Results matching “some american j”

In this digital age where technology lends itself to information at one's fingertips, one interactive website shows that American reporters and correspondent wannabes may not find their dream jobs quite so conveniently. That is of course, unless their hometown is Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles or New York.

WANTED Technologies, a site specialized in measuring hiring trends, reports that Los Angeles is by far the most lucrative locality for job-hunting journalists with a total number close to 2,000 who secured jobs in May.  Atlanta and Dallas tied for second place as the safest bets for media related work. Both cities boast 700 sealed deals, with Atlanta's score for supply and demand being slightly higher than in Dallas.

Twenty-five American nonprofit news organisations have decided to come together to form an Investigative News Network, following a three-day conference at the Pocantico Conference Center in New York. Its mission is to aid the work and public reach of its members, and to foster the "highest quality investigative journalism" to hold those in power accountable.

The Pocantico Declaration anticipates an increase in the number of investigative news publishers, and hence seeks to establish "basic shared goals and news values." It identifies several different forms of potential collaboration. Firstly, editorial: meaning that nonprofits could carry out joint accountability projects. Secondly, administrative: organisations could exchange information about organisational functions and even possibly centralise some of these. Thirdly, financial, which could consist either of just sharing information and jointly fundraising, or even of "pioneering new economic models to help to monetize the shared, combined content of the member organizations, in order to achieve a more sustainable journalism.

The American newspaper publisher Gannett plans to get rid of somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 positions, according to an article in today's Wall Street Journal. The job cuts will hit the company's 80 local dailies, rather than USA Today.

Former Gannett editor and reporter Jim Hopkins had previously predicted up to 4,500 slashed jobs on his Gannett Blog. He now says there will likely be 600 actual layoffs as a result of the restructuring, naming July 8 as the axe date.

After the Hartford Courant redesigned its format last September, the response to the front page's new look was extremely negative. The paper's decision to move the nameplate from a traditional, horizontal position to a vertical orientation displeased enough readers that management decided to do something about it.

An informal online poll asked readers to choose their preferred look for the Courant from among three options. The results overwhelmingly favored a horizontal nameplate, and the paper has since reverted to the more traditional format.

The Washington Times is hosting a two-day symposium in New York today and tomorrow to discuss the topic of the 'individuated newspaper.' Peter Vandevanter, vice president of the Denver-based Media News Group, coined the term after researching ways that newspapers can resist the threats of the ailing industry.

"There are two kinds of content now. You choose it, or it's chosen for you. The idea here is self-selection of the news, delivered to any platform, at any time," Peter Vandevanter was quoted saying in The Washington Times today.

The latest issue of Courrier International to hit French newsstands gathers translated newspaper articles themed on the uncertain future of the press. From Washington, in a lengthy set of extracts from the New Republic, Paul Starr makes three strong cases for why democracy will be endangered without a newspaper. He hints that American democracy may already have been slighted seeing that national, regional and local newspapers are dwindling in terms of content they can run since printing costs have caused them to scale back on the numbers of pages they print.

He opens his debate by lamenting the fact that Americans have taken [American] journalism (in the form of a printed newspaper) for granted as newspapers have been such an ''integral part of daily life in America, so central to politics and culture and business, and so powerful and profitable in their own right, that it is easy to forget what a remarkable historical invention they are.''

Adding credence to the notion that more than ever people are relying on the Internet as their primary source of news, the latest poll by Zogby International shows a majority of Americans view the web as the best source of information. When presented with a scenario in which they had to choose only one source of news, 56% of adults picked the Internet.

Where Americans are getting their news on the web is striking. Nearly half said the web sites of national newspapers are important and 43% said the same for national TV sites. Internet-only operations fared much worse. Less than 30% stated that blogs that shared their political views were important, and just 14% said the same for blogs with the opposite political view. And social networking sites? Forget it. Ten percent of adults named Facebook as an important source of news, and a mere 4% said the same of Twitter.

The House of Representatives has passed a bill which intends to give US journalists greater protection from libel cases brought against them under foreign jurisdictions.  If the bill is made into legislation, writers will receive protection under US laws from libel judgments acquired by plaintiffs in foreign jurisdictions.  Those who would benefit from the law are writers, journalists, publishers, bloggers and providers of Internet and computer services.

Under the proposed law, US federal courts would have the right to obstruct any libel judgment in favour of the claimant, if the provisions for the freedom of speech in the respective jurisdiction were deemed "inconsistent with the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States".  

As the world's political and media spotlights focussed on the Iranian elections, the Internet was always expected to play an important role in keeping people up to date with developments, but little did we know the Web would also prove to be the scene of political unrest.

As news emerged that incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had secured 62.6 percent of the 46.2 million votes cast compared to rival Mir Hossein Mousavi's 33.75 percent, tweets started circulating from a section of the country's disappointed and disenfranchised voters.

Emerging from the ostensibly gloomy field of professional journalism is a positive development.  Apparently, graduates from American journalism schools are finding employment in the reporting world. 

The evidence is surmised from studies coming from Colombia University's Graduate School of Journalism.  From the latest class to graduate last month, 64 per cent claim to already having career plans relating to their field, arranged by the end of May.  'Plans' refer to actual jobs, internships, fellowships or continued education.

The city of San Diego is a microcosm of the current battle raging between the new and the old for the headlines of local news. As American cities struggle to maintain their regional papers, online initiatives are springing up to fill the gap left in community reporting.  Now California's second largest city is covered by three reporting projects, functioning on very different business models.   

The classic first: the San Diego Union Tribune is the city's only newspaper, which has an apparently bleak future.  Revenue from advertising has dropped by 40 per cent from 2006.  In March, a buyout shop, Platinum Equity, eager for its first publishing venture, announced that it would buy the paper.  Last month the buyers revealed that 200 of Union-Tribune staff would be made redundant.  However, it seems that the cutbacks at the Union-Tribune have not damaged its online edition, which averages 1.3 million unique visitors a month and racked in an estimated $10 million on $18 million in sales last year.

In an interesting article published on the Guardian Media website, Jeff Jarvis (right) talks about the changing nature of journalism and advertising, with content generated not just by journalists but - thanks to the Internet - also readers.

"Advertising is failure," declares the American journalism professor in his opening sentence, adding that advertising is a last-ditch attempt to win over customers. "The media pray for such failure because it is advertising that will support them," he notes.

The 2009 regular session of the Indiana State General Assembly has passed a bill regulating the rules of publication of government notices in newspapers.  This relates to issues of transparency and accountability- notices include budget figures, other information surrounding the spending of public money and the conduct of government business.  

The legal problems that could arise in the US from newspapers banding together to charge for and track online content have been discussed at some length. The Wall Street Journal has looked at the way that news publishers are seeking inspiration from the way that music publishers collect money every time one of their songs is played in public as they consider how to go about charging online.

Antitrust law forbids competing businesses to attempt to join forces in any way that might limit consumer options. Clearly, if newspapers were to collaborate on price-fixing for online news, for example, it would be limiting. The music industry has managed to fight off claims of anticompetitive practices and managed to preserve its system, according to the WSJ, partly by limiting any single entity's control over access to songs.

As newspapers continue to shutdown, some journalists have managed to stay upbeat during these tough times.

In an extensive article published by the American Journalism Review, journalist Beth Macy describes how her fellow journalists manage to keep good spirits despite the challenging nature of the current economy. Macy, a reporter for the state of Virginia's Roanoke Times since 1989 specializing in matters that concern the 'real-life struggles of ordinary people', still gets "excited" when covering a good story, "even as [journalism] threatens to bail on me."

The Nielsen Company has carried out a 52-nation online survey on whether media coverage of the impending recession was adequate. The general consensus among consumers was that the media did not sufficiently inform the public, according to Nielsen Business Media writer Kenneth Hein.

In every region except Latin America, the percent of people who agreed or strongly agreed that media coverage was inadequate outnumbered those who disagreed by 2-to-1. Consumers were most dissatisfied in Europe and North America, with 48 and 51% respectively agreeing that coverage was inadequate. These are the areas which have been hit hardest by the current crisis.

The American Press Institute prepared a report for last week's newspaper executives' meeting in Chicago in which it assessed the options for paid content and "fair use" fees from Google and other aggregators. Entitled Newspaper Economic Action Plan, the report concluded that newspapers "can make the leap from an advertising-centered to an audience-centered enterprise," and should do so as soon as possible.

The "integrated, five-point" plan provides "models and recommendations for the migration of online content from free to paid" which are "intended for the development of consensus, protocols and technology." The API does not see paid content as the only revenue source that will save journalism, but advocates establishing "a true value for news content online by charging for it" in the first part of its plan: the True Value Doctrine. It recommends that news organisations immediately start a "massive" period of experimentation to find the best way to do this. The report explores three options: micropayments, subscriptions and a hybrid model.

Philly.com will probably start charging for content by the end of 2009, its owner Brian Tierney told Fox 29, a local Fox TV affiliate,  on its 'Good Day Philadelphia' show. Philadelphia Media Holdings owns the Inquirer and the Daily News as well as the city news website.

"I think by the end of this year we'll starting doing what a lot of other newspapers are looking at doing and charging something for it," Tierney said. "We can't spend $53 million on newsroom costs and give it away on the back door in terms of things. There will be a small charge for that."  He added that "I think we have the value there that people would be willing to pay."

According to the New York Times, American television network CBS has joined efforts with live video web site, Ustream, to have its news video content and special reports streamed live on the site, in a bid to draw in a younger crowd.

"Seeking a younger audience more accustomed to watching the news on the Internet than on television," reports the Times, Ustream will show the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, as well as a variety of real-time news reporting and other coverage, including news conferences and speeches.

According to an investigation conducted by Princeton economists Sam Schulhofer-Wohl and Miguel Garrido, print journalists can bask in the knowledge that their work is sill important, the American Journalism Review maintains.  

The spring report, "Do Newspapers Matter? Evidence from the Closure of The Cincinnati Post" found that "even underdogs such as the Post, which had a circulation of just 27,000 when it closed - can have a substantial and measurable impact on public life."  The researchers qualify that the results are "statistically imprecise", but conclude that local newspapers have an important role in the civic life of a community.

UK-based PageSuite, a software development company which creates digital publications, has come up with a new software tool that will enable readers of newspapers on the web to search for key words and phrases. The search results appear instantly highlighted.

Currently, such a function is possible with the website versions of a newspaper, but few electronic titles offer the option. Outside the UK, El País' English-language version, produced in conjunction with the International Herald Tribune, is a good example of a newspaper e-edition where this service is already available.

Advertising Age, an online resource of the news on media and marketing, has concluded that "Print is not aging well. Or, rather, its readers are aging rapidly."  The statement is based on the latest research on the newspaper and magazine industries, conducted by Mediamark Research for Spring 2009.

The research focused on ascertaining the average age of the readership of papers and magazines.  The findings, given the large amount of attention paid to the inexorable rise of digital sources of information- generally thought of as catering to a younger user base, are hardly surprising: readers of the print are getting older.

An investigative citizen journalism initiative was launched last week by the American non-profit news project, ProPublica.  The ProPublica Reporting Network aims to comprehensively track the progress of the US government's Stimulus plan through collaborative acts of information collection, performed by the public and the site's resident journalists.  

Editor and organiser of the project, Amanda Michel described how the project would work:

"By collaborating directly with the public, we aim to deliver a greater range of information. E-mail, cell phones, instant messenger, ProPublica.org and social networking sites such as Facebook are our tools. Questions that hold public figures and those in power accountable are our guides."

Last Monday, a little over halfway into the 62nd Annual Cannes Film Festival, The American Pavilion hosted a panel discussion entitled "It's a Mad, New Media World." The six panelists in attendance were John Horn of The Los Angeles Times, James Rocchi of MSN Movies, Anne Thompson of ThompsonOnHollywood, Karina Longworth of SpoutBlog, and Sharon Waxman of The Wrap. Eugene Hernandez from IndieWIRE acted as the mediator.
 
The subject under discussion was the state of new media and its consequences for print media. Horn from the LA Times boldly asserts his opinion that trade magazines will solely and can only exist online by the end of this year. He sounds astonished when pondering how trade magazines can stay afloat as a print platform. Hernandez declared Horn to be the most powerful journalist on the panel. Hernandez credits Horn with this distinction thanks to the idea that newspapers like the LA Times, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal represent a brand.

A special report by Editor & Publisher has examined the situation which a growing number of American newspaper publishers are finding themselves in: bankruptcy. Amongst those that have filed for Chapter 11 in the US are the Tribune Co., the Sun-Times Media Group and the Journal Register Co.

During this difficult economic period, bankruptcies are increasingly common - in the US, they are up 38% when compared year on year. However, the troubles of the American newspaper industry in general add to the uncertainty surrounding newspaper applications for Chapter 11.