2011 March — AEJMC Hot Topics

Spotlight on: Journalist’s Resource Website

The Journalist’s Resource website is a project by the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education. The site describes itself as:

Journalist’s Resource is designed to promote knowledge-based reporting. The site provides access to scholarly reports and papers on a wide range of topics. Journalist’s Resource provides the user with a brief Overview of each study, Teaching Notes and links to other relevant material.

They have an instructor’s guide section on the site that helps educators use the site, with information on how the information is organized, how it can be used and also a list of journalistic problems.

You can view the site here >>

Freelancers Needed More Than Ever – How Schools Can Prepare Them

“Journalism as a whole — and media as a whole — are moving to a growing reliance on freelancers.” That quote came from Rob Steiner, director of the journalism lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, earlier this month on “The Agenda” (a Canadian public affairs show).

Steiner says that journalism employers – and media in general – are looking to knowledgeable freelancers for content as opposed to full-time general assignment reporters. He mentions that colleges and universities need to recognize the idea of the entrepreneurial journalist and the fact that students graduating from J-schools will need to market themselves in their specific area of expertise.

Do you agree with Steiner that J-schools need to change how they’re preparing future journalists? Do you think there is even a shift at all towards more freelance reporting?

Are Journalists Skeptical Enough of U.S. Conflicts?

CNN posted a video (below) on their website a few days ago from its Reliable Sources TV program. Several journalists and media directors were asked the question of whether or not the news media is skeptical enough of what the U.S. is doing in Libya. They discussed the media’s coverage of the confrontation and whether or not journalists should be more outspoken earlier on about invasions, no-fly zones, attacks, etc. instead of reporting just the facts. The conversation brought up obvious thoughts on the Iraq war, particularly because it was 8 years ago this week that the U.S. invaded Iraq.

Tell us what you think about journalists and skepticism. Do you think the CNN program is off-base or right about this?

Amazon Goes from Journalism Savior to Afterthought – Or Did It?

From Nieman Journalism Lab March 22 - In the brief moment between last week’s unveiling of The New York Times’s new smartphone- and tablet-centered subscription plans and today’s launch of Amazon’s Android Appstore, it’s worth taking a short historical detour, if only to see how differently the world looks today from the time, not long ago, when the Kindle was supposed to be a big factor in getting people to pay for journalism.

First, an observation: the NYT’s new digital subscription plans don’t apply to Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s NookColor, or any other e-reader. The digital subscriptions FAQ spells it out: “At this time, we’re not able to connect your e-reader subscription to an NYTimes.com subscription. Each must be purchased separately.”

This is partly a result of earlier negotiations between the Times and the e-bookstores. But it’s clear that the NYT’s digital strategy today is focused on the web browser for the desktop and applications for mobile. E-reader subscriptions today, for better or worse, are minor players — legacy obligations. With that in mind, it helps to understand how we got here, and why. Read More

Can Content Paywalls Work?

Today Arthur Ochs Sulzberer Jr., publisher of the New York Times, sent out a letter to readers about the impending access changes for its online users. The letter says that online users will be able to read 20 articles a month (including slide shows and videos) but after that the wallets need to come out. Mobile users accessing NYT from their smartphone or tablet will be able to read top news stories from the NYT app but will have to pay beyond those stories.

The changes will hit U.S. users later this month. Print subscribers will have access to all of the online content (similar to the Economist’s system). You can find out all the details, costs, etc. on their access FAQ page.

The question is, will it work? Do you think that this is the new way for online content, a big mistake, or a non-issue? Let us know in the comments or take our poll.

View poll results

The Plagiarism Problem – What to Do?

Today the Washington Post put out a statement that one of their top investigative reporters, Sari Horwitz, had plagiarized paragraphs from the Arizona Republic in two of her stories in March. The paper has suspended Horwitz for three months. You can read the full story here.

Let us know you’re thoughts on how the Washington Post handled the situation and if you think plagiarism is increasing, decreasing or simply a non-issue most of the time.

Ad Spending up in 2010

Advertising spending increased 6.5% in 2010 up from 2009, reports Stuart Elliot from the New York Times. Ad spending had fallen in 2009 with the economy suffering.

The newspaper category was the only one to still have a decline in 2010. Read the full story here

News Paywalls – Should They Cost Less in Poorer Countries?

From Columbia Journalism Review on March 16 – Consumers have made peace with the fact that some things cost more in certain places. A cup of black coffee at a Cairo McDonald’s costs less than the same stimulant at a McDonald’s in Manhattan. A night at the Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus costs $445, while in Maui it’ll set you back nearly $1,000.

I wonder, then, whether online news organizations must charge the same amount for their product in every nook of the earth, and whether globally scattered news audiences would tolerate variable pricing. It seems unreasonable that someone in Burundi be asked to pay the same price for a product as a consumer in Singapore. Shouldn’t the cost of online news also vary in these countries? Read More

Should News Organizations Be in the “Reunion” Business?

From TVNEWSER on March 16 - The disaster in Japan has meant that thousands of people are unaccounted for, particularly in parts of the country that were hit hard by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

With so many people unable to reach loved ones, many TV news organizations rushed to try and connect them. We linked to a few already, when Ann Curry connected an American teacher visiting Japan to her family in San Francisco, and CBS’ own Lucy Craft reuniting with her son.

In both cases, TV cameras were present as the families got the news. It was emotional, gripping television, but it was also quite manipulative, according to AOL News contributor Lauren Frayer. Read More

Does NPR Really Have a Liberal Bias?

From the Columbia Journalism Review on March 15 – At the root of the hubbub over the conservative activist sting on a pair of NPR fundraisers and NPR CEO Vivian Schiller’s subsequent resignation is a debate that is as old as public broadcasting itself: should the government fund media in the US? The most vocal opponents of public funding often cite what they see as a left-leaning political bias at NPR as an argument that it does not deserve taxpayer help.

In a recent column by The New York Times’s David Carr, NPR’s political slant is treated as a foregone conclusion. It’s “true to a point” that NPR is guilty of “squishy liberal ideology,” Carr wrote. “In terms of assignments and sensibility, NPR has always been more blue than red, but it’s not as if it has an overt political agenda.” Read more