What is journalism?

I found this interview with PTI personality Michael Wilbon on the Northwestern site for their student newspaper. For those of you not familiar, Wilbon is a writer for the Washington Post and a frequent contributor to ESPN programing. He and Tony Kornhieser have a show on ESPN called PTI.

I thought it was really interesting his take on journalism. In the interview, he talks about his writing career and what makes working for ESPN different. He said that his work on PTI is not journalism and that is a personality show, but that most people do not understand this.

Journalist can relate to former Blackhawks coach

Melissa  Isaacson, a writer at the Chicago Tribune, recently found out she would be losing her job because of budget cutbacks. What she did was take her situation and bring it out through a Chicago figure. Isaacson wrote this brilliant column about former Blackhawk coach Dennis Savard. She talked about how a firing hurts for everyone. Although she never brings up her own situation, you can feel her pain coming through the article.

No internship? There are other options

What should someone a student do during their time off in the summer if they did not receive an internship? This post by Joe Grimm suggests that students make the most of their summers if they were not able to land a job or internship that will keep them involved in journalism. Grimm suggests that students do what they can to stay involved in journalism so that they can try to eliminate the advantage that those who received internships may have.

Breaking News Photography

The Pulitzer Prize winners were announced yesterday afternoon. I was going through the winners and stumbled across the winner of the Breaking News Photography, Patrick Farrell. Farrell, who works for the Miami Herald, won the prize for his pictures of the hurricane devastation in Haiti. Personally I thought this was some great photography. The Miami Herald has posted the pictures on the Web site in the form of a slideshow. It’s a great example of how to put such powerful photos on the Internet.

Just a warning: the pictures are depressing and provocative.

Pay for content?

With journalism facing some tough times, publishers are looking for a new way to gain revenue. This fall, veterans of the print newspaper industry will offer a service called Journalism Online that will require people to pay for a subscription to get the content.

With ad revenue going down this seems like an interesting idea, but right now people are used to getting the content for free. This seems like a good idea, but the question is will it work.

Balancing Accuracy and Immediacy

Recently, AJR wrote an article about newspapers having to balance accuracy and immediacy when it comes to online and print stories.  Today, there are not as many people available to double-check a writer’s story and it often may go online or out to the printing press without a second pair of eyes looking at it.  This article discusses a number of errors people have seen after it was too late- and some of these errors are onces that would of easily been caught if the story had just been looked at again.  Also, writers and copy editors are hurrying through their work and one editor at the Post-Dispatch said he is seeing less creative headlines.

Newspapers need to make a bigger effort in making sure copy is read over several times.  Some of these errors could cost a reporter and a newspaper their credibility.

Everyone to become a reporter

The Washington Post will start a new shift in journalism this week. Everyone will become a journalist. The paper will start a full print page per day written by citizens about there communities. It will focus on six areas in the D.C. area, as well as army bases. The rules will not be anything goes, as there will be no unnamed sources as well as a set of guidelines. the paper will devote a full page in the front section.

Poynter’s great boss suggestions

After reading Chapter 9 I noticed some similarities between good coaching tips and an article from Poynter online’s “Ten Things Great Bosses Know.” A few of the suggestions are right on key with coaching, the others are just good advice. Read it and see for yourself.

Who needs the internet?

While I can’t take credit for finding this article (Lola sent it to me) I was glad I took the time to read it, because for once it’s a bit of hopeful news.

An article from the News & Observer, talks about how students at North Carolina University still enjoy reading the print edition of the campus newspaper “The Technician.”

The article pointed out that although our generation is the most tecnically inclined (who doesn’t have a laptop/PDA/Bluetooth/iPod), students at NCU prefer the paper copy to the online version.

Don’t get me wrong, their online publication is fantastic, but any support of college publications by their audience, a generation known for scoffing at anything but the newest model, is definitely welcome.

Posting mug shots online: ethical or not?

This article brings up an issue that I have never really considered: the issue of whether it is ethical or not to post mug shots online. On tampabay.com, there are mug shots of over 100 people who were arrested within a 24-hour period. The pictures scroll across the top of the page and, below, the people are categorized by several things, like eye color, height, weight and gender.
This is an interesting issue that definitely requires some thought. Steve Myers asks several questions about the issue like “Is this journalism?” and “Is it fair to highlight people who have been arrested but not been convicted of a crime?”
I neither believe that this should be considered journalism nor that it is fair to highlight these people who have been arrested, but not yet convicted. I’d like to hear what some others think about this.