Tag: journalist

You Get What You Pay For–News Version

Helluva scoop if it were only true.

The big buzz in media (all media, not just TV) is user created content. It’s free–what’s not to like?

From CNN’s iReport–“Steve Jobs was rushed to the ER just a few hours ago after suffering a major heart attack. I have an insider who tells me that paramedics were called after Steve claimed to be suffering from severe chest pains and shortness of breath. My source has opted to remain anonymous, but he is quite reliable.”

Helluva scoop if it were only true. I’ll let a professional writer pick it up. This is from the Washington Post.

A false Internet report that Apple’s Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack briefly slammed his company’s stock and raised fresh questions about the delicate relationship between traditional and new media.

The posting on iReport.com — a citizen journalist site owned by Time Warner’s CNN — is the most recent incident in which a faulty online report created brief, but wrenching, confusion among investors.

Apple quickly denied the report about its chief executive, but not before its stock dropped more than 2 percent, hitting a 17-month low of $94.65. It later recovered, climbing as much as 4 percent, before closing at $97.07, down 3 percent for the day.

CNN has tried to distance itself from the iReport site and its ‘reporters’. That’s going to be tough. It’s CNN’s cred that keeps the site active. In the last month CNN used nearly 1,300 iReport submissions which encourages even more participation.

Having journalism performed by actual journalists doesn’t guarantee accuracy, but it seems to be a step in the right direction when you supervise the reporter and he/she is answerable. Citizen journalists are not. Actually, that’s not totally true as the Steve Jobs heart attack citizen journalist might be answerable to the SEC.

Last September I wrote about my upset with Fox News ‘assigning’ a story to viewers. I didn’t say it was FNC but why hide it.

[T]oday I also watched an instance of what I don’t want to see with cellphone video. I’m not going to say which cable network it was, because I can’t find anything about it on their website, and it just might be ‘freelancing’ by a producer or anchor.

The anchor showed a still from an air show, mentioned where one was taking place today, and asked for viewer video. Uh… isn’t that why they have reporters and camera crews?

I understand getting video of spot news, unanticipated events, from viewers. This is totally different. This is an assignment. I’m not even sure a business can legally ask people to work for free, can they?

Regardless, it bothers me.

It still bothers me.

What Is Journalism?

It’s probably a good time to delve into this because there are two interesting journalism stories.

Who is a journalist? What is journalism? It’s probably a good time to delve into this because there are two interesting journalism stories unfolding today.

Who broke the John Edwards affair? The National Enquirer. Ouch, mainstream media. How’d you let that one slip away? And the Enquirer has been all over this story for a while. They also broke the Monica Lewinsky story. This is not your father’s, “Elvis Spotted At K-Mart” Enquirer.

I heard Steve Plamann, senior executive editor of the National Enquirer interviewed on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” today. He gladly admitted the paper’s sensationalist bent. They are after all, by his admission, a supermarket tabloid. But, does that disqualify them from being taken seriously or breaking stories?

Should the NY Times follow the Enquirer as they certainly do the Wall Street Journal or Washington Post? Do you disregard them at your own risk? I’ll answer my own question. They disregarded the Edwards story and it doesn’t reflect well on them.

Is the National Enquirer journalism? I think they are, but who makes this judgement?

The second journalistic fork in the road has to do with CNN’s decision to rely on more “one-man-bands” populating single person bureaus. Here’s how TVNewser reported it:

“Yesterday CNN announced it was expanding its domestic presence by opening bureaus in 10 U.S. cities. The press release called it a doubling of U.S. newsgathering. But when a 28-year-old company expands you can bet there will be changes to existing personnel too. And that is the case with CNN.

TVNewser has learned that after the announcement of the new bureaus and soon to be added “all-platform journalists,” nine CNN staffers were told their jobs were going to be redefined. We’re told the staffers are not being laid off, but being offered positions in the new structure.

The staffers work in cities including Chicago, San Francisco and Miami. As NPR’s David Folkenflik reported this morning, “let’s be clear [CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein] is only really talking about adding a handful of new staffers. Others will be redeployed in less-covered places like Columbus, Ohio, Orlando and Seattle.””

Is it less journalistcally pure when a single person covers a story instead of a crew? Is there something lost when a reporter also has to concentrate of his/her equipment during the time they used to be concentrating on the person speaking?

Video gear has become smaller, cheaper and easier to operate. I certainly could report and produce a news story on my own, but would that story suffer? I have colleagues who will argue the story will suffer and other friends, like Mike Sechrist, who truly believes we’re foolish to not take advantage of this technology.

There are a lot of constituencies involved here beyond the public who consumes this journalistic product. I am curious to see how this will shake out. This is a time when journalistic traditions might change rapidly.

Too Much Respect

What’s being done is totally out of proportion with his societal impact.

It is sad Tim Russert died. It was a shock. Maybe, since he was only a few months older than me, it’s also scary. I just don’t understand the volume of coverage.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful nor do I wish to diminish his accomplishments as a journalist, but what’s being done is totally out of proportion with his societal impact.

Valuing News By The Pound

The struggling company has looked at the column inches of news produced by each reporter, and by each paper’s news staff. Finding wide variation, they said, they have concluded that it could do without a large number of news employees and not lose much content.

As hard as economic times are for TV, they’re worse for newspapers and other print outlets.

So, what do you do to get the bottom line up? I don’t know, but I suspect it isn’t this. Here’s a story from The International Herald Tribune. Michaels is Randy Michaels, CEO of the Tribune Corporation, now owned by Sam Zell, and heavily in debt.

…the struggling company has looked at the column inches of news produced by each reporter, and by each paper’s news staff. Finding wide variation, they said, they have concluded that it could do without a large number of news employees and not lose much content.

Michaels said that, after measuring journalists’ output, “when you get into the individuals, you find out that you can eliminate a fair number of people while eliminating not very much content.” He added that he understood that some reporting jobs naturally produce less output than others.

He said that The Los Angeles Times produced 51 pages of news for each journalist there, while the figure for two other Tribune papers, The Baltimore Sun and The Hartford Courant, is more than 300 pages.

Michaels had been CEO of Clear Channel Communications. When he left there, Radio Ink reported:

…industry message boards were swollen with vitriolic postings vilifying both him and Clear Channel. Various diatribes claimed that Michaels was everything from “the antichrist of Radio” to “a blight on professionalism” to “representative of the heinous crimes perpetrated by Clear Channel.”

Today, it seems Michaels is valuing content the way a butcher values meat – by the pound. But in the real world content is not equal word-for-word. You would hope some of the LA Times lower word count has to do with the depth its stories contain.

It will be sad to see newspapers disappear. I’m afraid that’s going to happen… and sooner, rather than later.

Right now, TV is incapable of providing the depth and story count papers do (though TV kills print in immediacy, emotion and a number of other categories). Few of the Internet news sites really produce their own content, and those that do seldom produce local news.

My daughter and her generation don’t read many newspapers nor do they watch much TV news. No one has yet figured out how to make traditional news more attractive to them.

It’s all very sad.

I Work In The Ego Business

It’s possible there’s a business where the employees have larger egos than we do in TV, but I haven’t found it. By the way, I’m not excluding myself. I have a room sized ego – and a large room at that.

That’s one reason why Roger Friedman’s revelation (and Gail Shister’s this past weekend) of trouble in Katie Couric’s paradise is not a big surprise to me.

Katie Couric’s barrage of bad publicity is coming not from the outside, but from the inside of CBS, sources tell me.

Indeed, one of Couric’s frequently mentioned enemies is Bob Schieffer, the lovable, durable veteran journalist who filled in as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” between Dan Rather’s departure and Couric’s arrival.

But sources say that Schieffer has been unhappy lately, mainly because his airtime, which was prominent when Couric first started, has dwindled in recent weeks.

Avuncular Bob Schieffer – really? Again, no surprise.

Once you’ve make the decision to be ‘on’ TV, you really should give up all pretenses of not being interested in the superficial aspects broadcasting brings. They are intoxicating. They can be kept under control… no, they should be kept under control, though that’s more difficult done than said.

I’ve heard stories of news anchors who had their spouses time the ‘reads’ each anchor had! Don’t shortchange my hubby, you hussy!

Even people I’ve sat next to on the news set have looked at me as if I’d dropped in from another planet. They were poised to blame me personally for any lack of success that might follow.

The truth is, any time there’s any ratings falloff people go searching for a scapegoat. If you work at a car dealership, people might not like your cars. If you work on TV, the product is often you!

I once worked with an anchor team that couldn’t stand each other. He was quiet and studious. She was brash and abrasive. One night she let him have it with a horrific tongue lashing, which she ended by telling him he was a “no talent.”

She timed her diatribe to finish just as the theme ended and the mikes went live. He was left without the ability to respond. I can’t imagine how that must have felt.

The CBS Evening News ratings are off. But, what you mainly hear is, Katie’s ratings are off. It’s tough when so much of the product is considered to be you. It’s also an insult to the other people reporting, producing and executing the show… but they’re not the ‘face.’

When you make $15,000,000 per year there’s a huge bullseye on your back. Lots of people are anxious to point out, they told you so.

I’m not sure if Katie will make it through her contract, but if she doesn’t, I’d bet the pressure will come from inside, not outside.

The Good Story From The Libby Trial

I want to make comment about the Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby trial. This will have nothing to do with the verdict.

I wasn’t there. I don’t have all the facts. The trial was incredibly politicized, These are all things I’ve worked to keep out of my blog.

There was, however, one part of the procedure which struck me when I read an article in Editor and Publisher.

(Juror Denis) Collins, a journalist who has written for The Washington Post and other newspapers — and is author of the 2004 book, “Spying: The Secret History of History”– described the jury’s painstaking deliberations. He said there were several “managerial types” on the jury and they spent many days just assembling post-it notes in some kind or “buildings blocks” fashion. They did not take an immediately straw vote.

If I ever go to court, that’s what I want to hear – the jury was involved and thorough. It’s something I think we often feel isn’t there.

A few years ago, while tuning past C-Span on a boring Sunday night I had audio tapes of Supreme Court proceedings. It was a similar feeling.

I had no idea what the particulars of the case were, but I heard intelligent men and women pondering the facts with well thought questions and comments.

Cousin Michael, who reads the blog and who clerked in the US Circuit Court might write otherwise, but these comments from the Libby trial and my ‘eavesdropping’ on the Supremes, gives me optimism our republic is built on a solid foundation.

Or maybe I’m just naive. I hope not.

Journalist By Luck… Bad Luck

Recently, I’ve been reading more and more about the idea of citizen journalist. These would be folks from the community who, by virtue of circumstance or desire, report on local news.

This blog, and others like it, are not examples of citizen journalist. Sorry Geoff.

In the past 24 hours there has been a shining example of citizen journalism, courtesy of a blogger who was on the Alaska Airlines flight that depressurized between Seattle and Burbank.

Not only did Jeremy Hermanns write about his experience, he took photos! There were others on board taking video on their cellphones. I’ve seen some of that footage on CNN and our air here in Connecticut.

Read the story from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and then Jeremy’s blog entry. In many ways they are complementary, as the PI story brings nuts, bolts and overview, while Jeremy’s blog entry lives the emotion.

It is likely we’ll be seeing more and more of this, as we did with the London subway bombings and the Boxing Day Tsunami.

One of my surprises are the comments below the entry (which Jeremy says he won’t edit). It is startling to read the vitriol from so many small and vindictive people. It also seems some of the negatives might be coming from Alaska Air!

Journalistic Ethics

I was looking through the webite of a journalist, whose work I’ve really enjoyed for a long time, when I found something unsettling. Recently, he had written a long, positive story about a company… and now that company turned up as a sponsor of his website.

What to do?

This is probably the wrong thing to do, but I worte him a note. And, actually, I was mostly satisfied with the answer I received.

Dear (name removed),

I have been a fan of your writing forever. However, I am distressed to see your site ‘sponsored’ by (company name) after you did a full, extremely positive, magazine column on them recently.

In my opinion, this would be different were it not on your own personal site. At the publications you write for, there is a (or at least there is claimed to be) a separation between sales and editorial. Once you personally take money from (compan name), that separation ceases to exist.

Is there something I’m failing to see?

Sincerely,

Geoff Fox

Here’s the answer I got:

you are correct..that was put up beforehand as I was working on a story about the usefulness of associate programs (not very) …thanks…and you are correct….it’s gone now. The separation continues to exist since I received $0 from (company name) which seems suspicious. The easiest way to do this research is via my own home page which tends to be used by people not looking for what appears to be ethical dubiousness. Research continues. Also the article should have been perceived as more positive toward (the industry) than (company name). More interesting is the new fact that the relationship between (company name) and the traditional companies has deteriorated since I cannot now (edited). There is a follow up coming that will not be so kind and will mention the new competitors.

I removed his name and the name of the company because, though this shouldn’t have happened in the first place, it stopped quickly. As I said, I have read this guy since the beginning and will not fry him for one misstep.

That’s one.