Journalism: June 2007 Archive Page

Investigators are looking into who altered pro wrestler Chris Benoit's Wikipedia entry to mention his wife's death hours before authorities discovered the bodies of the couple and their 7-year-old son. --Dead wrestler's Web page was altered (Yahoo! | AP (will expire))

I wasn't particularly following this story, but this is an interesting wrinkle. When I first started teaching journalism at Seton Hill in 2003, it was common for mainstream publications to publish information that a quick Google search would reaveal as a hoax (or at least very suspicious). Now we see journalists making routine references to the nuts and bolts of the new information economy.

Update, 29 June: "The anonymous individual responsible for suggesting, 14 hours before police discovered the body, that WWE wrestler Chris Benoit's wife was dead is confessing, saying his/her comment was a 'terrible coincidence.'" -WikiNews

Is that the end of the story?

Traditionally, many news organizations have applied the rules to only political reporters and editors. The ethic was summed up by Abe Rosenthal, the former New York Times editor, who is reported to have said, "I don't care if you sleep with elephants as long as you don't cover the circus."

But with polls showing the public losing faith in the ability of journalists to give the news straight up, some major newspapers and TV networks are clamping down. They now prohibit all political activity -- aside from voting -- no matter whether the journalist covers baseball or proofreads the obituaries. The Times in 2003 banned all donations, with editors scouring the FEC records regularly to watch for in-house donors. In 2005, The Chicago Tribune made its policy absolute. CBS did the same last fall. And The Atlantic Monthly, where a senior editor gave $500 to the Democratic Party in 2004, says it is considering banning all donations. After MSNBC.com contacted Salon.com about donations by a reporter and a former executive editor, this week Salon banned donations for all its staff.

What changed? --Bill Dedman --Journalists dole out cash to politicians (quietly) (MSNBC)

Also of interest is a long list of excuses/apologies/evasions offered by reporters and editors who made partisan donations. Several of the donors were up front about their attitude, saying that as reporters they don't give up their right to participate in the political process. But in many cases, their employees have a policy in place that stipulates exactly what a news employee must do in order to prevent the appearance of bias from affecting the public's faith in the publication's ability to present the news honestly, without bias.

This response from the copyeditor of The New Yorker is illuminating: "I've never thought of myself as working for a news organization."

The best interviews I've had were with people obviously familiar with my work. A great interview with a reporter feels like a natural conversation with a friend you've never met. They'll ask you questions that you haven't answered a hundred times before, and really dive into your experiences that led to something newsworthy. A good interview will feel open ended and go wherever the conversation leads. A good reporter will send you an email when the article is posted and thank you for your time. If you notice any of these qualities, relish the opportunity because these kinds of interviews account for maybe 5% of the interviews I've ever done. --Matt Haughey --How to talk to the press (fortuito.us)

The tips added by Grant Barrett are also helpful.

I'll be teaching an entry-level journalism course this fall, and this will be a helpful way of getting my cub reporters to think about the interview from the perspective of a subject-matter expert.

The New York premiere of the film, on Wednesday, was held to support the organisation Reporters Without Borders, which defends journalists against persecution and combats censorship and laws that undermine press freedom.

But several journalists covering the premiere objected when Jolie's lawyer demanded they sign pre-interview contracts limiting exactly what they could and could not ask her. --Catherine Elsworth --Jolie accused of hypocrisy over press 'gag' (Telegraph)

Bravo to the reporters who refused to sign the contract and declined the opportunity to promote the movie.

"There are days when I watch 'The Daily Show,' and I kind of chuckle. There are days when I laugh out loud. There are days when I stand up and point to the TV and say, 'You're damn right!'" says Brown, chair of the communications department at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and an associate professor of broadcast journalism.

Brown, who had dismissed the faux news show as silly riffing, got hooked during the early days of the war in Iraq, when he felt most of the mainstream media were swallowing the administration's spin rather than challenging it. Not "The Daily Show," which had no qualms about second-guessing the nation's leaders. "The stock-in-trade of 'The Daily Show' is hypocrisy, exposing hypocrisy. And nobody else has the guts to do it," Brown says. "They really know how to crystallize an issue on all sides, see the silliness everywhere." --Rachel Smolkin --What the Mainstream Media Can Learn From Jon Stewart  (American Journalism Review)

Thanks for the suggestion, Mike.

A Courier-Journal sports reporter had his media credential revoked and was ordered to leave the press box during the NCAA baseball super-regional yesterday because of what the NCAA alleged was a violation of its policies prohibiting live Internet updates from its championship events. --Rick Bozich --Courier-Journal reporter ejected from U of L game: Bennett removed for blogging super-regional (Courier-Journal)

I'm posting this version because I find it interesting that, when the Courier-Journal reported on the incident, it emphasized the involvement of the paper, while when this story attracts the blogosphere, it will be the identity of the reporter as a staff blogger that gives the story legs.

It's unusual for a newspaper to interview its own staff members, but the paper's executive editor, Bernie L. Ivory, gets a few good zingers about First Amendment rights, and a lawyer-friendly response to a claim that the NCAA threatened to punish the University of Louisville if officials did not revoke the reporter's press pass: "If that's true, that's nothing short of extortion and thuggery."

The Courier-Journal carefully included the "If that's true" part of Ivory's quote, which is a good hedge against future accusations of libel. (See this current story about how selective quoting made Edwards sound like he was talking about the Paris Hilton saga, when in fact he twice said he wasn't talking about her.)

The reporter was warned before the game that if he blogged during the game, it was in violation of NCAA policies. He consulted his editors, and went ahead and blogged anyway.

According to the Courier-Journal, staff blogger Brian Bennett was approached by NCAA officials in the fifth inning of a game between the University of Lousville and Oklahoma State, told that blogging "from an NCAA championship event 'is against NCAA policies (and) we're revoking the (press) credential and need to ask you to leave the stadium.'"

In its article, the Courier-Journal quoted its executive editor, Bennie Ivory, as saying, "It's clearly a First Amendment issue. This is part of the evolution of how we present the news to our readers. It's what we did during the Orange Bowl. It's what we did during the NCAA basketball tournament. It's what we do." --Blogger removed from NCAA baseball game for blogging (C|Net)

CNN is widely credited with initiating the acceleration of the modern news cycle with the fall 2006 debut of its spin-off channel CNN:24, which provides a breaking news story, an update on that story, and a news recap all within 24 seconds. In addition to creating its groundbreaking format, CNN:24 broke many important stories with reports such as "Ford No Money Everyone Fired," "Iraq Bomb Kill Truck," "Country Hates Bush," "Dow High Now," and "Squirrel Water Skis."

"TV news reporting has always been about breaking the story down into only the barest, most salient facts, but the breakneck pace of contemporary reportage doesn't allow for that anymore," said Professor Robert Kubey, director of the Center for Media Studies at Rutgers University. "Today's ace reporter isn't the one with the best command of the language, but the one who can say 'Congress!' or 'Health care?' or 'Slam dunk!' with the most appropriate expression on his or her face." --Media Landscape Redefined By 24-Second News Cycle (The Onion (Satire))