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THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY VOL. 64 NO. 4 WINTER 2010
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Cover: Music from “Summer Days,” words and music by Gabrielle Goodman, from her book “Vocal Improvisation:
Techniques in Jazz, R&B, and Gospel Improvisation.” Goodman is a singer, songwriter and professor of voice at
Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.
Design: Diane Novetsky | Nova Design
The Beat: The Sports Reporter
51 The Sports Beat: A Digital Reporting Mix—With Exhaustion Built In | By Dave Kindred
54 Frank Deford: Sports Writing in the Internet Age | Excerpt from a speech by Frank Deford
56 The Sports Tweet: New Routines on an Old Beat | By Lindsay Jones
58 The Sportswriter as Fan: Me and My Blog | By Jason Fry
60 It’s a Brand-New Ballgame—For Sports Reporters | By Malcolm Moran
63 A Shrinking Sports Beat: Women’s Teams, Athletes | By Marie Hardin
3 Curator’s Corner: Expanding the Vision of the Nieman Foundation | By Bob Giles
Teaching Journalism?
Turn to Professor’s Corner—Nieman Reports’s companion
website. Here we combine stories from our pages with fresh
articles and useful links. We bundle these resources in ways
that provide ease of access to ideas for planning curriculum
with content that works well for classroom teaching. Here
are two highlights:
BY BOB GILES
W
hen I arrived at Lippmann House in early August presence in the world of narrative.
2000 to begin my tenure as curator, I had only In 2004, Barry Sussman, who edited coverage of Watergate
an inkling of the sweeping changes that would at The Washington Post, joined us to create the Nieman
wash over journalism and mainstream news organizations Watchdog Project (niemanwatchdog.org). It strengthens
during the coming decade. reporters’ ability to ask insightful questions by publish-
My predecessor, Bill Kovach, in announcing his retire- ing essays by experts with a deep knowledge of pertinent
ment, had a clearer picture of what the Nieman Founda- issues—a process similar to the learning experience of
tion needed: a leader who was closer to the technological Nieman Fellows in Harvard’s classrooms.
revolution sweeping the profession because of the Internet. In the fall of 2007, I told the Nieman Foundation Advisory
Instead of a curator with a Web 1.0 grasp of the new Board that it was important for the foundation to find its
digital world at that moment, Harvard hired a man who place in the critical discussions about how technology was
was, at best, a Web 0.0. Ten years later, as I prepare to changing journalism. We spent a year investigating the
retire in June, the foundation has a respected voice in the idea before deciding to launch a project that became the
vibrant conversations about the future of journalism. Its Nieman Journalism Lab (niemanlab.org). Joshua Benton,
online presence has built a large and growing audience who was just completing his Nieman year, was hired as
while enriching the experience of Nieman Fellows. director. Through a mixture of original reporting and
In my last years as a newspaper editor, I understood research, analysis and commentary, and the input of a
that an emerging culture of innovation and experimenta- vibrant community of innovators and thinkers, the lab has
tion would reshape journalism. I pushed my staff at The become a core resource for those who are trying to figure
Detroit News to launch detnews.com in 1995. I couldn’t out how quality journalism can thrive and survive in the
tell you how they did it, but I loved what my role as Internet age. By its second anniversary this October, the
editor empowered me to do: Hire talented people, give lab had generated 2.4 million page views.
them freedom to carry out their responsibilities, encourage The expansion of Walter Lippmann House in 2003
creativity, and enable them to bring the best ideas to life. enabled the foundation to introduce an era of Nieman
Meeting with the Nieman staff on that first day, I conferences. Fellows meet for seminars with policymakers,
recognized that change wouldn’t come quickly but that scholars and other journalists in this enlarged space, which
new thinking had to begin. Nieman Reports (nieman is where we host dinners, soundings, workshops and con-
reports.org) existed on the foundation’s website, though ferences. In her role as special projects manager, Stefanie
in rudimentary form. Through the years, the magazine’s Friedhoff, NF ’01, organizes a range of events for fellows,
digital footprint has grown considerably—with slideshows, the Harvard community, and targeted audiences where
audio and curated links supplementing its content—and reporters and potential sources meet in an environment
its global audience continues to expand via social media. that lessens tensions and misunderstandings and where
Editor Melissa Ludtke, NF ’92, and her staff serve journal- they are exposed to authoritative knowledge and fresh ideas.
ism educators through Professor’s Corner, where original The Nieman Foundation’s capacity for change and growth
content is paired online with stories from the magazine has been supported by a solid financial base built on an
for use by faculty and students. endowment that has grown substantially as part of the
The first major innovation was establishing the Nieman university’s investment portfolio. Over the past decade, the
Narrative Journalism Program. Mark Kramer came from foundation itself has raised $9 million from grant givers
Boston University in 2001 to build an annual conference to underwrite fellowships and programs and from friends
that drew many hundreds and associated the Nieman and alumni whose gifts helped pay off the investment in
Foundation with the best in journalistic storytelling. His enlarging and renovating Lippmann House.
successor, Constance Hale, brought the narrative experience I have come to deeply appreciate two of the Nieman
onto the foundation’s website, and when financial cutbacks Foundation’s many blessings: its special role as an indepen-
in 2009 forced us to suspend the conference, Andrea Pitzer, dent part of a university community that is welcoming to
an ’08 affiliate, stepped in to create Nieman Storyboard its fellows and a universe of journalists around the world
(niemanstoryboard.us), which sustains the foundation’s proud to say they are Nieman Fellows.
S ENERGY
cies, statehouses and city halls without a beat; longtime arts critics
RT who see their job descriptions change decide to move on, some
S A E
to the Web; and as the space for science reporting shrinks
in traditional media outlets, digital venues feature subdi-
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BY KATE GALBRAITH
T
his may sound sacrilegious, but I
have always found the concept of
beat reporting rather odd. Don’t get
me wrong: I can’t think of a better way
to divvy up the labor of getting out the
daily news—or up-to-the-minute news,
as the case may be. Beats help reporters
define their roles and ensure minimal
overlap. That’s efficient. But beats also
strike me as potentially limiting.
Imagine the news as a pie. There is
a wedge for the automotive industry, a
wedge for the airline industry, a wedge
for energy, a wedge for Wall Street, one
for personal finance, and so on. Actu-
ally, that’s just for business news, but
you get the idea.
Add up all the wedges, and there’s
plenty of unclaimed pie left over. When
do news organizations ever shine a light
on timber companies, for example—or
private prison operators or railroads
or plumbing conglomerates (if such
things exist)? Chemical companies?
Laundromats? Funeral parlors?
Sometimes the overlooked topics
may be more important than the ones
that dominate the headlines. Take the
industry I cover: energy. From the
amount of television, newspaper and
new media coverage—and I’m as guilty
as anyone—you would think the world
is flooded with solar panels and wind
turbines. Not true: Combined, those
two sources of energy provide only 2
percent of our electricity in this country.
Coal—which generates close to half of our
electricity—gets scant coverage, except of
course when there is an accident. (Ken
Ward, Jr.’s terrific Coal Tattoo blog for
the Charleston (W. Va.) Gazette is an
honorable exception.)
There’s a reason for this, of course.
Wind power consumes a lot of space on the energy beat, yet coal—powering close to Reporters by definition like to cover
half of our nation’s electricity—gets scant coverage. Image courtesy of SeaEnergy PLC. “new” stuff. A century ago, the oil
beat was a plum assignment, with Who knew that industry regulators for The Economist from 2005 to 2007,
wildcatters converging on Texas. But sometimes waived big environmental I became fascinated by alternative
nowadays who wants to dwell on the reviews for deepwater projects? Who energy so I wrote about the wind tur-
coal, oil and gas industries when there had ever heard of Transocean—a bines proliferating in West Texas and
are new problems in new industries company that even after the spill has the green initiatives of Wal-Mart. My
to be discovered. Will wind power a market capital of $21 billion, far successor has done more immigration
companies get stymied by complaints more than a recent guess at Twit- stories. The balance is probably good
over noise and ruined views? When will ter’s valuation ($1.6 billion). Frankly, for readers.
solar panels get cheaper? How do you it terrifies me to think about what Local media has less discretion
store the energy produced by sources industries—nuclear waste storage, because its coverage has stricter
like the wind or sun, which work only anyone?—we’re neglecting, especially geographical bounds. These days, I
in accordance with nature’s whim? given current financial pressures on cover energy and the environment for
These are some of the cutting-edge media outlets. The Texas Tribune, an online start-up
questions of the modern day. and a job I truly love. There
Similarly, I’m struck by the are certain subjects I can’t
amount of coverage devoted skip—battles between Texas
to the proliferation of social and the Environmental Pro-
media. I like Twitter as much Take the industry I cover, energy. From tection Agency over air pol-
as the next person, but it the amount of television, newspaper and lution permits, for example,
accounts for a total of about and controversy over a natural
10 minutes of my day (well, new media coverage—and I’m as guilty gas drilling technique known
maybe 20). And I’m far from as hydraulic fracturing. And
fluent in FourSquare, reddit, as anyone—you would think the world I have pages of ideas, many
and some of the other Very is flooded with solar panels and wind of which will never see the
Important Inventions that, light of day because I just
judging from the coverage turbines. Not true: Combined, those two don’t have time.
they get, are about to revo- The proliferation of new
lutionize the world. Privately, sources of energy provide only 2 percent media is actually helping
I enjoy the irony that daily of our electricity in this country. to solve the problem of too
newspapers—the dinosaur much news. The nonprofit
print type—devote columns Texas Tribune sees itself as a
of space to these trends, when complement to other media,
their pre-Baby Boomer read- not a competitor. So if I see a
ers probably have less of a clue about T here is so much more to story from a Texas paper that touches
this stuff than I do. I also am tickled cover. I sometimes feel that if only on an area I haven’t covered, I tweet
by the fact that the one old-industry time, money and talent allowed, it out to my followers and put a link
beat that the media never neglect is there could be five New York on TribWire—our homepage feed for
... newspapers. Times’s worth of news every day, with interesting stories about Texas from
Coverage of new technologies is (in theory) no sacrifice of quality. There around the Web. Unless I have some-
natural and important. Times and would be room to cover the wedges thing meaningful to add, I happily
habits are changing, and I don’t mean that fall outside of traditional beats cross the topic off my list.
to suggest otherwise. News must and room to delve into the neglected Twitter and Google, in other words,
be forward-looking. But there’s also corners of existing beats. help knock off more wedges from the
a danger of neglecting traditional collective news pie, by bringing readers
industries. The Randomness of News into contact with stories they might
There’s no better illustration of this not have seen otherwise. Even still,
than the BP oil spill. Day after day This leads me to my final theory, there is a lot to cover—and there’s
this past summer, new and extraor- which is that the nature of news is less reason than ever to wall oneself
dinary revelations tumbled out about essentially random. Sure, any media off into a silo. A beat functions best
the offshore oil drilling business, as outlet has things it must cover—the as a starting point, not a boundary.
journalists and investigators turned economy, elections and so forth. But
their full attention to the Gulf. Who because far more news exists than Kate Galbraith, a 2008 Nieman
knew there was such a thing as blow- any single media outlet can handle, Fellow, covers energy and the envi-
out preventers, and that the United it’s up to the reporters’ (and editors’) ronment for The Texas Tribune.
States (unlike Norway or Brazil) didn’t discretion as to where their interests
require remote-control switches that lie. For example, when I served as the
could activate them if all else failed? Austin-based Southwest correspondent
T
o understand how badly we’re of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid this isn’t happening just with beat
doing the most basic work of of the Wrong Things.” By my sights, reporters but with the assignment
journalism in covering the law the problems Glassner described have and copy editors who are supposed
enforcement beat, try sitting in a bar- gotten worse, much worse. to review stories before they get into
bershop. When I was getting my last print or on the air.
haircut, the noon news on the televi- Does Anybody Care? In the first 10 months of this year, a
sion—positioned to be impossible to Nexis database search shows, newspa-
avoid watching—began with a grisly Beats are fundamental to journalism, pers and wire services reported more
murder. The well-educated man in the but our foundation is crumbling. Whole than 1,700 times that juries, grand
chair next to me started ranting about huge agencies of the federal govern- or petite, handed down indictments
how crime is out of control. ment and, for many news organizations, and verdicts.
But it isn’t. I told Frank, a regular, the entirety of state government go Sometimes I pick up the phone and
that crime isn’t running wild and his uncovered. There are school boards call reporters whose stories contain
chance of being burglarized today is and city councils and planning com- this incredibly dumb mistake and
less than one quarter what it was in missions that have not seen a reporter politely try to educate them. Perhaps
1980.1 The shop turned so quiet you in years. The outrageous salaries that it’s obnoxious, but somebody needs
could have heard a hair fall to the were paid to Bell, California city to do it. Some reporters ask me
floor had the scissors not stopped. The officials—close to $800,000 to the what difference it makes. A few have
barbers and clients listened intently as city manager, for example—would not insisted that down is correct. Really,
I next told them about how the number have happened if just one competent I ask. Even if people have never been
of murders in America peaked back reporter had been covering that city in the courtroom, they would know
in the early 1990’s at a bit south of hall in Southern California. But no from movies and television that the
25,000 and fell to fewer than 16,000 one was, and it took an accidental judge sits in the highest position
in 2009. When we take population set of circumstances for two reporters and therefore juries hand up while
growth into account, this means your from the Los Angeles Times to reveal judges hand down. When I’ve asked
chance of being murdered has almost this scandal. [See box about the Bell, reporters and some editors how many
been cut in half. California story on page 23.] votes are needed for a jury to convict,
“So why is there so much crime on Four decades ago when I covered I’ve sometimes gotten back cautious,
the news every day?” Diane, who was local government meetings in Silicon slow or wrong answers. And it’s not a
cutting Frank’s hair, asked. Valley for the San Jose Mercury, I trick question. If any reporter doesn’t
“Because it’s cheap,” I replied. “And always asked for copies of the agency instantly know this answer, then alarms
with crime news you only have to get budget. In those days, before spread- should sound and training should
the cops’ side of the story. There is no sheets or the first pocket calculator had promptly commence.
ethical duty to ask the arrested for been invented, I did long division in Far too much of journalism consists
their side of the story.” the margins to figure out trends and of quoting what police, prosecutors,
Cheap news is a major reason that how the taxpayers’ money was being politicians and publicists say—and
every day we are failing in our core spent. It not only relieved the tedium this is especially the case with beat
mission of providing people with the of the meetings I sat through, but it reporters. It’s news on the cheap and
knowledge they need for our democ- produced story after story after story most of it isn’t worth the time it takes
racy to function. Barry Glassner, in that engaged readers and at times to read, hear or watch. Don’t take my
an important book every journalist infuriated officials while protecting word for it. Instead look at declining
should read, tells us how cheap news the public purse. circulation figures. People know value
badly done spreads false beliefs and Increasingly what I see are news and they know when what they’re get-
racial distrust. It’s been a decade reports evidencing a basic lack of ting is worth their time or worth the
since he came out with “The Culture knowledge about government. And steadily rising cost of a subscription.
1
Upon further checking, I learned that the chance of getting burglarized today is actually
42.5 percent of what it was in 1980.
Judy Pasternak, a former reporter same time that thin staffing and
at the Los Angeles Times, drew on increased workloads make it more
expertise she developed covering the difficult for reporters to transform
environment, science and other beats daily assignments into books.
to write her first book. “Yellow Dirt: Two years ago the journalism
An American Story of a Poisoned Land department at Boston University’s
and a People Betrayed,” published College of Communication convened
this past fall by the Free Press, builds a conference called “The Nonfiction
on her series in the Times which Book as the Last Best Home for
focused on private companies that Journalism.” Ron Suskind, who had
mined uranium on Navajo land for left his job as senior national affairs
decades and failed to protect their writer for The Wall Street Journal
workers or the environment. to pursue book-writing full time,
At the time of the series, Paster- identified the challenge of building a
nak was a member of the paper’s “strategic model” so that journalists
Washington-based national investiga- who develop deep expertise on their
tive team. The series and the book beats will have the resources to sustain
represent what Pasternak called a themselves while they write books.
“harmonic convergence” of subjects, “The audience is hungry for such
including ethnic and race relations, stories,” Suskind said. “But who will
she covered during her 24 years at be paid to tell them and by whom?”
the Times. As book publishers in an era of
In her book’s acknowledgements Times, there would have been no e-books face their own set of economic
Pasternak credits the essential book,” she writes. Now, the Times, challenges—and smaller advances
role that a newspaper can play in like so many other papers, has had are being paid to reporters-turned-
enabling a reporter to become an to cut back on its ambitions to take authors—Suskind’s question takes on
author. “Without the Los Angeles on sprawling, complex stories at the a new level of urgency.
Less for More budget for Montgomery County, the find out that which is important but
wealthiest and most important county that they did not know. We call this
I also am board chairman and part for the newspaper’s financial success. information the news.
owner of a very small business—we The story was mostly about the three Far too much of what we produce
manage a small hotel—that follows a commissioners yelling at each other. today is already widely known. We
different customer policy than news- The total budget was mentioned, fill so many pages with rehashed or
papers do. Every year the three papers almost in passing, with no hint of known information that on many days
I subscribe to cut quality and raise whether it meant property taxes would these publications could properly be
prices. When we charge our guests go up or down, more money would be called oldspapers. It’s not like there
more, we give them something more— spent on roads or less, or any of the isn’t important and revealing news
nicer shampoo, fluffier towels—and we other basics that readers want to know. all around us. There is. It’s just that
tell them about the new benefit. Why For this I paid money? I could only we seem swept up in a herd mentality
should we think people would pay imagine the reaction of the residents with too narrow a focus and too much
more for less and do so repeatedly? of Montgomery County. eagerness to rely on what sources
One day a decade or so ago when This problem is not with the break- tell us rather than asking these same
Amtrak said my Metroliner would down in the centuries-old economic people to address important facts that
be delayed at 30th Street Station in model, a simple model that many lie in plain sight in the public record.
Philadelphia, I ran upstairs and bought journalists do not really understand. Much of what passes for reporting
The Philadelphia Inquirer, where I Connecting buyers and sellers who about government these days is not
worked for seven years. Buried inside are in search of one another pays the only information that is useless, it is
I found a half column about the new bills. What draws them is a desire to laughable nonsense, and I have the
coffee stains on my robe to prove it. During the past 15 years as I focused and sniffing out news, then a firm
Every morning I read “Beat the Press” my reporting on how the American foundation of knowledge about the
on the Center for Economic and Policy economy works and the role of gov- topic is essential, though not sufficient.
Research website, which is liberal ernment in shaping how the benefits Combine this with a curiosity to dig
economist Dean Baker’s critique of the and burdens of the economy are deeply into the myriad of documents
economic theory, policy and “facts” he distributed, I’ve grown increasingly that are in the public record—and then
finds on the front pages of The New dismayed at the superficial and often ask sources about what the documents
York Times, The Washington Post, and dead wrong assumptions permeating show.
other media outlets. Baker routinely the news. Every day in highly respected
picks apart articles that are as far newspapers I read well-crafted stories David Cay Johnston, while
from reality as a weather story that with information that in years past I working at The New York Times,
says the sun rose in the West. would have embraced but now know won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for
Sometimes I send these criticisms is nonsense, displaying a lack of Beat Reporting for his coverage
on to the ombudsman or top editors understanding of economic theory and of loopholes and inequities in the
of the offending publications. I have the regulation of business. The stories U.S. tax code. He is a columnist for
even put together packages showing even lack readily available official data Tax Analysts and teaches the law
from the newspaper’s own clips that on the economy and knowledge of the of the ancient world at Syracuse
what was printed is utterly false. But I language and principles in the law, University’s law and graduate busi-
rarely see any corrections made nor any including the Constitution. ness schools. “The Fine Print,” the
insistence that writers actually know What these stories have in common third book in his series about the
what they are writing about when it is a reliance on what sources say rather American economy, is scheduled to be
comes to government policy, economic than what the official record shows. If published in 2011 by Penguin.
policy, taxes or treaties. covering a beat means finding sources
BY JUANITA LEÓN
I
am convinced that the Internet is being told. They are the stories that not an easy task. Fewer than 40 percent
changing journalism in ways we lie behind the news media’s typical of the people who live in Colombia
never could have imagined only a daily political reporting. have Internet access. And although the
few years ago. The idea of the reported In the United States, political blogs Internet enables a multitude of voices
story as being the basic unit of jour- are too numerous to count. But in to be heard, it doesn’t guarantee that
nalism is being shaken by the Web’s Colombia, La Silla Vacía is the first everyone will be heard.
way of sharing information, and along such experiment with sustainable
with this change comes a rethinking independent journalism. Here, news The Digital Political Beat
about the concept of the beat itself. organizations are concentrated among
A year and a half ago I set up an a few business conglomerates and As happens with any new enter-
investigative political blog called La families with political backgrounds prise—digital or otherwise—it takes
Silla Vacía (“The Empty Seat”). It is so a news reporting outlet set up by time to truly know what the audience
a website dedicated to covering how journalists is truly innovative. has made of it. It also takes time for
power is exercised in Colombia and, as Although blogs are usually con- those directing it to understand what
such, it serves as a discussion platform sidered alternative media, I wanted it is really about. Since launching the
about public issues in my country. With La Silla Vacía to be regarded as a website in March 2009, one thing I
a staff of seven—and about 60 unpaid mainstream publication—to reside in have observed is that La Silla Vacía
contributors—La Silla Vacía publishes the center of the political debate in has been converted into a new—and
stories that before we existed were not Colombia, not on the fringes. It was influential—political beat. What we
For example, until four years ago we watch closely what these women’s the Web; we have set up a schedule
abortion was illegal in Colombia in groups report; they give us tips and for our reporters to navigate the Web
all circumstances. After an intense information that we investigate further, all day long and to tweet about what
fight by women’s organizations, the and once we publish the story we post we see happening in the Colombian
Constitutional Court ruled that abor- it in their Facebook groups to feed political blogosphere in real time.
tion is permitted when the woman’s life them with information. We follow the This strategy for beat reporting pays
or health, including mental health, is same process with advocacy networks off. Despite our tiny staff and small
in danger, when the fetus has severe involved with other topics we cover. budget, La Silla Vacía has become a
malformations, or when the woman So while the topic becomes our mandatory stop for political junkies in
had been raped. beat, our stories are as much about this country. We are the beat reporters
Although the ruling was a huge what our reporters find as what we they turn to when they are looking
victory for women, its implementation curate from the Web. It’s our job to for news.
in a country that is still Catholic has select the best information produced by
not been easy. But women’s groups the audience and make it more easily Juanita León, a 2007 Nieman
are following the process closely, and available for other users. This means Fellow, is the founder and editor
this means that they have a lot of that part of a reporter’s time spent of La Silla Vacía, a political news
information about it. At La Silla Vacía, covering a beat is devoted to scanning website in Colombia.
BY ELIZABETH MAUPIN
L
ike most reporters, theater critics critic for the Seattle
are not generally accused of being Post-Intelligencer)
discreet. Granted, most of us don’t estimates that in
actually use those notorious pens that 2005 there may
light up in the dark. But we’re still have been about
sitting there, scratching away on our 5,000 people cov-
reporters’ notebooks, while audience ering various arts
members all around us are trying to beats for American
concentrate on the play. newspapers—crit-
As a shy person, I used to cringe at ics, feature writ-
intermission when people asked me, ers, cultural news
“Why are you taking notes?” reporters, and
Now I dislike it even more—because many who did all
I don’t know what to say. three.
In February I quit my job after Now, because of
more than 26 years as the Orlando layoffs, cutbacks
Sentinel’s theater critic. Used to be and the death of American newspapers have sharply reduced coverage of the arts
I had an answer when people asked several major news- while the number of blogs covering this beat is on the rise.
me what I did. Now I’m not so sure. papers, McLennan
As a refugee from daily newspa- says, that number
pering, I’m one of thousands of arts has been cut in half. And that’s a not specifically targeted—and the
journalists who in the past couple of radical reduction, even in an industry nature of buyouts may mean that they
years have found themselves footloose. that, according to the American Society weren’t—half of all arts staff positions
Douglas McLennan, the founder of Newspaper Editors, has lost more is still a pretty big bite.
and editor of ArtsJournal.com (and than one newsroom job in four since Arts journalists have watched in
himself a former classical music 2001. Even if arts journalists were wonder as the carnage has taken
place. In 2007 The Atlanta Journal- Over the past few years, though, We also live in a society in which
Constitution eliminated many of its that situation changed. A couple “elite” and “intellectual” have become
critics’ jobs; four more of its arts of new editors had less interest in dirty words. Many newspaper editors
writers took buyouts in 2009. Earlier reviews. I was reassigned half-time to seem to have fallen for the idea that
this year Variety laid off four arts write news stories about arts groups covering NASCAR is egalitarian but
writers, including its chief film and as institutions; most of those stories covering a gallery opening is not. In
theater critics. Movie critics have lost were about budgets, not about art. I its rush to embrace whatever sells, the
their jobs in Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, was expected to count how many of newspaper industry has jumped on the
Dallas and Denver, among other cit- my stories were about the so-called back of celebrity culture, and cover-
ies, and their copy has been replaced “business of the arts” and how many ing Lindsay Lohan’s latest bust—or
by wire. This summer the Orange about theater, and I had to make sure a sordid and perennial child-murder
County Register eliminated its highly the latter never took the majority of case here in Orlando—has been judged
regarded Arts Blog and reassigned its my time. to sell papers.
classical music critic and reporter to A sympathetic arts editor shielded Newspapers no longer lead; they
the celebrity beat. me. But when she quit (to take a less follow wherever a fickle public decides
My own circle of theater-critic anxiety-producing job outside daily to go. And they follow the advertis-
friends has been caught in the same newspapers), the stresses of what ing bucks, even if editors say that
wave. In the past few years senior has happened to newspapering got advertising and editorial do not mix.
theater critics have taken buyouts at the best of me. I was sad about the Sports sections get plenty of adver-
the (Newark) Star-Ledger, the Milwau- failing state of journalism. I was sad tising money. Automobile sections
kee Journal Sentinel, the Detroit Free about the direction of the Sentinel. I and travel sections still exist largely
Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and was sad that I no longer was allowed because they are backed by the car
The San Diego Union-Tribune. Others to do what I loved to do. and travel industries. Arts sections
have left newspapers to take on more Others have written (a lot) about why suffer because many or most local
secure jobs outside journalism. all this has happened. Many blame the arts groups are nonprofits, and they
And my former colleagues at the Internet, and certainly the rise of the had little money for ads even before
Orlando Sentinel have felt their share Internet has made new critical voices the economy turned sour.
of the turbulence—the TV critic reas- easier to hear. In the old days of print
signed to blog about media, celebrities supremacy, a medium-sized city like Filling the Void
and crime; the pop music critic split Orlando, Florida would have had a
between music and a Florida travel theater critic at the daily newspaper So does any of this matter, except to
column; the movie critic reduced to and a couple of freelance critics at those of us who are no longer doing
reviewing only the films that aren’t an alternative weekly. Nowadays the the jobs we loved? In the short term,
covered by a sister paper, the Chicago same city might still have somebody yes—especially to arts groups and the
Tribune. writing about theater at the daily audiences they are trying to reach.
paper (although that person is much Older people, especially, often have
Changing Notions more likely to be a freelancer), and no access to the Internet, and they
the alternative paper still manages still make up a large percentage of the
I was lucky, mostly. For most of my to pay a critic or two. But the rise of audience for the arts. Almost every
26 years, three months, two weeks, bloggers means that any performance time I go to a play, an art opening, or
and six days at the Sentinel, I was I go to in Orlando is likely to have a cocktail party, an elderly arts lover
privileged to do exactly what I wanted four or five reviewers sitting in the approaches me and talks about how
to do—to write in depth about theater audience, and most of those people she misses what I used to do.
both local and national, to review have been vetted for credentials by And arts organizations are scram-
plays, and to build bridges between nobody but themselves. bling to figure out how to get the word
theater companies and the audiences Many audience members don’t know out in cities where newspaper criticism
they serve. I loved using the process or care about the difference, and that’s has all but died. Many groups have
of writing to figure out what I thought a key point. Today, in America, we’re used mass e-mails to their advantage,
and felt, and I loved being a conduit schooled to believe that one person’s jumped on the Facebook bandwagon,
to readers for that feeling. I loved the opinion is just as good as another’s. and reveled in the fact that there’s
fact that the more light I was able to That’s democracy in action, many now no gatekeeper between them and
shed on theater in the Orlando area, people think, and they’re tone-deaf the ticket buyer. Others, especially
the stronger it grew. to the differences between someone smaller, less sophisticated groups,
My job felt like a partnership who’s dashing off a personal opinion have struggled to get their word out
between me, the theaters, and the and someone who has spent years see- and to find people to fill their seats.
audience, and all of us blossomed ing, listening to, studying and writing At the same time, though, intelligent
along the way. about a particular form of art. Internet journalists are taking up the
slack, at least in some cities. In south tive blogging has not sprung up to called me “Orlando’s critic of record,”
Florida, Lawrence A. Johnson, the replace what has been lost. I was thrilled.
former classical music critic for The As for me, after I quit the Sentinel I have no problem filling my time.
Miami Herald, started South Florida I felt both grief and emancipation. But I still worry how to answer when
Classical Review in 2008 after the Actually, I had been grieving for the somebody turns to me at intermission
region’s three major dailies reduced state of journalism for a couple of years and asks why I’m taking notes.
their coverage. Now it has a sister site, so deciding to leave mainly filled me “I have a blog,” I say.
South Florida Theater Review, whose with relief. I sleep better. I eat better. Yeah, me and 96,000 other people—
lead critic, Bill Hirschman, came from I write on the back porch and listen give or take a few million.
the (South Florida) Sun-Sentinel. to the squirrels taunt my cats.
Other similar websites exist for I have scaled back some grand Elizabeth Maupin left her job earlier
theater, books, art, dance and other plans to start an arts blog to cover this year after 26 years as the
kinds of music, and more are spring- everything artistic that moves in central Orlando Sentinel’s theater critic. Her
ing up all the time. Yet many of those Florida. Instead, I review plays and blog—Orlandotheater.com—is where
sites don’t pay their writers, and most cover theater news for my own website she now writes about theater.
struggle to make ends meet. In many and am gratified when theater people
cities, especially smaller ones, substan- refer to me favorably. When somebody
BY DIANA K. SUGG
I
couldn’t sleep that night. It was 3
a.m. The house was quiet and dark.
I slipped out of bed and walked
back through the house to the guest
room, the room that would be the
nursery. Sitting down on the rug, I
hugged my knees to my chest and
breathed in. I knew that from this
night on, everything would be differ-
ent. I was pregnant, and I was going
to be a mother.
For years, I’d been the career gal.
As a young reporter, I was handed
the police beat, and I quickly got
addicted. In the buzzing newsroom,
under fluorescent lights late into the
night, I cranked out story after story.
Then I took on the medical beat, and
I found myself even more enthralled.
I once described it as the journalistic
equivalent of the emergency room, Diana K. Sugg finds new rhythms in her life as the mother of Oliver, left, and Sam. Photo
with too many stories, too little time, by Monica Lopossay.
but a lot of responsibility for getting it
right. [See accompanying box for an of other newsroom beats. For any story of as many as 20 other ideas.
excerpt from Sugg’s article about beat published, I’d be tracking five others, From newspaper to newspaper, I
reporting.] Not too different from a lot fielding 10 wacky calls, and letting go kept up that pace. Many of my friends,
meanwhile, were getting married. One “Dancing Queen.” He laughed at me. stories like they were water.
by one, they had a child, then a second. It turned out to be easier to write The work I cherished was slipping
I cheered them on, and then I went about other people’s lives than to live away and so was the confidence I’d
back to the newsroom I loved. Never my own. It seemed as though the had as a reporter. Things about my life
had I felt more myself than when I was very qualities that had wired me for as a mother and my former life as a
at my desk, finding my way through journalism made it tougher for me to journalist got even more complicated
a story, or with a stranger, doing an be a mother. On crime and medical when we moved to Switzerland for
interview. On the beat, I was at home. stories, being sensitive gave me a better my husband’s work, and our second
feel for what people had endured. But son was born.
Motherhood as a Beat now, when I tried to let Sam cry so Then one night as I emptied the
he would supposedly fall asleep on his diaper genie, I had a flashback. I
But for all of the ways it felt like own, all that empathy just didn’t help. saw myself in the wire room at The
reporting came naturally, motherhood Seeking guidance from other parents, (Baltimore) Sun, grabbing the stack
didn’t. I didn’t know how to change experts or studies—my instinct from of faxes. At first, I’d hated slogging
a diaper. I couldn’t get the infant car the medical beat—also backfired. As in through those press releases. But as
seat installed properly. I’d traded in so many child-rearing issues, there were I got more experienced, I could whip
the messenger bag I had slung so eas- far too many conflicting opinions, and through them like a pro. Occasionally
ily over my shoulder for a diaper bag little science to support any of them. my eye would land on one detail, the
that wasn’t any bigger, but I carried What I didn’t know yet was that clue to a great story.
it awkwardly. And when I tried to get much of motherhood turns out to rely That is when I had the epiphany:
my son Sam to sleep, he stayed awake. on trial and error. I didn’t realize that These early years of motherhood were
That first week my baby boy lay as long as Sam skipped naps and woke like being a rookie reporter on the beat.
on a soft blanket on our big bed, his up at night, I wouldn’t be able to do I recalled how, early on, each beat felt
fists clenched. He looked up at me any part-time work. I would need every like some big unbroken country—its
with his serious, brown eyes. It sud- minute of babysitting time just to get territory too vast to embrace. But
denly occurred to me that I couldn’t some sleep. But I missed reporting in time, some of the paths became
remember any nursery rhymes or even and writing. I found myself crawling familiar. I discovered that there were
a lullaby. On instinct, I began to sing into bed at night with a flashlight to diamonds buried in the routine faxes
my own off-pitch version of Abba’s read newspapers. I gulped down the and briefs. Soon I was finding my way.
I thought about those early news- like smooth stones I could rub my floor, and the boys would climb all
room experiences. I remembered how fingers on. Follow my instincts. Put over me like puppies.
I’d kept up a furious pace on the in the time. Learn which sources to One winter night, when Sammy kept
crime beat, finding too many stories listen to and which to tune out. Figure waking up, I walked back and forth
and feeling compelled to pursue every out what really matters. And perhaps in the dark, his body sagging against
one. Now without realizing it, I’d fallen the biggest of all: To get some things, mine. I began to sing “Shenandoah.”
into that same trap as a mother. Just you must let go of others. My voice came out strong and clear,
when Sam fell asleep, instead of getting I knew what I had to do. Just as I’d in a way it never had. The melody was
some rest, I was like a cops reporter reluctantly set aside many stories, I had bitter and sweet, and the world was
on deadline. I seized the time to try to ruthlessly pare down my life. I still hushed. Whatever had been, whatever
to cram in laundry, e-mail, house carried a notebook everywhere I went. was to come, I could do it. I’d found
repairs, and work. I still wrote ledes in my head. But for my lullaby.
On the beat and as a mother, I was now, my beat had changed, and I had
so busy getting everything done that to make it my own. I became expert Diana K. Sugg worked for 18 years
I had forgotten to stand up and look at hoisting my chubby toddlers into as a newspaper reporter and won
around. Where was I? What track was their double stroller with one arm and national awards for her crime and
I heading down? What was on the running with them through the hills medical stories, including the 2003
horizon? Being on a beat, it turned of a sprawling park. I regaled Sammy Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting at
out, meant not only digging in every and Oliver with elaborate tales, told The (Baltimore) Sun. Now living
day, but also having a command of by characters in funny accents. We in Baltimore, Sugg is raising two
your territory, a sense of the bigger crawl-raced around the apartment young sons and plans to do freelance
picture. until my knees were calloused. When writing.
One by one, these lessons came back I was too tired, I didn’t need to do
to me. They were solid and familiar, anything more than lie down on the
BY BETH MACY
N
otes from a recent week on the including the wife of the alleged a much younger colleague that the
family beat at The Roanoke “coke-snorting ax murderer,” who video wasn’t good enough to post
(Va.) Times, the 88,000-cir- is actually just an angry landowner but the story is running on the front
culation paper where I’ve spent most sick to death of trespassing teens. page.
of my career: (Favorite quote: “No, no. He does • Attended a mandatory training
not threaten them with an ax. He session on libel where the takeaway
• Made calls for a possible story on carries a shotgun.”) was don’t write anything bad about
a truck driver who reunited with • Prepped for an upcoming trip to a source in a personal e-mail, ever.
his daughter in Germany via Skype Haiti to report on a local mission
after being apart for nine years. worker who’s been instrumental in Then I spent the rest of the week
• Followed a story tip from my 16-year- post-earthquake recovery. worrying about the following: mean
old who announced recently that he • Finished fact checking 300 inches of e-mails I’ve written about sources,
wanted to go to the Seven Gates of copy for a three-part series I wrote the recent cholera outbreak in Haiti,
Hell, an allegedly haunted farm that on the controversy engulfing Lyme and God-knows-how-many ticks I just
turns out to be scary for reasons disease, which is newly endemic in picked up tromping around the Seven
unrelated to the paranormal. our region. Gates of Hell.
• Used a video camera and old- • Spent 12 hours editing the Seven Things on the family beat were
fashioned note taking to interview Gates video (my first) and six hours infinitely easier back in the good old
teens, police and farm owners, writing the story, only to learn from days, right?
The Family Beat When I took over the family beat in the Motherlode, Michelle Slatalla on
2007, it finally stood on its own. Our what it was like to be a Wife/Mother/
When I came to The Roanoke Times staff size had shrunk considerably, like Worker/Spy, and Paula Span on the
in 1989, I was a generalist. I gravitated everyone else’s, and remaining staff- challenges of caregiving in The New
toward features about funny things— ers were challenged to juggle more Old Age. These are promising develop-
Southerners’ enduring fixation with things than ever while also learning ments, according to this middle-aged
tomato sandwiches, for instance. Or all things online. feminist who remembers when most
teenage Dumpster divers. Or a 9-year- But my editor didn’t cut family newspapers rarely deigned to cover
old boy who was obsessed with vacuum coverage at our paper; she gave it a family life—you know, that thing we
cleaners. But most of the time I wrote promotion. Clearly, this wasn’t hap- spend 80 percent of our lives thinking,
about serious stuff—teen pregnancy, pening everywhere. When I judged planning and fretting about.
In a midsized market
like ours, I’m privileged
to be able to continue
to tell in-depth and inti-
mate stories about real
people and their joys and
struggles—from a 10-part
series on caregiving to a
feature on teen pranksters
who set out chasing ghosts
in a cow pasture, only to
run up against a shotgun-
wielding farmer. They are
enterprising local stories
that people won’t find
anywhere else—except in
living rooms and around
kitchen tables. If we tell
them well, it won’t matter
what medium we use. They
can be our saving grace.
Covering families at a
mid-sized newspaper is
a lot like mothering. You
Beth Macy documented the struggles of family members and paid helpers caring for the frail elderly in laugh. You cry. You never
her 10-part series, “Age of Uncertainty.” Photo by Josh Meltzer/The Roanoke Times. know what will happen
next. This week I found
myself doing a dozen things
race relations, a lawyer with stage the Casey Medals competition at the I never planned on doing—climbing
four melanoma who bucked doctors’ Journalism Center on Children & over cattle gates (in a skirt), detaching
advice to get her affairs in order and Families in 2008 and again in 2010, audio from a video clip, interviewing
took up marathon running instead. I wasn’t the only person who noticed a Yale researcher about the mating
When I moved from features to news a decrease in both the quantity and habits of ticks. Then I cashed another
to become the family beat reporter, quality of the entries, especially from paycheck and wondered for the mil-
editor Carole Tarrant said she wanted smaller markets like ours. lionth time: Really? They pay me for
to elevate such stories to the front page. The family beat wasn’t just an this?
In the past the beat had lingered at our afterthought anymore; it seemed to
paper, often tasked to reporters who be altogether estranged from the Beth Macy, a 2010 Nieman Fellow,
were busy covering other things—this, newspaper. is the family beat reporter at The
in a slow-news city that’s constantly Roanoke (Va.) Times. In 2007 and
touted as a great place to raise kids. The Family Blog 2009 she won awards in the Casey
In the 1980’s and 1990’s, the family Medals contest for her coverage of
beat was lumped in with coverage of Meanwhile, “mom” blogs and columns children and families.
social services—adoption issues, foster emerged to pick up some of this
care, welfare and the like. Then it reporting slack. At The New York
became part of our health care beat. Times, Lisa Belkin filled us in on
BY MICHAEL RILEY
O
ne of the enduring mysteries
for an editor lies in trying to
divine what readers really want.
There are almost as many answers to
that question as there are readers, and
the more editors try to meet everyone’s
needs, the less they are able to meet
anyone’s. Breadth trumps depth and
coverage loses its focus. The idea of
a reporter covering any single beat—
with anything approaching the level
of expertise that gives readers a value-
added dimension—becomes a quaint
anachronism.
In recent years, the beat has become
the Rodney Dangerfield of journalism:
It just doesn’t get the respect it deserves.
That approach, however, is about to
undergo a radical transformation as
journalism, searching desperately for
its future, begins to discover, once
again, the profound value of expertise,
exclusivity and depth. Those are the
elements, it turns out, that imbue
content with value, a process, I would
argue, that holds the key to journal-
ism’s future success.
The next wave of journalistic prog-
ress will channel its power from the
underlying principle of the reporter’s
beat: the creation by an expert of
valuable content that readers need
and can’t find anywhere else. This
proper emphasis on expertise promises
to give rise to a subscription-based
business model in which people will
pay for exclusive content they value.
It’s a way to resolve the question
dogging journalists as they search for
resources to fund reporting. Unless
readers recognize value in what they
are getting, they are unwilling to pay
for its production.
Right now I’m fortunate to be
Bloomberg Government’s beat is where industry and lawmaking intersect. involved in helping to build a venture
founded upon that premise. It’s called Deep Niches: BGOV is designed to costs and retreating from beats, BGOV
Bloomberg Government (BGOV), and target certain subject areas: health is embracing the expertise that comes
it may hold some important lessons for care, energy, defense, technology, from them. Most of the journalists we’re
the future of journalism. This online transportation, finance, trade, taxation, hiring arrive with years of experience
service, launched as a private beta labor and government contracting. covering beats such as health care
website in July 2010, focuses on the We understand what’s important to policy, technology and defense. Simi-
business implications of government subscribers about those issues, and by larly, many of the analysts we’re signing
actions, namely legislation, regulation diving deeply into those niches we’ll on—whether they are academics with
and spending. When BGOV launches distinguish our content offering. PhDs or industry veterans—bring with
in January 2011, it will offer exclusive them the deep knowledge that comes
news, data and analysis targeted at Exclusivity: Our goal is to produce with study and direct experience. Of
government and business leaders. exclusive content—i.e., high-value course, these experts will also act as
Our goal: to give our subscribers—at reporting—that subscribers won’t find mentors to younger reporters as they
a cost of $5,700 a year—the detailed elsewhere. We’ll zig while others zag. learn these beats.
information they need to
help them make timely and Online Innovation: BGOV
effective decisions. will, of course, provide an
A central premise of BGOV [Bloomberg array of online features to
Expertise as a Bridge amplify our reporters’ and
Government] is that there is a need in analysts’ expertise. There
A central premise of BGOV will be data visualization,
is that there is a need in Washington and across corporate America ranging from in-depth
Washington and across for in-depth information about the graphics and charts to in-
corporate America for in- teractive displays, and tools
depth information about intersection of business and government. such as a report builder,
the intersection of business online directories, and map-
and government. The impact The impact government decisions have ping capabilities.
government decisions have on business has increased dramatically in
on business has increased Bloomberg Government,
dramatically in recent years recent years and so has the desire to better a part of Bloomberg News,
and so has the desire to bet- is a natural outgrowth of
ter understand one another. understand one another. BGOV bridges that Bloomberg LP, created by
BGOV bridges that gap, in gap, in large part, by building an editorial Michael Bloomberg, now
large part, by building an the New York City mayor,
editorial model that adopts model that adopts the best of a almost 30 years ago. He
the best of a beat-reporting launched Bloomberg News
approach. Here are thumb- beat-reporting approach. for financial professionals,
nail descriptions of some and the company has been
aspects of Bloomberg Gov- continuously enhancing the
ernment that replicate the database-driven product.
focus, expertise, exclusivity and depth A Unique Editorial Model: We are meld- Back then, Bloomberg identified a
of a beat: ing teams of journalists and analysts market need, created a unique product
to create a hybrid editorial model. based on deep expertise, and built an
A Laser-Like Mission: BGOV is all about The analysts will include economists, immensely successful business.
the business impact of government financial experts, former Congressional In the landscape of 21st century
actions, which fosters a sharp focus and regulatory staffers, and industry journalism, it makes perfect sense
and a reassuring clarity. We won’t try veterans, who will convey a different to take this model as our foundation
to be all things to all people; we will blend of perspectives and enable us and build on it a reporting strategy—
favor depth over breadth. to produce original research along designed around the 20th century
with financial and economic models notion of expertise emerging from
A Well-Defined Audience: It will be to quantify the impact of various dedicated beat reporting—to fit an
decision-makers in Washington, from government actions. evident need.
Capitol Hill to K Street, and leaders
of corporate America outside the Belt- Expertise: The value we place on experts Mike Riley, a 1995 Nieman Fellow,
way. Knowing who is in your audience undergirds this effort—and aligns it is managing editor of Bloomberg
makes it easier to know what they with the concept of journalistic beats. Government.
need—and to give it to them. While other publications are cutting
C
opley News Service, bureaus do much more than
my professional home that. These are stories that
for 30 years, sadly has might not even make the front
become the poster child for page and almost certainly
the fate of regional news aren’t going to win journalism
bureaus in Washington in the awards. But the little-noticed
21st century, having soared routine coverage that regional
to the highest peaks of our bureaus provide is what has
profession only to crash ig- stayed in my mind, and this
nominiously less than two means that I think of roses
years later. It was our D.C. and carnations and chrysan-
bureau that uncovered the themums—cut flowers.
worst Congressional corrup-
tion ever documented that Following the Flowers
sent a war hero congressman
to prison—reporting that gar- Regional reporters on the
nered a Pulitzer Prize for the federal government beat find
bureau and The San Diego themselves becoming experts
Union-Tribune, then a Copley on strange topics. I became an
paper—only to be shut down expert on cut flowers because
as a victim of the profession’s San Diego County is the cut
new economic realities. flower capital of the United
Those realities mean that States. In fact, the city of
today only the biggest news Encinitas in northern San
organizations can main- Diego County calls itself the
tain anything resembling a “flower capital” and boasts of
Washington, D.C. bureau. introducing the poinsettia to
Republican Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham spoke
The victims in recent years this country.
about his resignation in 2005 after pleading guilty to bribery
all carried respected and For the almost 60,000
charges revealed by reporters from Copley News Service. Photo
established names in journal- residents of Encinitas, we
by Lenny Ignelzi/The Associated Press.
ism—Copley, Cox, Newhouse, were their watchdog report-
Media General. Others, like ers in Washington. So when
Gannett, Hearst, Scripps and The Des is why when I think about the closing President George H.W. Bush went
Moines Register survive, with good of the Copley bureau, my first thought to Cartagena, Colombia on February
reporters fighting the good fight to keep is not of the Pulitzer Prize and the cor- 15, 1990, I went with him. (During
alive bureaus that are mere shadows ruption of Randy “Duke” Cunningham, my tenure in D.C., I traveled with
of what they once were. but of cut flowers and the border with presidents to 88 countries.) But I did
But the real victims are the citizens Mexico, steel dumping and museum not write only about the drug summit
of major cities like San Diego, who after earmarks, and Osprey testing and that drew Bush to Colombia. Rather,
they lost Copley have had no reporters closures of Veterans Administration I covered my beat—which meant
in D.C. watching out for them—journal- (VA) hospitals. the issues of concern to residents
ists who know which issues they care Too many editors think all that is of Southern California. Unlike my
about and will ask tough questions missed when a Washington bureau colleagues—and to the amusement
for them. [See accompanying box shuts down is the absence of somebody of several of them—I wrote stories
about the San Diego-based Watchdog to watch local members of Congress, about the president’s talks with his
Institute’s recent hiring of a full-time tabulate their votes, and make sure Colombian counterpart about the trade
Washington, D.C. correspondent.] This they explain their actions. But regional ramifications of Colombia’s effort to
seize a big part of the American cut Houston Post bureau. Gone as well is out situations worthy of deeper dig-
flower market. the exhaustive coverage of border and ging. Stern only got the Congressional
It’s probably safe to say I am the immigration issues by Copley. Marcus corruption story because he knew
only reporter on that trip who wrote Stern is best remembered for breaking Cunningham well and because the
as much about cut flowers as I did the Cunningham story, but he would Copley bureau was working on a routine
about the drug summit. I admit that tell you he is proudest of the stories story about the congressman. Like
I did not expect to find it fulfilling he broke on the border. In early 1995, the other regional bureaus, we were
to research this trade dispute, but Stern was a lonely voice challenging following up on a study of privately
doing so was a reminder of how the the Clinton administration’s claims of funded Congressional travel released
element of surprise is one benefit of great success in Operation Gatekeeper, by Northwestern University’s Medill
working this beat. It turned out to be its crackdown on illegal immigrants News Service, the Center for Public
a fascinating story—in part because, crossing at the San Diego sector of the Integrity, and American Public Media.
in its particulars, it wove its way into border. “The administration launched Cunningham was by no means the
familiar political zones. a PR campaign to convince the public biggest traveler. He had taken only six
The shorthand version is that that the crackdown was working,” trips. But two of the trips intrigued
American growers were a little slow recalled Stern recently. “We were the Stern. Both were to Saudi Arabia, a
in adapting to the marketplace. In only ones that didn’t bite and we country the congressman had previ-
the 1980’s, they saw little reason to were right.” ously shown little interest in, and both
sell flowers in grocery stores. This Andrew Alexander has similar were paid for by a Saudi native who
provided an opening to growers in memories of the regional coverage he lived in his district.
Colombia and Ecuador and they seized oversaw as chief of the Cox bureau. He In another reporter’s story, Cunning-
it. And before domestic growers knew did what all bureau chiefs of regional ham said the trips were “to promote
what had happened, a big chunk of papers did—made frequent trips to the discourse and better relations between
the marketplace was gone. newspapers and returned with a long the two nations.” Because Stern knew
So what did the U.S. growers do, list of Washington stories they could Cunningham so well—and knew his
having misread the market? Demand not report on their own. “We frequently attitude toward Arab nations—his
protection from the government. So on dug into the Washington bureaucracy reaction was: “I don’t believe it.”
this presidential trip, flowers became to report on problems or plans involving Stern launched an exhaustive search
a point of discussion between two local issues and projects,” he said. “We of records to try to find the real reason
presidents with a real-life impact on did this often with stories about plans for the trips. He looked at everything
hundreds of acres in San Diego County to close or cut VA centers in some of about the man who paid for the trips,
and thousands of jobs, as Bush pushed our circulation areas. Or we uncovered everything that could shed light on
policies to get Colombians to switch political roadblocks to highway funding connections between Cunningham
from drug production to flower grow- projects. Whenever people from our and Saudi Arabia. He found nothing.
ing despite the hardship this would local areas testified before Congress, Finally, in frustration, he launched
impose on American growers. we were there. In many cases, these what he called a “lifestyle audit” of
No national publication was writing were local officials from smaller Cox Cunningham. That meant checking
this story. Ever since technology made communities. That’s a pretty big story all available databases to see whether
it feasible for newspapers across the for a local paper.” the congressman was showing any
country to open bureaus in Washing- Business coverage—like the cut upgrades in his lifestyle. It was dur-
ton, though, it is exactly the kind of flower story—often gets overlooked ing that “audit” that he uncovered the
story that these regional beat reporters as an important service of regional purchase of Cunningham’s house for a
have specialized in. And such stories bureaus. Alexander remembers stories wildly inflated price by a Washington-
are still being done; it’s just that there Cox reporters did about government based defense contractor. It was the
are fewer of them. investigations or inquiries involving first—but certainly not the last—bribe
big Atlanta employers like Coca-Cola, we found.
Diminishing Coverage Delta Air Lines, or the Centers for He won a Pulitzer for that story
Disease Control and Prevention. Cox along with his primary reporting
The Des Moines Register still watches specialized in air industry issues involv- partner Jerry Kammer, who broadened
the Department of Agriculture, but ing routes, mergers and investigations the coverage with a groundbreak-
with only one reporter. Gone is the of Delta—critical stories in Atlanta ing look at how the earmark system
larger bureau that won Pulitzers with one of the world’s busiest airports. worked as demonstrated by the role
for its coverage of the intersection of lobbyist and former San Diego
of government and farming. Gone, Deeper Digging Representative Bill Lowery. But even
too, is intensive coverage of NASA on the day we stood on the stage at
by Media General and the larger As beat writers know, it’s in doing Columbia University accepting that
Houston Chronicle bureau or the old these routine stories that they sniff award, Stern told me only half in jest
that his effort had been a failure. After and track votes and do lifestyle audits. George E. Condon, Jr. joined
all, he said, he never did nail down There just aren’t enough of them, CongressDaily and National Journal
just why Cunningham took those two and the ones still there are stretched as a White House correspondent
trips to Saudi Arabia. very thin. So place some flowers—cut when Copley News Service closed its
That is the kind of success—and ones, please—on the grave of the old, Washington, D.C. bureau in 2008.
failure—that keeps this kind of beat big regional bureau—the ones that
reporting at these regional bureaus carved out these vital beats and served
going. A hardy few still look at agencies constituents well.
BY GENE GIBBONS
F
lorida politician Rod Smith once tion delivery—a world increasingly the federal level. And the steadily
described Lucy Morgan of the driven by rapid-fire tweeting and the dwindling number of statehouse beat
St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times as inane cacophony of American televi- reporters is likely to give rise to far
the state’s “biggest pain in the ass.” sion—there seems to be less and less more political flimflammery than the
But he added that his legislative col- room for people who want to make a stealing of silverware in Florida.
leagues in Tallahassee were grateful career of covering the statehouse and
for her because otherwise “we would earn a decent living doing it. There Filling the Gap
probably steal the silverware.” Smith are now fewer than 500 professional
was being facetious, of course; the sil- journalists covering state government Why do I think it’s important to have
verware wouldn’t even begin to satisfy full time—and that includes those a flourishing statehouse press corps
the kind of sticky-fingered politicians who work for The Associated Press, composed of beat reporters like the
Morgan delights in exposing and the which still staffs this essential beat people I’ve mentioned?
special interests with whom they’re in every state. Press rooms once filled Certainly, some will say, there
usually in cahoots. with reporters are now quiet relics of are alternatives such as some of the
As the digital revolution devastates a bygone era. online start-ups rising to fill the gap.
and reshapes the news media, I fear A survey conducted by American And it’s true that there are dozens of
what’s likely to be lost in the shuffle Journalism Review (AJR) found that news websites and hundreds of blogs
is a next generation of statehouse in 44 states there were fewer state- devoted to covering state government,
beat reporters who will follow in the house reporters in 2009 than there but there are few I’ve seen that can
footsteps of people like the Pulitzer were six years earlier. The numbers really do the job. Outfits like The
Prize-winning Morgan, the Chicago in four states were unchanged from Texas Tribune and The Connecticut
Tribune’s Ray Long, Steve Walters of the 2003 AJR survey. In only two Mirror are making an admirable effort.
the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and states—Rhode Island and Oregon—was But I think even they would admit it
George Skelton of the Los Angeles there an increase. will take some doing to become as
Times. With their institutional knowl- It’s a damn shame because what known, respected and, yes, as feared
edge, gigantic Rolodexes, and unending happens at the state level affects our as someone like Morgan. Her mere
determination to afflict the comfortable lives a whole lot more than what hap- presence in Tallahassee encouraged
and hold the powerful to account, these pens in Washington, D.C. Health care, the politicians to try to do better.
four outstanding journalists and others education, business regulation—just Smith put his finger on it. Why suc-
like them have been an awesome force name it and chances are that state cumb to a moral or ethical lapse if
for good government. regulations and policies have a lot your family, friends and supporters
In the brave new world of informa- more impact than what happens on are probably going to read all about
This past summer two reporters committees that never met. Salaries are a matter of public record. “All
from the Los Angeles Times broke that high would raise concern in any anyone had to do was look at the
a major story in a place that doesn’t big city (as the Times noted, Bell’s paperwork on file at city hall—and
usually figure into its coverage—or any manager was making more than any halfway decent beat reporter
other new organization’s. Imminent twice what the chief executive of Los assigned to the city would’ve known
bankruptcy had forced the city of Angeles County makes), but in Bell, to do exactly that as a matter of
Maywood to lay off all of its employ- nobody was keeping watch. Only course,” he concluded.
ees and outsource its management after the Times started investigat- The only other coverage of the city
to the neighboring city of Bell, an ing was this compensation scandal comes from a chain of community
unprecedented move even in the brought to light, prompting enough newspapers, which covers Bell and
cash-strapped state of California. community outrage to force the city 14 other communities with a single
Facing budget cuts of its own, the officials’ resignations. reporter who hasn’t been to a Bell
Times was no longer covering smaller As journalist Conor Friedersdorf City Council meeting in 17 years,
cities on a day-to-day basis but when wrote in a column on Forbes.com according to Times media critic
reporters Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben titled “Why Every City Needs a Beat James Rainey.
Vives looked into the new arrange- Reporter,” “had its [Bell’s] residents As newsrooms slash their budgets
ment, they found that things in Bell banded together five years ago to and limit their coverage, courthouses
weren’t exactly financially sound. hire a top-notch beat reporter, even and city halls across the country
The city manager of Bell (pop. paying him the handsome salary of left uncovered may fall prey to such
40,000), was making close to $200,000 per year, the return on unscrupulous behavior by officials.
$800,000 a year while the police chief their value would’ve been immense.” What happened in Bell is a reminder
was paid more than $400,000 and In fact, it would not have taken a that watchdog reporters, like their
four of the city’s part-time council top-notch beat reporter to notice canine counterparts, are better to
members made close to $100,000 that something was amiss—under have and not need than to need and
each, largely for serving on boards and California law, government salaries not have.
Bell’s public officials went from having no coverage to an onslaught of media attention after
the Los Angeles Times uncovered officials’ outsized pay. Here, reporters interview the only City
Council member who received the standard salary. Photo by Chris Pizzello/The Associated Press.
it in the St. Petersburg Times sooner public officials accountable, filling a Franklin Center cosponsored and
rather than later? vacuum caused by the downsizing played an active role in a two-day
There’s an analogy between state- of the news industry. Their mission conference organized by the Americans
house beat reporters—well, beat statements actually say they’re rushing for Prosperity Foundation. The Right
reporters in general—and cops on to fill the gap. Online Agenda conference included
the beat who know the neighborhood Don’t believe it for a moment. Do such breakout sessions as “Intro to
and everyone in it. They get a sixth what reporters should do: Check them Online Activism” and “Killing the Death
sense when something’s out of order, out, as I have done. For the most part, Tax” and featured speakers such as con-
something’s not right, and by sniffing the people in charge of these would- servative U.S. Representative Michele
around they would find the story. be watchdog operations are political Bachmann of Minnesota and Tea Party
Today, many of the would-be hacks out to subvert journalism in their activist Sharron Angle, a Republican
replacements for statehouse beat quest to grab and keep power using who was then running against Harry
reporters are interested first and whatever means they have to do so. Reid in the election for U.S. Senate
foremost in investigative journalism. Good luck on finding out where they in Nevada. No Democratic legislators
Investigative News Network (INN), a get their money; the IRS disclosure were included in the program. The
consortium of small to midsize online forms required of organizations that finale of the Las Vegas conference was
news organizations scattered through- claim nonprofit status are singularly a November is Coming Rally.
out the country, is probably the outfit uninformative. Yet Franklin Center websites are
that I’m most familiar with. I’m glad At the forefront of an effort to blur seeking legitimacy by demanding to be
it and other investigative sites such as the distinction between statehouse accredited in the various statehouses
ProPublica are out there, but I think reporting and political advocacy is where they have sprung up. They
about their role as I do about the FBI’s. the Franklin Center for Government also are applying for membership in
Only the worst miscreants are likely & Public Integrity, which finances a Capitolbeat, a professional association
to come under their scrutiny, and the network of websites that focus on of statehouse reporters and editors,
chances of that happening even for the state government. This center has ties according to Tiffany Shackelford, the
really bad guys are roughly equivalent to a number of conservative organi- association’s former executive director.
to being struck by lightning. zations, including the Americans for The Illinois Legislative Correspondents
“The beat reporter is the backbone Prosperity Foundation, whose founder Association denied membership to
of investigative journalism,” says Andy is billionaire David Koch. He is a reporters working for the Franklin
Hall of WisconsinWatch.org, a member longtime financier of right-wing causes Center because the center declined to
of INN. “You look across history, and whose shadowy political dealings were disclose information about its funding.
most of the big stories didn’t start off highlighted this past summer in a New However, a number of government
as projects. They started off with a Yorker article by Jane Mayer headlined offices have issued press credentials
beat reporter asking a few questions “Covert Operations.” to those reporters.
or checking a few records.” Jason Stverak, a former executive “Don’t complain about the media;
There’s also another problem. Even director of the North Dakota Republi- become the media” appears to be their
the best of the online organizations can Party, heads the Franklin Center. philosophy. It would be the ultimate
have shoestring budgets and nowhere He contends that it is wrong to infer indignity if the empty chairs becoming
near the editorial, legal and business from his partisan background and that more numerous in statehouse press
acumen of most traditional news opera- of others who work with him that their rooms were to be filled by political
tions, and by that I mean newspapers. reporting skews to the right. “I ran a tricksters.
Taking on powerful political interests is [state] Republican Party. We disclose
not a job for the weak or fainthearted, that fully on our website,” Stverak told Gene Gibbons writes about state and
as many journalists can attest. It often me in a March 2010 interview that national politics. During his 41 years
requires an infrastructure that most appears as part of “Ants at the Picnic: in journalism, he was employed
of the start-ups lack. A Status Report on News Coverage of by United Press International and
State Government,” a paper I wrote for Reuters, and subsequently was a
Partisan Reporting Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on founding editor of Stateline, a news
the Press, Politics and Public Policy. website that focuses on state govern-
The decline of the statehouse beat is “But at the end of the day it’s the same ment and is funded by the Pew
bad enough. What I find even worse standard to which you would hold Fox Charitable Trusts.
is the influx of agenda-driven state News, CNN, The New York Times,
“news” organizations, some with a New York Post, Fargo Forum,from my
leftist orientation but most of the home state of North Dakota—you will
newer entries tilted far to the right. judge any news organization based
They claim their sole reason for being upon the content that they produce.”
is to inform the people and hold However, four months later the
BY TED GUP
I
nvestigative reporters are all too
familiar with secrecy. They know it
as the obstacle that stands between
them and the object of their interest.
Everything about investigative report-
ing reinforces the notion that secrecy
is but an impediment to be overcome.
We celebrate our triumphs over secrecy
with prizes, promotions and public
accolades. But secrecy is more than a
mere roadblock to successful report-
ing, and the conventional treatment
of secrecy may inadvertently play into
the hands of those who seek to keep Indiscriminate secrecy is used by government “to impede scrutiny, obscure process, avoid
the public in the dark. accountability, suppress dissent, and concentrate power.”
I recognize that the economy has
thinned the reportorial ranks, but overlook one of the more significant isolated settings—this official refused
given the wild proliferation of secrets stories of our lifetime—an emerging to disclose, that official declined to
in both the public and private spheres, “secretocracy” that threatens to trans- comment.
it would be a terrific investment of form American society and democratic Our own reportorial frustrations
reportorial resources, not to mention institutions. Systemic or indiscriminate have sometimes been allowed to color
a valuable public service, to dedicate secrecy involves the calculated use of our judgment and blind us to the news;
an entire beat to secrecy. If nothing secrecy as a principle instrument of we personalize secrecy. Because we are
else, it would produce some remark- governance, a way to impede scrutiny, stymied in our quest for information,
able stories, and it might just help the obscure process, avoid accountability, we view the story as a dry hole. There
public grasp the wider implications of suppress dissent, and concentrate is a professional reluctance to write
unchecked secrecy. power. The tendency to abuse secrecy about secrecy per se, in part because
With some noteworthy exceptions, is as old as power itself, but prior to it is seen as self-serving or whining,
secrecy is rarely tackled head-on 9/11 it was usually checked, and even an admission of our own shortcom-
in the press. Rather, it crops up in its abuses were cyclical. ings as reporters. Writing about intact
stories as an incidental—a fleeting Too often today this broader use secrets somehow smacks of defeatism.
denial of access, a closed door, a of secrecy escapes our attention, or at Great reporters, we might imagine,
call not returned, a stalled Freedom least our reporting—especially when as would not stoop to carping about
of Information Act (FOIA) request. reporters we fail to prevail and obtain such conditions, equating secrecy with
Secrecy itself gets short shrift. It is the information sought. On the rare professional adversity; they would rise
endemic to the culture of investigative occasion that secrecy itself is granted above them, or so the argument goes.
reporting to see it in terms that are center stage, it is often so closely tied Watergate and the Pentagon Papers
defined by our own ability or inability to the particulars of a given story that remain the template, stories steeped
to surmount the obstacles before us. the context is lost. Readers encounter in secrecy, but in which the reporters
In so doing we have tended to the subject of secrecy almost always in emerged triumphant. The closest we
come to recognizing secrecy as an stories may have left readers/citizens it remains widely unknown to most
integral element of the story is when with the dangerous misimpression Americans.
it is cast as a cover-up. that few secrets can withstand our Secrecy is increasingly a problem in
reportorial onslaught, that the republic the courts as well, as fewer cases are
Obstacles to Reporting on still enjoys a robust albeit begrudging adjudicated in open court and more
Secrecy transparency, and that the govern- and more cases go the way of alterna-
ment’s or industry’s feeble attempts to tive dispute resolution and are sealed.
There are other reasons why secrecy ward us off and conceal their actions In the federal courts, fewer than 2
is rarely taken on directly. To expose are ultimately to no avail. In short, we percent of cases go to a full and open
broad patterns of secrecy requires have telegraphed to the electorate, the trial. This might sound like an arcane
reporters to cooperate across beats consumer, the patient, and the litigant, subject, but it has very real public
and to subordinate sensitivities over that they are in possession of all the implications as tort litigation over
turf to news values. There is also the vital information they need to make potentially dangerous products—autos,
fear that an examination of secrecy informed choices. tires, medications, machinery—medi-
is for policy wonks and political sci- That does not comport with my cal malpractice, gender, age and race
entists, not journalists, and that it is experience as a reporter. Nor does it, discrimination, and a slew of other
too abstract to be of much interest to I believe, reflect the reality of America topics that directly affect the public’s
readers. But it is no more so than a in 2010. Silly as it might sound, we safety and well-being, are increasingly
host of other topics we routinely cover also do the nation a service when we settled out of sight.
as beats, including economics, science, admit what important information In my book on secrecy, “Nation of
health or politics (and secrecy involves we do not possess and cannot acquire Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and
them all—and more). because it has been denied us. the American Way of Life,” I reported
The key, here as elsewhere, is to that the software system used in all
show who benefits and who suffers Secrets Not Shared federal courts is designed to spit out
and how secrecy is the lubricant for “No Such Case Exists” when anyone
all manner of chicanery. Nothing so In truth, secrecy has migrated well queries cases that have been sealed.
discredits legitimate secrets as the beyond the historic reservoirs of But outside of lawyerly publications,
profusion of counterfeit secrets. Most national security as the nation’s entire such matters rarely receive notice in
importantly, we should be detailing infrastructure has been considered a any systemic context.
how indiscriminate secrecy threatens potential terrorist target. All the state, When I began working on my
to profoundly alter our entire system of county and metropolitan authorities secrecy book, I asked a ridiculously
governance, neutering oversight efforts that intersect with those sites—as well simple question that produced some
and marginalizing citizens. Secrecy as the private industries that operate extraordinary responses. The question:
writ large can hijack democracy itself. them—have increasingly come under “May I have a list of everything I am
Finally, while journalistic enter- the mantle of secrecy. Communica- not allowed to see?” At least it was a
prises have targeted secrecy at the tions intercepts have brought the good start, and one that would work
publishers’ and trade association level, telecommunications companies into well for anyone covering secrecy as
individual papers are often squeamish the security fold. a beat.
about working in concert with one Formal secrecy, as all investigative
another, eschewing campaigns out of reporters know firsthand, is only a Ted Gup is the author of “Nation of
fear that they compromise objectivity. fragment of the problem. Hundreds of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy
One week a year, a coalition takes up thousands of officials, senior and junior, and the American Way of Life”
the subject and spotlights individual as well as contractors, possess the (Doubleday, 2007) and directs
states’ compliance or lack of compli- ability—without any formal training the department of journalism at
ance with sunshine provisions, but or authorization—to scribble “Sensitive Emerson College in Boston. This
otherwise it is a topic left to ad hoc But Unclassified,” or “Official Use Only,” article appeared in our Spring 2008
efforts linked to specific reporting or any one of many other designations issue in a collection of stories about
challenges. on documents, thereby removing them 21st century muckraking; its discus-
Historically, reporters have indulged from public scrutiny even as they admit sion of secrecy as a beat convinced us
themselves in reporting almost exclu- them to be unclassified. Those labels to reprint it in this issue with only a
sively on those secrets that they have have brought about a sea change in few updates and word changes.
penetrated. Everyone reports on a leak, the availability of materials and in
but too few notice the dam looming our ability to track the policies and
behind them. The sense of accomplish- practices of government and industry.
ment that comes with cutting through It is a subject familiar to the coalition
resistance and secrecy is undeniable. of interest groups and journalists who
But cumulatively, such breakthrough care so deeply about such affairs, but
BY CRAIG WELCH
O
n a June morning in 2009, I the oysters in Washington state’s The Seattle Times. But I had recently
stood in the mud on a Pacific Willapa Bay—the heart of the West returned to the paper after a book
Ocean beach watching a work Coast’s wild oyster industry—had not leave and had been spending time on
crew gathering oysters. These shellfish reproduced in five years. I was here the phone catching up with sources.
had been held in reserve by the state to understand why. And the scientists I spoke with who
of Washington for those odd years That there were problems with had followed this issue suggested that
when wild oyster production faltered. shellfish in the Pacific Northwest new evidence pointed to a disturb-
But shellfish growers had now been wasn’t news. Many stories had been ing possibility. They suspected that
forced to pluck these oysters for published about the phenomenon, the oysters were struggling in part
several straight years. That’s because including a few in my own newspaper, because changes in ocean chemistry
As an environment beat reporter, Craig Welch recognized the potential significance of oysters being in trouble because of changes in ocean
chemistry. Their failure to reproduce is resulting in more harvesting from state preserves. Photo by Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times.
were affecting oyster larvae. Instead I try to keep tabs on a daunt- Stories on the Beat
As The Seattle Times’s beat reporter ing array of issues and institutions,
for coverage of the environment, I from the Environmental Protection It’s tempting sometimes to narrow my
recognized immediately how signifi- Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife focus, to drill down on only one or two
cant that would be. Climate scientists Service to the National Marine Fish- issues. It would be so much easier to
for years had talked about a major eries Service, the Forest Service, and become expert only on the ecological
side effect of carbon dioxide emis- the National Park Service. And those implications of population growth or
sions: ocean acidification. Unlike the are just a few of the federal agencies. efforts to clean up Puget Sound. But
complex science of global warming, None of this is to complain. I love the diversity of environmental stories
ocean acidification is simply basic my job and where I get to do it. My in the Pacific Northwest is astounding,
chemistry: Carbon dioxide released editors believe that environmental and consequently the breadth of my
into the atmosphere eventually gets reporting is important, and this means beat widens as the years go by.
absorbed by the sea, and sooner or they don’t just pay lip service to it. There are ocean stories and moun-
later that carbon dioxide was expected Even in today’s economic climate, they tain stories and international trade
to begin making marine waters more will put me or one of my colleagues stories. One day I might write about
acidic. That change, when it began, on a plane the moment we make the the world’s most expensive envi-
would likely have a corrosive effect case that a story matters. And while ronmental remediation project—the
on marine life—especially sea crea- reporters at other news organizations multibillion-dollar effort to clean up
tures with calcium carbonate shells, are expected to update their blogs and radioactive waste produced by the
like oysters. Most scientists had not Twitter feeds several times a day, at Manhattan Project at the Hanford
expected to see such changes until the Times we operate under a different Nuclear Reservation. Another day I’ll
sometime around the year 2100. But philosophy. report on an oil spill in Alaska or the
now some of the world’s leading experts When it comes to writing about battle to clean up asbestos in a small
on ocean chemistry suspected the West the environment, the editors agree farming community. There are fights
Coast was already seeing signs of it. with the adage—most often attributed over freshwater, needed by both the
It was hard to overstate how to the longtime and much respected Northwest’s largest industry—agri-
important this story could be. But Philadelphia Inquirer editor Gene Rob- culture—and the region’s threatened
telling it posed significant challenges. erts—that the most important stories runs of Pacific salmon. There are the
It was complicated, for starters, and frequently don’t break, they ooze. In pollution issues—the lead and arsenic
the scientists were frank about the other words, the very significance of a from mine tailings in communities
fact that evidence was anecdotal. In complex story can sometimes get lost around the West, the mercury and
other words, they knew they could be in the churning drumbeat of breaking long-lived PCBs (polychlorinated
wrong. But the implications, if they news updates. For those stories it’s biphenyls) now found everywhere.
were correct, were huge. The story often wiser to step back and put all (One former boss called these the
had to be done right. the pieces together. “parts per billion” stories.) I could
Not that we’re allergic to breaking write news about climate change—the
The Gift of Time news. Far from it. The Times seems politics, the economic impacts, or its
to have grown more nimble with age. ecological effects—every week.
I’ve worked on this beat at the Times Earlier this year the newsroom won But I feel it’s important to give
for a decade. In that time I’ve learned a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News readers a taste of it all, which means
that the hardest part of my job often Reporting when editors blanketed the I have to try and keep abreast of
isn’t getting people to talk. It’s sifting city with reporters and photographers everything. And, of course, it would
through the streaming fire hose of during a manhunt for an ex-con who be a mistake to say I actually do. I
news to figure out which stories truly had shot and killed four police officers. fail every day to keep on top of it all.
warrant more attention—and deciding The staff posted video to the Web and But making the effort is what matters.
how best to tell them. For that reason, tweeted updates into the wee hours Because that’s the only way that I will
covering the environment as a beat for several days on end. hear an alarm bell in my head when
can at times feel haphazard and a bit But the editors also recognize that I’m on the phone with a scientist who
messy. Unlike traditional beats—city every story is different, and environ- is talking excitedly about the minutiae
hall, say, or crime—there isn’t one or mental stories ooze more than others. of oyster larvae.
even a handful of central sources of That means that I, more than some, That’s how I found myself in Willapa
information. I don’t make morning cop often have the luxury of time. In Bay, talking to third-generation oyster
calls or swing by for daily rounds at exchange, I feel a great responsibility growers about what was happening to
the courthouse. I rarely visit with the to choose stories wisely and tell them their shellfish. I’d spent a few days there
same people or office twice in the same fully. I want readers who might not with a photographer and rushed back
week, let alone catch up with any of care about the environment to at least to the office to write a lengthy piece.
them every day. There is no routine. understand why the story matters. Trusting my judgment, honed through
the years of staying on this beat, my Shellfish hatcheries that use water from two issues than it ever was. There’s no
editors didn’t try to downplay the story the sea improved production by install- telling where the next important story
even as I made clear that there was a ing sophisticated water-chemistry will come from; often it will grow out
lot that remained unknown. The story monitors that allowed them to draw of a casual conversation about a topic
landed on the front page on Sunday. in seawater only when its acidity was I’m only beginning to understand. It’s
This story—published in 2009— normal. (The chemistry of the marine by staying active on this beat—digging
echoed around the world. I got calls waters entering northwest estuaries in, drilling down, widening out—that
from radio stations in New York, and I shifts with wind and tidal events.) I will find these leads. That’s the only
was interviewed by Korean television. New peer-reviewed research published way I will know which paths are the
The story seemed to strike a chord. this fall by scientists with the National most worthwhile to travel down.
People grasped the implications even Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra-
as they understood that the science tion suggested that ocean acidification Craig Welch, a 2007 Nieman Fellow,
was still in flux. Some raised questions was at least partially responsible for is the environment reporter at The
about researchers’ findings. Some changes in the chemical balance of Seattle Times and a two-time winner
questioned the way I told the story. Washington’s Puget Sound. of the Society of Environmental
But in the year since the piece ran, I’ve written more stories about Journalists’ top prize for beat
the link between ocean acidification changing ocean chemistry. But I’m also reporting, most recently in 2010. His
and oyster trouble appears to have still writing about fights over water book “Shell Games: Rogues, Smug-
just grown stronger. for salmon and about the Hanford glers, and the Hunt for Nature’s
Wild oysters along Washington’s Nuclear Reservation. I find it no more Bounty” was published in April by
coast failed again to reproduce in 2010. appropriate to focus on just one or HarperCollins.
Third-generation shellfish farmer Brian Sheldon has turned to oysters started in hatcheries because Pacific oysters
haven’t successfully reproduced in the wild since 2004. Photo by Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times.
BY CHARLES PETIT
A
s things change rapidly in mass Desperation motivates action, and The Science Gig
media, the science beat keeps the newspaper science writer, once a
on providing the purest news. mainstay of our tribe, is an endangered Stephen Leahy is an enterprising and
At least that’s how I see things. It species. Pay rates at magazines have crusading Canadian environmental
never has been the most prestigious or stagnated. A typical science journalist’s reporter, whose website rises to the
glamorous beat in a newsroom, but no reporting day is fractured by demands top of a Google search with his name
one can accuse us of merely plugging to exercise multiple skills—audio, and “science writing.” Climate change
new names and places into familiar video, photography and text while policy and science energizes much of
tales of crime, corrup- his writing. He has a
tion, political maneuvers, regular gig with Inter
celebrity canoodling, and Press Service and has had
moments of catastrophe. pieces in New Scientist,
When done well, Wired News, Audubon,
our reporting is about Maclean’s and other
things new to human sterling outlets. But
experience: discoveries contracts are becoming
about the nature of the harder to get.
universe and of game- So Leahy is turning
changing technologies, to crowdfunding tech-
the unknown past, and niques to augment his
potential treatments for erratic income through
disease. And while there a one-man commu-
is the occasional scandal nity-supported journal-
or disaster to investigate ism shop, which was
and report, what the launched when he asked
science beat reporter followers of his website
unearths tends to be a for donations to help him
tonic to the bad tidings cover the Copenhagen
that dominate daily climate conference in
news. Besides, we get to 2009. He got enough
talk to smart people who for airfare and a few
do their jobs well. Most nights of lodging. At a
of our stories are about subsequent conference
achievement. They may he found himself in the
include peril but not so Graphic by Diane Novetsky. company of a platoon of
often failure or crime. freelancers, not a single
Other than that almost one of whom had been
nothing is as it was just a few years tweeting and blogging away. There able to get his or her usual outlets to
ago. Nor were things quite as exciting is a dizzying array of opportunities to foot the bill. “No one had any money,”
as they are on this beat today. Never publish online but few pay a handsome he recalled. “And I need to feed my
have I observed colleagues who are rate. A few independent science writers family. My hope is that community-
as collectively innovative, vital, mul- are doing fabulously. But as a group, supported journalism will fill this gap.”
titalented—performing on multiple we’re running and scrapping along Now a large share of his articles—
platforms—and aggressive as now. But as fast as we can with little idea of a the ones not written under standard
the reason is not jolly. destination. freelance arrangement—go online at
1
“Life and Physics” by Jon Butterworth, a physics professor at University College;
“Political Science” by former MP Dr. Evan Harris; “Punctuated Equilibrium” by the
evolutionary biologist known as GrrlScientist; and “The Lay Scientist” by researcher
Martin Robbins. [Read about Robbins’s spoof of science journalism on page 34.]
his site. He also sends them directly its entire, non-medical science writing Expanding Coverage
to registered readers by e-mail. In group. Rensberger told me he wanted
return, he asks but does not demand somebody to work for the program Now here’s the catch, the one I can’t
of them: Please send money. His site part time, surveying the day’s science really explain. While I can’t figure out
has no ads, just that plea. He suggests news online and blogging with links who is paying a lot of these science
a $50 or $100 contribution. and commentary. “Sort of a Romenesko reporters, the quantity of what they
I asked him this fall how the for science writing,” he said, alluding produce does not seem to have fallen
arrangement is working. “Too soon to the Poynter Institute’s must-read off nearly as much as the cratering of
to tell, less than a year in,” he replied. daily journalism blog. traditional U.S. news media would pre-
Contributions come from all over but At first, I didn’t want to do it. I dict. (United Kingdom and Canadian
mainly North America and Europe. “At felt as though I would be chained media have not suffered losses quite
first it was people who sort of know to a desk at home. But the lure of as big as U.S. news organizations,
me—met at some meeting—but more benefits was high since the anxiety of and in much of the developing world
now come from out of the blue.” He a freelancer’s life did not suit me. In newspapers and science coverage seem
also gets verbal support, ideas for news April 2006 we launched the Knight to be expanding rapidly.) In fact, what
stories, and offers of assistance, which Science Journalism Tracker—known I’ve been witnessing is an explosive
he appreciates, such as an offer of “a as KSJ Tracker online—and today increase in the number of websites
bed if I am in their city,” he told me, we have an e-mail newsletter option. providing science news worldwide,
then added that “I have availed myself I assembled a huge list of RSS feeds, and that includes those originating
of that offer many times.” But at times heavily focused on traditional outlets in the United States.
he feels like he’s panhandling and he including wires, a few online sites, and The diversity of this news report-
has had less than $5,000 donated this nearly 200 North American and over- ing is illuminated by a post I did
year, which is only about a third of what seas English-language newspapers and on September 29, when a team of
he needs to make such direct-access broadcasters. I would churn through astronomers said they had discovered
journalism worth his while. as many as possible and chase specific, another planet circling the small,
Good luck, Mr. Leahy. popular news via search engines. I reddish star Gliese 581. The star is
found I could get in 10 or so posts a 20 light-years away—close by astro-
Tracking Science Journalism day, encompassing dozens of stories, nomical standards—and has several
many of them covering the same news. offspring, but press releases dubbed
I’ve been through my own career Since then, I have filed more than this latest one a “Goldilocks planet.”
crisis. About four and a half years ago 6,000 posts, most of them linked to Not too close or too far from its star,
I became a different kind of science several stories. In the past year or it is just right for liquid water. No one
writer. My beat went from writing about so the site has added other contract, could know what its surface is like but
science to writing about other science per-piece part-time trackers to fol- the orbital dimensions alone struck
writers. Monday through Friday I’m up low medical science, as well as news a chord with reporters and editors.
before dawn, blogging by about 7 a.m., media that publish in Spanish and (Two weeks after this story broke,
and at around noon I send off from German, nearly all of which, like the reports began to surface that perhaps
my home in California a compilation U.S. press, give their content away for this planet doesn’t exist. Maybe it’s
of impressions of what I’ve found in free on the Web. a figment of data analysis—certainly
breaking news and occasionally in Several times during the early years news for another day.)
feature writing. In the afternoons I I posted about the departure of old My initial KSJ Tracker post (http://
do some freelance writing or chase standbys in the business as conven- tinyurl.com/23j3qcw) had a discussion
grandchildren. tional media lost ad revenue. Such of the artist who did an impression of
I am fortunate. It comes with a pay- attrition helped to force a change in the planet—catnip to art editors—and
check and benefits. Former Washington the way I covered my beat. Within two links to 28 versions of the news, most
Post reporter Boyce Rensberger made years the systematic searches yielded of them bylined stories. I could have
me an offer. We ran into each other in less and less. I stopped going through listed many more. I had found stories
early 2005 at a meeting of the American the original RSS food line every day, by searching the old standbys—outfits
Association for the Advancement of and I took to writing fewer, longer, that would have covered similar news
Science. He was then director of the more analytical items, which often 20 years ago, including The New York
Knight Science Journalism Fellow- meant rounding up the dozen or (many) Times, USA Today, Reuters, The Asso-
ships at the Massachusetts Institute more outlets that had jumped to cover ciated Press, Voice of America, Time
of Technology (MIT). I was long ago the same basic news. Plus, more read- magazine, BBC, NPR, Maclean’s, The
a fellow in the program. He knew I’d ers—many and probably most of whom Washington Post, plus a few regional
been bought out at the end of 2004 by are science journalists—suggested a newspapers such as the San Jose
U.S. News & World Report. Not long growing stream of articles to check, Mercury News in the United States,
after that, the magazine closed down sometimes their own. and The Telegraph, The Guardian, The
Register, Mirror, and The Independent with established news organizations. SeattlePI.com, a newspaper turned
and Mail in the United Kingdom, as These digital destinations are now website. CNN had a story online, as
well as outlets in Australia such as fixtures among science reporters, did the tech outlet CNET. I found
The Age. regarded as places that still practice more at Discover magazine in the
Then there were the links to what journalism. There were blogs posted form of the so-named Bad Astronomy
I call the new old media—found by staff reporters on websites such site operated by prolix astronomer-
online for the most part but affiliated as The Washington Post’s and on the bloggista Phil Plait and at Discovery
News. The world’s foremost general
science journals, Nature and Science,
also covered the Goldilocks planet.
Guardian Blogger Spoofs Science Journalism In addition, the story was covered
by outlets such as Slate, PC Magazine,
By Jonathan Seitz Wired News, National Geographic,
Scientific American, the biweekly Sci-
ence News magazine in Washington,
Prompted by dismay at the dearth criticism. This one he headlined D.C., which had its story also published
of evidence-based policymaking, “Why I spoofed science journalism, on the US News & World Report site,
Martin Robbins, a researcher and and how to fix it.” and Popular Science.
science writer, created a community One of his chief complaints is the I found one story from a sort of
blog called The Lay Scientist. This fall tendency for science reporters to mashup called “The Takeaway,” which
The Guardian hired him to be one ignore the many small, daily mile- describes itself as a national morning
of its four science bloggers. It didn’t stones of scientific research while news program produced in partner-
take long for a post he wrote—with they overemphasize—by the sheer ship with The New York Times, BBC
the headline “This is a news website weight and force of the onslaught World Service, WNYC, Public Radio
article about a scientific paper”—to of their reporting—the importance International, and WGBH Boston.
go viral. of particular findings. His example What it is exactly, I am still not sure.
In it, he satirized what he sees was the widespread coverage that Then there is a new category of
as the too-frequently formulaic followed the discovery announced online news outlets that I can’t begin to
approach to reporting on scientific earlier this year of “the most massive classify; it’s an inchoate sea of outlets
discoveries in which journalists fail star ever found.” that I seldom track simply because
to provide informed guidance as Again, Robbins’s words: there are too many of them. Presum-
part of their coverage. Robbins used ably these writers are receiving some
the BBC as his example of science The result was a self-propelling sort of pay, and some of them might
coverage being done with “robotic explosion of journalistic effort well be ethical journalism outlets, but
impartiality,” with headlines written that resulted in hundreds I didn’t include them in my post that
in ways that are designed to “distance of virtually identical articles day. (Here are a few of the sites’ names:
themselves [the journalists] from scattered across the face of Gizmodo, Wikinews, Gossip Jackal,
the words inside.” the Internet like some sort dBTechno, DailyTech, Softpedia, Stop
Here is how Robbins began his of fast-growing weed. What Press! News, eWorld Post, Gather.
post: did all this effort and expense com, Helium which had at least two
achieve? Hundreds of interest- bylined accounts, Newsopi, Spreadit,
In this paragraph I will state the ing things happen in science Allvoices, Tonic.com, Ars Technica,
main claim that the research every week, and yet journalists First Post, TopNews … I could go on.)
makes, making appropriate from all over the media seem Some of these sites merely aggregate
use of “scare quotes” to ensure driven by a herd mentality others’ work, but some have distinctive
that it’s clear that I have no that ensures only a handful pieces that carry bylines.
opinion about this research of stories are covered.
whatsoever. Press Releases: Reborn as
Is it any surprise that his critique, News Stories
His commentary-as-spoof struck couched in satire, traveled far and
a chord with other bloggers and wide via social media—garnering Another kind of science writer, if not
became The Guardian’s most read readers and stirring up comment science journalist, writes the press
story that week. But rather than on The Guardian’s website? releases that tumble out of govern-
stop at writing this cheeky send-up ment-funded labs or universities. The
of science writing, Robbins returned Read about The Guardian’s decision Goldilocks planet story was born out
the following week with constructive to hire science bloggers on page 32. of at least five press releases sent by
the University of California at Santa
Cruz, University of Hawaii Institute for their own calls. That was when I still will—or still does—include science
Astronomy, the Carnegie Institution thought of them as inside information. journalism in its daily diet.
for Science, NASA and the National Now the work of press agent—and isn’t This much I do know when I go to my
Science Foundation. And no longer that an old-time sounding name?—is computer each morning: Something
are press releases targeted exclusively simply a routine part of the flow of exciting is simmering in the stew of
at the press; each of these was writ- information directly to the public, old media, online, smartphone and
ten in journalistic style, if not with a with the journalist as intermediary tablet-borne news streams. And sci-
journalistic edge, and was piped to regarded as a bit of a quaint notion. ence journalists are stirring the pot.
the public via in-house websites and Journalism professors tell me that
through the many “news” outlets that programs to train science journalists Charles Petit is the lead writer for
lightly rewrite and on occasion relabel are still seeing their graduates get the MIT Knight Science Journalism
releases as news stories. jobs. Though I live in the territory Tracker. He also does freelance
When I first started at the KSJ where the work of the science beat reporting and was for 26 years a
Tracker, I regarded my inclusion of writers resides, I couldn’t tell you science writer for the San Francisco
press releases as brilliantly subversive. where these jobs are. Nor do I know Chronicle and spent six years at U.S.
Have them there for readers and they’d when or whether a business model will News & World Report. He is the past
reveal how much spoon feeding goes come along to provide the competent president of the National Association
into the generation of a lot of news ones with a reasonable wage. Nor do I of Science Writers and serves on the
and make transparent which writers know when or whether any more than board of the Council for the Advance-
tend to lift quotes rather than making a small fraction of the reading public ment of Science Writing.
BY PAUL ROGERS
“Giant, hippie-hating, cannibalistic rounded by stacks of papers, busily high-quality radio and TV pieces, but
squids attack SF Bay Area.” reading journals and pitching stories it didn’t have a local show focusing
I
that editors and executive producers on the scientific and environmental
t’s not exactly the kind of headline don’t understand. Quarks? T-cells? wonders of Northern California, which
normally associated with PBS or Can’t we do something instead on the is home to Stanford University, the
NPR. But when our TV story about calf with the funny birthmark? University of California at Berkeley,
giant Humboldt Squid spreading up the Since 2006, KQED, the main PBS Google, Apple, Napa Valley, the world
California coast was featured a couple and NPR affiliate in the San Francisco headquarters of the Sierra Club, and
of years ago on Boing Boing—the ir- Bay Area, has been working to bring countless other sources of innovation,
reverent, wildly popular blog of tech, the science and environment beats fomentation and experimentation.
culture and games—we cheered. We into the 21st century. While keeping With a start-up grant from the
knew we had arrived, especially when science front and center, we’ve been Gordon and Betty Moore Founda-
48 hours later, more than 200,000 experimenting with ways to expand the tion, KQED—motivated in part by
people had watched the piece on- stories we cover and how we tell them. alarming statistics about students’
line—roughly three times as many as By using emerging media platforms, understanding of science—spent a
watched on TV a few nights earlier. we connect with fresh audiences. year gathering input from scientists,
Think about science journalists, While the science beat is old—dat- journalists, museum curators, and
and clichés are abundant. The science ing back to even before Sputnik—the science teachers. It created QUEST, a
reporter is the rumpled, socially inept approach we take is new. KQED had weekly series aimed at recasting science
character in the corner cubicle, sur- a storied 50-year history of producing and environmental journalism for new
electricity from renewable sources by To report science and environ- Money also is a challenge. The
2020—along with all the pitfalls and ment stories, QUEST producers have show costs about $2.5 million a year
problems, from inadequate transmis- climbed inside the massive towers of to produce. Funding comes from the
sion lines to environmental concerns the new Oakland Bay Bridge to explain National Science Foundation and an
that big solar arrays will harm desert its engineering, gone on expeditions for array of other donors. QUEST would
tortoises and other endangered spe- great white sharks, mapped earthquake love to travel farther and wider—to
cies. In October, NPR aired nationally faults, and worked in laboratories with Lake Tahoe, the northernmost ancient
QUEST’s three-part consumer guide researchers seeking to find everything redwood forests, the deserts of Califor-
to the surge of electric cars about to from a cure for AIDS to the identities nia—but can’t afford it. Yet the project
hit U.S. showrooms. of migrant workers who die alone in has built a significant audience on the
the desert. David Perlman, the veteran radio, TV and the Web and has won
Collaborating on Science science reporter for the San Francisco five Northern California Emmy Awards
Reporting Chronicle, once said that covering as well as national awards from the
science, environment and medical Society of Environmental Journalists.
QUEST also has experimented with issues “is like attending a never- Now KQED has begun an effort to
new models of collaboration among ending graduate school of unlimited replicate this multimedia reporting
journalists. On its first day, model at other PBS and NPR
the staff of 15 employees affiliates around the nation.
was brought out of separate Not all of the seven stations
departments at KQED—TV, in this initial effort—including
radio, education and interac- Why can’t TV producers share their audio affiliates in Seattle, Tampa,
tive—to sit together on the with radio reporters, for example? Why Philadelphia and Nebraska—
third floor. Assigning editors will be able to raise the money
didn’t hand out story ideas. can’t every station create a wiki for story for a full-blown TV, radio,
Instead a wiki—a collab- Web and education series. But
orative internal website like ideas ... ? Why can’t a station create we’re convinced that using
Wikipedia—was set up where slideshows with radio stories and work even some of the QUEST
every staff member, from the techniques can help them
newest intern to the executive with local museums and nonprofits produce more compelling
producer, was encouraged to stories for broader audiences.
enter ideas and critique or to distribute them in e-mail newsletters Why can’t TV producers share
contribute to ideas already to members? their audio with radio report-
there. ers, for example? Why can’t
QUEST concentrates its every station create a wiki for
coverage on nine topics— story ideas, including notes
astronomy, biology, chemistry, and experts’ phone numbers
engineering, environment, geology, diversity, with a faculty that is most for any staff producer to see? Why can’t
health, physics and weather. These often eager to instruct and patiently a station create slideshows with radio
were chosen to be in sync with Califor- explain.” And it is. stories and work with local museums
nia’s public school science curriculum Reaching out to the community has and nonprofits to distribute them in
standards. Sixteen community partners not been without challenges. At first, e-mail newsletters to members?
were enlisted—from the Monterey Bay we had a delicate dance with partners QUEST might flame out like other
Aquarium to the California Academy of to ensure the project benefited from journalism experiments. But so far—
Sciences, the U.S. Geological Survey to their advice but we retained our jour- from rocket ships to giant squid—it’s
the Girl Scouts—to suggest story ideas nalistic independence. We learned we been a wonderful ride.
and provide feedback. Some stories now needed to involve the education team
play on flat screen TVs on the walls early on to make sure we included Paul Rogers is the managing editor
of Bay Area aquariums and muse- key facts to help stories meet state of QUEST and the environment
ums. One 30-minute QUEST special education standards. By the third year, writer at the San Jose Mercury News.
about the state of science education we realized that many schoolteachers For more, go to www.kqed.org/quest.
in California schools was embedded and community partners most wanted
on the National Science Teachers KQED to train them how to shoot
Association website. At some of the their own video, make their own
partner locations, QUEST producers interactive maps, and create their own
have hosted public lectures and film audio pieces with slideshows for their
festivals with scientists. websites. So we did.
BY E. BENJAMIN SKINNER
I
n its code of ethics, the Society of bias: I am not for slavery. In fact, I ing in South Africa one freezing cold
Professional Journalists (SPJ) lists hate it, and when victims have asked night in July 2009, I met two girls
as its first two principles: Journal- me for help to get free, and when there who desperately needed help. Several
ists should “seek truth and report it” has been a way to aid their recovery months earlier, a recruiter had lured
and “minimize harm” in the process. responsibly, I have gotten involved. the best friends out of their township,
My beat is modern-day slavery, and Perhaps it’s simply the nature of then sold them into sex slavery for $120
for those who cover unfolding crimes this beat. Perhaps it’s me. and a bag of crack cocaine. The buyer
against humanity, doing no harm does While on assignment for Time was a Nigerian pimp named Jude, who
not mean doing nothing. I confess my magazine to investigate sex traffick- kept every penny the girls earned on
Reporting stories about girls like “Elizabeth,” who stands on a corner in Bloemfontein, South Africa, can mean that a journalist becomes
involved in their lives in ways that can press up against journalism’s code of ethics. Photo by Melanie Hamman.
the streets. Jude had kicked out the Setting Rules for Reporting because slavery is a continuously
older one, Sindiswa, 17, a week before unfolding crime against humanity,
I met her, as she was too sick to work. Since I began reporting on modern-day the SPJ’s code is particularly crucial
Now Sindiswa lay alone, dying in a slavery in 2002, I have interviewed for reporters who take on the subject.
state-run hospice in central Bloemfon- hundreds of slaves, survivors, traffick- “I only have one rule,” I typically tell
tein, feverish from AIDS, tuberculosis, ers and abolitionists in some two dozen slaves or survivors before an interview
and a first-trimester pregnancy. As she countries. I’ve logged more than one in which I ask them to bear honest
spoke, I wiped sweat from her witness about their lives. “You
brow with a paper napkin. Her make the rules.”
fever was high and her T-cell The safety of slaves, sur-
count was bottoming out. She vivors and other sources as
shivered, but her pillow was well as fixers, translators and
soaked. Next to the rusty bed drivers is what matters, above
lay one small duffel bag with all else. Informed consent of
all of her worldly possessions: subjects can be a matter of
two T-shirts, pants, raggedy life or death. As is true with
lambskin slippers, and her most Western journalists
toiletries. On her side table reporting abroad, the dangers
was a half empty bottle of I face are minimal compared
Sprite and a bottle of the to those that my sources and
rehydrant Pedialyte. That confederates confront, and
was all that she had left in working primarily to ensure
the world. their safety normally means
“I’m hungry,” she said, let- ensuring my own.
ting me know that she couldn’t Such precautions extend to
eat the food that they fed her the editorial process as well.
in the clinic. She could not Of course I won’t change
move so she asked me to get facts, but if a particular pub-
her Kentucky Fried Chicken, lication will permit it, I will
of all things. Ironically, she change names. “Elizabeth,”
wanted a meal called “Street- for example, is not the real
wise Two.” I fetched it for her, name of the victim mentioned
and then she told me her life above; Sindiswa insisted that I
story in 20 halting minutes. use her real name. I also will
“ Thank you for being conceal certain biographical
interested in my life,” she details of slaves and survivors
said after she began to fade in order to protect them from
out for the night. retaliation.
“It’s an honor,” I responded. Most times these safety
“Thank you for your courage.” Reporter E. Benjamin Skinner wipes the perspiration from concerns dictate that it is
Shortly afterward, at mid- Sindiswa’s brow as she lies in a hospital, pregnant, HIV-in- not possible to get informed
night, by pure coincidence, fected, and ill from tuberculosis. Photo by Melanie Hamman. consent from criminally active
Melanie Hamman, the pho- traffickers before interviewing
tographer working with me, them. This means that certain
took a picture of a young girl working million flight miles. And yet I have publications that I work for will not
on the corner of a hotel that a traf- only peered through a tiny window into publish information that I have gath-
ficking syndicate had overrun. The the world of what the International ered while undercover. Yet undercover
girl was “Elizabeth,” Sindiswa’s best Labor Office claims are 12.3 million work is indispensable—and, according
friend. She said that she was 15, and forced laborers. Forced to perform to the SPJ, defensible if acknowledged
though she had failed in two previous services under threat of violence, for in the publication—to getting the truth
escape attempts, she held out hope of no pay beyond subsistence, slaves are while protecting the safety of sources
breaking free from Jude. Hamman among the world’s most vulnerable and confederates. Activists often warn
and I decided to act immediately and and fragmented populations. They are of immediate blowback suffered by
deliberately to help her to safety. [See hidden everywhere and nowhere, in slaves when overt journalists confront
photo essay on page 41 by Hamman all major countries, in all 50 states, in traffickers: A human rights advocate
about her work documenting human brick kilns and underground brothels, in Nebraska alleged that traffickers
trafficking.] in fisheries and private homes. And recently gang-raped a young victim
the night before she was scheduled Miles Wright, treasurer of the North As I write this, I am with him in
for an interview. Carolina-based organization that sup- Raleigh, North Carolina, where he
In Romania during the summer ports Nathan’s orphanage, learned that received excellent round-the-clock
of 2006, when interviewing a brutal Nathan had fallen some 80 feet off of medical care to save his mobility. His
pimp selling a disabled young woman its collapsing roof, breaking his back flexibility is still a problem, but he has
out of an underground brothel, I knew in the process. Wright and I worked made a remarkable recovery and has
that to break cover would be to risk together to pull strings and charter a spent much of the last few months
the victim’s life. But the year raising funds and rebuilding
before in Haiti, when I spoke the orphanage. He and others
with a trafficker who was at the home have recently
operating in broad daylight added a school for recovering
on the street with no victim child domestic slaves.
in sight, I could interview him Whether deliberately or
openly as a journalist. That not, journalists change the
“broker,” as he called himself, lives of those whose lives we
was further emboldened by cover. For Sindiswa, sadly, I
Haiti’s lack of human traf- was too late. I was the first and
ficking law enforcement. In last person to hear her short
both instances, I reported my life story; she died a week after
findings to local authorities our interview. Elizabeth, on
before publication. the other hand, is still free and,
aided by a suburban Chicago
When the Story Ends couple who heard about my
investigation, is home with
After publication, our respon- her disabled mother. She faces
sibility for those that we write serious challenges, but she is
about and those who have HIV-negative, and she has
helped us report remains. For another shot at life.
Sydney Schanberg, that meant Too often, the 24-hour TV
staying focused on Cambodia news cycle leaves viewers with
and working to contact Dith the impression that journal-
Pran, his reporting partner, ists’ professional detachment
whom Schanberg had left in covering global crises
behind when Phnom Penh fell borders on misery tourism.
to the Khmer Rouge in 1975. I have rarely encountered
For me, that meant help- journalists thus inclined. And
ing Bill Nathan. In 2005, as icons—Edward R. Mur-
Nathan, then the manager of row to Samantha Power to
a Port-au-Prince orphanage, Nicholas Kristof, to name a
told me his remarkable story few—have shown, journalists’
Sindiswa, who was sold into prostitution, died a week after she
of child domestic slavery and reports on horrific human
shared her life story with reporter E. Benjamin Skinner. Photo
escape for my book, “A Crime rights abuses don’t have to
by Melanie Hamman.
So Monstrous: Face-to-Face be articles or essays merely
With Modern-Day Slavery.” “pondering over the deeds of
He also served as a guide, walking me tiny plane to Haiti with two surgeons darkness,” in Henry David Thoreau’s
through some of the Haitian capital’s and 200 pounds of medical supplies. words. Their honest, detailed report-
toughest neighborhoods, including Our main mission, however, was to ing can galvanize action to be taken
the gang-controlled community, Cité extract Nathan, which we did less than against those deeds.
Soleil. Most importantly, he was my 72 hours after the quake.
savior when I contracted a debilitating Here we were following a different E. Benjamin Skinner is a senior
case of malaria, and he provided me set of priorities, those of disaster triage, fellow at the nonprofit Schuster Insti-
with the chloroquine, food and shelter which dictate that injured people who tute for Investigative Journalism at
that helped me recover. have the capacity to save others—doc- Brandeis University, where his work
After this year’s catastrophic tors and other first responders—should is funded through a dedicated gift to
earthquake struck Haiti, Nathan be the first victims assisted. Nathan, support reporting on this beat.
wasn’t responding to calls I made to who has saved hundreds of children
his cell phone, and I was worried. through his work, was first on my list.
A young woman leaves a house that police raided in Johannesburg, South Africa during the
World Cup this past summer. The raid followed a tip from a girl who had been rescued by
an outreach worker who helps street prostitutes and victims of trafficking.
S
ometimes I wonder if I am crazy of human beings, most of whom are subject into the realm of reality. Data
to be covering the issue of human women, many still children. In most about human trafficking, while hor-
trafficking as a photographer. cases they are helpless to escape the rifying to learn, can’t do justice to
That’s when I realize how life can have horror of what their lives have become, this story: Visual images—with the
its own way of deciding such things; though some do. In hearing their capacity to draw us in to another
it’s what I’ve been compelled to do. stories and, in some cases, following human being’s existence—have a vital
Nothing about this job makes it easy— their journey of recovery, I have come role to play as powerful storytelling
there’s the photographic challenge to understand the interwoven layers of vehicles. Absent this personal connec-
of getting shots of criminal activity, my responsibility—as a photographer, tion, people remain detached.
which by its very nature is clandestine. a journalist, and a human being. The fine line between being a jour-
Equally difficult is bearing the weight The pursuit of any documentary nalist and being someone who exploits
of absorbing and communicating the photographer or photojournalist is a victim has become clear to me in my
unrelenting pain of the victims. to tell a story visually—so the image attempt to cover this story. During the
Yet this is what I do, and so my conveys the story without the necessity past year, as I have met with women
journey brings me face to face with of words. To do this, I find ways to and young girls who were victims
many victims of the global trafficking personify the issue, to bring an abstract of domestic sex trafficking in South
Police broke down a security gate to gain entrance to locked rooms in this house. “Wandi,”
who was addicted to drugs and had no trust in the police who’d arrested her for prostitution
in the past, resisted leaving. She feared violence from the man who controlled her life and
told her he would use witchcraft on her if she ever left. Photo and text by Melanie Hamman.
Africa and with social workers who after she was “safe,” she suffered from come to accept that it is not always
work with victims who have escaped, I psychotic spells; the effects of her possible for me to remain emotionally
have more fully understood the human trauma meant that she could not recall detached, as much as I might feel this
dimensions of this issue—and how it with any certainty the timeline of her to be a journalist’s obligation.
connects to our efforts to report on experiences. Soon after she related her When human trafficking surfaced
these lives. Merely by retelling her story to me, I learned that she had as a story during the World Cup in
story, a victim can be retraumatized, relapsed into a mental health crisis. South Africa, numerous reporters
severely complicating her recovery. Additionally, questioning victims too sought me out, and they asked me
For minors, the risk is even greater early (or at all) can risk jeopardizing “Can you get me a victim?” The insen-
since the level of manipulation and possible police investigations, which in sitivity of their request hit me hard,
trauma they’ve been exposed to often South Africa are frustratingly more the revealing the ugly side of journalism.
leaves them with severe psychological exception in such cases than the rule. Insensitive sensationalist reporting of
problems. As a photographer I often ask human trafficking—conveying little
I experienced this with the first myself whether what I’m doing is in beyond the hype of headlines based on
young woman I spoke to in South Africa the victim’s best interest. I use visual hugely exaggerated speculation—has
who had been trafficked. She was 17 images to tell a story; it’s how I com- led to a media backlash. The surge
years old and had been entrapped in municate a person’s humanity, how I of misinformed reporting during the
this circumstance for five years before convey their pain and anguish or their World Cup resulted in small but unre-
she escaped and found refuge. Even hope for and pursuit of survival. I’ve alistic expectations that government
Wandi was questioned by a law enforcement officer during a raid. If it had been documented
that she was under 18, the police would have been required by law to remove her from the house
and place her in safe custody. Like the other females there, however, her identity documents
were held by the man who controlled her, at his residence. Photo and text by Melanie Hamman.
or legal authorities would respond in of how this nation’s poor women and lives in ways that will reignite their
some positive way and in the public’s children are marginalized—and yes, pain.
belief that once the World Cup left trafficked—as they confront obstacles
the stage, so, too, would the issue of in acquiring an education and in Melanie Hamman is a photographer
human trafficking. It was as if South being kept healthy and safe. It should whose work on child protection
Africans convinced themselves that surprise no one that human trafficking and trafficking was exhibited in
something foreign arrived with the is happening in this country in which late 2010 at Constitution Hill in
sports event—and would be gone when two-thirds of children live in poverty Johannesburg, South Africa. Her
the games were over. and sex crimes against women and photographs also accompanied a
Yet the truth is that human traffick- children climb year after year, and yet story about human trafficking by E.
ing, even though it hadn’t been covered these crimes remain among the least Benjamin Skinner in Time magazine
by the news media, has been part of of the government’s priorities. in early 2010. She has developed
the migrant flow into South Africa Through my photography I work a website to which journalists can
for decades. Nor does it happen only to reveal the reality and horror of go for information about covering
to women who aren’t South African. human trafficking. Yet in doing so human trafficking: www.mediamoni
And eradicating it will not take place I am acutely aware of the traumatic toringafrica.org/cpt.
in a vacuum. scars these experiences leave inside
Similarly, reporting about it needs their victims. Being a journalist does
to be embedded in the complexities not give me the right to invade their
A 17-year-old girl, who said she had been gang-raped the previous week, talks to a member
of the raid squad. “He bought me a little pink dress and told me to go on the streets, but I
didn’t want to do it” she said of the man who was in charge of her life. On this day she left
with an outreach worker and was brought to a safe house for victims of trafficking.
A man who was in the house during the raid evaded questioning by saying
he was there visiting his “brother.” He appeared to be acting as a guard,
and his papers identified him as an asylum seeker of West African origin.
This man, who claimed to be visiting his “brother,” packed his bag and left.
Police found no reason to bring charges against him.
BY MICHELINE MAYNARD
T
hroughout much of
the 20th century, De-
troit, Cleveland and
Chicago were industrial
boomtowns. Hundreds of
thousands of people flocked
to them from all over the
country and all over the
world in the Midwest’s
equivalent of the Gold
Rush. Between 1947 and
1977, the region’s heyday,
the arc of many young
lives seemed predestined—
graduate from high school
and walk across the street
for a job in a factory. Some-
times it didn’t even take
a diploma. All that was
needed was a contact on the
inside, such as a brother, a
The staff of Changing Gears, from left: Dan Bobkoff, Cleveland reporter; Kate Davidson, Ann Arbor
father, an uncle, or just a
reporter; Micheline Maynard, senior editor; George Nemeth, senior Web producer; and Niala Boodhoo,
pal from the neighborhood.
Chicago reporter.
Now, in a global econ-
omy, the region’s dynamics
have shifted from building
to buying, and those boomtowns are as the economy and jobs, we also look diversity to the arts and food.
no more. Detroit and Cleveland have to other beats—food and culture, to The mini-beats create opportunities
seen their populations drop by half, name just two—to tackle the breadth for individual series designed to involve
as carmakers and parts suppliers of issues facing the industrial Midwest. our listeners. They include “Still Work-
shrink. While Chicago gleams on the At its core, our beat is the region ing,” occasional reports in which we
surface, it has an estimated 3,000 from Duluth, Minnesota to Buffalo, highlight older individuals still at their
acres of abandoned and contaminated New York and the states and towns jobs. “Our Towns” is a series that gives
buildings largely hidden from tourists’ in between, although our subject of us the opportunity to tackle broader
view. With that decline, residents of reinvention is not limited simply by issues while checking in with people
Michigan, Ohio and Illinois have to geography. That’s the wide-angle view. who live in Sandusky, Ohio; Kenosha,
learn new skills that will lead them Within the industrial Midwest, Wisconsin; and Kalamazoo, Michigan.
back to stability and perhaps prosper- we decided to zoom in on five major
ity someday. themes, which we call mini-beats. Launching Changing Gears
Our job as journalists at Changing These are jobs and job creation, com-
Gears: Remaking the Manufacturing munity redevelopment, education, the Changing Gears started to broadcast
Belt, a public media project, is to report environment (a topic of great interest its stories and publish them on its
the situation and address the region’s to those residing near the Great Lakes), website in September. Officially called
prospects. Although our reporting and agriculture. In addition, we are the Upper Midwest Local Journalism
assignments focus on core issues such exploring cultural issues, from ethnic Center, the project is funded by the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting listeners will pick the winner. long operated bureaus in different
as part of an initiative that created Listener involvement is a key parts of the country, although many
a series of local journalism centers part of Changing Gears since this is are now closed.
across the country. conceived as a two-way conversation. This method of coverage—emanat-
The idea was two-fold: On September 24, we kicked that ing from the hub outward—has been
off with a call-in show examining less common at public radio. While
• Cover topics of vital regional inter- whether government officials should NPR has bureaus in the United States
est—and do so by having reporters’ focus more on big city problems or and around the world, each of the
stories revolve around the shared on boosting smaller communities with 764 stations affiliated with NPR have
concerns of those who are expe- fewer obstacles to overcome. There often gone its own way on local news,
riencing a sense of disconnection will be a number of public events in though many issues might pique the
and decline. each partnership city. interest of listeners in nearby states.
• Bring together as newsgathering Yet, in everything we do—stories, Changing Gears is different because
partners public radio and television documentaries, special reports—and its reporters are asked to assume a
stations in the region, including on every platform on which our stories broader perspective than their home
WBEZ in Chicago, Ann Arbor-based appear, our focus stays fixed on this city as they prepare their stories.
Michigan Radio, and ideastream, upper Midwest region, an unusual For a reporter like Bobkoff, whose
which is public radio and TV in approach for both the journalists and previous job was to cover business in
Cleveland. their home stations. Cleveland and northeast Ohio, the shift
To be sure, regional coverage hap- has required adjustments as the scope
In June, I left The New York Times pens at big newspapers like my former of the story expands to fit its regional
to become the project’s senior editor home, The New York Times, where it boundaries and its focus gets tighter
and direct a team that includes report- has been common for bureau reporters on the primary topic of transition. “It’s
ers in three cities. Niala Boodhoo, to cover a dozen or so states. However, a lot like being a national reporter in
formerly of The Miami Herald, is based at other national newspapers, such that we have to answer the question
in Chicago. Kate Davidson, a veteran as The Washington Post, even some ‘Why do I care if I live more than 100
producer for NPR, works in Ann Arbor, prominent domestic bureaus (such as miles from here?’ ” he says. “Often it’s
and Dan Bobkoff, previously with New York City) have been shuttered, as simple as taking a step back and
WCPN in Cleveland, remains there, and most newsmagazine bureaus are asking ‘What’s the bigger picture here?
along with our senior Web producer no more. Network news organizations Is this happening in a larger way?’ ”
George Nemeth.
Although the chal-
lenges facing this Midwest
region are primarily eco-
nomic, Changing Gears’
mandate is more than to
just tell business stories.
We explore the daily
lives of people who live
here—young and old
(and in between)—as
we cover cultural topics,
such as the food scene,
which is the subject of
a Web feature we call
“Reinvention Recipes.”
This winter, we’ll spend
time on the music scene
as we team up with Sound
Opinions, the rock and
roll show based at WBEZ,
for a contest intended to
discover Midwest musical
talent. It will culminate in
a symposium and concert
at the Rock and Roll Hall Changing Gears reporter Kate Davidson wrote a story about a homeless encampment she discovered
of Fame in Cleveland, and while on a canoe trip down the Huron River. Photo by Mark Brush.
Regional Focus canoeing and discovered evidence of go more in-depth and specific than a
the poor economy: national piece might and can maybe
The Changing Gears website per- help people who live here think more
sonifies the nature of our beat. Having The other day, friends and I broadly about where they live,” says
reporters based in three cities helps decided to see the fall colors Bobkoff. “But we’re not going to cover
to keep the stories focused on the for ourselves. So we spent an the local school board. That’s why we
regional mission. “Our challenge is afternoon paddling down the need strong local journalism too.”
to make sure we don’t become too Huron River. It’s something both
provincial and lose sight of the whole tourists and locals love to do when Micheline Maynard is the senior
region,” Bobkoff says. “For instance, I the weather’s fine. Crimson and editor of Changing Gears. After
may do a story from Cleveland, but it yellow shone from the banks. But joining the staff of The New York
has to tell some truths about what’s we noticed splashes of color that Times in 2004, she served as its
happening in Michigan or Illinois.” On weren’t from the leaves. They Detroit bureau chief and avia-
a story about the importance of fall were from the bright tents of tion reporter. She became a senior
tourism to the area’s economy, Boodhoo homeless camps. business correspondent in 2008
traced the progression of the changing and was a lead reporter in the
autumn leaves with links to maps of Even as the states are trying to put paper’s coverage of the automobile
Wisconsin and Michigan. on their best face, it seems, reality can industry bailout. She is the author
Changing Gears is not a chamber intrude. With Changing Gears, we are of four books including her most
of commerce. Our job is to explore looking at that reality, good and bad, recent, “The Selling of the American
and explain, not to promote. And the for a region whose identity no longer Economy: How Foreign Companies
rebuilding stories we tell bring with stems from the factories that fueled its Are Remaking the American Dream,”
them some uncomfortable truths. On boom. It’s an effort that adds to, but published by Random House in
the same day that Boodhoo’s color tour doesn’t replace, the job that individual 2009.
story ran, Changing Gears stations also news organizations are doing, both in
aired a feature by Davidson, who went this area and outside of it. “We can
The job of engaging with those formerly nod their heads, and then they ask on top of local news by relying on a
known as “the audience” is in some again what it is I really do. By now, combination of traditional and new
ways becoming a new online “beat”— this routine is all too familiar—but I sources. Then I use social media and
one in search of a simple moniker to can appreciate why. Until I started this digital tools to bring accurate and
describe what it is, the skills required, job, I hadn’t heard of a community host useful news and information to the
and the tasks entailed. Four of the six either. Unlike the previous positions public—quickly.
members of TBD’s community engage- I’ve held—reporter, producer, video I’m also responsible for maintaining
ment team describe what they do at journalist—this one was unfamiliar, the food and dining section of our
this local news site that came to life with responsibilities undefined and website. Every day I compile a com-
in the summer of 2010. always evolving. prehensive roundup of food, dining and
While I don’t have a clear definition restaurant news in our metropolitan
for my title, in the short time I’ve been area. To do this I scour a wide range
Nathasha Lim: doing it, one thing is certain: What of local news sources, community and
I do is unpredictable and diverse. On food blogs, and social media sites.
“I’m a community host at TBD.” That’s any given day I will keep an eye on Those who blog about food and din-
what I say when people ask what I do. local bloggers and interact with the ing often play the role of restaurant
Hearing this, they smile, sort of, and community via social media. I stay reviewers, and they also break news
Or I read comments they’ve left on a sources to interview, I’m scanning the our affiliated TV station did with a
story or questions they’ve raised. Or Web for sources of news and informa- surgeon.
I read a tip someone sends in. tion that will interest our readers. In I kept my eye out for information
From there, part of my job becomes many ways, these two jobs aren’t all to fill the gaps in the story. I could
helping to aggregate and geocode that different. When I’m responding see that people were speculating about
news from the many local blogs and to breaking news, I’m using many of what might have caused his injury.
news sites in the TBD Community the same skills I learned as a beat So when I found a blog by a pitch-
Network. At the same ing mechanics expert
time, I am listening who had long ago
to and responding to raised red flags about
users. We are always Strasburg’s throwing
trying to come up with motion, I linked our
new ways for users readers to it. I didn’t
to interact with each need to interview the
other and with us. expert; he had already
Sometimes we write, answered the ques-
but when we do it’s tions I had.
usually to share infor- But when I did
mation that’s been have additional ques-
contributed by users. tions for a surgeon,
Or I might give an I called one and did
update about what’s an interview. “So you
happening at TBD. did actual reporting!”
When I come to is what people might
work each day, I can be tempted to say at
expect to do a mix this point. But I’d
of reporting, read- argue that I was “doing
ing, headline writing, reporting” all along.
search-engine opti- With the Strasburg
mization, community story, the amount of
relations, customer information available
service, blogger coach- far exceeded what any
ing, viral marketing, one reporter could
TBD, a local news site in Washington, D.C., combines information curated from
event planning, mul- gather. Why should
other sources—including social media—with reporting.
timedia production, TBD ignore what’s out
and Web coding. To a there just because we
large extent, my newsroom assignment reporter: You need expertise in your didn’t speak to each source? I vetted
reflects the shift of the media environ- subject to offer context to links and each link for reliability, expertise and
ment from scarcity to an abundance recognize which ones are valuable, and coherence the same way I’d vet a human
of content. My challenge is to capture you need a writer’s flair to present it source in a deadline situation. It isn’t
and funnel information from blogs, as a readable narrative. the act of speaking to a reporter that
websites, and legacy media (yes, even Such was the case on the day when validates sources as worthwhile; it is
from our competitors) that will enhance Stephen Strasburg, the young star the vetting process the reporter puts
our community’s experience. pitcher for the Washington Nationals, them through before and after the
Organize it. Filter it. Present it. found out that he needed so-called interviews.
That’s what I do. But my job doesn’t Tommy John surgery on his arm So aggregation has far more value
stop there. In fact, in some ways, it’s and his recovery would last at least a than a simple list of poached links
only a beginning. Now it’s time to year. As updates rapidly came to the when you apply news judgment and
host the conversation that develops Web, I gathered the most reliable and subject expertise. At the same time,
and invite others to join in. information-filled reports—relying on a beat reporter who isn’t linking to
Twitter hashtags and pre-established other sources is failing to give readers
Daniel Victor: lists to monitor baseball bloggers and information they might want to see.
beat writers—and then wove these into It’s all about finding good sources,
I’d been a reporter for four years before a story with chronological updates. gathering their insights, and presenting
I joined TBD as a community host. Meanwhile, a reporter at TBD fed me those to readers. In essence, reporters
Now, instead of looking for phone updates from press conferences, and I have always been good aggregators.
numbers or pounding the pavement for embedded a video from an interview
BY DAVE KINDRED
W
hen New York Yankees third posted on the team’s dugout wall and Wally Matthews, a veteran sports
base coach Rob Thomson has been since Connie Mack was Cor- reporter who is new to the baseball
walks from the clubhouse nelius McGillicuddy catching without beat.
toward his team’s dugout, he carries a mask. Yet the assembled literati The reporters race against one
a small sheet of paper with which snap to attention as Thomson waves another to thumb the night’s lineup
he teases the beat reporters. It’s the the card. They fall in line and follow into their handheld devices. They know
lineup card for that night’s game. It the coach to the dugout. That way that if they don’t get the lineup into
carries the names, positions and the they’re present the second he tapes the ether immediately they will start
batting order for the Yankees. the card up. to hear lamentations from their Twitter
Routine stuff, that card. It’s always “Then, thumbs start flying,” says followers, their Facebook friends, and
Photographers, bloggers and beat reporters feed an insatiable appetite for sports news. Here, the media swarm around John Henry,
the new owner of the Liverpool Football Club, at a press conference in October. Photo by Stan Grossfeld/The Boston Globe.
that crowd of fanatics who want the Witnessing a Revolution into a 21st century golden age of
lineup now and know they can get journalism. To some dinosaurs still
it now and won’t be happy until the Matthews is a veteran New York roaming the ink-stained earth, it feels
reporters satisfy, if only momentarily, newspaperman, long a boxing reporter borderline suicidal. It reminds me of
their lust for information. and columnist, who in 2010 became a hapless husband at the wheel of the
“Hours before the game,” Mat- a baseball beat reporter for the first family car telling his wife, “I have no
thews says, “I’m getting tweets asking, time. He covers the Yankees for idea where we are, where we’re going,
‘Where’s the lineup?’ It’s crazy. The ESPNNewYork.com. One conclusion to or how we’ll get there. But we’re mak-
beat guys, it matters if we get the draw from his experience is that the ing good time.”
lineup posted first by 45 seconds. We work on a sports beat today is more I wanted to be a baseball writer
go around saying, ‘Look at the time than an evolutionary step in the news until I met one. I saw him do pre-game
code, I had the lineup way before you.’ business. It is revolutionary—with notes. Then during games he wrote a
It’s now a world of flying thumbs. It’s reporting routines that never existed running account of the action, inning
like those video games I used to get before becoming fixtures overnight. by inning at best, at worst hitter by
on my 12-year-old son for playing—I’m Maybe this revolution is a brave, hitter. Afterward, he hurried to the
53 and now I’m doing it.” necessary and visionary leap forward clubhouses for quotes. Back in his
press box seat, he wrote a new story. blogs (play-by-play), then scrambling box at 10:30, he would then do his
All that work, done at speed, was to write a completely different story morning column.
counterproductive to good reporting, on deadline. What a waste of talent.” Can this be good? For the paper
let alone keen observation of a game The best baseball beat reporters or the website? For the reporter? For
that rewarded such attention. As for have always been perpetual motion readers and users? For journalism?
writing anything of a quality much machines. But even for them, there To my fundamental question—“Is
higher than a ransom note, the work- are physical and mental limits beyond all this good or bad for reporting?”—
load made that impossible. which they lose effectiveness. Olson Matthews responds, “Well,” before he
That’s what I thought way back in believes those limits have been reached. pauses. “It’s certainly thorough,” he
the 20th century. Now, concludes.
as we hurtle through It’s thorough in a way
the 21st, baseball beat that journalists know is
reporters would love deadly to their work.
to live at that leisurely It’s thorough in that it
pace. “From the time records everything with
I get to the ballpark, little regard for context,
four hours before a perspective or narrative.
game, until I’m done It’s thorough in the way
two hours or so after, a thousand-piece jigsaw
I’m writing constantly,” puzzle is thorough; it’s
Matthews says. all there, the consumer
Everything he hears just has to put the pieces
in the clubhouse and together.
dugout is fodder for Sounds terrible,
Twitter and his live- doesn’t it? It is. The
blogging. He records paradoxical truth, how-
every word, transcribes ever, is that such thor-
the interviews, and oughness is the beating
rereads it all so if he hap- heart of the revolution
pened to miss a “news” that is necessary in the
item while thumbing/ journalism business.
writing, he can drop it Warren Buffett, who
into his next tweet. He knows about making
says, “I tell my wife, money, once said that
after 3:30, don’t call me no one ever built an
unless it’s an emergency audience without mak-
because I don’t have ing money from that
time to talk.” audience. So journalists
Lisa Olson, a colum- know what they must
nist for AOL Fanhouse, do. Build the brand.
has seen live-blogging A reporter takes a cell phone photo of his screen after learning through the Drive traffic. Draw an
in action. The process @realpatriots Twitter feed that the New England Patriots traded the 23rd audience. And hope
is essentially an awk- pick in the 2009 NFL draft. Photo by Stew Milne/The Associated Press. that someone figures out
ward, truncated boys- how to make the money
at-the-bar conversation that makes it possible to
between a reporter and an audience of “Most newspapers and some sites,” she again do real journalism.
anonymous users. Generally, the writer says, “are running their beat reporters “It’s crazy,” Matthews says. Then he
offers random thoughts and answers into the ground way too early.” sighs. “But it’s the world we’re in.”
questions. For reporters whose skills Beat reporters are not alone in
have been shaped by years of news- typing without rest stops. In Atlanta Dave Kindred is the author of
gathering, this work must be as much this fall, as I went to the Braves club- “Morning Miracle: Inside The
fun as playing Scrabble with a poodle. house, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Washington Post, A Great Newspaper
“The running blogs are such a columnist Mark Bradley hustled ahead Fights for Its Life.” He has written
waste of energy,” Olson says. “Wally of me, head down, notebook in hand. for newspapers and magazines for
Matthews is a great example. He’s a “Been writing constantly for six hours,” more than 40 years and received the
wonderful writer, but the games I’ve sat he said. That day he had been the Red Smith Award for his work as a
near him, he’s typing furious running paper’s live-blogger. Back in the press sports columnist.
In the spring of 2010 Frank Deford, a senior contributing writer at Sports But sportswriters: one word. The
Illustrated, author, and commentator on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” delivered assumption, I suppose, is that we do
the Red Smith Lecture in Journalism at the University of Notre Dame. He not stand apart and clinically observe
called his talk “Sportswriter Is One Word,” an at times humorous, always so well as our more respected breth-
insightful rendering of “the carnival I hitched a ride onto in 1962.” For close ren who better keep their distance
to half a century he has written stories about athletes and the games they from their subjects and are properly,
play, and now, as he assesses the technological changes in how sportswrit- clinically objective. …
ers do their job, he provocatively states that “The end of journalism as we In fact, to be a sportswriter today
know it is only the beginning of better things for sports journalism. With isn’t nearly as engaging. The revolu-
two caveats.” His talk is available at http://images.amuniversal.com/amu/ tion is over. There are just more teams,
FrankDeford.pdf. An excerpt follows: more standings, more players, more
numbers, more agate type. There’s
It says something that alone in the the business is two words, modifier even more soccer.
canon, sportswriter is one word, as if and noun, discreetly separated: edito- Still, while it’s not just nostalgia
we press box inhabitants cannot be rial writers, foreign correspondents, and the sappy memories of an old
separated from that which we profes- movie critics, beat reporters, and man to say that sports was a better
sionally embrace. Everybody else in even—yes—sports editors. canvas to paint on then, nonetheless,
Nearly a century later Twitter is the telegraph in the press box. Reporters watch the New York Giants play the Philadelphia
Athletics in the 1913 World Series. Image from the George Grantham Bain Collection at the Library of Congress.
when talking about the changes in going to want to read about sports, with the wrong people. And now, of
sports journalism, it’s so hard to dis- and this link of sports leads to that course, that includes sports celebri-
till it from the rest of the discipline. link and on and on and on, and soon ties getting caught in bed with the
That world I stumbled into in 1962 we know more and more and more wrong people.
was already on the cusp of being about draft prospects and recruits No, no need to worry, fans: All
manhandled by technology. and possible trades and schedules that stuff will continue to be well
The late Neil Postman, who was and point spreads and polls and more covered. It is the good stories, and,
a brilliant social observer, once polls and statistics and statistics and even worse, the good investigative
suggested: Education as we know more statistics. Who cares that it’s journalism, that we will lose.
it began with the printing press and bush? It’s fun. It was only a few years ago that
ended with television. The end of journalism as we know two reporters on the San Francisco
So now, I suppose, we could say: it is only the beginning of better Chronicle, Lance Williams and Mark
Journalism, as we knew it, began things for sports journalism. Fainaru-Wada, worked for more than
with the printing press. It ended With two caveats. First, who’s a year on the story—BALCO—that
with the Internet. … gonna pay for it? Nobody’s yet figured essentially fully exposed steroids
But now, of course, people in that little niggling detail out. … And in baseball and other sports. Phil
this century are growing up with a number two, what’s good for sports Bronstein, who was editor of the
predilection only to read about what journalism is not necessarily good Chronicle during that investigation,
already interests them. Actually, I’m for sportswriting. told me not long ago that today the
ahead of this curve, because I dis- The Internet—or, to be kind, the paper surely couldn’t even begin to
covered this luxury years ago when influence of the Internet—is reducing consider such a risky expenditure of
researching novels. You only have the amount of storytelling in sports time and human resource. …
to cherry-pick precisely what you journalism. The increased interest Lost is the weight of the writ-
need for your novel. You come across in reading and hearing about sports ten word. Instead, the images that
something you don’t understand, well, is all too often about minutiae: the flicker before us are so ephemeral,
you just skip it and say, “No need to statistics, expertise, Xs and Os, the it’s hard for us to grasp much of
put that in the novel.” Because, you’re skinny. anything—and because there are
making it up! It’s great. The feature story—the “takeout” as no movies of the distant past, soon
But novels are one thing, a it is known in newspaper parlance—is there is no past. Sometimes I think
vocational bagatelle, and being an being taken out of newspapers. Not that all that remains of history that
informed citizen is quite another. enough space. Too expensive to take anybody cares about anymore are
Unfortunately, you can’t make up all that time to research and write it. home-run records.
the prevailing news menu. If you avoid People don’t have the attention span So, if we have not actually regressed
reading about the bad news, it’s still to actually read paragraphs anymore. to illiteracy in these digital times, we
out there, looming. You can’t escape Alas, that’s pretty much an article of are, increasingly what may be fairly
global warming and Afghanistan faith now. Pitchers can suddenly only called a nonliterate society. We risk
simply by turning over to “Access go six innings, and readers can only becoming optionally illiterate.
Hollywood” or “SportsCenter.” Not go six paragraphs. Those of us in journalism love
surprisingly, every study and every The story, which was always the to quote … and quote and quote
bit of common sense tells you that best of sportswriting, what sports gave again … Thomas Jefferson’s famous
if you give people a choice between so sweetly to us writers—the sports remark: “… were it left to me to
watching news or entertainment, story is the victim. Sportswriting decide whether we should have a
an awful lot of them are going to remains so popular—one word. Sports government without newspapers, or
choose the fun. But, guess what? stories—two words, are disappearing. newspapers without a government,
This is wonderful for my crowd. So while we may properly bemoan I should not hesitate a moment to
This is absolutely terrific for sports the loss of newspapers and magazines, prefer the latter.”
journalism. We’re the winners. have no fear, sports fans. There will Hooray for our team. Thank you,
Because people do like sports—and be no dearth of easy access to box Mr. Jefferson.
in fact, especially as more and more scores and statistics and dugout gos-
women get involved in sports, more sip. Or celebrities walking down the
and more people of all stripes are red carpet or getting caught in bed
BY LINDSAY JONES
M
y name is Lindsay Jones, and
I am a Twitter-holic.
OK, I admit it. I didn’t take
to this Twitter revolution right away.
Soon after I joined The Denver Post
in the summer of 2008 to be the beat
reporter for the Denver Broncos, my
editor asked me to tweet as part of my
routine at training camp. Twitter wasn’t
well known back then, and I remember
wondering why anyone would possibly
want to receive a 140-character mes-
sage from training camp or during a
nationally televised game.
I did it anyway, and boy, was I wrong.
By the next spring, Twitter—along
with other social media—was playing a
huge role in my coverage. Tweets were
now as big a part of my job as filing
stories for the paper, just as they were
for my NFL sports writing colleagues.
Twitter has completely changed the
way we cover football, as I’m sure it
Lindsay Jones in the press box at Super Bowl XLIV.
has changed all other sports beats.
The Denver Post’s Broncos Twitter
account was launched during my first while integrating our social media the practice field. No calls. No texts.
training camp with the team. Since strategy with what we publish in print No Twitter. No Facebook. Pull that
then close to 14,000 tweets have been and online. phone out of your pocket and you risk
sent—the majority from me. Nearly We break news first on Twitter—in expulsion from the practice field. So
all relate directly or indirectly to the Facebook posts, too—with the under- when something newsworthy happens
Broncos and the NFL, a combination standing that the beat reporter also on the practice field, it is a race to
of breaking news from me or my Post files this news to our website. This get outside the gate to be the first to
partners, analysis (particularly during way the link we send out gives our post something. If you’ve never seen
games), and some back and forth with readers instant access to a story that a herd of sportswriters run, well, it’s
the public. Some are auto tweets from takes them deeper than 140 characters not a pretty sight.
our Broncos and NFL print and online allows—and we draw sought-after Such an unsightly occasion hap-
news stories, columns and analysis. eyeballs to the Post’s website. pened one day in August during the
These days breaking sports news is Now here’s how this approach first full week of training camp when
virally disseminated via Twitter. With gives my editors heartburn. What I the team’s star pass rusher, Elvis
everything being so competitive—and tweet goes from my keyboard to the Dumervil, was injured during practice.
speedy—on the NFL beat, this puts masses—with no filter. Of course, I saw him pull out of a one-on-one
slow thumbs at a distinct disadvantage. all the Broncos beat writers have to drill so I hurried to the other side
It also presents challenges for news operate under some strange rules— of the practice field where I could
organizations like ours. We are having ones we don’t like—that the league see him walk into the locker room. I
constant discussions about how best and team place on us. The Broncos was hoping to get some sense of what
to get breaking news to our readers prohibit any cell phone activity on had happened to him—some color I
could add. I knew no comment from as those who aren’t part of a news sis—and this happens most often on
the coaches or from Dumervil would organization can use this reporting game day. Thinking back two years
be forthcoming. tool recklessly. ago, this is one of those things that I
So there I was half-running, half- My approach is this: I am a journalist never could have anticipated.
walking to outside of the practice gates first, reporting for a newspaper. My At a late October Broncos game, I
and into the adjacent media room. I standards for sending something out sent 108 tweets. That’s pretty standard
didn’t want to be too obvious lest the on Twitter or Facebook remain the output for game day. From the time I
herd would start to follow me. Once same as if I was going to publish the arrived at Invesco Field at Mile High
there I sent a tweet that said something news in the print edition. As much as stadium—about three hours before
like “Broncos OLB Elvis Dumervil left possible, I adhere to the same report- kickoff—until I shut down my computer
practice Wednesday evening with an ing rules with social media when it that evening, I was in constant tweet
apparent shoulder or chest injury.” That comes to breaking news. Do I have mode. In between, I filed several blog
I had to leave the field to do this is a a reliable source? Is this information posts, wrote an early story for the
bit ridiculous; the practice was open to on the record? Am I absolutely sure Web, watched the game, went to the
the public, and none of them seemed the information is accurate? home and visiting locker rooms for
concerned about team rules forbidding In September, I weighed these interviews, filed an 18-inch sidebar
them from posting words and pictures concerns when I received a direct and a handful of notes, along with
nor was the Broncos staff concerned message on Twitter asking if I’d heard a variety of other “candy” elements.
about enforcing those rules. Fans could a rumor that a Broncos player had Back to the tweets. I sent word
simply post what they wanted from committed suicide. I immediately about what I call “newsy elements”—the
where they were sitting on the grass. called my sources, and within minutes release of the inactive list of players,
I posted what I’d seen and what I had confirmed with an off-the-record a moment that fantasy football fans
I knew immediately to The Denver source that Kenny McKinley, a second- live and die by each week; in-game
Post’s All Things Broncos blog and year wide receiver, had killed himself. injury updates; and a minor amount
from there it went to our main Web I knew this was not the type of of play-by-play. The majority of those
page. In subsequent tweets I told sourcing that would pass muster with tweets were my reactions to—pretty
followers what Dumervil was doing my bosses for the newspaper. But while much instantaneous—and analysis—a
when he was injured and discussed I was seeking additional confirmation, little less spur of the moment—of what
possible ramifications, depending on a competitor in the Denver market was happening on the field. Of my
the severity of his injury. The next went with the story via Twitter, cit- 12,000-plus followers, many watch the
morning we learned it was very bad. ing “sources.” My initial reaction as a game so I don’t feel any need to tweet
Dumervil had a torn pectoral muscle reporter was that wrenching feeling of as a play-by-play person might do.
that would keep him out for the dura- “I just got beat.” As a human being, I My tweets highlight behind-the-
tion of the season. It was devastating was fine that I had paused. Had this scenes insights about what is happening
for the team to lose the man who last been a case of a sprained ankle or a on the field before and after the play,
year was best in the league at tackling free agent signing, I might have gone what’s happening on the sidelines, or
the quarterback. with what I had sooner. But there was what the atmosphere of the stadium
That news also went out as soon no way—not even a tiny chance—that is like, along with the information I’ve
as I heard it—virtually in real time. I was going to race to be first with the gleaned from being around the team
That’s easy—a thumb here, a thumb story of a player’s suicide without an as it prepared for the game. Often that
there, and the news is out. on-the-record source. includes why a play worked or didn’t,
When the Post got confirmation or I might tweet about why a certain
Speed and Accuracy from the local sheriff ’s department, we player is being used or isn’t.
went with the story, both on Twitter It’s at these moments that I can
What’s much tougher—and expo- and as a full news story on our website. develop my voice on Twitter, though
nentially more complicated for those As the story developed, I updated as a beat writer I am often straddling
working with the values of traditional Twitter and wrote for the Web until the line between news and opinion.
journalism—is when I learn news about midnight; at that point I filed Even if I am wary of moving too far
from off-the-record sources, which is my last blog post of the day sharing into the realm of opinion, those on
increasingly common across the league. personal thoughts about McKinley. the receiving end are not. During the
This is when I find the immediacy to preseason, I was called profane names,
be tricky because rumors often mas- It’s Game Day told I was too snarky and negative
querade as news and are transmitted about the Broncos, and informed
without regard for whether they have Perhaps the best case for Twitter and that I clearly had an agenda against
been verified. There is a noticeable other social media is the ability they backup quarterback Tim Tebow. Of
lack of accountability that seems to give reporters like me to combine course, I was also told I was overly
reside in the emerging Twitter territory breaking news elements with analy- positive about the Broncos and that
I am obviously a big fan of Tebow. I constantly—“Is [head coach] Josh England, Scotland, the Netherlands,
must be doing something right. McDaniels’s job in trouble? When will and Kuwait, all within a matter of
The most amazing effect of social Tim Tebow play? Exactly how many hours, after sending a tweet asking
media is being connected directly with carries will [running back] Knowshon international fans to let me know if
readers unlike what was ever possible Moreno get today?”—during the games they were coming to the game.
before. Having a direct line to the I have entertaining and informative I don’t get much sleep. My thumbs
fans often changes the tenor of my dialogues, sometimes to the point get tired. And I’ve figured out that if I
reporting since what they write clues where just keeping up is a challenge. am going to half-walk, half-run to tweet
me in to what they care about and Conversations I have with fans breaking news, I need to wear sneak-
want to read. Just a few seasons ago, are also an invaluable resource for ers. I also need to keep a low profile.
a Broncos fan would watch the game my stories. This year I have posed Sometimes it seems that the eyes of
and scream at his TV; if he was really questions and used the results as fellow reporters aren’t on the field but
upset, he might send an e-mail or fire an informal poll in print. I’ve found scanning the sidelines—accounting for
off a letter to the editor. Now fans people to interview and used fol- reporters lest one disappear from view.
watch the game with their computers lowers as on-the-record sources for Years ago it was the rush to be first to
or smartphones on their lap and they fan-based stories on a range of topics. the phone booth; now the goal is to
fire off rants, 140 characters at a time, When I’m going on a road trip, I ask find a place of one’s own to tweet.
to my Twitter account. for suggestions for restaurants and
My words have angered plenty of running routes. For my recent trip Lindsay Jones covers the Denver
folks, but I’ve also amassed a fairly to London, where the Broncos played Broncos for The Denver Post. She
loyal following. While it can be the San Francisco 49ers, I was able tweets @PostBroncos.
infuriating to get the same questions to connect with Broncos fans from
BY JASON FRY
I
n early 2005 as a technology col- I had no idea that our six-week nal for a decade, and its name gave
umnist for The Wall Street Journal experiment would last five years (and me a certain readership and visibility;
Online, I returned repeatedly to counting) or that I’d begun an uneasy what I wrote was taken seriously. On
blogging as a subject. It was a rich dialogue with myself about journalism the blog, though, I was just Jason,
vein to mine, but there was only one and fandom, access and independence. with no affiliation or connections. My
problem: I’d never been a blogger. That conversation has grown more writing had to stand for itself.
I decided to spend spring training complicated in recent years as news- And it did: By the end of our first
blogging about the New York Mets, paper veterans have fled to the Web year, Greg and I had a decent-sized
whose routine miseries and occasional and teams have experimented with audience, had been referenced not just
successes I’d followed avidly since I accrediting independent bloggers. by other blogs but also by newspapers,
was seven. Six weeks seemed long Amid blurred lines, I feel simultane- and had appeared on TV to talk about
enough for me to learn blogging’s ously like an outsider and an insider: the Mets. At least one revolutionary
routines and be able to talk about it Are the Mets my “beat,” except I write claim about blogs had proved true:
authoritatively, and I thought it might from an outsider’s point of view? Am I The Web really was a meritocracy, a
be fun. So I asked my friend Greg a sportswriter, a fan, both or neither? talent show open to anyone who was
Prince to split the writing, found a willing to work at writing and building
blog-hosting service that worked for The Beat as Blog an audience. I’d seen that for myself.
both of us, and a few hours later we I was 35 and an established editor
were the proprietors of Faith and Fear One part of the blogging life was a and columnist so this unexpected
in Flushing. surprise. I’d been writing for the Jour- success was a lark. But I wondered:
somehow I’d become a sportswriter thought about what I might do if it Jason Fry co-writes the blog Faith
anyway. Wasn’t that what I was? After were offered—or if I even wanted it. and Fear in Flushing (www.
all, I was a professional journalist I wasn’t sure where I belonged, but I faithandfearinflushing.com) with
who had written more than half a also wasn’t sure where I wanted to be. Greg Prince and contributes a weekly
million words about the Mets and Questions about access are emerging column about sports writing and
was now standing on their field with piecemeal from experiments conducted new media for Indiana University’s
press credentials. Yet I’d never held a by teams and leagues and the many National Sports Journalism Center.
microphone in a locker-room scrum, flavors of news organizations. Given all During his 12-year career at The
and I was still an unabashed fan. Did this tumult, I suspect I’ll never find a Wall Street Journal Online, he edited
that disqualify me? definitive answer to where I fit—lines and later co-wrote The Daily Fix, a
The Mets’ media folks were there will continue to blur, and questions roundup of the best sports writing
to help us if we wanted to interview like mine will become irrelevant. That’s online. He tweets @jasoncfry. His
players. I passed on the chance, and for the best. People should be judged website is www.jasonfry.net
I’m still sorting through why. I think it’s by the quality of their work, not their
because I’d spent five years co-writing medium or their background.
Faith and Fear without access and never Still, I’ll always wonder.
BY MALCOLM MORAN
H
ere was a moment that ex- 21st century, a daily
plained why a sports fan in sprint toward the
New England would reach for latest slice of relevant
The Boston Globe each morning. The information that can
excitement of a New England Patriots transform a long-held
victory had become overshadowed standard—as in “the
by speculation that Randy Moss, the Globe has learned”—
gifted and controversial wide receiver, into reliance upon a
was about to be traded to the Min- source from another
nesota Vikings. The combustible mix planet.
had become a national story during The story inspired
the previous evening. In the morning, a conversation in a
when I opened up my Globe, this is sports writing class
what I read: I teach at Penn State
University. I confess
The Patriots and Vikings have there are times—
been in trade talks for a while, arriving more and
and as of last night were close to more often—when “tightrope walking” eration? When addressing prospective
a deal if Moss and the Vikings seems a more apt title for this class. members of the John Curley Center for
can agree on a contract exten- The technology of our time and all Sports Journalism several years ago, I
sion, Jay Glazer of Fox Sports of the ways to make use of it have spoke about thrills I’ve experienced as
said on WEEI’s “Planet Mikey accelerated the process of newsgather- a reporter covering a memorable event.
Show” last night. ing to such an extent that those who Kirk Gibson’s ninth-inning home run
graduated five years ago tell me how in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series
That is what we are left with in out of step they can sometimes feel. came to mind, the one that sent the
the fragmented tick-tick-tick of the So how do we prepare the next gen- Los Angeles Dodgers on their way to
a five-game victory over the Oakland Today’s sports beat reporting seems tion, and framing that question to
Athletics. I’d just finished describing more about producing fragments of gain insight as well as information.
the wonder of clinging to a railing information than in shining a light Still, there remains the essential need
behind the last row of the press box on core issues of our time. That said, to develop relationships as a way of
at Dodger Stadium as I watched the it’s been all but impossible for any earning trust and the reliance on
ball clear the right field fence, when sportswriter (or fan) in recent months those relationships to gain access to a
Jamey Perry, an assistant dean in Penn to avoid a few topics—Tiger Woods, sensitive or controversial truth.
State’s College of Communications, steroid use, and concussions. But it’s Here is what has changed—just
leaned in my direction and did me worth remembering that behind at about everything else.
a favor. When the notebook in
“They weren’t born yet,” the back pocket or the purse
he whispered. was replaced by who-knows-
I have an artificial Christ- how-many toys, there was
mas tree that is older than Those hours spent on digital media— no warning label attached.
my students. Freshmen in from computers to smartphones—are Competitive pressures are
this past fall’s class might rewriting the rules. Tweeting
not have been alive when contributing to two deficiencies among the was barely in a reporter’s
Christian Laettner of Duke vocabulary several years ago;
made the last-second shot beat reporters today: a lack of discernment now the process can border
that beat Kentucky in a and a reluctance to engage. And each on the obsessive. A story,
game for the ages and sent once read by two, three, four
the Blue Devils to the 1992 deficiency can prevent sports reporters editors, is now a blog post
Final Four. To them, Bob read by how many? One?
Knight and Lou Holtz are not from finding out information that their Maybe?
coaches as much as talking readers and viewers deserve to know. Under the old model, if a
heads. Need any reminders source passed along sensitive
of the ephemeral nature of information to a reporter at
sports? Look no further than noon, the reporter would
the blank stares in press have an entire day to digest
boxes when once famous names go least the last two of these topics was the information, determine its context,
unrecognized. the investigative work of a few dogged contact others, and return to the
Yet, there is so much that matters reporters who refused to stop digging. original source to confirm additional
that we should be passing along to a Those hours spent on digital information before it was time to write
generation that faces big journalistic media—from computers to smart- a story. The entire process could take
challenges. The lucky ones—those phones—are contributing to two four, six, eight hours. Now this process
students who can parlay their eagerness deficiencies among the beat reporters might be compressed into minutes.
into something resembling a job—are today: a lack of discernment and a This is why the advice is simple:
being asked to produce more content reluctance to engage. And each defi- Don’t look down from that tightrope;
and do so more quickly than any ciency can prevent sports reporters your safety net is gone, likely forever.
generation to precede them. They blog, from finding out information that their What happens when the newsroom
they tweet, and then they blog and readers and viewers deserve to know. boss is more interested in being first
tweet some more, and yes, eventually A few givens about sports writing with the new—eager to have the pub-
they file a story, squeezing in time to remain as true today as when Red lication’s logo gain a spot on the scroll
watch the game. Even then, many are Smith wrote his columns on a portable across the bottom of the television
expected to provide instant context typewriter. Technology doesn’t change screen—rather than making sure that
in real-time, bite-sized pieces—while them. There is an expectation of pre- the story is accurate and fair? This is
also interacting with fans who are cision and careful preparation, and the point when I tell students about
tweeting and blogging, too. When is the importance of arriving early and a contentious conversation from a
there time to exhale? staying late. There is the payoff that long time ago in which I resisted an
It’s true that they have been raised results from that extra phone call—or editor’s preference that I rely upon a
with digital technology—and thus even in making that first phone call source that I neither knew nor trusted.
arrive at the starting gate as digital rather than relying on texting. (I’m When I asked if this was the policy
natives. We see this in their expecta- old-fashioned enough to believe that of the department and whether this
tion that replays will reveal every value still resides in the exchange of is something I was being instructed
possible angle. Why watch the game, conversation.) Then there is the art to do, the editor replied: “I think that
when what’s important gets replayed? of assessing a complex situation, of makes for good reading.”
You can miss it and head to YouTube. choosing the topic worthy of a ques- As more opportunities for entry-
level reporters develop in digital that the Big 12 conference was dead, And there is one other thing. Dur-
media, I’m concerned that they will be a victim of a seismic shift in the ing the first class of the semester, I
unprepared for that type of conversa- affiliations of athletically ambitious posed a question. “Who can tell me
tion. At the start of the semester, I colleges and universities? That is not what newspapers Red Smith wrote
write these words on a whiteboard: what happened. How often are reports for?” No one raised a hand.
It’s Your Name. I am not saying that on a high-profile coaching search in They need to know that, too.
their reporting should be timid, not at error? Too many to count.
all. I am suggesting that in a real-time This generation has been told that Malcolm Moran is the Knight Chair
environment, when facts can—and an accuracy rate of 80 percent suf- in Sports Journalism and Society at
do—shift by the hour, there are times fices—and sometimes it seems even that Penn State University and directs
when they should be aggressive and number is high. Perhaps 80 percent the John Curley Center for Sports
others that require restraint. is considered good when Shaquille Journalism. Before assuming this
They don’t have to listen to me. All O’Neal stands at the foul line—sorry, position, he was a sportswriter at
the students have to do is sit back and Shaq—but not for a reporter when he USA Today, The New York Times,
watch. How many times did we read or she clicks “send.” Students need to Newsday and the Chicago Tribune.
or hear reports last summer declaring know that.
BY MARIE HARDIN
V
isit the Minneapolis Star Tri-
bune’s website or pick up the
paper on most days and—as
with most other newspaper sports sec-
tions—you’ll be hard-pressed to find
news of women’s sports. It’s not that
women aren’t playing. They are, and
in huge numbers. Simply put, staffers
aren’t assigned to cover women’s sports.
At the Star Tribune, for instance,
most writers are assigned to beats for
men’s teams at the college and pro
levels. A reporter who covered women’s
sports regularly left the paper in 2007
and was not replaced. Another reports
on home games for the WNBA Lynx
during the summer but then mainly Women athletes receive media attention during the Olympics, as in USA versus Finland,
focuses on men’s college hockey with then fade from view. Photo by Chris O’Meara/The Associated Press.
an occasional story on women’s col-
lege teams.
This sports beat arrangement leaves from almost nothing to a bit less than is the assistant managing editor for
a lot of territory uncovered, including almost nothing—from slightly more sports at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
women in Olympic sports such as than 2 percent to less than 1.5 percent. and former president of the Associated
track and field and figure skating, and What’s happened to the coverage of Press Sports Editors (APSE). “Beats are
those who play tennis and golf. Women women’s sports during the past few set up to cover the core interests of
competing on a spectrum of teams for years at newspapers, where there have readers, and once you get that settled,
the University of Minnesota and area been dramatic reductions and a reshuf- you see who you have left and what
colleges can also be overlooked. fling of staff as well as competitive you can cover … It’s not pretty out
Rachel Blount, who has been at the pressures from bloggers, has not been there for newspapers when it comes
Star Tribune since 1990, is the only systematically studied. But I feel safe to people and resources.”
sports reporter and columnist without in contending that women’s coverage
an assigned beat. The only woman at hasn’t generally increased. Of course, Following the Eyeballs
the paper who covers sports, Blount exceptions are likely to occur in places
said she feels obligated to try to close where a pro or college women’s team In most respects, the priorities for
the gap. “I’ve got to cover this niche,” has built an unusually large fan base, sports editors are nothing new. Cov-
said Blount, who describes her news- such as the University of Connecticut erage of female athletes has always
paper’s coverage of women’ sports as basketball team, the University of been paltry, except for the occasional
“the worst” she’s seen in her 20 years Utah gymnastics team, or the WNBA’s media sweetheart with hometown
there. “Things are falling through the Seattle Storm. ties—such as Lynx player Lindsay
cracks.” In the vast majority, however, it’s Whalen or Olympian Lindsey Vonn
Women’s sports coverage is shrink- languishing—the victim of decisions in Minneapolis. It was once expected
ing—not growing—even as more about resources that are justified by the that coverage would increase as Title
women and girls are competing in belief that women’s sports are periph- IX turned more girls and women into
sports. A recent study of ESPN found eral to readers’ interests. “When sports athletes and sports fans, but that has
that between 1999 and 2009 the time editors are in a constant reshuffling of not happened. Instead, women’s cover-
given to coverage of women’s sports on staff, it’s often women’s sports beats age remains “a luxury item,” said Amy
that network’s “SportsCenter” dropped that take a hit,” said Jerry Micco, who Moritz, president of the Association
for Women in Sports Media and a as they do other beats—some terrific Hueter’s and, in newsrooms, those of
reporter at The Buffalo News. “When stories are lost. Michael Anastasi, the reporters like Blount, may be what
there’s the staff, space and resources managing editor for sports and features keeps women’s sports visible—for now.
to cover women’s sports, papers will at The Salt Lake Tribune and an APSE A new initiative might, in time, force
do it. When those start to erode, vice president, said it’s incumbent on editors and other media producers
women’s sports coverage is one of the sports editors to set up beats in ways to rethink their priorities. This year
first to get cut.” that these stories will be found. He has ESPN announced plans to launch its
Women’s sports leagues have always created two such beats to help staffers “W” brand with a website, a project
struggled to gain media attention. For catch them: one he calls a “university the network touts as being about and
instance, the WNBA in 2007 launched beat,” the other is an Olympic sports aimed at sports-focused women.
a short-lived campaign encouraging beat. He also points to the University As soon as word emerged about
fans to write sports editors demand- of Utah’s women’s basketball team, ESPN’s plans, buzz surfaced in the
ing more coverage; the campaign was which is a solid performer but doesn’t blogosphere, driven primarily by
largely ridiculed. The new Women’s have a large fan base. “Does that mean skeptical female bloggers and women’s
Professional Soccer league also gets there aren’t great stories there?” he sports advocates. Perhaps this isn’t
relatively little coverage. Editors asks. “No.” surprising given this network’s paltry
traditionally cite lack of interest by track record on coverage of female
fans as a reason for their decisions, Bloggers Surface athletes. And ESPN might find that
a rationale that has exasperated its “W” brand will flounder, as well.
women’s sports advocates. When asked Even with the Tribune’s two beats, There is no doubt that women’s
to produce empirical evidence of this it’s hard to find many female-focused sports do have a loyal and sometimes
so-called “reader interest,” most editors sports stories on its website. The robust following, and the fan base is
couldn’t do it. vacuum left by the Tribune and other growing, albeit slowly. And we know
Today, things work a bit differ- local news organizations has given that female participation in sports has
ently—though the result is much rise to a relatively small but vigilant increased enormously since passage of
the same. Editors can produce the army of bloggers who write about Title IX in 1972.
evidence, flawed as it might be. They everything from women’s professional The job of transforming a dedi-
can track where the eyeballs are going basketball and soccer to barrel racing cated sliver of these much larger
on the Web—and it’s mostly to stories and competitive surfing. The most universes of sports fans and athletes
about men’s professional sports or active blogging network is Women into a profit-making enterprise in
college football or basketball. Blount Talk Sports, a collective of about 150 an ad-driven environment—and at a
says that is one reason she can push women and men who blog, post video, national level—is one that even ESPN
stories about female athletes with her and tweet with women athletes in might not succeed in making work.
editors only “up to a point. … I’ve been mind. Some of these sports bloggers, It’s possible that this attempt might
told point-blank, ‘No one is going to such as Cheryl Coward, were once print turn out to buttress the tired excuse
read that,’” she said. “The Web feeds journalists. Others, such as basketball of sports editors—that women’s sports
into overkill.” player Kelly Mazzante, are athletes coverage doesn’t draw enough eyeballs
The result? More writers are who are using new media to reach to justify the investment of diminish-
being assigned to men’s professional out to their fan base. ing resources.
teams—and those become the beats Cofounder Megan Hueter started If this is the case, it returns us to
and coverage readers can count on. Women Talk Sports with two other asking two key questions: Why do
Blount remembers the days when the bloggers in February 2009. The site women’s sports lag men’s so much
Vikings, for instance, had a single (http://womentalksports.com) has when it comes to fan interest? And
full-time writer. Now it’s two, at a gotten the attention of executives despite this gender chasm, does the
minimum. The editors say that they at ESPN. Traffic has been steadily news media have an obligation to cover
can’t ignore the numbers. climbing, and during events like the them? In newsrooms this comes down
The fact that fans are clicking on Olympics it has attracted a million page to asking whether there should be a
men’s sports stories could be, at least views in one month. Despite that, the women’s sports beat if only because
in part, because the sports pages on traffic is paltry compared to SBNation it is the right thing to do. My answer
most newspapers’ websites offer little or Deadspin. Research shows that the is yes.
else. But it’s hard to resist the logic Web is dominated by blogs that are
that if certain stories draw traffic, solely about men’s sports, perhaps Marie Hardin is associate director
posting more of those stories is a because most of the bloggers aren’t for research at Penn State Univer-
smart allocation of resources. women’s sports fans. sity’s John Curley Center for Sports
The problem, though, and sports As resources tighten and newsroom Journalism. Her research focuses
editors concede this, is that in sidelining beats continue to be clustered around on issues of diversity and ethics in
women’s sports—by not carving it out big-time men’s sports, initiatives like sports coverage.
BY FONS TUINSTRA
D
igital technology is low- bureau is a venture I started a few tion, if we went with a traditional
ering the threshold for years ago with fellow Shanghai publisher, it would mean that our
book publishing, and it correspondent Maria Korolov book would not be available for
couldn’t arrive at a better time Trombly. Now in addition to sale for a year or more.
given the difficulties aspiring and arranging for speakers in China Around this time I read what
established authors face in getting we are guiding authors through Claudia Gere, a longtime author’s
their books into the marketplace. the process of publishing books coach, wrote after attending a
So earlier this year we at the on demand. Earlier this year book expo in New York. Her words
China Speakers Bureau decided we published our first book, “A confirmed what I was hearing
to help potential authors get their Changing China,” a collection of from these authors. Here’s an
words published as books. The essays by 17 of our speakers about excerpt:
how they have seen
China change. Book publishing has
When we decided become a cutthroat busi-
t o p r o d u c e “A ness, even more so than
Changing China,” it has been in the past. To
we discussed briefly sell a book to a publisher, a
whether we should nicely written first chapter
try to find a tradi- and an outline of the rest
tional publishing isn’t enough. Even a com-
house for it. But pleted book isn’t enough,
authors who were no matter how readable
part of our speakers or interesting. What the
bureau were telling publisher needs is the book’s
us how much harder business plan. A competi-
it was getting to find tive analysis, market demo-
a publisher for what graphics, new sales and
they had written—or marketing channels—and
wanted to write. a solid platform for the
Some turned to us author. That platform could
for help in gaining be a television program,
access to a publisher, a radio show, a speaking
but by then we had circuit, or a popular blog
decided not to head through which the author
in that direction. can promote and distribute
For this collection his or her own books.
of essays, we knew
it would be hard It was true that in exchange for
to find the right handing over a large percentage
publisher, and we of a book’s sale price, authors
also thought that usually end up earning very little.
doing so could add Of course, we did not expect to
to our costs and not produce a bestseller. Even so,
necessarily give us we thought that by using digital
any benefit. In addi- media on both ends—producing
the book and promoting it ourselves— of details to which attention much books is even greater. In the increas-
we could do a better job than local be paid so it’s best not to have other ingly competitive market, the price
bookstores could for this book. So we distractions, which can be hard if you of e-books is certain to drop; already
published it ourselves. are a journalist these days. Most of the they frequently cost less than half what
Now, if someone wants to buy our authors we work with do not want to a hardcover does. By self-publishing,
book, it’s available in paperback at fiddle with software systems, editorial authors lower the price even more.
Amazon.com and on other sites. To processes, or even figuring out how to Even now, we realize that our
the book’s purchaser, things appear sell their book. What they want to do model has to grow and change. With
pretty much the same. What’s differ- is to write books. hardcover books likely to remain on
ent happens after the sale is made; the market, we’re watching closely the
the book is printed and mailed. The developments with the iPad and Kindle
cost to us for the printing of each as we think more about producing
book is $7, in our print on demand e-books. And we keep looking for ways
(POD) arrangement; the cost to the
With the e-book to connect what we see as missing
customer on Amazon.com is $24.99 marketplace showing links in these emerging markets. For
plus shipping. In the book’s first 10 example, POD firms focus more on
months, 800 copies were sold. explosive growth— the needs of engineers than on those
of authors or even readers. Certainly,
What We Learned
spurred by the release of this imbalance will be remedied in
the iPad—the urgency the next few years, and when it is
Our experience with print-on-demand many more authors—some of whom
books offers promising and challenging to find a less expensive do not want to go through the process
news. The good news is that anyone can that we’ve gone through—will turn to
get an ISBN number, publish a book,
way to publish books is on-demand publishing.
and distribute it through Amazon and even greater. ... By self- Earlier this year Amazon increased
other online stores. Self-publishing is the amount it pays authors for
now a huge industry. But to succeed publishing, authors lower e-books—with conditions—to 70 per-
requires a stiff learning curve—and cent of revenue. An article in The Wall
time to devote to details.
the price even more. Street Journal quoted Richard Nash,
We began by organizing the authors a veteran of book publishing who has
in China, and then we found editors moved from a traditional publishing
who know how to edit books in the house into digital publishing, with the
business style of U.S. publications. Putting together our business plan following observation about digital
We brought in cover designers who and launching it took us less than self-publishing:
know how to calculate the width of six months. Then we signed our first
the spine, how to embed a bar code, contract within a week and published a It shows best-selling authors that
and how to account for the fact that book within nine weeks. This timetable there are alternatives—they can
POD publishing requires an extra never would have happened if we’d hire their own publicists, their
margin for the cover art and text. We taken the traditional publishing route. own online marketing specialist,
hired layout designers and had the Apart from money and convenience, a freelance editor, and a distri-
text formatted. journalists like speed so self-publishing bution service ... If they already
We steered this process through an worked well to satisfy that desire. have a loyal fan base, will they
ever-changing field of emerging, merg- We are now preparing a set of want 70 percent of $100,000
ing and disappearing POD firms. (For books in five languages on China’s or 15 percent of $200,000 for
our next project, we have switched from international position. “When I do a hardcover?
BookSurge, now called CreateSpace, this in the traditional way my book is
to Lightning Source, but who knows outdated before it is on the market,” says We think we know the answer.
how long our new arrangement will Juan Pablo Cardenal, a Beijing-based
last.) To manage all of this, to meet foreign correspondent who is taking a Fons Tuinstra is a cofounder of the
deadlines, and to help the authors year off to work on this project in the China Speakers Bureau, new media
with marketing, our backgrounds as hope of having the book published by consultant, and a former foreign
journalists came in very handy sim- the end of 2010. correspondent based in Shanghai.
ply because we’d done some of these With the e-book marketplace show-
things before. ing explosive growth—spurred by the
So, yes, everybody can publish release of the iPad—the urgency to
their own books, but there are a lot find a less expensive way to publish
BY DAN GILLMOR
I
left the traditional newspaper world into bookstores. This is how word about
almost six years ago. Now I’ve left it spreads. Had we not published it
the traditional book publishing in this way, I believe the book would
world, too. The publisher of my new have sunk without a trace—especially
book and website, Mediactive, is me. given the indifference shown to it by
With the help of a company called Lulu, American newspapers and magazines
an enterprise that understands the in the weeks and months immediately
changes taking place in the publishing following publication.
world, I’m moving beyond traditional Some editors took the “Mediactive”
boundaries to figure out what a book proposal to their in-house commit-
is in this digital age. tees that decide whether to buy a
The publisher that brought out book. Several asked me to write what
my book, “We the Media: Grassroots amounted to a different book, which
Journalism by the People, for the I wasn’t willing to do, in part because
People,” a few years ago was planning the one I was writing was almost
to publish “Mediactive,” a user’s guide finished. And the few publishers that
to democratized media. Early this year did understand the value of Creative
we parted company, and at that point Commons didn’t want to publish my
my literary agent, David Miller, started book. One rejection was almost amus-
looking for a new publisher. He told ing; this editor told my agent that his
me that the potential field would be company’s publicity and marketing
limited because I had a non-negotiable people “felt that the major media
requirement: This book, like my first publishing industry is understandably would avoid the book because of the
one, had to be published under a skeptical, and we’re in the early days criticism of their techniques.”
Creative Commons license that I use of understanding the dynamics of what Another major New York pub-
for my work. Under the license I’ve happens when books are published in lisher—a nearly ideal fit in any number
chosen for this project, anyone can this way. Yet almost a decade after of ways—did offer us a deal. But it
make copies of the work for noncom- Creative Commons was founded, a came unraveled when the publisher
mercial use, but if they create derivative recent small study of nonfiction book flatly refused to agree to the Creative
works—also only for noncommercial sales found some evidence to support Commons license—even after we’d
purposes—those works must be made making books freely available. Writing offered to drop the advance to zero
available a) with credit to me and b) in the Journal of Electronic Publishing, dollars. With that, our search for a
under the same license. John Hilton III and David Wiley asked publisher ended. If a principle has
My primary goal in using this system “What happens to book sales if digital meaning, then it meant sticking to it
is simple: to spread the ideas. There is versions are given away?” The data even when I felt tempted not to.
no better way to achieve this than by made them “believe that free digital I’m convinced that publishers
offering the book for free downloading book distribution tends to increase who aren’t willing to head down the
and remixing. The financial principle print sales,” but they also cautioned Creative Commons path today will
behind the Creative Commons license “this is not a universal law.” eventually do so. This will happen as
I’m using is also simple: While I want My own experience falls solidly on they appreciate how profoundly digital
my work to get the widest possible the side of publishing books this way. media are transforming the business
distribution, if anyone is going to Miller explained to editors at publish- of book publishing—and the book
make money on it I’d like that to be ing houses that the main reason I’m itself. In the current way of thinking
me and the people who have worked still getting royalty checks for “We the among publishers, books are what they
with me on it. Media,” which was published in 2004, manufacture and send out in trucks
It’s a rare commercial publisher that is that the book has been available as to fill store shelves or in digital files
would agree to such stipulations. The a free download since the day it went that they rent to their customers—or,
a commentator role necessarily. It is more self-interested groups will fill Forum Organizer: A community’s news
reportorial. It involves finding facts this space to control the information institutions, new or old, can serve as
and information that, as good sense flow about critical points. public squares where we citizens can
making does, makes the tumblers click. monitor voices from all sides, not just
Empowerer: It is about mutual em- those in our own ideological affinity
Investigator: Journalists also must powerment—journalists and citizens. group. If newspeople imagine that their
continue to function as public investi- The citizen is empowered by sharing goal is to inspire and inform public
gators, in what many call the watchdog experience and knowledge that informs discourse, then helping organize this
role. Journalism that exposes what others—including the journalist. The discourse is a logical and appropriate
is being kept hidden or secret is so journalist is empowered by tapping function. We all have a primary vested
central, so essential, to a democratic into experience and expertise beyond interest, as well, in this public forum
government that its importance is his or her formal and official sources. being built on a foundation of accu-
fundamental to the new journalism It starts with recognizing that the racy. There is little value in arguments
as well as the old. And some ele- based on pseudo-facts and rumors.
ments in our media culture are Reportorial news institutions are
less likely to provide it, precisely well suited to build a public forum
because it is fundamentally a on reliable information.
reportorial function grounded in
The important idea is this: In
verification. We do not see much the future the press will derive Role Model: The new press, espe-
of it in the fast-paced journalism cially those tied to legacy brands,
of affirmation or the interpretative its integrity from what kind if they survive, will inevitably
and propagandistic partisan-audi- serve as a role model for those
ence-pandering of the journalism
of content it delivers and the citizens who want to bear witness
of assertion. It is less likely to quality of its engagement, themselves and operate at times
come from a blogger largely of- as citizen journalists. Inevitably
fering opinion. The press stands not from its exclusive role as people will look to journalists
as an independent prosecutor of to see how their work is done,
sorts, and by the power of its
a sole information provider emulating what they see and like
searchlight, it shapes, not simply or intermediary between and altering what they do not like.
follows, agendas, whether it is Some news organizations have
uncovering public malfeasance in newsmakers and the public. gone so far as to set up classes
an exposé or shifting paradigms. for citizen journalists and to enlist
them in their newsgathering. We
Witness Bearer: This is the moni- applaud that. But we also need
toring function of journalism, which consumer or citizen is a powerful something more than that. Journalists
is less prosecutorial than the watch- partner in this process, someone to be must understand that their conduct is
dog or investigator function. There listened to and helped, not lectured at. public, not just their stories.
are certain things that occur in any The end result of this is a continuing
community that should be observed, conversation. Virtually all of these functions have
monitored and scrutinized. In this existed previously. But now they must
new era, a diminished press cannot Smart Aggregator: We need a smart become more dynamic. It is not enough
be everywhere. So a critical step, at aggregator that patrols the Web on for news operations to simply have a
minimum, is to identify those places in our behalf and goes beyond what story each day on what they consider
a community that must be monitored computer algorithms or generic ag- the most important subjects. They
for basic civic integrity and to show up, gregator websites can offer. The idea need to understand what purpose
and by having a presence, tell those of the “walled garden,” in which a each story serves for the audience,
in power they are being watched. If news organization offers only its own what service it provides or questions it
resources do not exist, then the press reporting, is over. Smart aggregators answers. If it offers no service, it is a
must find ways to create and organize should share sources they rely on, the waste of resources and time to a more
networks of new technology and citizen stories they find illuminating, and demanding proactive news consumer.
sentinels to ensure that this monitor- the information that informed them. A story of limited or incremental value
ing occurs. Here lies a potential for In the same way that the press is an is a sign that the news operation is
the creation of new partnerships with authenticator and a sense maker, the not offering much service.
citizens, new bonds that can energize aggregation it engages in should save Journalism, in other words, is not
communities. If the press does not people time and steer them to trusted becoming obsolete. It is becoming
help create these, it is possible that sources. more complex.
BY KAY MILLS
When I wrote the book, “A Place in sort out. Our elitism is apparent a tougher job now, but somebody’s
the News: From the Women’s Pages to readers who have responded got to do it and news organizations
to the Front Page,” in the late 1980’s, by leaving us. that ignore half the talent pool by not
I tried to spell out the different per- doing what is necessary to attract and
spective that women bring to covering Hiring more diverse newsroom promote women make it even harder
the news—not better, but different. staffs is an obvious way to reach on themselves.
Many women (not all) see stories more communities, but too many Generational change fascinates me,
in ways many men (not all) do not. news organizations still don’t get and among young people I know today
In what topics they choose to cover, it. Many women do. Among them I find a high level of concern for social
in how they decide to tell the story, are Sandy Close of the Pacific News justice. This is reflected in the pages
and in their commentaries, men and Service and the New America Media of “The Edge of Change,” through
women display different approaches. young women who don’t give up on
Gender can also play a role in reporters objectivity while also demonstrating
gaining access to or trust of sources. their empathy in the stories they write
In Muslim countries, for example, and the photographs they take.
women reporters have an access that The book has some important career
men often lack—to interview women. advice as well, including this from
With more women in management Pam Luecke of Washington & Lee
today, they are now able to affect the University and a former newspaper
style of newsroom operations. They executive:
tend to be more consultative than
authoritarian—although certainly You must always remember that
successful male publishers and edi- your career path is for you to set.
tors are opening their ears to a wider It’s not something that happens
range of ideas than “back in the day.” to you; it’s not something that
As Diane McFarlin, publisher of the others draw for you. When you
Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune and encounter a brick wall, rather
also a former ASNE president, put it: than stand there and curse at it,
“Now Gen X and Y employees expect make a right turn and explore
a greater role in decision-making, so a some other avenues.
more consultative style of leadership
is required.” Luecke is not saying run away from
In addition, blogs and online social the challenges, but think about other
networks have conditioned readers ways you can make things work for you.
to expect more interaction. One way Today’s generation of women
to connect, wrote Donna Reed, who Association, and Sharon Rosenhause, journalists faces challenges—not
is vice president for news and mul- retired managing editor at the (South necessarily the ones my generation
timedia strategy for Media General Florida) Sun-Sentinel. Rosenhause, faced, though some endure, such as
in Richmond, Virginia, is to rely on who chaired ASNE’s diversity com- the demands of juggling of work and
“our own instincts.” We should do mittee, believes women assumed family. “Given the progress that has
this, she said: much of this leadership in promoting already been made,” asked pioneering
diversity because of their own history Washington Post reporter Dorothy
… not just as journalists but also of “second-class citizenship, a history Gilliam, “how much further do we
as siblings, children, parents, of not being listened to and of being push? My answer: a lot further.”
homeowners, apartment dwell- disrespected.” We are, as the book’s title declares
ers, and grocery shoppers. We’re Women who are in news manage- so aptly, still only on “the edge of
people, too. For years we’ve pro- ment today face enormous challenges change.”
fessed total neutrality about life as news media fracture and reader-
in order to appear to be perfectly ship turns online or off completely. Kay Mills is a longtime newspaper
objective observers. Baloney. In Julia Wallace, editor of The Atlanta journalist and the author of several
the process of sticking to the Journal-Constitution, quotes another books including “Changing Channels:
strict separation of community female editor as saying, “How come The Civil Rights Case That Trans-
and newspaper, we’ve abandoned when the guys were in charge, they formed Television” and “A Place in
important connections. We’ve could just put out a good newspaper? the News: From the Women’s Pages to
lost touch with what people really Now that we’re in these jobs, we’re the Front Page.”
want newspapers to help them supposed to save the newspaper.” It’s
BY SUVENDRINI KAKUCHI
A
fter living in Japan for
decades, I returned to
my native Sri Lanka in
2007 for a new job. It was no
ordinary homecoming. I moved
to the capital city of Colombo to
be director of the local office for
Panos South Asia, an institute
that aims to foster democratic,
just and inclusive societies by
working with the media. I re-
mained there for nearly three
years, working with local journal-
ists at a time when a civil war
was devastating the nation.
It is only now, months after I
returned to my home in Tokyo
that I have realized just how
unprepared I was for my stay
in Sri Lanka. At the time of
my assignment, I had spent
about 25 years—or more than
half my life—in Japan. Yet Sri
Lanka—with its natural beauty,
my childhood friends, former
journalist colleagues, and an
army of relatives, with whom I
had remained in close touch over
the years—was not unfamiliar
to me. No, what I’m referring
to is how unprepared I was to
be part of a society that was in
the throes of a violent ethnic
conflict spanning more than three
decades. Having been out of the
country for most of those years,
I had been spared the horror
of the military shelling and the
Sri Lankan journalists display portraits of colleagues who have been killed. ground battles that consumed
Photo by Eranga Jayawardena/The Associated Press. the daily lives of civilians in the
north. And in the rest of the country, armed struggle for a separate Tamil on themes such as respecting diversity
grinding uncertainty faced people who state in the north that ended with and minority rights did not contribute
worried endlessly about falling victim the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of to easing the baseless criticism. Friends
to the terrorist bombs that destroyed Tamil Eelam (LTTE) militant group in cautioned me as they read stories filed
public places from time to time. May 2009 after several failed attempts by local journalists who had joined
I was not unaware of these hardships at a negotiated peace. The war was the patriotism bandwagon, and, as
and I felt great empathy for my family, bloody on both sides, with the United was the norm, portrayed any whiff of
friends and fellow Sri Lankans, but the Nations estimating the death toll at dissent against the war as a Western
hard truth was that I had not grasped 80,000 to 100,000. conspiracy. Stories suggested that
the emotional complexities that had When I arrived in Colombo, the international calls for a peaceful end
developed during a long period of public overwhelmingly supported to the war amid the rising number of
war and how they affected ordinary the government’s promise to finish fatalities were aimed at upsetting the
citizens, such as the generation born off the Tamil Liberation militants security of the country, a viewpoint
after 1983 that has never known peace. militarily and as quickly as possible. readily supported by a hard-pressed
This meant acknowledging media cen- Mainstream media—newspapers and public waiting eagerly for the quick
sorship as well as self-censorship, the television—leaned heavily toward end to the war that the government
rising appeal of nationalism, the ugly state policy. The few media outlets promised.
polarization between ethnic groups, that highlighted possible peaceful I now wonder if I could have done
and a public wariness toward foreign things differently. For instance, there
entities and their local partners that were endless discussions between
were mainly civil society organizations like-minded groups on whether we
advocating a peaceful solution. should talk of “development” instead
Just a year into my work, of “peace.” Which word would ease
A History of Conflict I discovered that I had the pressure from the authorities, we
wondered. Would it have been wise
The island of Sri Lanka lies like a been labeled a “terrorist to stop referring to the “rights” of
delicate pearl in the Indian Ocean minorities and use the more subtle
with just 18 miles of sea separating
sympathizer”… expression “expectations”? Or is it best
the northern end of the country to throw caution to the wind and face
from the Tamil Nadu state in India. intimidation head on? Such questions
Historically, Sri Lanka was ruled by are pertinent for journalists especially
three kings. A Tamil king presided alternatives to a military onslaught today when they face the prospect
over the Hindu north, and Sinhala in the north or gross human rights of toeing the line to save their jobs
kingdoms dominated the southern and violations were not popular. A large in paternalistic hardliner regimes
central regions of the island. British number of the Western-educated or, in capitalist nations, becoming
colonization united the country for English-speaking elite that dominates mouthpieces for wealthy owners who
more than 100 years until Sri Lanka Colombo had thrown their support are taking over economically strapped
obtained independence in 1948 and behind the war. In the capital’s cafés news organizations. These situations
installed a parliamentary democracy. and elegant drawing rooms open criti- demand new survival tactics and a
Sri Lanka has seen many periods cism of the state was soundly rejected serious debate on the crucial issues
of ethnic rioting, including attacks on the funny logic that war must be facing journalists in nations that
by Sinhala mobs on Tamil civilians. won at all costs. prohibit the press from presenting
Seventy-five percent of the 21.5 million evidence or controversial opinions
residents of Sri Lanka are Sinhala, 14 A Question of Language while espousing the view that a free
percent are Tamil who share cultural press is a detriment to nation-building.
similarities with southern India, and 8 Just a year into my work, I discovered Against such a backdrop, determining
percent are Muslims who speak Tamil; that I had been labeled a “terrorist how journalists can best meet the
other ethnic minorities make up the rest sympathizer,” a slogan that was eas- challenge of remaining true to the
of the population. Under the majority ily slapped on anybody considered values of their profession is of utmost
rule of democracy, some elections have to be opposed to the state war. One importance.
threatened minority aspirations for reason for this unwanted title was
equal language and cultural rights. my sympathies, expressed openly, for Suvendrini Kakuchi, a 1997 Nieman
Several key political decisions, such as a negotiated settlement. In addition, Fellow, is the Tokyo correspondent
creating a Sinhala Buddhist state, have the fact that I have a Tamil name for Inter Press Service news agency.
been particularly traumatic, especially raised suspicions among the Sinhala She spent nearly three years as the
for the Tamil-speaking minorities. majority. My insistence on conducting director of the Sri Lankan office of
These ethnic tensions led to a violent workshops and seminars for journalists Panos South Asia.
1951 politics better than any journalist,” of Ideas: Lessons from Indonesia” what
Seigenthaler told The Tennessean. “He he has learned from his experience in
was one of the fairest yet toughest public diplomacy and how the United
Simeon Booker received the Con- men I ever knew.” States could do a better job promoting
gressional Black Caucus Foundation’s democracy. In the book, published this
2010 Phoenix Award for lifetime 1959 summer by the Hoover Institution at
achievement this past September. Stanford University, Hughes writes
Booker, who was the first black reporter that “it is the war of ideas and words
on the staff of The Washington Post, Wallace Turner, a Pulitzer Prize- that will ultimately determine whether
spent more than 50 years working winning investigative reporter, died moderate Islam, with which the United
for Johnson Publishing Company, September 18th in a hospital in States has no quarrel, will prevail over
publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines, Springfield, Oregon. He was 89. Islamic extremism, whose perversion
during which he covered the civil Raised in Missouri, Turner earned a of Islamic faith is the problem.”
rights movement. His stories about the journalism degree from the University His book draws on
Emmett Till murder in 1955 became of Missouri before moving to Oregon. his years as a foreign
a rallying point for the movement. In Turner and William G. Lambert, his correspondent in
1961, he joined the first contingent of colleague at The Oregonian, shared Indonesia. In 1967,
Freedom Riders leaving Washington. a Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting Hughes won the
After they were met with extreme in 1957 for their exposé of vice and Pulitzer Prize for
violence in Birmingham, Alabama, corruption by municipal and union International
Booker went to the home of a civil leaders in Portland. The series led to Reporting for his
rights leader. When Attorney General investigations across the nation into coverage of the 1965
Robert Kennedy called to check in with organized crime; in 1957 Turner testi- coup attempt in
the leader, Booker told him what had fied before a U.S. Senate committee Indonesia that led
happened. Kennedy arranged to have about corruption. to the deaths of hundreds of thousands
a plane take the riders to safety in He joined The New York Times in of people. A professor of international
New Orleans. “That,” Booker recalled 1962 and worked there for 26 years, communications at Brigham Young
in Ebony magazine in 1991, “was serving as bureau chief in San Fran- University, Hughes writes a nationally
probably the best reporting I did in cisco and Seattle. Among the stories syndicated column for The Christian
my journalism career—explaining to he covered were the shootings of San Science Monitor. He spent 24 years
Kennedy what had happened.” Booker Francisco Mayor George Moscone and at the Monitor, including six years as
retired in 2007. Supervisor Harvey Milk and the search a correspondent in Africa and nine as
in the Seattle area for the so-called the paper’s editor. During the Reagan
1954 Green River Killer. administration, he directed the United
Turner wrote extensively about the States Information Agency’s Voice of
Mormon Church’s ban on ordaining America.
Wayne Whitt, retired managing black priests, which was rescinded in
editor of The (Nashville) Tennessean, 1978. Turner’s obituary in The New 1968
died September 15th in Nashville. He York Times quoted Gene Roberts,
was 86. NF ’62, who covered the civil rights
A graduate of the University of movement for the Times, as saying, Jerome Aumente was a guest on
Alabama, he worked for United Press “Wally probably did more than any New York public broadcaster WNET’s
for 14 months before joining The single person to change the Mormon “The Open Mind” to discuss new
Tennessean as a reporter in 1946. policy on race.” media, citizen journalism, and the
He cultivated sources from all walks Turner was the author of two books, dangers faced by international jour-
of life. Among the many stories he “Gamblers’ Money: The New Force nalists. He wrote in an e-mail that
covered were moonshine whiskey in American Life,” published in 1965, he would like to hear reactions from
raids and the floor fight at the 1968 and “The Mormon Establishment,” Niemans about “my suggestions on
Democratic National Convention. As published the following year. the program for creation of a Civilian
a columnist, he urged that county He is survived by his wife, Pearl, Communication Corps similar to the
and city government be merged into two daughters, and a granddaughter. CCCs of the 1930’s, only focused on
a single metropolitan system, an idea the opportunities to train and support
that became a reality in 1963. 1962 citizen journalism and tap into the
In 1976, Whitt was named managing talent pool of seasoned journalists,
editor, serving 13 years under John retired journalism educators, etc. as
Seigenthaler, NF ’59, now chairman John Hughes discusses in his new trainers/mentors.” His e-mail address
emeritus. “He knew the city and its book “Islamic Extremism and the War is aumente@rutgers.edu.
Lewis Nkosi, the First Black South African Nieman Fellow, Dies at 73
Lewis Nkosi, one of South Africa’s Nkosi, who was orphaned as a boy, Joyce, and D.H. Lawrence.
leading writers and the first black arrived in Cambridge at age 23, an His other novels are “Underground
South African journalist to be a especially young age for a Nieman People” and “Mandela’s Ego,” which
Nieman Fellow, died September 5th Fellow. Recalling that time during a was on the short list for the South
in Johannesburg after a long illness. celebration in 2008 of the Nieman African Sunday Times Fiction Prize
He was 73. Foundation’s 70th anniversary, Nkosi in 2007. In addition to fiction, Nkosi
As a young journalist in the 1950’s, said, “I needed a whole lot of moth- wrote plays, including “We Can’t
Nkosi was part of a new generation ers. I was very thin and the wives All Be Martin Luther King” and
of blacks who exposed the injustices of the Niemans fed me and made “The Rhythm of Violence,” as well
of apartheid. Writing in the legendary an enormous effort to build me up.” as dozens of essays about African
Drum magazine, Nkosi characterized After his Nieman year, Nkosi estab- literature and politics published in
his country’s racial policies as “terribly lished his journalistic credentials in a number of collections.
sick” and its citizens as “terrorized” the U.S. and in England. He taught During a memorial service in
by security police. at universities in both nations as well Johannesburg on September 8th,
His decision to accept a Nieman as in Zambia and Poland. Nkosi was remembered for his
Fellowship in the Class of 1961 rested His 1986 debut novel “Mating “laughter, naughtiness, and then,
on a wrenching choice. The South Birds” was banned by the apartheid suddenly, depth.” His twin daughters,
African government would not give government and praised worldwide. Louise and Joy, 39, recalled “wild
him a visa to come to Harvard unless Several critics compared its style and jazz records as bedtime lullabies,”
he surrendered his citizenship. He narrative structure to “The Stranger” trying to teach their father to swim,
decided it was worth it to escape by Albert Camus. During a discussion and how he tried to teach them to
apartheid and to study with journal- at the 70th anniversary celebration speak isiZulu.
ists from around the world. He said in 2008, Nkosi said the novel’s pen- In addition to his twos daughters,
later that “the pull of Harvard and etrating psychological analysis owed Nkosi is survived by his wife, Astrid
the Nieman Foundation was such a lot to his education at Harvard and Starck.
that I felt I had nothing to lose by classes that introduced him to the
coming to the United States.” works of William Faulkner, James
Lewis Nkosi, next to Hodding Carter III, NF ’66, at the celebration of the Nieman Founda-
tion’s 70th anniversary in 2008. Photo by Tsar Fedorsky.
City of Buenos Aires,” in recognition historic photographs court. In addition, the nation’s leading
of his role as editor of the English- as well as contem- bookstore chain refused to carry the
language Buenos Aires Herald in the porar y shots by book. One of the justices, Presbitero
1970’s. Faced with government censor- Wilkins, highlights Velasco, Jr., sued her for libel on the
ship, Cox was one of the few editors the restoration of eve of the book’s release.
willing to report on the new military classic yachts and “Shadow of Doubt” was published
dictatorship and “the disappeared”— the people who sail by Newsbreak, the online news and
the thousands of people, mainly young them. current affairs magazine. Vitug, who
men, who were kidnapped and killed in was the magazine’s editor in chief,
death camps. The government briefly 1986 is now chairwoman of its advisory
imprisoned Cox and he was forced to board. She writes that, during the
flee Argentina in 1979. term of President Gloria Macapagal
In an interview with his former Gustavo Gorriti was honored by Arroyo, loyalty to the appointing power
paper, Cox said that, despite the threats, the Ibero-American New Journal- became more important than merit in
he always wanted to return to Buenos ism Foundation (FNPI) with the the president’s selection of justices for
Aires during his exile. “I wanted to CEMEX+FNPI New Journalism Prize the Supreme Court.
tell the world what was happening in in recognition of his outstanding career Alfred A. Yuson, in his review in
Argentina and continue to do what as an investigative journalist. In a the Philippine Star, described the book
the Herald was doing—saving lives,” statement, FNPI praised the Peruvian as one of the “tipping points in our
he said. “The Herald, this newspaper, journalist for “boldly tackling difficult national narrative brought about by
saved lives. When you are doing all cases of coverage, such as those relat- heady journalism.” He added, “It had
these things you are not thinking about ing to authoritarianism, corruption, to take [Vitug], a veteran of investiga-
the consequences or even the effects drug dealing and conflicts” that have tive reportage, whose credibility as a
of what you are doing. You just do affected Peru. journalist is beyond question, to pry
what you think is right to do.” He is Gorriti was forced to leave his open the curtains veiling a sanctum
now writing a weekly column for his country after being detained by the sanctorum.”
old newspaper, picking up where he government in 1992. He moved to During remarks when the book was
left off 30 years ago. the United States and then to Panama launched in March, Vitug said, “If
where he became the deputy director of there is any sadness I feel, it’s a tiny
1983 La Prensa. He has written extensively core of profound sadness that, in our
about the Shining Path guerrilla group society, we seem not to understand the
in Peru. A former president of the meaning of independence, the value of
William Marimow, editor of The Press and Society Institute, Gorriti is research, and the role of journalists.
Philadelphia Inquirer since 2006, also the founder and director of IDL- There is such a thing as heeding the
returned to the reporting ranks this Reporteros, a nonprofit investigative call of our profession—to shed light
fall to focus on investigative stories. journalism team. on dark corners.”
“There’s a purity about working on a
good story—and an exhilaration, too,” 1987 1988
Marimow wrote in an e-mail about the
new position. “Being in the reporting
ranks, once again, is a reminder that Marites Dañguilan Eugene Robinson’s
unearthing stories that require scrutiny Vitug faced a host new book is “Disin-
is the essence of our work.” of challenges in get- tegration: The
Marimow, who joined the Inquirer ting her book, Splintering of Black
staff in 1972, won two Pulitzer prizes “Shadow of Doubt: America” published
as a reporter—the first for Public Ser- Probing the in October by Dou-
vice in 1978 and then for Investigative Supreme Court,” bleday. It examines
Reporting in 1985. published and dis- what he has identi-
tributed. She often fied as four distinct
1984 tells that story when segments of the
she gives talks to various groups black community, from the “Transcen-
because it illuminates so well what is dent” class of wealthy blacks to the
Ivor Wilkins is the author of “Clas- happening with independent publish- “Abandoned” class trapped in poverty.
sic: The Revival of Classic Boating in ing in the Philippines. At the last What this segmentation has done,
New Zealand,” which was released in minute, the original publisher and Robinson argues, is minimize the
October by Random House New distributor refused to move forward influence and unity of blacks as a
Zealand. The book, illustrated with with the book because it criticizes the group.
“There was a time when there were no longer serve as effective counter- reviewed plays for the paper, usually of
agreed-upon ‘black leaders,’ when there weights to the corporate state. This productions at smaller theaters or of
was a clear ‘black agenda,’ when we leaves the poor, the working class, and shows Kevin wasn’t able to fit into his
could talk confidently about ‘the state even the middle class without an schedule. Our paths seldom crossed,
of black America’—but not anymore,” effective champion. Hedges, a former and on the rare occasions they did I
he writes in the book’s opening chap- foreign correspondent for The New never got around to telling him how
ter. “With implications both hopeful York Times, looks at Tsarist Russia, much of an influence he had on me,
and dispiriting, black America has Weimar Germany, and the former which I regret. (He died in 1994.)”
undergone a process of disintegration.” Yugoslavia to offer a historical context After stints covering politics and
Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning to his analysis of what has happened then TV, Aucoin was a feature writer
Washington Post columnist, is also in the United States. He is a columnist for nearly a decade before his latest
the author of “Coal to Cream: A for Truthdig and a fellow of The Nation assignment. “Now that I’m reviewing
Black Man’s Journey Beyond Color Institute. theater full time,” he wrote, “I’m struck
to an Affirmation of Race” and “Last by how much stronger—and bigger—
Dance in Havana: The Final Days of 2000 the Boston theater scene is than it
Fidel and the Start of the New Cuban was in the 1980’s. And I sometimes
Revolution.” wonder if there’s a 10-year-old kid out
Deborah Schoch is a senior writer there reading my reviews and maybe
1996 at the California HealthCare Founda- developing an interest in theater or
tion Center for Health Reporting, writing or both. Hope so.”
which recently launched a new website
Ying Chan wrote the introduction to showcase its reporting projects. 2002
to “Investigative Journalism in China: The nonprofit center, funded by a
Eight Cases of Chinese Watchdog Jour- grant from the California Health-
nalism,” published in April by Hong Care Foundation and based at the David J. Lynch sent an update
Kong University Press. The book tells University of Southern California’s about his job change: “I am now a
the stories behind some of the most Annenberg School for Communica- senior writer for Bloomberg News in
intensive investigations undertaken by tion and Journalism, partners with Washington, D.C., working as part
Chinese media. They include the case newspapers throughout the state to of the economics team. I’ll be writ-
of a peasant woman left disfigured by provide coverage of California health ing about the intersection of politics
local officials and her husband’s family, policy issues. In its first two years the and economics for the news wire and
the acceptance of bribes by journal- center has produced 18 projects and [Bloomberg] Businessweek magazine,
ists at the state-run news agency, and almost 200 articles with 31 newspapers and I’ll be making occasional appear-
the government’s cover-up of SARS. in the state. Schoch wrote that she is ances on Bloomberg Television.
In addition to introducing the case “convinced it offers a solid new model “I had a great 16-year run at USA
studies, Chan, the director of the for journalism around the globe.” Today [USAT] and was fortunate to
University of Hong Kong’s Journalism have some really life-changing expe-
and Media Studies Center, provides a 2001 riences. I spent about half my time
succinct history of journalism under overseas, opening bureaus in London
Communist Party rule and details and Beijing. I covered wars, financial
some of the repercussions reporters Don Aucoin, The Boston Globe’s crises, natural disasters, and just
have faced for reporting the truth. new theater critic, wrote an e-mail plain old good stories in more than
about his new assignment: “Taking 50 countries. ...
1999 over as the Globe’s theater critic feels “But the financial crisis took its
like I’ve come full circle in a couple of toll on USAT. I lost three weeks of
ways. When I was a 10-year-old kid pay to involuntary furloughs in 2009
Chris Hedges in Ashland, Massachusetts, I worked and when Gannett, despite being
argues in his new as a paperboy, delivering the Globe. consistently profitable throughout
book “Death of the As I walked from house to house, I the crisis, dipped into my pocket for
Liberal Class,” pub- would usually have my nose buried in an additional week of pay this year,
lished in October by the paper, often because I was reading I said ‘enough.’
Nation Books, that Kevin Kelly, the Globe’s superb theater “I wasn’t really sure what to expect
the press, the uni- critic. I learned a lot about writing and when I started my job search. But
versities, the labor theater from reading Kevin. fortunately, it turned out that there
movement, the “When I got to the Globe in the late is a market for middle-aged financial
Democratic Party, 1980’s, my first job was on the night writers. Joining Bloomberg seemed like
and other pillars of the liberal class copy desk. But on my nights off, I often a terrific opportunity to be part of a
Let’s Talk
it was so difficult and so dangerous
and very few people were able to get
any pictures out at all.” The annual
award honoring freelance camerawork
Nieman Reports enjoys hearing from you!
in news and current affairs feature
films is sponsored by the Rory Peck
Trust, an organization that provides With social media, staying in touch is easy.
help to freelance newsgatherers and Like us at Facebook.com/NiemanReports
their families worldwide.
VietNamNet’s intrepid reporting on cited with clear sources. to be a comprehensive story about
land use, environmental degradation, VietNamNet is one of the most journalism in Vietnam or about this
foreign affairs, and other subjects widely read online newspapers in news organization. Its intent was to
has won it a large public following. Vietnam, and everyone who works illustrate the great disconnect that
Published online, VietNamNet has here understands that the press serves I witnessed between my American
about six million daily readers. Some the public interest and our content notions of journalism and what I
officials have criticized its report- needs to be independent, accurate, observed in this newsroom, and
ing while others have commended objective and unbiased. All the I stand by my description of how
VietNamNet for bringing neglected products of VietNamNet—from news content was borrowed from other
problems to light. VietNamNet has to investigative reports to the “hot publications.
also been a proponent for a new press topics” we raise in online discussions Along with two other American
law that can serve as the foundation with legislators, researchers, business students, who were also under
for a more independent press. managers, and the public—must meet contract there as summer interns,
None of this information was these standards. I worked with Tuan Anh Nguyen,
contained in the broadside attack Stories published on VietNamNet a senior official at VietNamNet. He
on VietNamNet that appeared in the or VietNamNet Bridge have been asked us to help the editorial staff
last issue of Nieman Reports. It was double-checked, with their sources learn from strategies related to social
portrayed there as trafficking in sex and origins clearly shown to readers. networking and online publications
and news stories that originate with Any use of common nouns instead such as The Huffington Post. For
other news organizations. The author of specific names is a way of para- example, we were asked to analyze
of that article is a college student, phrasing, and this practice, while Huffington Post’s model and present
who described himself as being a certainly not encouraged, is limited our findings to a board of editors,
consultant to VietNamNet, but he did on VietNamNet Bridge and does not as well as research and explain
not actually work on its news content. happen on VietNamNet. how Twitter, Facebook and The
He interned for several weeks with Butterfield cannot speak Vietnam- New York Times’s “Times People”
the English-language publication of ese so he could not make judgments help to facilitate user interaction
VietNamNet that is produced as a about VietNamNet. It is also clear that with content, enable readers to feel
service to foreign readers. Its content he misunderstood his role and duties more in command of their viewing
is a compilation of stories that have during his internship at VietNamNet. experience, and bolster traffic by
appeared in VietNamNet and other He sought this internship and it was spreading links to content around the
Vietnamese news outlets. granted based on an introduction Internet. Based on our research, we
from a journalism professor; we did created templates for possible use on
Thomas Patterson not invite him to act as a consultant or VietNamNet’s website using Adobe
The Bradlee Professor of Govern- strategist. VietNamNet invites lead- InDesign. We showed those templates
ment and the Press at Harvard ing journalists and scholars to work as part of a two-hour presentation
University’s Shorenstein Center as consultants and strategists—not we gave to members of the editorial
on the Press, Politics and Public university students. staff about how VietNamNet could
Policy. use various social media strategies
Le Hai Yen and Bui Viet Lam to increase traffic and enhance its
Le Hai Yen was Butterfield’s super- visibility on the Web.
To the Editor: visor at VietNamNet, and Bui Viet It is true that I neither speak
Lam is a senior editor at the news nor read Vietnamese so my work
First, it is necessary to make a clear organization. was limited to VietNamNet Bridge,
distinction between VietNamNet and the organization’s English-language
VietNamNet Bridge. Sam Butterfield’s division. The documents I signed
comments were based solely on Sam Butterfield, author of “An Amer- describing my work there—two
his subjective view of VietNamNet ican Observes a Vietnamese Approach contracts, one when I arrived, one in
Bridge, an English-language site that to Newsgathering,” responds: mid-July, were written in Vietnamese,
is only a very small part of our news so I do not know what my formal
organization. VietNamNet Bridge During this past summer I spent title was at VietNamNet. It was
is a portal that collects and filters nearly two months living in Hanoi always my understanding that my
information from VietNamNet and and working under contract at role there was to work on multimedia
other newspapers in Vietnam—these VietNamNet. The essay I wrote and Web strategies and that is what
are then translated into English for for Nieman Reports was based on I did, along with editing stories at
international readers and they are my experiences; it was not meant VietNamNet Bridge.
E ND N OTE
BY WAYNE GREENHAW
T
hroughout decades as a voices echoing in the night like A Writer’s Beginnings
newspaper reporter, mostly a hymn in praise of freedom. I
covering the civil rights listened to the words of George I had been hired by the sports
movement in the South, I have Wallace, Martin Luther King, editor at the News when I was 15,
been a witness to history. I cov- Jr., civil rights attorneys Morris after undergoing spinal surgeries
ered marches, trials, speeches Dees and Chuck Morgan, and and being confined to a body
and midnight gatherings with Alabama Attorney General Bill cast for six months. Bedridden,
protesters on their knees singing Baxley. I fought loneliness by reading
“We Shall Overcome” in whispery Despite all that came after, Victor Hugo, Mark Twain, Ernest
what I remember most Hemingway, and others. Instead
vividly is an image from of emptiness, my world was
more than 50 years ago. filled with excitement: French
One picture stays with revolutionists, boys floating down
me, haunting and inform- the Mississippi, and bullfighters
ing my writing about the in Spain. I was thrilled with the
movement that shook our magic of written words.
nation. Days before my In a magazine, I read an article
16th birthday, in 1956, I about San Miguel de Allende in
was riding home one night Mexico called “How to Live in
from my part-time job Paradise on $100 a Month.” At
at The Tuscaloosa News the Instituto Allende profession-
with a photographer when als taught writing. Descriptions
we came upon a mob of the Spanish colonial town put
on University Avenue. me on the narrow cobblestone
Whites were protesting streets. I pictured myself as a
a young woman’s attempt student there.
to become the first black In my first job as a part-time
student at the University sports reporter I wrote two-
of Alabama. The angry paragraph summaries of Friday
crowd stopped a car. Men night football games. If I wrote
beat it with sticks. They one word too many, my editor
climbed on the bumpers, slashed it. If I used an unneces-
jumping up and down. sary adjective, a scowl covered
In the darkness I saw his face. On Saturdays I wrote
the face of a small black headlines for sports stories going
boy framed in the back in the Sunday paper, learning
window. His eyes were the true weight of simple words.
huge with fear. Although I dreamed of writing books.
the mob let the car pass Learning the art of self-discipline,
after a few minutes, the I awakened early every morning
boy’s frightened face was and wrote for several hours. I
seared into my memory. composed a bad 150-page novel