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Who is Carlin to criticize Breitbart?

2/4/2010 4:00:50 PM

From DAVID MASTIO: Subject: Peter Carlin's letter. Peter Carlin is exactly the kind of dinosaur who is killing the newspaper industry. The arrogance of the title of his letter is just astounding: "Who is Breitbart to criticize MSM?" [Carlin didn't write that title; Romenesko did. He also wrote the title for this letter.] Since when do you have to be anybody to criticize the media? You read us, listen to us, watch us and you have the right to criticize. Mailmen, janitors, school nurses, burger flippers and even Sarah Palin all have the right to take their shot. Carlin whines because now some of those readers have audiences that rival our own and quite often Andrew Breitbart's complaints have merit. Get used to it buddy. This is the world we have to compete in.

Comfy monopoly newspapers have been ignoring huge swaths of readership for decades and those readers are leaving us because we have been arrogant. Carlin's words reveal just how strong that sentiment remains.

And please, will someone hand Peter a clue about online economics. Every day the web sites that Breitbart owns or helps manage send millions of page views to online newspapers. The newspaper industry makes a small fortune every year from the traffic just the Drudge Report sends our way. If we don't make more, it is our own fault. And, by the way, if we were so damn smart, shouldn't we have come up with some of Breitbart's ideas and executed them in a way that would be supporting all that original reporting we want to be doing? [Permalink]

Who is Breitbart to criticize MSM?

2/4/2010 2:28:21 PM

From PETER AMES CARLIN, Oregonian: I've worked in newspapers, magazines and etc. for 25 years now, so forgive my obvious bias. But when Andrew Breitbart, who built a career by repurposing the actual reporting and writing of mainstream journalists to fit his own purposes, emerges from his basement to lecture about the end of the mainstream media's relevance, I'm puzzled.

Seems to me that Breitbart -- who apparently does no reporting or information gathering of his own -- doesn't even exist without the mainstream media. It's cool that he has opinions, and has found a way to sort, bend and staple other peoples' work to fit his pre-existing sense of the world. That's a kind of editing, I suppose, albeit one he performs without first-hand knowledge of the subjects or even the writers who may be surprised to find their work affixed to someone else's political philosophy.

We've all had heavy-handed editors before, so no surprise there. But unlike Breitbart, they at least paid for the privilege of manhandling your work. And to the extent that Breitbart makes money, does he share his revenue with the mainstream journalists whose work he simultaneously derides and depends upon for his living?

That said, I think it's cool that he's spending so much time with his kids. I'd spend way more time with mine if I didn't have to spend so much time gathering information and writing stories. [Permalink]

Always "powerful"

2/4/2010 2:11:52 PM

From DAVID MACARAY, labor writer: When's the last time anyone saw or heard a reference to the teachers' union without the adjective "powerful" being attached? My hometown paper, the LA Times, is a prime example. The LAT can't mention the LAUSD (the Los Angeles Unified School District) without referring to "the powerful teachers' union," the implication being that problems plaguing our education system are the result of labor's refusal to play ball.

You don't see the word "powerful" prefacing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, or Wall Street, or the Pentagon ("....yesterday, the powerful Pentagon reported...."), but you do see it with unions -- with the teachers, the SEIU, the Teamsters, even the ILWU. Given the brutal, across-the-board concessions organized labor has been forced to make since the Reagan administration (not to mention the staggering drop in membership), the innuendo is not only misleading, it's ludicrous. [Permalink]

How to make Gannett's earning news more meaningful

2/1/2010 12:51:52 PM

From DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: The news reports today on Gannett's quarterly results would be more meaningful if they noted that it earned a net pretax profit of 15 cents on each dollar of revenue, a healthy figure for any business. After tax the figure was 9 percent of revenues.

News reports should also show return on equity (interest on savings is the equivalent measure). Given the extraordinary loss a year ago (the loss was three times revenue!), a reference to figures from two years ago would give readers a more meaningful comparison.

It would also be informing to know the reasons that Gannett paid much more in income taxes in cash in 2007 than it provided for that year in its financial statements. The company paid in cash income taxes of $653.4 million, but its profit and loss statement shows it made provision for income taxes of only $473.3 million. Cash paid for taxes was 38 percent more than the accounting entry for taxes.

Has Gannett been slashing investment in new equipment, like printing presses, so its deferred taxes from past investments are now turning into cash payments? Knowing the reasons that Gannett's cash taxes have in some recent years exceeded its current reserve for income taxes would provide insights into future profitability, cash flow and shareholder value. [Permalink]

Zucker's no "brave thinker"

1/18/2010 11:16:43 AM

From PAUL THEIS: Re: "A Strong Week for Williams and Sawyer" (NYT, 1/12/10): I can't help but wonder which of the Big Three (or Four if you include FOX) networks will be the first to try a one-hour nightly news broadcast in the time slot leading into local news that Jay Leno just vacated. Unlike the decision by NBC's Jeff Zucker to try late-night Leno in prime time, I believe such a move might be worthy of recognition by The Atlantic magazine as that of a "Brave Thinker." To my mind, including Mr. Zucker on their recent list seemed farcical. So many other, more worthy, names come readily to mind, in journalism alone: Naomi Klein, Matthew Rothschild, Amy Goodman, Chris Hedges, Jeremy Scahill, etc.

Who wrote Obama's cover story?

1/17/2010 1:47:03 PM

From GENE KRZYZYNSKI: The celebritification of Newsweek in its latest metamorphosis raises the question of truth in advertising, not to mention the sanctity of the byline.

Did the human being with the toughest job on the planet actually have time to write the magazine's current cover story on deadline? Assuming that the editor knows for sure, perhaps Jon Meacham could help our understanding of "by" with an answer to this simple multiple-choice question:

The writer, or ghostwriter, of "Why Haiti Matters" is

(a) Ben Rhodes.
(b) Jon Favreau.
(c) Denis McDonough.
(d) Barack Obama.
(e) Robert Gibbs.
(f) none of the above.

We're talking about an original piece of writing here, not a speech -- an intensely personal process, not a collaborative one. In journalism, the word "by" ought to mean something. Namely: reality. [Permalink]

Farewell to the religion beat

1/15/2010 11:46:34 AM

From CATHLEEN FALSANI: After almost 10 year, I just lost my religion gig at the Sun-Times. An extraordinary tenure. I was blessed to be there.

Also, for those of you keeping score at home, that means so far this month the God Beat has lost:

Me
Michael Paulson at the Boston Globe (has become city editor)
Eric Gorski at AP (moving beats to higher ed, i believe)
and the venerable Peter Steinfels at NYT

Know anybody who needs a good religion columnist?

I left the Sun-Times staff as reporter a couple of years ago to concentrate on books, etc., but I've continued on as the religion columnist. That ended yesterday. I was told by Don Hayner, the editor-in-chief and the man who hired me 10 years ago, that it was a budgetary and space issue. Now the paper has no religion reporter (that's been the case for about a year) and no religion columnist.

This turn of events was not entirely unexpected. I saw the writing on the wall last week when there was no room in the physical paper for my Friday column so they ran it online only.

I had an extraordinary run at the Sun-Times and am so grateful for the
opportunities -- professional and personal (I doubt we'd have our son
were it not for the paper: see http://vascosheart.blogspot.com) but I'm sad for the religion beat and do hope to find a new newspaper home for my column.

How made-up facts pass as journalism

1/14/2010 11:32:58 AM

From DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Thank you, Jim Romenesko, for that link to the Tom Bethell article to which Bernie Lunzer takes offense. The offense is in the Bethell piece, not the link.

Bethell's article is a great example of how made-up facts now often pass for journalism.

For another, read the cavalier comments on facts and accuracy by Bill
Shine, a Fox News executive vice president, in the L. A. Times.

It is a sad to see the descent into fabrication by Bethell, who started out writing for The Washington Monthly, a reliable source of facts that for more than 30 years that was often far ahead of the curve in reporting on everything from drone military aircraft in dogfights (early 1970s) to shifting practices in lobbying.

Bethell begins his piece by stating as unattributed fact: "The media just don't publish criticism of unions (or they didn't until very recently...."

This is utter nonsense, as union misdeeds have been a staple of reporting for more than a century at papers with, and without, union
representation for journalists. Given that many newspaper morgues are
now online going back a century it is astonishing that Bethell failed
to check the clips.

Pro-, anti-, factual or fiction, I look to Romenesko for links that inform in a rounded and complete way. And the way to deal with fabrications like Bethell's is to point out the falsehoods, not to discourage awareness of them. [Permalink]

No love for the Guild from Romenesko?

1/13/2010 3:03:22 PM

From BERNIE LUNZER, president, The Newspaper Guild-CWA: I'm surprised that Romenesko would post this month-old, anti-union screed. [It's from the current issue of the Spectator. - Romenesko] In fact, contrary to the right-wing American Spectator's argument, Romenesko finds a lot of negative stories about unions and posts them routinely. I've not seen much pro-union. In fact, we rarely get any media coverage at all unless there is a scandal or a work stoppage. And those stories rarely give unions a fair shake, let alone put a "pro-union" spin on matters.

Our members take objective reporting very seriously. To suggest otherwise is just more of the screed. Using Herblock as an example is specious. As an editorial cartoonist he was hired to provide commentary.

Union members in America span the political spectrum. Our foremost goal is to improve the standards of workers, all workers. If that in itself is considered left-of-center, shame on the mindset. On average union workers earn more, which should surprise no one. That's why most corporations are so anti-union in the U.S. Some of these corporations own newspapers and broadcasters. In the end, it's the management that decides what the coverage is � our union workers don't make that call. The same is true of the other industries mentioned in the article. Management chose which cars to make in Detroit, not the workers.

The writer starts with some bad facts and mischaracterizations, and just spins from there. The diatribe just goes crazy. Again, I'm curious as to why Romenesko would choose to post such an ideological rant. [Permalink]

Landman defended

1/13/2010 8:08:56 AM

From VIVIAN SCHILLER, NPR chief executive and former NYTimes.com GM: Since Jon Landman is far too classy a guy to defend himself against a posthumously published attack, I feel compelled to do it for him. While I cannot speak to Landman's role in the Jayson Blair affairs since I was not working closely with the newsroom at the time, I did subsequently work along side Jon for several years. As such, I offer this revision to Boyd's characterization: there is no man of GREATER decent and integrity than Jon Landman. I saw that demonstrated time and time again � as a person and a professional - and it�s on display again in his response to this publication. [Permalink]

Weird job listing

1/11/2010 11:12:34 AM

From SEAN SCULLY: This little listing popped up on JournalismJobs just now and I must say it is the weirdest listing I have seen in ages. Maybe ever. Is this some polite way to outsource jobs with incredibly insulting hourly rates to people overseas? This gets weirder the more I read it. [Permalink]

He's not soft on Cheney

1/6/2010 12:01:35 PM

From MATT WUERKER, Politico cartoonist: I couldn't help but have my fragile cartoonist ego hurt by the building beef out there about the Cheney coverage by Politico.

As part of the slowly shrinking tribe of editorial cartoonists, it's hard not to be a little thin skinned these days, so it pains me to have to point out myself that at least in my little corner of Politico (which runs off our home page) I don't think Cheney's getting a free ride. The bloggers that are all howling about how we're so clearly in the tank for Cheney seem to not read down toward the bottom of our homepage.

To bolster my case I'm attaching three examples from just this past year. I have many more going further back. I know that my little cartoon corner doesn't have nearly the reach that Mike Allen does, but still, even ink-stained wretches hate to be completely overlooked.

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/71146/

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/70836/

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/72875/

A character straight out of a satirical novel

12/28/2009 2:09:13 PM

From ROBERT FOLKENFLIK, Professor Emeritus of English, University of California, Irvine: Re Steve Rhodes' spiked piece. Let me see if I have this straight: Randy Michaels is the assumed name the new CEO of Tribune, who used to wear a rubber penis around his neck and wants to reward reporters by the number of inches they produce? Did Sam Zell get him from a satirical novel? [Permalink]

Re: "NewsHour" guidelines

12/8/2009 6:20:05 PM

From FRANK SPENCER-MOLLOY: I have read and admire the MacNeil/Lehrer journalism guidelines that have served the PBS NewsHour for three decades. But I have a codicil to the commandment to assume there is at least one other side or version to every story, and I am of the opinion that the NewsHour has not always lived up to that amendment.

Indeed, assume there may be three or four or more sides to a story, and assume that when one or more of those sides is lying to you, you have the ethical responsibility, not to take sides, but to point out that fact.

I would like to know that if we are ever again confronted with an administration like the second Bush�s, the NewsHour will go the extra mile to book guests and showcase opinions that run counter to the prevailing D.C. conventional wisdom. Bush and the GOP and many Democrats presented a united front on the Iraq war, the Patriot Act and the denial of torture of U.S. detainees that the NewsHour seemed disinclined to probe further and that has not withstood the test of time.

Yet there were voices of dissent that weren�t afforded an opportunity to sit in the studio. A reflection of reality was often missing on the NewsHour because it called in the usual suspects from the think tanks and the corridors of power, many of whom were not above lying. With the change of format, I will try again to watch the NewsHour, but I am hoping to find an improved presentation. [Permalink]

Who is Mona Sarika?

12/6/2009 2:21:33 PM

From GLENN FLEISHMAN: I'm strangely fascinated by Mona Sarika, because she seemed to get so widely published so fast possibly without anyone establishing that she had any knowledge of journalistic practices. I haven't found anything about her, just about her plagiarism.

Huffington Post followed up the WSJ correction with this article, explaining why HuffPo had pulled everything Sarika had written.

Foreign Policy has pulled her October piece and a Sept. 3 piece.
And someone else pointed out that this problem should have been known as far back as June 2009 when one of her sources explicated the plagiarism.

Apparently, her seeming access to Tamils and Pakistanis and Indians (oh my) blinded U.S. editors to checking her bona fides or confirming any quotes. [Permalink]

Guidelines worth sharing

12/6/2009 2:10:04 PM

From GENE KRZYZYNSKI: Given that its audience is only about 2.7 million, an awful lot of people missed Friday's final PBS newscast carrying the name "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Toward the end, the anchor shared the guidelines for what he called MacNeil/Lehrer journalism, and they're worth sharing with everyone:

-- Do nothing I cannot defend.

-- Cover, write and present every story with the care I would want if the story were about me.

-- Assume there is at least one other side or version to every story.

-- Assume the viewer is as smart and as caring and as good a person as I am. Assume the same about all people on whom I report.

-- Assume personal lives are a private matter until a legitimate turn in the story absolutely mandates otherwise.

-- Carefully separate opinion and analysis from straight news stories, and clearly label everything.

-- Do not use anonymous sources or blind quotes except on rare and monumental occasions. No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously.

-- I am not in the entertainment business.

For nearly a half-century, both as individual reporters and as a broadcast team, Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer have left many gifts for their profession. Foremost among them is what this list embodies: a high bar. [Permalink]

Mudd's wrong

11/19/2009 1:29:15 PM

From HOWARD W. ROSENBERG: I'm a former reporter who used to consider himself a news junkie � especially for being sucked into watching CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. I now only watch the three network evening news shows (usually taped on my VCR) and the NewsHour on PBS and read several daily newspapers. So when Roger Mudd says that the three, 30-minute network evening news shows can be easily done away with, he is ignoring the stunning fact that it's possible for people who would otherwise gorge themselves on "developing stories" and crosstalk to get a daily fix of TV news (by taping, if necessary, the three shows) and thus not devoting so much of their lives to following "developing stories." A refreshing thing about the three networks is that they don't try to suck you in anywhere near as much as the cable news networks do. Consider that something that "old media" does well compared to "relatively new media." [Permalink]

Justice Kennedy and the press

11/18/2009 3:50:18 PM

From JOHN MAGGS: Subject: Justice Kennedy and the press. There is a "dog ate my homework" tone to the judge's complaint that he is being misjudged for the flap about his staff's efforts to censor (that's what it is when the government does it) a high school newspaper. Based on his interview with the Wall Street Journal, one wonders if he would otherwise care if he hadn't gotten an earful from those unnamed relatives. And that really captures the circumstances that led to this incident, and the judge's inability to see that it matters. The actual problem is the insularity of the federal courts, and the Supreme Court in particular, and contempt for the public's right to see what this co-equal branch of the government is doing. At this late date, the Supremes pretend as if it is sufficient to allow the same level of transparency for their activities that was appropriate in the 19th century. They pretend as if speeches to law schools and professional groups are "private" affairs, and they refuse to explain their decisions in the same way that all other parts of the government account for themselves -- through the press.

Justice Kennedy has a reputedly keen mind, but his argumentation in this case is pretty dull. In a time-honored tactic for blame-shifting, he said he "accepted responsibility" for the miscommunication that led to the flap, while trying to evade responsibility by claiming that it was all the fault of a subordinate. Then he tries to blame the messenger, the New York Times: "What a stupid story" -- without bothering to say why it was stupid. He petulantly refers to his "forty years of teaching" implying that this selfless service to America's youth was being repaid with impertinence by the school newspaper that leaked the story to the New York Times.

Then he pulls a cheap rhetorical trick, trying to claim that the Times absurdly implies that a Supreme Court Justice would spend his time rewriting high school newspaper stories: "'There was a clear suggestion that was based on a factual premise that was wrong' -- that he wanted to edit the student newspaper's articles." Actually the article correctly said that "Justice Kennedy's Office" wanted to edit the article.

Kennedy shows his sympathy for the plight of the news media, practically shedding tears about newspaper layoffs, to show how silly it is to accuse him of ignoring first amendment rights. If he really wanted to help newspapers, he'd actually advocate transparency in the federal judiciary that would increase the tiny number of reporters who subsist on the trickle of news allowed by the judges.

Finally, and most condescendingly, he says that his hewing to the Supreme Court's secrecy fetish is really done out of consideration for those poor students (the ones who dropped a dime on him) because he'd hate for them to be embarassed if the the mean old New York Times made their questions sound stupid. Alas, he's the one who sounds that way. [Permalink]

Re CJR's piece on Pfizer

11/18/2009 1:29:41 PM

From TED MANN: I'm a staff writer at The Day in New London, Conn., which was recently in the news - and fodder for journalism critics - over coverage of Pfizer's decision to pull out of this city, years after it triggered the takings of private property that yielded the U.S. Supreme Court case in Kelo v. New London.

Coverage of the Pfizer story came in for a partially justified critique over at the Columbia Journalism Review, but that critique also badly misstated the way our paper, the local news source and the paper of record for the Kelo case and Pfizer's remaking of the Fort Trumbull peninsula, covered this as it happened. I sent the following email to CJR, but never heard back and have yet to see any sort of follow-up post correcting the record. So I thought I'd pass the issue on to your readers.

A lot of ink has been spilled on this case by media both local and national, some of that work great and some of it less so. There's plenty of room for criticism. But that criticism should reflect what actually got printed.

Ted Mann
Staff writter
The Day of New London
______________________________________________

From: Mann, Ted
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 1:36 PM
To: 'rc2538@columbia.edu'
Cc: Collins, David; Robinson, Kenton
Subject: Your post on Kelo

Ryan,

As you can imagine, since I wrote one of The Day's follow up stories on Pfizer's pull-out and the Kelo case, I read your CJR post with interest. First, I wanted to send you a link to the story I wrote, since the one that you posted appears to be a busted link. I think our story stands with anything any other paper's written on the subject, and would like people to be able to see it.

Here's the story.

Second, while I realize you're talking more about the national press, I think it's unfair to say the Times was "first out of the gate" in its response to this news. Our story came out days before theirs did, and as you will see it also broke some news: namely, that Pfizer had far more interest in some of the land directly seized from property owners (as opposed to the land on which it actually built its headquarters) than the company has ever let on. Furthermore, that story linked to one that I wrote back in 2005 that more comprehensively disproved the company's denials that it had any involvement in the design of the Fort Trumbull redevelopment project. It has always confounded me that that story didn't ever merit a real mention by the national press who had covered the Supreme Court case and faithfully published the company's denials. That 2005 story is here. BIZpharma, the project map that ABC News flashed onscreen during its report last night came from this article, and from months of negotiating with the state to turn it over to us.)

Obviously, this is pretty typical frustration -- we're closer to the story, and don't get as much attention because of our size compared to the bigger outlets that parachute in for a moment. And I and others here have worked on these pieces for years, so it's a little galling when people who haven't actually read our paper over the course of this decade-long saga suggest we haven't been doing our job.

But there is one clear error in your post. Our paper did have a same-day piece that focused on Pfizer, the Fort Trumbull redevelopment project, and the remains of the neighborhood. It was written by our metro columnist, David Collins. I think the reason that the business stories on the effect of Pfizer's departure dealt with the Kelo issue in passing was specifically because David would be writing about Fort Trumbull in his column, and I'd be writing a separate story on the history of the case. Mine would have run the same day but for one other development - that's also the day the governor announced she wouldn't be seeking a second term.

David's column is here.

Anyway, thanks for calling attention to this story in the first place. As you can tell, I am in firm agreement that it remains a very, very big deal, however misunderstood -- or simply manipulated -- some of the facts of the case have become.

Sincerely,

Ted Mann

[Permalink]

Save the archives!

11/17/2009 8:49:33 AM

From BILL DOBBS: Subject -- What about the Window Media archives? Over the years publications that target gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender audiences have come and gone -- witness today's tumult at Window Media LLC. A key newsweekly, The Washington Blade, may be no more after celebrating its 40th anniversary last month.

There's one very important angle that gets overlooked when minority media outlets go out of existence: archives. In today�s digital world, what happens to the online archives? Earlier this year the New York Blade shut down and all its online searchable back issues vanished. The same thing happened when Lesbian Gay New York (LGNY) declared bankruptcy -- years of issues that had been available and searchable online were gone. A new publication took up where LGNY left off -- Gay City News -- but what about all that community history, the public record of political and cultural matters? In the wake of the Washington Blade�s demise there are reports that another publication may arise, perhaps staffed with former Blade employees. I sure hope so � gay community publications have a vital role to play even in an era when major media outlets have pumped up their coverage of sexual minority issues. I also hope Window Media LLC's owners/shareholders will keep the Washington Blade, Southern Voice, South Florida Blade, etc. archives � online and otherwise -- available. Publisher, editors, writers -- and GLBT communities -- have a responsibility to ensure that such archives remain intact and widely accessible. [Permalink]

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