Historic Newspaper(s) Closing

I was watching the news tonight and saw this segment about Pultizer winning paper, Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado going out of business.  According to the newspaper’s website the last edition will be published tomorrow.  Here is the article on the newspaper’s website about the closing.  It is sad to see that a paper is having to shut down after being printed for 150 years.  However, it sounds like the newspaper is hopeful that it may eventually recover– only time will tell.

Also in this news segment was information about the potential closing of The San Francisco Chronicle- another historical paper.  The article on the potential closing states, “The historic newspaper company says the Chronicle’s 1,500 staff must agree to deep cuts and at least scores of redundancies within the next few weeks if they want to save the paper.”

Journalists using games to tell the news

Being a gamer myself and writing about it regularly, a feature on Poynter really caught my attention. Two people, Eric Brown and Asi Burak, have created over 100 video games based on news stories. The website, called Play the News, deals with current information like the Iraq War, MidEast peace negotiations and the U.S. election. It has a variety of areas such as entertainment, technology, sports and news.

This is a great way to get the news across, in my opinion. It gets readers to be involved with the news and use interactivity to show key points. I’d love to see more websites start using this technology. Even if other papers don’t want to divert information to do this, maybe hire people like this out to make games about news they want it for to put on their websites.

Is this news, or is this entertainment?

It isn’t rare, in fact you could probably say it is very prevelant for news consumers today to read little more than the headlines that show up in their RSS feed.

Obviously, this can (and is rather likely to) result in an even less informed public than we’ve currently experienced. I would theorize that whomever comes up with the best solution to this problem will emerge victorious from the crumbling ivory tower.

Contestant(s) #1: Eric Brown and Asi Burak, creators of “Play the News.”

What better way to get people who are more interested in video games than the news informed and excited about news consumption than a video game based on the news? Or at least that was Brown and Burak’s thinking.

Mind blowing? Yes, probably.

Players get a chance to see world issues through the eyes of world leaders and newsmakers.

Will it work? Who knows.

Is it a good idea? Maybe, but I have my doubts.

The Poynter Institute at least seemed to think it was interesting, if nothing else.

Paying for Online News

There has always been talk about whether online news should be free or not, but more recently with advertising slowing and the economy in recession, it’s being talked about more than ever. Rick Edmonds wrote a blog addressing this issue. One of the biggest problems with charging for online news is that it started out for free. Why would people want to start paying for online news when they have been getting it for free all along? The newspapers who have given it a try have seen decreases in traffic and in advertising revenue. 

Some people are suggesting a payment like iTunes has where the person would pay 5 or 10 cents per news story. We have talked about this is some of my classes and the consenus seems to say that the idea may just be more of a hassel than anything. People will most likely just find another free online newspaper to get the scoop.

Bigotry or not?

I’m sure that plenty have heard about or seen the controversial editorial cartoon that appeared in the New York Post. There has been lots of speculation on the subject, with some viewing it as racist and offensive. Others may agree with the Post’s statement that the cartoon was “a clear parody of a current news event.” With the previous election of the nation’s first African-American president—and the controversies that have been around him since stating that he would run—the cartoon was not clear enough.
I do not think that the cartoonist was attempting to create a racially insensitive image, but that is how some viewers perceived the drawing. On the other hand, I do agree that both parties, the cartoonist and the audience, should think more before acting. As Keith Woods stated in this article, the cartoonist should have learned more about the history of bigotry and the audience also has “the obligation to think.”

Newspapers sharing information to save money

I recently read this article about 5 New York & New Jersey newspapers plan to form a “content-sharing club” called The Northeast Consortium that will allow them to borrow stories, graphics and pictures from eachother.  This article also speculates on the harm this club could do the Associated Press.  I could not really find anything on whether AP membership fees have actually raised, but it is possible with the ecomony being so poor that fees have been raised.  Here is the press release on the planned collaboration of the 5 newspapers.

Covering flag-draped caskets

Ever since President George H. W. Bush put a ban on photographing flag-draped caskets in 1989, journalists have not been allowed at airfields to take photographs of caskets. Now, with Barack Obama considering lifting the ban, journalists will need to figure out how to tastefully cover these photographs for their papers.

Poynter had a great column about this subject, with many video interviews with different people. I think this subject is going to be hard to cover without being too intrusive to families. While it can be useful for local papers that may have a death twice a year if that, I hope that these pictures are not overused in papers. These are still somber times for all parties involved, and that needs to be respected.

Another interesting site dealing with this is called Return of the Fallen, where the Pentagon released hundreds of flag-draped caskets in 2005. I found a lot of the images on there as being very strong, especially the burial at sea. I recommend a look, if just to see how somber these times actually are.

The Facebook foe

For those of us that have facebooks, and who doesn’t these days, we were all a little surprised when we logged on this morning and found a statement from the administrators about their new policies.  Facebook updated their policies with little public notice 2 weeks ago and since then there has been an outcry from users of the social network.  Poynter published an online article about the message  and the ownership of user’s information.

The original article from The Consumerist broke the story this Sunday starting a lot of discussion.  Both of these articles bring up a lot of questions:  What role should Facebook play in journalism, the internet being a public domain and the ownership and sharing of photos/notes/etc. online.  The internet has long been a forum for people looking to share and explore information.  Facebook’s new policy may have caused a lot of outrage about privacy, but this may only be the first of many new rules and policies.  The internet is no longer as free as we’d like to believe in is.

A Farewell to Sam Donaldson

Imagine having a 40-year career at ABC News. Being only in my early 20’s, I definitely cannot.  Sam Donaldson is retiring at the young age of 74 after a long, successful career for ABC. Donaldson has an impressive resume. He’s won four Emmy’s, tracked down a Nazi war criminal in Argentina and served as a White House Correspondent through three different administrations. In January, Donaldson shared some of his thoughts about seating Roland Burris.  Sam Donaldson is a prime example of a successful journalism career. I think we can learn a lot from Donaldson but, at the very least, Donaldson should be admired for all the years he dedicated to ABC News.

That’s Such a Cliche

An article I read recently dealt with using cliches. It focused on how the phrase “tipping point” has become a cliche in the media. For instance, when discussing a global climate chance, Al Gore used the phrase saying we are moving toward “several dangerous tipping points.” The Army General, David McKiernan, used it saying he wants to reach a “tipping point” with the Taliban.

I thought this was interesting because just last week in my Editorial writing class we were discussing how it is important as a writer to steer clear of using cliches. As a writer, you should try to create your own cliche in a sense and not rely on the phrases that everyone else happen to be using.