Tasting The Grass On The Other Side At CBS

Happy Thursday, everyone.

I was fortunate to have sat in on last night's live broadcast of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, and I was stunned.

Why? Well, sometimes we print people forget about what goes on on the other side of the glass. And without fawning over broadcast people -- or saying the obvious, as in they work hard -- I'd like to say that I learned a lot in those 22 minutes.

For starters, we print people often forget about the time element. Sitting in the control room, I watched an orchestration -- choreography, really -- of events through the broadcast. Wires in ears at all times, things always changing last minute, keeping cool on camera. There's really no "hanging up the phone."

Man, it's easy to ignore everything from the newsroom, isn't it?

There's no grand lesson here besides this: journalists should every so often check out what their fellow reporters/producers do. Print journalists should stop by the TV studio during a live broadcast, TV producers should stop by the newsroom (at close!), both should stop by the radio booth and radio guys should see what the other two do.

It sounds simple, but we get wrapped up in what we do and we forget that we really are one family with seriously different styles. We're all in this together -- so why should we only see each other on Romenesko?

Just a thought.

No Matter The Numbers, Journalists Need To Be Spartans

A recent article by Michael Schudson and Tony Dokoupil in the Columbia Journalism Review gave some new perspective to the current wave of "cost-cutting, job-eliminating, and bureau-closing" that is apparently indicative that journalism is believed to be an industry in crisis.

But judging by all the j-school nonsense that's locking up the MediaBistro forums and TheGradCafe.com, as well as the immense proliferation of independent writing, I think journalism is doing better than ever - and journalists should stop worrying about numbers and start worrying about quality. Consider this approach: journalists need to fight like they are Spartans in the movie, "300."

Schudson and Dokoupil write:
At a glance, the news is indeed bad. A systematic, national survey of journalists, conducted by a team of Indiana University scholars led by David H. Weaver, shows that the total number of print and broadcast journalists fell from an estimated 122,000 to 116,000 between 1992 and 2002. That’s a real drop in journalists per 100,000 people from forty-eight to forty, with radio and daily newspapers accounting for the greatest losses. Few can doubt that the pace of decline has quickened over the past several years. But take a longer view and the trend is significant growth. Adjusting for U.S. population growth, journalism’s flock has expanded 20 percent over three decades, comparing the 2002 figure to Weaver’s previous counts in 1992 and 1982–3, and a 1971 survey by the sociologist John Johnstone. (Absolute growth was 67 percent—from 70,000 journalists in 1971 to 116,000 in 2002.)

With all of the overhaul going on all over the industry - newspapers tightening their flabby printed guts (and newsrooms), new skyscrapers being erected, tons of new online content in the form of blogs, slideshows, podcasts and more - how is journalism stagnant?

Apparently, online-only outlets and freelancing aren't a part of these numbers, and I'd say that renders this survey useless. In this age, it's all about writing on your own. Hell, even Seventeen's former editor-in-chief Atoosa Rubenstein felt the independent fire and jumped the MSM ship, and she's apparently happier than ever.

OK, so we've established quite unscientifically that journalism is on the up-and-up instead of heading to a slump (it's about as reliable as that survey was, anyway. Our CJR authors would agree: "Lowrey’s essay is a reminder that estimating the total number of journalists has become as much a matter of philosophical argument as of careful methodology").

Journalists shouldn't be worried about how many are in their ranks. They should be worried about their reputation. Like Spartans.

For example, just this week, CBS News was caught with its head in the sand after a producer plagiarized the Wall Street Journal, arguably the most read paper in the nation. The incredible stupidity of plagiarism on that level - for a bit for Katie Couric - is so unbelieveable that even I'm worrying about how I'll be perceived when I say, "I'm a journalist."

So when University of Alabama professor Wilson Lowrey says the competition between blogs and journalists - which I extrapolate to mean independent journalists and MSM - "could benefit audiences and society" by pressuring each to be more accurate and filling empty information niches, I say great.

If we write (and fight) better, maybe there is hope after all. Then I'll be proud to say I'm a Spartan. Er, a journalist.

Young Journalists Are Lost - Here's Why.

"There are no jobs in the journalism industry."

"Going to journalism school is a waste of time and money."

"You don't need any prior experience to be a journalist."

I hear this time and time again from naysayers in the industry, and I think it's bullshit. Know why?

Because there are jobs.

Because education is personal.

Because experience teaches lessons.

So many people in the blogosphere (yes, citizen journalists, I'm talking about YOU) dish rails like this all the time. It happens on blogs. It happens in forums. But most of all, it happens in the office and classroom.

This isn't the way to cultivate a new generation. We journalists sure like complaining about ourselves, don't we?

I've heard many big names give speeches about the importance of mentors. And that's great, despite the discrepancy as to if those changes are actually made.

But what are the entry requirements to be a journalist in the 21st century? Is it a college degree? (I think it should be.) Is it an internship? (I think one is good.) Is it a clip portfolio? (I think there should be at least three 300+ word pieces, no matter the publication).

Simply, the editorial journalism industry (note the difference from the media industry) needs to set a basic standard for entry into the field. And I think the generational disconnect between the "All The President's Men"-style journalist - that is, the Ticonderoga-slingin', steno pad-packin' rebel and the current version (the progressive march toward qualification by a mix of academia and craft) - is hindering this notion.

But really, let's get down to the basics: journalists can't even agree on the worth of a journalism education. More than 100 years after Joseph Pulitzer proclaimed that journalism should be a professional education - like that of medicine and law - we can't even decide that it's worth a liberal arts degree.

Hell, if lawyers are hated so much, how come we can hold them in such high esteem? Because they make so much money? (Boy, we hate them, but when shit hits the fan, don't we need them? Doesn't this sound similar to how journalists are perceived?)

Doesn't Brian Williams command a serious paycheck? Doesn't a publisher make solid pay?

This is 2007. College attendance has more than doubled nationwide since the '50s. And journalists can't even agree that a B.A. is necessary!

(I must say, however, that I am not encouraging hardfast rules or quotas. What I'm talking about is the ability for an engineer or a doctor to say, "well yes, generally you need to have a bachelor's degree or have gone to med school or have studied these courses" and for another to agree.)

Plus, there's all those bursting-with-sunshine journalism myths that I've heard most frequently as of late:

-You don't need a B.A. to get started in newspapers.
-You do need a B.A. to get started at a magazine.
-You need to be impossibly prolific to have any shot at a newspaper (Sewell Chang, anyone?)
-You need to be BFF with your superior at a magazine.
-Journalists are paid horribly. Unless you're a news anchor.
-You need to be really "pretty" to be in front of the camera.
-You need to have little or no ties for success - the better to be shipped abroad. That said, you also need to be fluent in eight middle eastern languages.
-You need to live and breathe the topic of your publication. (If you work for Glamour and choose your spouse over a pair of new shoes, you're out.)
-The only thing a journalism degree is good for is to make inroads at an alternative weekly.

And so on.

I'm really tired of hearing this. Journalists are so good at telling me what journalism isn't, and so bad at telling me what journalism is. Is it all to discourage competition? I don't think so, conspiracy theorists.

It's because there is no leadership. Not just on a personal level, as Chip Scanlan has mentioned - but from up on high. There are famous faces of those who practice their craft, but they're in it for them - or so it seems, doesn't it?

Will Katie Couric comment on this blog with her thoughts about her industry? It IS journalism, isn't it?

Maybe not. Maybe it's because the industry is actually guided by businessmen, and not journalists - the Jared Kushner effect. I don't know.

And we can't even decide our thoughts about j-school. Undergraduate or graduate or both? Who's the best - Columbia? Medill? University of Illinois? Newhouse? Cronkite? Scripps? CUNY? (Depends on where you're from, I bet.) And for what - Print? Broadcast? Radio? "New Media"? There isn't even a ranking for it. I know rankings can be stupid and misguided (yes, even USN&WR), but journalism needs them just to increase the awareness that journalism is a SPECIALTY and not just the purgatory that other profession's fallen end up in.

Without any of this guidance, young journalists are going to end up the same way the current generation is - a batch of mixed opinions and an overall lack of guidance for the profession.

Too many editors are worried about profits. Would it hurt so much to convene twice a year and talk about a lost profession?