Is Bill hurting Hillary's campaign?

Bill Clinton has received criticism over his recent comments about Barack Obama's victory in the South Carolina primary. His comments have elevated the already rising racial tension between the Democratic nominees and is now being scrutinized for starting to hurt rather than help his wife's campaign. The Today Show's Matt Lauer also spoke to Time Magazine's Joe Klein about this recent issue. However, an article by CNN also states that Clinton has had a "80 percent approval rate among Democrats", and earlier reports of Hillary's campaign thought Clinton to be a significant asset for her.
Do you think he has overstepped the boundaries in his wife's campaign? Should he step back to the sidelines, or be an active part of it? Another issue that his outspokenness raises is the potential harm it could do to the future Democratic nominee for president. Are Democrats digging themselves into a bigger hole by their attacks on one another?

Is Bill hurting Hillary's campaign?

Bill Clinton has received criticism over his recent comments about Barack Obama's victory in the South Carolina primary. His comments have elevated the already rising racial tension between the Democratic nominees and is now being scrutinized for starting to hurt rather than help his wife's campaign. The Today Show's Matt Lauer also spoke to Time Magazine's Joe Klein about this recent issue. However, an article by CNN also states that Clinton has had a "80 percent approval rate among Democrats", and earlier reports of Hillary's campaign thought Clinton to be a significant asset for her.
Do you think he has overstepped the boundaries in his wife's campaign? Should he step back to the sidelines, or be an active part of it? Another issue that his outspokenness raises is the potential harm it could do to the future Democratic nominee for president. Are Democrats digging themselves into a bigger hole by their attacks on one another?

Go for grammar gold

Is grammar hard for you to grasp? Don't know the difference between lay and lie? Not sure when to use who or whom? You're not alone. Grammatical mistakes in news stories add to our industry's credibility problem. If a reader sees grammatical or spelling errors, he or she doubts the veracity of the entire article. The only way to improve your grammar is to practice. Check out the Grammar Girl's quick and dirty tips as a refresher. You can even sign up for her daily grammar tip podcasts. Or check out the Top 10 Grammar tips on this site. And finally, you can't beat William Strunk Jr.'s The Elements of Style for advice on language usage.

The Death of the Old Media

This article from Adbusters Magazine details the decline of reporting in America. It talks of Journalism going from a necessary part of America and the democratic process to now being comparable to a mail-order catalog. The decline of traditional media also coincides with the increase of citizen journalism. Sites such as NowPublic.org are the new adversaries of the corporate press. As reporting continues to be watered down, America is going to suffer. Democratic process is based in the fact that the citizens are receiving the information necessary to make decisions. How can that still function if the media is compromised?

The problem, according to the article, is that corporations running newspapers insist on high profit margins. "According to the International Newspaper Financial Executives, the average major newspaper makes a 15.6 percent pre-tax profit. The Tribune Company, which own the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, has a 21.4 percent pre-tax profit margin. In contrast, Wal-Mart, the world’s largest corporation, operates at a 5.4 percent profit margin. Although the media is suffering from major revenue loses, the gutting of the public watchdog is happening because media corporations are insisting on maintaining the same extreme margins."

The press used to be a watchdog, and now it is becoming a lapdog. Where is the outcry against this? An interesting section of the article states "While they’re still confronted with the same problem of attracting an audience in the digital age, because non-profits funnel revenue back into their projects, they offer the media at least one formula for stability. 'The media can be done as a non-profit and it’s something that makes me salivate when I think about it,' "

What are your thoughts? Should the media be treated as a business where profit margins are the only thing that matters? Is the decline in true investigative journalism a problem? What about the idea of media as a non-profit? The article raises a ton of questions regarding the future of journalism. As the whorification of the media continues, should we fight it? Or should we lean back in our chairs and wait for an answer to present itself?

The Rumors Are True

The Center of Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism proved that the Bush administration collectively made 935 official lies about the Iraq War, according to this article by the Associated Press. Most of them were about Iraq allegedly having weapons of mass destruction (WMD's for all you newsies out there). Bush only lied about 259 of those times, with Colin Powell coming behind at 244 lies. The journalism organizations studied records from only the two years after Sept. 11, 2001, leading to the Iraq War as we know it. Who knows what they said in the past four years.

Photo courtesy of The Boston Globe's Arts & Entertainment blog

How to succeed as an intern

Once you land an internship, you want to use it to further your career. You need to make the most of the short time you are in the job. You want clips and you want future contacts, who might be references or mentors down the road. One key to your success as an intern is preparation. Theola S. Labbé talks about how to do that on the Detroit Free Press Jobs Page, which has an entire section on internships. Last summer, Nathan Hurst, a business reporting intern, turned his summer job into a full-time position at The Detroit News. Nathan was noticed, in part, because he worked hard to come up with story ideas on his own. He wasn't from Michigan, but he did his homework. In fact, he deliberately drove a different route to the office everyday so he could look for the unusual - anything that might be a future story - on his way to work. He offered advice to a Journalism 300 class this week.

I heard it from the vine

We have talked about how web logs (or blogs) have become an outlet in which the writer and the readers are able to have a closer relationship with one another. In a business where journalists are somehow distant from the reach of the public, blogs-- and other online forums like it -- have been helpful in bridging the gap.

One example of this is with the website newsvine.com, an online compendium of news throughout the world, posted by anyone who finds it interesting. Many media outlets that have online affiliates are steadily grabbing hold to these websites, offering the option of posting straight from a link on the article's page. 

Newsvine.com also allows for a free membership, which automatically sets you up with your own editorial column. On this virtual soapbox, you will be able to voice your opinion on any news that comes your way. At the risk of sounding like a spokesperson for the site, I can tell you that it is one of the ways I keep up on the news, and it is an efficient tool throughout my day. Check it out. You might like it too.

Bring on the Chuck Norris jokes

I came across this today, and needed to mention it in a blog. It is both hilarious and hypocritical. To put it in a sentence, Republican presidential-hopeful John McCain threatened to have his mother "wash Chuck Norris' mouth out with soap" after the Hollywood action legend said McCain was too old for the White House. Norris also said that the vice president would most likely take over McCain's job in the middle of his presidency because of McCain's old age. McCain is 71 and Norris is 67. I digress.

God couldn't even get away with this one--only Chuck Norris.

Since Norris said he supports another Republican candidate, Mike Huckabee, this poses a question. How influential will celebrities be in pushing the public to vote for their candidates this November? With Democratic-hopeful Barack Obama getting support from Oprah and John Kerry, and Hillary getting support from actresses, will it be more of a factor in this election than in 2004 or 2000? Why or why not? I welcome your responses.

Online addiction of the Youth

In my pyschology class right now, I am learning about the Baby Boomers, Generation X and Millennials. We all know the stories behind baby boomers, and can guess what Generation X entails, as most of us students fall under that category. Millennials are the children of today, and are known for their reliabilty on technology. An article I found in The New York Times really made me focus on the fact that children are too reliable on computers; so reliable that they cannot live without them. In the article by Felicia R. Lee, the documentary "Growing up Online" is discussed. One of the parents on the show said, “If you’re basically a grounded kid, you’re going to be fine. We need to teach people good citizenship, a sense of morality, right and wrong, that transfer to the Internet.”

I think this article is a real eye opener to what is happening to our nation's youth, and I am glad to see The New York Times cover a documentary, which will appear on PBS, about how to help the youth. The documentary features teenagers talking about online relationships, many like the ones we have seen on 'How to Catch a Predator', or how easily it is to find tips on being a better anorexic. Parents really need to step up and know what their children are doing on the computers. Recently, a teenage girl hanged herself because a boy online said he no longer liked her, and it was found out that the boy did not even exist, but was made up by neighbor girls to make the teenager feel bad. Recently on Dr. Phil, teens were on the talk show explaining how they made mistakes online, such as rumors on MySpace.

I hope to see more reporters covering actual news stories with hope, such as how to stop online bullying or excessive internet use of youths, instead of Miley Cirus' new haircut or Britney Spears' latest drama.

Here's what you need to get a job

Editors of all kinds of publications - news, entertainment, sports - are looking for job candidates with both traditional journalism skills and multimedia skills. Bottomline: You need to know how to tell stories over many different platforms to get a job. John Robinson, editor of the News and Observer, made that point about blogging in a column. Brian Fisher, editor of Noise magazine in Lansing, spoke to my copy editing class earlier in the week. When asked what he would tell students looking for copy editing jobs, he echoed Robinson's sentiments. Check out his advice. Are you preparing yourself for today's reality? Are you looking for ways to expand your skills?

What is news?

So we've been learning in our JRN 300 class that there are certain elements of an article that constitute it being newsworthy. And while this changes from media outlet to media outlet, there ought to be some emphasis on most (if not all) of these categories in every story. I assume those who read this, know of the groups I refer to, but just for the sake of argument they are the following: timeliness, impact, prominence of people involved, proximity, conflict and novelty.

I look at these crucial news elements, thinking hard about their meaning and then I turn my head to see how all of them correspond to today's entertainment "news". The difficult and harsh reality that I find is that most of the elements are there. Quite plainly. Take Britney Spears for example. The negative things that are occurring in her life are happening now (timeliness). She is a celebrity, which constitutes her actions to merit coverage in entertainment news (prominence of people involved). While many of us may not know Spears personally, the "superstardom" she once held was due to the perpetual presence she had in our lives via music, television appearances and even conversations that we overheard in line at the supermarket. Thus, what Britney does in some way affects us (proximity). And needless to say, Spears' situations are strange and problematic (conflict and novelty).

The difficulty I find comes from the writers and photographers who choose to display this inforamtion. When we look at these people, we judge them by their merits as journalists. Hence the journalistic elements--as authors Bill Kovach and Tom Rosentiel put it-- must be the measuring stick here. Though Britney's stories "delight and amaze" us, how do they give any information to better our community? Has anyone written on the devastation that comes with those who suffer from mental illness based on Spears' story? Roy Peter Clark, the senior Scholar at the Poynter Institute answers this question and raises many other points in his column on the poynter website. I urge you to read it.

Entertainment news, I feel, could be doing so much more.

A New Frontier of Danger?

In China earlier this month, Wei Wenhua, a construction company executive, as well as a blogger in his spare time, was beaten to death by a group of city inspectors as he tried to photograph them. The inspectors were beating the citizens of a village who were trying to prevent the inspectors from dumping trash by their homes. CNN stated that Wenhua saw the attacks on the villagers as he was driving by, stopped, and began taking snapshots with his mobile phone to incorporate into his blog. The 50 or so inspectors moved away from the villagers to Wenhua, and beat him to the cusp of death. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. 

The story has galvanized bloggers globally, who are speaking out in droves on the attack on Wenhua. A simple Google search of "Chinese blogger beating" shows most of the links to the topic are from  blogs. It has also brought up the topic of blog censorship, especially in China, Wenhua's homeland. 

The question this incident raises in my mind, however, is the safety of public blogging in society, as more and more "average citizens" are keeping tabs on their surroundings and looking for the latest scoop. While journalism has the potential to be dangerous, there are support systems within the profession that help take the edge off of things, like reporting teams and the 'journalism community". Blogging, however, is primarily based off of the intentions of a single individual, making their own decisions and acting on them alone. And while many blogs are produced from casual observations and developed at home, there are the adventurous few who view it as a serious job and take on outside reporting and photography and video additions. 

That is what leads me to my concerns. Will we be seeing a rash of attacks against these freelance internet journalists looking for stories in the 'wrong' places? Possibly from people who view these bloggers less as the traditional journalist and more as an invader of privacy? Or maybe will we see the blogging community develop a network or clique, much like print and broadcast journalism communities have over the years, to produce a de facto  support group? No matter what happens, I think there will be some interesting societal changes in terms of blogging as its prominence increases along with technology.

A victory for copy editors

The Miami Herald has decided not to outsource some of its copy editing to India after all. Apparently, editors realized folks thousands of miles away from the newsroom might not have the local expertise needed to edit local stories.``The more we looked at the prospects of editing and layout from outside the newsroom, the more it was clear these skills involving news judgment and experience are not likely to work well from afar," wrote Miami Herald Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal in a staff memo published in the Romenesko column on the Poynter Institute website.

Other papers are still looking for ways to cut costs, and outsourcing is one of them. The Californian in Bakersfield announced it will outsource some jobs, but none of them are newsroom jobs.

What do you think? Are you glad Miami reconsidered? Or should newsrooms be more open to new ways of doing things?

Will blogging get you a job?

Journalism students, take note: At least one editor says you need to have blogging skills to get a job. John Robinson of the News and Observer says he asks job candidates if they blog and if they read his editor's blog when considering them for jobs at his newspaper. A column in Business Week spells out 10 things journalism students need to know to get jobs. Blogging is one of them. British journalist Paul Bradshaw says students seem to be reluctant to blog unless they're required to do so for a class. Why is that? Are you reluctant to blog? Why? Do you think you it will help you get a job? Then why don't you want to do it?

Do you believe everything you read?

A new study by Sacred Heart University finds that only 19.6% of those surveyed say they believe all or most news media reporting. We stress the importance of accuracy in reporting. The reason: Without attention to accuracy and detail, our credibility suffers. Just skim Craig Silverman's Regret The Error website and you'll realize we have a long way to go. Take this recent example, a correction that appeared in Newsday: A photo yesterday showed suspected drug dealers sitting among Hempstead residents at a town-hall-style meeting. The caption did not make clear that some of those pictured were not suspected of crimes.

Politics an exception to unbias?

Why can't New Hampshire just leave Mitt Romney alone. In her Poynter Institute article, Mallary Jean Tenore reports that the Concord Monitor blatantly disendorsed (is that a word?) Mitt Romney for his presidential bid. Is this appopriate for a newspaper to do, especially in an area of a presidential primary? The underlying ethics of journalism tells us that we should be fair, and unbiased, in presenting information to the public. But here a newspaper publicly denounces a major candidate for presidency. Are all readers in New Hampshire against Romney, so why should a newspaper that serves its public have the right to say so?

'Meanest Mom on the Planet' uses paper to discipline son

Jane Hambleton, a 48-year-old mother from Fort Dodge, Iowa, placed this ad in the Des Moines Register:

"OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet."

The ad, was placed after she found a bottle of alcohol under the seat of her then 18-year-old son's car.
She has since garnered a ton of attention from the ad, appearing in a nationally popular AP article and recieving a spot on Good Morning America.

I think it's an interesting way to use the paper and has recieved good reviews as parenting around the country. I just personally wouldn't wan't it happen to me.

A blog from the White House

The White House is blogging about its trip overseas.
The blog, called Trip Notes From The Middle East, is the first of its kind coming from the government's senior staff members, and will profile the president's travels.
Press Secretary Dana Perino posted twice since Jan. 8.
I wouldn't call the content groundbreaking, but it's a start.
"We ate dinner while watching the New Hampshire primary returns come in... but I fell asleep before the networks called the Democratic primary," posted Perino.

Outsourcing copy editing?

The Miami Herald has decided to outsource copy editing to India to save costs. The Newspaper Association of America said earlier this year that newspapers would try a lot of new things to cut costs. But is having copy editors across the world a smart thing to do?

Is Clinton's win a comeback or not?

So Hillary Clinton's win in New Hampshire seemed to surprise everyone late last night, particularly the media pundits who had relied on polls showing Obama surging ahead in the past few days. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz column today examines the issue. But is today's coverage of the election result any better? Many newspapers are heralding the victory as a comeback or an upset by Clinton. You can see some of today's New Hampshire front pages on the Poynter Institute website. Is comeback an accurate description, considering until a few days ago Clinton was assumed to be the front-runner in New Hampshire anyway? Bottomline: Are reporters and headline writers correct in trying to characterize every move in the run to the White House? Is there an inherent danger in relying too heavily on polls, which are really just a snapshot in time? Do we need to stick strictly to the facts and forget the characterizations or is part of our job to analyze?

Coverage of Hillary's 'moment'

Check out the story in Columbia Journalism Review on the emotional moment by Hillary Clinton that we discussed in class today. The story and video got huge play nationally, leading network broadcasts and getting Page 1A play in several papers. But interestingly it did not get much attention in New Hampshire, where the story unfolded and where the vote is taking place. Hillary Clinton downplayed the story today, as you can tell in this report on Fox News. So does the CJR story change your take at all? Was it underplayed or overplayed? Is the coverage sexist? Do some of you still think it was deliberate on Clinton's part?

Covering the Iowa caucuses

You can find an interesting analysis of media coverage of the Iowa caucuses online from two different perspectives - content and design. The Project for Excellence in Journalism looks at the content in print, online and broadcast coverage of the wins by Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee. The theme in most news outlets, according to the analysis, was surprise and change. At the Poynter Institute, you can find a look at the different design approaches many newspapers took to the caucus coverage. An interesting point raised by the author: Do newspapers still have to follow the age-old idea of presenting both sides equally? In other words, did Obama and Huckabee deserve equal play?
What do you think of that? Many papers played their pictures of equal size, but a few ignored that idea. What about the coverage in general? What did you like and why?