Snow Storm!

Read the article here

In this article, they compare the weekend storm in New England to Hurricane Irene, which happened over the summer. The writer says that the storm this weekend had a greater negative impact on Mass and the surrounding states than the Hurricane did. People were trying to cancel Halloween! Or at least postponing it. Both Hollis, NH, and Brookline, MA, have postponed trick-or-treating until November 5th.

Looks like we could have quite a Halloween feature on our hands with the storm! My neighborhood wasn't very effected; however, I'll be interested to see how many trick-or-treaters I have this year.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Social Media and how you must write carefully if you want to be taken seriously

Last week in class we were discussing some of the rules and guidelines for us to follow as journalists in the social media.

I found it really interesting how it changes the way you say things when you’re a public figure compared to when you are a simple no-body who simply may, or may not, have an opinion on certain subject.

I’ve been using facebook and twitter for quite some time now and use them for two very different things. However, now that I’m studying journalism I find myself more and more aware of what I write and conscious of the possible effects it may have on the people who reads me. I didn’t care before, but now I think there’s a world of possible readers out there who may one day come across one of my comments and it could possibly have an impact.

Now, the things I say suddenly got a different weight. A friend of mine, journalist, who’s got her own twitter account and blog asked me to participate with her on her blog. She is a well know journalist and her blog has received many awards. I accepted gladly, but when I started writing for her, the things that I would have usually written on my own blog, or just for myself, I found it so much more difficult and I started asking myself why? Well, it is simple. Because now I was writing for a larger audience, but wait, the audience could’ve been just as large before, after all my blog is public and my twitter account is too, so why the distinction? Because now I am aware of the fact that there will be hundreds of eyes reading and scrutinizing my opinions, thoughts, reports, investigations, etcetera. Just like I am one of those readers who not only casually but rather regularly read her blog because I know I will find something of my interest there. And that made the whole difference. So I backed up and told my friend to wait until I had taken some baby steps in learning how to handle myself as a public writer, how to write for larger audiences and learn how to be more factual and less opinioned. That’s when I gained conscience that once you put something on the web it can last forever in the cyber space, so you better be cautious of what you say and how you say it if you want to be taken seriously when you build yourself a name just like she has.

For that and many other didactical reasons I found this book very useful for those who, like me, are still learning and/or in the process of becoming journalists. From the American Society of News Editors, the book 10 Best Practices for Social Media.
Helpful guidelines for news organizations. By James Hohmann and the 2010-11 ASNE Ethics and Values Committee.
From which I’m taking the key guidelines to share them with you:

1. Traditional ethics rules still apply online.
2. Assume everything you write online will become public.
3. Use social media to engage with readers, but professionally.
4. Break news on your website, not on Twitter.
5. Beware of perceptions.
6. Independently authenticate anything found on a social networking site.
7. Always identify yourself as a journalist.
8. Social networks are tools not toys.
9. Be transparent and admit when you’re wrong online.
10. Keep internal deliberations confidential.

David Carr Interview on Fresh Air

I was listening to NPR's Fresh Air the other day, and heard Terry Gross interview David Carr, media columnist for the New York Times.

Carr, one of the journalists followed in the media documentary Page One (just released on DVD), had a lot to say about journalism. One thing that resonated with me: listen to your sources. Let them tell you what the story is going to be--don't tell them. It's easy to want to force your story into some pre-determined shape. But if you keep it fluid, your sources will reveal what the true story should be. Listen to them.

Carr also touched on the value of Twitter, though "less as a megaphone and more [as a listener]." Either way, social media sites (and digital journalism in general) provide so much information--so quickly--that it's hard these days to debate their sheer power in the field.

Gross seemed to have a good time talking to Carr. His raspy voice and straight-shooter attitude made for an engaging interview.

A Tweeting Traveler

Lauren's post made me recall a Twitter Boondoggle story that I thought would be fun to share. My friend Martha writes for magazines as varied as Travel & Leisure and More and has published a couple of books. She has 987 Twitter followers. One afternoon last winter from her NYC apartment, she tweeted something along the lines of, "Citarella or Fairway? What should I have for dinner?" One of her followers, a man she didn't know responded something along the lines of, "Citarella. Try the sweet potato raviolis with vodka sauce." Well, a Twitter chat ensued. It turns out he manages spectacular properties in the jungle in Mexico. If Martha would tweet a few times about her vacation to Mexico she and her family and friends (total of 8 people) could stay there for a week free--all she had to pay for was airfare. So this struggling writer got a family vacation for free because of Twitter. Not a bad outcome from indecisive dinner plans.

Tweet your heart out

After reading the social media package, I ended up following some bread crumbs through the blog of one of the journalists interviewed for the article, Stephen Buttry. Buttry talks a lot about social media and digital journalism throughout his blog, and I ended up on a post about Twitter tips for journalists.

I'm a recent convert to Twitter, but haven't really used it much, to be honest. I think part of my problem is not fully understanding how it works -- particularly when it comes to having a conversation, because conversational threads are not as visually clear as they are on Facebook. But after reading Buttry's post about just how useful Twitter can be for journalists, I'm more willing to pursue this whole tweeting business.

He makes a list of some very convincing ways journalists can use Twitter (the following list is taken verbatim from his blog post):


* Monitor the activities and discussions of people in your community and on your beat.
* Connect with people who will provide you helpful tips and information.
* Connect with colleagues and share ideas with them or get ideas from them.
* Crowdsource stories by asking the community for story ideas or information.
* Quickly find people who witnessed or experienced a news event.
* Break stories quickly.
* Provide live coverage of news events.
* Drive traffic to your content.
* Report a story by text message using Twitter in disaster situations when you can’t transmit data, as the New York Times’ Brian Stelter did in covering the Joplin tornado.
* Improve your writing as you learn to make points directly in just 140 characters. (If a lead doesn’t fit in a tweet, it’s probably too long. It really helps me write better leads on my blog and columns.)


All of these points are helpful, but one of the most helpful as an up-and-coming journalist (at least for me) is the first one. As a newbie, I'm still learning the art and science of journalism. Learning who else is in the field -- generally, locally, and on the particular beat I'm interested in -- means I can learn from a self-selected crowd. I can tailor who I want my teachers to be, by reading the tweets and full articles of those I deem as important journalists. That's an effective tool all right.

Is journalism school a waste? Maybe for public radio journalists, but not for us.

Hello, everyone. I don't know about the rest of you, but, for the journalist profile assignment, I had far more content than the word limit allowed. Angelia commented in class that, in completing the assignments, we would probably have far more quotes than we could use.

I chose to profile Meghna Chakrabarti, who is the co-host of the popular public affairs program 'Radio Boston' on WBUR, a Boston-based NPR news/talk station. Chakrabarti was very generous, giving me over 40 minutes of her time. The transcript of my interview with her runs almost 6,500 words. I also interviewed her co-host Anthony Brooks, which ran almost 1,900 words, and executive producer of the show Mark Navin, which ran almost 2,500 words. So, I had almost 11,000 words of content, forcing me to be very selective about what I included in the assignment.

I thought I would share with you some of the responses to my questions, most of which did not get included in the final profile, because of space limitations. I was very impressed with how thoughtful each person's answers were to all of my questions.

I asked all three people about the value of formal journalism training to perform their jobs. Here is how each responded:

Chakrabarti:

You're going to be mad at me when I say this. No, and I think journalism school is a waste (laughs), because journalism is still, at its core, an apprenticeship craft. It's a craft. So, the only way to really, really, really learn it is to do it, and to do it every day. So, I really do see it as an apprenticeship type career. That's why my apprenticeship was at “On Point” and that was like boot camp, high speed, high intensity. So, no, I do not see not having a formal training in journalism as being a detriment.

Co-host Anthony Brooks:

You know, I didn't go to journalism school, so I might have a bias. I think the best training that you can get become a journalist is to just start being a journalist. I mean, that's sort of the way I did...I was an English major, and I started volunteering at a public radio station out in Oregon many, many, many years ago, and I pretty much worked for free and learned the ropes that way, and then started filing freelance for NPR. And then, within a year, I had an entry-level position at NPR. So, I really learned doing the work.

You know, I think that if you’re lucky enough to go to a great journalism school, I don't see that it could hurt you. But, I mean, I know the way that senior journalists in this profession think, and the first thing they're going to look at is what experience do you have. And, journalism school, you know, is not usually regarded as the most important experience. The most important experience is, you know, have you written? Can you write? Do you know how to report, and have you done that? The quickest way to get that experience is to do it.

What I like about being a journalist is that there are a lot of different ways to do it, and there is no sort of formal, official stamp that makes you a journalist. I think that's important, that's sort of the definition of the Fourth Estate, in the way that we can sort of check and control and keep people honest. We should be, like, normal people. I don't have a certification from any official body that says I'm a journalist. You know, I'm a journalist based on the fact that I have done it for a lot of years and work for an organization that has done it for a lot of years.

So, you know, I wouldn't be as strong on that as Meghna, because I know there are a lot of terrific journalists that come out of some great journalism schools, and go on to be good journalists. But, I would argue that the most useful part of their nurturing and their becoming journalists is the actual act of doing journalism.

Executive Producer Mark Navin (Navin has a bachelor's in broadcast journalism from Boston University):

Well, first of all, I don't think that having formal journalism training is necessary to be a good journalist, but I also don't think it's a detriment. I do think it can be an asset. I think that the journalism schools are teaching people a lot of really important skills and values, and I think that's it's very important to have those skills and values if you're going to be a good journalist.

Having said that, I don't think it's essential to have a journalism background, because I believe that really what's most important in the world journalism, especially in the changing world of journalism, because it is really changing an awful lot, is having an intense curiosity about the world around you, and being able to express that, your discoveries to your audience. And so, those things are, those are skills that people have without training, you know, a lot of people have without training.

Certainly, you know, having another kind of academic background, as Meghna does, as Anthony does, as a lot of people here do, it gives you a good basis for being a good journalist, because you know, academia is all about research and discovery, and that's what journalism is all about. And, when I talk about the changing world journalism, the reality is anybody with a blog can call themselves a journalist today.

So, the days of, you know, there being a formal gatekeeper on what kinds of stories get out there, the days when the New York Times was the only person who could decide what news was fit to print are over. They really are. And, so, in my opinion, journalism organizations, like ours, our way forward is to try to invite as many voices in as we possibly can, to throw the gates open as much as we can.

I feel like journalism schools are sort of a vestige from the days when, you know, you became a professional journalist, you got your press card, and you were granted access to the kingdom. The gates were thrown open to you. You don't need that anymore. Having said that you don't need it, I think there are a lot of great skills that are taught in journalism school.

(end of Navin comments)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I believe the journalistic "cocoon" that exists in the public radio world is unique. It allows bright, talented folks from very diverse backgrounds to develop their journalistic skills over time, on the job, as apprentices under the wing of more experienced radio journalists. In this environment, there is probably no need for formal journalism school. They learn the principles of practicing journalism as they go along.

But, in the world of print journalism, some formal training is essential. All of these assignments that Angelia is having us complete are slowly, methodically developing our skills. Each of the courses in the ALM journalism program will add to those skills, giving us the basic skills & experience to practice print journalism. I think most of us will work in the print world.

So, I think the training of a public radio journalist & a print journalist should be different. You have to take that into account, when considering the opinions of NPR journalists about the value of journalism school.

Later, Jim

Journalist profile: Share the experience

Dear fellow students,

having finished the assignment and being totally pooped out, I would like to propose some kind of knowledge sharing in this blog.

Some of you might be more advanced journalists, some others (like me) are not.
What were your experiences during the preparation phase of your profile?

I, for instance, wrote on a fashion journalist and I had to contact many fashion magazines and newspapers in London, but also in Amsterdam and New York.
In general, I have to say, that the people in the fashion writing business seem to be extremely busy...and you cannot reach them on the phone. There's always an answering machine where they tell you to write an email, which, of course, will up to 99 percent not be answered.

Also: What were your experiences when you wanted to contact your journalist's family/ friends? How did you find out about them? What are the Does and Don'ts in your opinion?

Perhaps these questions will come up tonight in class as well, but this blog might offer more space for such topics.

Please feel invited to write what you want to share...


Best regards

Gerda

from Germany

Knight Center Digital Library releases Spanish language guides for online journalism and social media ethics

I don't know if you follow The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas updates. Last night I got an email from a friend and I also saw it on twitter that they recently released two guides for online journalism and social media ethics.

Unfortunately not both books are in English.

There's one just in the Spanish, but for those who read Spanish here's the name and link:

“Conjunto de Guías Éticas para Hacer Periodismo en la Web”
http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/es/ebook/conjunto-de-guias-eticas-para-hacer-periodismo-en-la-web-es


The other one is both in English and Spanish,

"10 Best Practices for Social Media".
http://asne.org/article_view/articleid/1800/asne-issues-guide-to-10-best-practices-for-social-media.aspx


You may be interested.


Here's the link where you can get the details about both books;

http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/en/knight-center-digital-library-releases-spanish-language-guides-online-journalism-and-social-media-et

Enjoy the reading!

Nieman Journalism Lab authors propose an "open-source" identity for new journalism

In, What newsrooms can learn from open-source and maker culture, Neiman Journalism Lab authors Nikki Usher and Seth C. Lewis propose quite a leap in the identity of new journalism: journalists become "code writers" and their stories an open-source platform, with stories permeable to participatory additions from the community of readers including images, comments, etc. They propose that "sprinkling open-source juice" into journalism could change the entire way that journalistic databases and distribution systems function.

http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/10/what-newsrooms-can-learn-from-open-source-and-maker-culture/

I had never thought of the idea of using "hacker culture" or theory as a metaphor to advance journalism. What do you think of this idea of participatory journalism at the cellular levels of technology used to produce stories?

Here are Usher and Lewis' lede and nutgraf:

“'Newsosaur' blogger and media consultant Alan Mutter some time ago suggested that journalism has to become a lot more like Silicon Valley. Newspapers are too risk-averse, he said, and so they “need some fresh DNA that will make them think and act more like techies and less like, well, newspaper people.”

While Smith generally agreed with Mutter’s premise — of course Silicon Valley could bring a little dynamism to newspapers and journalism — he offered a caveat: The technology sector that Smith knew a decade ago was more about hacking-in-the-open and building cool stuff for others to enjoy, with a secondary emphasis on making money. Now the inverse is true: Silicon Valley is much less about the ideals of the open web, and much more about (as another observer has put it) short-sighted technology for the sake of “big exits and big profits.

So it’s a bit of a mistake, we think, to go down the route of saying that journalism needs to become like Silicon Valley, in part because Silicon Valley is not simply a world of innovation, but also a highly competitive, secretive, and unstable metaphor. (Think: Groupon IPO, or even The Social Network.)"

Excellent Article About Media Stereotypes of Violent Women

If the title, "'Foxy Knoxy': Sex, violence and media hysteria," does not peak your interest, try the lede:


"There is something about pretty white girls, bloody knives and the slightest whiff of sex that gets the international news machine humming like nothing else. All three factors merged explosively Monday in a crowded appeals court in Perugia, Italy. There, before several hundred journalists and other spectators, American college student Amanda Knox, 24, was cleared of murdering her study-abroad roommate, Meredith Kercher, in a sexually-motivated crime four years ago. Already, feature film rights to Knox’s story are flying, and book publishers, too, are salivating."


http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/05/foxy-knoxy-sex-violence-and-media-hysteria/

AP Style Guide vs. SEO

In my day job I work in search engine optimization (SEO), the practice of tailoring a website to rank highly in search results. Like many businesses, newspapers depend largely on this "free" traffic to drive page views, and thus revenue. It is estimated that the New York Times receives about 12% of its traffic from search. The L.A. Times, much revered for being on the forefront of digital technology, earns nearly 20% of its traffic from search.

Sort of ironically I was Googling for AP Style Guide tips and came across this article that stated it's better more important for student journalists to learn SEO than AP Style. Even though I work in SEO, I think this statement is overblown and written in a baiting way to attract attention, and thus traffic. The writer appears to believe his incedinary statement by defending himself vigorously in the comments section - but perhaps showing the lack of depth in his argument, he does not do a very professional job. In the end, however, I do think the article brings up an interesting point that perhaps AP Style guide may need to evolve and accomodate how users may search for an article. At the very least, his suggestion for an SEO Style guide seems like something that would sell very well in newsrooms. Although if all newspapers followed the same style guide, the larger websites would usually win out when it came to ranking highly in search results.

Stuck in Bed, at Hospital's Expense

Quoting ESL speakers verbatim

Per our conversation in class, regarding quotes and when and when not to quote a source verbatim, I felt the following story did a great job of using quotes to add a lot of color to the story and give the reader a good sense of Raymond Fok’s personality and the hardships he has faced.

The writer quotes Mr. Fok exactly how he sounds, regardless of Fok’s broken English. The writer prepares the reader for Fok’s choppy quote by stating “He has spent 23 years in the United States, but his English remains rudimentary.” The following story was posted in the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/nyregion/stuck-in-bed-for-19-months-at-hospitals-expense.html?pagewanted=1&ref=health

Stuck in Bed, at Hospital’s Expense

“The first two or three months was a hard time,” Mr. Fok said from his hospital bed, the left side of his face still partially frozen from the stroke. He had a tattoo around one arm and two lumps on his bare leg where the dialysis needles removed and then returned his blood three times a week. He has spent 23 years in the United States, but his English remains rudimentary.

In the beginning, he said, “always I thought, how long before I go out? Because when you wake up in the same room every day it’s the same thing, ‘When I can get out?’ It’s always depressing. But day by day, day by day, you don’t need to worry about what will happen, because when you wake up it’s always the same room.”

“My sons hate me,” he said. “They say, ‘Why you bring me here? You don’t have idea. You bring me here; it was a mistake.’ I don’t think it was a mistake. When you come here you see a lot of the world. In Hong Kong you see just a little bit of sky, but here you can see a big sky, a lot of people, different people. It’s the capital of the world, New York. Different people, different cultures. But they don’t like it.”

He added: “I’m not worried about it, because I got to take care of myself, first. And second, when they grow up they will understand. One day they will have families and they will understand, too.”

Coverage in 180 Degrees of Difference: the Occupy Wall Street Movement

The Guardian and The New York Times recently reported night-and-day angles on the Occupy Wall Street movement, providing some nutgraf food for thought. The former nutgraf acknowledges the movement’s stated mission to protest the role of corporate “excess” in our current economic crisis; the latter portrays the movement as a “rabble-rousing stay” with few organized goals. The images from each article compellingly compliment this divergence in approach. Below both nutgrafs, I’ve copied the Occupy Wall Street movement’s written statement about its own reasons for organizing the now massive protest.

I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on these differences? Or perhaps information about coverage of the event from other sources?

From Ed Pilkington's (The Guardian) article, “Occupy Wall Street protest: NYPD accused of heavy-handed tactics”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/02/occupy-wall-street-nypd-tactics?newsfeed=true”

“Activists, as well as commentators following the protest against inequality and corporate excess, claim the response of the city's police force to the peaceful event was vastly out of proportion. Almost 1,000 people have been arrested in two weeks – substantially more than the number of financiers who led the world into the 2008 economic meltdown.”

From Kleinfield and Buckley's (The New York Times) article, “Wall Street Occupiers, Protesting Till Whenever”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/nyregion/wall-street-occupiers-protesting-till-whenever.html

“The hodgepodge Lower Manhattan encampment known as Occupy Wall Street has no appointed leaders, no expiration date for its rabble-rousing stay and still-evolving goals and demands. Yet its two weeks of noisy occupation has lured a sturdily faithful and fervent constituency willing to express discontentment with what they feel is an inequitable financial system until, well, whenever.”

From the Occupy Wall Street Movement’s General Assembly Website
http://nycga.cc/

“As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce..."

The list continues.

Words of truth

I found this article in the NYT and it appealed to me (being a mother and a housewife) very much:

Pitching to Real Moms, the Ones Who Aren’t Perfect

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/business/media/pitching-to-real-moms-the-ones-who-arent-perfect-advertising.html?src=recg

This is the nutgraf:

The Martin Agency in Richmond, Va., which is owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies, has started a unit devoted to marketing to mothers around the world. About 10 employees are involved with the unit, named the Mom Complex, which is also making use of freelancers in other countries.

A nice quote about clichés of ads aimed at mothers at the end:

“Moms are always happy, even when cleaning. Their children are obedient angels. Moms always seem to wear sweater sets and Capri pants. And it’s common for their wardrobes to match the colors of the brands they’re promoting.”

...made me laugh! German housewives are treated the same way in the media.