Maynard Institute archives

Newsrooms Becoming “Niche Operations”

by richard0532

Pew Study Warns Opinion Can’t Replace Reporting

Growing Numbers Think Health Care Reform Will Pass

Latinos, Blacks, Get Less than 2% of Stimulus

70% Say Federal Government Is Still Secretive

BET’s Debra Lee Convenes Women to Discuss Images

Shannon Buggs Leaves Houston Chronicle

Columnists Reflect During Women’s History Month

Nominations Open for Ida B. Wells Award

Short Takes

In California, the Ventura County Star newsroom went from 95 to 63 employees in six years. Last month, it announced it was transferring the work of its copy desks to the Caller-Times, a sister E.W. Scripps Co. newspaper in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Pew Study Warns Opinion Can’t Replace Reporting

"Perhaps one concept identifies most clearly what is going on in journalism: Most news organizations – new or old- are becoming niche operations, more specific in focus, brand and appeal and narrower, necessarily, in ambition.

"Old media are trying to imagine the new smaller newsroom of the future in the relic of their old ones. New media are imagining the new newsroom from a blank slate and news ecosystem," said the latest report from the Pew Research Center’s Project For Excellence In Journalism, "State of the News Media 2010."

"Among the critical questions all this will pose: Is there some collaborative model that would allow citizens and journalists to have the best of both worlds and add more capacity here? What ethical values about news will settle in at these sites? Will legacy and new media continue to cooperate more, sharing stories and pooling resources, and if they do, how can one operation vouch for the fairness and accuracy of something they did not produce?

"The year ahead will not settle any of these. But the urgency of these questions will become more pronounced. And ultimately the players may be quite different."

Is there a correlation between audience decline and staff diversity?The report also said, "The notion that the news media are shrinking is mistaken. What is shrinking, though, is original reporting, and the growth of commentary and opinion online is not providing users with enough of the independently-reported information they need to make good decisions about civic life. Digital media start-ups continue to rely on legacy news organizations for expensive, hard-to-get reporting, but those organizations are producing less and less of such content as they continue to trim their ranks. All of which pinpoints what is perhaps journalism’s most critical funding question: Who will pay for public interest news that provides the fodder for so much of the discussion and argument growing so swiftly online?"

The study quantified the loss of reporting firepower.

"The losses are already enormous," the Poynter Institute’s Bill Mitchell said in the report. "To quantify the impact, with colleague Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute, we estimate that the newspaper industry has lost $1.6 billion in annual reporting and editing capacity since 2000, or roughly 30%. That leaves an estimated $4.4 billion remaining. Even if the economy improves we predict more cuts in 2010.

"Network news division resources are likely down from their peak in the late 1980s by more than half — which amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars — and new rounds of cuts came in the last 12 months. Local television is harder to gauge, but one estimate puts the losses in the last two years at over 1,600 jobs, or roughly 6%. Staffing at the news magazines Time and Newsweek since 1983 is down by 47%."

Dori J. Maynard, president of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, saw a connection between declining audiences and diversity.

"While the study notes declining audiences among people of color and increasing audiences for some ethnic news organizations, it is disappointing that it fails to connect the dots and examine the role that legacy news organization’s diminishing commitment to diversity is playing in its continued decline," she told Journal-isms. "Some might argue that by failing to have a staff culturally competent to cover the totality of the community, many news organizations are producing content that fails to connect with large segments of the potential audience."

The report noted that "the ethnic news media managed to stay in relatively good health, despite the worst recession since the Great Depression, although some bruises and scars were picked up along the way.

"Some segments fared noticeably better than their mainstream counterparts. While ad revenue for television over all fell 8.3% through the first three quarters of 2009, for instance, Spanish-language television ad revenue fell by just 0.7%. And African American television ad revenue rose 31% compared with the same period in 2008.

"There were areas of trouble. Several publications closed, consolidated or cut back how often they appeared and an attempt to create a national Hispanic newspaper failed. Black magazines took a severe battering even by the standards of the beleaguered magazine industry. Arab publications struggled to produce advertising revenue and a handful of planned television channels delayed launch dates.

"Perhaps more than anything else, 2009 spoke to both the unique appeal and particular fragility of media outlets that appeal to specific ethnic groups."

President Obama stumps for health insurance reform Monday at the Walter F. Ehrenfelt Recreation and Senior Center in Strongsville, Ohio. A growing minority thinks health care legislation will pass, the Pew Research Center says. (Credit: Pete Souza/White House)

Growing Numbers Think Health Care Reform Will Pass

"As Americans continue to track the debate over health care reform closely, a growing minority — now 39% — says they think health care legislation will pass this year," the Pew Research Center reported on Wednesday. "Just before the Feb. 25 bipartisan summit at the White House to discuss the stymied legislation, 27% said they thought a bill would pass in 2010.

"In contrast, the latest News Interest Index survey, conducted March 5-8 among 1,017 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, shows little change in perceptions of the tone of economic news. Two-thirds (66%) say they are hearing a mix of good and bad news about the economy; 30% say they are hearing mostly bad news. These numbers have fluctuated only slightly in recent months.

"On health care, more than half (52%) still say they do not think a bill will pass this year, but that is down 10 points from just before the televised meeting of lawmakers from both parties and President Obama."

Latinos, Blacks Get Less than 2% of Stimulus Contracts

"Hispanic and black businesses are receiving a disproportionately small number of federal stimulus contracts, creating a rising chorus of demands for the Obama administration to be more inclusive and more closely track who receives government-financed work," Jesse Washington reported last week for the Associated Press.

"Latinos and blacks have faced obstacles to winning government contracts long before the stimulus. They own 6.8 and 5.2 percent of all businesses, respectively, according to census figures. Yet Latino-owned business have received only 1.7 percent of $46 billion in federal stimulus contracts recorded in U.S. government data, and black-owned businesses have received just 1.1 percent.

"That pot of money is just a small fraction of the $862 billion economic stimulus law. Billions more have been given to states, which have used the money to award contracts of their own.

"Minority businesses are often too small to compete for projects; do not have access to the necessary capital, equipment or bonding requirements; or lose bids to companies with well-established relationships. There also has been an emphasis on spending stimulus money quickly, which favors businesses that have won past contracts.

" . . . The Obama administration has taken steps to address minority concerns. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wrote governors in December urging them to work with disadvantaged businesses. LaHood suggested unbundling large contracts to make them more accessible to small businesses, and emulating a Missouri contracting project that made community groups and openness part of the process.

"LaHood’s department has pledged $20 million in subsidies to help disadvantaged businesses pay bonding premiums and fees, and has established a short-term loan program that lent $4.9 million in 2009. Last month, LaHood announced $9.9 million in grants to help businesses owned by minorities and women compete for federal contracts.

"Federal agencies held more than 300 events nationwide to educate minority businesses about stimulus opportunities, said White House spokesman Corey Ealons. He also said there is a backlog of awarded contracts that have not yet been entered into the tracking database."

70% Say Federal Government Is Still Secretive

"Public cynicism that the federal government operates in an atmosphere of secrecy is as strong as ever, despite President Barack Obama’s promises to make government information more easily available to the public," Thomas Hargrove reported Sunday for Scripps Howard News Service.

"A new survey of 1,001 adult residents of the United States found that 70 percent believe that the federal government is either ‘very secretive’ or ‘somewhat secretive.’ The largest portion of respondents, 44 percent, said it is ‘very secretive.’

"That matches the worst rating the federal government received during the final year of George W. Bush’s presidency.

"The poll is part of a five-year series of studies into public attitudes toward government openness commissioned by the American Society of News Editors. It was conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University. The latest survey is being released Sunday, the beginning of National Sunshine Week.

"The survey also found that people believe state and local governments tend to be much more ‘open and transparent’ in their operations than the federal government. Only 36 percent believe their local governments are very or somewhat secretive. Forty-eight percent said the same of their state governments."

BET’s Debra Lee Convenes Women to Discuss Images

Ebony's Harriette Cole, left, BET's Loretha Jones and Essence's Mikki Taylor spoke about strong black women at Black Entertainment Television 'summit'. (Credit: Mark Gail/Washington Post)Debra Lee, chief executive of Black Entertainment Television, convened 130 successful black women — "influential in politics, entertainment and nonprofits — at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel to talk about portrayals of black women in the media, the problems facing black girls in urban schools, the state of the black family and other weighty issues," Krissah Thompson reported Saturday in the Washington Post.

"The two-day summit ‚Äî a first for BET ‚Äî was her idea. Lee said it came to her after the BET Awards last year, which included a controversial performance by hip-hop artists Lil Wayne and Drake, who brought underage girls onto the stage to dance while they rapped ‘I wish I could [expletive] every girl in the world.’

"’I just still feel like, as much as we’ve tried, it’s still a heavily male dominated music genre,’ Lee said, describing her feeling after the 2009 awards show.

"She said her thoughts turned from the show to the scene in Washington, where Lee has mingled with first lady Michelle Obama, presidential senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, domestic policy chief Melody Barnes and other African American women at the center of power. Then, Lee said, she took out her Rolodex of successful black women and phoned Essence’s Beauty and Cover Director Mikki Taylor, political commentator Donna Brazile, journalist and author Gwen Ifill, actresses Tatyana Ali and Tasha Smith, and others."

Shannon Buggs Leaves Houston Chronicle

Shannon BuggsShannon Buggs said goodbye Monday to readers of her personal finance column in the Houston Chronicle, ending nearly 11 years at the paper.

"I am most proud of using this column space to explore historical inequities and moral quandaries," she wrote.

"Practices like redlining, which limited access to mortgages in some neighborhoods, and mommy tracking, which forced many women onto less promising career paths,have contributed to money habits and social expectations that undermine financial goals.

"The wealth gap so many folks are trying to close with careful investing has origins in national laws and policies that privileged some over others."

She quoted poet Nikki Giovanni.

A Houston native, Buggs returned to her hometown after working at the Raleigh (N.C.) News and Observer. She told Journal-isms that she planned to freelance while she mulls over job offers and would continue her work with Meta-Four, a spoken-word poetry organization she founded for young people 13 to 19.

Columnists Reflect During Women’s History Month

March, Women’s History Month, has prompted columnists of color to reflect on the absence of a statue honoring civil rights figure Fannie Lou Hamer, on the keeper of one family’s history and on the story of Henrietta Lacks, the subject of a new book. "Henrietta, a wife and mother of five, died in 1951 at the age of 31 but her cells, trillions and trillions of them, live on," Cary Clack explained in the San Antonio Express-News.

Nominations Open for Ida B. Wells Award

Nominations are being accepted for the 2010 Ida B. Wells Award, presented annually to a media executive, manager or journalist who has made outstanding contributions toward making American newsrooms and news coverage more accurately reflect the communities they serve.

The Wells Award is presented by the National Association of Black Journalists and seeks to give "tangible and highly visible recognition to an individual or group of individuals who have provided distinguished leadership in increasing access and opportunities to people of color in journalism and improving coverage of underrepresented communities."

Bobbi Bowman of the American Society of News Editors receives the Ida B. Wells Award last summer at the National Association of Black Journalists convention. (Credit: Jason Miccolo Johnson/NABJ)First bestowed in 1983, the award is named in honor of the pioneering 19th and early 20th century editor and publisher who was a champion of integration and whose crusade against lynching earned her acclaim on two continents. Professors at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism serve as curators of the award.

Eligibility: Any news executive, manager or journalist who has made significant contributions to newsroom diversity and/or improved coverage of communities of color is eligible for the award.

Nominations: Any person may nominate a candidate for the award by completing a nominating form [PDF] and submitting it along with supporting statements to m-awards@northwestern.edu

Presentations: The 2010 award will be presented during the NABJ annual Convention and Career Fair, which will be held July 28 – Aug. 1 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, Calif.

Past recipients of the award include Jay T. Harris, former publisher of the San Jose Mercury News, Reginald Stuart, corporate recruiter for Knight Ridder, Steve Capus, president of NBC News, Donald Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, Johnita P. Due, senior counsel and Diversity Council chair of CNN, and Bobbi Bowman, diversity director at the American Society of News Editors.

The National Conference of Editorial Writers, a longtime co-sponsor of the award, decided in December to end its involvement, largely for financial reasons.

For more information, contact Charles Whitaker, Northwestern University, Medill School of Journalism, c-whitaker (at) northwestern.edu

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