Portland News Review

E-mail has changed how news is collected

I have a friend who has been interviewed and quoted in the news dozens of times over the years. After being grossly misquoted one too many times, he refused to do interviews or give quotes by telephone. He insisted on having both the questions and his response in writing. This not only ensured clear communication, but left a record of what was said, as well.

It’s not surprising then to read the following from former White House press secretary Dana Perini:

The Internet hasn't just changed how the news is delivered. It has also changed how it's collected. Former White House press secretary Dana Perini says that when she got into the business, some 97 percent of all queries came in a phone call. "Now, that's flipped," she says. And while that has cut down on misquotes, it's put a damper on personal relationships between reporters and sources. "There's something about interaction," she says. Consider the numbers. After cleaning out her a-mail inbox one weekend in her last month, she found 2,071 new a-mails waiting for her the following Monday, mostly from reporters. "E-mails are a blessing and a curse."

It does seem like the lack of face to face and telephone communication would ‘put a damper on personal relationships,’ but if reporters use all the tools available to them to track down and follow up on leads – a-mail, Twitter, blogs, RSS feeds and so forth – it should boost efficiency to a point that they’ll have the time needed for the telephone and in-person meetings when needed. Unless, of course, they get lost in the online tools and don’t take the time for the offline follow up.

Dana Perini: E-mail Changed the Way News is Gathered  ::  U.S. News & World Report

Fox News takes another credibility hit; it may be fatal

Fox News is on a roll--and it's not the kind they'd want, to be sure. They seem to be working as hard as they can to see how many feet they can fit in their collective mouth.

A couple of weeks ago, Fox contributor Liz Trotta apologized for her mirthful reference to how unfortunate it was that Osama Bin Laden and Barack Obama couldn’t both be assassinated.

Now Fox broadcaster E.D. Hill has apologized for her bizarre–and over-the-top offensive–suggestion that the “fist bump” Mr. Obama and his wife Michelle did recently could be a “terrorist fist jab.”

The irony is that Ms. Trotta's gasp-inducing gaffe came in the middle of a long-winded monologue about the fact that Hillary Clinton is not as smart as the media have made her out to be, as proven by her more recent verbal slip ups.

It's no surprise that media outlets everywhere are wondering aloud whether Fox has anything left in the way of credibility. But these comments are merely the more glaring ones. During the three-minute clip on YouTube alone, Ms. Trotta seems to be seething with... dislike... for Senator Clinton and makes all kinds of disparaging remarks. The bit about Obama that actually triggered the alarms was an aside she half mumbled after 'accidentally' referring to Barack Obama as 'Osama.' (Aren't the right-wing pundits tired of that one, yet?)

Links:
Assassination Humor? Fox Crosses a Line  |  New York Times
Fox News Regrets . . . Again  |  New York Times
Fox News presenter taken off air after Barack Obama 'terrorist fist jab' remark  |  Telegraph
Question for Fox News: Do you think any of these people might be terrorists?  |  Media Matters

Two Oregon papers sold to St. Louis newspaper exec

Andrew Polin, 51, of St. Louis has purchased two newspapers, the Tri-County News and West Lane News, from Mike and Sandy Thoele of Cheshire, Oregon. The two weekly newspapers serve communities in Lane County, Oregon. The Tri-County News serves the communities of Junction City, Harrisburg, Monroe, Coburg, Cheshire, Alvadore and Triangle Lake. The West Lane News serves the communities of Veneta, Elmira, Crow, Noti, Lorane, Walton, Alvadore, Blachly, Triangle Lake and Deadwood.

From Editor & Publisher magazine:

Terms of the deal, brokered by W.B. Grimes & Co., were not disclosed.

Polin has served as the CEO of the St. Louis Jewish Light and also worked on weekly and daily papers in Little Rock, Ark., Stuttgart, Ark., Boca Raton, Fla., Deerfield Park, Fla., and Miami.

Serif Publishing Company, the parent of the two papers, is based in Junction City, Oregon, with a satellite office in Veneta. According to the company website, Serif Publishing was founded by Mike and Sandy Thoele in 1999 when they acquired the two papers. Serif has a dozen employees and provides the largest newspaper journalism internship program in Oregon, typically hosting up to 15 undergraduate and graduate students through a relationship with the University of Oregon School of Journalism.

Source Links:
Two Oregon Papers Sold to Andrew Polin | E&P
News has new owner | Tri-County News
Serif Publishing Company

Must-see series on state of news and journalism

FRONTLINE's News War series is the most important television production on journalism in at least a decade. The companion website, where you can watch the entire series, is an invaluable resource that stands on its own with more than fifty interviews covering what major players in the debates are saying about the role of media in U.S. society - and what's ahead.

The four part series breaks down as follows:

Part I - Secrets, Sources and Spin
A look at the unintended consequences of the Valerie Plame investigation, a confusing affair that ultimately damaged both reporters' reputations and the legal protections they thought they enjoyed.

Part II - Secrets, Sources and Spin (cont'd)
Examines recent First Amendment battles between the federal government and the press -- how much can the press reveal about secret government programs in the war on terror without jeopardizing national security?

Part III - What's Happening to the News
Changing times, new audiences, pressures for profits, and the Internet revolution are upending mainstream media's old values and business models. Can anyone predict the future for news and in-depth reporting?

Part IV - War of Ideas
FRONTLINE/World reporter Greg Barker travels to the Middle East to examine the rise of Arab satellite TV channels and their impact on the "war of ideas" at a time of convulsive change and conflict in the region. His report focuses on the growing influence of Al Jazeera, and the controversy around the recent launch of Al Jazeera English, which U.S. satellite and cable companies have declined to carry. Barker also visits the "war room" of the State Department's Rapid Response Unit, which monitors Arab media 24 hours a day, and meets with U.S. military officers whose mission is to engage the Arab news channels in debate.

Requiem
At a time when fair and accurate news coverage is more essential than ever, 2006 marked one of the deadliest years on record for journalists. Surprisingly, despite the fierce fighting in Iraq, most of the slain journalists did not die in combat. They were deliberately targeted, hunted down, and murdered for investigating corruption, crime, or human rights abuses in countries around the world. In Requiem, FRONTLINE/World essayist Sheila Coronel looks at the dangers journalists confront as they try to tell their stories and pays special tribute to reporters working in the Philippines, Russia, Turkey, Zimbabwe, China and Iraq who have been killed, jailed, or exiled for daring to speak truth to power.

Please do yourself and society a favor and watch this important series.

NEWS WAR: Stories from a Small Planet - PBS FRONTLINE

The death and life of the American newspaper

It seems that everywhere I turn these days I'm finding a conversation, article, documentary or blog post about the state of the American newspaper. As someone who grew up wanting to be a newspaperman, this is all very near and dear to my heart.

The latest article I've come across is in the last New Yorker magazine. It's an almost 7,000-word beauty that is definitely worth the read.

Here's a little something to get you started:

The American newspaper has been around for approximately three hundred years. Benjamin Harris’s spirited Publick Occurrences, Both Forreign and Domestick managed just one issue, in 1690, before the Massachusetts authorities closed it down. Harris had suggested a politically incorrect hard line on Indian removal and shocked local sensibilities by reporting that the King of France had been taking liberties with the Prince’s wife...

Read it and then come back and tell us what you think.

Out of Print  |  The New Yorker

Welcome to Portland News Review

Welcome to Portland News Review.

This project was inspired by a number of things that I've witnessed over the past eight years or so. Each is alarming on its own, but together they paint a picture that is bleak and frightening in its implications for the future of journalism in the United States and beyond.

These trends include:

• The pernicious belief that pursuing and reporting news should be a profitable endeavor
• Stemming from the above (as most of the ills plaguing journalism do), the placing of news in the same arena as popular entertainment and forcing it to compete as such
• The misguided notion that journalists should give the public what they want rather than fulfilling their duty to research and report what the public needs to know
• The new obsession among formerly conscientious and competent news outlets that speed trumps everything, as manifested in the ever increasing number of news organization blogs and headlines touting breaking news, instant news, around the clock news and so forth.
• The seeming lack of journalistic integrity among many in the online news business—no doubt stemming in part from their misconception that the news is business
• The almost hysterical cries, from within the industry and without, that newspapers are dinosaurs doomed to extinction (these cries often coming loudest from the very bloggers and online properties who rely on newspaper reporters for their material)
• The relentless dumbing down of the news to the point that The Daily Show has been voted the number one news program on television
• The successful propagation of the myth, by right-wing politicians and their hangers on, that the media has a liberal bias
• The increasing percentage of unaltered press releases, including audio and video, that are being aired as news with no acknowledgment or clarification that they are, in fact, nothing but paid advertisements

Portland News Review is also inspired by Columbia Journalism Review, American Journalism Review, The Poynter Institute and the rest of the media watchdogs and friends of the press that comprise this group. These organizations not only hold the news media to account for their errors and shortcomings, but give accolades where due and stand by their side in the defense of journalism against the relentless attacks, both subtle and overt, of those who seek to stifle rigorous journalism and a free press.

This group includes self-serving business owners and shareholders who are blind to the vital role and higher calling of journalism in a liberal democracy. It includes cowardly politicians who seek to muzzle journalists and scale back freedom of the press because they know their actions and politics cannot survive the blinding light of truth and public scrutiny. It includes many in the burgeoning world of online news distribution who profit directly from access to the quality, in depth reporting being done almost exclusively by the old school print newspapers and public radio and television outlets—all the while hailing their impending demise; a despicable case of biting the hand that feeds.

So why add Portland News Review to a field that already contains so many excellent organizations? I want to focus almost exclusively on Oregon and the Pacific Northwest in doing what Columbia Journalism Review does so well on a national scale.

Columbia Journalism Review’s mission is to encourage and stimulate excellence in journalism in the service of a free society. It is both a watchdog and a friend of the press in all its forms, from newspapers to magazines to radio, television, and the Web.... CJR examines day-to-day press performance as well as the forces that affect that performance. The magazine... offers a deliberative mix of reporting, analysis, criticism, and commentary. CJR.org, our Web site, delivers real-time criticism and reporting, giving CJR a vital presence in the ongoing conversation about the media. Both online and in print, Columbia Journalism Review is in conversation with a community of people who share a commitment to high journalistic standards in the U.S. and the world.

I highly recommend a subscription to both Columbia Journalism Review and American Journalism Review.

I hope you'll join me on the journey and participate in the discussion frequently!