It is certain that many people are interested in the news media and their coverage of the election, and more specifically the candidates. Both sides seem to want to argue that there is a bias for one thing or another. They want to claim agendas for determining what they cover, how they cover it, and how much air time theses issues receive.
James Rainey from the Los Angeles Times said this about these concerns of bias and agenda pushing.
Even though I agree with this outlook many people have taken the time to research the issues of media biases. One of which is the Center for Media and Public Affairs at GeorgeMasonUniversity, who says that ABC, NBC and CBS are more tough on Obama than on John McCain
Other groups seem to find the opposite true. The conservative MediaResearchCenter found after isolating stories on the ABC, NBC and CBS that 42 percent were positive and only 7 percent were negative.
Apparently Russian observers of the election have agreed with the later saying in a preliminary report that after observing ABC, NBC and CBS, Obama has a "hidden advantage."
I think bias and completely fair and balanced news coverage might be impossible to have, especially when as we have discussed in class observers will find what they are looking for.
Can biases be helpful to a journalist as long as they continue to responsibly cover the news?
One person who does not try to hide an obvious bias towards one side is Bill O'Reilly who recently used his biased commentary in order to secure himself a 4 year 40 million dollar contract.
So maybe in the end it seems to me like having an outrageous bias or opinion and being open with it is a great way to earn money while classical thoughts of an unbiased neutral media seem to be a sure fire way to being laid off or down sized.
For 10 million dollars a year what would you say on TV?
A lot of papers have been expanding their online features to attract and increase add revenue, and they were all betting for big returns.
Unfortunately in the last quarter online add revenue was down 2.4 percent.
To help slumping sales many in the industry struggle to decide whether or not to use add networks to fill up empty add space which would otherwise go unused. Others are limiting their add space and filling it themselves to improve their add revenue and percentages.
According to an article from Bloomberg.com Wachovia Capital Markets and Barclays Capital estimated that add revenue will continue to fall throughout this year and the next.
Some papers are taking drastic measures; the McPherson Sentinel from Kansas has cut out the entire day stopping the print of newspapers for Mondays.
From the same above mentioned Bloomberg article we get this quote from Nancy Conway, editor of MediaNews Group Inc.'s Salt Lake Tribune.
“You have to sort of weigh the service versus the cost, and right now newsprint is very costly…Revenue isn't what it used to be, so we have to make some tough decisions.”
Decisions that, for the Salt Lake Tribune, have meant merging and combining sections of the newspaper.
I feel as add revenue continues to slip down we will see newspapers finding new ways to adapt and cut costs.
Any guess what those will be? Comment what you think.
So after hearing the guest lecturer speak today I started to wonder about just how much a print journalist could make. So I just did a quick search on google and found some info on average salaries. As we learn more about journalists and what journalism is I think I discovered at least one thing today, and that is journalists don’t make a lot of money.
I think I have had in the back of my mind for many years this thought that journalists are celebrities in their own right. They are the ones giving us the news but by doing so they themselves become figures in the public light. So I guess with this thought I was surprised how easy it was to contact and conduct an email interview with a journalist Tim Woodward from my home town newspaper the Idaho Statesman. I enjoyed how friendly and how down to earth he seemed in our email correspondence.
Besides the things I learned from his answers was a truth I learned from the preface he gave me about the answers; he said “Sorry the answers were so rushed. Too many deadlines of late.” Being a journalist I think might be a little harder then I thought.
With that said the Q & A with Tim Woodward of the Idaho Statesman
ENJOY! I think he gave alot of answers that go along with the things we have discussed in class and our blogs.
Why did you go into journalism? I'd always wanted to be a writer. It seemed like a way of being able to
write and still earn a regular paycheck.
How did your break in the field?
I applied at almost every paper in the state. No jobs. Took a job as a
photographer for NationalSchool Studios, taking pictures of elementary
school kids. That lasted until the week I realized my travel expenses, which
came out of my own pocket, were within $10 of my salary. Quit on a Friday;
the Statesman called Saturday. I've been here ever since.
How do you define good journalism?
Accurate reporting, as objective and well written as possible, about
subjects that affect readers' lives.
Do you feel like your news organization practices good journalism?
Yes. How would you define the type of journalism you do?
I'm sort of a shirttail journalist. I've done about every kind of reporting, but in recent
years do mainly feature stories and columns.
Does your organization allow you to do the type of journalism you want
to do?
Yes
How does the journalism you practice serve your community?
Readers continually tell me I write about things no one else does, that I help keep
our local history alive, find stories about things they care about and bring
them to the forefront and occasionally bring about some sort of action such
as readers contributing to help needy subjects of my columns and stories,
correct wrongs (a misspelling on a granite memorial to the armed services is
a recent example) and recognize those who otherwise might be forgotten. I
write more about the little guys than the big names.
What is your opinion about recent movements such as community,
citizen, civic, and public journalism?
I think this would be a better question for one of our editors.
Have you ever had an experience in which you felt your work as a journalist really made a difference?
Yes. I did a series that resulted in a corrupt state official going to prison. Did some columns that got a man unjustly imprisoned out before he died. Those are two of many through the years.
How have your views about journalism changed over the years?
They haven't. The technology has, but the basics are timeless.
Have you been affected by dropping circulations, ratings, layoffs, and growth of citizen journalism?
Yes. We all have. My job is changing right now as a result of a smaller staff and a newsroom reorganization it necessitated. What advice would you give students wanting to go into journalism?
Study hard, work hard, get an internship that gives you hands-on experience. And
you might want to consider a medium other than newspapers, which are doing a
lot more laying off than hiring these days.
This office has received hundreds of complaints concerning a column by Heather Mallick entitled “A Mighty Winder Blows Through
I enjoyed the discussion today in class, it honestly sparked something inside of me to want to actually think a little bit more about journalism and what it really is. The art analogy stuck with me, and I walked away from class thinking maybe journalism has become its own art of sorts. Perhaps a journalist like an artist is in the eye of the beholder.
For example the journalist I interviewed said he thought good journalism was “Accurate reporting, as objective and well written as possible, ABOUT THE SUBJECTS THE AFFECT THE READERS’LIFE.” So maybe in this day an age where everyone is embracing individualism and finding various means to feed into what they define themselves as being perhaps journalism and news has become just another niche product made to please the consumer. What affects my life, what interests me, and how I define the importance of different topics depends less lately on society as people seem to look more inward to answer the questions.
With that said I am trying to say that it is not the writer, or the “news” that is currently defining journalism, but instead the viewer/ consumer. In that sense it is like art because the person that sees it or reads it can decide what divides the art from chaos, or in our class’s case what divides news from entertainment and opinion.
Major news organizations have held onto more traditional journalistic values. One news organization called the CBC in Canada has recently had to make a judgment call in the case of content not going along with their self described guidelines of good or responsible journalism.
I read this story today in the New York Times and it caught my eye because the headline read ‘Boss Is Not Ammused After Columnist’s Humor Brings A Retort From Fox News.’ In one of my earlier blogs about the daily show I posed the question about humor and satire being used more in print news and thus I read today’s article eagerly to see what type of humor had gotten this columnist in trouble.
It turns out the columnist Heather Mallick wrote about Sara Palin writing among other things that she “has a toned-down version of the porn actress look.” Upon reading that and other comments she included in her column I immediately thought wow this is a real life example, coming from a legitimate news source, of the “Obama is the anit-christ” example from class.
These comments then of coarse en-flamed an onslaught of conservative criticism, and as the headline suggests several upset phone calls and questions from Fox News corp. back in America.
This back lash caused the government founded CBC to remove the article from their website and issue an apology. John Cruickshank made several interesting comments about what had been written and how it did not fallow the journalistic aspirations of the organization.
Cruickshank said it would have worked just fine if it had been labeled as satire. However, Mallick disagreed saying “It wasn’t satire though; it was straightforward political commentary, admittedly with jokes.”
Cruickshank in his apology also said “every news organization needs to have an opinion dimension. Access to different viewpoints helps readers, listeners and viewers make reasoned choices, especially during an election campaign. As a public broadcaster we have an added responsibility to provide an array of opinions and voices to complement our journalism.”
The last part especially interested me that he said these opinions are not really news, but instead he says the opinions are there to complement their journalism, and by so saying I think he draws that line that opinion and journalism are two distinct things. Yes, things that go hand in hand, but never the less separate entities indeed.
The Chicago tribune redesign on first look seems a lot more aesthetically pleasing and overall more inviting to jump into.
I can see they have put more thought into the design of the newspaper and from the preview video the choice of pictures they use to go along with the stories.
Changes such as these seem like a perhaps much needed upgrade in design quality when it comes to print journalism.
However, in the interview from the poynter website the design director for the newspaper describes the new approach in a content perspective. The person from the tribune makes several references about giving the reader what they want, and setting up blogs to let readers give direct feed back to the editor of what they want to see and read in the newspaper.
I wonder if all this feed back and the mind set of “giving us what we want” is a good thing. Typically when we hear of news programs being over run with stories that have more of an entertainment value rather than informative or educational one, people will say it’s because that is what people want to see.
The video we watched in class on Monday gave rise in my mind to the true public service which a newspaper can provide, informing us of the things that really matter. In that same spirit of hard news that really concerns us rather than “whats hott,” as one new section in the tribune was coined, I fell a little over loaded by yet another example of trying to give the reader what they want.
With all the talk of new paper’s audiences being older and more out dated I wonder if the Tribunes efforts are really focused at all on giving those readers what they want. How many older people can you think of who would be jumping on computers to blog in their likes and dislikes?
I think maybe the Tribune is really trying to attract new younger readers with different wants and needs, but are these wants and needs really what’s best for a news organization and the more traditional ethics of journalism?
If it is in fact new readers they wanted why hasn’t there website improved much after a quick glance it seems the same to me as any other newspaper website.
Katie Couric’s interview of Palin has been in the news a lot lately. One reason for it are the types of questions Couric was able to ask her and they way in which she did so.
Obviously even if the definition of journalism is changing the basic skills which a journalist needs are important in order to distinguish themselves from the rest. Couric as of late I feel has been able to do this by putting Palin in a light which has helped raise questions about Palin’s experience and knowledge on important subjects.
As a student of news writing 211 we have opportunities to help develop our own interviewing skills. For those of you also taking this class this semester you know our global to local articles will be written in lab this week and we all need to interview at least two BYU students about our chosen topic.
For my article I will be writing about the bail out plan, and I am including in this blog a list of questions I am hopping to be answered for my student interviews, and thought it might be fun to usethis forum to help not only get those questions answered but also receive ideas for different questions.Basically feel free to leave in the comments your name what year of school you are in and the answers to my questions, or a critique on my questions or the usefulness of using the internet for interviewing purposes.
As aspiring journalists I hope we are on the same page with a desire to grow and develop the talents which one day will be required of us, and that have been highlighted recently from professionals covering the campaign.
THANKS
Questions
Do you have a good understanding of the countries financial situation and its causes?
What do you think are the true causes of the problem for example the government, Wall Street or the average person who was financially irresponsible with loans and their credit?
Have you or your family been personally effected?
Will this effect your future?
Are you worried about the availability of loans to help pay for your schooling?
What can the younger generation do to help avoid another financial crisis?
