Newspapers and coffee, duh!

Not making it as a newspaper? 

Add coffee and stir.

That's the unusual business model emerging in the Czech Republic. I have to admit I was a bit dumbfounded as I read a about it in the New York Times this morning. But it is actually a really cool idea. In an effort to reconnect with their communities newspapers across Czech Republic are opening up Coffee Shops adjacent to their newsrooms. They offer an internet connection and one-on-one time with their reporters who will help customers learn social networking tools. And I'm not the only one who thinks this idea could work. Google is backing the project, supply tech support and training. The European company that is developing the cafes, the PPF group group says it is meant to be the Czech version of hyper-local news. PPF, an Amsterdam-based firm with banking, insurance and media holdings in Central and Eastern Europe is partnering with Vlatva-Labe-Press, a German-owned publisher of Czech papers. PPF has invested 10 million Euros of 13.4 million dollars in the project and the company plans to begin publishing seven weekly newspapers and about 30 websites serving four distinct regions of the country next month. It's great to see such a literal attempt by a newspaper company to reconnect with their audience. A cup of coffee and a conversation can go a long way in building a relationship, and right now newspapers can use all the friends they can get.

America's Newest Profession: Blogging

We've all heard of the oldest profession ... one unemployed young journalists will thankfully never be forced to consider. That's because they now have the newest profession: blogging. The Wall Street Journal says that there are now almost as many people making a living as bloggers as their are lawyers in America. A striking fact for the most heavily lawyered country in the world. A quick search of wikipedia says that there is about one lawyer per 265 people in the U.S., and the bloggers aren't far behind. Check out the April 21st article by Mark Penn with E. Kinney Zalesne. 

I first heard something about this article in the form of an NPR factoid. the announcer said there are now about as many bloggers in the U.S. as there are bartenders. That got my attention, since almost everyone I know has done that job at one time or another to make ends meet between starting college and beginning their career. I thought to my self, 'now everybody needs blogs as much as they do beer?' Wow. 

That's when it hit me that I am really in the right place (USC Anennberg) at the right time. Where else could be better to weather the storm of the economic downturn, the transformation of journalism to an online medium and my own personal evolution from a low-tech news hound to a multi-media online producer? 

Now, I'm not sure that I want to devote my entire life to sitting in front my laptop cranking out blogs. After all, blogging, when usurped by corporations will end up being just as oppressive as a nine-to-five job. And that's not what I went into journalism for. I chose the profession for idealistic reasons, including being a part of upholding democracy, but also because it offered the possibility of a certain degree of autonomy, creativity and adventure and of course, constant learning. 

I think it's great that blogging has gained legitimacy, but my secret hope is that it remains mostly a free-for-all, haphazard, brainstorming bazaar where we go to search out intellectual trash and treasures. But no doubt, from this year forward it will remain an integral part of journalism as we know it.

What I found really striking about the WSJ article was the figures. Check them out:

* One out of every three young people reports blogging

* 2 % of bloggers do it for a living

* It takes about 100,000 unique visitors a month to generate an income of $75,000 per year

* Bloggers can get $75-$200 for a good post

* It takes about $80.00 and 35 months to get started

* Pros who work for companies are typically paid $45,000 to $90,000 a year for blogging

* One percent make over $200,000 and work 50-60 hours per week

Take a look at this blog which discusses the numbers further.

And this is the one that really blew me away ... Pen and Zalesne write, "as bloggers have increased in numbers, the number of journalists has significantly declined. In Washington alone, there are now 79% fewer DC-based employees of major newspapers than there were just a few years ago. At the same time Washington is easily the most blogged-about city in America, if not the world." Penn and Zalesne didn't say it outright, but they drew a correlation between the decline of journalist in the capital with the rise of bloggers. Pretty interesting stuff.

8 Years for Reporting

The Front Page of  The New York Times features Roxana Saberi this morning, after Iranian authorities sentenced her to eight years in Prison for allegedly spying. We all know this is bunk. Saberi is a respected journalist who has worked for National Public Radio and The BBC. Saberi was arrested back in January on charges of buying alcohol. Then she was charged for working without press credentials and eventually with spying for the United States. I have been following the case of Saberi with great interest because it concerns me as I get ready to graduate from Annenberg and forge into my own freelance journalism career. Gone are the days when one could sign up to be a foreign correspondent the way one might sign up for the Navy Seals or the Army Rangers. Now you are on your own. And if you get shot in a war zone or arrested by a repressive regime there is no one at home to worry about you and work out the details of medical care or your release from Prison. It is good to see the New York Times, NPR and BBC working together to draw attention to Saberi's plight. But do they have the resources to really get her home? This will be one to watch. In the meantime the world of freelancers is growing and begs for a new association to work specifically on these such issues. The Society of Professional Journalists is one such organization that could step in to fill the void left by the  fragmenting of newspapers and the dispersion of correspondents. But SPJ seems more concerned with the things that made the old world of journalism go round -- awards, libel cases and basically celebrating itself. Yes they have a token blog and some ridiculous article about webcasting, but what the journalism world really needs right now is an online community for those of us who are brave enough to actually go out be journalists despite a global economic downturn, the collapse of newspapers and governments who will throw us in jail for telling the truth. Maybe SPJ is like an old newspaper forcing its writers to blog and post some video once in a while, but really not wanting to change much ... as long as the money keeps rolling in. I am a member of SPJ, and I believe it is an important organization. But I had hoped to see more leadership from them as the industry hit these tumultuous times. How about getting together a health insurance cooperative for all of the journalists who can no longer rely on corporations to cover them and providing a networking forum for journalism entrepreneurs? And I believe, member or not, they should be speaking up in defense of Saberi. Instead I see big articles about SPJ turning 100 -- and my thoughts are that they'd better watch out. If they don't make the leap, somebody more innovative might just jump in and do the job they should be doing, standing up for journalists and helping them through this transition ... and they just might start giving out their own awards too.

Three Blogs I Like

Three blogs I like: The Common Language Project's, 'CLP', Amanda Koster's, 'Amanda Koster', and Nicholas Kristof's, 'On the Ground'

Seattle Courant Cartoon

The Seattle Courant is Seattle's first online daily newspaper. While looking for interesting cartoons on the demise of journalism, I came across this cartoon, which they recently published. Through the cartoon I discovered the rest of the publication. I found that The Courant is a hyper-local publication focussing specifically on Seattle. It is an interesting mix of short story features, local news and cultural writing and reviews. Very Seattle. Despite the fact that the top story this weekend is about whether Sascquatches exist, the publication offers an array of information most Seattlites or those linked to Seattle in some way, may find interesting. Clicking around the site, I discovered some interesting stuff like their 'Layoff Reports,' which track layoffs at Seattle businesses (181 from the Seattle P-I, included). This paper seems to be in direct competition with what's left of The Seattle P-I. Over on the P-I's front page the Seattle Sounders (a local Soccer team) was the top story. I guess if I live in Seattle reading about Sasquatches and Soccer could be my top priority. I imagine that each of these stories is interesting, but I have to ask, where's the news?

Discovering The Courant through a search for cartoons about newspapers got me thinking though. It's kind of like the the whole internet functions the way newspapers used to. We've had that discussion in class a dozen times now, about how our parents used to read the newspapers for one particular thing that interested them, like sports or entertainment, and then this cool thing happened; they'd discover something else that they hadn't set out to read like international news, a story focussing on politics or a movie review. Well, my cartoon search worked much the same way. I was looking for a cartoon for my blog, and I discovered The Courant, and a bunch of really interesting Seattle stories about Sasquatches, sporting events and city council meetings. But this is where the cool connections came to a halt. That's because The Courant does not seem to link to other publications or really anything else on the Web. So instead of continuing my adventure of news discovery, I was basically circling an information cul-de-sac. This basically shot down my original theory, that the internet is the new newspaper, to pieces, which was quite disappointing. But I think my hypothesis is half true. As the internet becomes more interconnected through links and aggregation, we may see the internet acting more like a newspaper. Meantime we'll have to keep backing out of dead ends, like The Courant. Or, perhaps, some folks may actually decide they like it there an decide to stay.

A National Endowment for ... Journalism?

After our JOUR599 phone conference with Jon Sawyer from The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, I started checking out some of the folks he works with, as I would like to be one. Low and behold, on his list of reporters I found some fellow Seattlites; Sarah Stuteville, Alex Stonehill and Jessica Partnow, along with several others, make up 'Common Language Project,' a wonderful new model for international investigative reporting. As I was exploring the C.L.P. site (check them out facebook) , I came across a blog by Alex arguing for the creation of a National Endowment for Journalism. This is something I've been thinking about myself, and frankly I was a bit jealous that Alex beat me to it. But I have to say, that his editorial is really interesting and well written. Check it out if you care about the future of journalism in the United States. I think he's onto something. My question is how do we get Washington to pay attention in the middle of an economic crisis? Although creating a National Endowment for Journalism may seem indulgent in the middle of a recession, it is precisely at this moment when we need serious investigative reporting. Creating such an endowment would put laid off journalists to work and keep the Fourth Estate alive during this critical time in American history. What do you think?

A Reason to Want the Big Guys on Your Side

The idea of freelancing is romantic, until you end up sick in a foreign country, struggling with a story without an editor to guide you, or kicked out because you offended a government official. All this is to be expected at one time or another. But one of the worst situations we have seen lately, besides foreign journalists becoming casualties of war, is foreign countries throwing them in prison for no apparent reason. This is the case with Roxana Saberi who is being held in Iran's most notorious jail, Evin Prison, where it is rumored there is a torture chamber. I don't know about you, but this is when I would want 'The Big Guys' on my side. I commend NPR, ABC, BBC, FOX, WALL STREET JOURNAL, PBS AND FEATURESTORY.COM for their joint statement and their negotiations on behalf of Ms. Saberi. But I'd also want all the little guys on my side too. I actually found out about this story through facebook. I think I'd noticed the story while scanning the papers, but skipped over it, as I was busy with midterms. However, when I saw my old KUOW friend, Sara Lerner, had posted the official letter from the networks on her facebook page, I had to take a look. Why? For one thing, I trust Sara and find what she has to say interesting. Another major reason I read about Ms. Saberi was that I thought to myself ... that could be me, and I would want my fellow journalists to be interested in my fate. Ms. Saberi is a freelance journalist, but she is established and has lived in Iran for years. As more and more foreign correspondents are laid off and the ranks of freelancers swell, I hope the networks continue to defend the rights of freelancers who run into trouble for doing nothing more than their job. The spread of news about Ms. Saberi's situation through facebook is also hopeful. But somehow I don't think a letter from Facebook users would have the same impact as one from the networks.

Below is the letter I read on facebook.

MAJOR WORLDWIDE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS PRESS FOR INFORMATION

REGARDING AMERICAN JOURNALIST ROXANA SABERI BEING HELD IN IRAN

NPR, ABC, BBC, FOX, WALL STREET JOURNAL, PBS, FEATURESTORY.COM ISSUE JOINT STATEMENT

Washington, D.C.; March 10, 2009 – On behalf of the family, friends and colleagues of Roxana Saberi, and the many American citizens who share our concerns, we urgently request a series of steps be taken in the case of Roxana Saberi, an independent journalist and dual citizen of the United States and Iran, who is being held in Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran.

We now ask that one or more international organizations that have responsibilities and rights under the Geneva Conventions be permitted access to Roxana immediately to ascertain her health and well-being and to determine the conditions under which she is held.

We now ask that the specific charges against Roxana Saberi be made public. If no charges are filed, we now urge her immediate release and ask that she be given permission to return to her home country, the United States.

For the past six years, Ms. Saberi has resided in Iran, where she is an established and respected professional journalist. She has filed for NPR, ABC, BBC and others. Before her arrest, she was pursuing a master's degree in Iranian studies and international relations and writing a book about Iran.

On Thursday, February 26, nearly a month after the actual event, we learned that Roxana was detained by Iranian authorities in late January. Since then she has been denied contact with family, friends and associates. On February 10, briefly and under apparent duress, she contacted her family to inform them of her arrest and detention and requested their silence. On Sunday March 1, her family revealed the story to their home town press in Fargo, ND and to NPR, given their growing concern over the lack of contact from Roxana.

Roxana Saberi is a U. S. citizen, born in New Jersey, raised in North Dakota and educated in Minnesota. She has many friends and colleagues across the nation. We are deeply concerned about her well-being and the deprivation of her rights, and we will continue to press for action until we are successful.

Signed,

Vivian Schiller
President & CEO, NPR

David L. Westin
President, ABC News

Jon Williams
World Editor, BBC News

Paula Kerger
President & CEO, PBS

Robert Thomson
Editor-in-Chief, Wall Street Journal

Narrative, The Soul of Journalism

This week we had a fantastic speaker at our weekly specialized journalism luncheon, Celeste Freemon, who teaches literary journalism at UC Irvine and is a Senior Fellow for Social Justice/New Media at the USC Institute for Justice and Journalism. She spoke about the relevance of narrative journalism in the digital age. As I listened to Freemon describe the importance of narrative in a time of great change in the media and society, I was moved. In our discussion I found the answer to a question I had been asking myself for some time; how can I have the most impact as a journalist? I believe it is through a combination of the oldest form of story telling and the most cutting edge technology offered by the internet. At Annenberg I've discovered my passion for social justice journalism. I'm interested in how we can use literary tricks to draw the masses into stories they might ordinarily avoid, compelling American's to care more about international news. Narratives ask us to invest in characters. In the case of narrative journalism those characters are real live people. Wouldn't it be great if we could use the techniques of narrative storytelling to mobilize people to act on issues like the genocide in Darfur? Some journalists are doing this, but it takes an investment of time and money to do these types of stories and an experienced, skillful storyteller. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times and Ann Curry of NBC have both done their best to convey the stories of ordinary people in Darfur. Ms. Curry recently accompanied Mr. Kristof to Darfur to report on the ongoing genocide. I found out about this through Krisof's blog, 'On the Ground.' My question is, can citizen journalists really do this type of reporting ... the kind that moves us to tears, that helps us hope, that makes us angry enough or inspired enough to act, or to pressure our government to act? I searched the web for citizen journalism about Darfur -- serious journalism, but I couldn't find any. I expect that's because it's very difficult for someone without the resources and the know-how to do such work. Citizen journalism sites such as Huffington Post simply post links to articles about Darfur. Demotix offers still photos and a short text description of them. This is not storytelling. Compare that to Curry's reports and judge for yourself.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Citizen Foreign Correspondents?

After a bout with the flu I am now re-joining the bloggosphere. Thanks to our classmate Nikki Usher for sending me a link to Nicholas Kristof's recent blog about a new citizen journalism website where we can all become foreign correspondents. In his blog Kristof introduces us to a site called Demotix. Demotix, which set up shop in January 2009, is essentially an online, international, multimedia, newswire service. The site is named after 'Demotic,' the form of writing used and most easily understood by the man on the street in Alexandrian Egypt in 200 BC. The word Demotic meaning, 'of the people.' The people behind Demotix say they hope to open up journalism to the people in the modern age, just as the demotic script opened up writing in Ancient Egypt. They say they're filling the void left by the death of newspapers and old-fashioned on-the-ground reporting. With only four U.S. newspapers maintaining a foreign desk, they may be onto something. Their goal? To provide a place for anyone -- freelance journalists, citizen journalists, and people who just happen to be at the right place at the right time to upload world news photos and video, search for it and comment on it. The good news for freelancers is that they pay you. It works like this; you retain the copyright, they broker the photos and videos across all platforms for you and then Demotix and you split the fee, 50/50. They say they can get anywhere from $50-$3,000, depending on demand. And if you just happen to get something really hot, like say a great photo of a historic moment, they claim the pay could potentially range into the $100,000.00 range! Demotix also has an interesting blog where they invite people to discuss the pluses and minuses of citizen journalism. I was only down with the flu for about a week, but it feels as if in that short time the fault lines of journalism could have made some massive fundamental shifts. And Demotix might be ahead of the game.

Epic 2014

Today Dave Cohn, a.k.a. 'digidave,' a technology reporter and the creator of the entrepreneurial journalism website, spot.us, gave a presentation to my Specialized Journalism class at USC. At the end of his hopeful talk he left us with this rather dismal yet humorous short film about what is going on with media right now and where we could be heading. The film, EPIC 2014, is a Flash movie released in November 2004 by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson. It is based on a presentation they gave at the Poynter Institute in the spring of that year. The movie is presented from the viewpoint of a fictional "Museum of Media History" in the year 2014. It explores the effects that the convergence of popular News aggregators, such as Google News, with other Web 2.0 technologies like blogging, social networking and user participation may have on journalism and society at large in a hypothesized future. The film popularized the term Googlezon and touches on major privacy and copyright issues raised in this scenario.It is 8 minutes long.

The Greatest Things there are to Hear

This is for all your radio junkies worried about the future of NPR and public radio. Check out this wonderfully written piece from The Telegraph, sent to me by USC professor Sandy Tolan. It's called, 'Why we're still ga-ga for radio."

A Newspaper? On a PC? That's Crazy Talk

I discovered this lovely bit of media history in Sam Grobart's New York Times technology blog.

He writes ... "Since it’s the weekend, here’s something just for kicks that’s been making the rounds: In 1981, San Francisco TV station KRON aired a news segment about how a select group of computer users were getting their daily copy of the San Francisco Examiner not on paper, but on their home computer (!). The best part comes about one minute into the clip, when one of the Examiner’s editors explains that the paper is “not in this to make money.”

Dead Paper Walking

Some of the Post-Intelligencer's most painful days are ahead, but they at least have a shot to go out with a bang ...

Hang it up, Hearst

A practitioner of new journalism provides a no-hankies account of how journalism is changing, even if we have to live without The P-I ...

Newspapers: To be or not to be?

I am dedicating this week's blog posting to The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, my hometown newspaper, which is threatened with closure as I write this blog. Well, to be honest, Port Townsend is technically my hometown, and its paper is The Leader. But the Seattle P-I was the paper my family read on Sundays and our link to the nearest metropolis. Although I now work in public radio, my inroad to journalism was newspapers -- and the P-I played a major role in shaping my world view. 

Founded in 1863, The P-I is essential to the fabric of Seattle. If you've lived there, when you think of the P-I, you can't help but think of the giant revolving globe, atop the shiny P-I building, sandwiched between Elliott Avenue and the waterfront. The globe is a landmark and touchstone. The 18.5 ton revolving sculpture with the slogan, 'It's in the P-I' across the equator came to symbolize a connection to the greater world for me and I'm sure for other Seattleites. Now that connection, as I have always known it, is threatened. The P-I is up for sale and the Hearst Corporation says they'll shutter the paper if a buyer is not found in the next few weeks.

My father was a working-class guy. He didn't graduate from high school and he wasn't a big reader. But everyday after long hours of work at the local naval base, he would come home, brew cup of Red Rose tea and read the paper. On Sundays this was an all-morning affair. There was always a newspaper to be found. And when our minds were full of the day's stories the newsprint made good fire starter for the only source of heat in our rural island home, a wood stove. 

That fire starter could soon be a thing of the past, but I hope the P-I won't There is a chance that the paper could go completely online and abandon its print edition. I know that whatever happens with the P-I, it will not be easy, and it could get messy -- especially for the nearly 200 employees of the newspaper. But perhaps the P-I will be one of the first newspapers to abandon their print edition and forge onto the new media frontier?

It's not just my sentimentality that makes me pine for some version of the P-I to stick around. As I paid my dues in newsrooms throughout Seattle, pulling stories for rewrites at KUOW, KPLU, NWCN and at KING5 TV, I quickly realized the paper was a cornerstone on which the city's newscasts were built. Whether or not the P-I can transform itself is yet to be seen. And the big question is, if it's not in the P-I ... then were will it be?

Pulitzer Center On Crisis Reporting

My First Steps ...

This week I took my first steps toward becoming a freelancer by joining AIR, The Association of Independents in Radio. AIR is basically a cooperative for freelance radio producers. Currently they have about 550 members, which they provide with resources such as a listserv for networking, a database of fellowships and grants, and a pitch page, which lists all the major contacts at outlets for freelance radio stories. with the recent layoffs at NPR and nowhere for recent graduates pursuing a career in public radio to go -- my guess is their membership will be growing. 

Now I'm thinking about what's next. I'm looking into grants and fellowships to support my reporting after I graduate. One place I will be applying for funding is The Pulitzer Center On Crisis Reporting. They provide travel grants to freelance journalists pursuing 'under covered' international stories, that traditional news organizations are increasingly less likely to undertake. I'm sure they're getting a lot more knocks on their door these days as well.

My main concern in becoming a freelance reporter is finding a balance between keeping myself financed and actually taking the time to do quality reporting. Basically I will have to run my own business, which means lots of little administrative tasks and constant application for grants and fellowships. It will mean lots of multitasking and adaptability. The thought of becoming a full-time freelance reporter seems daunting, but it also seems like an adventure. 

During our last COMM 599 class we chatted with Seymour Hersh and David Obst. Hearing from these two about their adventures in journalism made me feel exited about striking out on my own and doing things in a non-traditional way. David's story about rushing to make the application deadline for the Pulitzer made an impression on me. No matter how much I try to plan ahead it seems I'm always running against the clock. And somehow I feel like I must not be doing something right if I'm working up to the last minute. It's nice to know that Pulitzer prize winners so the same thing! But maybe it's the clock that pushes us. Maybe we need that 'tick-tock' to guide us to the next stage -- to divide up a daunting task into small steps.

 

Breaking into Virtual Journalism

I am one of those people who actually began typing up stories on a typewriter. By college I was using the first computers to write stories. But we still used wax, rollers and X-acto knives to put it all together for the press. Since then I've been on a whirlwind journey that has led me on a technological adventure from newspapers, to television and eventually to public radio. As soon as I learned one program, along came another one to master. 

Today, I'm about ready to launch from graduate school into an industry that is in the middle of the biggest transformation since the invention of the printing press. So how do I break into this virtual newsroom? And what will my career look like once I get there? That's what I hope to explore in my blog.

When I came to the Annenberg School of Journalism I hoped for a job at NPR and I aspired to eventually become a foreign correspondent. Public radio seemed to offer the one solid business model amidst a crumbling industry. But then the recession hit. And over the holidays NPR announced major layoffs. They cut 85 jobs. When you consider that NPR only employed just over 850 people that number hurts. My dream of getting a 'real' job in public radio died.

However, the changes in journalism may offer new opportunities for freelancers and entrepreneurs. But can I really make a living? My problem seems further compounded by the area in which I'd like to work, foreign reporting. As the news industry has conglomerated, they've whittled their foreign bureaus down to nothing, relying on parachute journalists to get in and get out with the story. That has resulted in lots of bad journalism and in a skewed view of the broader world for the American public. But just this month Globalpost appeared. There is hope!

As I enter my final semester at Annenberg, I am starting to think differently about what my career will actually look like. It seems likely that instead of landing my dream job, I will be creating it, or at least cobbling it together. I am not sure what my new career will look like, but I know it is somewhere out here in the virtual world. A place where I hope I will have more power to tell the important stories and to bring them to a wider audience. And hopefully I'll be able to make the rent as well.