Times are a Changing

It’s incredible how fast the media changes and adapts. I was thinking about this today when I was trying to remember my twitter account password. I think I had a twitter my freshman year, mainly to follow famous people or characters on TV shows. My sister talked me into it and frankly I thought it was pretty stupid.

Then I was taking a class where it was mandatory to read the New York Times every day. This required either spending $80 on a subscription or getting to campus early enough to pick up a complementary issue before they were swooped up. I will shame ably admit I wasn’t much for reading the NY Times in print. It’s very massive and wordy and frankly displeasing to my eyes for some reason. So, I went the twitter route. I started following the NY Times and getting their little updates all day, every day. This was a lot easier than sifting through several pages every morning; I could scroll through the list and click on anything that piqued my interest.

This only lasted for maybe a term though. Twitter still couldn’t keep my interest. About a year later I had classmates telling me their teachers were having them cover events and give live twitter updates. I was dumbfounded. These classes were the same ones I had taken, only I had to go to the event and turn around a story before midnight. I can honestly say I have never taken a class where I have had to use twitter as homework. But students only a year behind me have. That’s how fast things change in the world of technology and media. By the time my sister gets to the School of Journalism in 2012 it will be a completely different ball game. My 2009 style book will like that pathetic 2003 version floating around the editing lab at Allen Hall. People pick it up when they want a good laugh.

Such is life. Should I re-enact my twitter account? Eh, one thing at a time I think. I am just finally (and still with slight trepidation) succumbing to the world of blogging. Part of me feels that blogging is going against everything I believe in, but the other part of me that kept a journal nearly every day for almost ten years likes the casualness of it all. A classmate of mine once said she can write the story for the newspaper but she needs her blog to reflect and get her personal thoughts out. Maybe blogs are more like diaries. I know one thing, in the short time I have been blogging and researching blogs, I have found some really great ones that I will continue to follow. I have a feeling this won’t be a fleeting fad like my twitter account.

And now that Facebook is being more hands-on in the journalism world, I will have to stay connected. I admit I am extremely fond of my Facebook and eager to see the things they come up with to keep journalists and sources connected. The world is getting increasingly smaller with time. Journalists will develop interconnected online communities to share news and find sources. As The Next Web put it, with the help of Facebook, “journalists can create communities of mini news reporters, that will use the page to post information they find in their area, whether this is geographical or within a particular industry.”

Journalists are going to have to get on board to stay on top. I don’t want to graduate from college and already be behind…

Loaded Words

It would never be professional to call someone weird, creepy or lewd to their face while conducting an interview. So it’s certainly never okay to put things in a news story. This seems obvious doesn’t it? But six newspapers, The Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily Star, Daily Express, Daily Mail and Daily Record, are learning this the hard way after being sued for libel following the Joanna Yeates case.

Yeates, a 25-year-old landscape architect in Hampshire, England went missing last December. Her body was found several days later showing signs of strangulation. Her neighbor was arrested and charged with her murder the following month.

However, her land lord, Christopher Jefferies, was also questioned during the case and the press had a field day. Playing private-eye, these six papers went so far as to use anonymous sources calling Jefferies creepy or strange. Another ran a head line reading “Strange Mr. Jeffries.”

Blogger Roy Greenslade called it character assassination on the part of the media.

I remember going over the case study in class where a Chinese-food restaurant burned down and a Seattle paper thought they found the arsonist. However they held onto the story pending further investigation and another paper beat them to the punch. My professor asked his students if they would have ran the story or held onto it a bit longer before accusing who they thought was the man in charge. I was in the boat that said run it.

But what if they had been wrong? Look at the kind of damage jumping to conclusions can do. I think journalists are great investigators but you must do it in a way that is not incriminating. Words like creepy, posh, strange, eccentric and unkempt do not have neutral connotations. Sure many of these words were used in quote by anonymous students or neighbors but why would you trust an anonymous source?

There should be more than just a fine line between news reporting and tabloids. This case is a clear example of where reporters and newspapers got it wrong. They accused the wrong man through loaded words and anonymous sources and it hurt this man’s reputation.

Freedom of the press is a beautiful thing and something we should not take for granted, but it is also comforting to know that citizens can take actions against the press when they have overstepped their boundaries. No one is above the law.

Finding good news

It only seems fair that if I am going to start a blog, I should be reading blogs. This is true for several reasons. I might get ideas on how to manage my blog, or find interesting bits of news or just to get another writer’s take on a matter.

For the last couple weeks I have been reading news concerning journalists and journalism and writing about whatever has interested me and pertained to my life as a new blogger. This week however I chose to research other journalist’s blogs, or blogs on journalism to try and find one I liked. For some reason this wasn’t an easy task. Oddly, a lot of them were not updated in several weeks, or even months. Some of them were too confusing to follow.

One that I did enjoy was Jon Slattery’s blog. He is a freelance journalist living in the U.K. I am taking a class on comparative media law and one of the things I do every week is look at journalism in another country. (Which is why the journalism strike in Greece a few weeks ago caught my eye.)

It’s amazing how many countries choose to follow along with the United States’ laws on freedom of the press, (which makes sense) while other countries still aren’t quite on board. For example, in Russia there is no actual malice law. A public person/ official can sue for defamation without having to prove actual malice. This naturally means it’s much harder for the press or even an individual to criticize the government – you might get sued. I thank my luck stars I am a journalist in the United States which works hard at protecting the role of the press.

In Slattery’s blog, he focuses on journalism news both in the U.K and abroad. I like this approach because as journalists we should be aware of what’s going on in other countries as well. It is foolish to think the laws of other countries won’t affect you. I heard once if you write an email praising Hitler and his work, and address it to an official in Germany, if you ever set foot on German soil you can be arrested. It’s illegal to say anything good about Hitler in Germany. This is a useful piece of information to have as a journalist.

What about the court case in Paris only a few months ago that involved a professor at the New York University’s School of Law? On his website he published a book review written by another professor of law at the University of Cologne. The author of the book, who lives and works in Israel found the review to be defamatory and brought a criminal-libel case against him in France. Why France? The author was practicing what’s called ‘forum shopping;’ looking for the court system that would most likely favor her side of the case.

Can you imagine being a working professor in the United States, and then being summoned to appear in court in France over something you yourself didn’t even write – you just published it on your website. This is the world we live in – it’s small. I think Jon Slattery sees the connections journalism has from one country to the next and reports on this.

I also liked how his blogs are written in traditional news fashion. That old inverted pyramid we all know and love. He is obviously a news writer and probably writes this way because he is comfortable with it. While blogs can be more conversational, I kind of like getting my news from a blog that reads like traditional news stories. His blog is also laid over very simply. It’s easy to get to his profile and his archives. There isn’t a lot of nonsense. I plan to continue to follow Jon’s blog and other international journalism blogs.

Celebrating Mary Ann Grossmann

Ladies do not go into Journalism.

That’s what Mary Anne Grossmann’s Pastor’s wife told her in 1961. Today marks her 50^th year at St. Paul Pioneer Press. What a feat.

Being in the same field at the same location for half a century, you would think she would have a lot to say about the changes journalism has made over the years. But about her job she had this to say, “It's so interesting. You never get tired of it. There are always new people, new stories. If you take away the mechanics, my job has not changed in 50 years. In the end, no matter how you deliver it, our job is to look into people's eyes and say, 'Tell me your story.' "

This is the whole reason I got into journalism in the first place, because you never stop learning. There is always someone new to talk to, something new to hear about and a new story to tell. Everyone out there has a story and each story is unique. As a journalist I get to help them tell their stories and that’s what I love about it.

Grossmann was 21 when she was hired at Pioneer Press. She is now 72. She was the first female reporter they hired in decades. I feel fortunate as a female reporter in the 21^st century to not face the opposition she must have faced. While she says the men in her newsroom saw her as a daughter and made sure she was taken care of, when she started working for the Women’s Department she found herself defending her position to a new generation of female reporters who wanted little to do with the things her section covered.

"I always told them that we climbed on the shoulders of our sisters who came before us; don't ever sneer at those women,” she said.

Now women reporters like me climb on the shoulders of Grossmann.

Just last week I interviewed a local Junction City resident fighting Mental Cell Lymphoma, a terminal cancer. She is a disabled vet and a retired peace officer. She said anytime you find yourself in a male-dominated society you have to prove your worth and your intelligence. I would argue that journalism is no longer a male dominated field, but only a few decades ago it was. And Grossmann helped pave the way for women to become respected members of that field. That is why I honor her today and why all journalists, male and female alike should take the time to pay their respects.

We do not face the same adversities that she did – that is not to say we don’t face them. But Grossmann is a great example of someone willing to accept changes and role with them, instead of holding fast to an outdated way of reporting.

News Blackout in Greece

GREECE – Last Thursdays, journalists in Greece went on strike for four days, and no one received any news. It wasn’t just the print journalists either; radio, television, and electronic media all stopped. Websites didn’t get updated and the country was in an “information vacuum.”

Is it a comfort to know this could never happen in our country? I used to cringe at the term ‘citizen journalist.’ It especially rubbed me the wrong way when people would tell me I am wasting my time by being in school – you don’t need a four-year education to be a journalist. This very well could be true. But I wouldn’t trade my education for anything. However, with millions of bloggers on the Internet who have no formal training, the news will never stop in this country.

Think about two of the last major setbacks in our country: hurricane Katrina and 9/11. It seemed in both these situations time stood still. Everyone was either glued to a TV or their car radio as they listened to the events unfolding. But the news wasn’t just flowing on traditional mediums. People were getting on their blogs and reaching out to people – people who before might not have considered themselves journalists. At the same time, journalists who before worked for newspapers and television were updating via blogs because they could get the news out faster and communicate with people on a new level.

The point is, even if every journalist decided to go on strike like those in Greece, thousands of citizen journalists would take their place and keep pumping the news out. In this respect, the invention of blogging has brought our country closer together.

I can rest assured that in the event of a zombie apocalypse on the East Coast, the news would be on the West Coast faster than you can say the word apocalypse. This is journalism at its best. While it is sad that such a thing could happen in Greece, it puts the way I look at news in a new perspective: the people deserve it. They deserve to know what’s going on. If journalists won’t give it to them, someone else will.

Newspapers aren’t dying because people don’t read anymore; they read more than ever. But they are more picky about what they read. People seek out the news they care about which might not be in the local newspaper. It is most likely somewhere on the Internet. Everyone is more educated these days thanks to the world wide web and as a writer this is a good thing. It means people out there care about what I am writing about. It also means accuracy is more important than ever.

Sources: bignewsnetwork.com, Greenslade Blog

Blogging: Welcome to the Future

Surely I wasn’t the only aspiring writer who firmly believed the Internet was going to kill journalism? That the Internet’s bloody hands were choking the life out of traditional newspapers? My family would say to me around Christmas time, Thanksgiving or any such holiday, not to go into journalism because it is a dying field. No one reads anymore.

It’s just not true that no one reads anymore. They have just changed the way in which they read. Working for a small town weekly newspaper, there is no shortage of people filing into the office to tell us how much they love our paper. We cover what the Register Guard and Corvallis Gazette Times won’t. Local sports, local businesses, local people. I just did a story on a woman suffering from Mantle Cell Lymphoma. She has been a Junction City resident her whole life and now the community is pulling together to raise money for her stem cell transplant in a few months. Those are the stories the people in the Tri-County area love to read about. So they buy our paper and look forward to it every week.

Our publisher, Steve Rowland, refuses to put our paper on the Internet – he says that will kill the business and we will be giving away the news for free. He could be right, but lots of people out in this farm country don’t have access to the Internet at home, so they would still rely on a traditional newspaper delivered to their front door every Wednesday. In many ways I agree with Steve. Why bother going on the internet? Well, what about those people living in Salem, or Idaho, or Washington, who grew up in Monroe or Harrisburg and would like to read some local news? How convenient for them to read it online.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that the Internet has a purpose when it comes to journalism and I am only recently starting to see it. Where before I used to think reading through a computer screen would distance the writer from the readers, I learned from the readings this week how a blog actually brings them closer. They can ask questions, leave comments and have a conversation – something hardly doable with a print newspaper unless you write a letter to the editor. And even then, you aren’t getting to talk to the writer directly. Blogs can zero in on niche reporting in ways newspapers can’t. The people who care about that subject, area or topic of interest are the ones who will read your blog. As a writer, I know the people interested in what I’m doing are the ones I want reading my work.

I’m slightly embarrassed that I’m a senior in college and I have never kept a blog. I have resisted the change just like many dying newspapers. Now, by keeping a blog I can focus on the news I am interested in, facilitate conversations with my readers and do what’s most important to me: write.