Torontoist's Metrocide series did some digging on murder and crime stats in Toronto to get to the bottom of whether T.O. is a "safe" city or not. Must read through (and should have posted it last week).
Today, they call out the Toronto Sun for another of its horrible headlines and come up with a fear mongering checklist.
The comments are a good read... mostly.
Daniel Libit of Politico on the relationship between blogs, journalists and audience engagement.
"Behold the Commentocracy, where big ideas and rough remarks sit shoulder to shoulder, altogether transforming the nature of the Web and of journalism...Writers and editors have become obsessed with comment tallies (even if many don’t deign to read the comments themselves), which have become a favored, albeit unreliable, barometer for determining editorial success and tapping into the political zeitgeist."
Pardon me for barfing up a whole press release, but as this is a research blog (and not really a reporting site), you can live with it.
Poynter Receives Boost to Transform Journalism Education Through E-Learning
$1.4 million grant from Knight Foundation to NewsU e-learning program adds digital transformation modules and multiple languages
St. Petersburg, Fla. - July 8, 2008 - The Poynter Institute announced today that it will use a $1.4 million, five-year grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to help transform journalism education by expanding the world's most successful and innovative journalism e-learning site. Launched in 2005 with a prior Knight Foundation grant, NewsU provides interactive, inexpensive courses to journalists at all levels of experience and in all types of media.
The grant will help NewsU expand in four key areas:
. Enhance the skills and digital abilities of journalists,
. Find new ways to teach and inspire journalists as well as those without access to formal journalism training,
. Increase news literacy, and
. Use the Internet to deliver training in innovative and effective ways.
Specifically, NewsU plans to offer new courses to help journalists and others make the transition to a digital world, shift its current content management system to a Web 2.0 platform, deliver course content in multiple languages, and create e-learning modules on news literacy for the general public.
"More than 73,000 participants have enrolled in NewsU courses since its introduction, vastly exceeding initial expectations and making NewsU the top e-learning destination for journalists and others interested in journalism," said Howard Finberg, director of interactive learning at The Poynter Institute. "We are excited about taking NewsU to the next level and reaching journalists around the world."
"This second Knight grant is a major vote of confidence in the work of our faculty and staff, our partners and our diverse and expansive user base," said Karen Dunlap, president of The Poynter Institute.
"New technology is transforming journalism," said Gary Kebbel, Director of Journalism programs at Knight Foundation. "Journalism education cannot meet the training needs of today's journalist without using that same technology. We hope this grant helps anyone learn to use new platforms to pursue the fair, accurate, contextual search for truth." He added, "Every community in this democracy has a core need for information that creates shared experiences that unite us."
NewsU was launched in 2005 to help journalists understand and adapt to the digital revolution. Through partnerships with more than 25 journalism organizations, the online site has developed and introduced more than 65 interactive learning modules that can be taken anytime and anywhere.
About The Poynter Institute
Founded in 1975 in St. Petersburg, Fla., The Poynter Institute (www.poynter.org) is one of the nation's top schools for professional journalists and media leaders, future journalists and journalism educators. Poynter offers training throughout the year in online and multimedia; reporting, writing and editing; leadership and management; TV and radio; ethics and diversity; visual journalism; and journalism education. Poynter's News University (www.newsu.org) offers training to journalists, journalism students and others through interactive e-learning modules and links to other journalism education and training opportunities.
About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes journalism excellence worldwide and invests in the vitality of the U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Since 1950 the foundation has granted more than $300 million to advance journalism quality and freedom of expression. Knight Foundation focuses on ideas and projects that create transformational change. To learn more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.
Contacts:
News University/The Poynter Institute
Howard Finberg, Director, Interactive Learning
Phone: 1.727.553.4371
E-mail: hfinberg@poynter.org
Marc Fest, Vice President of Communications
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Phone: 1.305.908.2677
Email: fest@knightfoundation.org
Zainab Zakari has penned This article is 1,689 words long for the New York Review of Magazines, reporting on the various theories concerning how long articles should be online. Mentions various studies on attention spans and anecdotal evidence of why 1,000 words is an arbitrary and incorrect benchmark.
"Weisberg chose 1,000 words arbitrarily, but he and Nielsen are echoing the prevailing wisdom that, on the web, shorter is always better. If you don’t keep it short, you’ll lose the reader’s attention—and once a reader is bored, all it takes is one mouse click to kill an article.
Are these assumptions justified? Based on my personal experience, an informal survey of the literature in the field and conversations with various social psychologists and social scientists, I believe they are not."
Christopher Shulgan has posted his feelings on the online rebirth of Toro with a tale that will make freelancers' cringe and rant.
"I think it was in December 2006 that I finally got frustrated with Finkle and started swearing at him on the telephone over a pair of invoices that were going on three months overdue. I had an excuse -- Christmas was coming up, the invoices totaled around $8,000 and my wife wasn't going to get any presents if those invoices didn't come in.
The thing was, it wasn't Finkle's fault -- he had done his best to get me the money and finally just gave me Bratty's office phone number. I started bugging Bratty with incessant voice-mails explaining the situation, and at the very last minute before Christmas vacation -- I think on the 22nd of December -- I drove out to the west side of Toronto and met Bratty at a Starbuck's near his house, where he handed me the cheque. What got me was Bratty's manner. He tossed off some random comment to the effect of, he hoped I was grateful that he was going out of his way to pay me. This was an invoice that was at least three months overdue. And what gets me to this day, and what is probably the reason for my current venting, is that I didn't call him on that asshole comment."
I attended the relaunch party last night. It wasn't "happening" as of the time I left. It certainly wasn't a magazine or a journalists' gathering. I wonder if it's because of what Shulgan describes in his post?
They're a little late to this particular game, aren't they?
MyNews.CTV.ca.
The Torontoist outlines this story fairly well, with a little blogger editorializing thrown in to get the conversation rolling.
The gist:
-photographer finds man breaking into his house, burglar jumps from window, breaks leg
-photog takes pics of injured burglar below his window, posts them to Flickr
-CP24 covers incident, asks for photos, does not get permission, but runs them anyway without attribution after accessing them on Flickr
It's a fair use issue which is fleshed out nicely in the comments section of the original post.
NYTimes - Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand.
Flickr post (via BoingBoing) - Radio for back up, an illustration of what's happening in the UK regarding public photography. Changing laws, could set a global precedent in our ongoing war on terror. Must investigate topic further.
Ad Age- Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Resigns... for later reference.
Great post today at The Spectator (T.O. Life's media blog) about Tucker Carlson's recent spat with Gerri Peev from The Scotsman about what constitutes on and off the record.
The Spec does a good job laying out the issue, so just read Mr. Bell's post and check out the brief YouTube clip.
It has never occurred to me in my short career that what Carlson suggests could be a feasible way to work. It's seems stupid. I personally would never write a word if all someone had to so was say "...but that's OTR" to get me to put my pen down.
Though it's not really surprising that Carlson's attitude exists. I have to explain OTR to my interview subjects all the time. I don't always run what they try to erase from the record, but I consider it fair game. Many don't get that you can't just un-tell a reporter something. We aren't paid to keep people's filthy secrets.
A well-written first hand account of what it's like to work at a paper in North America. I (and Esquire) give you David Simon, creator of The Wire (which, incidentally, is the best television show ever produced in a kind of plain, epic way... but I digress) and former writer for The Baltimore Sun.
The excerpt I link to is a great read. I guess I'll have to pick up the March issue to get it all.
It took me a long moment to regroup.
“John,” I said finally, “if I was the editor of a major metropolitan daily and I had to retract three stories by the same reporter, I would remember it until the day I fucking died.”
I’m not prescient. At that moment, I can’t yet fathom all the still-to-come Tribune Company cost cutting at The Sun, the Kafkaesque reductions in staffing, the slow-motion demolition of the Washington bureau, the shuttering of the foreign bureaus.
And I am still as clueless as the captains of the newspaper industry when it comes to the Internet, still mistaking the Web as advertising for the product when, in fact, it is the product. I don’t yet envision the steep declines in circulation, the indifference of young readers to newsprint, the departure of display advertising to department-store consolidation and classified space to Craigslist.
Admittedly, I can’t even grasp all of the true and subtle costs of impact journalism and prize hunger. I don’t yet see it as a zero-sum game in which a serious newspaper would cover less and less of its city -- eliminating such fundamental responsibilities as a poverty beat, a labor beat, a courthouse beat in a city where rust-belt unemployment and crime devour whole neighborhoods -- and favor instead a handful of special select projects designed to catch the admiring gaze of a prize committee.
Edit Jan 17 - After returning to Understanding Crime after... well, after months and months, I've found the New Yorker profile of David Simon here.
From David Jones' PR Works blog, a note on a new bill that may get passed providing reporters and some bloggers with some protection from governments wanting access to confidential sources.
CNet has a story on the blogging half of the equation.
Today's New York Times reports on one of the consequences of CNN parting ways with Reuters.
At CNN, No Reuters, or bin Laden describes the process by which CNN tried to cover bin Laden's latest taped message. Reuters distributed it to its other partner agencies, but CNN was a full half-hour behind in getting the footage. It ran archival footage with a transcript in the meantime.
In 24-hour TV journalism, this is a major fumble.
This link to DB Scott's blog has a number of interesting links about fact-checking. Glad to see that Cynthia Brouse has finally published her fact-checking text. I interviewed her once for an article I wrote on the subject for Masthead.
Also note the links to discussions on the future of fact-checking (which my article happened to be about).
An interesting post from a PR-guy's blog about Google's decision to allow news subjects to comment or respond to news stories about them.
Oh, the possibilities for burned PR folk. Oh the flak that will fly.
Here is Google News Blog's explanation.
Edit, August 8: Here is Ars Technica's post on the subject.
A British TV production company accepted responsibility on Monday for a TV trailer that implied the Queen had stormed out of a sitting with photographer Annie Leibovitz.
Seems the widely accepted reality television editing style has landed some folks in hot water. The alleged dust-up between HRH and Ms. Leibovitz was created by reorganizing a taped sequence of events. This happens, apparently, all the time on Survivor and Big Brother. The fact that it was done in this "documentary" is further proof that the practice is widespread. I'm willing to bet Michael Moore has done this a few times. I can think of one scene in particular in Bowling for Columbine.
Lots here on the state of citizen journalism. Many claims made (be sure to check those out later) and his bias seems apparent in the initial skimming.
Of note, in #10:
"What becomes increasingly clear is the need to update media literacy for a media-saturated age. When people are creators of media, not just consumers, the task is more complex — but more important than ever.
Think of media literacy in terms of principles, not a bunch of specific must-do kinds of instructions. They differ somewhat depending on the role one is playing in the media ecosystem."
You can find it here.
BostonNOW appears to be a print news product that sources blogs and "citizen journalists" for content.
BoingBoing commentary and reporting. Great quote to find again: "Print versions of blogs - their slogan should be 'Bringing you yesterday's news tomorrow.'"
UPDATE
Just a few notes now that I've had exactly 5 minutes to go back and look at this site.
-stories are not dated on the front page. Datelines are found at the bottom of each story
-there are a few older stories still being ranked as "front page" (French election, for example, under the World heading). This could just be because of the presentation scheme (stories perhaps ranked by readers? most recent comments? I'm not sure).
-I find the headlines and decks confusing and mostly useless (which could just mean I'm not Bostonian)
-There is precious little news evident under the World and Nation headings; in order to find news there, you have to navigate a "most popular tags" interface, so news is not presented, but rather placed so readers have to go looking for it
A version of this article about biographer Tom Bower from the Guardian appeared in today's Globe and Mail. It outlines the characteristics of Bower's aggressive style and the response he gets from his subjects/targets. Bower's style is herein called "anti-hagiography."
Bower had indicated that he would not be interviewed for this article, but he ended up telephoning anyway. On balance, he said, he'd rather articles like this one not appear (an obvious hazard is that his enemies, such as Black, might be hungry for anything negative they could find). He added, however, that he welcomed publicity for his books, and he defended himself against charges of premeditated hostility. "Believe me, I don't approach any of these people from a negative point of view," he said. "I'm interested in the use of money to buy influence, and in those people who have the ambition to try to determine the fate of mankind. I find it fascinating - have done ever since childhood, reading books on Bismarck and Disraeli. I've witnessed power, and it's just fascinating." The evidence of lying and corruption, he said, "is always there. It's always there. It's fascinating how these characters just ignore the truth".
Patricia reminded me to read this story in Wired that concerns this online journalism project that deals with collaborative, online, "open source" reporting. Crowd-sourcing. That kinda stuff.
Fascinating reading really. I wonder how and when this will explode?
Associated link: NewAssignment.net.
Edit: July 9, 2007
-Wired just published this follow-up (reprinted from Assignment Zero) that gives a state of the union on the project under the headline Open-Source Journalism: It's a Lot Tougher Than You Think.
Edit: July 16, 2007
-Another follow-up entitled Did Assignment Zero Fail? A Look Back and Lessons Learned.
