Biased and In Love

I admit: I was pretty disheartened when I saw this piece in Gawker yesterday, because yesterday happened to be the day I moved back into Harvard—a day I had been looking forward to partly because of the Crimson.

Nolan writes that college papers are losing money, and there’s a way to save them: “Don’t save them!” Most college papers publish content online anyways, and if print editions are only eating up money, then why bother? he asks.

But I think Nolan is rash to ask, “why the fuck is it necessary for a college paper to publish a print edition at all?” Yes, print may not have the flexibilty and comprehensiveness of the Internet, but that’s no reason to completely shut down the presses. As Nolan himself writes, college papers are for “training purposes”; so profitability shouldn’t be an essential part of the equation. If college papers can afford it, I think continuing print editions is a good thing—where else can you learn to be extra careful, knowing that your words cannot be changed with one simple click of the “delete” button? Where else can you learn to visualize the physical display of the news? An article can appear in print and on the web, but what you’ll get are two very different entities.

Yes, I believe web journalism is necessary, but it’s not all-encompassing. Also, Nolan might want to think of some better parting words. — EIY

KILL THE COLLEGE NEWSPAPER By Hamilton Nolan, Gawker, Sept. 8, 2008

My only experience on a college newspaper was a mandatory one-semester period, the highlight of which was the adviser rejecting most of my stories for not being “serious” enough, and telling me menacingly, “People who work with me tend to do better professionally.” (Confidential to that lady: Suck on the splendor of my cramped studio apartment, yea!). Some people parlay the editorship of their school papers into a nice journalism job—for example, every last employee of the New York Times was once editor-in-chief of the Harvard Crimson. Which is fine! Although it does increase your risk of being kind of a twit. Now college papers, like real papers, are having serious financial troubles. How to save them? Don’t save them!

The University of California- Berkeley and Syracuse University both had to cut their print papers back to four days a week recently, since they were losing money. Howard University had to stop printing its daily paper completely for several months earlier this year, until it was bailed out to the tune of $48,000.

Of course, all these papers continued to publish online. The editor of the Syracuse paper said that “online readership was as high as it usually is” even when print publishing got cut.

To continue reading, visit: Gawker.

Wise One: Josh Benton (On his job and ours)

Benton talked about his gig at the Nieman Foundation and touched on a key reality about who future journalists will be.

I would say our primary focus is in the area of established news organizations and helping them adjust. But we’re open to the reality that a fair amount of journalism as we’re going forward is not going to be done by professional journalists. It’s going to be done by smart people who just do it on the side, do it as a hobby, do it as a side job, do it because they care a lot about the subjects that they’re writing about. So that challenges, but it also presents an enormous opportunity. Our interest is to make sure that journalism is done by somebody—whoever that somebody is.

But if we don’t have people who are just journalists, whose sole interest is understanding and articulating truths, what kind of journalists do we have? Do we enter a world without adequate scrutiny of everything in it, without a channel to expose unseen misfortunes and unheard voices?

Benton described his picture of the future as presenting great opportunity. Maybe we enter a world where we are all reporters and all things become journalistic subjects. Maybe this will mean the broadest possible reach of coverage, and the most intimate understanding of stories by those who tell them.

Do we need professional journalists in a world of citizen journalism? Can the two complement each other, or will the latter turn the former into a superfluous remnant of the olden days?

I’m hoping for a world where we’ve got jobs. –BIM

The Old Media, It is A-Changin’

At the Democratic convention in Denver next week, hundreds of bloggers can camp out in a two-story facility sponsored by Google Inc., reports the Wall Street Journal. For a $100 fee, bloggers can enjoy the curiously diverse features of the “Big Tent”: Internet access, workspaces, massages, smoothies, and, of course, a candy buffet. Swanky.

But Megan Garber of the Columbia Journalism Review takes case not with Google’s transparent act of generosity but rather with the WSJ’s description of the Big Tent. With an indulgent use of mocking capitalization, Garber admonishes the WSJ for treating bloggers as “some kind of separate species of journalist, sequestered from the rest of the pack in their own little blogospheric biosphere.” Are bloggers really any different from print reporters? What is suggested by the fact that this “Onion-esque Article of the Day” is devoted entirely to this little blogging haven?

These questions raise the issue of the division between the so-called “old” and “new” media, and considering the hard times currently plaguing the world of print news, is it in journalism’s best interests to stubbornly uphold this dichotomy? As Gerber points out, few news outlets can be considered entirely “old media” at this point, obviating the “blogger-as-other treatment” in the WSJ article. The time frames are coalescing—and journalism can, and should, still move forward. — EIY

GOOGLE WILL OFFER SERVICES FOR BLOGGERS AT THE CONVENTION By Amy Schatz, The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 19, 2008

WASHINGTON — Google Inc. will help set up a two-story, 8,000 square-foot headquarters for hundreds of bloggers descending on the Democratic convention in Denver next week, and it will offer similar services at the Republican convention in September, as new media gain influence in politics.

Four years ago, Google wasn’t a significant presence at the Democratic and Republican conventions. Its high-profile presence at both conventions this year mirrors the growth of new media, which will provide their takes on events and compete with established media companies via Google’s YouTube video site and other social-media outlets.

With its financial support for the “Big Tent” blogger facility at the Democratic convention, Google stands to gain exposure and goodwill from 500 or so bloggers who paid $100 for access to the facility, run by a coalition of bloggers. Google’s software and services will be featured, including a kiosk in the public area of the tent where anyone can post videos on YouTube.

To continue reading, visit: The Wall Street Journal.

Almost Journalists

Why do we need journalists? Real journalists, that is, who do nothing else and who have no other motivations but purely journalistic ones? We might forget that there are “almost-journalists” out there who are reporting for the sake of hunting and gathering: lawyers, researchers, non-profit organizations, etc. As Dan Gillmor points out, they do some of today’s most valuable journalistic work. But what are the implications for the news-media world? And where does all this leave us, the aspiring kiddies who hope to get real journalism jobs in the not-too-distant future? Read what he says, and then let’s hear from you. — BIM

HELPING THE ALMOST-JOURNALISTS DO JOURNALISM
By Dan Gillmor, Center for Citizen Media

Doing journalism at its most basic level is a combination of two essential tasks. The first is reporting — gathering information via research, interviews, etc. The second part is telling your audience what you’ve learned — writing (in the broadest sense, including video, audio, graphics and more) and editing.

The demolition of the professional journalism business model has led to a sharp decline, one I don’t see slowing anytime soon, in traditional media. Many people in the field have been asking an obvious question with a not-so-obvious answer: Who will do the serious journalism we need in the future?

I have another question that will lead us to an answer. Not the answer, but one strong possibility — if we start thinking about, and helping, the “almost-journalists” among us to do actual journalism.

To continue reading, visit: Center for Citizen Media

“If you don’t love it, get out now.”

It’s a strange balance. On one hand, my Crimson colleagues and I subconsciously consider the final product—the result of late nights, minor freak-out sessions, and cold pizza in the newsroom—to be the folded paper tucked into the drop boxes of dorm doors all across campus. On the other hand, we are constantly refreshing our website with to-the-minute updates, creating picture slide shows, and uploading podcasts—all content that often do not make the physical page.

So what exactly do we consider “journalism?” Perhaps, as former Modesto Bee copy editor Nic Roethlisberger suggests in this sobering look at the changing nature of the newsroom, journalism is not the product as much as the constant dialogue of information. The layoffs and buyouts racking newspaper industries all across the country are testament to the hard competition created by the immediacy and range of capabilities of the Internet—perhaps it is time that college newspapers follow suit before we compromise our reporting. Sure, we don’t really produce to sell, but that’s no reason to halt better, more comprehensive journalism. —EIY

PARTING THOUGHTS: NIC ROETHLISBERGER
By Nic Roethlisberger, Columbia Journalism Review, July 25, 2008

I thought I loved journalism. The excitement of being in the middle of a fast-paced newsroom, the responsibility of shaping the daily paper, the camaraderie I shared with my co-workers. But I was wrong; I only liked journalism. And, sadly, that isn’t enough anymore.

My newspaper career started a decade ago with my realization that being an engineering major was a nightmare, and ended with the thought that maybe I should have given that 8 a.m. chemistry class a second chance. In my decade of reporting and editing I’ve covered local theater, helped edit an English-language newspaper in Cambodia, and worked with hundreds of wonderful people throughout California. But decisions made many pay grades above mine, and a radically changing media landscape, made the idea of continuing to work at a newspaper a depressing proposition. So I decided to take a buyout from The Modesto Bee and try my luck with law school. The decision to leave wasn’t easy but is looking better by the day. In the two months since I left, there have been layoffs at McClatchy Newspapers and talk of printing the Bee in Sacramento to save money. I can’t help but worry that more layoffs and further radical changes are in store for my friends who still toil away in the industry.

To continue reading, visit: Columbia Journalism Review.

Wise One: Josh Benton

We picked the brain of Harvard Nieman Foundation’s Josh Benton, an insightful guy who makes us feel embarrassed that we think fedoras are cute. Here’s a highlight of the conversation, with more words of wisdom on the way in the weeks to come:

If you’re 20 and you think, ‘Man I want to work for a newspaper,’ that’s your mindset and that profession has become a lot less attractive over time. That profession tends to attract people who want to wear a fedora with a press card in the brim…and sort of live the classic newspaper life. And I know a number of people that said they’re disappointed with the 22 year-olds or 23 year-olds they hire. Sometimes they don’t want to do video, they don’t want to try different kinds of approaches, and instead they want to, you know. They don’t want to work for the website, they want to work for the newspaper and be printed on dead trees everyday. So yes, newspapers have not managed as well. Although there’s some limit to how they could have managed it in a perfect world. But they’re counting on your generation to fix it.

Benton is the director of the new Nieman Digital Journalism Project at Harvard. Both the name and the program itself are still in the works, said Benton, but his goal is set. He wants to navigate the news industry’s radical changes—in the newsroom, in the boardroom, and online. Before taking up the project, he was a Nieman Fellow from the Dallas Morning News. Back in college, Benton was the Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Herald. -BIM

Lost Media, Found Media

At the Nieman Conference, Alissa Quart is struck by the tension between the old news-world order and that of the future. As print journalism grapples with its gloomy economic reality, blogging is booming. Quart considers the tug of war between what she calls “Lost Media” and “Found Media.”

We find this article particularly relevant as we kick off our excellent adventure in blogging. We like to think of ourselves as Lost Media gals born into a Found Media world. We can’t help swooning over the romantic old days of journalism—from late nights hunched over a typewriter while swigging coffee, banging out those last few grafs before your editor beats you senseless with the golf club he keeps in his office…to those adorable fedoras we pop on now and then with some hope of looking trendy. Anyhoo, we like that Lost Media style. It gets our blood pumping. And the thrill is literally tangible: you get to hop over to the bodega on the corner the next morning, pick up the paper, and hold your byline in your hand. Yet here we are, blogging. It’s immediate, it’s democratic, it’s how media finds itself in a world lived on screens and because of what’s shown on them. How can we reconcile Lost Media and Found Media? How can we navigate these two worlds in a way that draws upon the best of both to pursue high quality and accessible journalism?
— BIM

LOST MEDIA, FOUND MEDIA
By Alissa Quart, Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 2008

If there were an ashram for people who worship contemplative long-form journalism, it would be the Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism.

This March, at the Sheraton Boston Hotel, hundreds of journalists,
authors, students, and aspirants came for the weekend event. Seated on metal chairs in large conference rooms, we learned about muscular storytelling (the Q-shaped narrative structure—who knew?). We sipped cups of coffee and ate bagels and heard about reporting history through letters and public documents and how to evoke empathy for our subjects, particularly our most marginal ones. As we listened to reporters discussing great feats—exposing Walter Reed’s fetid living quarters for wounded soldiers, for instance—we also renewed our pride in our profession. In short, the conference exemplified the best of the older media models, the ones that have so recently fallen into economic turmoil.

Yet even at the weekend’s strongest lectures on interview techniques or the long-form profile, we couldn’t ignore the digital elephant in the room. We all knew as writers that the kinds of pieces we were discussing require months of work to be both deep and refined, and that we were all hard-pressed for the time and the money to do that. It was always hard for nonfiction writers, but something seems to have changed. For those of us who believed in the value of the journalism and literary nonfiction of the past, we had become like the people at the ashram after the guru has died.

To continue reading, visit: Columbia Journalism Review.