According to MSNBC’s Ned Resnikoff, systematic usage of paid internships disproportionately shuts out working-class and lower-middle-class writers from journalism careers. Do you agree?
This is a definite issue for young journalists — though not across the board. Many newspapers, for example, offer paid internships, and when I started in the industry, I was lucky enough to get a temporary job that was paid. (Magazines, traditionally, are less likely to offer paid internships.) So I definitely feel for journalists struggling to make a career out of this. Good on The Ed Show for raising the issue, though the next question is, what are NBC’s own practices on the matter? — Ernie @ SFB
Speaking on behalf of the White House Correspondents Association, I can say a broad cross section of our members from print, radio, online and TV have today expressed extreme frustration to me about having absolutely no access to the President of the United States this entire weekend. There is a very simple but important principle we will continue to fight for today and in the days ahead: transparency.Fox News White House Correspondent Ed Henry • Speaking on behalf of the White House Press Corps, expressing the group’s frustration at being given limited access to President Obama before/during/after his weekend golf game with Tiger Woods. The White House has defended its handling of the press pool, saying that officials’ actions were consistent both with previous presidential golf games and what was promised to reporters who traveled to Florida last week. source
The BBC recently brought on Jeff Jarvis to talk about Facebook’s recently-disclosed hacking incident, and Jarvis spent three minutes laying into his interviewer. “This is irresponsible journalism,” he says in the clip above, “This is crap… There’s no story here. This interview shouldn’t exist. I said that to your pre-interviewer, I’ll say it to you, you’re just causing a panic and there’s no reason for it. Answer me that, please.” Protip: Don’t piss off Jeff Jarvis.
Once everyone was on Twitter, everyone’s problems were on Twitter. The early adopters might have been tech-utopians, but the succeeding waves were angry cynics and partisan cranks who used the technology to make the world even louder and worse than it was before Twitter.
Compounding the problem is that — unlike everyone else — if you work in journalism, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. Being on Twitter is now part of the job, meaning that you can’t not be on Twitter. What was once an inspiring place that gave you a competitive advantage became a prison.
Twitter has become like high school, where the mean kids say something hurtful to boost their self-esteem and to see if others will laugh and join in. Aside from trolling for victims after some tragedy, Twitter isn’t used for reporting much anymore. But it is used for snark.
The existence of Twitchy, which is the toilet of the internet, basically validates Matt K. Lewis’ entire point here. – Ernie @ SFB
Via corybe:
Most newsrooms know that mobile is growing fast. Everyone can see mobile usage (phones and tablets) creeping up on their desktop numbers. For example, The Guardian recently said mobile visits hit 35%, outpacing desktop at certain hours of the day. A growing handful of media brands — including where I work at Breaking News — have watched mobile soar over desktop in audience. And we’ve all seen the stories about the unprecedented growth of tablets, the fastest-growing product in the history of consumer electronics.
Soon, mobile will be the primary way people get their news.
If that’s really the case, then why isn’t mobile dominating journalists’ discussions on Twitter? Packing sessions at journalism conferences? Sitting at the top of “most popular” story lists on journalism blogs?
I have a few theories:
Cory Bergman is the general manager of NBC News’ Breaking News and points to social media’s ease of use; the overall newness of mobile as a form factor for delivering news; and the potential threat mobile poses for advertising dependent organizations among other factors that many news organization have been slow to enter mobile.
Read through for his explanations of each.
See also Jason Pontin’s great article from last year in Technology Review about why publishers don’t like apps. This isn’t to say they don’t like mobile. Instead, Pontin explains why TR ditched their native app in favor of HTML5.
Will we reach a point where journalists start designing for mobile-first instead of mobile-option?
mickulty-deactivated20130304 asks: 'Another of DiManno’s awful ledes from this week:' - *leads
» SFB said: That was intentional. In newspaper vernacular, it’s lede, not lead. — Ernie @ SFB
The Daily Show investigates investigative reporters
Holy shit. This is the most biting and scathing thing I’ve seen in some time. Wow. Everyone in a journalism school needs to see this. The news industry is awful. This is depressing. Watch this.
Spot-on satire. Too spot-on, unfortunately.
CBS has nothing but the highest regard for the editors and writers at CNET, and has managed that business with respect as part of its CBS Interactive division since it was acquired in 2008. This has been an isolated and unique incident in which a product that has been challenged as illegal, was removed from consideration for an award. The product in question is not only the subject of a lawsuit between Dish and CBS, but between Dish and nearly every other major media company as well. CBS has been consistent on this situation from the beginning, and, in terms of covering actual news, CNET maintains 100% editorial independence, and always will. We look forward to the site building on its reputation of good journalism in the years to come.A statement from CBS Interactive • Given to Ad Age following the news that reporter Greg Sandoval resigned from CNET after the publication was forced to retract an award nomination for Dish Network’s “Hopper,” which allows end users to skip commercials easily. (CBS and Dish are embroiled in a lawsuit over the device.) Anybody else more than a little concerned by the fact that CBS doesn’t seem to understand why this cast a negative light on the journalistic integrity of CNET? source
While Twitter’s Turks will help bring much-needed context to the platform, they’re not journalists who verify whether something is true. As we’ve seen with the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut and Superstorm Sandy, Twitter rumors ran rampant. Some rumors turned out to be true, but many were inaccurate or even malicious. Some were important, others were trivial. At Breaking News, we rely on experienced journalists (that’s one of them, Stephanie Clary, above) to verify real-time reports and prioritize their importance. We also add context, associating reports with ongoing stories, topics and locations. But accuracy and importance — along with speed — are the essence of breaking news for any news organization.The Breaking News team to Twitter: Your Mechanical Turk team can’t compete with our actual journalists.
Wrote a thing.
Hat tip to this headline writer.
Congrats Tumblr!
Don’t screw this up Yahoo.
In 2007, I was...
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More than a year and a half later, it’s clear the New York Times’ paywall is not only valuable, it’s helped turn the paper’s subscription dollars, which once might have been considered the equivalent of a generous tithing, into a significant revenue-generating business. As of this year, the company is expected to make more money from subscriptions than from advertising — the first time that’s happened.Bloomberg’s Edmund Lee • Discussing the success of the New York Times paywall, which has done something very surprising — it’s allowed the New York Times to make more than half of its overall revenue from subscriptions, rather than the traditional 80 percent advertising/20 percent subscriptions balance that has traditionally defined newspapers. That’s good for a number of reasons, with the biggest being that the New York Times is no longer as overly reliant on ad dollars to sell its news. That’s an awesome spot for the Times to be, but the real question: Does that mean anything for papers that aren’t the Times, which may be a tougher sell than a paper of record?
[Ryan] Lanza’s ability to post about his innocence, and mine to see it and relay it to people, is only a social media success story if you don’t question the necessity of dragging an alleged suspect’s possible Facebook profile into the limelight where he’ll be called a mass murderer of children. Other than that, yeah, tweeting’s fun.
I am Facebook Friends with Ryan Lanza, Which Became a Problem — Matt Bors (via susie-c)
I wrote a FB comment on this issue yesterday, part of which I think is relevant to Bors’ situation:
“I’m reminded of the case of Richard Jewell, the man who found the bomb on the grounds of Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta in 1996. He found the bomb minutes before the 911 call was made, only to find himself the target of an intense trial by media — a case which, by the way, led to a number of libel suits, including against The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Jewell died at a fairly young age, the victim of significant health issues which likely weren’t helped by his media ordeal.”
“What happened yesterday with Ryan Lanza was like the entire Richard Jewell ordeal, compressed into two hours. That is not healthy for our industry nor is it something that we got into journalism school for.”
Sunday’s New York Times front page does something the paper of record has rarely, if ever, done before: It leads with a black box rather than an image, with zero photos taking up the top half of the page. It also downplays the suspect significantly. (ht @thomaskaplan)
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