Some reporters in the rotating pool of journalists who chronicle the president’s movements are sending tweets and TwitPics before the pool reports go to all of their colleagues, and that’s creating problems
“Synergy was the Trojan horse with which FitzSimons and Kern attacked the values of journalists, cut costs and set their focus on local news because it was often cheaper to produce,” writes Mr. O’Shea.
Link: O’Shea blasts ex-Tribune execs, current editor in new book | Poynter.
Jake Whitney interviews Michael Hastings:
what had been planned as a dissection of Hastings’s major articles evolved into a broader conversation about American exceptionalism, the process and duty of war reporting, the privatization of American war making, and the Pentagon’s intensifying effort to “tear down the wall”
between public affairs and propaganda
Yesterday the final decision was made to close the School of Journalism and Mass Communication that is not only my part-time employer, but my alma mater. My father also taught photojournalism part time at this school and graduated from its predecessor College of Journalism at the University of Colorado. The old school will be replaced by a double degree in journalism and another discipline at the university, and details of how that will work remain vague.
Though I and many of my colleagues wish a purposeful change of how journalism is taught at CU would have unfolded differently from this, the decision begs an examination of what it means to have a journalism education. This may still be well served by CU’s plan, depending on how it unfolds. I am hopeful.
Some time ago, if you were lucky enough to have created an image that all wanted, you could easily sit on it and wait for your phone to ring. Not really anymore. The center of the business gravity has shifted. To those who create value around the content.
Link: Thoughts of a Bohemian » Blog Archive » Of Paywalls, expectancy and stupidity
“The Huffington bloggers have essentially been turned into modern-day slaves on Arianna Huffington’s plantation,” Mr. Tasini said in a conference call with reporters. He vowed to picket Ms. Huffington’s house and turn her into an outcast in the liberal circles where she made her blog so prominent.
Link: Huffington Post Is Target of Suit on Behalf of Bloggers – NYTimes.com
Mr. Dubow had agreed to lower his salary by 17 percent through 2011, but then again, last month he received a cash bonus of $1.75 million for 2010 and Ms. Martore received $1.25 million. For 2010, they were also awarded stock, options and deferred compensation that would bring their combined packages to $17.6 million if the company and its stock hits certain targets.
Link: At Gannett, Furloughs but Nice Paydays for the Brass – NYTimes.com
“This is not even human blood!” the escort erupted to group of journalists, making a gesture with his hands like squeezing a tube. “I told them, ‘Nobody is going to believe this!’ ” he explained, as Elizabeth Palmer, a correspondent for CBS News, later recalled. His name was withheld for his protection.
Link: Staging News, Libya Offers Little Pretense of Credibility – NYTimes.com
There’s certainly a lot of do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do in the current round of future-of-news handwringing: this is the narrative that allows a “newspaper” whose news is ninety percent curated picks from the newswires, run verbatim without comment or context, to be full of democratic virtue; while websites that examine, criticize and contextualize those same stories are parasites who contribute nothing.
Link: What is legitimate “newsgathering” and what is “piracy”? – Boing Boing
“To ask NYTimes.com’s 33 million unique monthly visitors to switch to a cash-for-manufactured-goods-based model from the standard everything-online-should-be-free-for-reasons-nobody-can-really-explain-based model is pretty fearless. It’s almost as if The New York Times is equating itself with a business trying to function in a capitalistic society.”
Link: NYTimes.com’s Plan To Charge People Money For Consuming Goods, Services Called Bold Business Move