Do We Still Need A Black Press?

As teaching assistant Katie Beardsley discussed in class the other day, the rise of the Black Press was very much a reaction to the portrayal of African American people in the mainstream media during the early 1800s.

By the time of the Civil War, there were 40 newspapers dedicated to serving African American audiences. By 1900, she said, there were more than 600.

Today, there are around 200, including the Philadelphia Tribune, which is the oldest continuously operated black newspaper in the country. And there are numerous websites that seek to tell the stories of African American people, as well as inform that community.

In 2013 - 186 years after the founding of the first black newspaper, Freedom’s Journal - do we still need a Black Press?

Do the mainstream media still treat non-white folks differently? Is there ignorance that remains, such as the unfortunate Vogue cover with Lebron James that recalled a 1917 military recruiting poster?

Or was the symbolism of the above image an honest mistake?

In the Obama-era, is it anachronistic to have news outlets that break down audiences by race or ethnicity?

Kurtis Lee: "We Should All Call Ourselves Multi-platform Journalists."

Kurtis Lee was ready for bed just after midnight on July 20, 2012 when he received a call about a shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

Lee, a political reporter for the Denver Post, rushed to the scene and immediately started tweeting details.

"Twitter is how I get my news," said the 2009 TU journalism grad. "It's how I break news."

There were helicopters buzzing overhead and police and medical crews all around. Stunned people stood around with blood all over them, their shirts ripped open. Twelve people had been killed by a lone gunman and 71 others were shot.

"You're in the moment and the adrenaline kicks in," Kurtis said.

The next print edition of the newspaper wouldn't hit the streets for more than 30 hours. The Internet was the way to get information to people as quickly as possible. Kurtis recorded interviews and typed notes on his Blackberry, later dictating information to a rewrite person back at the office. Information was posted as quickly as it came in.

He was on scene from about 12:30 am until 8 pm - meaning he did not sleep for two full days.

"I saw so much grief and violence," he said, "that it was almost like I was in the theater that day."

Many of his colleagues sought counseling after witnessing the horror and some are still dealing with issues today.

For their coverage of the tragedy, the staff at the Denver Post won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.

"It was bittersweet," Kurtis said, and then he recalled what a friend told him: "You don't celebrate the incident. You celebrate the journalism."

Here are a few other things that stood out to me from his visit to class yesterday:

• He's from Colorado and he came to Temple because of the journalism program and the diversity of the student body.
• After he graduated, he applied for numerous jobs and suffered six months of rejection.
• He networked at events, like the National Association of Black Journalists convention and the Online News Association conference.
• He finally landed an internship with PBS Newshour, which later became his first real journalism job - writing stories for the Newshour website.
• He was one of a handful of people - on a staff of more than 30 - who knew how to use Final Cut Pro. That made him valuable.
• "We should all call ourselves multi-platform journalists," Kurtis said. "You're not going to survive as a single-skilled journalist."
• When he began covering politics for the Denver Post, he also started a web video show. And he sold ads to sponsor the shows.
• He keeps a DSLR camera in the trunk of his car in case news happens.

• When the movie theater shooting occurred, it was all hands on deck. Even the Broncos beat reporter arrived on scene to interview victims.
• You try to be as sensitive as you can while doing the job of journalism. "You want to break news," he said. "If we're not getting it first, it's because we're trying to get as accurate information as possible."
• He and other Post staffers were sent to Newtown, Connecticut last December to assist a sister news organization that had to report on the mass shooting there.

• He's had a few job offers but he wants to cover politics, so he's holding out for a good fit.
• He continues to cover the statehouse, where he is the junior reporter working alongside a veteran journalist with a huge pool of sources.
• "I've only been doing this a few years," Kurtis said. "I still have a lot to learn."

What stood out for you?

Should The Sports Anchor Act Like Ron Burgundy?

A Boise sports anchor did his segment (and more) while acting as Ron Burgundy, the fictional character played by Will Ferrell.

The video has gone viral.

Is this the funniest thing ever, as some people have claimed? Should journalists simply present information and not act like Hollywood characters?

Do journalists take themselves too seriously (and that's why this was seen as refreshing)?

Does it matter that this was on Halloween?

Neal Santos: "I Really Want to Celebrate the City."

Neal Santos was a sophomore in college when he realized he wanted to become a photojournalist. He was traveling in the Philippines, shooting pictures and meeting people.

"I realized the camera could be an excuse to dive into so many different worlds," he said in class yesterday.

He returned to Temple and began interning - almost non-stop - until he graduated in 2008. He interned at the Philadelphia Daily News, the Metro, Inquirer, Good Housekeeping and OUT magazine.

During his first internship, Daily News photographer David Maialetti saw Neal hanging out in the office and said to him, "What the hell are you doing inside? You're not going to make any images in the office."

So Neal hit the streets and started shooting.

"I got to know the city very well by being an intern at the Daily News," he said. "It was daunting at first but I grew to love being able to drive around and talk to people."

The Jersey City native fell in love with Philly, so he stayed after completing his studies. About six months after graduating, he found a job working as a web editor and photographer for Philadelphia City Paper. He's now the staff photographer and he freelances for numerous other publications, mostly covering the city and region.

"I really want to celebrate the city," Neal said. "I like being able to show Philly in a positive and gritty way."

Here are a few other things he said that stood out to me:

• When he shoots pictures, he approaches people and let's them know what he's doing. He asks permission and then shoots a lot, until the people reach a comfort level with him being there. "The key is not being a giant douchebag," Neal said.
• He photographs a wide variety of people, and he doesn't always like all of them. "I think of the end game," he said. "I need to tell this person's story. I need to be fair. I need to be professional."

• He doesn't write much but he does have to provide caption information - names, locations, time, etc. He does the work of a reporter but his primary task is the visual side.

• His classmates and former Temple News colleagues are now working journalists, many doing great stuff in Philly. "I can tell Holly (Otterbein), 'I remember when you were writing a sex column for the Temple News before you were covering politics for WHYY,'" he said with a laugh.

• Different internships provided different experiences. For instance, at the magazines, he learned studio lighting and office management skills. Even bad internships have value, he said, as you discover if you want to compromise on your goals.

• He spends a lot of time on Instagram searching for inspiration.

• As a freelancer, he is a business person, artist, photographer and journalist, all at once. He rarely turns down assignments ("I need to provide for all my animals," said Neal, who lives on a farm in West Philly).

• He has no grand aspirations. "I don't want to be the best," he said. "I just want to be a good photographer."

What stood out for you?

Should Journalists Celebrate the Violence?

A semi-retired sports journalist from the Washington Post wrote that he has one regret after 40 years of covering football: "not focusing more of my reporting and writing on the absolute brutality of the sport, particularly the painful post-football lives of so many players."

While the NFL players settled a lawsuit against the NFL regarding serious injury brought on by game action and many journalists covered that case, journalists still tend to celebrate the violent actions that are common in football, like the massive hit in the video above (which won an ESPY and was seemingly on permanent loop for a while).

Should journalists govern their enthusiasm with episodes like this? Or should we show the clip over and over again, as that is what fans love?

Do we have an obligation to entertain or should we be cautioning people that for every massive tackle, there is someone being tackled?

Should Journalists Reveal The Name of The Suicidal Student?

On Sunday, a student barricaded himself in his off-campus home. Police believed him to be suicidal.

Because weapons were involved - the student had a gun and fired several rounds, the area surrounding the home was cleared. Students and full-time residents had to leave their homes and were not allowed to return until after 2:00 a.m. Monday morning.

The student was taken to a hospital to be checked out. No charges were immediately filed.

Should journalists publish or air the student's name?

Do the people have a right to know? Shouldn't we know who among us has a weapon and has threatened to use it? Shouldn't we know who caused dozens of area people to be scared and discomforted?

Or should we err on the side of caution? The young man, apparently, is unstable. His was a personal situation and we could further traumatize him. And there is not a huge value in the public knowing after the fact.

What would you do?

Real Life vs. Fiction. Journalism vs. Marketing.

In a fragmented media world, where everyone has a gazillion options for where to get information/entertainment/whatever, journalists are desperate to draw in an audience.

A local news anchor tweeted the note above, referencing Breaking Bad, the popular cable program that sometimes airs during the same time slot as her newscast.

Is her correlation to the fictional show in bad taste or smart marketing?

Should Journalists Make The Alleged Bigots' Statements Public?

A pair of local school officials are in the news because they allegedly had text conversations that were racist and sexually charged.

When you watch the report above or if you read about the story in most outlets, you will not learn what the two allegedly said beyond the n-word. The transcriptions of the texts have been published in a few less-mainstream outlets.

Should news organizations present the full transcripts or should journalists apply moral standards and not allow such language or behavior go public?

I'm a Hero. News at 11.

A reporter in Phoenix was covering a story about flooding when he and the cameraman stumbled across a woman screaming for help.

So the reporter helped her. And the cameraman shot the rescue. Then they aired that on the news.

Did the reporter do something heroic and thus become newsworthy? Or is he simply casting himself as a hero by airing his good deed?

If you had rescued that person, would you have broadcast it?

Would You Do This For Your Job?

This is the news crew at KUTV, the CBS affiliate in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Is this a good promo for their newscasts? Or is this not how good journalists should behave/be represented?

Does it diminish their credibility or make you want to watch them even more?

Seriously: Is Miley Cyrus Newsworthy?

So, Miley Cyrus performed at MTV's Video Music Awards and then the Internet went wild. During her performance, there were more than 300,000 tweets per minute about her. In total, there were more than 4.5 million mentions of her on twitter (and counting).

Ever since the show was aired, people have been opining about her actions on websites, on television, on the radio, in newspapers and everywhere else.

Because there was such a strong reaction, does that make the situation newsworthy? Is there a legitimate news story about her performance?

Or are the media capitalizing on the public reaction and exploiting it to boost their readership/viewership?

Dan Gross: "You Should All Be Communicating Now."

When Dan Gross was at Lower Merion High School, he was into punk music. He went to shows and spoke to musicians. He eventually started his own zine that, somehow, he distributed around the country.

It was the music that drove him, not journalism.

"I didn't grow up with a desire to do this," said Dan, who recently left the Philadelphia Daily News after 14 years there. "It just happened."

After high school, he continued making zines while he was an English major at Temple. He took a copy-editing class taught by an adjunct professor who was a copy editor at the Daily News. The prof told Dan about an editorial assistant gig at the paper and Dan applied. His career was launched while he was in school (though it started with him answering phones and greeting guests).

He began writing stories for the paper and eventually, in 2004, ascended to the position of local gossip columnist. He documented the lives of local athletes, TV reporters and anyone else in the public eye in the region.

"I know some people look down on this kind of reporting," he admitted, "but a lot of the time, it's where the truth comes out."

For example, he reported a "blind item" that said a Philly university president was about to be fired by the board of directors about one month before Temple announced that then-president David Adamany was retiring.

"Who's telling you the realer story?" Dan asked.

After nine years of breaking stories about quibbling news anchors and the post-game partying of professional athletes, Dan took a voluntary buyout this winter.

He's now planning his next career step - likely something to do with strategic communications/crisis management but likely connected to journalism in some fashion.

Here are a few things that stood out to me:

• Dan did not get along very well with the other main gossip columnist in town, another Temple grad.
• People are more polite when cameras are rolling.
• Former Philly news anchor Alycia Lane called Dan on Christmas day to tell him that she was engaged.
• Never reveal your sources if you promise them anonymity.
• Be careful what you email people as when you email stuff, it can become very public, very quickly.
• The angry sorority girl? "I love that girl," Dan said. "I want to be her best friend."
• He never outed people who were not already out, and he never published rumors of affairs until relationships had crumbled.

And here's his advice for aspiring journalists/communicators:

• Create a path for yourself. "Jobs aren't really happening anymore," he said.
• "ESPN is not going to hire someone because they know a lot about football," he said. Rather, you need to prove that you can do the job by having your own blog/website, by interning and freelancing.
• You have to self-promote. "There's no excuse if you are not on twitter talking about what's in the news or even breaking stories about something," he said.
• "You should all be communicating now," he concluded.

What stood out for you?

Councilman Bill Greenlee: "Sometimes I think, 'I Could Be Covering the World Series Instead of Being at City Hall Getting Yelled At.'"

Philadelphia at-large city councilman Bill Greenlee was born, raised and still lives in Fairmount.

Before entering politics, he studied journalism at Temple in the 1970's. He had dreams of being a sportswriter. While still in college, however, he began volunteering for David Cohen's campaign for city council. He wound up working for councilman Cohen for the next 26 years. After Cohen passed away in 2005, Greenlee won a special election to fill Cohen's position. He was re-elected in 2007 and 2011.

"Sometimes I think, 'I could be covering the World Series instead of being at City Hall getting yelled at,'" Greenlee said with a laugh.

He loves his job, he added, especially helping people who need help the most. He's worked on legislation to ensure people's homes are not stolen from them (which was surprisingly easy). He crafted a bill that said victims of domestic violence could not lose their jobs because of missed time due to the violence. And his most recent accomplishment was getting an earned sick pay bill through council (it now waits for the mayor's reaction).

"The actions of city council affect people on a more day-to-day basis than that of Congress or the Senate," Greenlee stated.

But there tends to be very little coverage of city council, he said. The newspapers pay attention to the mayor and political controversy (rather than the substance of bills). Television almost never covers council.

"There are times when I get frustrated," Greenlee admitted.

Much of this is determined by how we communicate these days. There are more ways for people to get information now, so there is greater competition for viewers. Less-intriguing news - like council actions, gets bypassed.

When Greenlee has stories he really wants covered, he'll hold a press conference or reach out to specific journalists who he knows would be interested. If stories pertain to specific audiences or specific neighborhoods, he taps into those niche outlets like the Northeast Times or WURD.

When he was a college journalism student, he was instructed to read everything because it's important for all journalists to have at least a little knowledge about everything.

"I'm disappointed by how little young people know about local government," he said about modern youth.

You should be interested and engaged, he said.

What did you think of the councilman and his ideas?

Should Journalists Force The Issue?

Philadelphia magazine's new issue cover story is about the difficulties of being white in Philadelphia. It is full of bigotry and ignorance and it is overall a really poor attempt at journalism (even Philly mag staffers can't defend the piece).

Let's move beyond that. Let's focus on the bigger question here: should journalists present major topics for discussion, and if so, how?

The reality is that the story thrusts race and racism into the spotlight. Is that a good or bad thing?

Are they ultimately doing a good thing by forcing the discussion, or is this a dangerous and divisive act that could have greater ramifications (beyond people dropping their Philly mag subscriptions)?

There is not one incident that is the catalyst to tell their story. Rather, they say that race and racism is an underlying issue that exists in Philadelphia as it has for half a century.

What positives can come out of this, if any?

Innovation in Advertising or Danger to Journalism?

As traditional advertising becomes less and less popular (for whatever reason), media organizations are experimenting with other forms of revenue generation, such as "sponsored content."

Sponsored content, such as this one for the upcoming Playstation 4, looks very similar to the usual editorial content. It is often labeled as sponsored content - this one says the story of from Sony Entertainment Network, a BuzzFeed Partner.

Is there a problem with advertisements looking like editorial content?

Or is this a brilliant new way for media organizations to raise cash?

Cherri Gregg: "People don't know what they don't know until we tell them."

When Cherri Gregg was a little kid, she always wanted to know what was going on before anyone else. And she was always going around telling people about what she discovered.

"I always dreamed of being a reporter," she said yesterday in class.

She got sidetracked though. After studying communications at Boston University, she earned her law degree from Howard University. Then she practiced intellectual property litigation for eight years. And she married a fellow lawyer, whom she met on her first day of law school.

"I didn't like it," Cherri said of being an attorney. "I didn't love it with the same passion that my husband did."

So she did some research on graduate schools and wound up at Temple. Immediately, she became involved with TUTV and she reported and anchored for Temple Update. She freelanced video packages for a Turkish news organization. She kicked ass in her classes, she developed contacts and sources and she built her demo tape.

"It's on you," she said. "You can't blame your professors if you don't succeed."

Halfway through her graduate studies at Temple, Cherri began working as a part-time reporter at KYW Newsradio. Her immediate supervisor is a Temple grad, as is the news director and most of the reporters (some of whom also teach at Temple). After completing her graduate program, Cherri went full-time at the station.

Last month, she covered the inauguration of Barack Obama. She watched Beyonce lip-sync from up close. She reports, writes, tweets, shoots images, packages video and creates podcasts while covering multiple stories every day.

"There's no chilling," she said. "It is fast-paced."

But she loves it.

"We get to be thought leaders," Cherri said. "People don't know what they don't know until we tell them."

Here are a few other things that stood out for me:

• Her reason for going into law is the same as why she became a journalist: "I want to give voice to people who can't speak for themselves."
• She thinks she'll go to television news at some point but she knows she has much to learn still.
• She believes in making strategies, figuring out what she needs to do to get to where she wants to be.
• She thinks you should make a strategy too.
• As a journalist, you have to be comfortable around all kinds of people.
• Be nice to everybody. Who knows where people will wind up, and you don't want to burn bridges.

What stood out for you?

Should The Media Make Deals With The Government?

The American military has been operating a secret base for drone aircrafts in Saudi Arabia, the New York Times revealed last week.

It turns out that some members of the American media, including the Times, knew about the base for about a year, and they knew about the operations taking place there because they had obtained copies of the document approving activities at the base. According to the Washington Post, the document concludes "the United States can lawfully kill one of its own citizens overseas if it determines that the person is a 'senior, operational leader' of al-Qaeda or one of its affiliates and poses an imminent threat."

The media had an informal agreement with the government not to reveal the details.

Should the Washington Post, New York Times and other news organizations have revealed the information when they first learned about it?

Is there a danger/problem with the media making deals with the government?

Recent Journo Grads Are Making Decent Money (And Other Odd Things You Learn On The Internet).

Oh, Internet. You'd think by now we'd know how to use you properly.

Then again, maybe there are new rules and the old conventions are obsolete. Who knows?

• The Lansing State Journal invited followers to "share" an image of a fatal car crash on facebook as a way of expressing condolences to the families of victims. Is there anything wrong with that?

• An activist group launched a campaign - online and on facebook - to save the two main daily newspapers in Philadelphia.

• A teacher in Colorado was suspended after she tweeted topless images of herself to Diplo. Philly.com ran the images on their website. Should Philly.com have published the images?

• There were 24.1 million tweets about the Super Bowl. Only 5.5 million of them were about Beyonce's halftime performance.

• AOL did a story about Penn State's hockey team. And AOL added the words "Jerry Sandusky" to the story URL. Some folks argued that was a blatant attempt at building better search engine optimization for the story. Is there anything wrong with that, if that was the case (which they deny)?

• A report says that 2012 college grads with full-time jobs in journalism had an average starting salary of more than $40,000 per year. This dude adds context to the claim.

Got any thoughts about any of this?

Carrying A Semi-Automatic Rifle in Virginia Is Legal. So Is This A Story?

A man walked into a grocery store in Virginia over the weekend and he was carrying an AR-15 rifle, like the one above. A few people called the police, who were dispatched to the scene.

The police spoke to the man but he was not arrested. He was not breaking any laws - he legally owns the gun and it was not concealed.

Is this a news story?

A few outlets covered the episode. One news organization chose not to. What would you have done?

If There Is Crazy Video, Does That Mean It's News?

There was a brawl in Old City last weekend when the bars closed. The video above was captured by a random person.

Is this news?

Several news outlets did stories about the brawl, including 6ABC, CBS3, the Daily News and Fox29.

What qualifies this as news? Is it a matter of having the dramatic video? Is it because people will see the raw video and talk about it? Is this an unusual event, and therefore newsworthy?

Or is this a non-story?

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)