OK, this is a downer post. But this article from UPI tallies up the U.S.journalism job losses in 2006. And points out how many jobs have already disappeared this year.
In my Digital Journalism class, the professor is pushing us to figure out a model where amateurs could fold into a process with professionals. Anyone who wants to check out our class blog, where ongoing posts from students get critiqued and pushed along by the professor, please just email me and I'll send you the sign on. It is not a public blog but it's not a purely private blog either. I think this would be worth a working journalist's time.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Worrying about battle, the war was lost
We fret over whether we'll write for a newspaper or a website, assuming the Internet will be there as a stomping ground if/when we need it. But people are already out there fighting over who will control the net. Will it be government? If it is, will Internet service providers be "state actors," required to turn over material under a court order? Does the FIrst Amendment offer protection here? If we keep government's hand out, will big business carve it up and charge admission so that the Internet isn't free anymore?
A class at Stanford, "First Amendment in the Digital Age" is looking at these questions. A class assignment is to blog on The Cairns Project as students explore the issues. (The Cairns Project is about "building a network of collective action." The Cairn reference is inspiring: "Throughout history, travelers have collaborated in building Cairns: stone monuments to mark the path and collectively navigate new territory.Together we can do what no one of us can do alone." Already I feel less lonely.
Here's a first amendment post that argues against government intervention, with a response that argues for it.
A class at Stanford, "First Amendment in the Digital Age" is looking at these questions. A class assignment is to blog on The Cairns Project as students explore the issues. (The Cairns Project is about "building a network of collective action." The Cairn reference is inspiring: "Throughout history, travelers have collaborated in building Cairns: stone monuments to mark the path and collectively navigate new territory.Together we can do what no one of us can do alone." Already I feel less lonely.
Here's a first amendment post that argues against government intervention, with a response that argues for it.
Frontline on the News Wars
Maybe I'm just getting used to sitting on the edge of my seat. But when I stumbled on the promo for Frontline's four and a half hours of analysis on the state of journalism in America that will air over several days in February, I had to click through and check it out. You should too. So you've only got three minutes? Then go here and find the third purple panel that asks "What will be the future business model for the news industry? How will we get the news?" Click on Eric Schmidt's face -- he's the CEO for Google, and give a listen. Reporters won't write for newspapers anymore, he says, but they'll find an audience. Being that Google just aggregates news from newspapers, Schmidt wants newspapers to survive. Then click on Jeff Jarvis' face. He's a blogger for BuzzMachine.com. He argues that a 17-year-old walking down the street with a camera phone is a journalist. Any and everybody is, if they are witness to something the world wants to know. Where will you be working in two years? If you wonder, here's a potential flashlight into the darkness.
A manifesto for journalism
Today journalist Geneva Overholser visited our Knight Fellow forum to talk about the future of journalism. She has a long view of it, having served in many capacities including as former ombudsman and syndicated columnist for the Washington Post and editorial board member of The New York Times. She edited The Des Moines Register from 1988-1995, and lead the paper to its 1991 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service. She is now with the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting, Missouri School of Journalism, Washington Bureau.
What I liked the most about her talk was she said these words: "I'm optimistic."
Why? a room of journalists asked her. Given the current rocky state of affairs, what's to be optimistic about?
She had good reasons.
#1. Creativity -- lots of it -- is springing up all around the edges of the battlefield. She told the story of a tiny community in Maine that newspapers had forgotten. So the town librarian got some folks together and started a news website for that community. You can look here at J-Lab.org for a collection of new ideas. Funding for grassroots news sites is out there. J-Lab has a February 20 deadline for initiative proposals. Get the scoop at New Voices.
#2. People -- the reading public -- care. She travels and talks to lots of folks, including people who claim to despise MSM (mainstream media.) She sees them as allies because they care enough to complain.
#3. She strongly believes in public interest journalism. To complaints that newspapers have to pander to lowest common demoninators and that no one cares about "eat your peas" journalism, she demurred, and said: We (journalists) can set the appetite and taste by what we deliver. Readers may not know they need a voting guide, until we give them such a good one they can't live without it.
She admits good journalism costs money, and the current delivery models are collapsing. But she is sure good journalism will carry on -- simply on a new platform.
Read her analysis at On Behalf of Journalism: a manifesto for change.
And get a good night's sleep. There's lots of work tomorrow.
What I liked the most about her talk was she said these words: "I'm optimistic."
Why? a room of journalists asked her. Given the current rocky state of affairs, what's to be optimistic about?
She had good reasons.
#1. Creativity -- lots of it -- is springing up all around the edges of the battlefield. She told the story of a tiny community in Maine that newspapers had forgotten. So the town librarian got some folks together and started a news website for that community. You can look here at J-Lab.org for a collection of new ideas. Funding for grassroots news sites is out there. J-Lab has a February 20 deadline for initiative proposals. Get the scoop at New Voices.
#2. People -- the reading public -- care. She travels and talks to lots of folks, including people who claim to despise MSM (mainstream media.) She sees them as allies because they care enough to complain.
#3. She strongly believes in public interest journalism. To complaints that newspapers have to pander to lowest common demoninators and that no one cares about "eat your peas" journalism, she demurred, and said: We (journalists) can set the appetite and taste by what we deliver. Readers may not know they need a voting guide, until we give them such a good one they can't live without it.
She admits good journalism costs money, and the current delivery models are collapsing. But she is sure good journalism will carry on -- simply on a new platform.
Read her analysis at On Behalf of Journalism: a manifesto for change.
And get a good night's sleep. There's lots of work tomorrow.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Trying something new
So, I wanted to figure out how to get a photo into this blog. It's too easy for words. There's a photo button you push when composing a new blog post, you browse on your desk top for the photo you put there to upload, hit the upload button, and in a minute or so, your photo is uploaded. Fun stuff. Peter says hi. This image was taken in early January on the northern California coastline about 30 miles north of Petaluma at a sweet place called Sea Ranch. A bunch of Knight fellows rented a big house for a three-day weekend, and we hung out there walking along the cliffs over the ocean and watching seals bounce around in the waves.
Looking for real journalists
I mentioned my Digital Journalism class, where we all have an obligation to blog (on a class site, not this blog). Well, my class is interested in talking to people who work at a real newspaper. If you have any interest in reading the digital journalism blog and maybe interacting online with these undergrad and grad students, let me know. The site is not private, but it's not quite public. I have permission to give you my sign on, it's OKd by the prof. So email me at kjmccoy@stanford.edu and I'll send you the link and my sign on. (My apologies: the first generation of this post linked direct to the site, and those who tried to go got a 'cannot enter' message.
Oh, and here's some reading for you. The Nieman folks have just done their analysis of the state of newspapers, called "Goodbye Gutenberg." You'll find it here. I haven't read it all yet, but there's obvious food for thought. A good one to start with is multimedia reporter and teacher Jane Stevens' "Taking the Big Gulp." Find it here.
Oh, and here's some reading for you. The Nieman folks have just done their analysis of the state of newspapers, called "Goodbye Gutenberg." You'll find it here. I haven't read it all yet, but there's obvious food for thought. A good one to start with is multimedia reporter and teacher Jane Stevens' "Taking the Big Gulp." Find it here.
Talk about frustrating
About half an hour ago I prepared a post here mentioning some multimedia work my UC Berkeley classmates were now posting back at their home newspaper Web sites, when Google's server went down. There went my web post.
So here it is again. Technology demands nothing if not persistence. It seems so unstable sometimes.
Anyway, Vindu Goel is an editorial writer at the San Jose Mercury News and he's started a blog that discusses politics, technology, immigration -- or anything else he gets activated about. A recent post mentioned Jimmy Wales, the creator of Wikipedia. Wales' new idea is an open-source search engine that will use human intelligence instead of algorithms for searches. Here is an audio interview by a Merc Internet writer with Wales, all about his new idea, to be called WIKIA.
So here it is again. Technology demands nothing if not persistence. It seems so unstable sometimes.
Anyway, Vindu Goel is an editorial writer at the San Jose Mercury News and he's started a blog that discusses politics, technology, immigration -- or anything else he gets activated about. A recent post mentioned Jimmy Wales, the creator of Wikipedia. Wales' new idea is an open-source search engine that will use human intelligence instead of algorithms for searches. Here is an audio interview by a Merc Internet writer with Wales, all about his new idea, to be called WIKIA.
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