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journalism

The long day

Last week we had the board members from the Alabama Press Association on campus. Today, it is Gene Policinski, the vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center in Washington D.C.

Things are hoping around here.

Policinski met with student-journalists at the Crimson this morning. I treated him to a mid-morning snack after that and he told me how he got in the business, where he’s been and his upcoming projects. Very interesting — and nice — guy.

The department took him and a few students to lunch at The Rotunda Club, the exclusive dining arrangement on campus. We ate in a beautiful wood-paneled room with monogramed plates and personal attention.

I hope whatever organization that normally dines there was able to make do with vending machines.

We had a student media committee meeting, electing next year’s editors for the literary arts magazine, Sojourn, the yearbook, Entre Nous, and The Samford Crimson.

This evening Policinski was the featured guest at the Timothy Sumner Robinson Forum. This is a Samford program named for a 1965 alumnus. The Robinson family hosts the event each year in honor of Timothy, who was a veteran of The Washington Post and the National Law Journal.

At the Post Robinson had more Watergate front page stories than anyone. He’d go on to work at NYU, and then head west to pioneer much of the first online media work.

Here’s Policinski speaking in Bolding Studio about the constitutionally “unique role” of journalists in the political and legal system:

He notes “We have turned to an era where we talk to people directly.”

He applaud bloggers and citizen journalists, but notes a difference between what they might do and what a committed court reporter could offer as coverage. He’s right, and it isn’t about the journalism, but about the legal system. There’s a need, he says, for more legal training, which is part of a big project he has coming up soon with his many professional affiliations.

The state of legal reporting is in decline, but not because of the people covering it, but by volume. Meanwhile, he says, the journalism profession is “if not walking away from it is turning away because of other pressing issues.”

Great to have him on campus, though it made for a long day (and after that there was still the newspaper). It was worth it. You can follow him on Twitter @genefac.

Don’t forget: Tumblr and Twitter.

iPhone / journalism / links / photo / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
19
Apr 12

Just because you read it

Board members from the Alabama Press Association were at Samford today talking to JMC students. Their advice: journalists are generalists, don’t limit yourself to print or video but get a bit of both, separate yourself from your competition.

The board members were passionate, optimistic and dedicated to helping their community and their industry. They gave good advice for students, both in the Crimson office, and in Dr. Jones’ print practicum class.

Dr. Jones got the ball rolling: “What skills do these students need?”

The consensus response? “Everything.”

Sounds familiar. We talk about that all the time at Samford, where our program endorses a broad-based approach. It helps make interns and graduates look more valuable to potential employers.

After that, the students have to take it upon themselves, but to get that encouragement from the faculty, to hear it from the pros — and to see how the industry is coming around to that reality, is a great thing. We’re doing it right.

And then there’s the latest from Pew.

The report goes on to say that 32 percent of these people say the disappearance of their local paper would have a major impact on their lives. Among people who aren’t that interested in local news, about half say their lives wouldn’t change at all if they didn’t have a local paper. Good, for newspapers, right?

But look at it another way: That means 68 percent of local news enthusiasts don’t believe the disappearance of their local paper would affect their lives in a major way. And 34 percent of such enthusiasts say the disappearance wouldn’t affect their lives at all.

This likely reflects local news enthusiasts’ reliance on TV; Pew reports that 80 percent of them use broadcast TV on a weekly basis, compared to 48 percent for newspapers, 52 percent for radio and 57 percent for “word of mouth.” TV was also the preferred source for weather and breaking news, the two issues local news enthusiasts follow most closely.

Believe being the key word. Look, the more media the better, and not just for our students’ sake. If I may return to my watchdog roots for a moment, someone has to watch the politicians and agencies and the occasional white collar bad guys.

And if papers go away, how will you get your comics?

One of the publishers today told the students he’s done everything in a newsroom, report, write, layout, copy editing, emptying garbage and writing the horoscope when it didn’t make it in on time.

So keep that in mind the next time you have a glance at Pisces.

Lessen’s tonight’s fortune somewhat, don’t you think?

I posted that on Facebook. A friend commented ” I got that one once. Three years later, I know my time is coming!”

Not everything you read is worth taking to heart.

journalism / memories / Monday / Samford / video — Comments Off
16
Apr 12

Meanwhile, in the classroom

I taught about false light in two media law classes today.

The three criteria required for a false light case:

1. Publication of material must put an individual in a false light.
2. The false light would be offensive to a reasonable person.
3. The publisher was at fault.

Two anecdotes from the lecture:

The Sun ran a picture of Nellie Mitchell, a 96-year-old Arkansas woman, in a fabricated story about a 101-year-old female news carrier who had to give up her job because she was pregnant. The Sun’s editors needed a photo for their false story. They assumed Nellie was dead and pulled her picture from a previous true story. She was alive and, by then, feeling litigious. She sued. She won $1.5 million in 1991. (That’s $2.5 million today)

In the 1980s WJLA in Washington, D.C., did a story on genital herpes. The reporter shot b roll on a busy D.C. street. The videographer zoomed in on a woman who was easily recognized. In the 11 p.m. broadcast the anchor read the script “For the 20 million Americans who have herpes, it’s not a cure” as tape rolled with the woman’s image. She won her case and was awarded $750.

I like media law, but I think you have to have an anticipation of enjoyment of it before you take it as a class. I imagine that students who don’t have some inkling of that beforehand find themselves miserable. But it is a vitally important topic.

I think I enjoyed it, in part, was because the first media law case I ever read about was Carol Burnett v. National Enquirer, Inc. I loved Carol Burnett as a comedienne, even if her sketch comedy show (which I caught it in syndication) was for an older audience. It always felt like I was getting away with something to be able to watch it late at night, but I remember thinking that Burnett’s case, while important, probably felt ancient to most of my peers. It had happened almost 15 years before we studied it, an eternity to undergrads. (I did not talk about it in class today.)

And so I vowed to give contemporary examples in a media law context. Need to brush up on the dockets a bit.

To know the more than a name makes a case history more interesting. To see this makes it all stick in your head:

I actually remember that bit, which is remarkable with my memory. I suppose it speaks to the impression those talents could leave upon you. To this day my favorite stylings are physical comedy and the famous loss of composure. I blame Harvey Korman for that:

Had a guest in my Mass Media Practices class today. My old friend Napo Monasterio came over from The Birmingham News to talk about that happy, curious, more-flexible-than-ever place where journalist, coder and designer meet. Napo is from Auburn, though he was a year or two behind me. Now I see his work all the time.

Here are some of his page layouts and the online package that went with it. Now he’s developing apps.

He was formally trained as a print journalist and designer, but his desire to learn new things keeps opening doors for him. I hope students pick up on that.

“Just like a firecracker going off in the air — kabuuuuum.”

journalism / links / things to read / Tuesday — Comments Off
3
Apr 12

Things to read

Just a bunch of links today, I’m afraid. But good links. So do check some of them, and the selected excerpts, out.

LinkedIn: Online publishing up 24%, newspapers down 28%

How has our economy evolved in the past five years? Which industries are shrinking or growing through these challenging economic times? These are some of the questions that the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) delves into each February in the “Economic Report of the President” (ERP). This year, the CEA worked with us to glean further insights into industry trends both during the recent recession and after its end in June 2009.

[…]

The fastest-growing industries include renewables (+49.2%), internet (+24.6%), online publishing (+24.3%), and e-learning (+15.9%). Fastest-shrinking industries were newspapers (-28.4%), retail (-15.5%), building materials (-14.2%), and automotive (-12.8%).

Since this great economic sorting out isn’t yet settled, I’m sure some of the industries in that terrific chart are still moving around.

Meanwhile.

C.S. Lewis, replying a letter to a young fan, on the what really matters in the craft of writing:

1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.

2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.

[…]

4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”

You should read the full letter, which is full of masterful advice.

Steve Yelvington says “adaptive HTML5 layouts on the “everything just works” principle will eclipse smartphone, tablet apps.”

Two First Amendment stories.

My boss once observed that I was something of a First Amendment guy. As a journalist himself, he understands, though all of us should. Those stories are more than a little abhorrent. But if anyone needs to have that explained: the Founders thought it kind of important. They put it first.

Sports: Auburn hired a new women’s basketball coach, Terri Williams-Flournoy, late of Georgetown. On her first day in the new job she said “We want to cause havoc as much as we can.

Like the sound of that. Before she took the job she called Nell Fortner, who just resigned from the position. Fortner is the best. Flournoy, or others, might be better coaches, but the athletic department will never find anyone that loves the place as much as she does. This is what she said when the new coach called: “She knew that it would be a great place for me to bring my family and she just kept going on and on and on about the community.”

The new NFL uniforms, in poor photographs. I’m not sure if it is the imagery or the new gear that is underwhelming. And “fast is faster”? Ugh.

cycling / iPhone / journalism / links / memories / Samford / things to read / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
28
Mar 12

Oh snap!

We are so very fortunate those words did not define our generation. You’ll see why at the bottom of the post.

Riding through the neighborhood the other evening I found I’d picked the neighborhood time for bicycles. Usually I see the ladies walking, or a mixture of people taking their dogs for a stroll. I often find kids out in their yards, but never anyone riding a bike.

But on this particular weekend evening I found four of them. I caught up with two at the stop sign that leads to the creek. At least one of them was even greener than I am. He was struggling with something at the intersection and his friend had turned and was waiting for him up ahead, his thigh across his crossbar.

The second pair I met soon after. The first I passed easily enough, he was just out for a ride. His partner wanted a race. And so surged up the hill after the creek. He was pedaling furiously, constantly looking over his shoulder. I pedaled furiously, clicking down through the gears and tapping out a rhythm I’ve never tried on that little hill. At the top he turned right and I turned left, but I had him. I was no good for the next few miles after that, but I would have had him.

It would be better if I didn’t get competitive about this sort of thing, as I am a bad cyclist.

But today, when I sat in my office doing office things, I thought about that hill. I thought about that little attempt at rushing up it. I thought about how my legs weren’t burning. That was a nice thought, for sitting in the office.

In class one group of students did a presentation and part of that was asking the question “Is print dead?” What followed was the best conversation of the entire semester. There were many different stances. Some said yes, some no. Others took the middle ground and wondered why we don’t simply say that print is changing. There were strong opinions. It was so great we’re turning it into an assignment.

Maybe I should have started the semester asking that question.

Things to read from my journalism blog: The interactive infographic uses a fancy ProPublica design as an example.

The increasingly useful Internet radio where I realize how many streaming apps I have on my phone, and we are teased with next month’s announcement of even more surprising smartphone penetration.

Two prisms, two news brands pulls together two stories, one on Al Jazeera English and the other on the growing Patch network. Both good reads of successfully growing (in different directions) projects.

From my evening drive: