New Media, Old Values: Challenges and Opportunities

Allan Richard's "Deconstructing 'Intro to Journalism'" - a must read!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:01:00 +0000

Allan Richard's article "Deconstructing 'Intro to Journalism'" was published by OJR on Feb. 15. It is a must for all interested in journalism education and the future of journalism.

For the complete article, go to http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/allanrichards/201102/1943/.

Here is an excerpt from it:

By Allan Richards

At the end of the spring 2010 semester, the chair of our journalism department at Florida International University in Miami asked me if I would teach the Introduction to Journalism course in summer. I was reluctant as I had inaugurated and been teaching the department's online journalism capstone course - our most advanced journalism skills class - since spring 2002.
For eight years I had challenged students (20 to a class) to produce theme-based online journalism projects, i.e. Miami's soaring HIV/AIDS rates or the local impact of hurricanes Wilma and Katrina. Students had to build and develop a site, write articles and integrate digital photos, graphics and videos into seamless multimedia packages—all in a three-month semester. (See: "Zero to Launch in Three Months," OJR, May, 2006.)

The idea of teaching the intro class, I thought, wouldn't make the best use of my skills as I was the school's senior-most multimedia journalism professor. It had also been a long time since I had taught a core course. I had never taught Intro to Journalism, and there was little time to put together a condensed six-week summer version. So I initially declined.

But as associate dean I am responsible for overseeing the school's curriculum, and the more I thought about it the more I started to think that this would give me a chance to review and assess what incoming students were being taught and whether that part of our program had evolved with the changes in the media.

Our Intro to Journalism course has traditionally been taught as a lecture course, with a cap of 90 students, built around a textbook that focused on the historical analysis of journalism and its impact on American society, a course that professors generally graded through quizzes, a mid-term and final. While that might have been appropriate 10 years ago, it seemed outdated. Today's Introduction to Journalism had to go far beyond a discussion of the historical evolution of our free press and the principles and values of journalism. The course had to include the digital age.

But more, I wondered, should an introductory course to journalism simply be a lecture course? As anyone who has taught online journalism knows, each semester's class potentially could be different from the last because of new software and emerging media. I had spent nearly a decade frenetically experimenting, merging digital advances with journalistic principles like a wild alchemist so that the distillate of each class would help keep journalism education current, and would prepare students for the evolving media.

The more I mulled this over, the more I saw this as a timely opportunity. It seemed to me that if citizen journalists, who are frequently untrained writers, are now contributing content to newspaper websites such as The Miami Herald and The Seattle Times, that journalism students' training and participation in journalism should begin sooner not later--and in an intro course. When television emerged, a student couldn't have a do-it-yourself approach and produce a journalistic product within minutes. But students' familiarity with technology and social media and photo-sharing sites, on which they already message, and upload videos they've shot seemed to make this the perfect time for a new experiment. The object would now be to embed some components from my senior online reporting course into the intro course so that students could begin their digital training before they entered the skills segment of our program.

If this were successful, the students then would have two more years to develop journalism fundamentals and multimedia skills and would emerge from the program as more sophisticated digital reporters.

But this wasn't just about developing technical know-how. I also wanted students to start writing even before they got into the program. This is Miami—-our university is a minority public institution of 42,000 students. Our School of Journalism and Mass Communication has roughly 2,000, with 69 percent Hispanic and 11 percent African-American. In response to the large influx of Latinos and serious ESL issues, we had developed a rigorous grammar testing and writing program. The sooner I could read their writing, the sooner I could start addressing the quality of their work.

More, our journalism department had partnered with The Miami Herald, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel and The Palm Beach Post in a complex student-based content-sharing project called the South Florida News Service. Started in January 2009, at the height of the recession and in response to the massive cutbacks in newsrooms, our students were contributing articles and multimedia packages for all three newspapers. The news service had been working out of my online reporting class as an independent operation. By summer 2010, the students-—mostly seniors with a handful of newly graduated students--had been producing over 50 stories a semester for the newspapers. But we faced the same challenges that every news service or project-oriented class faces: classes only last three months and students move on.

Earlier in the year, Nicholas Lemann, Dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, visited our campus with media scholar Michael Schudson. Schudson had mentioned our news service in "The Reconstruction of American Journalism," the article he co-authored with Len Downie, and he wanted to see how it operated. Lemann aptly described project-oriented classes as "an orchid that blossoms and soon dies." Chris Delboni, the South Florida News Service's director and former Washington correspondent for the Brazilian press, and I had been trying to fend off that dilemma by allowing newly graduated reporters to continue to report for the news service as they looked for work in the very tight job market. But by summer 2010, we decided the news service should be devoted to only students in our journalism program.

We thought we could solve our "dying orchid" problem by having Delboni recruit students from my intro class and see which ones blossomed early.

"We needed to develop a reliable and steady reporting staff, which we realized would not be possible if we worked only with seniors," Delboni said.

"We thought this could be an innovative path to grow mature journalists, who would have clear and solid traditional values combined with new media--visual skills necessary for the modern newsroom and the competitive job market. We anticipated this might be journalism in the rawest form, because we would be working with sophomores and juniors, but I was willing to work with them and groom them."

Updating the course to include the digital components and recruiting students for our news service gave me two powerful reasons to try to reconstruct Intro to Journalism into a more action-oriented class.

Read more: http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/allanrichards/201102/1943/

Spring 2011 - first thoughts!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 17:28:00 +0000

If the first two weeks this semester can serve as an indication, it seems we have found the right balance for a successful South Florida News Service at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Florida International University.

The answer began when we started last summer accepting students with little experience but enough passion and enthusiasm. They were taking Intro to Journalism with professor Allan Richards, associate dean at the school.

Now, two semesters later, student interest shows we are developing a solid structure and working cycle of reporters that could generate the foundation of the next generation of journalists.

For the first time, I visited several classes right in the beginning of the semester, received many inquires and have added about 20 new students to our team. They come from different levels of experience and backgrounds, essential to our newsroom's balance and diversity, especially diversity of ideas. These students bring many news stories untold and unseen by reporters in the field who no longer have enough time to “see” and look for them, which should never stop being part of our mission as journalists - as we are many times the eyes and ears of our readers and our communities.

Spring 2011 - Photo by Josh Shear

We all know journalism education has always given students the theoretical understanding of what it meant to be a reporter in the field. But only newsroom experience would give them the necessary training to excel. Now, with the shortage of reporters and editors, there is little time to train young reporters after graduation. They must come in with skills – both traditional and new media, enough training, ethics and the right attitude to even get an internship many times.

Currently on the second year of the program, we seem to have found the equilibrium that reflects the professional standards required by our clients, such as The Miami Herald, The Sun-Sentinel and The Palm Beach Post, and developed a model to close the cycle from journalism education to the newsrooms.

The structure we are building, thanks greatly to Richard’s vision to incorporate the young and inexperienced into the program, should fulfill this gap and as a result create a future that reflects the foundation of journalism for the 21^st century.

I would like to take the opportunity to welcome our new team of reporters and thank all FIU faculty and newspaper editors who are making this happen. I hope we have a great semester!

Some thoughts about journalism and the SFNS - past, present and future!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 15:46:00 +0000

The South Florida News Service at Florida International University, now in its second year and operating year-round in full force, is living proof that journalism is alive and well, simply going through a necessary transformation to revamp its quality.

In a year, we have published about 140 stories in The Miami Herald, The Sun-Sentinel and The Palm Beach Post – and posted more than a dozen videos on the corresponding websites.

We all know there are challenges - but many more opportunities are yet ahead for the right kind of journalist that holds dear the fundamental values of accuracy, balance and fairness while maintaining an open and positive attitude.

Zaimarie De Guzman is one of them. She is an example of the kind of journalist we are forming through a model of journalism education that fully trains students for the real world.

It is not enough anymore to be just a good journalist. It takes more than reporting, writing and multimedia skills to succeed in today’s newsrooms. The success stories come from flexibility, humility and true commitment to journalism.

De Guzman joined the SFNS in the spring 2010, the semester she was graduating. She immediately showed a natural instinct for news and enormous dedication and persistency. With some mentoring, she blossomed into a great reporter and writer and was soon selected to become the first student to be embedded as a reporter at The Palm Beach Post.

“I had deadlines [at the SFNS], interviews and meetings,” De Guzman said. “I had to drive in neighborhoods I had never been in before. I had to talk to highly influential people in the community. I had to dig deep for the facts. It didn't get any more real than that.”

She soon started publishing on a regular basis and built a solid portfolio, which led her to an internship in Stuart, Fla.

“What I learned from the service allowed me to succeed in an internship at Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers, which was recommended to me by Allan Richards,” De Guzman said.

As the summer internship was ending, De Guzman – a print journalism student - was offered a full time job as a multimedia journalist at the Stuart News and has recently published a powerful op-ed piece at the paper.

“Had I not participated in SFNS, I would have never learned to be a professional and perfectionist at what I do,” De Guzman said. “Though a bachelor’s degree is very important to employers, what counts is experience, personality and professionalism, and those are three of the many things I learned with the service.”

That’s precisely what students and faculty at The School of Journalism and Mass Communication at FIU heard this semester at Scripps Day 2010.

It came out clearly in conversations throughout that day that Scripps is hiring – but only the right kind of journalists, the ones we hope to create at FIU.

Christin Erazo, who graduated in the fall 2009 and like De Guzman worked closely with the SFNS and The Palm Beach Post, is another one.

“As recognition for the news service grew, so did employer's interest in my resume,” said Erazo who is also currently working under a year fellowship for Scripps Treasure Coast Papers in Stuart. “Employers nowadays are looking for applicants with experience and ambition, and being part of an organization as dynamic as the South Florida News Service, reflects those qualities,” she said. “I have to thank the SFNS for creating the building blocks to my success.”

Both De Guzman and Erazo are a product of the first phase of the SFNS, when we were still building credibility with newspaper editors and creating the buzz at school, so we could generate interest in the right kind of student.

We initially thought graduating seniors would be the best candidates, as they had the necessary skills to produce the articles. But we soon learned that it wasn’t only the skills that made De Guzman and Erazo succeed. It was their passion for journalism, their positive attitude, their willingness to learn and their commitment to be a better journalist every time they report and write a story that have got them hired.

The SFNS is still open to graduating seniors, but the program is no longer embedded in any course directly. We work in partnership with all professors and classes, but each student must apply as if for a job. Everyone in the SJMC is invited to participate in the weekly news meetings and pitch story ideas. But only those who show up regularly, contribute and actually publish can fully join the service and get a press credential.

We currently have about 30 students enrolled on an experimental basis but “hired” only four this semester. They are all young and will stay in school for another year or two, enough time to prepare them well for a successful career in journalism.

Silvana Ordonez is one of them. She had her first official encounter with journalism this fall, when she took Introduction to Journalism with Allan Richards, SJMC associate dean and the vision behind the SFNS. Ordonez has since published a couple of stories at The Miami Herald, has one ready to be published and is finishing another one.

“South Florida News Service is an incredible opportunity for students in the field of journalism to gain real experience, exposure and the right training to be ready for a job right after graduation,” Ordonez said. “The SFNS is giving me the right tools to develop my career as a journalist, and I think that it will be the path to many job opportunities.”

Amelia Gonzalez, who started working with the SFNS in the summer, agrees.

“I can honestly say that the SFNS is the best thing that has happened to me in my three years of college,” she said, adding that it has given her confidence as a reporter. “The SFNS has turned me into a watchdog, just waiting to smell the news.”

Gonzalez is the next in line to become the SFNS correspondent at The Palm Beach Post in the beginning of the year - and another student, Isadora Rangel, who just graduated, was selected for the prestigious New York Times Student Journalism Institute, which will take place Jan. 2-16 at FIU. After that, she will be moving to Stuart, following the footsteps of De Guzman and Erazo.

Thanks so much to all the editors, FIU faculty and students who have made the SFNS such great success!

We built, they came and they conquered!

Happy Holidays and a New Year full of hope for the future of journalism!!!

Good news!!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 21:11:00 +0000

And there is hope!

Check out:

It's not your imagination, there are more journalism jobs

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/webjournalist/201012/1923/

By Robert Hernandez is a Web Journalism professor at USC Annenberg and co-creator of #wjchat, a weekly chat for Web Journalists held on Twitter. You can contact him by e-mail (r.hernandez@usc.edu) or through Twitter (@webjournalist). Yes, he's a tech/journo geek.

Miami Beach ex-rocker leaves music for photography - Miami Beach - MiamiHerald.com

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 14:34:00 +0000

Check out another SFNS story:

Miami Beach ex-rocker leaves music for photography - Miami Beach - MiamiHerald.com

The future is now!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 21:51:00 +0000

At the end of the day, what differentiates journalists from communicators is our code of ethics.

That’s what a group of journalism students at Florida International University heard this week from Darcie Lunsford, real estate editor at South Florida Business Journal, 2010 president of Society of Professional Journalists South Florida chapter and national SPJ president-elect.

“What separates us from everything else is that we are professional journalists,” she said, reminding the young SPJ members of the recently re-launched FIU chapter that credibility is their most important professional asset. “At the end of the day, my integrity is not for sale.”

Darcie Lunsford speaks with journalism students at FIU.

Photo by Natalie Alvarez - president of the SPJ-FIU chapter.

Anyone can inform, but as journalists, we value and treasure the basic principles of accuracy, balance and fairness – and swear to always “seek the truth and report it” as well as to “minimize harm,” to “act independently” and to “be accountable” - the main values we stand by as professionals.

“The minute we turn back on these values, we are not journalists anymore,” Lunsford told the group of enthusiastic students, who were also quite apprehensive about the future.

Everyone recognizes the news media is going through many changes, but there is nothing to fear.

As Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

The formula to excel in this business today – or at all other times in history - is as simple as any good news story.

“Take the best practice, skills and code of ethics and apply,” Lunsford said. “You are the future.”

For more information on the SPJ chapter at FIU or to get involved, email fiuspj@gmail.com or contact Natalie Alvarez, the chapter’s president, at nalva013@fiu.edu.

Natalie Alvarez, SPJ-FIU chapter’s president

SCRIPPS DAY @ Florida International University

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 13:05:00 +0000

The School of Journalism and Mass Communication at FIU just held Scripps Day 2010 with guests from both Scripps Howard Foundation and The E.W. Scripps Company. They discussed some of the challenges facing the news media today but mostly emphasized many more opportunities available for those willing to take risks.

It was a special day that gave students, faculty and me not just hope for the future of journalism but a sense of excitement to be part of the transformation in journalism education and newsrooms across the world.

While so many media companies today talk mostly about firing, students were hearing this week about skills and attitude they would need to get hired – and Scripps is hiring.

Natalie Alvarez, a journalism student and South Florida News Service reporter, was excited to hear Rich Boehne, president and CEO of the media giant, present the financial health of his company.

“I was impressed when he was talking about The E.W. Scripps Company’s current financial status and how they have managed to stay in good financial health despite the dire situation that most other mass communication companies are facing today,” Alvarez said.

Boehne emphasized that the opportunities are tremendous today for new journalists. The only challenge is to be genuinely great. It is not enough to just be good. Laziness is out. The old job of the traditional gatekeepers is out, he said.

Rich Boehne speaks with students and faculty. Photo by Natalie Alvarez.

True free speech is now in through the information chaos we are experiencing today, and this is a good thing, Boehne said. Taking good notes and writing them up makes one a stenographer, not a reporter, he added.

Great storytelling - and a great attitude - is what will make a difference - and make it actually easier than before for the great ones to excel.

That’s the case of two of our students and former SFNS reporters – Zaimarie De Guzman and Christin Erazo, both recently hired by Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers at Stuart, Fla.

What has set them apart and landed them the job was not just their skills but mostly their open, positive and professional attitude. Anyone can get skills. It is harder to teach the right attitude.

And that’s exactly what came across throughout the day, a great day that reinforced the educational path we are taking to help form the next generation of great reporters!

It was a great day that included a ribbon cutting ceremony of a new media lab at the SJMC. SJMC Dean Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver, Rich Boehne and Mike Philipps, President & CEO - Scripps Howard Foundation. Photo by Natalie Alvarez.

Fall 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 20:12:00 +0000

The South Florida News Service is now starting its second year under my leadership as the news director, and just like any newsroom across the world, we are also constantly going through changes and dealing with challenges - but mostly evolving, growing and overcoming barriers under the current tough conditions in the field of journalism.

But truth is, the opportunities seem to be speaking louder.

Since we started, we have fully engaged and trained a select group of students, built credibility and a good reputation with local editors, become bilingual by publishing exclusive stories in Spanish and have just published our very first investigative news story.

Karla Ortega's investigative piece about Aussie Air ran in the front business section of both The Sun-Sentinel and The Miami Herald this past week. The story is about a fraudulent aviation school Ortega - a student in the Spanish journalism master's program at FIU - had learned about and started investigating. When the idea came to our attention, we paired the student with Sentinel's business reporter Diane Lade, who worked closely with me, the student and the paper's business editor. It took a few months to check all facts, and that's the most valuable lesson for any new journalist. Be right, then be first!

As we all know, news is more than information. Reporting, as well as news writing - no matter for what medium - print, broadcast or online, is about verified information that is accurate, fair and balanced.

At the South Florida News Service, at Florida International University, we have carefully produced and published stories with those values in mind.

We are all very proud of this latest story as it represents another accomplishment by the SFNS that will bring more opportunities for journalism students. Through this program, we are filling a gap in journalism education by fully training young journalists - and it's paying off.

In the last month, two of our recent graduates have found full time employment as reporters in daily newspapers and many others have been steadily freelancing for the mainstream media.

I just met with new students - and will continue to interview our next group of reporters in the next few days. They seem passionate, ready and very promising!

Who said journalism is dead? If these students are any indication, it is more alive than ever.

Journalism is alive - here, too! The future is now.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:00:00 +0000

If the first day of the fall semester at Florida International University was any indication, the future of journalism is promising.

Journalism enrollment is very high - and these young students seem to be up to the challenges and hopeful for the opportunities.

I observed the first day of Intro to Journalism, taught by Allan Richards, associate dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. That is one of the classes I “recruit” for the South Florida News Service, a program students get to experience the “real deal” of reporting and publishing for major papers such as The Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel and Palm Beach Post.

This required course is one of the first encounter students have with journalism as undergraduates at FIU. Enrollment was 22 students over-capacity to a total of 112.

Richards began by taking roll, or better yet, counting the time it would take to call on 112 students. He instructed one student to start timing, another to take video and a third to take photo – all from their cell phones. The others should keep their phone on vibration and start texting and posting on Twitter and Facebook about what they were observing.

Ten minutes later, after the last student was called, Richards asked if what they did was in fact journalism.

Photo by Heather Radi Bermudez

To our surprise, these young students said - loud and clear: “NO.”

What differentiates communicators from journalists, then?

“Reliability,” the students said.

And what, then, makes a media outlet reliable?

“Credibility,” the students answered, emphasizing that journalism is definitely not dead, as so many people seem to indicate. Quite the contrary, they said. It is just going through some transformation that they so much want to be part of.

They see the challenges but mostly strive for the opportunities - to be part of history, to make history and to become professional journalists.

In 50 minutes of class, Richards enlightened the students, who in turn have enlightened me – with hope and great expectation for the future of journalism.

Journalism is alive and well, as these young students have so clearly suggested.

Of course, it has been extremely sad and frustrating to see the layoffs and empty newsrooms in the past few years – but journalism needed this transformation. It is not enough to be a good journalist. One must excel at this profession – and that’s how it should be. It takes more than skills. It is an incredible responsibility to be a journalist – with ethics and values.

I was truly happily surprised to see so many students with the drive and passion to become the next generation of journalists.

There will be jobs and opportunities – as long as we keep training and challenging the next generation from the intro level up, as I have seen it so brilliantly done by Richards.

I joke that it takes two gentle slaps to see results from the best.

Zaimarie De Guzman is a clear example. The spring was her last semester before graduation. She was determined to succeed in journalism and joined the SFNS. She published several stories and built a reputation that led her to a summer internship at The Stuart News. Before that was over, she was offered a full time position at the paper because, she said, the managing director was impressed with her “above average” work.

“I am so excited, not only because I get to start my career right after college but also because I am truly in love with this little town that has become my home in the last three months,” she wrote on an email to me and Richards.

I am sure there will be many more like her coming from Richard’s Intro to Journalism as well as other courses this semester.

If we challenge them, they will come. Journalism is not dead. In fact, it is very much alive!

Journalism is alive and well - in Brazil

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:46:00 +0000

A recent trip to Brazil this summer has enlightened me about the state of journalism outside the United Sates. In São Paulo, where I am from, the two major dailies - Folha de S. Paulo and O Estado de S. Paulo - are fighting for news, not subscription. That's on top of several weekly magazines and a couple of daily business newspapers, like Valor Economico.

Curious to learn more why things seem to be going well there, I visited O Estado de S. Paulo's newsroom, which has just gone through a major transformation to adjust to the challenges of a new era of journalism in the 21st century. The paper decided to invest in a strong online operation through integration. It did not have to fire experienced journalists or segregate the new in order to build it. Instead, it hired about 50 new reporters – including print reporters who would work exclusively for the web stories along with video and radio journalists. The new newsroom is divided across sections as most are, but there online reporters sit at a desk literally next to the newspaper print reporter for that beat. They exchange information and work hand in hand informally – though formally independent from each other. The business section, for example, has eight new reporters working for the online news operation – physically next to the many reporters covering stories for the print paper.

Roberto Gazzi, chief-editor responsible for the online project, and Pedro Doria, chief editor for digital content, told me the initial acceptance of the newsroom reform has come partly from the fact that print journalists were not threatened by new media journalism. They said the reporters don’t “need” to do more and are not forced to do more. But they can if they want to, and many have because they have seen the positive, enhanced impact of their work when it spread across the Internet. These reporters were shown the opportunity brought about new technologies, and unthreatened by it due to the leadership’s positive attitude, have embraced new media while remaining loyal to the foundation of journalism.

It took three years to conceptualize the project and nine months -- and about US$1 million of the company’s investment -- to implement the changes to reflect true convergence and fully integrate the print and online operations. As a result, the newspaper is selling more. The website is getting more visits. And the journalists are expanding their exposure and credibility.

There are many examples as such not too far. We just need to spend money properly to make money. It takes some risks, but there is no other way. If we keep on creating solid models of news operations, where the foundation of journalism is the center element, success is inevitable and as a consequence, a strong business model. If we build, they will come. All it takes is a strong belief and courage to make it happen.

I was very impressed with what I saw - and hope newsrooms and executive editors in this country will start taking such real risks to rebuild a strong foundation based on traditional values of journalism - like accuracy, balance and fairness - on and offline.

Journalism really is alive and well - it just depends on us to keep up with the changes.

Some newspapers are hiring

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:59:00 +0000

Interesting note by Romenesko confirms positive media outlook! More on that soon...

Newsday to hire 34 journalists, add news/opinion pages
Memo from Newsday's editor
From: ND-Communication Office
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 11:29 AM
To: ND-Communication Office
Subject: A message from Debby Krenek

Dear colleagues,

Newsday's newsroom is hiring!

In a big step forward on boosting our local coverage, during the next six months we will hire 34 new journalists for our newsroom and digital teams, and add 2,600 pages of additional news and opinion to our newspaper annually. I'm very excited to announce that we are making this significant investment in people and pages to provide more and stronger coverage for Long Islanders.

Many initiatives will increase town and local coverage in print and provide our online audience with more updates and faster coverage of breaking news around the clock. They include:

* Adding to the number of town reporters
* Doubling the number of Long Island news pages in Newsday each day
* Upping the number of regional zoned editions of Sunday’s LI Life to provide more localized town news and information
* Hiring community journalists who will hit Long Island's streets in search of local features and personalities that define each community as we launch hundreds of hyper-local pages later this month
* Gathering and building even more databases to become the definitive online source of local data for LI communities
* Expanding our "community watchdog" role by increasing local investigations and enterprise reporting staff to dig into key topics that matter most to Long Islanders
* Cross-training staff to enable them to cover news in both text and video

We also plan to expand our business and feature sections by:

* Adding space to our daily business section, with more local, useful information for and about the Long Island business community
* Introducing a daily e-mailed business newsletter
* Boosting pages in LI Life to include a weekend Explore LI component for planning the week ahead
* Creating a weekly in-depth profile story that will highlight the life, lifestyles and trends of Long Islanders

The Opinion section will grow as the editorial board under Rita Ciolli's leadership adds three new positions and increases its weekly space in the newspaper by nearly 80 percent. This section will offer a full page of readers' letters every weekday, along with more opinion pieces from across Long Island and beyond, representing a broad spectrum of viewpoints.

In sum, we will add 37 people to our teams as part of our commitment to be the indispensable source of news and information for Long Island.

If you know journalists interested in applying for these positions, please have them send their resume and clips to maryann.skinner@newsday.com. I’m proud that Newsday is making this major investment and I hope you will be, too.

Sincerely,

Debby Krenek

Chatting with editor Earl Maucker - OrlandoSentinel.com

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:11:00 +0000

Worth reading!

Chatting with editor Earl Maucker - OrlandoSentinel.com

Helen Thomas on White House Press Corps

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 14:09:00 +0000

Worth watching on the Real News:

March 28, 2010

Helen Thomas on White House Press Corps

Thomas: Most press rolled over and played dead during Bush years, press was gung-ho to go to war

More at The Real News

Stop the Presses! Revamped Journalism Courses Attract Hordes of Students

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:49:00 +0000

Very interesting article. I wonder why some schools of communication are losing journalism students to multimedia. Multimedia is an integral part of journalism in the 21st century, but not all multimedia is journalism.

Worth reading:

Stop the Presses! Revamped Journalism Courses Attract Hordes of Students

Even as job prospects dim, a focus on new media and entrepreneurship produces record enrollments

By Katherine Mangan

At a time when the newspaper industry is in free fall and thousands of jobs are being cut each year, one would think that the halls of the nation's journalism schools would be awfully quiet. Think again.

Many universities report that journalism enrollments are up this year. Over the past few weeks, a lot of these budding journalists have been blogging, broadcasting, and tweeting their way through introductory courses that have been revamped to embrace the digital age.

Applications to Columbia University's master-of-science program in journalism rose 44 percent, to 1,181, for the class entering this fall, and an investigative-journalism specialty drew more than twice as many applications this year than last year, up from 54 in 2008 to 121 this year.

Elsewhere, applications to master's programs were up 30 percent at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 25 percent at the University of Maryland at College Park, and 24 percent at Stanford University.

...

Skeptical Professors

"Ari L. Goldman, a professor of journalism at Columbia, says basic skills like accuracy and fairness are more important than ever at a time when inexperienced reporters are rushing to post news updates on the Web, often with little editorial oversight.

"I don't want us to lose focus on the standards of good journalism in our rush to embrace all the latest technology," says Mr. Goldman, who wrote for The New York Times for 20 years."

Full article

-

Dan Rather reports

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:31:00 +0000

Worth reading:

The News Americans Need

By Dan Rather
The Washington Post
Sunday, August 9, 2009

"We need a real and broad public discussion of the role news is meant to play in our democratic system of government and a better public understanding of the American news infrastructure's fragile condition. We need to know how things got this way and what we need to change."

Click to read full commentary

It is not all lost!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:55:00 +0000

This is a fascinating analysis that shows newspapers are not just alive but have way more readers than their online counterpart:

Print Newspapers Still Dominate Readers’ Attention
Another look at how much time is spent reading newspapers online and in print
By Ryan Chittum

State of American Journalism

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:01:00 +0000

Worth reading about Dan Rather's worries:

Dan Rather laments journalism's rapid decline in Aspen appearance

Appearing at the Greenwald Pavilion as part of the Aspen Institute's McCloskey Speaker Series, Rather said “traditional journalism is under siege” and called for media reform to become an “immediate national priority.”

“A democracy and free people cannot thrive without a fiercely independent press,” he said.

I agree and feel his pain.

The Miami Herald published another poignant front page today, leading with a story about a Jackson Memorial Hospital's trauma center nurse who at night turns DJ on the town.

Jackson Memorial nurse cares for sick by day, spins tunes by night
DJ Dharma, the Night Nurse

BY JAMES H. BURNETT III
Miami Herald - July 29, 2009

Great story, but I doubt it would see a front page in the old days. I'd bet it does today because it's visually compelling. The online version includes a photo slideshow and a video.

I wonder if visual elements will now become another news judgment as editors define the news of the day.

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Meanwhile, I have recently noticed another trend. Mainstream media reporters seem to be publishing more their own personal anecdotes - thoughts and feelings about places and stories they cover -- along with the news.

The Washington Post at least had the decency to call a foreign correspondent's search for her lost dog in Pakistan an "essay."

Ahu & Me: A Dog Is Lost, Hope Is Found In Pakistan
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 28, 2009

I love dogs as much as journalism, but as a foreign correspondent, which I have been in the United States for more than 15 years, I'd not use my dogs to make assumptions about the people of the country I cover - good or bad.

But like I said, at least Ms. Constable's piece was published as an essay. The Miami Herald went even further today. The reporter of a front page story on Tropical was also one of its subjects.

Here the writer starts on first person and on the fourth paragraph begins writing the story as if it were a regular news article. Then she gets back to first person.

BY KATHLEEN McGRORY
Miami Herald
July 29, 2009

Kindest cut: Donated hair empowers chemo patients -- and donors, too

Again, it's a great news story idea. But one of the first rules in journalism is to keep yourself out of the story, a lesson as important as keeping the commercial side of journalism out of the newsrooms.

We have been blaming corporations for killing journalism. They have, no doubt, destroyed much of it for the sake of profit, but trends like these are killing more than the business of journalism. They are killing our souls and our spirit!

A newspaper's front page

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:50:00 +0000

Today's The Miami Herald published a very poignant -- sign of the times -- front page. On the top, left-hand corner, it led with a great story about low-income Brazilian dancers spending a couple of weeks at Miami City Ballet, fulfilling their dreams and hopes.

Brazilian kids fulfill a dream at Miami City Ballet School

It is definitely a terrific feature, full of color. It is a story that leads itself to new media reporting - and any visual element one can think of.

Great story, but not a story you would see on the front page of a major daily on a busy news day, with so many problems in the world, from wars and terrorist attacks to the worst economic crisis in the history of the United States -- and that's not to mention poverty, health care, education, the world water crisis and so many other crucial issues we don't cover.

Then, in the right, bottom corner, there was another story that called my attention about the new housing chief, part-time comedian, who has recently been forced to resign as the housing director in San Francisco.

Miami-Dade taps part-time comedian to run housing agency

The story about Brazilians (and I am Brazilian) is moving and interesting, but how relevant is it to the state of the city where we live?

We are mostly training and encouraging future journalists to do stories like the Miami City Ballet. Rather than following the money, as we say in investigative journalism, we are telling new - and old - journalists to go get the video. I am to blame for that as well, as I teach new media reporting.

We need to find a balance between in-depth and convergence. This change in priorities is really at the heart of the problem with journalism today. As educators, it is our responsibility to teach news gathering to our students, and as editors, it is our responsibility to promote the gathering of stories that can truly affect our lives and our daily decisions.

There is a place for all of these stories, but as we develop new tools and ways to tell news stories, we cannot and must not forget the news judgment involved in the editorial process as we decide and fight for the front page stories and prioritize the stories of the day. We cannot and must not select stories because they lead themselves to multimedia.

Multimedia is one of the greatest news tools since computers took the place of typewriters. But new media reporting must be used carefully to enhance the practice of journalism, not to the detriment of news.

I enjoyed reading both stories and watching the video of fellow Brazilians.

I just wished their order of importance had been evaluated differently.

New York Times skimmer

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:07:00 +0000

I just ran into the New York Times skimmer and am totally mesmerized.

This model is as close as we have got so far to effective news reading online. Its look and feel are very clean and appealing, and the stories are beautifully organized.

It is definitely worth checking out and keeping an eye for further development of this prototype.

21st Century Muckrakers

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:34:00 +0000

As I was preparing a lecture for a group of high school students at a journalism workshop at the University of Miami School of Communication, Sandy Maisel was blogging about the Journalistic Values in the 21st Century, a topic close to my heart and to the talk I was getting ready to give today.

I was supposed to discuss the "business of journalism" in the context of multimedia but preferred to call it “21st Century Muckraking,” in reference to journalistic values and high standards, issues also at the heart of Maisel’s arguments.

He started his blog with the late Katharine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, who won the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for Courageous Journalism for her paper's Watergate coverage. "The award went to Graham, not to the reporters or to the editors, because Graham risked her paper's entire future defending the principle that reporters should be free to follow a story wherever it led and that neither they nor their paper should be cowed by threats from even the most powerful people in government," he wrote, suggesting that somehow those values have changed with the times.

He said the standards papers like the Post have traditionally followed are not clear any more in the digital world of news, and thanks to a grant from the John S, and James L. Knight Foundation, the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Colby College has launched a Web site to open dialogue on news literacy.

That's a wonderful and most needed initiative. What worries me, though, is how we are increasingly killing traditional journalism before it is dead. What I think is missing today is a clear distinction among social media, multimedia packages and stories, and new media reporting. That’s the kind of news literacy that should be clearly incorporated in such projects.

* Social media, like Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, blogs and so many other tools, is freedom of speech at its best. We can freely exchange information, discuss an idea and keep in touch with new and old friends. It even has been successfully used as a reporting tool and saved lives, but it is not journalism. Journalism must follow basic principles of accuracy and fairness, where facts are checked and verified before publishing. Veracity is not the fundamental nature of social media, which is often based on points of view, as well. Journalism is based on facts.

I am not saying all journalists and media outlets follow those principles. That’s part of the problem with journalism today. We had started to lose those values way before the technology caught up with journalism. Now technology is giving us a chance to reclaim them, not ignore or change the foundation, the basis of our existence. Otherwise, the American Constitution would be constantly changing each time society goes through a transformation. This country remains the greatest democracy in the world because it is grounded in principles.

* Multimedia, like social media, is not necessarily journalism. Multimedia packages and stories are based on visual storytelling that can be news, or not. They are built around strong elements – sound, video, photos and text – that combined communicate an idea visually.

“A vision of students today” is a wonderful piece of video online that makes for a powerful multimedia story, but it is not journalism. It has a point of view.

Again, I am not saying all journalists are objective. In fact, objectivity is hard to obtain. But through fact checking and layers of editors that read a copy and verify information on traditional mainstream media, journalism has created a system of checks and balances, as it exists with the American branches of government to prevent overpower and corruption.

* New media reporting is journalism at its best. It is about using all tools available – from a pen to a digital camera – to tell the whole story. Journalism is the central element of the storytelling because new media reporting is all about reporting - gathering and verifying information that takes careful research, interviews, note taking – and then, complementing text with visual elements, such as slideshows, video, audio, info-graphics. The visual elements are there to add information.

No article could ever have shown so effectively Susan Boyle’s debut as this video. The video itself is not journalism, though. It does not answer the “how” or the “why.” But combined with an article, it makes the story more whole, as each element plays the perfect part in this journalistic puzzle.

That's precisely what I talked about today with this group of 21st century muckrakers. They might not read the paper, watch the newscast or even read the news at a site like The New York Times. But they call themselves journalists, and are the future journalists, so they must at least clearly understand what journalism is and what it is not.

Journalism is about verifying information as much as gathering

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:33:00 +0000

Worth reading EDWARD WASSERMAN's column at today's Miami Herald:

Who's keeping online news honest?

Should digital journalism be held to different standards of accuracy than other kinds of journalism? That's a crude way of putting a knotty problem that confronts the widening ranks of people who do news and commentary online.

Not that anybody says they should get away with lying or misleading their readers just because their work is on a website instead of a front page.

The problem isn't with deliberate falsehoods. It's with how much care online journalists should take to verify what they report before they report it.

Read the full column

The press in São Paulo could serve as an example for the world

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:05:00 +0000

I have recently visited my hometown, São Paulo, Brazil, and came back stunned at the quality of journalism there. That goes for both the practice of it and academia.

The press in São Paulo does not seem to be suffering from either the economic or the journalism global crisis.

People are not just reading the paper - hard copy - but there are two strong, heavy and competing daily newspapers in the city -- O Estado de S. Paulo and Folha de S. Paulo, each three times the size of The Miami Herald (in number of pages and quality of content and investigative pieces).

Surprisingly enough, advertisement and readership remain strong. Both papers in São Paulo have a powerful online presence, but the revenue comes from hard copy subscription.

On academia, too, there is good news that surprised me. The journalism curriculum at FAAP School of Communication, for instance, which I briefly visited, has changed to incorporate new media but not to the detriment of reporting, as we have seen happen in so many establishments in the United States. Students there learn journalism in all forms. They learn to think, to report, to write, as well as to shoot and edit a video, take a photograph and post a story online.

Journalists and journalism educators seem to be experimenting so much in the United States, both in academia and in the newsrooms, that they, themselves, are threatening their historic position as the leaders of the free world and freedom of the press and the news values that come with that - the true sense of our existence as journalists.

When I first started in this field , I remember how passionate I was about the integrity of American journalism. For the sake of this most poignant career, we'd better start looking outside our small worlds and seek the example of successful newsrooms and universities in places like São Paulo. It might be time for American journalism to follow, not lead.

Journalism is NOT for sale and never has been!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:07:00 +0000

I couldn't have said it better.

Worth taking note:

What readers want vs. what they need
BY EDWARD WASSERMAN

Published by The Miami Herald
May 11, 2009

Mindy McAdams' thoughts about Kindle

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:24:00 +0000

Check out Mindy McAdams' thoughts about Kindle
@Teaching Online Journalism .

Leonard Pitts visits UM

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Delboni) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0000

Leonard Pitts Jr. speaks with students at the UM School of Communication
Photo by Greg Linch

Pulitzer Prize-winning Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. has told UM students this week that the secret to success is to be "hungry."

"Be better today than you were yesterday," he said.

That reflects precisely my thoughts. There is no magic secret to success. The only way is to stay humble and always strive to do better.

Millennium Beat reporters have just learned that important lesson. Hard work pays off. They are covering very difficult, in-depth stories of immigrant communities in South Florida. It has taken a few trips back to sources and several more drafts to transform a story from superficial to informative, moving and powerful.

Pitts said winning a prize, like Pulitzer, is, of course, an honor, but it can come with a dangerous side-effect if overlooked. Pats on the back can lead to laziness and destroy a good reporter.

"I need to be better," he said.

Pride in journalism comes from a sense of accomplishment, renewed every day at every story.

It is that feeling that I hope to instigate in my students and the new 21st century muckrakers. News stories are not static. They can always be better!

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Leonard Pitts Jr. has just published his first novel, "Before I Forget."