journalism-practices-need-change-digital-media

journalism-practices-need-change-digital-media

In the days of print, archives of past news articles were only accessible via microfiche or an expensive subscription to an online archive service like Lexis-Nexus.
Now, when most articles are published and stored online, later to be indexed by Google, anyone's history in print is easily subject to search. An error or misreport attached to an individual's name can last much longer than the original week in print in a newspaper.
A former student at Seattle Pacific University has brought this issue into the public spotlight, requesting an archived article in the university newspaper about a dropped attempted sexual assault charge be removed. Standard journalism practice has long been to never issue a retraction unless the story is wrong, and due to the nature of print, issue it as a secondary article. The shift to online journalism, however, changes the playing field for both media outlets as well as those profiled in articles.Shakespear Feyissa was profiled in the Seattle Pacific University's student newspaper 10 years ago, when discussing alleged discrimination after he was suspended indefinitely from the school, even after charges of attempted sexual assault were dropped. Now, according to the Seattle Times, Feyissa wants the article removed from the student newspaper's Web archive, and the editors are refusing to budge. For Feyissa, who finds references to the article in top results on search engines for his name, the reports of a case that was dropped is a blight on his record resulting in women Googling and refusing to date him. As a lawyer, clients looking to hire him may balk at being represented by someone who was accused of attempted sexual assault.The Online Journalism Review from the Annenberg School for Communication is tackling this new issue in a article questioning whether or not editors should remove content online. The standard response of "we don't pull stories" was based on a print paradigm. The ease of internet searches digging up old content might demand a new way of retracting or updating articles -- especially when charges of a crime are usually big news but dropping those charges are not ranked as high.
One commenter on the Online Journalism Review piece noted that Japan already has policy in place for dealing with this issue; the regional daily that he works for pulls all crime-related articles after a year. Another commenter suggests going back and adding an addendum to any story where the charges were dropped or the accused was acquitted, but how realistic is this in the fast-moving online news space? It's easy to miss follow-ups to any story, especially if you aren't the original reporter.There is a generation coming up who may face the same situation as Feyrissa, either with things users wish they'd never posted or situations users found themselves in that they wish would disappear. Would it really be a violation of journalism ethics to pull stories after a period of time, since that would include those found guilty as well as those found not guilty? Is it acceptable to add an update to the article for those found not guilty or whose charges are dropped? Or should we rely on the relatively new industry of social media monitoring and SEO techniques to simply bury stories we find unacceptable?

From the inbox of Mr Rakesh Praveer, a senior journalist, based in Patna

Young Journos Do Have a Future -- If They Are Nimble

Young Journos Do Have a Future -- If They Are Nimble

Managing one's own expectations about career development is tricky right now, but the news industry's challenges are never so acute as when you have to explain them to hopeful, idealistic student journalists. After E&P introduced our new feature on the "new New Journalism" last week, and solicited feedback, I received several notes from people who were concerned about how to train and inspire newbies. As one radio news director in Alabama put it: "We're trying to balance efforts to serve our listening audience and serve a different web audience while trying to be innovative in our coverage and presentation. Students have asked me about where journalism is going, and I have to tell them that I don't have a solid idea about that right now."This has been on my mind as well after a recent talk I gave at my alma mater to the UCLA Daily Bruin newspaper staff. Notebooks in hand, the students peppered me with questions about whether graduate school was worth it and if the news was destined to be a sea of dumbed-down sound bites. In such situations, it's important to take the opportunity to lead by example and show an attitude of poise and business savvy. It's counterproductive and histrionic to kowtow to the doomsayers who forecast the industry's assured demise, and most people expressing such bleak opinions are lacking in business sensibilities. The same arguments were made about radio, and even movies, after television arrived; innovation and change simply means that a market is changing and a product must adapt. Instead of feeding into fears, consider teaching someone a lifelong career skill that applies to all industries: versatility. It's baffling how many journalists, who comb through countless angles to produce a thoughtful story, are actually one-trick ponies. Of course, there's a reason why Scarlett Johanssen's CD of Tom Waits covers is not as popular as her box office blockbusters, and a committed journalist doesn't want to become a jack-of-all-trades/master-of-
none. But as a former Huffington Post colleague who now works at a major daily pointed out to me after I shared some of the email responses to last week's introduction: "When newspapers are looking to make layoffs they're looking for the people who a) make the most money and do the least, but b) don't have a well-rounded skill set." This is exactly what I told the Bruin staff: There will always be a great career for people who can gather accurate facts and present them fairly, you just have to make a concerted effort to train yourself to be a storyteller in any medium. Practice being comfortable on camera, listen to NPR or Blog Talk Radio, and know web strategy and programming basics. More importantly, though, is that versatility cannot end with editorial skills. I was aghast when I asked the Bruin staffers how many of them knew what a CPM was and my question was met with resounding silence. Same for an Alexa ranking or Google Analytics. Viewing the news through a myopic editorial lens is prohibitive to success. Even one of my very editorially-minded former Chicago Tribune colleagues suggested in an email exchange recently:"You know what young people wanting to go into journalism should really do? Spend their energy figuring out how to make money (i.e. pay for the creation of) for the content news organizations are providing now … We all know a model where content is expensive to create but free to consume is a broken model; and if you don't pay for experienced journalists and for the costs of newsgathering (security in Iraq, for example, or travel costs to follow the presidential campaign), the content that is so widely consumed now … will ultimately suffer. Seriously, the person who figures out the revenue model for 21st century journalism (on all its platforms) will be a hero in the industry along the lines of Gutenberg with his printing press."Talking about advertising revenue and branding strategies may seem inappropriate to some, but there's nothing unethical about being informed or acting strategically to preserve the product of quality news reporting. Rather it is a concerned journalist's responsibility to work outside the silos to facilitate understanding and generate potential solutions that protect the principles of credibility and substance. Journalists are the ones with that unique editorial perspective, which is why we have to push hardest.
I agreed with a 26-year-old beat reporter from Missouri who wrote to me: "In all areas of the newspaper (editorial, circulation, marketing, advertising), the people who have lacked innovation to change the industry to the changing needs of readers are the same people who are largely still in charge."So we should probably encourage the kiddos to boldly pursue their dreams while planning to be critical, vocal, participants in the innovation process once they're on the job. Then we should heed our own sage advice.

A Different Way to Pay for the News You Want

A Different Way to Pay for the News You Want
By SARAH KERSHAW
NEW YORK TIMES, August 24, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/weekinreview/24kershaw.html?ref=business
You think your local water supply is polluted. But you're getting the runaround from local officials, and you can't get your local newspaper to look into your concerns. What do you do?
A group of journalists say they have an answer. You hire them to investigate and write about what they find.
The idea, which they are calling "community-funded journalism," is now being tested in the San Francisco Bay area, where a new nonprofit, Spot Us, is using its Web site, spot.us, to solicit ideas for investigative articles and the money to pay for the reporting. But the experiment has also raised concerns of journalism being bought by the highest bidder.
The idea is that anyone can propose a story, though the editors at Spot Us ultimately choose which stories to pursue. Then the burden is put on the citizenry, which is asked to contribute money to pay upfront all of the estimated reporting costs. If the money doesn't materialize, the idea goes unreported.
"Spot Us would give a new sense of editorial power to the public," said David Cohn, a 26-year-old Web journalist who received a $340,000, two-year grant from the Knight Foundation to test his idea. "I'm not Bill and Melinda Gates, but I can give $10. This is the Obama model. This is the Howard Dean model."
Those campaigns revolutionized politics by using the power of the Web to raise small sums from vast numbers of people, making average citizens feel a part of the process in a way they had not felt before. In the same way, Spot Us hopes to empower citizens to be part of a newsgathering enterprise that, polls show, many mistrust and regard as both biased and elitist.
Other enterprises have found success with this approach, which, in the Internet age, has become known as "crowdfunding." This financing model takes its name from crowdsourcing, a method for using the public, typically via the Internet, to supply what employees and experts once did: information, research and development, T-shirt designs, stock photos, advertising spots. In crowdsourcing, the people supply the content; in crowdfunding, they supply the cash.
Charities have used crowdfunding, not necessarily under that name, for years. And one Hollywood studio, Brave New Worlds, is financing its movies by soliciting people over the Internet to pay for them before they are made.
The Spot Us experiment comes, not coincidentally, as newspapers around the country lay off reporters and editors by the hundreds and scale back their coverage to cope with a financial crisis brought about, in no small measure, by the rise of the Internet. Another experimental venture, Pro Publica, a nonprofit group led by Paul Steiger, a former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, is being bankrolled by several major foundations to pursue investigative projects that it will then offer to newspapers and magazines.
Spot Us plans to post its articles on its Web site and give them to newspapers that want to publish them. If a newspaper wants exclusive rights to an article, the paper will have to pay for it.
Critics say the idea of using crowdfunding to finance journalism raises some troubling questions. For example, if a neighborhood with an agenda pays for an article, how is that different from a tobacco company backing an article about smoking? (Spot Us limits the amount any one contributor can give to no more than 20 percent of the cost of the story.)
But Jeff Howe, a contributing editor at Wired Magazine whose book "Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business" is being published this month said: "It's not like the crowd is killing the newspaper. Lots of things are killing the newspaper. The crowd is at once a threat to newsrooms, but it's also one of several strategies that could help save the newspapers."
In an early test of its concept, Spot Us solicited ideas on its Web site and raised $250 for an article examining whether California can meet its ethanol demand. That might not pay the weekly phone bill for a lot of reporters. But for its newest project, Spot Us has raised nearly all of the $2,500 it says it will need to fact-check political ads in the coming local elections in San Francisco. "We need 12 more people to donate $25," the site said on Friday.
Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University who is working with Mr. Cohn and who began his own experimental journalism site last year using the public's collaboration in news gathering, Assignment Zero (zero.newassignment.net), has been a leading critic of the traditional model of reporting. Now, with the industry's financial troubles, he may have a more receptive audience.
"The business model is broken," he said. "We're at a point now where nobody actually knows where the money is going to come from for editorial goods in the future. My own feeling is that we need to try lots of things. Most of them won't work. You'll have a lot of failure. But we need to launch a lot of boats."

ON_PUBLIC_DEMAND

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VICTIMS of domestic violence

Nearly 60% of married women in Bihar are victims of domestic violence, the highest in India, according to a survey by the Union Health and Family Affairs Ministry.

An alarming 59% of married women in Bihar suffer domestic violence with 50% of wives enduring physical violence, 19% sexual violence, 2% emotional abuse and 59% experiencing both physical and sexual violence.

The national average for violence against married women is 37%, according to the National Family Health survey which was released recently.

Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh jointly occupy second place with 46% spousal violence.
Manipur comes a close third with 44 per cent, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu (42%),
West Bengal and Assam (40%), Arunachal Pradesh (39%) and Orissa (38%).

The Union Health and Family Affairs Ministry, covered 3818 women and 1214 men in Bihar between April and July 2006.



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Newspaper cos Q1 net may have risen marginally

INDIA:
Newspaper cos Q1 net may have risen marginally
HT Media, which publishes English daily 'Hindustan Times' is expected to post a 2 percent rise in net profit to 349 million rupees and net sales of 3.18 billion rupees. Net sales are seen to grow 16 percent according to the poll.
The company also publishes business newspaper 'Mint' and is expanding the presence of its Hindi newspaper 'Hindustan'.Advertising will lead revenue growth for HT and its operating margins could contract 130 basis points year-on-year to 19 percent, the Prabhudas Lilladher report said.
Newspaper publishers Deccan Chronicle Ltd are likely to post a marginal rise in net profit as higher newsprint costs ate into margins during the quarter to June, analysts said.A shortage of newsprint supply because of a consolidation in the global newsprint industry and higher demand because of the U.S. presidential elections and the Beijing Olympics has pushed up prices of the raw material, analysts said.
The two events see higher advertisement and news coverages requiring more usage and demand for newsprint, analysts said."There has been a demand-supply mismatch for newsprint... these prices will have an effect on this quarter and the pressure will only increase in the following quarters," said an analyst with a local brokerage, who declined to be named.A shortage of waste print used in China's newsprint plants, rising fuel prices and a volatile rupee during the first six months of 2008, which pushed up import costs, also affected newsprint prices, analysts said.Newsprint cost has increased by 45 percent in the year to the beginning of July to $975 a tonne from $675 a tonne, brokerage Pradhubas Lilladher said in a report.Deccan Chronicle imports all its newsprint requirements while HT media imports 70 percent of newsprint requirements, a report by brokerage Motilal Oswal said.Deccan Chronicle is expected to post a net profit growth of just 4 percent to 872 million rupees while net sales will grow 43 percent to 2.48 billion rupees in April-June, according to a Reuters poll of brokerages.
Deccan Chronicle has launched a Bangalore edition of its English daily Deccan Chronicle and financial newspaper 'Financial Chronicle' in Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai, resulting in margins getting squeezed by launch expenses, analysts said.Deccan Chronicle is to post its results on July 29.Going forward, the newspaper companies will also face a possible slowdown in revenue growth because of slowing economic growth, said the analyst at the local brokerage.In the September quarter, margins will be squeezed further by newsprint costs, analysts said."It (newsprint prices) will remain at this level or go up 3-4 percent. It will go down once the Olympics end and demand starts coming down," said another analyst also declining to be named.
SOURCE: IN.REUTERS.COM
Mr Rakesh Praveer is senior journalist based in Patna.

Newspaper cos Q1 net may have risen marginally

INDIA: Newspaper cos Q1 net may have risen marginally

HT Media, which publishes English daily 'Hindustan Times' is expected to post a 2 percent rise in net profit to 349 million rupees and net sales of 3.18 billion rupees. Net sales are seen to grow 16 percent according to the poll.

The company also publishes business newspaper 'Mint' and is expanding the presence of its Hindi newspaper 'Hindustan'.

Advertising will lead revenue growth for HT and its operating margins could contract 130 basis points year-on-year to 19 percent, the Prabhudas Lilladher report said.

Newspaper publishers Deccan Chronicle Ltd are likely to post a marginal rise in net profit as higher newsprint costs ate into margins during the quarter to June, analysts said.

A shortage of newsprint supply because of a consolidation in the global newsprint industry and higher demand because of the U.S. presidential elections and the Beijing Olympics has pushed up prices of the raw material, analysts said.

The two events see higher advertisement and news coverages requiring more usage and demand for newsprint, analysts said.

"There has been a demand-supply mismatch for newsprint... these prices will have an effect on this quarter and the pressure will only increase in the following quarters," said an analyst with a local brokerage, who declined to be named.

A shortage of waste print used in China's newsprint plants, rising fuel prices and a volatile rupee during the first six months of 2008, which pushed up import costs, also affected newsprint prices, analysts said.

Newsprint cost has increased by 45 percent in the year to the beginning of July to $975 a tonne from $675 a tonne, brokerage Pradhubas Lilladher said in a report.

Deccan Chronicle imports all its newsprint requirements while HT media imports 70 percent of newsprint requirements, a report by brokerage Motilal Oswal said.

Deccan Chronicle is expected to post a net profit growth of just 4 percent to 872 million rupees while net sales will grow 43 percent to 2.48 billion rupees in April-June, according to a Reuters poll of brokerages.

Deccan Chronicle has launched a Bangalore edition of its English daily Deccan Chronicle and financial newspaper 'Financial Chronicle' in Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai, resulting in margins getting squeezed by launch expenses, analysts said.

Deccan Chronicle is to post its results on July 29.

Going forward, the newspaper companies will also face a possible slowdown in revenue growth because of slowing economic growth, said the analyst at the local brokerage.

In the September quarter, margins will be squeezed further by newsprint costs, analysts said.

"It (newsprint prices) will remain at this level or go up 3-4 percent. It will go down once the Olympics end and demand starts coming down," said another analyst also declining to be named.

SOURCE: IN.REUTERS.COM




Mr Rakesh Praveer is a senior journalist based in