Results matching “to drop 51 journalists”

Since 2004, the number of new, "citizen-generated" media and reporters at the US political conventions has significantly increased. It has become more difficult to differentiate between independent bloggers and traditional ones as traditional media is adopting a "multi-platform" method, according to Media Shift's Mark Glaser.

Russian Authorities in charge of mass communication and protection of cultural heritage (Rossvyazkomandzor) called to attention the need for national media to remain within legal boundaries, in light of the recent events in Dagestan when a newspaper was shut down for supposedly promoting extremist views.

Rossvyazkomandzor pointed out that it is necessary that the media conform to the Russian Federation law that dictates that it is forbidden to use "sources of mass information" to release content that contains signs of agitation over social, racial, national or religious backgrounds. If journalists fail to do so and adhere to diffusing extremist content, "steps will be taken", reported gipp.ru.

Nadira Isayeva, editor-in-chief of Dagestan's independent weekly paper Chernovik, was accused of soliciting extremist views and prejudice. The paper quoted guerilla chief Rappani Khalilov, who accused the local the regional authorities in Dagestan and Chechnya of "corruption, robbing his fellow countrymen and enslaving themselves to the Kremlin," reported the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Robert Mahoney, CPJ's Deputy Director, said that it isn't illegal to quote guerilla leaders, mentioning that the authorities should drop the charges against Isayeva and permit her "to work "without fear of retaliation".

"There is no such law in Russia that prohibits quoting extremist leaders, and the quote--as well as the entire article--contains no calls to extremism, does not give a positive image to terrorists, nor does it incite any kind of hatred," said Aleksandr Verkhovsky, director of Sova, an independent Moscow-based watchdog for nationalism and xenophobia.

Source: gipp.ru, CPJ

See also:
Russia: Authorities close Chernovik for extremism

This week, Editor & Publisher announced its 8th annual, "10 That Do It Right," a top ten not for the top ten best newspapers, but for ten who are doing exceptionally well in one particular aspect - from marketing to online video, investigative journalism to interactive features - "that merits consideration and maybe even emulation by their peers."

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Journal Sentinel's top leadership is commited to maintianing their 10-person, investigative journalism team, huge for this economic climate.

Carlsbad (N.M.) Current-Argus

The Current-Argus recently implemented a new recruiting strategy for carriers -- recruit people who don't need the job (but will take it on to earn the extra $500-$700 a month). Not only did attrrition drop from almost 20% a month to nearly zero, but the paper is actually saving money.

Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch

The Times-Dispatch holds regular "Public Square" community discussions and have also hosted eight News Roundtables to hear criticism, observations, and recommendations about the paper's coverage. That's on top of the monthly Listening Tour, when Silvestri and other top executives and editors visit one of its 20 core communities to get to better know newsmakers and readers."

USA Today

USA Today's has created a social media site, "Cruise Log." "Everyone can be an author and distribute content easily, but USA Today adds the judgment and guidance that traditional journalists have always provided."

Las Vegas Review-Journal

The Las Vegas paper has launched hugely successful industry-specific job sites. Almost immediately the sites exceeded revenue projections by about 40%, earning about $40,000 a month. They paid for themselves in the first month, said Chelle Bize, the paper's recruitment advertising manager.

The Huntsville (Ala.) Times

Jon Busdeker and Chris Welch, two A&E writes for The Huntsville Times have developed a comedy routine, of sorts. The Wednesday webcast previews the Thursday addition and helps drive print sales.

"Busdeker and Welch perform parodies of Blue Man Group performances, wield mops as swords to preview movies, and exchange white-trash talking with actors from "The American Trailer Park Musical."

Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald

The Herald recently introduced The Daily Beachcomber, a free tabloid for the Hampton beach season. Hampton's beaches are a big market between the end of the school year and Labor Day. As many as 120,000 show up on a good day; the free paper has turned a 28% profit margin.

Chicago Journal.

"'It's a mix of hard news reporting, a little boosterism, some editorial leadership, some calling people out,' Dan Haley, the paper's founder explained. 'We're not apart from the community, we don't hold ourselves apart or above [it].'"

Haley founded the Journal to provide a voice and shape the identity of the inner-city community that was establishing itself in Chicago.

The Times, Ottawa, Ill.

"Starting a newspaper subscriber loyalty program is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, that's often as much brain power as many papers invest in creating and operating the program." The Times established a unique rewards program that actually works.

Santa Barbara (Calif.) Independent

When newsroom conflicts at the rival News-Press left the Santa Barbara community looking for a new news source, the Indepdendent stepped in. "Since the summer of 2006... the News-Press has slipped in daily circulation to 35,000, while the Independent's audited pickup every Thursday is 40,000."

Source: Editor & Publisher

With the rapid development of new media platforms, newspapers have been at the forefront of pushing through innovative and easily accessible products to satisfy their consumers thirst for twenty-four hour news. This is undoubtedly an exciting time for the newspaper industry, but how do reporters and editors on the ground feel about the changes happening in their industry?

Facts

The National Union of Journalists' survey on this issue in the UK makes stark reading: the introduction of new media has increased the workload for 75% of union members and 16% have received no training at all in new media. Reports have also emerged of journalists who routinely completed three print edition stories a day who are now being asked to provide three multi-media stories a day, with video footage and podcasts. One reporter said: "You would need to be an octopus to be able to do everything they want doing."

Positive Feedback

The survey results are worrying, however, I spoke to sub-editors and received positive feedback about the changes in the industry. Karl Smith, a sub-editor at the Daily Telegraph in the UK - a newspaper that has radically overhauled its newsroom in response to media innovations - who focuses on the print edition, told me that the change has increased dialogue between staff members and that he was comfortable with the changes.

Smith said: "Having the hub in the centre of the office makes the news conferences seem a lot less exclusive than if (as elsewhere) they're in a corner office. The web staff are right next to the print people as well - rather than off in a Siberian corner - making you permanently aware of the web product, even if you're not directly involved in it."

Andrew Higton, a sub-editor at the Daily Mirror in the UK, agreed with Smith's positive feedback. He said that the shift has involved a change in culture but that he has adapted well: he now thinks "print" and  "web" and keeps them quite separate.

Communication is key

I spoke to Mike Van Niekerk, Editor-In-Chief, Online, Fairfax Media in Australia about how he managed his team during the integration process. He spoke bluntly about the difficulties that the company faced in the early days, stating: "About eight years ago, when we introduced online video reporting at theage.com.au and wanted to piggyback on our print entertainment reporters interviewing movie celebrities there was a strong negative reaction. Print staff stopped work for a meeting to reject this approach, and any integration with online in the newsroom. One newsroom leader said, "If I had wanted to go into the TV business I would have joined a television station, not a newspaper"."

Reflecting on these times, Van Niekerk said: "It was entirely our fault for not introducing the changes through proper consultation and explanation, for dealing with the fears - some justified - and misunderstandings of our colleagues."

Lawrence Shaw, an NUJ representative dealing with new media, told me that how media companies are handling their staff through these changes is, "a real issue for the NUJ".  He said: "It is still unfortunate that in many places changes come from on-high with little consultation with staff..."

The lack of communication is not the only problem.

Drop in Standards

A drop in standards brought about by a rush to embrace the new technology is another concerning development at some media organisations. A local newspaper reporter in the North of England reports that he was given a camcorder, told to go into the office broom cupboard, drape some material behind him and simply read his article out straight to camera. Such reports indicate that some media organisations are perhaps missing the point. This new technology can make the news come alive, but it is pointless to use it unless it really contributes to the story.

Moving Forward

I asked Van Niekerk how Fairfax moved past their initial problems, he said: "The most important part of the process has been more effective communication, which is how it should have been from the beginning."

Fairfax Media also utilized the Unions as a method to communicate with their staff.  In 2007, "the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance began to take a fairly pro-active approach to understanding and dealing with the changes. The company's journalists as a whole are now more engaged and finding the rewards of new skills and new opportunities."

Van Niekerk said that it is an ongoing process and that they are still working on it, however, the lines of communication between the newsroom and Editors are now open.

Shaw argues that it is best to deal with staff concerns upfront rather than allowing bad working practices and resentment to set in.

It seems clear that just as there has been a synergy between online editions and print editions with newspapers, there needs to be a synergy between editors and their newsrooms. Communication and training are quite clearly the key, and if handled correctly, it allows the newsroom to focus on delivering the news.

Source: National Union of Journalists - Shaping the Future

Earlier this month, Mayhill Fowler, a citizen journalist, had reported comments made by U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama, describing rural, white voters as "bitter," to Huffington Post's blog "Off the Bus." Guardian America editor Michael Tomasky believes there is a need for blogging rules and questions the ethics of citizen journalism, while Jeff Jarvis of the blog Buzzmachine has similar beliefs as Robert Niles that "nothing is off-the-record anymore" and that citizen journalists are now necessary.

Jarvis: "Openness for all"
Jarvis begins by saying that rules are "corrupting" for journalism. Journalists should not engage in off-the-record talks and list unnamed sources because they should not help public officials hide anything from the public. Though some exclusives may be lost, there will be more stories with more openness and more reporting, "and politicians will learn that anything and everything they say and do can (and should) be reported," according to Jarvis. 

Furthermore, Fowler knew Obama's remarks "would be newsworthy," says Jarvis, and though she is an Obama supporter, she chose to let the public know about those remarks so that they could form their own opinions. Also, even if Fowler did not blog for the Huffington Post, she could have reported the story through YouTube or other platforms.

Essentially, journalism is evolving, says Jarvis, with coverage expanding from journalists, witnesses, readers, bloggers, etc.  "Journalism becomes less of a product and more of a process," he remarks.

Tomasky: "Call them "witnesses" and drop the whole conceit that they're journalists"
Though he embraces blogs, mostly for elevating debate, Tomasky cannot see the importance of knowing every single word public people say, since people misspeak and say things they don't really mean.

He argues that though "rules" may cause corruption and secrets, anonymity is sometimes the only way a source with important information will come forward, for example, the Pentagon Papers and intelligence assessments about Iraq before the war

Also, he concedes that most journalists would not be for "hiding" things from the public, but they would favor verifying something before it is published, which is "scarcely complicity in secret-keeping," but rather,  "just being responsible."

As for the Obama incident, Tomasky points out that Fowler got through the doors because she donated money to Obama's campaign, but "veteran journalists" were not allowed in the door. Had those journalists been allowed, they would not have kept those remarks secret.

Jarvis counters, "There's also a difference between verifying such a tip with reporting - which we'll all agree is necessary - and playing that tape-recording, which itself was the verification anyone needed. Obama's words and voice spoke for themselves."

He says that these "witnesses," or citizen journalists, now start the story with papers expanding on them and doing more in-depth research. Because veteran journalists may not be allowed through the door, they must rely on "witnessing," which "will still add up to journalism in the end."

Tomasky remarks that "it's a little sneaky and sleazy to be a citizen ... and then getting to be a journalist for the purposes of writing it up."

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Though there are economic strains on the journalism industry, Paul Myners, chairman of Guardian Media Group, remarked that journalists are not driven out of the industry, but instead are working on other mediums, such as blogs, radio, and local television, which reinforces a previous statement by Mediashift.

"The type of people doing work which might broadly be described as journalistic, may not have necessarily decreased to the extent of the proportion who are working in the newspaper industry," said Myner.  "Someone who was previously described as a journalist who sat at a typewriter, now podcasts, now speaks to video, now blogs online. It is a more challenging and appealing job.

Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), said otherwise: "The plight of staff in the newspaper industry should not be overshadowed by increased new media opportunities for journalists."

He argued that staff "are spread ever more thinly across more media" and that there are "a lack of resources and understaffing." with a smaller number of journalists trying to deliver more content in more platforms.

Concurrently, the U.S. has suffered the biggest staff drop this year. Our colleague Robb Montgomery from Visual Editors has captured the hard times through images here and here.

However, Myners noted that in the last 12 months, the Guardian Media Group appointed 60 new journalists to its national titles in order to further their digital content, since their readership is moving online. According to Myners, more people read the Guardian's US website than read the print versions in the UK, Guardian.co.uk  was the most popular UK newspaper website in February with 19,519,923 unique users, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCE).

"We have gone from being a provincial newspaper... to an international, liberal voice on the web," he said.

He added that "the proportion of journalists at the Observer and Guardian covering international news has increased."

But Myners cautioned that the declining economy will lead to more regional newspaper mergers and more free sheets, which does not rule out the Manchester Evening News from being completely free in the city center yet being sold on the outskirts.

"It is an economic model which accurately reflects the cost of distribution," Myners said.

However, the freesheet model does not seem to be doing significantly better than traditional newspapers.

Source: Journalism.co.uk ,Press Gazette

The American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) conducted a survey this year that found that newsrooms have encountered the biggest loss of jobs in 30 years and that the percentage of minorities working in newsrooms is still disproportionate to the larger workforce.

The survey found:
- U.S. daily newsrooms shrank by 2,400 journalists in the past year, a "4.4% workforce decrease that's the biggest year-over-year cut in ranks since ASNE began conducting its annual census 30 years ago.
- 52,600 people work full-time in daily newspaper newsrooms. 1984 was the last time that number has been so low at 50,400, of whom 5.75% were journalists of racial or ethnic minorities.
- Nearly 300 fewer journalists of color are working in newsrooms than this time last year.
- But due to the layoffs and hiring freezes, the percentage of journalists of color in daily newsrooms actually grew by a tiny margin, to 13.52% from 13.43% of all journalists.
- "The largest number and percentage of journalists of color are black, with 2,790 or 5.3% of the workforce."
- There are 2,346 Hispanic journalists, 4.5% of newsrooms.
- Asian Americans are 3.2% of newsrooms at 1,692 journalists.
- Native Americans are the smallest minority group: 284 journalists or 0.5% of newsroom employees.
- Men still outnumber women in the daily newsroom by a 63% to 37% margin.
- Minority journalists are more likely to be reporters. Only 11.4% of supervisors are journalists of color.

In 1978, ASNE proposed an industry-wide goal of matching the percentage of minorities working in newsrooms with the percentage in the population large by 2000, which fell short. Its new goal is 2025, though with the current waves of layoffs, this goal may also be hard to attain.

Unity: Journalists of Color, Inc. declared that "the parity goal is effectively dead" and instead, they would focus on creating more diversity from the top by increasing the numbers of minority senior newsroom managers.

"The numbers represent a dual reality: It's mildly encouraging that the minority percentage held steady despite difficult economic times that are causing many cutbacks," ASNE president and editorial page editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Gilbert Bailon said. "On the other hand, the total number of minority journalists employed at daily newspapers declined by nearly 300 people, which follows the pattern for the overall newsroom workforce. Such a trend will not help newspapers in their quest to reach parity with the minority population by 2025."

Also, in its annual conference this week, ASNE gave members in Washington, D.C. directions for lobbying Congress, specifically about the Federal Shield Law. The editor's group provided Web site information, background material, and tips on ways to track down individual legislators to make such lobbying easier, including new documents on the ASNE Free Flow of Information Act page.

David Boardman, editor of The Seattle Times, said "editors are not usually in the lobbying business, but agreed it is an issue so important that it deserved extra attention: Advocacy in support of the First Amendment is entirely acceptable."


Source: Editor & Publisher: here and here

The Project for Excellence in Journalism report on newspapers in 2007 stated, "Newspapers are still far from dead, but the language of obituaries is creeping in." Although there is a problem with declining revenues, there is also a crisis of morale in newsrooms, according to Peter Osnos, Senior Fellow for Media at The Century Foundation. He senses that reporters feel that no matter how good, thoroughly reported, and influential their work is, it isn't going protect the paper.

Osnos believes that reporters are unique in turning what they write about into news and determining how people are informed, a power that bloggers do not have.

According to PEJ, in 2007, the industry had its sharpest drop in advertising revenue since 195 -- 9.4%. On the other hand, on-line revenues are up: representing 7.5% of newspaper ad revenue.

If newspapers do not receive support from advertisers or circulation, they should find other ways. For example, the radio no longer is dependent on the federal government because of underwriting and individual contributors.

PEJ reports that there are a variety of locally based startups emphasizing community news, for example ProPublica and Global News Enterprises, a Boston based Web start-up.

Read more about PEJ's reports:
- Robert Niles' key lessons learned from State of the Media Report
- Journalists cite financial problems as top concern
- Internet is changing journalism

Source: The Century Foundation

A month and half after the launch of Hubdub, we spoke with CEO Nigel Eccles about Hubdub so far, where it's going from here, and how the Hubdub concept might be a ticket to improved editorial quality.

Hubdub is part news, part e-Bay, letting would be news experts make predictions and wager Hubdub dollars about topics ranging from politics and sports, to entertainment and international affairs (see here for a full synopsis of Hubdub). Although the Hubdub team is UK based, the site questions have tended to be U.S.-centric, with politics and sports receiving the most attention. According to Eccles, Hubdub initially peaked with 40,000 unique monthly users, and has now leveled out at 20,000. Around 400 new questions and 2200 predictions are made per week. Popular questions are often ones that will be settled in the short term, with a clear-cut outcome; naturally questions of Spitzer's resignation date flooded Hubdub after the scandal broke.

Overall "the U.S. election has been huge." Case in the point: the current top question is "Will Obama drop out of the race by April 30th?" The presidential race is also a "more liquid and active market," with people tending to make higher wagers on outcomes, because "there's such a big news flow about it."

So who's your typical Hubdub user? As you'd expect, "there's certainly a group of a couple 100 hard core users." Beyond that, visitors to the site tend to split along two lines: "some people tend to focus on question creation... to get onto the [home] page," Eccles said. "Some are focused on the leader board."  Those who make more accurate predictions are ranked higher on the leader board.

As a service that puts citizen journalism in the expert seat, the accuracy rate is an interesting point of discussion. Hubdub doesn't yet have any succinct figures, but Hubdub betting rates are aligning with real life prediction rates. "Whenever we have a question that is one with real money bets, we are generally in line with those, so I would say accuracy should be quite good."

Moreover, Eccles has been impressed with the quality of the comments. "We've really moved to an era where a news organization can't produce a poor quality article and just expect people to accept it." Sometimes, "the quality of the comments is much better than the original article."

Eccles contends that the interest in Hubdub is indicative of readers' desire for someone to "come out and say what's going to happen." And therein rests a potential force to improve editorial quality.

"I've spoken to editors and journalists about this, and they saw this as an opportunity to put some discipline on journalists in terms of making predictions about what's going to happen," Eccles explained. "[The Hubdub model] is quite a good discipline mechanism" as well because it is then possible to see if a particular journalist is making successful suggestions on likely future events.

Indeed, the application of Hubdub's concept to newspapers may not be that far off.  According to Eccles, Hubdub has "very engaging functionality," with around 60 page impressions per unique user. "We would love to distribute that functionality," Eccles said. "[Users] are discussing news content, so we are aiming to take our functionality and let news organizations put it on their site."

This raises the question: is making predictions really the ultimate goal of a newspaper? Although readers may want to see journalists forecast outcomes, that type of outlook leans towards news becoming opinion, which is a concept at odds with the long standing journalism principle of striving for objectivity.

Newspapers still have time to debate; integrating Hubdub functionality within newspapers is still several months off. In the meanwhile, a more simple development will debut within weeks: a widget to place on a website "which shows where the market currently is."

Certainly such a move adds a social dimension to the news, in the same vein of the Twitter effect. Moreover, incorporating citizen journalist opinion can be an excellent way to give weight to a story.

However, there is a risk for a sort of tyranny of the majority. A blogger or journalist might choose to align his or her story with the mass opinion just for the sake of seeming authoritative: a kind of mob mentality for grown-up journalists. It's important to remember that users, while informed, are taking their cues from professional journalists; journalists can't be afraid to contradict majority opinion if that is where their research leads them.

Click here to visit Hubdub.

In an effort to cut spending, the New York Times has frozen new hiring and cut a small amount of newsroom jobs.