in Journalism and Mass Communication
By Lauren Rabaino on 10,000 Words, July 20 –
A new journalist reference guide on tools and applications that can be used for iPhone reporting has launched fromUC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Although the book is called a “mobile” reporting guide, it’s actually device-specific, focusing specifically on the iPhone. You can download the book to read as a PDF, or download it from the Apple iBook store.
Read the full post on 10,000 Words
By Daniel Victor, Jan. 23 on Poynter –
“The Onward State tweet that erroneously reported Joe Paterno’s death Saturday night and led to an avalanche of false reports in other outlets was based on the work of two student reporters: One was snookered by a false email, and one overstated his knowledge of the events, according to the site’s co-founder.
A third student, Managing Editor Devon Edwards, decided to pull the trigger on the tweet. Edwards resigned Saturday night.
The independent, online-only, student-run site is an agile and highly collaborative organization with a staff of 30-50, including eight editors. Each story is run through two editors, and major decisions are hashed out among editors and reporters through Yammer, an internal messaging system.
The fateful tweet was no snap decision. The site has a complex editorial process that’s designed for the Web and has earned praise for its vision — but like any editorial process, it can easily be disrupted by bad reporting and pressure-packed situations.
“I’d have to say that this event … taught me how ego can be a very toxic thing for a news organization,” said Davis Shaver, who co-founded the site as a Penn State freshman in 2008. ‘Ego to act like you know something you don’t, ego to want to be the first person to break it.’
Read the full post on Poynter’s website
By Troy Thibodeaux on Poynter, Oct. 6, 2011
Data journalist. Computer-assisted reporter. Newsroom developer. Journo-geek. If those of us who work in the field aren’t quite sure what to call ourselves, it’s little wonder that sometimes even the people who work beside us are puzzled by what we do. Part of the confusion (and one reason for all the competing labels) lies in the sheer variety of tasks that can fall under this heading. We may be fairly sure that some jobs lie within the boundaries of data journalism, but we’d be hard-pressed to say what can’t be jumbled into this baggy monster of a field.
In its current state, data journalism describes neither a beat nor a particular medium (unlike photo journalism or video journalism), but rather an overlapping set of competencies drawn from disparate fields. We have the statistical methods of social scientists, the mapping tools of GIS, the visualization arts of statistics and graphic design, and a host of skills that have their own job descriptions and promotion tracks among computer scientists: Web development, general-purpose programming, database administration, systems engineering, data mining (even, I hear, cryptography). And the ends of these efforts vary as widely as their means: from the more traditional text CAR story to the interactive graphic or app; from newsroom tools built for reporters to multi-faceted websites in which the reporting becomes the data.
Teemu Henriksson on EditorsWebBlog.com, May 30 - Different opinions on Twitter have been coming out of the New York Times recently. First, Bill Keller, the executive editor of the paper, criticised Twitter and social media in general as promoting short-term thinking, not suitable for a profound discussion. His view was met by a wave of negative reactions, also from his own staff.
Last Friday, NYT journalist Brian Stelter posted an account of his ways of reporting from the tornado-stricken Joplin, Missouri. Twitter is the star of his description – deprived of mobile and Internet coverage, Stelter used Twitter to post updates and photographs from location. “Looking back, I think my best reporting was on Twitter,” he wrote.
For many commentators, Stelter’s account highlighted how journalists using Twitter are able to report in ways that are not possible through traditional methods. GigaOM’sMatthew Ingram noted that the Times has seemed to take a more open view of the Internet lately, and wondered whether Stelter’s example would encourage the newspaper to experiment more with the web as a journalistic tool. Read full article
Sourcing the News: Key Issues in Journalism — An Innovative Study of the Israeli Press. Zvi Reich. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2009. 244 pp.
As a cynical academic, I admit I become suspicious when an author feels compelled to use the subtitle of his/her book to state how original or “innovative” the study is. Surely show-don’t-tell applies to academic writing, too? In this case, however, the book fully lives up to the title. This is truly an innovative study, and it tackles one of the key issues of journalism studies — journalist-source relations — in a comprehensive, never-seen-before fashion.
On the Front Lines of the Cold War: An American Correspondent’s Journal from the Chinese Civil War to the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam. Seymour Topping. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2010. 435 pp.
This book should be required reading for all journalism students and international policymakers.
More than ever in this age of social media, we need good role models for what real reporters and editors do. It would be hard to find a better one than Seymour Topping—and there is much that those who make America’s international policies can learn from a man who witnessed firsthand many of America’s worst blunders in dealing with international crises in the last half of the twentieth century, and who in this book is willing to tell the truth about them.
In 2009, journalism students at the Missouri School of Journalism had to purchase iPod Touches or iPhones as a required “learning device.” Now the school is considering making purchases of iPads mandatory and the student newspaper strongly opposes the proposed idea. The paper said that the attempt to integrate the new technology failed last time and the school shouldn’t impose any new requirements.
The paper says that students should be able to decide what type of technology they use for their reporting and projects. They compared any type of forced technology purchase to advertising for Apple.
From the paper:
When administrators push every new device in Apple’s product line every couple years, the policies cease to be requirements. They aren’t even friendly recommendations — they’re endorsements.
You can read the paper’s article here.
Do you think students should have to purchase new technologies for school?
From Lauren Rabaino on MediaBistro, April 15 - Increasingly, iPhones are becoming a credible, convenient and reliable tool for journalists –both amateur and professional– to use in the field. Mobile reporting was even the topic of a UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism course taught by Jeremy Rue to help journalists learn how to get the most out of reporting from a mobile device.
Will Sullivan at the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri also put together an incredible guide which outlines the various hardware and applications every journalist should have — definitely a recommended read.
But that’s not what I’m writing about here. Aside from the must-have apps, these are some practical tips and tricks — the dirty, simple basics for day-to-day reporting — that can help you get the most out of your iPhone as a reporting tool. Read the article
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?
