Is the limbo breaking journalism’s back?

Journalism is in limbo.

It hasn’t lost its value, but newspapers are becoming a stale medium and solid business models for digital journalism haven’t yet been devised.

The Newspaper Association of America would like you to believe that the stale medium part isn’t true, producing advertisements with statistical data to counteract the belief that “nobody reads the newspaper anymore.”

Indeed, the Association says 104 million people read a newspaper each day and that 61 percent of people aged 18-34 read a newspaper in an average week.

While I have no doubt the first statistic is true, the second seems a tad disingenuous. Skimming the sports page of a student paper – like all good University of Florida students do with the Alligator – can hardly be considered reading a newspaper.

The truth is: Generations X and Y don’t feel the same nostalgia toward newspapers that the generations before them did.

What was once a trusted adviser and a familiar friend – there to assist in matters of politics, gossip and entertainment – is now something that gets ink all over one’s hands and is hard to refold.

With up-to-the-minute news over the Internet accessible from almost any computer or mobile phone, the paper doesn’t enjoy the same monopoly on simple, transportable news it once did. Often, by the time the paper arrives, the news it contains has already been reported hours earlier online.

But, as the Newspaper Association of America astutely points out – even if it is while tooting the industry’s own horn – newspapers invest the most in journalism.

Television closely follows, but no amount of journalism via blogs and other non-profit ventures “could match the depth and breadth of newspaper-produced content.”

Clearly, then, we can’t allow newspaper companies to disappear – which is where networked journalism assumes its role.

Networked journalism, as presented by Charlie Beckett in his book “SuperMedia,” posits that through technological advances, the world has become far more interconnected and that journalism’s social role has only increased in importance.

Therefore, journalism cannot be a dying venture.

Through collaboration between the various forms of media, coverage can be expanded, content can be diversified and the transition to other forms of media can be smoothed.

The only thing lacking is creativity in business models that makes the reporting economically feasible. So let’s look at those who seem to be succeeding in this department.

Mark Potts has a two-part article on this at his blog “Recovering Journalist.”

Feel free to read it for more in-depth coverage on specific sites. I’m focusing on the lessons learned from capitalizing on new tools and the potential ramifications these contributions have to the rise of networked journalism.

First, on the Web there is no such thing as a stand-alone publication.

At least a good one anyway. Readers link to other sites, lookup unfamiliar information, dig further into stories, and link back (hopefully).

So, in the spirit of network journalism, make the news interactive – linking to unfamiliar concepts or events in stories and providing maps for uncommon areas.

A laurel to The New York Times for embracing this. A dart to the Los Angeles Times for failing to.

Second, fragmentation of the audience is a farce. Well, sort of.

Sure, the audience is split, but if networking is done properly, readers will stay connected to topics outside their niche. This follows the logic of “there are no stand-alone Web sites.”

For example, Politico and FiveThirtyEight.com are niche publications focusing on politics; but by linking, these sites bring the fragmented audience interested in politics opportunities to easily stumble onto other subjects.

Third, Web commerce is based on innovation.

Just look at the St. Petersburg Times’ PolitiFact. The goal is to engage in investigative reporting – which many thought had gone under with budget cuts at newspapers – to fact-check politicians’ assertions.

The innovative business model here is syndicating it.

Most newspapers have Web sites, Potts said, but don’t want to invest the initial capital to startup a feature like PolitiFact. Now, they don’t have to, paying PolitiFact instead.

Of course, there are a lot of sites that I didn’t mention engaging in innovative solutions to revenue problems in journalism such as foundation-endowed EveryBlock that provides customized news for an immediate area (block) surrounding an address.

Also, the collaboration between journalist and audience, employer and employee is strengthened by network journalism.

Blogging and other forms of social media make stronger connections between these groups and allow people to connect who otherwise might not have (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc…). This could lead to potential job opportunities, hiring opportunities, story ideas, you name it.

The one thing lacking is solid means of verification concerning “facts” found online. But then that brings us right back to a major premise of journalism: challenging information.

As I said in another blog post: ‘Paper’ is the only part of ‘newspaper’ that’s obsolete.

Bud Light has drinkability; Google has searchability

Journalists are in the business of knowing things.

And, luckily for them, so is Google.

Google’s latest feature, Alerts, e-mails links to stories relating to preselected key words. The results returned can be from news sites only, blogs only, or comprehensive including those two and more.

It’s like a highly efficient informant and could mean getting a beat on a story. Especially if you’ve selected comprehensive results.

Gary Fineout sure did when he received a tip about a petition to Gov. Charlie Christ for the pardon of Jim Morrison of The Doors.

As a journalist, use this feature to your advantage, because you never know what you might discover – without actively searching for it.

‘Son of Sam’ laws unconstitutional

Florida Statute 944.512 is intended to keep convicted felons from profiting from their crimes through “expressive activity,” such as writing a book or screen play.

The idea is to compensate the victims, or their dependents, and recoup losses to public funds for the prosecution and incarceration of the criminals.

The state has a compelling interest to enact legislation ensuring criminals don’t prosper from the commission of their crimes while their victims suffer.

However, the language in the statute renders it unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds because it is overbroad in its restrictions and not narrowly tailored to advance the interest of the state.

In the case that established this precedent, Simon & Schuster v. N.Y. State Crime Victims Board, the Supreme Court struck down a similar New York Statute – for which these types of laws derive the name “Son of Sam” laws – because the statute only provided for the seizure of profits from expressive activities relating to the crime.

Seizing only the profits from expression relating to the commission of the crime while presumably allowing the realization of profits from other literary works, like a novel not entailing a “reenactment of the crime,” is a content-based regulation.

Furthermore, imposing the restrictions on profit rendered by the statute has a chilling effect on speech because only books by those willing to forfeit compensation for their work will be published.

Therefore, although the State of Florida has a compelling interest to regulate the speech, the legislature hasn’t properly tailored the statute to advance its goal.

The Supreme Court concluded in Simon & Schuster v. N.Y. Crime Victim’s Board, that speech about crimes can serve the public good. An example of this would be books about the Watergate scandal such as “All the President’s Men.” It was in the public’s interest for the details of the crime to emerge. Yet, had the law been in effect then, the confiscation of profits might have chilled that speech.

Therefore, speech about crimes can be necessary. Overbroad measures restricting all speech about crimes is neither constitutional, nor in the public’s interest. Measures so tailored to only restrict speech by murders and rapists, such as Danny Rolling, while allowing speech about other crimes, like Watergate, are forms of content-based regulation held unconstitutional upon subject to strict judicial scrutiny. The offensiveness of a message to society is not a valid reason for suppression of speech.

Yet, the fact remains: A state has a compelling interest to ensure victims of crimes are compensated by the perpetrator.

The way to ensure that victims are compensated is by using general asset-forfeiture laws found in tort code. These laws seize assets of criminals in order to pay awards to the victims of the crime.

They don’t infringe on speech because they don’t take the profits from the speech; those still go to the criminal. However, the laws force the criminal to make restitution to the victim.

This way, there is no chilling effect on speech, but the crime victims still get compensated – and probably from proceeds of the speech, though indirectly since the state is placing a lien on the criminals assets, not the proceeds from the expression.

Napster 2.0: Now with news

Journalism is facing its version of the music industry’s peer-to-peer crisis of a decade ago.

With plenty of free content online, sales of hard-copy are tanking. Just as listeners were no longer forced to buy the whole CD to get the one song they wanted, readers are no longer forced to buy the whole newspaper to read only the articles pertinent to their interests.

They can just go online and find it.

Doing so is by no means a new feat, but as social media evolves, it becomes easier. Using tools like Google Reader, media consumers streamline the information-collecting process and avoid being bothered with off-topic drivel.

But with this, comes audience fragmentation. Readers will be acutely educated on a specific topic (or few), but won’t posses the variety in their wealth of knowledge that leads to more informed decisions.

When you only find what you’re looking for, you loose “the ability to make fortunate discoveries accidentally,” said William McKeen in an article in The New York Times.

That’s why McKeen, a professor at the University of Florida, requires students in his freshmen journalism class to read the print edition of The New York Times Monday through Friday. (There’s your subsidy, guys.)

But journalists need to connect with readers who aren’t a captive audience.

Apparently, newspapers aren’t doing the job. Just look at the financial problems of companies like Tribune.

Leonard Downie Jr. and Michael Schudson posit that allowing newspapers to register as non-profit organizations for tax purposes is the answer. Certainly, the government-subsidy model has certainly worked for the BBC.

To some, the idea is heretical: Government must not interfere with the press. Yet, some believe the First Amendment requires the government to ensure survival of a free press. Hence, the subsidies.

Endowments work. Just ask Propublica, but they are not easy to acquire and aren’t usually permanent.

One thing is clear: There is no one-size-fits-all model for news organizations to base their restructuring aspirations on.

The best that can be done is to experiment with new media in order to create a desirable product.

Downie and Schudson said news reporting is evolving into a mutual exercise between journalist and consumer.

If so, then the emphasis on the role of citizen journalism needs to increase ten fold. As Doug Fisher, a journalism professor at the University of South Carolina, notes, “At least half of your audience knows more about the story than you do…”

Realize this. Include audience participation through social networking and media resources like Facebook and Twitter. It will bolster your credibility and connection with the audience.

So will linking, whether to other Web sites with more information or to in-house sources providing definitions of strange words and concepts like The New York Times does.

Forget the idea that journalists are journalists and citizens are not. If this were true, the Washington Post wouldn’t entertain the likes of Daniel Lippman at a great loss to themselves.

In Alan Rusbridger’s response to Downie and Schudson, he includes an anecdote about The Guardian being prevented from publishing parliament news due to a gag order. After he lamented about it on Twitter, his followers engaged in journalism of their own and forced transparency upon the government regarding the issue. There’s an example of a mutually beneficial relationship between audience and press.

Social media only makes that bond stronger. The newspaper might loose relevancy, but the news never will.

Like social-media writter Fred Cavazza said, “There was a life before Facebook and there will be one after.”

If it were possible for digital media to destroy an industry, then the music industry wouldn’t be prosperous post-Napster.

Remind me again, how much money did Beyonce Knowles make last year? (Answer: $87 million)

Media ride-along report proposal

Flrunners.com is a website focused on providing coverage of prep-school running, both cross country and track (and field). Serving this niche, it provides free content like user forums and race results, but requires members to pay a fee for other content like athlete features. Check back for more about the way this site is practicing journalism in the digital age.

I have a feeling we’re not in Alaska anymore

As illustrated in The Far Side cartoon with two newspaper boxes, one full of papers reading, “The news,” and one empty reading, “Stuff we just made up,” a good story, regardless of the facts, sells papers.

If not, tabloids would go out of business.

To run, or not to run often becomes the question and the answer depends on the audience.

Certainly, The New York Times won’t run a story reported by a gas station attendant about an eagle snatching a chihuahua without more substantiation of the facts like: Could an eagle actually do this? Who were the victims? Who else saw it?

The New York Post, on the other hand, might.

In the case of the Alaskan snatching, I guarantee more than a handful of readers after perusing the story remarked, “Well it finally happened.”

Could there have been more substantiation? Certainly.

But for non-hard-hitting news, some unsubstantiated facts in the name of humor is probably okay. Especially at smaller, local papers.

The only thing to consider is that as journalism becomes more global, local papers have more reach. In 1993, the wire services picked up the Alaskan story and recirculated it. In 2010, people would tweet and e-mail the story in addition to the wires recirculating it and it’d spread even quicker.

So the moral is: when questioning whether to run a piece like the eagle story, think about your audience not always in terms of the local few reading your paper, but the global audience with access to material you run.

‘Paper’ is the only part of ‘newspaper’ that’s obsolete

Journalism is facing a crisis.

Like video rental stores in the age of on-demand cable delivery, automated video dispensers like Redbox, and movie streaming Web sites, companies who convey the news through the medium of newspapers are finding themselves peddling a product with drastically reduced demand.

Already, Tribune Co. – a stalwart of the industry that owns the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times – has filed for bankruptcy.

However, unlike video rental stores that, without people to rent videos because of new-age delivery technologies, went out of business, newspaper companies still produce a valuable product: news.

All these companies need to do is figure out how reach the audience.

This is easier said than done, though, as other problems have arisen.

The other problems

As Todd Gitlin of openDemocracy puts it, journalism is facing many crises. The most notable additions are circulation, revenue, attention and authority.

The other, failure to penetrate the closed doors of power to make transactions more transparent, has been a problem for some time, he said.

Indeed in Matt Taibbi’s book “Spanking the Donkey,” he describes how the White House Press Corps agreed to prescreening of questions during the campaign season of 2004. Kowtowing to this kind of pressure creates a perception in readers’ minds that the Fourth Estate has lost its teeth, its relevance, its credibility. It’s hard to bring things out in the open when there’s no spontaneity.

Reduced circulation causes a loss of revenue, not because of the loss of paying subscribers – subscription rates cover the printing and delivery of the paper to them – but in advertising revenue. Fewer readers means less money ad space can command.

As for attention, people still stay informed, just not with newspapers. People receive bills and correspondence online, so why not get the news there.

Giving investigative reporting, fact finding and copy editing the ax is the first step to loosing authority. The quality of the product is directly correlated with the perception of authority.

Saving the ‘fish wrapper’

John Nichols and Robert McChesney at The Nation believe government intervention – in the form of public policy and subsidies – are the answer. This sounds a lot like the economic policies used to help stabilize the downward spiral of the auto and banking industries under the “too big to fail” doctrine that journalists so fervently write venomous editorials about.

Nichols and McChesney posit that the First Amendment not only provides for the possibility of a free and independent press, but also that the government must ensure that there is one.

But as they admit, the way the problem is being framed makes it difficult for a solution to be reached.

Government intervention may be required. However, it should be more in the form of fostering ventures into the cyberworld and regulating giant conglomerates’ ownership of outlets – not easing financial burdens of printing.

Part of the problem is that smaller papers – like The Gainesville Sun – are owned by a larger conglomerate – in this case The New York Times Co.

With the parent publication in somewhat of a dire financial straight, the smaller paper is forced to cut back and forward residual profit away from the community it’s supposed to be serving rather than reinvesting and improving the product.

Sounds like something the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission could delve into rather than simply handing out subsidies.

But, even that wouldn’t fix the problem.

How to do it

Embrace the new medium; view the Internet as an advantage, not an adversary.

The Internet provides many tools that make journalists jobs easier. Fact checking is easier online. Sending material from the field to the newsroom is easier online. Online content is cheaper to produce than print, and will ultimately be how the majority gets the news in the future.

That isn’t to say avoid the print stuff, but try and integrate.

Use Twitter to connect with people and discover tips. Facebook is good, too. Millions of college students can’t be wrong.

Employ RSS feeds to disiminate information quickly to readers. Recognize that many people will use an RSS hub – such as Google Reader – to collect and organize various news sites.

In days gone by, papers competed for readers’ (almost) exclusive attention, but this isn’t so anymore.

The Palm Beach Post, the Sun Sentinel in Ft. Lauderdale and The Miami Herald once furiously competed for readers, now they share material. Albeit this is mostly a cost-cutting move in the print world, it’s commonplace in the digital one through linking.

Readers won’t be loyal to one news site at the exclusion of others. Acknowledge this and cultivate links when curating the news. Allow people to leave your site, knowing they’ll probably be back later. Make digging deeper more convenient by linking to sources rather than requiring the reader to search themselves.

To a point, that is. There are still some ethics involved in promoting off-site material and user-generated content and linking simply for linking’s sake isn’t a great idea.

But promote citizen journalism and the expression of ideas by fostering debate in an open marketplace.

Use the Internet in fact checking to strengthen the accuracy and supporting details in stories and allowing for quick corrections when an error occurs.

No reporter is infallible, but there are plenty of Daniel Lippmans out there who would help identify flaws if only there were an easier and quicker way.

Via the Internet, not only can readers get news, but they can identify mistakes easier, notify the news agency quicker, and the news agency can make corrections faster.

By being open to change, maybe journalism can switch from “grabbing its ankles,” as Taibbi said, and begin the not-so-far journey from ankle to bootstrap to begin pulling up.

And barf goes the Cheerios: analysis on how graphic we should be

The Cheerios Test has long been the standard for deciding which images to publish.

It posits that if an image would likely cause a reader to barf-up his or her breakfast, then the image fails the test and probably ought not be published.

As journalists, we see lots of things – not all of which are fit for publication.

It’s our job to inform, but sometimes this is curbed by issues of taste and sensibility. Publishing extremely graphic photos, like the ones shown here, could sway public opinion; although, not necessarily in the way we expect. Opinion could sway against the publication rather than the situation.

That’s why images with dead bodies – like these on the left – shouldn’t be published.

The argument for the publication of graphic photos is that the public needs to see the unabashed brutality of the situation.

However, using an alternative image – like the ones on the right – or employing descriptive writing to detail the situation for readers is a better choice to convey the news because the audience is still informed, but not incited with the same repugnant indignation at being intruded upon with graphic vulgarity.

Audience backlash is an undesired consequence. By running certain images, the risk of negative feedback increases greatly. Just ask the Associated Press after the dying Marine photo.

In communications’ jurisprudence, the Supreme Court often cites the “intrusiveness of the medium” in allowing restrictions on the free speech rights of broadcasters – claiming children could be easily inundated by inappropriate material.

While I’m not intending to go into a lecture on the various nuances of First Amendment protection between different media, I do propose this: Publishing a graphic picture is far more intrusive to readers than describing events though good writing.

As Fox News‘ slogan goes, “We inform, you decide.”

Let’s try to ensure that we are informing readers to help them decide, not ensuring readers will choose to forgo informing themselves with our information because of our choices of what to publish.

The best newsroom protocol: common sense

Protocols merely lend a hand to copy editors by prompting inquisitiveness, but are by no means substitutes for focus and mental acuity in deciding gray-area issues.

For example, protocols generally delegate copy editors the power to fix simple misspelled words.

Imagine you’re the copy editor at a college-town newspaper and a story comes across your desk with a quote attributed to a typically female name. The pronoun used on second reference is “she.” Then, additional material is attributed to that person’s girlfriend.

As an editor, do you assume the reporter made a mistake and invoke the power of the protocol – fixing the simple error and move on?

Or do you challenge that thinking? After all, it is 2010 and women do have girlfriends. The long-held tradition of deferring to the masculine pronoun when referring to an indeterminate person has fallen by the wayside, so why not traditional beliefs about relationships being primarily heterosexual. (I’m not making a social commentary on this.)

The best choice would be to recognize the issue and quickly consult the reporter before making a correction.

In soccer, the rules are called laws. Law 18 entrusts referees with the challenge of upholding the other 17, but to do so while using common sense and remembering the spirit of the game.

In journalism, the spirit of the game is producing the best publication possible and copy editors need to use common sense to make that happen.

Journalists need to be astronauts of cyberspace

The real problem for journalists is not that newspapers are becoming irrelevant. It’s that journalists are letting themselves become irrelevant.

With the advent of the Internet, citizen journalism is reaching new levels. Communication is no longer stifled by the monetary constraints of publishing and circulating a newspaper.

People can communicate their thoughts or events that happen around them from (almost) anywhere in the world for free.

The newspaper, a staple of American life throughout most of last century, has been replaced by blogs, microblogs like Twitter, and websites with RSS feeds accessible by mobile devices like laptops and cell phones.

This change represents significant improvement in the delivery medium of the news, but requires a paradigm shift for those who are stubbornly steadfast in the ways of old.

Sure, there are many competitors for readers’ attention, but that doesn’t mean one more can’t enter the fray and be successful.

Newspaper companies can survive; they just have to adapt different strategies for serving up audiences to advertisers.

First off, writing for the Internet requires the writer have patience, because the reader won’t. The writing needs to be even more accurate, brief and clear – which takes more time.

This certainly makes a case for keeping on the copy editor.

Although today, these people need to play a bigger role than combing through copy for errors of fact, grammar, style, etc… They should know basic HTML code, simple tricks for processing images, how to work with multimedia and more.

There’s a significant opportunity for employment here, but many resort to seeking alternative employment or lamenting on the American Copy Editors Society‘s forum about their disdain at having to do these tasks.

Secondly, these companies need to be innovative but useful.

Part of Twitter‘s intrigue is that while it’s revolutionary, it’s also simple enough to be used with ease across many different platforms operating on different systems.

That’s more than I can say for several news sites I’m unable to access on my phone – and I have a pretty advanced phone.

It’s really about giving the people what they want – not trying to revive a dying medium by forcing it on them.

Newspapers could have a leg-up in the digital world because they already possess credibility. Online, they could serve as a beacon to guide people through the abundance of unchallenged information.

Lastly, newspapers need to re-immerse themselves in the name of the game: profit.

It’s all fine and dandy to claim you’re out to save the world by raising awareness to current events, but if you don’t make any money, you won’t be around to do it very long.

One user on the ACES’ forum said that in five years the decline in print revenue is expected to stabilize. At that time, most analysts expect online content to only account for about 15 percent of the profit.

Switching focus to online content at the detriment to the print edition, which accounts for about 85 percent of the profit, doesn’t seem like a good idea, he said.

To that, I offer this: When 85 percent of your profit comes from the print edition, then you don’t have enough online content and it’s no wonder you’re going bankrupt.