Good morning.
- The ongoing tale of two demagogues
Given the holiday, you might have missed Donald Trump mocking the physical condition of Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times reporter who suffers from a congenital joint malady. Trump actually derided him for “using his disability to ‘grandstand.'” (The Washington Post) Trump also denied knowing the guy, who was actually once on a first-name basis with Trump when he reported on him extensively for the New York Daily News. A Trump flack was appropriately interrogated by CNN’s Brian Stelter on this ignominy, as well as those claims about the thousands of joyous post-9/11 Muslims in New Jersey. (Mediaite)
Meanwhile, writing in Slate, Anne Applebaum nails the Vladimir Putin modus operandi with strategic communications in light of Turkey shooting down the Russian fighter jet: “But follow the Russian media over any time period and you soon begin to see patterns in the reporting of news. Nothing ever just ‘happens.’ Every event is always part of a larger story, usually a conspiracy theory. Russia, or rather a plot to destroy or undermine Russia, always lies at the center. Elements of reality are included in the story, but distorted with virtual reality in order to suit the story line.” (Slate) Trump and Putin may themselves be vivid examples of a rare condition: conjoined twins linked by deceit. The only real difference is that Putin is probably much richer.
- A sale of Tribune Publishing?
The seemingly floundering onetime newspaper giant is the target of a Wall Street firm, or so tweeted Rupert Murdoch on Friday without naming a potential buyer. Murdoch’s a serial tweeter and by no means infallible. But it appears that Apollo Global Management has expressed serious interest and its strategy might be to buy the whole shebang and then sell the California assets, notably the Los Angeles Times, to billionaire Eli Broad, who has long claimed to covet his hometown paper. Poynter weighed in this weekend (Poynter), and so did POLITICO, which detailed an initial, previously undisclosed overture of a month ago. (POLITICO) The Tribune hierarchy may be caught between what has appeared to be abundant, even overzealous craving to maintain its own employment and increasing doubts about its strategies and ability to revive the company. And where does this leave all the journalists at those papers, whose own ranks have been substantially reduced of late in what seems a cut-for-the-sake-of-cutting semi-Hail Mary? In the short term, they may manifest the anxiety symptoms of abject ambiguity.
- Kobe says farewell on Jeter website
Maybe this is the new sportswriting. When NBA icon Kobe Bryant disclosed this season will be his last, he chose not a traditional press conference, a long sympathetic Los Angeles Lakers beat writer or even Twitter. Instead, he turned to poetry and used a website started by baseball star Derek Jeter, in which he’s got a financial stakes, called The Players’ Tribune. (Poynter) The Los Angeles Times’ Bill Plaschke caught up with the tale and its bottom line (“His unbreakable body is broken”) later, after the farewell poem was handed out to those attending the Lakers-Pacers game at the Staples Center. (Los Angeles Times)
- Mike Allen’s mea culpa
Gawker caught the POLITICO columnist in an email exchange blatantly offering to agree to pre-approved questions in exchange for a Chelsea Clinton brunch interview he was lobbying for. This morning he apologizes. His many fans might be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, though this may strike some as a somewhat less than rousing “please, trust me” defense. “In the email, I said I’d agree to the questions in advance. I have never done that, and would never do that.” But the exchange was crystal clear on that score that he would do that. Whatever. He’s not one of the journalism scoundrels out there, this misstep aside. (Poynter)
- Perhaps missed, too, over Thanksgiving
You need not be a sports fan to appreciate USA TODAY’s Christine Brennan’s column on the late Frank Gifford’s family disclosing he suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a degenerative disease increasingly believed to be linked to concussions. (USA TODAY) She also discussed on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Sunday the NFL surprise of putting aside its usual totalitarian impulse and allowing ads for the Hollywood flick “Concussion,” on football injuries, during broadcasts of games. This is unlike CBS, which chose not to air ads for the Robert Redford movie in which he portrays Dan Rather in a positive light and the network in a negative one.
- Obama’s uninspired record on disclosure
The DEA refused to turn over records related to federal drug agents killing unarmed civilians in Honduras. It’s a pattern of what The New York Times divines as at least 20 investigations in various agencies even outright stymied over access to records. Yes, even inspectors general themselves are being shafted by administration reluctance to turn over records. Sexual assaults in the Peace Corps? The FBI’s terrorism powers? “This is by far the most aggressive assault on the inspector general concept since the beginning,” says one academic and longtime observer of government administration. (The New York Times) In a much larger context, the Obama record on disclosure is short of inspired, especially since lots of non-ideological experts have told the White House that it inherited systems that needless classify absurd amounts of records. I was the one journalist at an important session on the topic. (New York Daily News)
- Big photo contest changes its rules
World Press Photo was convulsed upon disclosure that many entries in its final round of judging were dumped for excessive manipulation. As a result, a new ethics code includes rules on post-processing and manipulation. “As for adding and removing content, participants almost unanimously agreed that doing so under any condition was unacceptable.” When it involves toning, lines are more ambiguous. Says one official: “How do you make that clear without limiting the creativity of photographers to tell the best story? If you apply enough heavy toning to certain areas, you can actually obscure details in the background to the point where you’re taking out content. That’s where we drew the line.” (TIME)
- Conde Nast’s purchase of Pitchfork Media
The original deal a few months back was a bit of a surprise. (Poynter) But what has it meant that a big New York media company gobbled up the Chicago-based musical voice of a new generation? Its president and first employee explained the early impact of Conde Nast on Pitchfork in a Sunday Chicago Sun-Times chat. Pitchfork, a new era’s Rolling Stone or Spin, is basically staying put in Chicago and will go heavier on video, run more festivals and just think bigger. They’ve cut deals with beer firms in the U.S and a video production operation in Serbia. It hopes to take in as much as $20 million annually, has about 7 million unique visitors on its site each month and sees 35 percent of its traffic from overseas. (Sun-Times)
- Gentility over profanity
The New York Times did a lovely job in capturing the increased use of tough, profane talk among Republican presidential candidates without being too explicit. “For news organizations, style guidelines generally dictate that obscenities should not be printed unless they are newsworthy. A bleepworthy Mr. Bush, for instance, would not be afforded a literal rendering. But a President Bush? Hot damn.” (The New York Times)
- Rise of the paywall press
Are we covering government less or covering it more? Forget politics, which is now covered maniacally by many. Real policy? In “Why the Public Can’t Read the Press,” John Heltman argues that especially in Washington one has both the rise of a policy-driven paywall press and decline of mainstream coverage of government. “But the two trends coincide with a palpable populist outrage, in which average Americans are suspicious of how their tax dollars are being spent and observe Washington insiders operating at ever-greater levels of power and secrecy. The irony is that policy journalism in Washington is thriving. It’s just not being written for you, and you’re probably never going to read it.” (The Atlantic)
- Taking on Wilbon’s take on sports
Mike Wilbon thinks that there’s too much unadulterated sportswriting crap out there. Too many unknowing blogs, too much reliance on analytics rather than actual reporting of events and people. A Sports Illustrated blog demurs, in part after checking out beat writers at one Washington Capitals hockey game and speculating about alternatives to generally pedestrian game coverage. “Who’s to say we’re not in the midst of a new reporting revolution? With the heightened capacity for bones-deep analysis afforded by modern stats, the new generation may well be on the brink of another tectonic shift. The rise of boilerplate recaps, typified by the work of Automated Insights, means today’s writers may soon have more time to tease out the kind of angles that Isaacs and his ilk only dreamed of weaving.” It’s an interesting thesis, but just a thesis in a rather porous opus that needed a bit more show, less tell. (The Cauldron)
- Front page of the day, curated by Kristen Hare
Today’s front page of the day comes from Montgomery Advertiser in Montgomery, Alabama, which reminded readers of cyber security issues on Cyber Monday. (Courtesy the Newseum)
- Job moves, edited by Benjamin Mullin
Laura Feinstein is head of social stories at Fusion. Previously, she was East Coast editor at Good Magazine. (Digiday) | Job of the day: Chalkbeat is looking for an education reporter. Get your resumes in! (Journalism Jobs) | Send Ben your job moves: bmullin@poynter.org.
Corrections? Tips? Please email me: jwarren@poynter.org. Would you like to get this roundup emailed to you every morning? Sign up here.
