How long will Nightline last without Ted Koppel?

Ted Koppel recently announced that he will leave Nightline in December when his contact expires.

Although ABC News executives say they plan to continue the late-night news program, how long will Nightline survive in the post-Koppel era? Will ABC continue its commitment to news programming as an alternative to Leno and Lettermen? What do you think ABC will do?

See related link: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=630032

Two, Two, Two Leads in One

The Associated Press recently announced that it would start offering two leads for many news stories.

AP will now provide the traditional straight news leads containing the main facts of the story along with the optional lead, which AP described as "an alternative approach that attempts to draw in the reader through imagery, narrative devices, perspective or other creative means."

An article in Editor & Publisher quoted AP officials as saying the move was designed in part to provide readers with a "fresh" take on the news "so they will want to pick up the newspaper and read a story, even though the facts have been splashed all over the Web and widely broadcast."

According to the AP officials, the optional leads will only be available for print.

Will this move push print newspapers further into becoming strictly feature-oriented publications, perhaps attracting more subscribers from the sometimes-elusive younger demographic? Or is this just the latest attempt to try to revive a dying print newspaper industry?


Related link:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000844185

Mary Parker Follett as a Blogger

It occurred to me sometime back that Mary Parker Follett, the turn-of-the-(20th)-century management maven, author, and activist would make a delightful blogger. Follett (1868-1933), whose work was essentially ignored by a number of organizational theorists in her day, finally gained attention in the 1950s when Peter Drucker called her his "guru". Today, her writings are frequently studied in business schools, in community education, and among organizational communicators for their wisdom and managerial philosophy. That said, Follett was a frequent essayist, speaker, and commentator too. She was a student of organizations and business, certainly, but she also found time to read extensively in education, politics, sociology, ethics, world affairs, psychology, and the arts. Some say she is best known for her work in community development and the idea of community centers in particular. And it is this notion of community that focuses my point.

Were she alive today, I think Follett would be blogger in addition to a speaker, essayist, and scholar. She would find the essence of a weblog both fascinating and essential to developing a community within a global environment. In her article, "Community is a Process," written in 1919, Follett argues that: "...community is a creative process. It is creative because it is a process of integrating....The creative power of the individual appears not when one 'wish dominates others, but when all 'wishes' unite in a working whole....What then is the law of community? From biology, from psychology, from our observation of social groups, we see that community is that intermingling which evokes creative power....As the process of community creates personality and will, freedom appears."

I should like to think that Follett would see the weblog as a community, as a creative process that through individuals creates a whole, and an interchange that strengthens and unifies when other forms of collectivity fails. While Follett expands on larger issues than the essence of community, she always seems to relate it to freedom and the "practice of community."

Is blogging a practice of community?

We should all look so good after serving time

Did Newsweek mislead the public with its recent cover photo illustration of Martha Stewart?

The magazine identified the cover -- which shows a beaming Stewart emerging from gold curtains looking slender and happy -- as a photo illustration on page 3. In a March 2 interview on National Public Radio, Lynn Staley, assistant managing editor for Newsweek, explained that the photo illustration included Martha Stewart’s head placed atop a model’s body. Staley said the image was designed to depict Martha’s emergence from prison, looking ahead to what Martha’s future might be. She said it was not Newsweek’s intention to deceive. But does this photo illustration cross the line of deception? Should Newsweek have identified the image as a photo illustration on the cover rather than on page 3? Does it really matter in this day and age of complex digital enhancement capability?

See related links:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7038081/site/newsweek/
and
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4520166

Eulogy for a master wordsmith

Hunter's dead. His ashes have been blown from a cannon across his sprawling ranch outside of Aspen. Just thought I'd post my favorite Hunter S. Thompson quote, in honor of one of the 20th Century's most-inspired voices.
Hope you'll leave yours, too:

"The music businessis a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

Protection for Churchill?

No matter what you think about Ward Churchill, any discussion about his right to say what he has said will likely raise the topics of freedom of speech, academic freedom, and the role of tenure for university professors. But first, a little background. In 1991 Churchill, with only a Masters degree and bypassing the normal 6-year probationary process, was promoted from lecturer to Assistant Professor with tenure within the Communication department at CU Boulder. From there he moved on to the Ethnic Studies department where he was promoted to Full Professor in 1997.

As you probably know, an essay published shortly after 9/11, but which only recently came to the attention of the public, has many calling for Churchill’s dismissal from his position on the faculty at CU. The first question that may come to mind is whether Churchill’s speech is protected by the 1st Amendment. All of us who work in or along side the media should be concerned about legitimate 1st Amendment claims--but this is not one of them. Churchill’s constitutional right to say what he wants about victims of 9/11 is clear. However, his right to employment (at a comfortable $94K) is not guaranteed by the same. Just ask any number of federal, state, and local officials and employees who have been dismissed for spoken offenses much less severe than Churchill’s.

However, while not a 1st Amendment issue, Churchill’s speech is afforded an additional level of protection under the notion of academic freedom. A key component of university tenure systems, academic freedom ensures that unpopular ideas and theories will not be dismissed for any reason other than academic merit. If you can make a case that your position has even a chance of being supportable, you can continue to research, publish, and propagate it in the classroom. So while you might take offense that Churchill is blaming the victims of 9/11 for their own deaths, the possibility that the unjust economic system perpetrated by Wall Street was to blame for the tragedy cannot be easily disproved or dismissed. In a similar light, Harvard University president Lawrence H. Summers’ hypothesis that innate ability differences between men and women may be partly to blame for the under representation of women in the upper echelons of science education is controversial, even highly offensive to many, but far from disproved.

So what exactly then are the limits of protection afforded by academic freedom? Even tenured professors are not immune from all repercussions of their speech. According to the Denver Post, a tenured professor at CU can be dismissed for, “incompetence, neglect of duty, insubordination, conviction of a felony or any offense involving moral turpitude, sexual harassment or any conduct falling below minimum standards of professional integrity.” Ironically, it may be the sudden attention focused on Churchill’s inflammatory essay that may in fact uncover behavior leading to his dismissal. For example, one thing that makes Churchill’s career at CU so interesting is the fact that he was hired, in-part, because of his alleged Native American heritage…which we’ve now come to find was fabricated by Churchill. Many years prior to his promotion the Boulder Camera and the Rocky Mountain News questioned the veracity of Churchill’s claim to be Native American. Even the American Indian Movement has claimed for many years that Churchill has, “fraudulently represented himself as an Indian.” In addition, the accusation by Churchill that the US Army perpetrated genocide against American Indians by distributing small-pox laden blankets appears to be a fabrication as well. Thomas Brown, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Lamar University has published an essay critical of Churchill’s scholarship. Brown concludes, “it is difficult to conceive of a social scientist committing a more egregious violation.” Other professors have accused Churchill of plagiarism and misrepresentation.

The academic review committee at CU will issue their report in two weeks. But in the mean time, what do you think?

Universal Service Fund

President Bush has asked for $304.1 million for the FCC during fiscal 2006. Part of the budget includes a $3.2 million cost center to pay for an audit of the agency’s Universal Service Fund. The USF was originally set up to help subsidize telephone service for low income households. Today, a large chunk of the USF helps common carriers pay for the skyrocketing cost of telecommunication infrastructures. The fund is also providing relief for rural heath care providers, schools, and libraries.

Over the years the commission has received numerous complaints related to the USF. Complaints include allegations of “false claims, failure to comply with appropriate procurement regulations and laws, conflict of interest, forgery and securities related offenses.”

My wife and I pay over six dollars per month (into the USF) through our wireline agreement with Qwest and our PCS agreement with Sprint - that’s over $70 per year, almost $400 every five years.

Questions: Is it time to take it back? Should we be paying for telephone poles in rural America? Should we subsidize Native American families (lowest subscribership levels in the U.S) so they can have access to wirelines? Should we help local libraries provide internet access to the public? Is the USF working?

McCain's complaint

The U.S. Senate voted 85 to 13 today to confirm Condolezza Rice as President Bush's new secretary of state. The 13 who voted against her, and who actually held up the confirmation vote for several days, included 12 Democrats and independent James Jeffords of Vermont. They said they held up the confirmation vote and voted no today because Rice shares blame for mistakes and war deaths in Iraq.

In criticizing those dissenters this morning, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said they voted against Rice and held up her confirmation just because they were sore (election) losers, since everyone knew there were more than enough votes to confirm, including those of 30 Democrats.

The AP quotes McCain as saying: "So I wonder why we are starting this new Congress with a protracted debate about a foregone conclusion."

My take: This whole nation is founded on the notion of debate, protracted or not, about every conclusion, foregone or not. Non-violent political dissent at any time should be respected, encouraged and welcomed, even if inconvenient to those who know what the outcome will be. Such dissent is the only basis on which foregone conclusions can be changed, on which people of principle can oppose the tyranny of the majority, on which history can judge the wisdom of government action.

How do you see it?

An online ombudsman???

Here's an interesting item from the blog of Scott Rosenberg, columnist for salon.com:
Software development teams have used bug tracking software for ages now -- why not journalists? But keeping it in-house, as the papers the Bee cites seem to do, limits the value of the approach.
I'm spending a lot of time these days around open-source software developers, and they take the logic of this approach one step further: Major open source projects maintain public bug databases. Anyone can come along and post a bug report. It's like opening a trouble ticket: developers will have a look, see if your complaint is new or duplicates an existing problem; over time the database provide a permanent record of the resolution (or non-resolution) of the issue.
The model doesn't map perfectly onto journalism, but it's not too far off: Let people file "bug reports" if they believe your publication has published something in need of correcting. The publication can respond however it seems appropriate: If the complaint is frivolous, you point that out; if it's a minor error of spelling or detail, you fix it; if it's a major error, you deal with it however you traditionally deal with major errors -- but you've left a trail that shows what happened. However you respond, you've opened a channel of communication, so that people who feel you've goofed don't just go off to their corners (or their blogs!) feeling that you're unresponsive and irresponsible.
I know this idea will horrify a lot of editors and reporters, but I think an adventurous newsroom could benefit from the transparency and the accountability. Maybe someone's already doing this out there -- if so, it would be great to see what we can learn.

Student Journalists Not Given Opportunity to Learn

Recently, two student editors at East High School in Pueblo resigned from their posts, claiming censorship by their principal. According to a report in the Pueblo Chieftain, the students said their principal decided not to distribute the Dec. 16 edition of their newspaper because he felt it promoted Christianity and did not include other religious views. The Chieftain reported that the principal said he didn't want the newspaper to be distributed because he was "concerned about the number of errors that were in it."

Regardless of why the principal chose not to distribute the newspaper, the fact is that his decision was wrong. While the issues of censorship and prior restraint are the most significant legal issues in this case, one must also look at the soundness of the reasoning behind the principal's actions. If his reasoning behind preventing distribution of the paper was because of errors--that he didn't want the school's reputation to suffer as the result of a poor-quality publication--he is doing a great disservice to student journalists and to journalism education in general.

We all learn from our mistakes; some would argue that we learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. Based on the news report, the material published in the student newspaper did not appear to be obscene or libelous, it did not portray any private figures inaccurately and it did not promote unlawful behavior. Preventing these students from learning the importance of accountability and taking responsibility for what they choose to publish seems to be an irresponsible--and uninformed--philosophy of journalism education.

Television Pundit Gets Paid to Promote Bush Education Policy, but Keeps the Dollars a Secret

Conservative pundit Armstrong Williams, who's been busy promoting the Education Department's "No Child Left Behind" policy on his own talk show as well as CNN and Fox, forgot to mention he was being paid $241,000 to sell the Bush education agenda.
Williams is a television and newspaper commentator and initially claimed he'd done nothing wrong by failing to disclose that he was being paid to promote the policy under the guise of being an independent and impartial observer who strongly supported the federal program.
After being grilled by CNN and MSNBC, along with print criticism, Armstrong retracted his earlier stance and apologized for not disclosing the financial relationship, saying that the public holds him to journalistic standards and he should not have accepted the money and wouldn't do it again. Unfortunately, perhaps a little too late for Williams. His reputation as a commentator who speaks for himself is now tarnished. There's a major difference between journalists and promoters. Community journalists attempt to limit they're bias and public relations folks often must admit to bias when communicating. Williams was perceived more like a journalist, at least up until now.

Two questions emerge from this incident, frankly, bigger than Armstrong Williams' role in it.

1. Is it ethical for a person to be paid to promote an idea?
Famous people are paid to promote products, services and ideas all the time. What's a key difference? We know they're being paid. Let the audience determine the validity of communication that's coming from a paid source. Williams didn't let his audience know the checks were rolling in. Information that comes from an informed and supposedly unbiased source is often perceived as more credible by the audience. THAT'S WHY WILLIAMS DIDN'T TELL!

For the record, the PRSA Code of Ethics clearly states that it is unethical for a public relations effort to communicate information in which the source isn't identified. No front groups allowed. No secret payments to people as spokespersons without disclosure.

Here's the more interesting question to pose:
2. Should the government use our tax dollars to pay people to promote its programs? Before you answer, how about this? DOES the government do this? Yes. Is it legal? Yes, as long as the government TELLS US the information is promotion and not objective journalism. Think about all the advertising and public relations efforts to promote the post office, military, and IRS. The voter has long determined that government should be allowed to have hired communicators to educate and inform citizens because of the complexity and mass impact of government policy.
However, the Bush administration is stretching "information" into "promotion" by twice producing promotional efforts relating to drug policy and medicare without disclosing they were paying for it.

Blogger fallout at CBS

2004 was the year of the blog, and the biggest blog story of the year was the "uncovering" of the shoddy reporting by Dan Rather and 60 Minutes in their segment on the President's National Guard service. Today the Washington Post is reporting that four executives, including Rather's producer Mary Mapes and 60 Minutes Wednesday executive producer Josh Howard, will be fired. According to the independent panel, the story was pursued with a "myopic zeal" which led to a story that failed to meet the network's standard of fairness. In response to the panel's findings, CBS President Leslie Moonves was quoted by the Post as saying that, "there were lapses every step of the way--in the reporting and the vetting of the segment and in the reaction of CBS News in the aftermath of the report." The "aftermath of the report" refers to the bloggers' dismantling of the facts reported by Rather. And if it wasn't for his announced retirement, Rather himself might be in a very difficult position.

This admission of failure by CBS should result in additional support for the notion of The Wisdom of Crowds (see the book by James Surowiecki), however there are still many questions to be answered. For instance, what is the role of bloggers and what should be their relationship to traditional newsgathering organizations? We still need reporters, fact-checkers, editors and publishers...but can the blogsphere be all that and more?

Is that your cell phone or is it Muzak?

Downloading popular songs to use as cell phone ring tones now nets $300 million in the United States and $3 billion globally, according to NPR. Can somebody please shed light on this for me -- why would anyone spend $1-$2 to download a ring tone that sounds no better than the music that was once confined to elevators or department stores? -Leticia Steffen

News Flash: Fake News becomes News

Anyone else out there wondering how the star of a fake news show, one that airs on Comedy Central and whose lead-in is, "puppets making crank phone calls," has become a spokesperson for journalistic ethics? In case you've missed the 60 Minutes report last evening, or the buzz in the blogsphere about his appearance on Crossfire, Jon Stewart has taken to lecturing cable news journalists, and anyone else who will listen, about the failings of television news. Not that I’m one to run to the rescue of an industry that has bent over backwards to give itself a spanking (now there’s an ugly word picture), but since when does a news satirist get to suddenly shift gears and become deadly serious about a problem that has been around since Edwin R. Murrow (if you don’t know, look him up).

Besides, I’m not sure that The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is convinced of its own identity. John Edwards announced his candidacy for presidency of the United States on this “fake” news show. And nearly every important political figure, except George W. Bush, has appeared as a guest. In what may be the most alarming factoid, the National Election Annenberg study from the University of Pennsylvania showed that males ages 18 to 34 got their political information from The Daily Show more than from any other news source.

Take a few minutes and watch his performance—yes, it was a performance—on Crossfire last week. The video stream and transcript is available from mediamatters.org and the transcript from CNN.com. Then judge for yourself—is this a serious wake-up call for the major news outlets, a marketing ploy to sell more copies of Stewart’s new book America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction, or just a guy making jokes at the expense of anyone who is willing to give him enough rope?