Why quality journalism costs a lot of money

We all love those long-form magazine articles, the meat-and-potatoes pieces that address the big issues.

When you're not in a rush, reading such a lengthy article -- it can be anywhere from 3,000 to 30,000 words, believe it or not -- can be a revelation.

"I didn't know that," you might say to yourself.

With such length, you might suspect that the article took a lot of time to produce. That's probably true.

What you might not know is how much it cost.

Gerald Marzorati, assistant managing editor at The New York Times and editor of The Times Magazine, recently answered reader questions about the inner workings of the magazine he produces.

Some of his answers might surprise you.

Addressing a question about the viability of long-form journalism in an era of rapidly narrowing attention spans, Marzorati explains that the price of a cover story for the Times magazine costs more than twice the price of the average American home:

Long-form journalism is expensive: The Magazine is publishing a 13,000-word piece on Sunday (it will be up online earlier) that we did in partnership with ProPublica, the independent, not-for-profit newsroom. One of ProPublica's editors and I did a back-of-the-envelop calculation yesterday of what the total cost of the piece actually was, figuring in several years of reporting and nearly a year of editing. Estimate: $400,000.

That piece, "The Deadly Choices at Memorial," is about the poor healthcare decisions that arose in the Hurricane Katrina crisis in Louisiana in 2006.

Jon Stahl highlights the important points of Marzorati's Q&A session:

• A cover story can cost several hundred thousand dollars;
• A cover story can take years to produce;
• Long-form journalism actually get more pageviews online than their shorter counterparts.
  

Most people probably have no idea of the costs of such articles. And the debate rages on -- even within the journalism community -- about whether articles of such length can be effective online.

But next time you read that article in a magazine -- followed by another one, and another one, until you get to the back cover -- think about the $5 it cost you on the newsstand.

Study: Texting increases copy errors by large margin

From NYTimes.com homepage just a moment ago:

It sure looked like texting, at least.

What does it take to be a multimedia journalist?

(Illustration: Steve Garfield)

I've had this discussion with a few people who currently practice in the general area that is "multimedia journalism." At the highest echelon, are you more journalist or programmer?

The New York Times' multimedia team explains in the latest Ask the Newsroom:

Aron Philofer:

As for learning these skills, there's some disagreement among those on my team with formal computer science backgrounds on whether taking computer science classes is worthwhile. Some say college courses are often too theoretical, but others believe that even the theory provides a solid foundation for problem solving. I wouldn't know because, like several other members of my team, I'm entirely self-taught. So I'm living proof that it's possible to learn enough to write a few production Web applications, manage a development team and not crash NYTimes.com (yet).

Gabriel Dance:

What I see far too often in journalism schools, and I feel is a mistake, is the idea that somebody can just learn computer programming in a semester or two. Developing interactives and projects on the Internet requires a love of computers and a deep interest in technology. Most of the time, people develop these skills on their own, or pursue a technology-related career. If you really feel that you want to be a journalist-programmer, I encourage you to take some courses in the computer science department. It will give you the foundation that you just can't get by taking a couple of Flash courses.

Steve Duenes:

The journalist portion of the journalist/programmer combination shouldn't be neglected. We've had a number of strong technological performers pass through our department, and some of them had difficulty knowing which information to pursue or how to pursue it efficiently. Some had interesting ideas, but they weren't able to fully articulate what they wanted to do, and as a consequence, they were frustrated when we had to make decisions about which graphics to go after.I'm not saying that a master's degree in journalism is the thing to do. It might be. But the important thing is to find an environment where you'll be pushed and where you can grow. If you're surrounded by a few people with good experience and if your internship or job requires you to behave like a journalist, that's good.

From my experience -- self-taught but not extensively so, thus better than the average new media graduate but poorer than the average programmer -- a journalism grad with new media experience is no longer the desired employee for the leading online publications (like the Times). More often, it is the programmer who took a few journalism courses, rather than the other way around.

The good news is that means the bar is much higher now, ever rising, and stories can and will be told with such depth and nuance thanks to a team that has mastered the tools needed to express them.

The bad news is that a new media journalism graduate who wants to work in multimedia won't be able to at the highest levels without some serious coding expertise under his or her belt. In other words: perhaps a master's degree in computer science will do you more good than one in journalism.

NYT Taps Digital Budget for Print Hires

Just saw this on Romenesko and couldn't help but waxing on it for a moment:

NYT taps "investment fund" for business section hires

New York Observer
Executive editor Bill Keller tells his staff the fund "was set up to try and expand some of the business verticals that the company hopes have the potential to make good money down the road." He explains to John Koblin that the money "is in the digital budget, which is merging with the newsroom budget."

So effectively, this is an overt move that signals that the digital side is beginning to, or already is, carrying the financial burden of the print side. The digital side of NYT is expanding and hiring, while the print side is handing out layoffs.

So when will people start realizing which side of the newsroom pays the bills? And, for that matter, does it frustrate employees on the digital side that their profits are handed over to the still-more-prestigious print side with this budget merger?

I'm all for everyone working together, but I still believe there is a considerable amount of ignorance toward the digital side in traditional newsrooms. So it bothers me when the "investment fund" is the hard work of the digital side.

Update: NYT's Failure To Credit Original Writer

In response to my previous post complaining of NYT's lack of link to New York Post photographer Jason Nicholas' debut as a New York story, NYU Local, an upstart campus publication, questioned the rules of attribution online for a story. After all, if one publication breaks the story of a person once unknown, can a larger publication pretend that the person remains unknown to its own audience, and start the introduction over?

And moreover, what's the etiquette for linking online to such things? Should we preserve a breadcrumb trail?

With these issues in mind, I decided to respond to the exchange on NYU Local's site, in which City Room editor Patrick LaForge dashed off a comment, sans link, to NYU Local City Editor Nicole He's post:

Hi,

The blog article in question does in fact link to the Washington Square News article.
We were unaware of that article — which, as this post notes, is not about Mr. Nicholas’s current legal troubles but about his past and his graduation. When a commenter pointed it out, we added the link, within hours if not minutes of publication. It is our policy to credit other sources, and we have.

Patrick LaForge
City Room editor

But LaForge is incorrect -- there exists no link to WSN on that post, which He confirmed in a follow-up comment:

Hi Mr. LaForge,

We took another look at the article in question (this one, yes?), and we can’t find any link to the Washington Square News, except in a comment left by Mr. Nusca. If you can show us where the link is, we’ll be glad to run a correction.

The link is still absent, as of 11:15 a.m. on Oct. 9. So I decided to respond. Of course, it's not the simple oversight of a link that I'm frustrated about -- it's easy to say I'm biased toward my own clips, naturally -- but the general idea of what function the City Room serves to its readers, the Times and the greater New York press scene. And, of course, the continual and complete failure of the Times to acknowledge wrongdoing, even if trivial:

Nicole,

You are correct in your assessment. There is no link to the WSN story.

The only additional link that appears in the City Room blog post is one to an article by Lincoln Anderson in Downtown Express, not the piece I wrote in the Washington Square News.

You raise a good point in this post with regard to the etiquette of attribution. For right or wrong, my thinking was not that it was a rewrite of my article, which it was not, but rather the easy assumption on the part of the reader that the Times first wrote about Nicholas -- after all, the first two grafs of mine and Moynihan's story are quite similar, even though they take a different turn at the nut.

I remember finding out about Nicholas from a friend. I remember walking through the night of the crime with Nicholas, cracking jokes, taking his picture. I remember being excited at getting the scoop on this interesting story, ahead of papers as small as The Villager and as large as the New York Times, not easy as an undergraduate journalism student. Young as I was, I wrote the hell out of that story -- I think it still stands as my longest clip for WSN.

So yes, in a link-happy blog like City Room -- particularly internal links, naturally -- I was looking for a little love on behalf of the tiny WSN, circulation 10,000. Online attribution etiquette is much different than the printed word, with so much more space available and words doubling in function as both content and doors to more content. An extra link to a local paper (or two, in the case of the Downtown Express) should have run the first time, in my opinion. By any measure, the City Room post was not brief.

It strikes me that, with the exception of paraphrasing exclusives from other places, City Room bloggers tend to publish with internal links first and external second. So while they like to say that it ends up as a nice 50-50 internal-external link spread, most NYT readers only catch the internal links when they read it the first time.

The City Room blog is a powerful publishing act, and comes with a lot of responsibility. It has become its own publication, in a way. Most New Yorkers first catch local stories there, in aggregate. That power is great; yet it's often disappointing when the blog begins to function as a nice in-house advertisement, simply reposting and promoting stories that can't fit on the front page (that's what the NY/Region section is for, isn't it?). I imagine it's a tough balancing act -- but I'd sure like to see more stories from smaller papers and magazines in the city, like the West Side Spirit or Chelsea Clinton News, that may not have as strong an online component.

After all, the Times gets to monetize those eyeballs either way. What's to lose? Everyone wins -- that's the mantra of web etiquette.

Perhaps my attribution criticism ought to have been directed at the original article, with neglected the attribution, and not the subsequent blog post, which was another step removed from my story. But as you said: With each additional reference, the origins become more concealed.

Perhaps I was simply looking for "City Room readers may remember Mr. Nicholas, who was the subject of a profile in in The New York Times in 2007 and in NYU's Washington Square News in 2005." After all, a little modesty wouldn't hurt the Times, would it?

A David vs. Goliath situation to be sure.

Best,
Andrew Nusca
The Editorialiste

I'd like to think that I know what I'm talking about, because I'm also an editor of a blog. But maybe I'm wrong.

Who do you think is right? Am I asking for too much, or is the Times just doing its job? Or is this just silly nitpicking over a source?

UPDATE 10/13: Look, even the New York Times thinks external links are news. Read "Mainstream News Outlets Start Linking to Other Sites." I kid you not.

When NYT Fails To Give Credit...

...where credit is due.

Today Jason B. Nicholas, freelance photographer for the New York Post, was written about in the Times' City Room blog for violating his parole as a result of minor arrests at crime scenes for being an aggressive photographer.

In the post, author Corey Kilgannon mentions the Times' previous profile of Nicholas by Colin Moynihan in 2007, telling the story of his trajectory from Rikers Island convicted felon to NYU graduate, writer and photojournalist.

Problem is, this story was written about more than a year prior to that, in NYU's Washington Square News. No credit is given, despite the fact that the paper that first wrote about it operates in the same city (and borough).

This is not the first time I've seen the Times take a story off the hands of a local or college paper and fail to mention that it was first written about in a smaller publication. Sure, it's not breaking news, but it's frustrating when a Times blogger makes mention of the Times' previous story ("Look! We've covered him before!") without also giving credit to the person who originally discovered the story and broke it.

(Full disclaimer: That person was me.)

Visual Proof That NYT Is New Media King

Local newspapers, take note: NYT's use of iPaper to show a city document on the City Room blog:


Integrating new software and trying new things is why they're still the online envy of media around the world.

Without Disclaimer, NYT Assails Generation Y

In yesterday's New York Times was a television review of the popular NBC show "Heroes" by critic Alessandra Stanley. In it, Stanley writes:

Generation Y has more special abilities than any previous one: these are people who came of age taking the Internet, BlackBerries, cash machines, Facebook and iPods for granted. They also take the taking for granted. They are the most coddled, indulged and overprotected generation ever. Swaddled in safety and self-esteem, they have all been assured that they are special. They don’t rebel against their parents or even seek independence; they welcome an electronic umbilical cord that stretches through high school and college and even the post-graduate return to the empty nest. On “Heroes” those filial bonds stretch beyond the grave: even after his father is dead, Hiro (Masi Oka) still receives his fatherly advice via prerecorded DVD.

If you read the review in its entirety, it's a great review. Stanley makes legit, specific connections between the writing of "Heroes" and Generation Y's habits.

Problem is, Stanley forgets to mention one thing: that she's a Baby Boomer, having graduated from Harvard in 1977, putting her birthdate roughly at 1955, smack dab in the center of her generation.

Suddenly, passages like the following seem less insightful and more vitriolic:

“Heroes” returns on NBC Monday night for a third season at an apt time — in the midst of an economic crisis that confirms the worst fears of Generation Y members, namely that their baby boomer parents are leaving them a world convulsed by war, drowning in debt and melting down under global warming.

The heroes in this science-fiction drama are a group of young people with special supernatural abilities who seek to save the world from a dark, high-level conspiracy, spawned by the Me Generation that is hellbent on annihilating humanity.

Critics are certainly allowed to take a side; that's what they're paid to do. But what a disgraceful lack of transparency by Stanley and the Times.

Should Digital News Articles Reference Their Dead Tree Counterparts?

If you read the New York Times closely, a new change has appeared in the digital edition.

At the bottom of every article, there is now the following note in small, bolded font:

How interesting, no? For the first time, a newspaper's website references exactly when and if the article ran in print.

It's an interesting problem to address -- from the eyes of a digitally-minded person, it shouldn't matter, but from the eyes of a print-minded person, it's necessary ("...didn't I read this before?"). Instead of noting at the top -- "online only," for example -- the Times just placed notice at the bottom.

I'm all for an increase in information -- makes everything easier to categorize and what have you -- but it makes me wonder just how much it's worth it. Will they backdate old articles with such information?

And what's next? PDFs of the article as it printed? (Could be a lucrative source of additional ad revenue, since the ads can be reproduced in the PDF and also monetized by how many downloads occur.)

Hmm.

NYT Woe-Is-Me: Magazine Interns Denied Summer Fridays, Real News

The New York Times hates puppies.

That's because the Fashion & Style section made a poor editorial decision to run a story that covered (rather, created) news that New York City's highfalutin fashion and women's magazine interns can't bear to stay home from the Hamptons and work a full Friday (rather than get "Summer Fridays" and depart at 2 p.m.).

Are you kidding me?

On July 20, 2008, in an article titled, "At Magazine Offices, Another Summer of Jitney No-Shows," by former WSJ staffer Lauren Lipton, the twenty-something interns of Glamour, Vogue, Interview, Harper's Bazaar -- hell, virtually every in-demand magazine by Conde Nast, Hearst, Time Inc., HFMUS and Meredith -- lament staying and working on Friday while everyone else in the entire city hops on the Jitney to the Hamptons.

"Woe!" a rail-thin intern shouts as her fingers get sticky paste all over them as she puts the final touches on "the book" for a certain top editor. "Lament!" another shouts, as she gets tangled in a webbed Dolce and Gabbana concoction, tripping in her last-season Louboutins and accidentally stretching the stitches on her Chanel skirt. Wherever shall they eat dinner, with everyone having left for the Hamptons?

God, it must be terrible to work at a magazine.

OK, now let's dial down the sarcasm and approach this moderately. The heart of this article -- which I urge you to read -- is that ad pages are down in a tough economy, and the editorial side (and their workdays) is much more at the mercy of the business and advertising side. Which is a legitimate concern, since that inadvertently dictates the quality of the product as a whole (and the quality-of-life factor inside the offices).

My problem with the article, sadly, is three-fold: 1) somehow, the (unpaid or very low-paid) interns are given the spotlight; 2) the interns' work lives are compared to that of the editors-in-chief of the publications; and 3) we, as readers, are supposed to feel sad that no one gets an early Friday.

Well, I've got news for you, New York Times: the whole thing is ridiculous. Why?

First (and foremost): We should not be sad that someone who has a coveted position at a popular publication can't get Summer Fridays when a increasing amount of people -- including some very savvy professionals who want to work in publishing -- can't find work, even in the world's publishing mecca, New York City. Much less all the poor people who couldn't leave the city if they tried.

Second: The real focus of this article should be the staffers with salaries, who can't make any more if they stay until midnight every night (which they already do near close). If the low-paid interns are complaining about extra hours, they ought to consider the extra money they can contribute to their rent, the most expensive in the U.S. (and I'd know -Ed.). If they're unpaid interns, perhaps the article should be focusing on how unpaid interns are being taken advantage of, working endless hours with no job promises in sight. The editors-in-chief might have to start taking page proofs with them on the airplane, but most of their interns can't even afford to board the plane in the first place.

Third: If any intern, anywhere, plans on spending their weekends in the Hamptons, they should not be considered "interns" by any stretch of the imagination. And if I'm then supposed to feel sorry that they can't leave until 5 (okay, 6 for magazines) on Friday, trust me, these tear ducts are dry.

Even the artwork for the story is misleading (shown above). No one works in darkness like that at a magazine -- there are flourescent lights lining the office!

To boot, the article signs off with a weak disclaimer -- "Well, sure, people who work at magazines get perks, like chocolate" -- and then drives the ridiculous stake home with a quote from a Conde Nast intern who supposedly envies other interns. Which is ridiculous, because no matter how much someone grows frustrated working at 4 Times Square, they will never, ever deny that the spot is prestigious and coveted.

"Those of us in the magazine world are here past dinner, and then by the time we leave are far too tired to go out drinking. I guess it’s a good thing. It’s an honor that they take us seriously enough to work us this hard."

No, honey -- it's not really a negative that you're too tired to get trashed, and trust me, it's a gamble whether your editors take you "seriously" enough to work you that hard. Many do just because they can.

The whole thing is repulsive. And how do I know?

Because I've been there.

I have much respect and reverence for journalism and the magazine business. I find it thrilling work. But let's call a spade a spade. This article doesn't tell me anything necessary or even interesting as a reader. My time and money appear to be wasted.

Which means somewhere, a puppy is going without dinner.

Why Does Bill Keller Hate The Internet? (And Himself)

In a recent address to a gathering of more than 250 college and university presidents and other top administrators during The Chronicle of Higher Education's two-day Executive Leadership Forum, New York Times head honcho Bill Keller had some choice words with regard to the Internet, blogosphere, and anything that isn't Times-run:

"For all the woes besetting our business, I believe in my heart that newspapers will be around for a long time," he said, even if they aren't always delivered "as that lovable old-fashioned bundle of ink and cellulose."

"Technology has lowered the barriers to entry in the news business," Keller said. "This is unsettling to the traditional news business, but it is also an opportunity."

Established newspapers can succeed by offering something the newcomers can't, he added: "Google News and Wikipedia don't have bureaus in Baghdad or anywhere else." Rather than creating content, the new Web-based news outlets aggregate it from various sources, including newspapers.

Bloggers, likewise, occasionally enlighten readers with original material, but "most of the blog world doesn't attempt to report. It recycles news," he said.

And this really bugs me. Why? Because Bill Keller is looking at the "newspaper situation" in a very, very partisan way.

In a way, that's what his job is all about. But hang on a second.

First off, a disclaimer: I was not at this conference. I do not know if these quotes, borrowed from the Chronicle's own report here, were taken out of context. I'm simply keeping the faith that those journalists respect their ethics as much as I do.

Bill Keller's given this speech a hundred times in the last several years. You know: the one where newspapers are dying. The one where staff layoffs have to happen. The one where "bite the bullet" and "bootstrap" and all of those choice phrases come into play.

Newspapers are the victim, he's saying. It's just not fair that the Internet gets all the traffic (and not NYTimes.com).

And I agree with him on one note: yes, the original source of much of the Internet's reporting are the mainstream media -- i.e. the salaried (or lately, temp'ed) professionals who get press passes to save the world from itself. And I'm certainly with Keller on the fact that the Internet news can't survive without them (especially those wire services), or at least that it would take a long, long time for new grassroots organizations to replace them (in some crazy apocalyptic way of hypothesizing).

However -- and this is a BIG however -- Bill Keller needs to quit the pity party. I'm not sad for him, I'm not sad for the Times, nor their shareholders. Why should I be? They peddle some of the finest American journalism out there from a venerated post in society, and they've adapted better than any other news organization to the Internet (ever see nytimes.com/multimedia? Fabulous!).

So why does Bill Keller find it necessary to continue complaining about the best marketing structure to ever hit world commerce: the Internet? With its advent -- and the Times' cooperation, no doubt -- Times stories run far wider than the five boroughs or tri-state region. Every hour of every day, the minor successes in progress on NYTimes.com are repeated and exaggerated as its stories are reproduced around the world. Even if readers don't click all the way back to NYTimes.com (where the ad revenue is!), they know they're getting reliable journalism. And that's one marketing and branding strategy that wins far more in the long run than the simple advertisements that the Times puts elsewhere.
In other words: The Times is getting more bang for buck as a successful Internet entity than as a brick-and-mortar paper, especially with marketing and advertising taken into consideration (the great journalistic stories ARE the ads).

So what's to complain about? Probably because the bean counters haven't figured out a way to collect data on it. It's an intangible -- how can you monetize the intangible?

Often, advertising and marketing budgets are black holes: you can't really calculate how well you're doing. You just pour money in and hope/expect that it's making an impact. I think this is how the Times should start looking at its journalism.

"Google News and Wikipedia don't have bureaus in Baghdad or anywhere else."

Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch. Why should they? Bill Keller, why are you taking pot shots at an automated news aggregator and an open encyclopedia? Just because it's easier to find relevant (local, ahem) stories on Google News and relevant subjects on Wikipedia rather than the U.S. section of NYTimes.com and Times Topics?

Fight a bigger battle, please.

If the Times shut down for a week, all of those news aggregator sites would suddenly be without serious, breaking, reliable, informative, educated, thoroughly-reported journalism. And it'd be instantly noticeable (until the Washington Post or Wall Street Journal stepped in). And the Internet would be worse for it, without a doubt.

So I ask again: what's there to complain about?

I urge journalism's leaders -- those at the top of newspapers, magazines, and any other business deemed "dying" by their own writers -- to quit the whining and realize their own value. To take a page from a trend story they like to run often enough, they sound like a bunch of whiny 'Millenials' who think they're not smart because their 4.0 GPA is now a 3.97.

Yes, you're smart. You're a valuable commodity. So enough with the low self-esteem.

Man up, Keller.

How The New York Times Screwed Up An Easy Trend Story

Have you read Cara Buckley's piece in The New York Times entitled, "Starting Salaries but New York Tastes"?

Exactly what was the point of that article?

If you haven't read it, a quick recap by way of an extended nut graf:

Having one’s mother mail rotating boxes of old clothing is just one of the myriad ways that young newcomers to the city of a certain income — that is, those who are neither investment bankers nor being floated by their parents — manage to live the kind of lives they want in New York. Every year around this time, tens of thousands of postcollegiate people in their 20s flood the city despite its soaring expenses. They are high on ambition, meager of budget and endlessly creative when it comes to making ends meet.

Some tactics have long been chronicled: sharing tiny apartments with strangers. Sharing those apartments with eight strangers. Eating cheap lunches and skipping dinners — not just to save money, but so that drinks pack more of a punch and fewer need be consumed.

But there are smaller measures, no less ingenious, that round out the lifestyle. These young people sneak flasks of vodka into bars, flirt their way into clubs, sublet their walk-in closets, finagle their way into open-bar parties and put off haircuts until they visit their hometowns, even if those hometowns are thousands of miles away.

In general, the article is interesting. As New York's prices get higher, and the economy crisis reaches deeper, the young professionals that move to the city post-Sex and the City absolutely have trouble making ends meet. When high expectations meet low salaries, it's cause for any interesting article in the Metro section.

But hold on, just one second: this article is indicative of truly poor news judgment.

Why?

Because it allows for a local trend story that isn't even-handed. And as all journalists know, you're supposed to interview all sides of a story.

In the article, Buckley uses characters/sources that are all living beyond their means in a decidedly unequal way: notably, putting extremely overpriced drinks, habits or digs in Manhattan's most sought-after neighborhoods above basic daily nutrition. While that's an interesting and notable trend, there's not a single mention of those unsupported young professionals who do the opposite -- live within their means to get ahead.

"But wait one second!" you say. "The Times runs a story like that all the time! This story was a breath of fresh air, a new take on a perpetual phenomenon!"

That's true. But without a mention of the other side of a trend, a story about it shouldn't run.

What's more, the story doesn't even make use of comparable subjects: all of the sources in the article live in coveted neighborhoods of the young: Chelsea, West Village, downtown Brooklyn, Williamsburg. All of them profess having problems eating well-balanced meals. But guys like Peter Naddeo, a $15-an-hour musician, just can't be compared with Allison Mooney, a publicist in the West Village, or Adam Liebsohn, a communications strategist who makes $60,000 a year and lives in the East Village but finds it impossible to pay for a broadband connection. Some find it hard to eat out on a $3.50 plate of rice and beans.

Ever hear of the supermarket?

As an editor, I look at this group and I see problems: True, all the sources are on their own financially, but where are the people making $10 an hour or less, without college education or recently graduated and no longer allowed to live on loan checks? I know several people who pay less than $600 a month (far less than some of the rents mentioned in this article) and make ends meet freelancing -- as in, no full-time job, no benefits, no health insurance.

So to an editor's eye -- one that knows New York -- I ask: with all of these reporting holes, why?

Or more appropriately: so what?

To me, running an article like this is like running a piece on homeless people who drink away their money or use it on drugs. Without the article addressing the greater problem of, say, drug laws or the psychological problems of alcohol dependency, the article is one big, "so what?"

I feel the same way about this piece. It's as if the Times didn't want to pass judgment on the ridiculous fact that many of the sources in this piece are acting irrationally (to boot, without looking at why). So in avoiding showing the other (arguably more rational) side and putting it all into perspective -- which is what a good article should do, of course -- they condoned an article to run that was neither balanced nor fair.

Though the nut graf is to the point, it promises the wrong point in the words ahead. It is misleading and written for a different article. To reference a specific example, we see that this article is supposed to be about even better ways that poor young professionals manage living in such a high-priced city:

They are high on ambition, meager of budget and endlessly creative when it comes to making ends meet. (emphasis added)

But for many of the sources in this article, there was no creativity involved in making ends meet. For many, living and "making ends meet" was simply living extravagantly and making the wrong kinds of sacrifices to zero out the budget. Who cares how creative a person on a limited budget must be to make ends meet when that person has habits so easily beyond their means financially?

Maybe it wouldn't be so hard for a communications strategist pulling in 60K a year to afford broadband internet connectivity if he didn't live in such a high-priced real-estate area.

The effect the article leaves on its readers is also problematic. For an article that made such a point to note that these young professionals were not relying on trust funds or parents for additional income, it wildly misconstrues the overall, non-supported young professional population as irrational spenders -- and without figures, data, reasonable comparison or anything to round out the trend, it's a misleading, failed piece.

And for that, I say, go back out there and keep reporting.

NYT's Bill Keller: Yes, J-Schools Matter

Some fascinating quotes from the conference, “Crisis in News: Symposium on Investigative Reporting,” at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, for all of you who read "J-school Ate My Brain" and became depressed:

"We’ve come to take journalism schools more seriously. [audience laughs] No, we used to hire people according to clips and the academic background isn’t as important. I didn’t go to journalism school, there used to be a grizzled editor who would help young reporters figure it out, but those grizzled editors are gone now so the schools are more important." -- Bill Keller, executive editor, New York Times (emphasis added)

So the times are indeed changing -- and maybe all of that advice about how "you don't need j-school" isn't applicable to the 21st century. Keller's word isn't the final word, of course, but it's an especially prominent and accomplished one. If Keller's feeling the effects from on high, who knows what the situation really is.

On more interesting quote on that note:

"There used to be more beginning positions at newspapers and smaller magazines have scaled down their staff jobs. All these places that feed the Pulitzer winners at bigger papers — those sources are drying up, and I find that worrisome." -- Clara Jeffery, Mother Jones

The "intelligence flow" or "talent flow" of journalism outlets is changing, it seems.

The Pentagon Sways the Media: How Responsible Are We?

This story just broke today in the New York Times, and it's a must-read (yes, all 11 pages):

New York Times: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand

It's about how the Pentagon uses, overtly or otherwise, its retired generals and personnel to propagate the Department of Defense's military agenda with regard to overseas policies (Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, etc.) on network news by positioning them as seasoned military "analysts."

Apparently, many of these "analysts" that appear on media news coverage of the military not only echo Pentagon talking points (deliberately or otherwise), but some even have vested interest/holdings in companies doing business in those areas. According to the Times, these relationships are rarely or not at all revealed to the networks and the viewers.

From a journalistic standpoint, it's ethically reprehensible. From a public relations standpoint, it's successful business. From a viewer's standpoint, it's a look into the shadowy world of the back-slapping, hand-shaking deals that go on behind closed doors (and behind the broadcast) -- the kind of deals that now dictate so much of what the journalism industry does as a whole. I can only hope that it's sobering in some way.

I've got one simple question with regard to all of this: as journalists, as broadcasters, as those who make an attempt to quote those we deem "experts" on subjects to get a fair take on a subject, how responsible are we in this debacle?

Obama's Drug Use And How The New York Times Screwed Up

I was going to write a post about this, but I've been too busy with that darn journalism. Now it's been articulated by a writer far better than I.

In the spirit of spreading important dialogue, The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg on why The New York Times article on Barack Obama's drug use was, at best, moot.

Is There Really A 'Reporter's Privilege'?

Should reporters have a privilege to not divulge their sources, much like a doctor and a patient, or a lawyer and a client?

Depends on who you ask.

George Freeman, assistant general counsel for the New York Times, said a "sleight of hand by the media bar" may have created something that, in terms of legal decisions, isn't really there.

But precedent aside: Should reporters have a privilege? And who does that extend to?

Unlike doctors and lawyers, journalists are not licensed by the state in any way -- and we're seemingly proud of it. "Anyone can be a journalist!" we proclaim, while quickly adding under our breath that there's a big difference between the "professional" journalist who gets a paycheck from a big media company and the "amateur" who gives the professional a bad reputation (or in this day and age, the MSM, Big-J Journalist versus the expendable blogger).

So if journalists had a privilege to ignore a subpoena, who would that extend to? A newspaperman? A broadcast anchor? A blogger for Time? A blogger for him or herself? A book author with a contract? A book author without one?

It gets hazy real fast.

In The Editorialiste's opinion, the current, working standard for the lower state courts seems most appropriate: Reporters get off the hook unless they are key to the case. Because, establishing neutrality aside, reporters are a case's best witnesses every time by nature -- and our time shouldn't be exploited just because we are paid to pay attention.

What do you think?

Getting Inside Sewell Chang's Head

Last week, I was invited to hear The New York Times' prolific City Room editor Sewell Chang speak about what he does, how he got there, and his thoughts on new media journalism -- or as one could kitsch-ily say, Journalism 2.0.

Here are some highlights:


"When I was approached a year ago [for the City Room blog position], I didn't even know what an RSS feed was."
"The time has long passed that the Times is the one, be-all source to go to."

On the 'Morning Buzz' feature on the City Room blog: Chan said he reads all the major New York newspapers before he's even dressed. "I don't link to Page Six, obviously. We don't do society gossip."

On job convergence and relying on producers ("the biggest area of growth for the Times") for video and audio features: "In some ways, they're not encouraging us to do that, because we're not polished like CNN anchors."


Interesting stuff for a young journalist who admittedly is a "traditional, print journalist" and behind the wave of technology.

Information On The 'Net: Reaching The Modern Journalist

Last week, I read a short blog post on The New York Times' Dealbook about Facebook's rising value. While the post itself was fascinating, what was really interesting to me were the comments attached to the post. In them, readers were having a fairly intense discussion about putting personal information on the web, and I thought it was particularly interesting within a journalistic setting.

Should journalists make themselves available on the web?

We're seeing a trend in recent years of the newly-publicly-available journalist. That is, if the reader has something to say (or correct) about an article, he or she can e-mail the actual journalist who wrote it. Yesterday, I met Vivek Kemp of the Naples (Fla.) News, who was fairly enthusiastic about the benefits of accessibility, noting that on occasion, a reader suggests a new angle to his story that he then can pursue.

With all of that in mind -- should every journalist have a personal website?

For journalists, it seems like a no-brainer, but there's still a debate, and I think it's really just a matter of a generational shift. Looking at the comments in the Times blog post, it seems people from all walks of life are conflicted about the pros versus the cons. In the end, do you lose a sense of privacy?

Good question. So, as a journalist with a website and online profiles on select websites, I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring. My statement in the comments was as follows:

In this age of free-flowing information, nearly everyone will have identifying information about them on the Internet. I’m confident that the chance of not being indexed by Google is becoming increasingly more difficult to avoid.

The difference — which I think is generational — is in how you shape the information that comes up about you. The reason why it is useful to willingly and knowledgeably put identifying information online is, in my opinion, largely to take control of the information that appears.

You may no longer have a choice in whether or not you appear in a search. Is it so bad to put forth the information you’d prefer to be identified with?

— Posted by The Editorialiste.

Naturally, I'd love to hear what you think. Should all journalists be reachable? Should there be a directory of journalists, a white pages? And are journalists giving up too much privacy by doing so?

Or should we keep a decidedly-Timesian wall between our reporters and writers?

Inquirer's Move Could Affect Staff Morale

The Philadelphia Inquirer (and Daily News) may be moving out of its 18-story, 1920s home after company owners decided to put the building up for sale, Bob Fernandez reports.

The reason? Reducing debt, of course.

Now I'm all for turnaround at the paper, but I wonder: What will the effect be on the morale of the 950-some staff?

As is mentioned endlessly before, newspapers aren't exactly on the up-and-up, yet it's interesting to compare that at the same time, the New York Times has moved into a new headquarters for only the second time in its history. Of course, the Times Co. is a far cry from the parent company of the Inquirer and its tabloid sibling, but I find it fascinating that one major paper is moving into a shiny, new home while another is selling off the roof over its head.

(Apparently, in a moment of similarity, the Inquirer couldn't find a renter for the half of building that sat empty).

Now I'm not going to opine on the decision, because the Philadelphia and New York real estate markets and the financial health of each parent company are certainly different (and above all, it remains to be seen what the effect could be). However, I do think this decision is a major turning point for the Inquirer -- it could be good, it could be bad. Will a new home help shake off the old demons, or will it encourage uncertainty?

I don't know. Any Inquirer staffers care to chime in? How do you feel about the move? Is the old office feeling a bit, well, old?

On the receiving end, if the money is reinvested in its journalism and its online presence, the Inquirer could benefit. However, if the money is distributed into other fringe outlets not directly connected with its bread-and-butter product (and that now includes philly.com), I fear the worst.

Tierney put it this way in the article:

"Wherever we go has to be an iconic address," Tierney said. "I hope somehow we could stay attached to this piece of land." He said he would like a modern newsroom and offices that would "make the place more progressive."

Here's for being optimistic. I'd certainly love Tierney to elaborate on what he thinks is a modern, progressive newsroom, too. Nevertheless: Does a new home shake up the newsroom flow too much, or does it provide a clean slate for new, Pulitzer-worthy ideas?

(Times staffers -- or any other newspapers that I'm not aware of that recently moved shop -- if you're out there, an anonymous comment with your thoughts would also be welcome.)

Wall Street Journal, L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune Left Off Top 10 Newspaper Sites

Picked up on Romenesko, Washington, D.C.-based Bivings Group unveiled their Top 10 newspaper websites yesterday...and the results are both unsurprising and a bit of an omen.

The group's report judged newspaper sites on their web features, design, aesthetics and general usability. Topping the list? The New York Times website, followed by that of the Washington Post and USA Today.

Surprised? I'm not -- I've applauded The Times' website before and the others follow as the major, important American papers they continually aspire to be. But what's missing from this list, which includes the Houston Chronicle, Denver Post, Knoxville News Sentinel, Fresno Bee, Austin American-Statesman, Tennessean and San Jose Mercury News?

The other major, national newspapers: The Wall Street Journal, L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune and regional fortresses (some of which used to be considered national in scope) such as the Dallas Morning News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Globe and San Francisco Chronicle.

Hmm. Is it possible that, in the next phase of "the media," the WSJ, LAT and Trib will be left behind? Let's see why the NYT made the cut and these did not, according to Bivings:

We love the general feeling of the NYT site, which is pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate. The site is loaded with great features, and, as of August 7, the website dropped its paid-for content, TimesSelect, which is definitely worth bonus points.

Okay. So pleasing to the eye (looks like a newspaper?) and layout are important, online-only features help make it distinct from the paper and paid-for content detracts from the experience.

Let's see how the others compare:

• The Wall Street Journal: Original typefaces are there, the design hints at the paper's layout but there's a lot of wasted space that makes it hard to get to the content. The site certainly has online-only content, but readers have to pay up.
  
  
• Los Angeles Times: Bland, but the content's easier to get to than the WSJ. Needs more images; too text-based.
  
  
• Chicago Tribune: Also bland, but the layout is more dynamic than the LAT. In low resolution, links to News and other major sections aren't even "above the fold," losing digital real estate to the classifieds, shopping, and a postage stamp-sized weather map. C'mon, guys.

Of course, the Bivings Top 10 list isn't complete or authoritative (and neither is my criticism above), but it makes me wonder how the "major" papers can compete when other smaller papers' websites like knoxnews.com and tennessean.com are mentioned before the other biggies.

It's a digital world now, baby, and the biggest newspapers are bookending the challenge, either as the best or the worst. It's becoming clear what kind of decisions are being made from the top.

The bottom line? If the website is the front door -- the front page -- why haven't the bigger papers put in the elbow grease?