January 19, 2006


Roy Peter Clark, Vice President, Senior Scholar and Reporting, Writing & Editing Faculty
I never have the same diet of news every day, or even every week. In general order of how I might access them during the day, I consume: Imus in the Morning (MSNBC), The Today Show (at least the first hour), and surf the other morning news shows. I read: the St. Petersburg Times, the front page of The New York Times (in Starbucks), Romenesko, Google News, Sports Talk Radio. I listen to or watch at least one conservative talk show: either Rush or Hannity or O’ReillyNational Public Radio, some brief snippet of local news -– usually holding my nose from all the crime coverage, NBC Evening News, occasional MSNBC evening programming, occasional Fox News check-in (hardly ever CNN), ESPN.com, Sports Center on ESPN. Also get news and information from a lot of channel surfing, from occasional magazine reading, from word of mouth. 

Karen Dunlap, President
Awake and exercise to Bay News 9 and CNNSt. Petersburg Times for breakfast, NPR while driving to work, scan The New York Times and Wall Street Journal at my desk. MSNBC online during the day. NPR while driving home. ABC, CBS News or NBC nightly.

Howard Finberg, Director, Interactive Learning
Wake up with NPR. This provides an anchor to start the day -– at home or away on business. Then off to print media: A mix of various sections of The St. Petersburg Times and The New York Times.  Reading always starts with the Comics and then on to Business and A Sections. After this dose of print, I go digital with SalonSlate, the NY Times alerts, the Washington Post tech news daily briefing. At work it’s Google Alerts via e-mail. I scan NewsGator for a review of some of the blogs that are of personal and professional interest. If there’s a breaking story, the television set is on and turned to CNN, MSNBC or Fox News depending on the story. More Google News during the afternoon, which can lead to some interesting Web sites outside the U.S. But if something big breaks, I depend on a Poynter alert from a colleague as much as the official wire services. A “pass along” copy of the Wall Street Journal goes home for evening reading. We TiVo the evening news of one of the broadcast networks. It still provides the best “headline” production values of the day. A quick look at e-mail at the end of the day and look at the Wall Street Journal’s e-mail newsletters: Tomorrow’s Columns. My news media diet ends with the Daily Show. Sometimes from the night before; sometimes we watch two in a row.

Jill Geisler, Leadership & Management Group Leader
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and NY Times (hard copy and online), Boston.comWashington Post.comDrudgeHuffington (I always check both when surfing, looking for multiple perspectives), Memorandum.com (I like the format and links to blogs of note), C|net.comWired.com, CNBC, I sample all cable news shows (I especially enjoy Keith Olbermann’s writing style),  The Today Show or GMA, local television newscasts. Of course, I also keep an eye on Romenesko, the news junkie’s fix.


Larry Larsen, Multimedia Editor
News Aggregators: DrudgeTotalFarkRomeneskoGoogle NewsDigg180nMadvilleConsumption JunctionRense
Tech News: ScobleizerGizmodoEngadgetSlashdotSarah in TampaGadgetizerImpact Lab.
War/Policy News: Michael YonLance in IraqBlackFive, Arms Control WonkCryptome.
Opinion: NewsbustersHuffington Post, Brain TerminalCoranteOpinion Journal.
Newspapers: St. Petersburg Times (print and online), NY Times (online)
TV: Brit HumeHardball with Chris Matthews, The O’Reilly FactorBay News 9.
Radio: Glenn BeckRush LimbaughNeal Boortz.
About this diet: The News Aggregators make this diet. Total Fark, for instance, will have hundreds of stories per day that you would never see by browsing other sites. This is a hard daily diet to keep up with but the range and breadth of it leaves me extremely informed and able to spot bias and BS (on either side) from a mile away. “Cooking” tips: Tivos (I run 4), RSS readers, and Radio Sharks (I run 3).


Kelly McBride, Ethics Group Leader
On a good day: 10-15 minutes in the morning with the St. Pete Times (print). 10 minutes of Morning Edition on NPR. Two to ten news Web sites during the workday, usually including Poynter.org, several large daily newspapers, the Smoking Gunthe OnionRetrocrush and Beliefnet. Other Web sites, like my bank, my kids’ school homework page, Ann Taylor and Amazon. E-mail. In the evening: The evening news, The Week newsmagazine, The NY Times leftovers from Sunday. A book.

On a bad day: 10 minutes of Morning Edition on NPR, while I’m talking on my cell phone. E-mail.


Bill Mitchell, Director of Publishing & Editor of Poynter Online
If I’m awakened by the alarm, it’s NPR. If not, I check e-mail on my cell phone, which includes overnight news alerts from CNN, The New York Times and Google. I scan print editions of the St. Pete Times and The New York Times. A new resolution I’m accomplishing only sporadically: reading the entire front page of The New York Times. Once my computer boots up, I’m looking at Romenesko. Enroute to work, it’s NPR on the car radio or a podcast via the cassette adaptor. If it’s a gym day, I listen to podcasts of On the Media and other radio shows I never listened to in the days before podcasts. Sometimes distracted by the broadcasts (with text scrolls) of ESPN, CBS, CNBC and MSNBC on the TVs positioned above the stationary bikes at the Y. At Poynter, I scan the front page of that morning’s Wall Street Journal that David Shedden has put on display and check out the front page he’s selected to highlight from around the world. At my desk, in addition to Poynter Online, I’m making quick checks of various news sites, usually provoked by an alert. I’ve got RSS set up on My Yahoo but check only occasionally. Leaving work, I often walk by the magazine rack in the Poynter library to see what’s new. At home, my DVR captures BBC News, ABC News, The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Mostly I fast forward through BBC and ABC, watching several reports in each broadcast, but only occasionally get to the Daily Show and Colbert. If there’s time or inclination for channel surfing, I tend to check PBS and Fox News. By the bed: sections pulled from Sunday St. Pete & NY Times.

Jim Romenesko, ROMENESKO
Newspapers: (either subscribe to or read at the Evanston Public Library) The New York TimesWall Street JournalChicago TribuneSun-TimesUSA Today.
Web sites: Dozens of newspapers and blogs.
TV: Many shows either TiVo’d or recorded on the Comcast DVR. Among them: LettermanColbert ReportDaily ShowMy Name is EarlTwo and a Half MenSaturday Night LiveCBS Sunday Morning60 MinutesFamily Guy, and others.
Radio: XM and Sirius Satellite Radio. Among the shows I listen to daily or regularly: Bob Edwards (XM), Jay Thomas (Sirius), Howard Stern (Sirius), and The Loft (Channel 50 on XM). I scan other music channels.
iPod: I listen to several podcasts, including “On the Media,” Adam Curry’s “Daily Source Code,” Engadget, and several Macintosh and tech related podcasts.
Magazines: Numerous subscriptions, including Chicago MagazineNew York MagazineEsquireGQEntertainment WeeklyTimeDetailsWired, and others.

Chip Scanlan, Senior Faculty
Poynter Online, NY TimesWashPost.comWall Street Journal online, Drudge, NPR, the Lehrer Report on PBS, scan evening (network) news, CNN and CNN Headlines, SlateSPTimes.comLATimes.comNew Yorker (print edition).
Blogs: Boing Boing43foldersCreating Passionate UsersLifehacker
Radio: Rush Limbaugh when I’m in the car in the afternoon.


Bob Steele, Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values
Our alarm is set to WUSF-FM at 6am, so (my wife) Carol and I start every morning with NPR’s Morning Edition. We listen to most of the two hours of that program. We also read a good deal of the St. Pete Times before heading into work. I try to skim the NY Times at work and then read a few more pieces of it that evening at home. During the day I pick up news several times online from CNN, and I also pick up various pieces of other newspaper coverage online via links from Romenesko. I generally catch some of the NPR hourly newscasts during the day, and sometimes 30 minutes or so of NPR’s All Things Considered. I don’t watch much TV. I sometimes surf a bit on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News… and maybe a couple times a week watch a little bit of the late night news on local stations, usually WTVT-TV or WFLA-TV. Other media diet: A handful of magazines we get and surf through at various times, from National Geographic to Southern Living to Tennis Magazine to Echoes (a magazine about rural culture in Maine). Plus, I troll through some journalism industry mags ranging from AJR, CJR to Editor and Publisher. Carol and I watch some sports on TV, mainly baseball and tennis. And, the occasional double-decker of Law and Order to escape reality.

Al Tompkins, Broadcast/Online Group Leader
I keep an RSS feed with about 50 newspapers, TV, networks and wire feeds for a quick briefing then I hit: Docuticker.com (federal document releases), GovExec.com ( a site for government executives’ briefing), FedBlog.comMarketwatch.com. I am very interested in the “most e-mailed” lists from NYT, WPost and Yahoo News. Once a day, usually afternoons, I hit C|net.com,  SlashdotIRE.org (hot stories site from Investigative Reporters and Editors), Fark.comStateline.orgFirehouse.com (a firefighter site).


Butch Ward, Distinguished Fellow
During the morning, depending on whether I’m home in Philadelphia or here in St. Petersburg, I read the Philadelphia Inquirer or the St. Petersburg Times. I visit a number of Internet news sites, including the New York TimesBBCWashington Postphilly.com when I’m in Florida and a variety of others on an occasional basis. In Philadelphia, I listen to all-news KYW-AM radio and in both cities, NPR. During the day, I check back regularly with the Times Web site, as well as My Yahoo, where I get RSS feeds from Philadelphia, AP, AP Sports, and USA Today. I also bookmark a variety of the RSS sites, including Topix, Google News and NewsNow. In the evening, I either surf on TV -– CNN, MSNBC, Fox News (does the Food Channel count?) –- or do another round of news sites –- along with ESPN.com – on the Web.

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(formerly Multimedia Editor at Poynter.org)My personal website.
Larry Larsen

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