Good reporting, the old-fashioned way. Thanks to Mike Hills for the heads up on this video.
The Chicago Tribune Guide to Newspaper Reporting (circa 1955) [KevinP1468].
Good old-fashioned reporting
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Tag Archives: US Journalism
Magazine covers…
[The peerless Onion — HT: Jeremy Leslie]
The mysterious Wall Street Journal
As the Wall Street Journal staffs up to broaden its appeal, bemusement here over the WSJ plan.
The focus on America seems odd. Is the U.S. crying out for a national newspaper? Won’t widening the WSJ offering necessarily reduce the business focus?
After all if you want to lose money with a conservative national daily — why not try the Washington Times? Maybe I’m missing something…
TV News: faking it in the good old days
I stumbled upon this TV news “fakery” classic from the early 1960s, which comes care of CBS veteran Daniel Schorr’s memoir, Clearing The Air. Schorr is lunching his boss, CBS chief, Bill Paley. Continue reading
How to argue in circles
Writing in the FT, Pablo Eisenberg provides a great example of fuzzy thinking on journalism. And also a lesson in how to write in circles.
For a decade, the print media have been the only effective mechanism for keeping non-profit organisations open and accountable. The outstanding investigative work of the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and many other papers has uncovered hundreds of foundations and charities guilty of inappropriate expenditure, corruption, self-dealing, conflicts of interest and excessive compensation.
This coverage has had impressive results: congressional hearings and legislative activity; more effective federal and state regulations; increased scrutiny by state attorneys-general; better auditing and enforcement procedures by the Internal Revenue Service; and more self-reform efforts by non-profit organisations.
Yet without continued media focus on the non-profit sector, charities and foundations are likely to revert to old habits. Scandals, inappropriate behaviour and excessive compensation are still a regrettable part of our non-profit world.
So what has driven newspapers away from such investigations, according to Eisenberg? Why the pursuit of profit.
Twenty years ago a newspaper was happy to make a profit of 10–15 per cent. Even though daily newspapers today earn between 10 and 20 per cent in pre-tax profits, that is no longer good enough for Wall Street and investors, who demand much more, no matter what the cost to journalistic integrity. Business interests have trumped the public interest.
Is there any hope for a resurgence of high-quality, mission-oriented journalism? Non-profit ownership of select daily newspapers could offer a promising new beginning, and philanthropy could make it happen.
I like it. Non-profit ownership as the solution for newspapers failing to provide investigative scrutiny of non-profits? A complete circle. (And have you noticed how things were always better twenty years ago? There must a twenty year rule: another post, another time)
Roger Ailes: Fox News caused the run-off in Florida
Roger Ailes gave an interview to members of Britain’s House of Lords Communications select committee. You can read it below:
Minute of the meeting with Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO, Fox News
17 September, New York
24. The Committee met with Mr Ailes accompanied by his colleagues David Rhodes, Vice President of Fox News, John Moody, Executive Vice President of News and John Stack, Vice President of Newsgathering.
Political balance
25. The Committee were told that Fox News was launched because Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch believed that there was space in the market for “fair and balanced” news. They believed that most news reporting has a left of centre bias. The Committee heard from other witnesses that Fox News provides a right of centre product. However, Mr Ailes vigorously denied this. He stated that the channel has no particular political agenda and an effort is made to balance the stories they produce, although he also said that on some days the channel acts as a balance to the rest of the media.
26. Mr Ailes suggested that the liberal bias of other news providers could be seen through the coverage of issues such as the events at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2005. He believed that papers such as the New York Times covered the US’s troubles at the prison even when it was not news, nothing new had happened. Fox News only mentioned the prison when new developments occurred.
27. Fox News never endorses any political party or candidate. Mr Ailes stated that they do not shy away from stories damaging to the Republican Party. Just before the 2000 presidential election they ran a story that they knew would damage George W Bush’s campaign. The Bush campaign even asked them to hold the story. They were the only news organisation to get hold of the story (which related to Bush having been caught driving under the influence of alcohol 16 years previously). Therefore they decided it was news worthy and ran it. Following their coverage Bush dropped by five points and Ailes believed that Fox News was probably responsible for the run off in Florida.
28. Mr Ailes believed that Fox News’ “balanced” approach is critical to the channel’s success and that if any other news channel were to move away from the left then Fox would have stiff competition.
Ratings
29. When it was launched Fox News’ target was to match CNN’s ratings figures within five years. In fact they caught up with CNN in four years. It took five years of losses and spending of over $900 million to establish the channel. It has therefore been crucial to have the backing of a large company like News Corp.
30. Mr Ailes stated that the success of Fox News was down to a number of factors: it is a cable channel so draws income from both advertising and subscription; it provides news when it is required and is not forced into an inflexible model of providing evening news at 6.30 and it provides “more of what the consumer wants”.
Soft vs hard news
31. Mr Ailes explained that Fox News balance what the audience is looking for with what it is important for them to know “the appeal of the story plays some role in its prominence”. The emphasis is on domestic news and not on foreign coverage. Fox News is not interested in “the failure of the Russian wheat harvest”. They have experimented with limiting their coverage of soft news stories. A case in point was the death of Anna Nicole Smith (Smith was a page three model who married a very elderly oil baron). Fox News experimented by not running this story hour-after– hour like the other channels. However, each time they took it off air CNN beat them in the ratings. Mr Ailes explained that sometimes they would like to walk away from a story, but it is difficult to do so. He was clear that he has to respond to market pressures and that the channel exists “in a ratings society”.
The internet
32. The Fox News executives all agreed that a cable news channel had to invest in a corresponding internet site. It is hard to work out the relationship between the web site and the channel – should one platform push viewers to the other? It is also hard to balance the needs of young and old news audiences. Different age groups have different performance measures that they use to judge which news provider is best.
Older audiences believe in the importance of thorough research and accurate reporting, younger audiences want stories available as they break, before there has been time for thorough research. If a story that is breaking is not immediately on the web site young visitors will never return. The preference for immediacy over accuracy is illustrated by the popularity of sites such as Wikipedia. Mr Ailes believed that it is crucial to educate young people to critically evaluate news sources.