I have a wonderful journalism student. She’s done everything she’s supposed to do.
Internships? Check. She’s had great internships at local newspapers and a regional magazine.
School work? Check. She goes above and beyond.
Hard worker? Absolutely. She’s a go-getter, no doubt about it.
The only thing she has not done is go to a journalism school with a top-tier national reputation.
The school where I teach is not Columbia or Missouri or Syracuse. It’s a good, small, public college in Upstate New York. And now that this stellar student is looking for jobs — or even internships — at larger publications, she’s finding it difficult to compete against the students with the J-School Name.
Last night this student came to me to ask what she can do. I told her to keep trying, that sometimes it’s about perseverance, luck and timing. I also told her that ultimately, she might want to consider graduate school at a top journalism school. I have no doubt she’d get in and thrive.
Dear Reader, what should I tell this student? Do you have any advice?
If you are buying a term paper off the Internet, you are probably not that concerned about whether someone’s copyright has been infringed upon.
But some of the people who wrote those papers are concerned about their copyrights, and their lawsuit has led an Illinois judge to order to one of these term paper companies to prove it has permission for the papers it sells.
According to USA Today, this might “be the first time a court has penalized a seller based on how it acquires papers.”
An assistant coach’s online insults aimed at fellow coaches have lead to a $200,000 libel lawsuit.
The showdown is at Sacred Heart-Griffin High School in Illinois, where a football coach and his assistant claim the former defensive coordinator has libeled them with labels like “pedophile” and “thief” on Facebook, according to the State-Journal Register.
The coaches say they have been dealing with three years of online insults.
This little gem of a case comes out of the Sunshine State.
Self-proclaimed porn star Justin Krueger’s photos have shown up on a male escort site called men4rentnow.com, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
But the angry party in the lawsuit is not Krueger. It’s Liberty Media, which says it owns the copyright to the photos and the trademark to a name in the photos. Liberty filed suit in federal court in Orlando.
If you are reading this blog, chances are you have heard of the Innocence Project, in which a group of Medill Journalism students at Northwestern University have freed 11 wrongly convicted men and women.
Today a Chicago-area prosecutor is trying to get access to students grades and class notes. Why, you might ask? You really need to listen to this NPR story.
In short, the prosecutor is arguing that these students may be being pressured by their professor to prove innocence, even if that means bribing sources to tell the “right” stories. Ridiculous.
Are we expected to believe this prosecution has nothing to do with the embarrassment these cases might cause to the legal system? Or that the prosecutor is not trying to intimidate these students — and future students — into silence?
The professor in question, journalist David Protess, says he won’t give up the records. Good for him.
Keep fighting the good fight, Professor. With people like you, the true spirit of journalism will survive.
It’s hard to resist choosing Tiger Woods’s British court injunction to stop publication of nude photos of him as the Media Law Case of the Week, but because of the proliferation of Tiger coverage, I will abstain.
I’m also tempted to focus on the interesting debate in the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee about who is — and is not — a journalist.You can watch it for yourself here. (Start at 135 minutes in to get to this particular focus.)
But instead a copyright infringement case that comes on the heels of strangulation accusations is the Media Law Case of the Week.
Shawne Merriman, who plays for the San Diego Chargers, has accused MTV reality show star Tila Tequila of copyright and trademark infringement. The lawsuit claims that Tequila is using his image and the trademark of his company on her web site without his permission.
Last month, Tequila filed a lawsuit against Merriman, whom she claims imprisoned and tried to strangle her. (Merriman was never charged, reportedly due to lack of evidence.)
Tequila hosted a show called “A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila” in which MTV says “16 luscious lesbians and 16 sexy straight guys” compete to be with Tila, a bisexual. Yes, it’s as horrible as it sounds.
And, yes, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
Livingston contends that someone has been repeatedly rewriting Wikipedia posts to say he is gay and involved with a man named Lee Dennison, according to an article in the Toronto Star. This person is also believe to have created fake Facebook accounts for Livingston and Dennison listing them as a couple, the report states.
The recently married Livingston is asking a judge to force Wikipedia and Facebook to reveal the identity of the anonymous poster.
FOIA Friday is written like a column, with a conversational tone and lots of information.
For a good example of what FOIA Friday does, see this entry. Not only does it inform readers about the National Security Archive, but it also lists the upcoming local information that might come from pending FOIA requests.
The author of the New York Times best-selling book “The Red Hat Club” is out $100,000 after a jury decided that she libeled her former friend in the book.
Her friend said one of the characters resembled her in many ways — except that she was not the “sexually promiscuous alcoholic” that the character in the book is.
The jury agreed that Haywood Smith libeled her former friend.
I stumbled across an article in The Hill about the Federal Communications Commission launching a MySpace page last week.
Not only is the MySpace page of interest, but so is a question raised by a blogger Adam Thierer at The Technology Liberation Front. Will the FCC censor the comments on its MySpace page?
The Hill writer Kim Hart found out that yes, an FCC spokesperson says it has a policy to remove comments deemed obscene or inappropriate.
If you want a look at some of the comments that were cut, check out Thierer’s blog.
My favorite comment so far, out of the 11 still remaining on the FCC’s MySpace page, is the following by someone identified as “The Ambience Project”: “Thanks for all the years of suppressing creativity and wasting our money in the process. America is a ****** ***** for it.”
So far, the friends of the FCC on the MySpace page far out number the negative comments. As of 4:20 today, the FCC had 73 friends on My Space and 11 comments (not all negative).
It just makes you wonder how many comments might be there without the policy.
Check out Poynter’s web site for a look at today’s front pages and screen grabs of news sites. It’s a great way to see how this historic election is being covered outside your neck of the woods.
I asked students in one of my classes today how many knew how to do a screen capture. One. One student out of 30 knew how to do a screen capture.
I shouldn’t be shocked, yet it always seems to surprise me when they don’t know tech tools, especially simple ones. Are they just not curious? Are they afraid? Neither attribute is a solid start for a journalist.
I prefer to think they simply believe that some IT/computer whiz works his/her magic and makes all these online things happen. And I’m determined to show them that they, too, can be this mysterious IT/computer whiz. (And I’m happy to report almost all took notes on how to do screen captures.)
Tom Cheredar writes an interesting post about how newspapers should use Twitter for a conversation, not just as an alternate RSS feed.
I must confess I like getting links and news through Twitter, but I tend to follow the links sent with personal, conversational comments. It fits right with his research found.
The page includes everything a multimedia package, bios on the justices, court documents, links to blogs and the usual case updates. For media law junkies like me, it is fabulous.
The New York Post features a witty yet depressing piece on the fate of TV news if newspapers do, indeed, die (Thanks, Romensko, for pointing this out!).
When I was a newspaper reporter, it used to frustrate our staff that we would write something, turn on the radio and hear the exact same story word for word. The radio reporters at a couple local stations would simply read our stories on the air. (That eventually changed after vocal protests from the then-editor.) The TV reporters in our area would at least do their own stories.
While I was angry then, thinking about the possibility that some TV or radio broadcasters would be left with nothing without newspapers and would be filling the air with who-knows-what while completely missing the boat on news important to the lives of their viewers and listeners makes me even angrier.
One way or another, the news industry has to change. Newspapers have got to find a way to be vital to people’s lives and broadcasters who are troubled by this (as the longtime broadcaster in the NY Post piece was) need to demand better.
I’m going to be teaching my convergence journalism students about Soundslides tomorrow. For those of you who don’t know what it is, here goes. Soundslides is a super easy, super cool way to make slide shows with photos and sound, whether that sound be music or audio of someone speaking.
It wasn’t that long ago Soundslides used to be free. Now you have to pay for it, but it’s well worth it. (Price $40 to $70 depending on how complex you want to get.) You can try out a demo for free.
If you want to learn all the tricks of Soundslides Plus without stumbling through them yourself, here’s a helpful tutorial on the subject.
The New York Times and Los Angeles Times have petitioned to get access to secret government records about the anthrax case from 2001. No word on the ruling yet, but I applaud the effort. This ruined Dr. Stephen Hatfill’s life and just because it happened years ago does not mean journalists should let it drop.
If the government was wrong about Hatfill, a man then Attorney General John Ashcroft labeled “a person of interest” in interviews with numerous TV shows, why should we believe it is right about its accusations against a dead man? Hatfill could and did fight the accusations. Bruce Ivins has no such option.
Bloggers are taking on the American Press Institute’s “crisis summit” on the future of newspapers and one can only hope that in the end the winner will be news consumers.
API’s summit, “Saving an Industry in Crisis,” ended with no real plan or ideas — except to meet again in six months. That no-solution solution got on several bloggers radars–and under their skins. (See Martin Langeveld,Steve Outing, and Kristufek’s We Media.
I’m going to ask my convergence journalism students tomorrow what ideas they would take to a Manhattan project. I’ll let you know the results tomorrow.
Following up on yesterday’s debate about the fate of newspapers, I had some of my journalism students get in groups and consider what they would suggest if they were to attend some kind of “Manhattan Project” designed to save newspapers, as Martin Langeveld suggested.
Here are a few of the groups’ ideas:
* “Get public input and make the topic of saving newspapers official, not just scattered on blogs.”
* “A web site for the ‘Manhattan Project’ where innovative and ‘young’ journalists can collaborate and voice their opinions”
* “Take papers away for a week–see how much outrage (or not) there is” (That could be scary. What if there were very little outrage?)
* “Pop-up newspapers–put art/craft things in there”
* “Cheaper editions of papers, with ‘paper boys’ selling these editions on the street for 25 cents”
* “Sell sections separately” and make newspapers “more like a book or magazine”
Several of the groups thought it would be a good idea to have some kind of a “reward system” for newspaper readers. One group suggested, “If you read newspapers, you turn it into a company, get a prize, recycle — like Pizza Hut Book It.”
One response that I as a former newspaper reporter who still loves to get the ink on my hands am having trouble bringing up follows:
“Let it die! The Internet is taking over. Sell ads online.”
Score a victory for the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth has ordered the Justice Department to release information used to get search warrants for the home of a former suspect in the 2001 anthrax case and his then-girlfriend. (See full story.)
Former Army scientist Stephen Hatfill has long since been exonerated, but some of you may remember the search. It was shown live on TV, as were comments by the then-Attorney General John Ashcroft that labeled Hatfill “a person of interest.”
The anthrax case is still making headlines, as the FBI centers its case on former Army scientist Bruce Ivins, a suspect who killed himself.
A NJ appeals court has ruled a newspaper can be sued for libel for reporting complaints made in court documents before the case goes to court. (Story here.)
Talk about scary. If a journalist can’t report on government records until the government wants it to, what is next?
This is a bit off topic, but it angers me. What angers me most is I’m not surprised by this.
As the New York Times reports, a 19-year-old threatened to kill himself online, posted the link, then did it. Instead of trying to stop him, he was reportedly “egged on” by other posters.
This is sick, but it’s just the next step down a sad hill. People have exhibited Internet cruelty for years. My students deal with insults and rumors posted by anonymous fellow students on juicycampus far too often.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m for free speech. I just wish people would use their voices in a responsible way. Like maybe telling a suicidal man to stop. And maybe, just maybe, trying to change the world for the better, not the worse.
The students at the campus newspaper I advise faced a world of tech hell the past 48 hours. Their server crashed and died. Then they found out the backup server also failed. A tech guy put together a makeshift system for them and the people from the company who publish the paper said it should work for outputting the pages. Unfortunately, they were wrong.
After hours of trying to tweak and resend the pages, the editor in chief and executive editor were faced with a horrible decision. Do they put out a print edition with horrible photos and poor quality, or do they cancel the print edition and put out only an online edition?
They chose to do the online edition only. It was a hard choice, but in the end, they didn’t want to put out a bad paper. It was a decision that I think nearly broke some of their hearts.
Their experience highlights some of the best of journalism. If it was going to be bad, they wanted no part of it. They want quality. I hope these standards stick with them throughout their careers and they never settle for less.
In a week that has seen news of massive cuts across the news industry, particularly at Gannett, a piece by Chris Stanfield seems to ring even more true. Stanfield wonders “Who will bail out the Fourth Estate?”
His piece, which I urge you to read, compares the Wall Street bailout and the state of the news industry. He says:
Until our nation (and more specifically, our industry) can answer the question – how much is enough – and until we can break the chains of greed from within our own walls, I sincerely doubt much innovation will take place. Last but not least, let us not forget that behind our greatest asset are the people who produce it.
We have to stop laying them off.
We have to stop letting them leave for PR jobs.
We have to stop ignoring the passion they bring to the table and start to capitalize on it.
I could not agree more. Instead of getting rid of experienced journalists, seize their ideas. Instead of imitating everyone else, newspapers need to produce GOOD journalism, journalism that people need. I don’t see how you can produce good journalism with less.
You are kidding me, right? Just NOW getting on Twitter? I don’t blame Kristof. He’s actually doing it. I do blame the New York Times. Writers at local papers are on Twitter. Reporters at TV stations are on Twitter. Thanks for joining the crowd, NYT. I can’t imagine why newspapers are in trouble. (And believe me, I love newspapers and want them to survive!)
Let’s hope this is a case of it’s better late than never.
I can’t believe it. I toured the Chicago Tribune last summer and thought it was a model for what newspapers need to be in today’s world. It had an online operation in its main newsroom along with a small TV “studio” (a camera, a screen, a chair) where reporters could do broadcast interviews or reports.
The Chicago Tribune reports that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich:
Blagojevich and Harris conspired to demand the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members responsible for editorials critical of Blagojevich in exchange for state help with the sale of Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs baseball stadium owned by Tribune Co.
Whoa!
The one truly great thing about this is it points to the power of the press. If newspapers are truly dying and have no influence, why was Blagojevich allegedly going to such great means to quiet critical voices?
David Ashenfelter of the Detroit Free Press did not reveal his source, and instead claimed the Fifth Amendment. Attorneys for the lawyer, who was in charge of terrorism cases, argue the use of the Fifth Amendment was improper and will continue to pursue the case.
At the heart of this issue is the lack of a federal shield law to protect journalists from revealing their sources. Many states have shield laws, but there is no such federal equivalent. (Does your state have a shield law? Find out here.)
The New York Times’s Sewell Chan writes about an unusual libel case involving whether it is libelous to incorrectly report that someone is not circumcised.
A Queens man is suing Centropa, a group with the mission of preserving Jewish culture, for just that. The story is worth a read.
The Supreme Court has declined to overturn the case of a U.S. scientist incorrectly linked to the 2001 Anthrax killings. Steven Hatfill sued The New York Times for libel, but an appeals court dismissed of the case, saying Hatfill was a public figure and hadn’t met the higher burden of proof in the case.
While I sympathize with Hatfill’s plight, the court made the right call. Hatfill’s problem stems from the government, not from The Times. Case in point: Earlier this year the Justice Department agreed to pay Hatfill $5.8 million to settle his case that government officials violated his privacy by talking about the case with the media.
The Times reports its attorney David E. McCraw said this is:
“an important reaffirmation of Times v. Sullivan,” the seminal 1964 Supreme Court decision that placed constitutional limits on libel suits. That decision, Mr. McCraw said, “is designed to encourage the press to report aggressively on matters of public concern.”
We should all be thankful that NY Times v. Sullivan not only exists, but continues to stand the test of time, regardless of changes in administrations and justices.
Thank goodness 19 news organizations are fighting a ridiculous New Jersey appellate court decision that said that journalists could be sued for libel for accurately reporting legal complaints.
The groups — which include ABC, the New York Times, the ACLU and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press — have asked the New Jersey Supreme Court to overturn the decision.
WIVB-TV, Buffalo’s top-rated news station, fired a long-time morning news anchor this week. By all accounts, she was liked and had a good reputation. She was, however, not your typical female TV news anchor. Although attractive, she was not a young, slender, model-like woman. (See an older clip of Lisa here.)
My first thought was she was fired because of her weight. I was not alone. Posts to The Buffalo News’s Talkin’ TV blog echoed my thought. For example, one poster writes:
I don’t care if the person reading the news weighs 250 or 85, is 4″2″ or 6′6″. All I care about, is that they know how to read, and do it in a professional manner. Lisa Scott did so, for many years for Ch 4, and to get rid of her is stupid, stupid, stupid.
I realize these are hard economic times and journalists everywhere are losing their jobs. WIVB says Scott’s firing was part of a restructuring of the station. (Lisa wasn’t the only one to lose her job. Reporter Ellen Maxwell, who had worked for WIVB for eight years, and an internet manager lost theirs, too.) I also realize that salaries for new reporters are a helluva lot less than for experienced ones.
However, I can’t help but think about Christine Craft and whether things have really changed much for female TV anchors and journalists. More than 25 years ago Craft was fired from her job as a TV anchor following a consultant’s report that said viewers thought she was too old, not attractive enough and not deferential enough to men. She sued and initially won her sex discrimination case, although that judgment was overturned eventually on appeal.
For Lisa Scott and others like her, I can’t help but think that things have not changed as much as we would like.
Arguing that the individual freelancer will gain more power, Andy Dickinson predicts 2009 will be the “Year of the Journalist” . His argument is, of course, more complex than that and is definitely worth a read.
I certainly hope he is right. So many talented journalists are out there looking for work, and we need their skills and insight. I have a bumper sticker from The Newspaper Guild on my office door that says “Democracy depends on journalism.” So true, yet in this day of journalistic uncertainty, also so scary.
I truly believe we editors have a special calling. We have a mission like no other in serving our communities. No matter what the challenge is, we must uphold our First Amendment responsibilities by shining a light on things that would otherwise go unreported.
I applaud the commitment to watchdog journalism. I just hope they can do it. The Gannett job cuts have practical implications that cannot be ignored. Daily news still needs to get covered, yet fewer people are there to do it. And from what I’ve heard of the D&C job cuts, more experienced journalists were let go than less experienced journalists.
Godspeed, Karen Magnuson and the D&C’s watchdog team. I look forward to following this.
The Buffalo News features a nice editorial on why President-elect Obama should make a federal shield law a priority. (A shield law is a law that protects journalists from having to reveal confidential sources. Currently, some states have shield laws, but there is no federal shield law. Check here to see if your state has one.)
The Society of Professional Journalists has also recently called upon Obama to support a federal shield law as he indicated he would do during the campaign.
With the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s safe to say that gathering support for a federal shield law is not one of Obama’s top priorities. However, it should be. If we are going to get this country back on track, we need journalists to hold people in power accountable. To do that, they need to know they are not going to face prison for reporting an accurate story with an anonymous source whom they refuse to reveal. Journalists want “change we can believe in,” too.
It’s about time stories of the second-class treatment of Muslims in this country since 9-11 are starting to get wide attention. In the past week alone, this story and one of Muslims forced off a plane for “suspicious” discussions have gained nationwide attention.
My brother-in-law is an Iranian immigrant forced to leave his own country during the Revolution. If he goes back, he faces death. He would never complain about how the U.S. has treated him–quite the contrary, in fact. However, if one travels with him, one notices that this physician must adopt a placating, quiet manner in order not to be seen as a threat. His mere appearance and name already raise suspicion. He can’t talk boisterously like the rest of us can if we would like. That would raise eyebrows. And heaven forbid he have to take a phone call from a relative and speak in Farsi.
As journalists, we should help those who feel the need to be voiceless regain their voices. In doing so, we can remind people that the First Amendment is not just for Christians. It is for all.
While some traditional print journalists might not be catching on to the 24-hour news cycle (Buffalo News, why don’t you have Twitter updates yet?), I’m happy to report that some up-and-coming journalism students get it.
Most students at The College at Brockport, where I teach, won’t return until the spring semester at the end of January. No campus newspaper comes out until then, either.
That didn’t stop the college’s student newspaper, The Stylus, from sending out a breaking news email and updating its web site with the news that Third Eye Blind is tentatively scheduled for the spring concert. (Full disclosure: I advise the newspaper, but I knew nothing of this until the e-mail hit my inbox, just like the rest of the Brockport community.)
These students realize that journalism is a 24-hour-a-day job, regardless of the medium, and that when they find out big news, they can’t wait for the print edition or even, in their case, for when they return to school. I am confident they are not the only college journalists who work this way.
Can you imagined being awoken at 6:40 a.m., handcuffed and strip searched twice in the same month because someone in the justice system wanted to talk to you about a libel case?
According to Washington Post writer Edward Cody, that is exactly what happened to a French editor of the Liberation daily in Paris. An investigating magistrate said she took the action because the journalist hadn’t responded when summoned.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to eliminate investigative magistrates because of abuses of power and a need for a greater presumption of innocence for the accused, Cody reports. While his idea apparently has a lot of support, my guess is the investigating magistrates will be buying a lot of Sarkozy voodoo dolls in the coming days.
To my surprise, a post I wrote yesterday praising The College at Brockport’s student newspaper, The Stylus, for getting the news of the spring concert act out to students over the break sparked some debate.
Dan Reimold at College Media Matters questioned the need for an e-mail alert to the story as opposed to simply posting the news on the web site. I appreciate his feedback. I’d like to clarify that quite frankly I believe the e-mail alert was necessary because this is occurring during the break and students and members of the college community would not be checking the student newspaper web site for updates when they know the students aren’t there working on the next issue. (Full disclosure: I am the newspaper’s adviser, but knew nothing of the story or e-mail until I received the e-mail.)
I don’t think those receiving the e-mails would view them as cluttering their mailboxes. The community here would see this as big, breaking news. Maybe in New York City or San Francisco or a huge university this would not be big news, but here in Brockport it is. (And please don’t take that as a sign that The Stylus is a sleepy little paper. It’s not.)
Part of determining the importance of news and even what is news is knowing your community. I certainly don’t slight Mr. Reimold for not being familiar with Brockport. I just want to offer some clarification as to why I think it is fantastic that Stylus editor Amanda Seef broke the story over the break, with the first newspaper of the semester still weeks away. She got the story, didn’t wait for the announcement to be “officially” released by the college and recognized that this would be important enough to her readers to alert them. That is good journalism.
Are you an absolutist? Do you believe no law should abridge free speech?
I am an absolutist, but an issue the Supreme Court is likely to tackle sure made me think about that.
The United States solicitor general asked the Supreme Court to look at whether a law that makes it illegal to sell videos depicting animal cruelty violates the First Amendment, according to Adam Liptak at the New York Times. The law in question does not make the animal cruelty illegal; other laws deal with the actual act. This law only criminalizes depiction of the act.
In a fascinating yet disturbing read, Liptak details how this law prohibits the sale of sexual fetish videos involving animal cruelty and dog fighting videos, among other things, and brings into question whether some speech simply has “no value.”
It’s a sick case. It’s hard to believe that anyone would want to see such images. But I guarantee this article and this case will make you think about where to draw the line on free speech.
Perhaps the most surprising details were (1) no editorial job losses and (2) the journalists’ optimism. The Salamanca Press’s managing editor, Kip Doyle, told Memmott, “”We were losing what we are supposed to be, a community paper.”
Memmott’s piece brings together the history of the 142-year-old paper with a look to the future. It’s a very nice read for newspaper junkies.
I was thrilled to see my local Gannett paper, The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, mention Gannett CEO Craig Dubow’s salary — $1.2 million in 2007–in its story about the unpaid leave.
Romensko reports that the Boston Globe may cut up to 50 newsroom jobs. This follows yesterday’s Gannett announcement of employees taking a week without pay and massive layoffs at Gannett, among others, last year.
If you want to see the mounting tally of cuts at U.S. newspapers, check out papercuts. The site is depressing, but reality is reality. If you need a chuckle after the bad news, papercuts links to Overheard in the Newsroom, where users post random things they’ve heard at work.
Romensko points out a fantastic new feature that will keep track of whether President-elect Obama keeps the promises he made. The Obameter at PolitiFact.com
Obameter
says so far he’s lived up to two of his 510 promises. What a fantastic way to hold politicians accountable. Not only is it easy to read, but it’s a fabulous source of infomation that is easily searchable. Fantastic job, St. Petersburg Times.
It’s live TV. Things happen. It’s hard to believe that people would be so incensed about these random, unscripted moments on live TV that they’d be moved to file a complaint. Let’s see if the FCC has common sense about this.
This story broke over the holidays, and somehow I missed it. I’m guessing many others did, too.
The lobbyist linked to Sen. John McCain filed a defamation suit against The New York Times late last month. You may recall that when the Times’s article ran in February 2008 people both inside and outside the media questioned whether McCain had an affair with lobbyist Vicki Iseman. Both McCain and Iseman said they did not have an affair nor an inappropriate relationship, but Iseman believes the article implied an affair. The Times maintains the article did not say the couple had an affair, but brought up concerns by staffers that the relationship between a senator and a lobbyist might be seen as inappropriate.
Iseman’s lawyers are seeking $27 million in damages.
The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush is reportedly seeking asylum in Switzerland. His brother told the BBC that journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi has been severely beaten while in custody. He has been imprisoned in Iraq since the mid-December incident.
In a chilling interview with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann a former National Security Agency analyst alleges the NSA was spying on journalists and news organizations and then lying about it. Why? Russell Tice said he does not know, but it disturbed him. See the interview for yourself here.
*Giving free newspaper subscriptions to 18 year olds
*Covering more delivery costs
*Buying more ads
Sarkozy said,
“It is indeed its (the state’s) responsibility … to make sure an independent, free and pluralistic press exists.”
Wow. What a different way to approach this. In the U.S., I think government aid to newspapers in this fashion would have journalists worried about a perceived conflict of interest, not to mention what would happen the first time a journalist wrote a story that the president or government officials vehemently did not like.
But wouldn’t it be wonderful if even a part of this — say, giving teens a gift subscription to a newspaper on their 18th birthday–could be adopted here? To be good citizens, people need to be informed. I see how Sarkozy can view this as part of the state’s responsibility.
Sarkozy says his plan is intended to give newspapers time to transform and adapt to be multiplatform, offering their stories through multiple vehicles.
But as Sarkozy noted, government aid is not going to save the industry if it doesn’t change and adapt.
When French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced Friday that the government would help the ailing country’s newspaper industry with millions of dollars in state aid, I was skeptical about such a plan working in the U.S. because of the perception of close ties between government officials and journalists that such aid might create.
Geneva Overholser, director of the Annenberg School of Journalism at the University of Southern California, and Geoffrey Cowan, dean emeritus of USC’s Annenberg School, have changed my mind about government aid for journalism. In a LA Times piece written before the French announcement, the duo point out the history of the U.S. government financially aiding and/or encouraging journalism. They also posit some ways the government could help now, including subsidies and tax changes.
The piece is not a wish list. They still hold journalists and newspapers accountable for innovative content and creation of a working economic model. But they argue convincingly that print journalists cannot save the industry alone.
Mark Schleifstein of The Times-Picayune writes of his three-plus year stuggle to get Federal Emergency Management Agency records related to Katrina — records that should be available to the public.
He’s still waiting.
Schleifstein is seeking records about the types and amounts of help people in the affected areas needed after Katrina. His tale of bureaucracy woe would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
It is clear that federal government officials have been hoping he will go away. When he gets a response, he is asked if he still wants the records. Of course he does!
This isn’t surprising, given former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s memo that in essence encourages non-compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
But let’s hope this changes. After all, President Obama has already made compliance with FOIA a priority and issued a memo Jan. 21 that states
The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.
Carlos Granier-Phelps at NewMedia Strategy has a great list of news organizations on Twitter. The list is updated with comments by posters aware of other media on Twitter. (Erica Smith has a similar fabulous list with many newspapers on twitter here.)
This got me thinking: What Western New York and Central New York news media are on Twitter? I know the Buffalo News is not, or at least not that I can find. (Come on, Buffalo News, Syracuse University’s Daily Orange is on twitter but you are not?!).
Here’s my list. If you know of any that I left out, please let me know.
I’ve been hard on the newspaper for not being twitter savvy, but I’ve got to praise its latest multimedia effort.
The News put up a 7-plus minute interview with Buffalo Sabres Goaltender Ryan Miller. That’s smart thinking. Miller and the Buffalo Sabres are hugely popular in Buffalo and Western New York. (Case in point: NHL games in most U.S. markets got a rating of less than 2.3 for the 2008-09 season through Jan. 11. In Buffalo, the rating was 8.87–Number 1 U.S. market. Click here for more detail.)
The interview not only allows Sabres fans to learn more about Miller’s life and interests off the ice; it will drive traffic to the Buffalo News site.
I asked a question about college newspapers and twitter today on the College Media Advisers list serv. A short time later, Innovation in College Media pulled together a list of college media on Twitter. How fabulous! If you know of any, please visit the site and enter the info. It would be great to have one-stop repository for this information.
A police officer in Rochester, NY, was shot in the head while walking away from a group that police had questioned but not arrested. Three days later, a 14-year-old turns himself into police, according to police and judicial officials at a press conference. They did not name him during the press conference.
The child (and to me, a 14-year-old is a child, not a man) pleaded not guilty to first-degree assault and second-degree attempted murder. Although charged as a juvenile, his case is in adult court and his name was in The Democrat & Chronicle’s news story Feb. 4 and his photo was on the web site. His face and name were also all over R-News, WHEC-TV, WOKR-TV and WROC-TV.
The child had been in trouble with the law before this and had not reported to the people supervising him since April 2008, according to the D&C. The D&C’s editorial board is right to ask, “How is it that a 14-year-old can go for nearly a year without reporting for adult supervision as required?”
I’m not sure, however, that the D&C and other Rochester area news media are right to use this child’s name and image. He is innocent until proven guilty and he is 14. Just because journalists have the name and image does not mean they should use them.
The shooting has been an emotional story that has gripped the Rochester, NY, region. Prayers, donations and messages of support for the police officer and his family rightfully abound.
My concern is that, after the media coverage, this child, regardless of the verdict, will never be seen as anything but an attempted cop killer. Some of the people posting reactions to today’s D&C story are already calling for the death penalty and talking as if he has been convicted. This child has already been sentenced for life.
The BBC reports that England’s Schools Minister is now asking students to pay more attention to proofreading and using his own error-ridden blog as an example of why you should be careful.
I bet if education reporters in the United States looked at communication from school officials it wouldn’t be too hard to find typos and errors. Why not do a story about it?
Have you ever wondered how your state fares when it comes to open information about the government?
The Knight Citizen News Network has a state-by-state guide in which it grades state web sites on online, open government information. (My state, New York, gets a thumbs up. Check out your state by clicking on it here.) The evaluation also includes links to that state’s government information.
The feature is part of the Knight Citizen News Network’s Citizen Journalist’s Guide to Open Government, which has lots of great information on how people can access government records.
If you haven’t read Walter Isaacson’s Time Magazine piece “How to Save Your Newspaper,” you need to do so. He proposes a logical step to getting newspapers back on the right track, although I must admit that, in light of his ideas, I am feeling a bit guilty about sending you to the link to the free story as opposed to encouraging you to buy the magazine…
The group says that 14 journalists have been held for long periods of time in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo without due process. One of the 14 remains so.
The group also says that 16 journalists have been killed by the U.S. military in Iraq since 2003.
The committee’s report serves as a reminder that we must hold our government accountable for its actions.
WGRZ-TV in Buffalo has had amazing multimedia coverage of the plane crash in Buffalo that killed 50. At its site, you can watch local TV coverage live as well as get updates on everything from some of the names released to a Facebook group formed for people to come together to support one another.
When going to commercial, the anchors are continuing to talk to online viewers, addressing them directly and telling them what is coming up next. Right now, at 10:54 a.m. Friday, more than 3700 online are watching the live feed.
Like many, I’ve been following coverage of the crash of Flight 3407. And like many, I have a special interest — I live an hour from Buffalo, I lived five minutes from the crash site until six months ago, and I know many people in the Buffalo region.
To say I have been impressed with the coverage done by Buffalo journalists would be an understatement. It’s Sunday at 1:40 and the manifest with the names of those aboard Flight 3407 has yet to be released by the airline or the authorities. The Buffalo News, however, has been updating its list of victims since Friday. The list is simply a list of names now because The News has done short vignettes on the victims it knows about. But on Friday, that list inc luded a sentence or two about each victim and was updated throughout the day and night. It was powerful, personal and, it goes without saying, great reporting.
Editor & Publisher noted that “CNN cited updates from the News online reports, starting two hours after the crash.”
How did the News gather all of the information for its stories? Editor Margaret Sullivan told E & P that 50 to 75 people were working the story Friday. Some of those people came about there information the old-fashioned way: talking to people face to face or working the phones. At least one reporter, Stephen Watson, turned to social media like Facebook and Twitter, where he issued a polite, sensitive request for any information about the victims or family of victims.
The News also did a terrific job with multimedia, putting up photos, videos, audio and slideshows of the people and the crash.
The News was not alone in its stellar coverage of this tragedy. WGRZ-TV Channel 2 in Buffalo, a Gannett company, also did superior work. The channel streamed its broadcast live Friday so those unable to get the Buffalo coverage on their TVs could see and hear what was going on. When I was watching it Friday afternoon, some 5,000 people were watching the streamed broadcast along with me. Amazing. The anchors, Jodi Johnston and Pete Gallivan, spoke directly to the web audience during commercial breaks, often reading comments that were posted online and talking about them.
I cannot close this praise of the work of Buffalo journalists without mentioning WIVB-TV’s Lisa Flynn’s insightful, probing questions. She asked at least five questions, all of them wonderful, at yesterday’s press conference with the National Transportation Safety Board, which was aired live here in Rochester, NY.
While I praise these journalists for all their fine work on this tragedy, I’m sure they, like us, would rather they had not had to cover this at all.
This file photo by the Associated Press shows a large, inflated rat used at a N.J. union protest in 2001.
And now, for a moment of levity after days of media coverage of tragedies …
A rat wins a free speech case case, and free speech advocates should cheer.
The rat, pictured above, is used by unions nationwide as a symbol of a labor dispute. But in New Jersey, the Associated Press reports, police in Lawrence Township fined the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union local for using the rat.
New Jersey’s state Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protects the rat as free speech and that the township’s law, which allowed some kinds of signage and not others, was not content neutral.
The Buffalo News reports that one day before News sports reporter Tom Borrelli fell to his death on stairs while covering a game at a Buffalo school those same stairs had been inspected by the state.
That state inspection uncovered five safety violations that led to charges filed in January – roughly two months after Borrelli’s death from injuries sustained in the fall.
How did the News learn this? Through a Freedom of Information request to the New York State Labor Department’s Public Employee Safety and Health Bureau.
The story details warnings ignored and cost-cutting measures that led to the accident that killed Borrelli, a member of the National Lacrosse League’s Hall of Fame. This story leaves one feeling that Borrelli’s life was needlessly lost. Sadly, in the end, it will be the students of the Buffalo school district who end up paying for the stupidity that led to Borrelli’s death, as the district now faces a potential lawsuit on top of the cost of the repairs.
Thanks, Roger Clemens, for making it easier for my media law students to understand libel, and more importantly, libel defenses.
It can be hard for some students to get a grasp of the libel defense absolute privilege, which protects participants in certain government proceedings. But baseball star Clemens has made the concept more relevant to my students.
That’s libel defense in action with names students know. And that’s a great teaching tool. So thanks again, Mr. Clemens, for helping my students’ libel knowledge “rocket.”
A few months ago I wrote about an initiative at the Democrat & Chronicle in Rochester, NY, to have a watchdog team tackle hard issues — a prospect I was skeptical about given the job cuts and mandated time off at Gannett, the D&C’s owner.
Today, however, I must admit a watchdog story by David Andreatta on the fact that some court documents in Monroe County are never filed (as they are supposed to be) and sometimes are seen by no one but the judge, even after the case is done, is a great watchdog story.
Is it a sexy story? No.
But is it one that matters? Yes.
It’s the kind of story that newspapers need to do. They need to hold public officials accountable. My only complaint about the story is that I wish it had been a little clearer about why the average citizen should care about this. It does try. Andreatta writes:
The rules demand that all documents considered by judges be filed with the court clerk.
Yet some court papers are never filed — and therefore unavailable to the public — because they are submitted directly to judges who return them to the parties when a decision is made.
I don’t know if the average person realizes the implications of this paperwork “oversight.” How are we, the public, to judge our judges if we don’t know how they are coming to their decisions? If we can’t see all the documents, how can we tell? How would we know if anything questionable or shady went on? We have no way to judge.
Sometimes, I think in the name of objectivity, journalists miss a great opportunity to inform our audience. With all that’s going on in today’s world, people don’t always have the time to connect the dots. I think journalists need to do that for them. That’s how we can take being a watchdog to a new level.
If you don’t know about Zotero, your life is about to become easier.
Zotero is free software that helps you do research. It is a Firefox extension that allows you to keep PDFs, screen caps and citations. If you are doing academic work, it will even keep the citations in your preferred style (APA, for example).
Want to collect screen caps (images of web sites on your screen)? Zotero makes it easy. Press the Zotero button and it’s done. And, better than some other ways of screen capping I’ve tried, Zotero captures the full page. I can scroll down to the end.
The only negative to Zotero is it stays with your browser on your computer, so if you work on multiple computers, you’ll need to transfer work on a flash drive.
I’m working on a paper on college newspaper web sites and Zotero has already helped me do screen caps and get organized. If it can help me get organized, it can help anyone.
A Tennessee lawmaker’s lawyer is claiming that his client is immune from a libel suit after he falsely wrote on his blog that a candidate had been arrested on drug charges because the blog is “absolutely privileged.”
Huh?
I’m no lawyer, but I know that is not going to fly. Rep. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, better say mea aculpa or get a new lawyer. Roger Byrge, a Democrat who lost his bid for the state House to Republican Chad Faulkner, filed a $750,000 libel suit against Campfield for writing that Byrge had had multiple drug arrests.
In the Oct. 12 blog post, Campfield said more attention needed to be paid to the race for the open seat in House District 36.
“Word is a … mail piece has gone out exposing Byrge’s multiple separate drug arrests,” Campfield wrote on the blog. “Including arrests for possession and drug dealing. (I hear the mug shots are gold).”
The parts of the post mentioning Byrge are no longer on Campfield’s blog, but a printout of the original text is filed as an exhibit in the lawsuit.
What was the most surprising thing about the list? Many of the things on the list aren’t hard to do and don’t cost money. What they do require is a professor who is willing to learn new skills and think about journalism in a different way.
Requiring Twitter in a class is free. Having a teacher who can show students how to use Twitter and where to learn about Twitter is the difficult part.
Having students keep blogs is free. But having a teacher who knows how to blog and how to monitor and critique the blogs takes time. The professor needs to keep a blog himself/herself and follow blogs.
The simple fact of the matter is, in my experiece, many professors don’t know how to use Twitter, have never been on Facebook or My Space, and don’t know about blogging. Many want to learn, but don’t have a clue about where to start.
If we are going to help our students, we teachers have to help ourselves. Ideally, one can find a colleague or training session to show the way, but if not, here are some good places to start:
Save the Media: Gina Chen provides basic, clear directions on how to use Twitter, blogs and other social media to do journalism. Her site helped me figure out Twitter. I use her tips in my journalism classes all the time.
Problogger: Darren Rowse’s site gives practical advice on everything from blogging tips for beginners to making money from blogs.
News University: The Poynter Institute offers online courses–many for free. You just have to sign up. I’ve taken several of them, and they are fabulous.
The piece takes on a new layer of importance in light of the job situation at the News.
Monday the Buffalo Newspaper Guild Local-CWA Local 31026 will be meeting with union members to update them on information they expect to get from News executives, according to the union’s website. Friday the union issued a statement that it is,
“extremely disappointed that Publisher Stan Lipsey would send out a memo regarding potential layoffs before the Guild has had the opportunity to work with managers to avoid these losses.”
When all is said and done, it could be that some of the people who helped cover the plane crash tragedy may be facing a crisis of their own–unemployment.
When did TV web sites start having classified ads? Did I miss something?
I was searching through WGRZ-TV’s web site trying to find a story about the proposed Buffalo News job cuts that was on there last night and stumbled upon classified ads.
Ay carumba. As if newspapers don’t have enough problems with Craigs List and other job web sites.
No layoffs will happen at the Buffalo News until the end of next week at the earliest, the Buffalo Newspaper Guild states on its web site.
The Buffalo News says it may have to lay off up to 52 employees. The Guild, which represents about 325 News employees — including newsroom/editorial staff — is trying to find $2.9 million in cuts to prevent that from happening. In total, the News is looking to cut $15 million in expenses, the Guild says. The paper lost money in November, December and January, with the greatest amount at $714,000 in November, the Guild reports.
The Guild is asking its members to “be prepared to do your part if future workplace actions are necessary.”
There was a day when I would read “workplace actions” from a union statement and think “strike.” Sadly, in the current newsroom environment, I think the phrase “workplace actions” can now be translated as “sacrifices.”
If you value free speech (and who doesn’t?), this will send a chill down your spine. I know it did mine.
Newsweek,the LA Times and other media outlets are reporting that a Justice Department memo secretly advised the Bush administration that it could suspend First Amendment speech rights if needed to fight the war on terror. The memo on “Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States” was issued in October 2001 and not revoked until seven years later, right before Bush left office.
What?!
This memo, released with others this week by the Obama adminstration, also indicated it would be legal to spy on Americans with high tech equipment and deploy the U.S. military within the U.S. itself for operations against terrorists. “We believe these operations generally would not be subject to the constraints of the Fourth Amendment, so long as the armed forces are undertaking a military function,” the memo concludes.
Ah, the Fourth Amendment. What was that one about again? That’s right–unreasonable search and seizures.
And what does this memo say about our beloved First Amendment?
“First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully,” the memo states on Page 24.
I’ve decided to start a new feature on my blog: Media Law Case of the Week.
The Media Law Case of the Week will appear on Mondays and feature a case I think is interesting, different and/or important. I decided that since I’m combing the Net for interesting cases for the media law class I teach, I may as well start sharing the best of what I find on my blog.
So, without further ado, the Media Law Case of the Week:
It’s not often a libel case involves a Disney star and an escort service, but the recently settled case of “Suite Life” star Brenda Song fits the bill. Ads for an escort service ran with Song’s picture and the slogan “Hawaiin [sic] beauty. Come get lei’d.” in LA Weekly in April 2008. The kicker is Song never authorized the use of her image. She sued for libel, emotional distress and commercial appropriation of her likeness. (Oh those pesky details … ) For details of the case and the settlement, check here.
What is reputed to be the first-ever conference on how to teach high school and college students about news literacy is starting Wednesday at Stony Brook University on Long Island.
“News Literacy: Setting a National Agenda” will be attended by journalists including veteran reporter Ted Koppel and New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., journalism school deans, department chairs and professors from some 36 schools around the country, including my own.
Our task is not a simple one: How do we teach students to not only realize why the news is important their lives but to judge good journalism from spin?
I’m looking forward to the information and the ideas. I will blog and tweet from the conference. I also welcome you to leave your comments here or tweet me @marducey with any comments/suggestions you might have.
The event is sponsored by the Ford Foundation in conjunction with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and McCormick Foundation.
News Literacy: An overview of the News Literacy class at Stony Brook demonstrated ways teachers can show students how to analyze news coverage and judge reliable, verifiable information.
Ted Koppel and the News Media Panel: This was the highlight of the day. Alexandra Wallace, senior vice president of NBC News, said journalists need to be entertaining and engaging, noting the news doesn’t have to be boring. Koppel, former host of Nightline and longtime journalist, responded that entertainment was not the job of the journalist. “We have to inform,” he said. Some things are dull, he said, but we need to know them. Surprisingly, this drew only a few claps from the audience. Koppel also talked about his concerns about journalism. “I don’t think the democraticization of news gathering is in and of itself a good thing,” he said, noting that readers can’t judge biases and where people are coming from with blogs. With the legacy media (print, broadcast), “There are people who made sure standards are met,” he said. If these standards are not met, people will dump that media outlet, he said.
Money, Money, Money: Journalism job cuts and their impact on news content came up several times. Case in point: One of the audience members asked about the lack of international coverage in broadcast news. “It’s not that we don’t want to,” Wallace said. “We can’t afford to.”
Arthur Sulzberger Jr., New York Times publisher: He spoke at day’s end about the current state of The Times. He said The Times is exploring paid content options, has seen print subscriptions grow the past two years (despite the perception of the death of print) and sees no end to print publication of The Times.
Quote of the day:
“Cable news seems to be in a desperate rush with the obvious.”–Ted Koppel
Perhaps the greatest news to come out of last week’s “News Literacy: Setting a National Agenda” conference at the State University of New York at Stony Brook was this: The University’s Center for News Literacy is working on a proposal aimed at hiring 50 unemployed journalists and training them to teach in colleges throughout the country. The goal is to have government and foundation grant money pay for the salaries and the training of these journalists.
When Howard “Howie” Schneider, dean of the University’s journalism school, asked if any of the nearly 100 educators, administrators and journalists attending the conference on Long Island Friday would like to have one of these journalists for their schools, hands quickly shot into the air. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has awarded SUNY Stony Brook a grant to help find full funding for the project. The hope is that some of the education money the Obama administration has targeted at education might be used for this project, along with foundation money that SUNY Stony Brook hopes to secure.
It is a fabulous idea that takes a step toward solving two major problems in journalism: the unemployment of experienced, excellent journalists and the inability of many news consumers to differentiate between quality journalism and propaganda, public relations and/or shoddy journalism. The goal of this conference was to discuss ways to integrate classes on being a savvy news consumer into high school and college/university curriculums. I can think of no better way to get students interested than to have “guest teachers” who worked in journalism talk about the ins and outs of understanding the news.
Here’s hoping SUNY Stony Brook can pull this off. My hat’s off to the teachers and administrators at Stony Brook for their innovation and dilligence.
He asks that the backgrounds and motives of media experts, commentators and critics be available to those listening to and reading their comments. That seems fair. He points out examples where “media critics” might have other motives for proclaiming the death of newspapers. He’s right that the average news consumer should be made aware of this information.
It is an interesting piece. The only thing it lacks is full disclosure of Siegel’s motives and backgrounds. The piece does say Siegel is president of Parade publications and co-founder of the Newspaper Project (the latter, by the way, appears at the end of the article), but it does not explain in any way what that project is. Perhaps given that Editor & Publisher is aimed at newspaper people, it assumes all readers know that the Newspaper Project was founded by a group of newspaper executives who don’t think newspapers are dead and are trying to counter that idea. But it shouldn’t assume that every reader will know that. Anyone can read that article on E&P’s web site. In the interest of fairness and full disclosure, the Newspaper Project should have been explained. Without that explanation, Siegel’s compelling arguments may be lost in the perception of hypocrisy.
The Buffalo News and the Buffalo Newspaper Guild have reached an agreement that will mean only two part-time sports clerks will lose their jobs in the newsroom. Outside the newsroom, at least seven jobs are proposed to be cut.
Guild members have to vote on the plan — which includes giving up raises, bonuses and higher Sunday pay — on Thursday, according to the Guild.
While the news that full-time newsroom employees won’t be facing the chopping block is good, it’s hard to take any kind of pleasure in this. The fact is the Guild is giving up a lot to save the jobs. And the News has lost several experienced, brilliant reporters to its cost-cutting buyouts. Case in point:
Sharon Linstedt, News business reporter recently lauded by the paper’s Editor, Margaret Sullivan, for her coverage of the crash of Flight 3407, which killed all aboard the plane and one on the ground. Sullivan wrote: “By 4 a. m., Linstedt had become a major source of information for the world, providing audio interviews for NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS. Linstedt was also the first to report that 9/11 activist Beverly Eckert was one of the victims.” That grit, expertise and experience will be gone from the paper by month’s end.
Fred Williams, perhaps best known for his business reporting. Recently, he’s been covering community news, including the beheading of a prominent Orchard Park woman.
Howard Smith, managing editor and former sports editor, who ended up in the media spotlight himself when News Sports reporter Tom Borrelli died last year from injuries sustained in a fall while covering a game and Smith was asked to comment on Borelli’s accomplishments.
While I’m happy that it appears the News might avoid newsroom layoffs of full-time employees at this time, my heart goes out to the folks in the Buffalo News newsroom, who in the past six months have dealt with the tragedy of the Flight 3407 crash, the unexpected death of a colleague who was covering a game, and the threat of losing their jobs. Hang in there. Better days are coming.
A Staples salesman is fired, and Staples sends out an email notifying its employees that said employee was fired for violating company rules regarding expense reimbursements.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston ruled recently that the salesman can sue for libel even though the information is true because of a 1902 Massachusetts state law that allows libel suits for “ill will.”
It is a decision that had Robert J. Ambrogi–executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Association, lawyer and Media Law blogger–issuing a prudent warning:
For the time being, however, be afraid — be very, very afraid — of this precedent. If ill will is all that is needed to turn a truthful statement into libel, then everyone is a potential defendant.
Sadly, last week, the same court refused to rehear the case. According to the Boston Globe, the court also “refused to accept a friend-of-the-court brief filed by 51 news organizations that said the earlier ruling could chill news reporting.”
Today I read that Janice Okun is retiring from the Buffalo News on March 31, the same day the Buffalo News had previously reported those accepting buyouts would have to be off the payroll. Thirty-six members of the Buffalo Newspaper Guild (not all editorial) took that offer. (Okun will continue writing reviews as a freelancer, but will no longer be a staffer.)
I couldn’t help thinking about all this when, in my media law class, we were talking about the importance of Freedom of Information Act and state Freedom of Information Laws. Students brought in examples of stories where government records were used.
The city of Auburn would not release the names of two employees who took equipment until two newspapers — The Post-Standard and The Auburn Citizen–filed a notice that they intended to sue the city for the names.
My question is, with journalists working fewer hours (if at all), who is going to do these stories? Who is going to find out about this stuff?
I know some new media types say citizen journalists or bloggers will do it. Really? In a small city like Buffalo, Rochester or Syracuse someone who works a paying job is going to have time to file foia/foil requests and hold public officials accountable?
And please don’t tell me TV and radio journalists will do it. Government record stories don’t have exciting visuals, and TV and radio journalism staffs are cut to the bone, too.
This newspaper crisis has far deeper implications than what happens to journalists. It’s about what happens to our society.
As Francis Bacon said, “Knowledge is power.” But let’s face it: We are losing a major conduit to that power.
Here are some random journalism-related thoughts and notes:
A blog I love: Ted Pease’s blog, Today’s Word on Journalism. Perhaps one of my favorite posts was one of this week’s words, “fish wrap,” in which a Facebook user opines about why he reads the paper. The words Pease chooses are cleverly linked to his point, and he finds great stuff.
Good journalism: Today’s New York Times has a story on new Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-N.Y.) past as a lawyer for tobacco giant Philip Morris. New York Gov. David Paterson appointed Gillibrand to fill Hillary Clinton’s seat. This is important information for her constituents, who had no say in her representing them, to know.
Hope: Laid off reporters and editors from The Seattle Post-Intelligencer are trying to start web sites with in-depth journalism. They are working on ways to fund the sites. God speed. We need in-depth journalism now more than ever.
Over and out: The Buffalo Newspaper Guild voted in favor of a plan that will save jobs in exchange for employee give-backs and cost savings.
“No one is happy about the numerous families hurt by The News’ cutbacks,” said Phil Fairbanks, chairman of the Guild bargaining committee on the BNG web site. “Everyone in our union sacrificed to save jobs. Our hope now is that management will do its part to put the paper on firm financial footing and avoid future layoffs.”
Sorry, John Daly, but Love beats you, but not by a Hole lot. (Sorry about the pun. I just can’t help myself.)
Fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir claims that Love is on “an obsessive and delusional crusade” on Twitter, My Space and other sites that is libeling Simorangkir. The language in the statements in question, detailed here, will come as no surprise to those familiar with Love.
Simorangkir, who formerly designed for Love, claims that the false statements have hurt her reputation and her business.
This bobblehead -- and others like this -- are pictured on Greenbag.
justices. They are hysterical, but also informative.
I used this “Annotated Bobblehead” image of Justice David Souter to tie in the 2 Live Crew “Pretty Woman” copyright case in my media law class today. The students loved it. I just wish I could get my hands on the actual bobblehead doll.
Trust me. It’s definitely work clicking the Greenbag link to check this out.
Before I get into the Media Law Case of the Week, I want to mention the great progress the federal shield law has made. It passed in the House. (For more specifics of what’s in it, see here.) Now on to the Senate. Fingers crossed…
And now, the case of the week has to do with invasion of privacy, a college student and My Space, the popular social networking site.
The ruling stems from the interesting case of a college student who professed her hatred of her hometown on her My Space page. Her rant ran in a local paper, and her family was allegedly bombarded with hate mail.
Claiming invasion of privacy, the student and her family sued the paper, its publishers and the person who pointed out the student’s My Space musings to the newspaper. They claimed invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
They lost.
For full details of the case, including a link to the court’s ruling, see the Wall Street Journal piece here.
But an OSHA inspector tells Beebe in the story that because the News did not “prevent” its reporters from using the press box it should be fined.
Under this rationale, does it not seem logical that the government should/would fine media outlets for not “preventing” their reporters from reporting in unsafe conditions like — oh, I don’t know — WARS?
Areas where there are a lot of crimes?
Fire and crime scenes?
The list could go on and on. And this case could set a chilling precedent for news organizations. Do they decide to risk potential fines or do they decide to not cover a story because in these tight economic times they cannot afford the risk of OSHA fines?
It is not the fault of the press that reporters sometimes do their jobs in unsafe conditions. The responsibility lies elsewhere. Perhaps the government should focus on the cause of the problem instead of the press.
It is, in essence, some of the basics taught in Newswriting 101 classes across the nation.
Case in point:
1. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE CHECKED FOR SPELLING AND GRAMMATICAL ERRORS.
One of the items on the list, however, is something that even “professional” journalists sometimes forget to do.
4. IF YOU MAKE A NEGATIVE, FACT-BASED ASSERTION A PERSON OR ORGANIZATION, YOU NEED TO REACH THAT PERSON OR ORGANIZATION FOR COMMENT.
Just a few weeks ago, I watched a local TV newscast lead with a story on a BOCES tutor accused of having sex with a student. At no point did the reporter even mention trying to get a comment from the tutor or the tutor’s lawyer.
How does that happen?
I can guess how. You are putting together a story on deadline. Parents and school officials are easy to reach. The accused is not so easy. But that doesn’t mean journalists shouldn’t try to reach the accused and let the news audience know that.
Congrats to the Huffington Post for making its standards clear and explaining some basics of journalism to those who didn’t go to J-School but want to report. Making these processes clear can only help journalism.
The National Animal Identification System is used by the U.S. government to trace diseased animals/animal disease outbreaks.
I’m not sure what “sensitive information” would not be able to be released under FOIA, but The Cattle Network mentions “sensitive producer information about premises, businesses and animals .” (Seems to me if there is a disease outbreak, information needs to come out…)
I’m also not sure what FOIA exemption this falls under. Trade secrets doesn’t seem right. Maybe bovine secrets?
In an ONLINE story about how the city of Buffalo government is releasing salary data online, the readers were given this direction.
The address for Buffalo’s Web site is www.city-buffalo.com. The salary data was originally posted on the home page under “Mayor Brown’s Transparent Government Initiative.” Late this afternoon, the title for the posting was changed to “City of Buffalo Employee Salary Information.”
NO hypertext. NO links. NO joke.
In essence, I view this as sending the following message:
“Dear Reader,
We know you understand all this newfangled web stuff, but we don’t. We’re going to try to help you, but this is the best we can do.
Or, if you don’t accept that explanation, how’s this? We’re too lazy to update the story for our web site.
Oh, but trust us to get details right.
Sincerely,
Your Newspaper”
I don’t think newspapers are dead. But they can’t bury their heads in the sand. They’ve got to keep up. Links are not too much for a reader to expect.
I try find hidden nuggets of media law jewels for the Media Law Case of the Week. But this week I am going more mainstream because this tit-for-tat free speech case is so good.
Don Henley of Eagles fame is suing U.S. Senate candidate Charles DeVore for copyright infringement. Henley says use of his hit songs “All She Wants to Do is Dance” and “The Boys of Summer” in DeVore’s YouTube campaign videos violates his copyright.
DeVore, in turn, argues that ” aging liberal rockers” Henley and Mike Campbell, who filed suit with Henley, are violating his “First Amendment right to political free speech.” DeVore says he wrote new lyrics and the use was obviously parody.
I’m starting a new occasional feature here focusing on some good reads for journalism teachers. I will be sharing these blog posts with students in my journalism and web design classes.
♦Gina Chen’sOpen Letter to Newspapers at savethemedia. She writes about what she wants from newspapers from the perspective of a newspaper reader, not a journalist. It’s excellent.
♦Mark Luckie’s Why Journalists Should Learn to Code at 10,000 Words. It’s difficult for journalism students to understand why knowing HTML and CSS might give them an edge. After all, it’s the story that matters, right? Luckie does a great job of explaining why coding matters.
It worked for me. I had googled a person’s name, and the page with all his biographical information had been removed. I put the URL for that page into Internet Archive and up the page came. I printed it out and had the information I needed.
Thanks, Amanda! It just goes to show that teachers can learn a lot from their students, too.
Last night I delievered a talk about news literacy to the Brockport Rotary Club. The talk soon became a discussion on the current state of journalism.
What struck me most about the concerns the members shared with me was this: They want real community news. The good and the bad. And they don’t think they are getting it.
Directly related to that, they also want watchdog reporting. What are they getting? Octomom.
While we read headlines saying newspapers are dying or already dead, these residents subscribe to newspapers — for now — but say they are getting too thin and don’t have enough local content. The online versions don’t provide them with much more than the print.
Why do I bring this up? Because as every day we hear about more and more newspapers cutting staffs or mandating furloughs, newspapers are doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they should be doing.
How on earth can newspapers provide more local content with fewer people? In the short term newspapers may be cutting costs, but in the long term they are killing the industry.
I try not to be a pessimist, but some days it is hard to see the silver lining in all this.
I read today about a conference aimed at “sustaining journalism.” A Critical Convening meets later this month is Washington. I only hope that conferences like this can generate concrete ideas — and not just talk — that can help save newspapers.
in which citizens were denied information from school and government officials — information that the citizens sought through public records laws.
Reporter David Kidwell writes:
A review of those complaints, along with dozens of interviews, reveals a culture of secrecy shrouding the machinery of your government. Public meetings are often theater, where votes are pro forma endorsements of decisions forged in e-mails and memos you will never be allowed to see.
Government records routinely turned over at the front counters in many other states are routinely denied here — the result of a notoriously weak open records law, an unsympathetic political culture and an attitude of disdain among many public servants who consider documents their own.
If you think those words are harsh, read the story. Kidwell offers ample evidence to support the claims.
And the Tribune is offering an “Open Records Help Desk,” a web page devoted to giving readers tips for requesting information and a database of complaints.
This is exactly the kind of watchdog reporting we need in this country. My only hope is that Kidwell is not among the Tribune staffers let go, and that news organizations still have enough journalists to do this work.
I watched the Senate committee’s hearing on the future of journalism yesterday from my computer at work. Well, watched isn’t the right word. It was more listened to.
What struck me most about the hearings were two points:
The so-called “new media” folks testifying at the hearing are dreaming if they think citizen journalism can make up for having a news organization with the power and money to have reporters dedicated to stories, issues and people. (Can you image coverage of foreign affairs?) I’m not saying the news organization has to be paper based, but news organizations are essential. We can’t count on citizen journalists alone.
David Simon, former Baltimore Sun journalist and current Hollywood writer/producer, articulated so well what some of us print and former print journalists think. (For his full transcript click here.) One metaphor captured it precisely for me:
“The very phrase citizen journalist strikes my ear as nearly Orwellian. A neighbor who is a good listener and cares about people is a good neighbor. He is not in any sense a citizen social worker. Just as a neighbor with a garden hose and good intention is not a citizen firefighter. To say so is a heedless insult to trained social workers and firefighters.”
The legislation includes three components. One closes an escape hatch that some public bodies have used to avoid discussing the public’s business in public. The other gives judges greater leeway in responding to violations of the Open Meetings Law, allowing them to address those transgressions without unduly harming the interests of innocent parties. Both are important revisions to what already is, by and large, a strong state law.
Most journalists are familiar with the “escape hatch” the News mentions. Some government bodies think they can circumvent the Open Meetings Law by having debates on issues behind closed doors but voting in public. This allows the public to know how their representatives have voted, but they have no sense of the debate and information provided behind closed doors. That’s not exactly the Open Meetings Law’s purpose.
With the amendment, judges would be able to punish government bodies who do this with a fine and/or other measures.
Read the amendment for yourself — and see who voted to support it – here.
The Buffalo News is continuing to do an outstanding job covering the aftermath of the fatal crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407.
Case in point: Today the News published the name and story of the final previously unnamed passenger on the doomed flight, graduate student Dipinder Sidha.
Throughout the days, weeks and months following the crash, the News did not give up on publishing the stories of those who died in that day — despite the fact the some names were not released by the airlines or, in some cases, the families.
The News’s coverage of the National Transportation Safety Board’s hearings on the flight includes stories on the event and the families, an animation of the flight’s final minutes, a live webcast of the hearings and links to NTSB reports on the crash.
It’s a multimedia treasure trove of all one might want to know about the doomed flight. It’s a great public service for all those, whether in Buffalo or elsewhere, who were gripped by the crash.
One can only hope that such public acknowledgment that the crash might have been prevented will lead to changes in training and staffing of airline pilots.
I’m teaching an old class with a new outlook this fall. It’s called Advanced Media Writing, and in the past, its topic was determined by the person who taught it. That meant it could be journalism or PR, depending on the teacher.
Now, the course is supposed to be a hybrid course that teaches all types of writing to all types of people. The problem is finding materials that are neither too basic nor too advanced. It’s a higher level course, but the broadcast people have never written for print and/or online, and the print people have not written for broadcasting.
My struggle is, as the field becomes converged, is teaching set styles for set mediums an antiquated notion? I worry that what this class really should focus on is writing and packaging stories — whether they be print, broadcast or PR — for online.
I guess I better stop dallying and choose a plan of action. Book orders are already overdue. Shall I throw a dart and predict the future?
The NY Post reported the settlement today — along with this image of the ad.
The Post, by the way, is dealing with its own legal troubles. A New York State Supreme Court justice is suing the newspaper for libel after a story alleged he paid to get his seat on the bench. The latest step in the case is a series of subpoenas to the judge’s family and at least eight other judges, according to the New York Times.
A group of migrant workers who claimed a Fox News segment called “Manhunt at the Border” defamed them by making it seem that they were the subjects of a manhunt have lost another court case.
If a radio host sends e-mails that say a politician is gay, is that libel?
You and I might say no, but Tom Fetzer, who is running to be head of the state of North Carolina’s Republican party, says it is.
He has informed his supporters that he intends to sue radio station WLTT and corporate owner Sea-Comm Media over e-mails sent by radio host Curtis Wright that said Fetzer is gay. Fetzer says he is not.
The News & Observer has the e-mail Fetzer, former mayor of Raleigh, sent to his supporters about the legal action here.
Five years ago, I wouldn’t have thought much of this. But today, with the current state of the newspaper industry, the sight of a newspaper box in a museum struck me as eerie. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was where newspaper boxes — and indeed, newspapers as we know them — were going to be. Not in our homes and in our hands, but in a museum exhibit.
My 4-year-old knows about newspapers. (How could she not when her mom used to work for one?) But it’s hard not to wonder if in the not-too-distant future children will be asking their parents what that box with the paper in it is when they tour exhibits like this. Five years ago, I don’t think it ever would have occurred to me that newspapers would be in the shape they are now. It’s not that much of a stretch to think that five years from now boxes like this will be gone for good — except for in museums.
For three years, student journalists at Michigan State University have been fighting a legal battle to get access to police records of a campus incident that allegedly included a student covering a victim in gasoline and threatening to set the victim on fire in a dorm room.
The Student Press Law Center has the story of how this legal battle unfolded, why it is important to student journalists who weren’t even on the newspaper staff at the time, and why it might not be over here.
I recently saw an old Paperboy arcade game. The 1980s game had players take the paperboy through a variety of adventures and obstacles to deliver the paper to subscribers (and to throw extra papers at non-subscribers). You win by successfully delivering a week’s worth of newspapers to your subscribers.
My nostalgia led me on a hunt to find out the history of Paperboy. Did you know Paperboy has its own Wikipedia link and that there was a version that allowed you to choose to be a Papergirl instead of a Paperboy? To my surprise, I also learned a version of Paperboy was released for XBox 360 in 2007.
It’s ironic, to say the least, that a video version of Paperboy might outlive the “career” itself. I wonder: If we threw newspapers at non-subscribers like Paperboy, could we get them to subscribe?
I recently took a walk down memory lane and revisited the 1980s arcade game Paperboy, which spawned many “remakes” and versions released for video gaming systems including some around today. Today I’d like to offer you five things newspapers could learn from that game.
Get the news in your customers’ hands. Paperboy does whatever he has to do in order to get the newspaper to his customers. Avoiding pedestrians and break dancers? No problem. Zombies? No problem. Newspapers outside the game world should also go to any lengths necessary to get their news to their customers. I don’t know how newspapers can do that when they are hacking their staffs apart. There are few left to do this work.
If someone does not read your newspaper, hit them over the head with it. In the 1980s arcade game Paperboy, the paperboy vandalizes the houses of non-subscribers. In other versions of the game, Paperboy receives points for getting the newspaper to hit certain targets in non-subscribers’ yards. While I’m not advocating vandalism, newspapers need to figure out a way to get non-subscribers to see the paper. If they never look at it, they won’t buy it. And if they do look at it but can get the exact same product for free online, why pay? If you want people to pay, you have to offer them something they can’t get for free and show them it so they want it. The paper version has to have something different than online OR you have to start charging for online stories like you do the paper version.
Celebrate your successes. Tell your readers (whether in print or online) what you do well. When Paperboy gets a week’s worth of newspapers delivered successfully to his customers, a banner headline pops up proclaiming this. While newspapers shouldn’t be patting themselves on the back for simply delivering the paper, they should spend more time pointing out to readers what they do well. For example, why don’t newspapers remind readers that the journalists are the public’s eyes and ears? This is simplistic, but what about the occasional reminder along the lines of this: “You’re busy. You have to juggle work, family and a million other tasks. We understand. You can’t be there, but you care. We will be there for you and tell you what you need to know. Just like we have been for decades.”
If you move too slowly, you will be pushed in a direction you don’t want. When Paperboy did not move quickly enough to deliver the news, he was pushed by winds or swarms of bees. Newspapers have been slow to react to the online transition. The longer they wait, the longer they don’t take chances, the more likely they will be pushed in a direction they don’t want. It may already be too late, but I hope not.
Above all, stay alive. Paperboy had to avoid everything from traffic hazards to tornadoes in order to stay alive on his delivery route and get the news in people’s hands. Newspapers have to battle financial problems that threaten to kill the industry. Paperboy did what he had to do to avoid his obstacles. Newspapers must do the same. If keeping the news organization alive requires new ways of thinking and taking chances, do it. If keeping the news organization alive means putting most of your effort into the online, not paper, version of the product, do it. If keeping the news organization alive means being different and going out on the proverbial limb all by yourself, do it. Be like Paperboy. Be brave. Or you’ll lose your job.
Before I get into the Media Law Case of the Week, I want to tip my hat to the Columbus Dispatch for its excellent stories outlining the (mis)uses of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, better known as FERPA.
They called their six-month investigation into FERPA Secrecy 101. The stories are definitely worth a read.
And now to the Media Law Case of the Week …
I try to stay away from huge cases and focus on smaller gems you may have missed. However, I cannot ignore the plight of American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who have been sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp in North Korea.
I’m hooked on the Weekly News Coverage Index, which examines what stories get the most coverage. But there’s so much more there for journajunkies like me.
Imagine being found guilty of copyright infringement for using a file sharing service like Kazaa and having a federal jury set damages that you must pay at $220,000.
That’s exactly what happened to Jammie Thomas, a Minnesota woman who is getting a second chance in court to fight the judgment after the judge threw out the earlier decision because he said he made a mistake when instructing the jury.
Thomas now has two Harvard-trained lawyers who are taking on her case for free, according to the article.
The 30,000 lawsuits filed by the recording industry since 2003 have prompted copyright lawyers to start taking cases pro bono to fight what some call “extortion,” said Harvard law Prof. Charles Nesson.
The new lawyers are arguing the record industry does not own the copyrights, the artists do. Details of their argument are in the article. It’s an interesting piece about a case with national implications.
Twitter is abuzz with the announcement of the 2009 winners of the Knight News Challenge, a project that funds news experiments with the goal of helping communities.
My favorite is DocumentCloud, a non-profit effort by the New York Times and ProPublica to offer an online place where the public can access and share documents. Very cool. Can you imagine the stories students can do if they can easily access documents? FOIA and FOIL requests are great, but even if you get what you want, they take a while. The DocumentCloud documents will be there for the taking, and hopefully inspire journalism students to add to the collection. What a great learning experience.
Other ideas funded also lend themselves to classroom use. Take Mobile Media Toolkit, an idea to make it easier for people to get the applications and tools needed to do reporting.
One of the things I like best about this is it has the potential to allow my journalism students to get excellent experience without having to spend a fortune. I teach at a state school, and we simply don’t have the resources that larger, private journalism schools do (and quite frankly, neither do most of our students). Thanks, Knight News Challenge and Knight Foundation, for an effort that could help many future journalists.
Unfortunately for the Minnesota woman accused of illegally sharing copyrighted music, the outcome was worse than the first trial. Instead of owing the record industry $220,000, she now owes $1.92 million. Here’s what Jammie Thomas-Rasset told the Associated Press about the verdict:
“There’s no way they’re ever going to get that. I’m a mom, limited means, so I’m not going to worry about it now.”
No, the suit does not involve the use of a Van Halen song. This case is about sneakers. Really.
The band alleges that a new Nike shoe pattern infringes on a copyright it owns on a pattern/design used on guitars and licensed for a Van Halen line of sneakers. (Nike denies this.)
Somehow I don’t think Nike will be ready to “jump” at settling this case.
Many, many of my fellow journalists from my days at The (Syracuse) Post-Standard are taking the buyout that was offered and going their separate ways.
I don’t blame them. The buyout includes a year’s pay to employees with at least seven years experience. Those staying are facing pay cuts of 5 to 12 percent on top of having to contribute 25 percent of the cost of their health benefits.
I realize the reality of the industry and the economy. But I feel sorry for the people of Central New York. Whether you read The Post-Standard or not, if you are a Central New Yorker, your life has been impacted by it. The journalists at The Post-Standard have monitored and held politicians accountable. They have reported the good and the bad. Now this newspaper is going to have to try to do the same work with far fewer people and with a huge loss in the institutional knowledge and local history.
Here’s yet more proof that libel is not only the concern of the journalist.
The Hartford Courant featured an interesting case in which a Connecticut mother was fined $88,000 for an e-mail campaign in which she likened her daughter’s swim coach to a pedophile. The judge reportedly said that the mother admitted to having no evidence of this.
Let’s just hope for her daughter’s sake that she does not take after mom.
“Right now, part of the job of a journalist is advocating for the job of journalist.”
Kimberly Humphreys, a journalist with the Rocky Mountain News when it closed in February 2009, should know.
She now works for the Rocky Mountain Independent, an online news site started by some former Rocky Mountain News staffers. She’s also director of IWantMyRocky.com, an ambitious initiative orignally started to save the Rocky Mountain News that now is trying to save journalism itself. (See what IWantMyRocky wants to do here.)
Last week she spoke as part of panel called “Journalism at the Crossroads: After Newspapers, Then What?” aimed at journalism educators. The session was part of the national convention for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication held in Boston.
Humphreys noted that traditionally the editorial and business side of newspapers have been separate in the name of objectivity. Journalists did not want an appearance of conflict of interest when writing stories. She argued that the time to change that tradition has come because this separation means journalists have no voice in what is going on in their newspapers.
“We need to pull up a seat at that table,” Humphreys urged.
Her message is an important one for journalism educators to keep in mind. As we prepare students for the changing world of journalism, we should make them aware of this responsibility.
Sorry Journajunkie has been a way for so long. It’s nice to return and be back in action.
So let’s get right to it with an update to a Media Law Case of the Week from May. Some of you may remember the libel lawsuit of a politician angry that a radio host sent e-mails claiming that said politician was gay. Well, that politician — Tom Fetzer, North Carolina Republican Party chairman — is reportedly getting married next month.
The News & Observer reports that he and his fiance met while she working on a Republican campaign.
But don’t think the glow of love has led to a case of forgive-and-forget. The lawsuit is still on.
The world-famous photographer was in jeopardy of losing her right to the copyrights on some of her famous works because she had not paid off a $24 million loan by the deadline. But now, according to BBC News, she will be able to keep her copyright as long as she sticks to new loan terms.
Moritz took some time to talk to Journajunkie about ways she hopes AWSM can help both mid-career journalists and young journalists starting out and why a group like this is still needed in 2009.
Q: What would you like to do as president-elect?
A: I would like to get involved in our mid-career grant program. With so many changes in the world of journalism (and public relations for that matter) many of us in our 30s and 40s are needing new skills. While there is no replacement for good writing and good reporting, the nature of HOW we tell the story is changing. And while that landscape is a bit unclear, there are ways that I feel AWSM can help its members be better equipped to use multi-media.
Q: I see that AWSM does a lot to help students interested in sports-related communication careers. Can you tell us a little about what you do and why?
A: We think it’s so important to reach out to young women who want to get into sports communications, whether it be a form of journalism or public relations. In part, it’s our way of paying it forward because along the way, someone helped us out with an internship or scholarship. But also, we want to help talented young women get their foot in the door and get the experience they need. To that end, we’re working on grants to fully fund internships at media outlets as the industry feels the economic pinch and can’t afford to hire as many interns, if any at all.
Q: What would you say to people who think and/or would argue that in 2009, we don’t need a group like Association of Women in Sports Media?
A: Just because things are better doesn’t mean that they’re good. Women still are vastly under-represented in management positions (especially as sports editors). And sadly, issues still do arise over the treatment of women in sports media. The case of Erin Andrews demonstrates that women still face barriers which can be not only detrimental to the ability to do one’s job but brings up safety issues as well.
Q: What advice would you give journalism teachers about helping to prepare women and men for careers in sports media?
A: Sports journalism is still journalism. The explosion of sports talk radio and various opinion and sports/entertainment shows can blur the line for students who think being loud with an opinion is the way to go. You have to have experience and credentials. Don’t succumb to the lowest common denominator. This would be the same for aspiring political journalists who watch the attack shows on cable news networks.
At the end of the day, we’re telling stories that entertain, inform and perhaps inspire. The cliche that sport is a microcosm of society means that there are plenty of stories, and types of stories, to tell. And not all of them will be the ones that lead SportsCenter. In fact, the best ones are usually the ones that would never make SportsCenter.
Q: Is there anything you’d like to say to journalism students or teachers?
A: The advice I give is the same as the advice I received as a journalism student: Read as much as you can and write something every day. The medium is not as important as the ability to communicate what you have learned and observed, but take advantage of learning as many skills as possible.
John Quinones discussed diversity in the newsroom and the world.
He was a migrant farmer and the first in his family to go to college.
His work has helped save children around the world.
His face is familiar to many TV watchers, but his journey to network journalism may not be as well known.
John Quinones, ABC journalist of “20/20″ and “Primetime” fame, spoke today to hundreds of students, faculty and community members at the Ninth Annual Diversity Conference at The College at Brockport (State University of New York). He told them that he wanted them to take one thing from what he said:
“If I could make it to network television … then anything is possible,” he said.
After hearing the story of his life and career, it is difficult not to believe him.
He spoke of his upbringing and the hard work it took to make it to the network. He said his goal was to be a good journalist and “to tell stories that reflected the Latino population of San Antonio.”
“I was a good reporter who just happened to be Hispanic,” he said.
Being fluent in Spanish helped him get a network job at ABC reporting in Central America. But he still had to work his way up the network and prove himself worthy of prime time. Along the way he has raised public awareness about poverty and injustices all over the world.
He noted that we all have biases, and we need to recognize them.
He also said that TV news is getting worse, not better, when it comes to diversity. He thinks that perhaps if more people of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds were producers and news executives, that could change.
He urged students to work hard and not listen to those who tell them that they cannot do it.
“It’s all about shining the light on the darkest corners of the world.”
It’s difficult not to be inspired by the words and life of John Quinones.
The lawyer for the suspect in the Yale student’s murder is filing a complaint about law enforcement leaks about the case to the media.
Who can blame him?
At this point, even the casual news consumer knows that law enforcement claims Raymond Clark III’s DNA is all over the crime scene. Public Defender Joseph Lopez is laying the groundwork for a claim that it will difficult, if not impossible, for his client to get a fair trial.
Speaking of high profile cases that lead to difficulties in getting a fair trial, the Sam Sheppard case — which inspired “The Fugitive” – was back in the spotlight again on NPR after Sheppard’s son objected to host Scott Simon referring to his father as “the most famous convicted murderer in America.”
You can hear Simon’s interview with the son, Sam Reese Sheppard, here.
This clip from The Office will make you laugh if you’ve ever had one of these debates (and what writer hasn’t?). Thanks to Editor Extraordinaire Deborah Gump, Ph.D., for passing this one along.
When is a libel threat really an attempt to muffle criticism, in particular press criticism?
Journalists at an Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, argue that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is trying to use his libel suit against the paper to do just that — shut up opposing voices, according to UK newspaper The Guardian.
And what did this paper do that the Prime Minister did not like?
La Repubblica has asked that Berlusconi answer “10 New Questions” about his relationships with several women — some of whom are reported to be prostitutes and at least one a minor.
The Guardian reports that the Italian newspaper is trying to get 500,000 people to sign an online petition calling for press freedom by Oct. 3 and that newspaper editors in Britain, Germany, Spain and France have signed it.
If you’d like to sign it, click here. To easily translate the petition from Italian to English, you can use Babel Fish.
It sounds cliche, but I can think of no other way to describe the astounding lack of local media coverage of a reported sexual assault of a College at Brockport (SUNY) student by three men. The student was walking home on a village street and assaulted, according to reports.
The college media are covering it, as you can see here. But I have yet to see any mention of it in the mainstream media that covers the area. By the way, the mainstream media are located only about a half-hour away — less if you don’t drive at peak times.
How many days have passed? FOUR.
The College at Brockport did the right thing and made its students aware of the situation with a Campus Safety Alert e-mail. Thank goodness it did, because the community certainly isn’t learning about it through the mainstream media. (In the interest of full disclosure I will tell you I teach at The College at Brockport.)
But what happened to the local mainstream media?
I started wondering how on earth they could miss this big of a story and came to only one conclusion: the impact of the job cuts in the reporting industry are showing.
Maybe that old saying should be changed to, “Don’t upset Apple Inc.”
Peggy Watt at PC World writes a great piece about Apple Inc.’s attempt to claim that an Australian company is infringing on its trademark with its logo. She mixes humor and good ole’ media law facts to create the interesting piece.
True confession: I went from Mac Hater to Mac Lover in the course of one hour.
I’m a PC person — I use PCs at home and, most of the time, at work. I do, however, teach one class on Macs. It was like trying to speak a foreign language. I’d try to hit my shortcut buttons and they didn’t work. Everything was in a different place. I didn’t know what I was doing, and quite frankly, blamed the Mac instead of me.
And then last week I was introduced to iWeb, the fabulous web site creation program on Macs. I’m in love. The designs (most of them, anyway) are beautiful and it is incredibly easy to use. Although I know HTML and CSS, I didn’t have to use any. And that got me thinking: What if this program — or one like it — could be used on multimedia news sites?
Not only would the sites be cleaner and easier to use for the news consumer, but it also would be easy for almost anyone on staff to update and tweak the sites. (Admit it, most news sites are not beautiful.)
And now I’m off to figure out a way to talk my husband into getting a Mac …
Maidstone was a journalist in Zambia, and he and his family were threatened because of a story he had written. The government wanted to know his source. He said his story is not unique, and said that according to World Press Freedom Day, 673 journalists were arrested in 2008. Even worse, 70 journalists were killed. So far this year, 31 journalists have been killed and 30 journalists are missing worldwide, he said.
“Each time freedom of press is threatened, all other human rights are threatened,” he said.
He urged the audience to take action. He mentioned that when he visits journalists in Africa and sees them waiting in line to use the one computer available for them to follow reports, he wishes people would realize that they could help with freedom of the press by donating computers and technology or by giving a little money to support the families of imprisoned journalists, families often left destitute because the family bread-winner cannot work.
Some of the organizations that try to help international journalists and work to ensure a free press include:
So I guess Russians can say that Stalin was responsible for thousands of deaths after all.
Russian autocratic leader Josef Stalin’s grandson sued a Russian newspaper for libel after an article referred to Stalin as having sent thousands to their deaths. Today a Russian court ruled against the grandson.
The case had some in the country wondering if the government and courts would try to change history by denying Stalin’s responsibility.
Will the grandson appeal? We will know within five days.
Originally I planned to focus this post on a great documentary on the U.S. Supreme Court that C-SPAN has been showing — and which is also available for viewing online. I showed the piece to my media law class, and they were more interested than one might expect for a group of 20-somethings at 8 a.m. in the morning. I definitely recommend it for other media law teachers.
But while nosing around the C-SPAN site, I discovered a wealth of videos on everything from press conferences to in-depth interviews. I even found dozens of videos featuring one of my journalism heroes, Helen Thomas.
So if you are looking for clips from politicians, educators, journalists and business people, give the C-SPAN Video Library a try.
The fact that others can hear copyrighted music when your cell phone rings does not make you a copyright violator. That’s what a federal judge ruled last week in the U.S. District Court (Southern Division of New York State). The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) was suing Verizon and AT&T and argued that, in essence, when one’s cell phone rings, it creates a “public performance” of the copyrighted work, and THAT was copyright infringement.
Keep in mind that cell phone users already PAY royalty fees when they buy the ring tone.
The decision states, “ASCAP has not shown any infringement of its members’ rights by the playing of ringtones in public from Verizon’s customers’ telephones. The customers are not liable for copyright infringement, and neither is Verizon.”
For an article about the case and a link to the decision, see Wired’s piece here.
One of the latest lawsuits out of Vegas has nothing to do with gambling, skin shows or even entertainment.
It has to do with subs. The kind you eat.
According to the Las Vegas Sun, Gevork Boyadzhyan opened up a sandwich shop in Las Vegas and called it Subway Avenue.
As you might imagine, the owners of the Subway chain of sandwich shops, Doctor’s Associates Inc., were none too amused. They filed suit in U.S. District Court for trademark infringement and cybersquatting (because of the potential confusion about the name).
So now Subway Avenue has reportedly become Sub Avenue.
You may think you can freely spout whatever you choose in your blog, but that’s not the case. In fact, even words that you might see as standing up for your dear mom might land you in court.
A Butler University student has learned that the hard way.
Butler University has dropped its libel suit against a student blogger after learning his name. But that’s not the end of the story. The university is going to use “internal disciplinary proceedings” instead to punish the student instead.
And what, oh what, did this student say in his blog to cause all this ruckus?
The comments that the university considered defamatory were about administrators who removed the blogger’s stepmother from her job as chair of the music school, according to the IndyStar.
The comments included calling an administrator “power hungry” and saying that administrator “hurts the ability of the school to recruit talented students and faculty members,” according to the Indiana Daily Student.
See The Indiana Daily Student’s fabulous editorial on the case here.
Five years ago, I wouldn’t have thought much of this. But today, with the current state of the newspaper industry, the sight of a newspaper box in a museum struck me as eerie. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was where newspaper boxes — and indeed, newspapers as we know them — were going to be. Not in our homes and in our hands, but in a museum exhibit.
Association works to promote diversity in sports media, including offering scholarship and internship opportunities. (FYI: This year’s
