Archive for April 23rd, 2007
Joe Strupp at Editor & Publisher makes an interesting argument:
The folks at the Pulitzer Prize office say they don’t recall a college newspaper ever winning the coveted awards. Well come next spring, that may need to change. Given everything the student-run Collegiate Times of Virginia Tech has accomplished in the past week, from online scoops to poignant, thoughtful print presentations, the daily paper may deserve some consideration, even if a special category is required.
We pointed to the Collegiate Times early in the crisis, and their work was remarkable. They went into blog mode when the shootings first happened, and broke news on their site. They published profiles of the victims, ran continuous eyewitness accounts, and kept their community informed with important and timely information written for them, by them. The Collegiate Times had multimedia pages reporting on the tragedy. And Strupp points out that the New York Times and the Richmond Times-Dispatch linked to the Collegiate Times as its only source for a list of the students who were murdered. If the Collegiate Times were a “professional newspaper,” you’d have to think a Pulitzer would be in the bag. I hope the board can see that these students accomplished a major and landmark act of journalism.
April 23rd, 2007
Nashville, TN
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Danville, KY
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Nashville, TN
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David Halberstam was killed in a car accident in California Monday morning. Halberstam won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Vietnam War while he worked at the New York Times. He wrote 21 books, including “The Best and the Brightest,” a book that convinced many that the Vietnam War was unwinnable. From Wikipedia:
Halberstam put an enormous effort into his book about Kennedy’s foreign policy decisions about the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest. Synthesizing material from dozens of books and many dozens of interviews, Halberstam focused on the odd paradox that those who crafted the U.S. war effort in Vietnam were some of the most intelligent, well-connected and self-confident men in America—”the best and the brightest”—and yet those same men were unable to imagine and promote any but a bloody and disastrous course in the Vietnam War.
Thousands of readers began The Best and the Brightest feeling that the U.S. must pursue the war in Vietnam until “victory” was achieved, but became convinced by Halberstam’s book that the U.S. could not win and therefore should withdraw from Vietnam.
Halberstam was the passenger in a car that was struck by another car in Menlo Park. A student from the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkley, was driving the car that was hit. Halberstam had spoken at the school Saturday. He was 73.
April 23rd, 2007
I’m currently at Nexpo, the Newspaper Association of America’s technology meeting. As usual, the show floor has lots of neat machines and it is a great place to shop for fun things like presses, inserters, editorial systems, and all that good stuff. This year, though, there are quite a few items on the agenda that pertain to online content, and especially video. Apple hosted a well-attended breakfast event to tout their rich media storytelling tools, and Adobe is selling their editing suite. Rob Curley is here, so hallways are buzzing about his newspaper video work like Naples’ Studio 55 and onBeing. Disruptive innovation is a hot topic. While they are still taking care of the ink and paper business, newspaper technologists are definitely not hiding their heads in the sand.
April 23rd, 2007
We’re used to TV segments in the news being sponsored. “Tonight’s weather is brought to you by your local Ford dealer.” But sponsored columns in the newspaper have always been something of a no-no. No more. The Philadelphia Inquirer is going to start a column called PhillyInc. next week, and it will have what sounds like the equivalent of what we call online a sponsor “wrapper.” The section will be sponsored by Citizen’s Bank, will have the bank’s logo at the top and an ad at the bottom and will be outlined in the bank’s green color. It will be written by the regular cast of staffers, and is not a “paid advertisement.” This would be a major change in policy should its example be followed by other newspapers.
April 23rd, 2007
I like it whenever I come upon contrarian points of view. And newassignment.net has a doozy. Steve Fox writes about Virginia Tech student Jamal Albarghouti’s cellphone video of the shooting at Virginia Tech. Here are some of his thoughts:
As everyone steps up to applaud the “citizen journalism” that occurred yesterday, with kudos upon kudos give to the cellphone video made infamous by CNN… Consider this: the video had no inherent news value and told no story. It did have sounds of bullets being fired and screams. Those were bullets that killed, maimed and injured students and faculty members. This wasn’t a video game. Is such video responsible journalism? Are these the types of Citizen Journalists that people want to see? Are we doomed to create “citizen journalists” to play the I-patsies for cable television?
A poster in Fox’s piece also points us to Paul McCleary’s thoughts from CJRDaily called “What Happens When an I-Reporter Gets Hurt?”:
Arguably the most stunning thing about Albarghouti’s footage is not what he was filming — it took repeated viewings to figure out exactly what it was that he captured — but the fact that he seemed to run toward the gunshots. We applaud — scratch that — we expect any cameraman worth his salt to move toward the action, but a grad student with no experience in these situations?
I will respectfully disagree with Fox’s take on this. There is plenty of news value in a firsthand, eyewitness account of a major news story. Just because Albarghouti wasn’t in the classroom doesn’t mean what he captured wasn’t news. He had sound and he had pictures of police moving in. We show pointless exteriors of buildings hours after a crime has taken place there. This was news video. McCleary’s point is more provocative. There will come a time when someone rushes to he scene of a tragedy to capture it on video and gets hurt. Does that mean we stop asking people to send in pictures? No. It means we - as you already hear - tell people to use common sense and not take risks. Mind you - If he were my kid, I’d scream at him. (And take away his cellphone…)
April 23rd, 2007
The Los Angeles Times is reporting it will cut 150 employees as the paper continues to have declining revenue. 70 of the job cuts will come from the newsroom, which will lower the editorial contingent from 940 to 870. Meantime, the Chicago Tribune will cut about 100 jobs from its newsroom and will offer employee buyouts. Both the L.A. Times and the Chicago Tribune are owned by Tribune Co., which was recently purchased by Sam Zell for $8.2 billion.
April 23rd, 2007
The Washington Post reports that the Federal Communications Commission will recommend Congress enact legislation intended to curb violence in TV programming. The legislation would also extend government power to the ability to fine basic cable channels for the first time as well. The FCC has had the power to fine TV stations that show sexually “indecent” material, and now wants the government to have that same authority to levy fines on violence, especially on programming airing before 10 p.m. Still, as the article points out, the recommendation is broad and it would be up to the Congress to decide what “violence” is. Does cartoon violence count? Professional wrestling? It seems the nightly news is safe, but what about an infotainment show that features that same footage?
April 23rd, 2007
