On the Dallas Morning News opinion blog today, the paper brags about what sets its letters apart from online discussion: identity. They quote a frequent letter writer named Chris (irony: no last name given) who says:
There was a statement in this guide whose importance is understood by far too few. Maybe it should have been entered in bigger and bolder lettering. The statement went as follows:
“There is no shortage of online forums where people can make up facts and throw bombs. But in our published letters to the editor, people sign their names and publicly stand behind their opinions.”
In a free society, opinions without sources reflect poorly on both writers and readers. This fact, along with the feedback that hard copy journalism has concerning government at all levels, constitute a valuable rationale for the necessity, existence and continuation of such journalism.
I’m not sure I can parse that last sentence into anything approaching clarity. But the point of the rest is clear: identity is good.
But then there’s a comment left by one PaulC (no last name, either), who argues:
Really?
“In an important case for privacy and free speech advocates, the
Supreme Court ruled recently that the First Amendment protects
anonymous political speech. In McIntyre v. Ohio Election Commission,
decided April 19, 1995, the Court struck down an Ohio law that required
the disclosure of personal identity on political literature. . . .
Justice Steven’s opinion for the Court note that arguments favoring
the ratification of the Constitution advanced in the Federalist Papers
were published under fictitious names. Justice Stevens said “quite
apart from any threat of persecution, an advocate may believe her
ideas will be more persuasive if her readers are unaware of her
identity. Anonymity thereby provides a way for a writer who may be
personally unpopular to ensure that readers will not prejudge her
message simply because they do not like its proponent.” Stevens
concluded “Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a
pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of
advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of
the majority. “
Each is right. I have long said here that I give more credence and value to the opinions of those who stand by those opinions with their names, as I do here. But there is a place for anonymity in political discourse (and in whistleblowing and under repressive regimes).
For a proposal I’m writing, I want to compile key stats that show the state of the news business (at least the incumbents, plus a view of demand). Here’s what I have. Do you have other stats that reveal the state?
Bad news…
• Newspaper stocks fell an average of 83.3% in 2008—twice the fall of the S&P 500—wiping out $64.5 billion in market value, according to Alan Mutter’s Newsosaur blog.
• Since 1994—and the release of the commercial web browser—newspaper audience penetration has fallen a third, from 23% to 16%. In that time, circulation fell 14% (59 million to 50 million, according to the Newspaper Association of America) while population rose 20%.
• Viewership for network evening news continues to decline, to 23.1 million in 2007, according to Nielsen. The median age of network evening news viewers is 61 in 2008, according to Magna Global USA.
• Since 1994, newspaper print advertising revenue fell on an inflation-adjusted basis by 10% (from $34,109 million in 1994 dollars to $42,209 million in 2007 dollars, says NAA).
• Since 1994, the number of newspapers in America fell from 1,548 to 1,422, according to NAA.
• In 2008 alone, 15,586 newspaper jobs were lost, according to the Papercuts blog.
• In 2008, the Pew Research Center found that the internet surpassed newspapers as a primary source of news for Americans (following TV). For young people, 18 to 29, the internet will soon surpass TV, at nearly double the rate for newspapers.
• 54% of Americans do not trust news media, according to a Harris survey. A Sacred Heart University survey says only 20% of Americans believe or trust most news media.
• Jeffrey Cole of the University of Southern California Annenberg School’s Center for the Digital Future found in a 2007 survey that young people 12 to 25 will “never read a newspaper.” Never.
• In 2008, the American Society of Newspaper Editors took “paper” out of its name.
Good news…
• But newspaper online site audience has long since surpassed print circulation, reaching 69 million unique users in fall 2008, according to NAA.
• And the total online news audience is about 100 million—more than half total U.S. internet users—according to ComScore.
Via Ryan Sholin on Twitter, I find a post by journalism student and practitioner Suzanne Yada (what a great name for blogging) with great advice for journalism students. Ryan’s and my favorite bit:
Grow some cojones. Let me level with you. The world doesn’t need more music reviewers or opinion spouters. The world needs more people willing to ask tough questions. The first step to reversing journalism’s tarnished image is to have the guts to dig for information the public can’t easily find themselves, and be an advocate of unbiased, straightforward truth. If you can show depth and research with your reporting clips, if you can show you can ask the tough questions and be more than just a parrot for your interviewee, if you can fact-check the living snot out of your articles, you will rise to the top of the crop.
She has tons more superb advice (including: be prepared to go entrepreneurial), which I recommend to all my students and j-students anywhere.
Three neat new efforts to teach journalists the tools, tricks, and gizmos of new media:
In a McCormick Foundation-funded program, West Virginia University journalism students are making multimedia stories to be run on papers’ sites throughout the state. That alone is a good idea and I’ll argue that we need to harness the brute reporting power of journalism students everywhere to help create journalism for papers and the public. But the WVU program goes the next step: Once the students have learned the tools and made stories with them, they turn around and teach the pros how to use them. Great idea!
“About half at least, maybe a little more, of the weekly newspapers around the state have Web sites, but in a lot of cases they’re pretty rudimentary sites — they just have basically what’s in the print edition,” [Associate Dean John] Temple said.
While readers get their news increasingly from the Internet, small rural newsrooms don’t always have the time or money to invest in their Web sites.
“So what we’re trying to do is give them some ways of improving the editorial content on their Web sites without expending a great deal of time in training or in the execution,” Temple said.
Chris Stadelman, editor and publisher of the Parsons Advocate, was deciding in late December exactly what he wants his paper to get from the program.
“John (Temple) basically sent us a menu of different training and software applications, and we’re trying to figure out which ones we’re going to pursue,” Stadelman said. “They are certainly going to help us with video, and we may look at some blogging.”
Producing multimedia stories in the fall semester was energizing for McMillion, a news-editorial major from Charleston and one of the six seniors involved.
“Writing is my passion, but I’m real excited to be able to graduate in May with videography and photography skills and leave the school with a knowledge of multimedia,” she said.
“I never thought that I would learn so much in such a short amount of time — and now I catch myself teaching others,” she added.
Next step: I hope the newsroom journalists can’t catch themselves from teaching others in the community to expand the network of journalism locally: the newsroom as classroom.
Second effort: Jack Lail tells us about NewsTechZilla, where a couple of journalists explain how to use tools and fix problems in new media. One of them told Lail:
So it made sense for us to find a way to mesh together a discussion of journalism and some of the technical issues specific to journalists (real writers) who are moving online, many of them out on their own.
Note that: Many of the journalists will be the formerly employed now starting to work independently.
Third effort: A reporter experienced in computer-aided reporting is spending a year teaching fellow newsroom folks computer programming. I wouldn’t suggest that everyone needs to know how to program (and it takes much less time to teach web 2.0 tools) but the more that more people know in newsrooms about technology, the better.
I’ve argued for a few years now that news organizations should be training everyone – absolutely everyone – in the simple tools and gizmos of new media, for that would show journalists the possibilities and demystify technology (I used to complain that old-media journalists acted like a priesthood but the sad truth is that new media folks became their own priesthood in newsrooms, holding onto their knowledge). Journalists teaching journalists and journalism students teaching journalists are both great ideas but it’s unfortunate they’re filling a vacuum left by journalism managers (and educators).
: LATER: See also Gina Chen’s blog from a journalist helping journalists with blogs, Twitter, etc. (Here are her 10 tips for blogging and here is my addition in the comments.)
: And in the comments, Howard Owens adds WiredJournalists.com, which he blogs about here.
Alan Mutter, Boswell to the Grim Reaper of journalism – he has done a great job tracking the business misfortunes of the industry – produces a harrowing year-end account of newspaper company market value. His chart:
His lowlights:
* Newspaper shares are down 83.3% in a year, erasing $64.5 billion in market value – more than double the drop in the S&P 500.
* “The shares of eight of the 14 publishers tracked in the survey fell by 90% or more. The best-performing companies were the Washington Post Co., New York Times Co., and News Corp., but WaPo, the least battered issue of all, still fell 51.5%.”
* “The biggest loser of all was Tribune Co., which is worthless as the result of the bankruptcy filed less than 12 months after Sam Zell bought its shares for $8.2 billion to take the company private.”
* “Trading for pennies, the shares of GateHouse Media, Journal Register Co. Lee Enterprises and Sun-Times Media Group are essentially worthless.” McClatchy may be headed for delisting soon.
It is fair to surmise that newspaper stocks last year got trounced twice as badly as the broader market , because investors have not seen any plausible strategies from publishers to reverse the accelerating declines in readership, advertising and profitability that have been under way since 2006.
California has a great set of laws that protects student journalists – and now their advisers – from retaliation for reporting. In the larger ecosystem of journalism, I think, students will play a larger and larger role.
“Allowing a school administration to censor in any way is contrary to the democratic process and the ability of a student newspaper to serve as the watchdog and bring sunshine to the actions of school administrators,” [State Sen. Leland] Yee said in a press release. . . .
“California just happens to have some of the best student journalism programs in the country and where the more substantive and aggressive journalism is, that’s where administrators crack down,” said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Virginia.
