Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Small Market hyperlocal
I normally don't get the WSJ, but as I noted in an earlier blog, it came today. As I was finishing dinner, I was perusing through the paper. I stumbled across this article on investors coveting small-market papers.
Umm...
Did the LA Times go out of business? I mean more than its bankruptcy entails. My daily LA Times did not arrive today, but rather a copy of the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper to which I don't subscribe. Did Murdoch take over? How strange....
Monday, April 27, 2009
Latest installment from an ink-stained wretch
From Elsa:
"I thought of you during my late morning coffee and Sunday New York Times routine a while ago. Maureen Dowd has a column, "Slouching Towards Oblivion," which is another piece on the downward slide of newspapers. (Let me digress: as you may already know, the headline is an illusion to Joan Didion's book "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," which is itself taken from the poem "The Second Coming" by W.B. Yeats. Yeats' poem also supplied the title for Chinua Achebe's wonderful book on Africa, "Things Fall Apart," as well as the oft-repeated observation that "the center cannot hold." In any case, I once had a journalism professor at BU who said that anyone who wanted to to learn how to write should study Joan Didion's work. To this day, I consider her to be one of the great essayists of our time, just brilliantly descriptive no matter what she writes.)
Back to the matter at hand. Dowd's column is a reflection on her interview with Phil Bronstein, of the San Francisco Chronicle, and it got me thinking again of newspaper days gone by. Bronstein, as she recalls, was once married to Sharon Stone. I remember attending some newspaper meetings where the major entertainment seemed to consist of reported sightings of the then-happy couple. Similarly, some years before that, a newspaper executive was married to another blonde bombshell, Barbara "I Dream of Jeannie" Eden. Their attendance at a publishers' convention was another example of "ooh, look, there she is!" as they swanned around the hotel ballroom.
Journalists, both then and now, live in a celebrity-loving culture just like everyone else. There's nothing profound in that observation. But I realize that there was also a time when celebrities loved print journalists right back. It was a mutually symbiotic affair. There was many heady days at newspaper conventions when the rich and famous were glad to meet and greet the Fourth Estate and subject themselves to probing questions. In particular, one convention in Denver was a huge success mainly because Warren Beatty and Robert Redford made a swoon-inducing doubleheader on the dais. (Yes, both Beatty and Redford are shorter than they appear on screen, but no one seemed to care. I was in an elevator with Redford at one point, and even in his cowboy boots, he was barely taller than I. But I still remember that he had a golden glow, almost as if he'd been lit from within. Looking at his craggy face now, I realize he just spent a lot of time in the sun. However, I still prefer my honey-dipped memory, complete with a fond recall of my younger self, struck mute with awe.)
Anyway, celebrities--both the Hollywood kind and the ones who lived near the Potomac--got something out of these encounters. They wouldn't have done them otherwise. Newspaper giants like Kay Graham and Abe Rosenthal once opened their grand homes to run the kind of salon that "Salon" can only dream about today. Actors, authors, pols and Supreme Court justices all milled about in style with suitably salivating press lords and ladies. Both presidential candidates and newly elected Commanders-in-Chief felt duty-bound to give keynote addresses to the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the American Newspaper Publishing Association conventions held each April. Now the publishers' trade group is known as the Newspaper Association of America, with the sad but timely acronym of NAA. The American Society of Newspaper Editors bowed to the dwindling revenues among its membership and simply cancelled the convention that should have been held earlier this month.
Like Kay and Abe, the glory days of my journalistic youth are gone. The bold-faced names go on Larry King or Chris Matthews. They have their own websites. They even blog and tweet. Do they need actual newspapers anymore? Neither Maureen Dowd nor Phil Bronstein had an answer for me this morning."
"I thought of you during my late morning coffee and Sunday New York Times routine a while ago. Maureen Dowd has a column, "Slouching Towards Oblivion," which is another piece on the downward slide of newspapers. (Let me digress: as you may already know, the headline is an illusion to Joan Didion's book "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," which is itself taken from the poem "The Second Coming" by W.B. Yeats. Yeats' poem also supplied the title for Chinua Achebe's wonderful book on Africa, "Things Fall Apart," as well as the oft-repeated observation that "the center cannot hold." In any case, I once had a journalism professor at BU who said that anyone who wanted to to learn how to write should study Joan Didion's work. To this day, I consider her to be one of the great essayists of our time, just brilliantly descriptive no matter what she writes.)
Back to the matter at hand. Dowd's column is a reflection on her interview with Phil Bronstein, of the San Francisco Chronicle, and it got me thinking again of newspaper days gone by. Bronstein, as she recalls, was once married to Sharon Stone. I remember attending some newspaper meetings where the major entertainment seemed to consist of reported sightings of the then-happy couple. Similarly, some years before that, a newspaper executive was married to another blonde bombshell, Barbara "I Dream of Jeannie" Eden. Their attendance at a publishers' convention was another example of "ooh, look, there she is!" as they swanned around the hotel ballroom.
Journalists, both then and now, live in a celebrity-loving culture just like everyone else. There's nothing profound in that observation. But I realize that there was also a time when celebrities loved print journalists right back. It was a mutually symbiotic affair. There was many heady days at newspaper conventions when the rich and famous were glad to meet and greet the Fourth Estate and subject themselves to probing questions. In particular, one convention in Denver was a huge success mainly because Warren Beatty and Robert Redford made a swoon-inducing doubleheader on the dais. (Yes, both Beatty and Redford are shorter than they appear on screen, but no one seemed to care. I was in an elevator with Redford at one point, and even in his cowboy boots, he was barely taller than I. But I still remember that he had a golden glow, almost as if he'd been lit from within. Looking at his craggy face now, I realize he just spent a lot of time in the sun. However, I still prefer my honey-dipped memory, complete with a fond recall of my younger self, struck mute with awe.)
Anyway, celebrities--both the Hollywood kind and the ones who lived near the Potomac--got something out of these encounters. They wouldn't have done them otherwise. Newspaper giants like Kay Graham and Abe Rosenthal once opened their grand homes to run the kind of salon that "Salon" can only dream about today. Actors, authors, pols and Supreme Court justices all milled about in style with suitably salivating press lords and ladies. Both presidential candidates and newly elected Commanders-in-Chief felt duty-bound to give keynote addresses to the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the American Newspaper Publishing Association conventions held each April. Now the publishers' trade group is known as the Newspaper Association of America, with the sad but timely acronym of NAA. The American Society of Newspaper Editors bowed to the dwindling revenues among its membership and simply cancelled the convention that should have been held earlier this month.
Like Kay and Abe, the glory days of my journalistic youth are gone. The bold-faced names go on Larry King or Chris Matthews. They have their own websites. They even blog and tweet. Do they need actual newspapers anymore? Neither Maureen Dowd nor Phil Bronstein had an answer for me this morning."
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Baron de Reuter
I made an interesting discovery, Paul Julius von Reuter, Baron de Reuter- the father of the Reuters news agency was one of my peeps.
Friday, April 24, 2009
95 e-ses
We are banging up the proclamation on the digital cathedral of Wittenberg. This is our Digital News Reformation. The catholic news forces ran fat on indulgences of fat profits and unchallenged geographic monopoly and advertising. Beware the Information Reformation that is unleashed. Just as Luther said, you do not need the Church as intermediary to the Kingdom of Heaven, so too we say that no longer are the ink-and-paper old guard necessary to deliver us content on how the world works; no longer are we bound to newsprint for quality journalism. Beware the naysayers who miss the promise and potential of Gutenberg's latest incarnation, the Internet. The Information Reformation is here, and is the 30 Years News War that will follow in wake is growing closer, if it hasn't already arrived.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Ponzi and twitter
Two good pieces from the LA Times op-ed section:
One on Charles Ponzi and the journalists who stopped him. The other by Megan Daum on the inanity of twitter. Full disclosure, I have been slowly getting more addicted to twitter.
One on Charles Ponzi and the journalists who stopped him. The other by Megan Daum on the inanity of twitter. Full disclosure, I have been slowly getting more addicted to twitter.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
O Brave New World
I peer out into a landscape littered with the dying carcasses of news organizations, and the burgeoning lights that are slowly arising in the ever-changing landscape that is ripe with potential and fecund promise. From the 4th floor of Leavey, I am playing flak/matchmaker between GlobalPost and Rotary Books For the World, putting in motion an international news story of global good.
Friday, April 17, 2009
From an ink-stained wretch (part I)
This comes from my cousin Elsa, an ol' school newspapernik:
"It's been a hectic few months, but neither Creed nor I have forgotten you. Creed's use of the internet is nil these days, so I'm the delegated responder on the "good ole days of American reporting." I'll start on the subject for a few minutes now and get back to it over the weekend. (Old reporters never die; they just languish in carpool!).
Okay, well, we really are in the digital age now, aren't we? The newspaper industry that I knew--and certainly the one in which Creed spent most of his professional life--would seem to be the last dinosaur in the swamp these days. At one time, it would have been unimaginable to think of a day when Knight-Ridder would no longer exist, the New York Times would be in great financial difficulty and the Times-owned Boston Globe would be teetering on its last legs. Those of us who toiled in the earlier days of the Fourth Estate all seem to be wringing our hands, wondering about alternative ways to deliver the news in meaningful, profitable ways. Is there a real future for journalism as we knew and loved it? That many of us are pondering the situation in blogs rather than in traditional print is ironic at the very least.
Yet I still believe that the dissemination of news to citizens of a city, state, country, region or planet is vitally important to build, nurture and sustain democratic societies. The form it takes is far less important that the fact that it actually takes place.
More on this later. As "they" say, GTG. Note, though, that this email is not actually reporting at all. As with so much of what you read these days, it is just my own observations and opinions--no more, no less. And therein lies a tale--or my thesis, if you will-- about the dangers of this new age. Who and what can you believe today when you read it with a click of a mouse? Can cyberspace be as trustworthy as the old "final edition" newspaper tossed on your doorstep?"
Thanks Elsa, it is lovely to have some proper perspective.
"It's been a hectic few months, but neither Creed nor I have forgotten you. Creed's use of the internet is nil these days, so I'm the delegated responder on the "good ole days of American reporting." I'll start on the subject for a few minutes now and get back to it over the weekend. (Old reporters never die; they just languish in carpool!).
Okay, well, we really are in the digital age now, aren't we? The newspaper industry that I knew--and certainly the one in which Creed spent most of his professional life--would seem to be the last dinosaur in the swamp these days. At one time, it would have been unimaginable to think of a day when Knight-Ridder would no longer exist, the New York Times would be in great financial difficulty and the Times-owned Boston Globe would be teetering on its last legs. Those of us who toiled in the earlier days of the Fourth Estate all seem to be wringing our hands, wondering about alternative ways to deliver the news in meaningful, profitable ways. Is there a real future for journalism as we knew and loved it? That many of us are pondering the situation in blogs rather than in traditional print is ironic at the very least.
Yet I still believe that the dissemination of news to citizens of a city, state, country, region or planet is vitally important to build, nurture and sustain democratic societies. The form it takes is far less important that the fact that it actually takes place.
More on this later. As "they" say, GTG. Note, though, that this email is not actually reporting at all. As with so much of what you read these days, it is just my own observations and opinions--no more, no less. And therein lies a tale--or my thesis, if you will-- about the dangers of this new age. Who and what can you believe today when you read it with a click of a mouse? Can cyberspace be as trustworthy as the old "final edition" newspaper tossed on your doorstep?"
Thanks Elsa, it is lovely to have some proper perspective.
From an ink-stained wretch (part II)
Elsa's post continued:
"Just a little more before Friday night arrives in earnest....
For instance, back in the day, I was taught that the news pages should be devoted to facts rather than opinion. A news article had a byline, but it was not designed-or allowed--to contain the reporter's opinion. If it did, the piece had to be clearly labeled "Commentary." The traditional "who, what, where, when, why and how" were the building blocks of the story and additional facts were set forth in an inverted pyramid of importance. Your article was incomplete unless it answered all of these questions in a logical fashion, even if meant spending a lot of time, energy and shoe leather doing it. Sources were named whenever possible and two sources were the required norm.
All news stories were edited by someone on the copy desk whose job it was to see that these rules were followed and that the resulting article was clear, concise and grammatically correct. Each individual newspaper of note had its own "Book of Style" and the sine qua non of rules was contained in a little book by Strunk and White called "The Elements of Style." Woe be unto any young reporter who didn't keep a copy of this Bible, copyrighted in 1918, near the closest typewriter.
These things mattered then, and as I'll soon argue, they should matter still. You can ignore them, of course, and still make a pretty good living shouting your opinions-disguised-as-facts online or on the airways. But being a entertainer is not the same thing as being a journalist, and any journalist worth his or her salt never forgets this simple fact. Remaining true to this tradition while changing with the times is at the crux of the dilemma facing news organizations today.
I remember my days on The Philadelphia Inquirer when one of my weekly responsibilities was to receive John S. Knight's Sunday column and to make sure that all of his subsequent corrections were made before publication. The column itself, as well as all of the corrections, came by teletype from Akron, where the great man lived, or from some other dateline where he'd been traveling. It was one of the banes of my existence having to wait until it was clear that no more changes were coming.
Well, one day, as was bound to happen, I let an inconsequential mistake go by. The column was published under the subhead "The Editor's Notebook" rather than the correct "An Editor's Notebook." I simply hadn't caught the error. My immediate boss ran into my office, shouting, "Is John S. Knight THE editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer?" No, I had to admit, that title, in fact, belonged to a man named Creed C. Black (hmmmm). Frankly, I didn't see that it mattered a whole lot. But my boss fixed me with a stare, and through gritted teeth, pronounced that "maybe you know who the editor is, and maybe I know who the editor is, but don't you think that the reader deserves to know, too?"
In some respects, all these years later, I still agree with my younger self, who believed that there were more important things to worry about in life, much less in a daily newspaper. But I also recall my boss' final words on the subject: "Elsa, if the readers can't trust us on this small point, why should they trust us about anything?" And I have to ask, "Why, indeed?"
E.B White got to the nub of the answer, I think, in the last chapter of a revised edition of "The Elements of Style." True reporting, he wrote presciently in 1959, lies in the sublimation of the self:
...to achieve style, begin by affecting none--that is, place yourself in the background........The volume of writing is enormous, these days,and much of it has a sort of windiness about it, almost as though the author were in a state of euphoria........If one is to write, one must believe--in the truth and worth of the scrawl, in the ability of the reader to receive and decode the message. No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence, or whose attitude is
patronizing........Many references have been made in this book to "the reader"--he has been much in the news. It is now necessary to warn the writer that his concern for the reader must be pure: he must sympathize with his reader's plight (most readers are in trouble about half the time) but never seek to know his wants. The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself. Let him start sniffing the air, or glancing at the Trend Machine, and he is as good as dead, although he may make a nice living.
It is mind-boggling to realize that this advice was given decades before the birth of CNN and the need to fill airtime 24/7, much less the advent of the internet, Google, Facebook, blogs or Twitter. That the verb "to tweet" would refer to anything other than a birdcall was beyond the imagination of anyone not engaging in science fiction. Yet E.B White had it exactly right.
More to come (MTK, as we used to write at the bottom of unfinished copy)"
Thanks Elsa!
"Just a little more before Friday night arrives in earnest....
For instance, back in the day, I was taught that the news pages should be devoted to facts rather than opinion. A news article had a byline, but it was not designed-or allowed--to contain the reporter's opinion. If it did, the piece had to be clearly labeled "Commentary." The traditional "who, what, where, when, why and how" were the building blocks of the story and additional facts were set forth in an inverted pyramid of importance. Your article was incomplete unless it answered all of these questions in a logical fashion, even if meant spending a lot of time, energy and shoe leather doing it. Sources were named whenever possible and two sources were the required norm.
All news stories were edited by someone on the copy desk whose job it was to see that these rules were followed and that the resulting article was clear, concise and grammatically correct. Each individual newspaper of note had its own "Book of Style" and the sine qua non of rules was contained in a little book by Strunk and White called "The Elements of Style." Woe be unto any young reporter who didn't keep a copy of this Bible, copyrighted in 1918, near the closest typewriter.
These things mattered then, and as I'll soon argue, they should matter still. You can ignore them, of course, and still make a pretty good living shouting your opinions-disguised-as-facts online or on the airways. But being a entertainer is not the same thing as being a journalist, and any journalist worth his or her salt never forgets this simple fact. Remaining true to this tradition while changing with the times is at the crux of the dilemma facing news organizations today.
I remember my days on The Philadelphia Inquirer when one of my weekly responsibilities was to receive John S. Knight's Sunday column and to make sure that all of his subsequent corrections were made before publication. The column itself, as well as all of the corrections, came by teletype from Akron, where the great man lived, or from some other dateline where he'd been traveling. It was one of the banes of my existence having to wait until it was clear that no more changes were coming.
Well, one day, as was bound to happen, I let an inconsequential mistake go by. The column was published under the subhead "The Editor's Notebook" rather than the correct "An Editor's Notebook." I simply hadn't caught the error. My immediate boss ran into my office, shouting, "Is John S. Knight THE editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer?" No, I had to admit, that title, in fact, belonged to a man named Creed C. Black (hmmmm). Frankly, I didn't see that it mattered a whole lot. But my boss fixed me with a stare, and through gritted teeth, pronounced that "maybe you know who the editor is, and maybe I know who the editor is, but don't you think that the reader deserves to know, too?"
In some respects, all these years later, I still agree with my younger self, who believed that there were more important things to worry about in life, much less in a daily newspaper. But I also recall my boss' final words on the subject: "Elsa, if the readers can't trust us on this small point, why should they trust us about anything?" And I have to ask, "Why, indeed?"
E.B White got to the nub of the answer, I think, in the last chapter of a revised edition of "The Elements of Style." True reporting, he wrote presciently in 1959, lies in the sublimation of the self:
...to achieve style, begin by affecting none--that is, place yourself in the background........The volume of writing is enormous, these days,and much of it has a sort of windiness about it, almost as though the author were in a state of euphoria........If one is to write, one must believe--in the truth and worth of the scrawl, in the ability of the reader to receive and decode the message. No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence, or whose attitude is
patronizing........Many references have been made in this book to "the reader"--he has been much in the news. It is now necessary to warn the writer that his concern for the reader must be pure: he must sympathize with his reader's plight (most readers are in trouble about half the time) but never seek to know his wants. The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself. Let him start sniffing the air, or glancing at the Trend Machine, and he is as good as dead, although he may make a nice living.
It is mind-boggling to realize that this advice was given decades before the birth of CNN and the need to fill airtime 24/7, much less the advent of the internet, Google, Facebook, blogs or Twitter. That the verb "to tweet" would refer to anything other than a birdcall was beyond the imagination of anyone not engaging in science fiction. Yet E.B White had it exactly right.
More to come (MTK, as we used to write at the bottom of unfinished copy)"
Thanks Elsa!
From an ink-stained wretch (part III)
Elsa cont:
"This is not to say that the "new media" is all bluster and fluff. For instance, Katie Couric's campaign-imploding interviews with Sarah Palin were the stuff of legend and great theater. But the theater was in watching Palin, not Couric. It was Palin who made a fool of herself while answering Couric's thoughtful and newsworthy questions. Couric didn't play "gotcha" journalism with the vice presidential nominee: she kept her faith with E.B. White and let Sarah be Sarah. Lucky for all of us (liberal) viewers, Gov. Palin took the ball and ran with it. Couric's interview was just Journalism 101 on the air waves.
You can't say the same for much of what passes for television journalism today. I confess that I watch--and enjoy--the array of nightly shows on cable every night. But to call them "news programs" is to insult generations of hard-working, responsible men and women who have regarded reporting as a noble calling essential to the democratic process. Glenn Beck? Bill O'Reilly? (Or if you're a radio listener, Rush Limbaugh?) These men are not-- in any way, shape or form-- journalists. They are performers in the circus maximus of public opinion.
And lest I leave the left-leaning pundits unscathed, let me add that they can be a sorry bunch as well. I love Rachel Maddow and consider her a breathe of network fresh air. But she and some of her MSNBC colleagues ought to be ashamed of their sniggling, downright puerile puns last week while covering the GOP "tea parties." They might have been privately funny, but in a public forum, night after night after night? As Maddow herself might say: not so much.
Am I just a grumpy middle-aged woman? Maybe so. But I still think a case can be made that old-fashioned journalism has a place--and must have a place--in this digital age. It's clear that journalism schools all over the country are struggling with how to make this happen.
There is a New York Times piece to be published tomorrow on the Sturm und Drang in j-schools across the country. No one, it seems, knows quite how to answer the question "whether journalism in today's world?" I don't pretend to know the one, true way myself.
But surely the answer is not to let the dissemination of news be confused with the daily bulletin board of opinions, gossip, video snippets and what-not that you can find on the air and over the internet. Reading Ashton Kutcher compete with CNN for followers on Twitter can be kind of fun. Seeing Susan Boyle knock 'em dead on YouTube is spine-tingling. But without more--without the facts that flesh out the razzle-dazzle--these experiences simply don't qualify as news. Call me old-fashioned, but in my book, they never will."
"This is not to say that the "new media" is all bluster and fluff. For instance, Katie Couric's campaign-imploding interviews with Sarah Palin were the stuff of legend and great theater. But the theater was in watching Palin, not Couric. It was Palin who made a fool of herself while answering Couric's thoughtful and newsworthy questions. Couric didn't play "gotcha" journalism with the vice presidential nominee: she kept her faith with E.B. White and let Sarah be Sarah. Lucky for all of us (liberal) viewers, Gov. Palin took the ball and ran with it. Couric's interview was just Journalism 101 on the air waves.
You can't say the same for much of what passes for television journalism today. I confess that I watch--and enjoy--the array of nightly shows on cable every night. But to call them "news programs" is to insult generations of hard-working, responsible men and women who have regarded reporting as a noble calling essential to the democratic process. Glenn Beck? Bill O'Reilly? (Or if you're a radio listener, Rush Limbaugh?) These men are not-- in any way, shape or form-- journalists. They are performers in the circus maximus of public opinion.
And lest I leave the left-leaning pundits unscathed, let me add that they can be a sorry bunch as well. I love Rachel Maddow and consider her a breathe of network fresh air. But she and some of her MSNBC colleagues ought to be ashamed of their sniggling, downright puerile puns last week while covering the GOP "tea parties." They might have been privately funny, but in a public forum, night after night after night? As Maddow herself might say: not so much.
Am I just a grumpy middle-aged woman? Maybe so. But I still think a case can be made that old-fashioned journalism has a place--and must have a place--in this digital age. It's clear that journalism schools all over the country are struggling with how to make this happen.
There is a New York Times piece to be published tomorrow on the Sturm und Drang in j-schools across the country. No one, it seems, knows quite how to answer the question "whether journalism in today's world?" I don't pretend to know the one, true way myself.
But surely the answer is not to let the dissemination of news be confused with the daily bulletin board of opinions, gossip, video snippets and what-not that you can find on the air and over the internet. Reading Ashton Kutcher compete with CNN for followers on Twitter can be kind of fun. Seeing Susan Boyle knock 'em dead on YouTube is spine-tingling. But without more--without the facts that flesh out the razzle-dazzle--these experiences simply don't qualify as news. Call me old-fashioned, but in my book, they never will."
The Twitter Battle Book
Reminds me of the Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss. Apparently CNN and Ashton Kutcher are dueling it out for 1 million subscribers on twitter.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Googlesaurus
MoDo meets with the Google Cheney to discuss his waterboarding of the newspaper industry, among other things.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The twitter revolution
A fantastic story appeared last week about the role of twitter in fomenting revolution in Moldova. The story was posted in a comment in my blog in response to a post about Gandhi 2.0, cyber-satyaghraha. The NY Times has another story about the growing use of twitter.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Last one out, turn off the lights...
LA Times op-ed contributor Rosa Brooks had an interesting last column before she bade farewell to the paper.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Ivory Tower next up
"Don't look back, something might be gaining on you."
-Satchel Paige
The next bastion to fall....Higher Ed.
-Satchel Paige
The next bastion to fall....Higher Ed.
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