Notes From a New Dean

While the way forward to adequately paid new media is certainly clouded and unsettled, I am confident that this experimental era will achieve a variety of durable, practical paths forward that supplement, or perhaps eventually replace, the financial structures of today's struggling, for-pay news media. Merrill has a tradition of dedication to the intellectual engagement and empowerment of journalism students to explore, reflect and internalize the unvarying fundamentals of quality credible j...

Fears for the Future

Even at my niece's bat mitzvah, a devoted news junkie told me of her fears for the future of news and of her willingness, even eagerness, to pay for quality journalism. Newspaper mogul Dean Singleton, chairman of MediaNews Group, doesn't think media analysts are doing a very good job of separating the two, and as a result are overstating the long-term gloom and doom. In AJR's April/May issue, Managing Editor Jennifer Dorroh reported that the number of newspaper reporters covering the nation...

Letters

If listeners, viewers and readers had more acute critical tWnking skills, I don't think the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner would be the problem AJR Editor and Publisher Rem Rieder (on C-SPAN May 10) believed. [...] I agree there is a problem when things go too far, don't think they did, agree they almost did, and can understand how some folks thought they did.

Correction

Farewell to New Orleans

Some in New Orleans accused him of racism for reporting in a February story that young African Americans were primarily responsible for violence against Hispanic laborers. The words of Balzac and Chateaubriand, read by the flickering light of a candle, the melodies of Liszt and Debussy, absorbed through the silence and humidity of Southern summer nights, sustained Nossiter amidst a city drowning in sadness and nonsense. Nossiter needed the nightly respite after days spent sorting through co...

Documenting the Return of War Dead at Dover

For nearly two decades, Pentagon officials insisted there was no way to allow news coverage of returning American war dead at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware without intruding on the privacy of families or infringing on the sanctity of the mission. Under the revised policy, the immediate next-of-kin of the fallen are asked if they would like members of the news media on hand when the remains of their loved ones arrive at Dover and are transferred to the Air Force mortuary. Journalists atte...

The (Sopris) Sun Also Rises

The death of the Valley Journal was just one of the cutbacks implemented by its owner, Colorado Mountain News Media, which like other media companies is reeling from the financial reversals of the newspaper business. The Sopris Sun, now in its fourth month of publication, has set its sights on the local coverage Carbondale missed when the Valley Journal was gone: community activism, upcoming functions, high school sports.

All a-Twitter

Take 2

Circulation Boost?

W ith the recent technological improvements to and growing popularity of devices like Amazon's Kindle, some newspapers are turning to easy-to-carry electronic readers as a way to attract and keep subscribers while cutting back on print and delivery costs. (Amazon does not share its subscriber numbers, says Kinley Campbell, an Amazon public relations assistant.) In Detroit, the hope is the electronic edition will allow the papers to cut costs while holding on to valuable subscribers.

A Legendary Adjective

Chicago Tribune) "The Chip' is famous for its 17,000 acres, 200 miles of undeveloped shorelines and legendary musky fishing" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) "Broadway series includes legendary Topol in 'Fiddler'" (Spokane's Spokesman-Review) "Starbucks to Shutter Legendary (Sort Of) NYC Location" (Barron's "Stocks to Watch Today") "Depeche Mode has legendary music, but not famous faces" (USA Today) "Legendary spy Charlie Allen knows the CIA's secrets" (U.S. News & World Report

Before Deep Throat

In the book God and the Editor published this year, Phelps writes of the episode: Because he had to leave for Yale Law School the next day, Smith didn't have time to check out Gray's leads. [...] while I can still picture the debriefing, my memory is fuzzy on the crucial point of what I did with the tape.

Cities Without Newspapers

What the newspaper industry faces is less imminent death than the specter of being mostly dead, of chopping staff and resources to the point where they sacrifice exactly what makes them so special: their coverage of courthouses and statehouses (see "Statehouse Exodus," April/May), their role dispensing information and facilitating community dialogue, their journalists' time to do basic beat reporting so they can write about issues intelligently. [...] the online startups expand-if they do-th...

The Twitter Explosion

[...] a Twitter backlash is in full swing; no less than the likes of Maureen Dowd, Garry Trudeau and "The Daily Show" have made fun of this latest media obsession. [...] Twitter can be a serious aid in reporting. By seeding and pruning her "following" and "followers" lists on Twitter, blogger Nancy Shute of USNews.com has assembled her own interactive community of thought leaders, expert sources, fellow journalists and just plain folks interested in her specialties, science and medicine.

A Porous Wall

Is this a sign of things to come or simply a misstep as newspapers seek to redefine themselves as economically viable? "There's so much economic pressure, it seems everything is on the table," says Andy Schotz, chairman of the Society of Professional Journalists' ethics committee and a general assignment reporter for the Herald-Mail in Hagerstown, Maryland. There was a time when advertisements on the front page of a newspaper were anathema, when the separation between marketing and editorial...

Hunkering Down

[...] you psych yourself up, because there are fewer people telling these stories, which means there are even more reasons for you to get out there and do them. Because Nutt came to the profession later than most - at 54, she's worked for newspapers for 12 years - she retains an enthusiasm unusual for many staffers her age.

Stopping the Presses

[...] I'm not sure I'm recommending it now. (Actually, in 2008 online revenue for newspapers shrunk slightly and likely will this year due to the economy, but the drop in print revenue is far more precipitous and permanent.) A new generation of user-friendly portable devices such as the iPhone and Kindle have accelerated the demand for mobile, digital content.

Extreme Makeover

Turn on a local television newscast almost anywhere in the country and you'll see pretty much the same thing: a male-female anchor team delivering the news from behind a desk on a studio set. The newscast's ultimate goal is to attract the younger viewers who already watch the station's prime time lineup from the CW network (home to "Gossip Girl") but who don't tune in to local TV news "because it doesn't speak to them," as Kane puts it.

Off the Bus

Unlike the reporters profiled in "The Boys on the Bus," Timothy Crouse's memorable look at election reporting in 1972, Boehlert's cast of bloggers rarely saw, much less spoke to, a live presidential candidate. The likes of Robert Greenwald, Hollywood television producer turned viral video maker; Joe Anthony, a paralegal whose Obama MySpace fan page drew 160,000 friends; the "slightly rebellious, unrepentant minister's daughter" Jane Hamsher; the former professional saxophonist John Amato; ex...

Not Dead Yet

[...] the only thing notable about these closings (pale versions of the Seattle and Tucson papers continue online) is that the papers lasted as long as they did. [...] smaller dailies operate in less complex and competitive markets compared with large dailies.