zeal for innovation…or shall I say renovation.

It's not just newspapers and television. Magazines are also fighting to adapt to new media. If they haven't already, newspapers could learn from several developments that took place over the past week in the industry of their smaller cousins, some of which could be used to attract young readers.

Although Jay Rosen's Ghost of Democracy in the Media Machine declared the debate dead in January, the ghost of Bloggers vs. Journalists was haunting the Internet last week, revived by the appealed verdict in the Apple vs. Bloggers case. To the frustration of many, the case's judge, James Kleinberg, did not put the specter back to rest. In fact, the debate may never be buried, according to the Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan who said, "It's a discussion that's never going to have a definitive answer, it seems to me. And, well, does it matter?" Ms. Ryan may have a point. The argument has actually become more complicated, adding to its blogosphere staying power. Now, the question isn't just "Are bloggers journalists?," but "Do bloggers deserve American First Amendment protection?" Here are both sides of the rejuvenated argument from the experts.

Although Jay Rosen's Ghost of Democracy in the Media Machine declared the debate dead in January, the ghost of Bloggers vs. Journalists was haunting the Internet last week, revived by the appealed verdict in the Apple vs. Bloggers case. To the frustration of many, the case's judge, James Kleinberg, did not put the specter back to rest. In fact, the debate may never be buried, according to the Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan who said, "It's a discussion that's never going to have a definitive answer, it seems to me. And, well, does it matter?" Ms. Ryan may have a point. The argument has actually become more complicated, adding to its blogosphere staying power. Now, the question isn't just "Are bloggers journalists?," but "Do bloggers deserve American First Amendment protection?" Here are both sides of the rejuvenated argument from the experts.

Each week, Jack Schafer, Slate, tries to assess the readibility of major English speaking newspapers websites. Last week, he was incredibly negative about the electronic editions of NYT, LAT and WaPo. This week, he is in better mood: "the electronic editions of Florida Today and The Guardian are changing my thinking. The future of newspapering might be closer than I thought. On the surface, Florida Today and the Guardian are very similar to their electronic edition genre-mates. Both display PDF images of each print-edition page; both allow readers to page through the "paper" with mouse clicks, skip forward to a desired section, or zero in on a subject with the search function. What sets Florida Today and the Guardian apart from the pack is the way they preserve the basic navigation principles of a daily newspaper.