More on women opinion writers

Mike Peterson, educational services director of the Post-Star in Glens Falls, N.Y., responded to JPROF's earlier posting concerning the dearth of women opinion writers and why women may be less comfortable than men in slinging their opinions around. He makes several good points worth considering and has a word of criticism about Maureen Dowd's logic.

This issue has sparked some varied discussion lately. A good roundup of the current debate can be found in Dahlia Lithwick’s article “Girl Fight: The marginalized debate over women opinion writers” on Slate.com. Lithwick, a senior editor at Slate, says most of the comments about this have come from women themselves. Few men are taking part:

And so a clutch of women are left on the pink margins of the page, to wring our hands and, well, discuss among ourselves. The subtext will thus remain that anyone choosing to speak out on this is somehow hysterical or overemotional; that this is not a "serious" problem since serious people (i.e., men) aren't addressing it. All of which practically guarantees that nothing will be done about defining, measuring, or redressing the issue in the long term. Claims that no man wants to step on the landmine of political correctness, gender stereotyping, and identity politics should not justify bowing out of the conversation. Maureen Dowd, Deborah Tannen, and Anne Applebaum are smart, serious people. They have taken the time to initiate a conversation. They deserve serious responses from men and women alike.

She’s right. Men should join in – as Mike Peterson has done. Here's Peterson’s entire response.More

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Not enough women opinion writers

There aren't enough women opinion writers -- or at least not enough of them make it onto the pages of America's newspapers.

That's the issue, not what Susan Estrich thinks about Michael Kinsley or how he has responded to her, entertaining as all that might be.

That dustup between a couple of high-profile Harvard grads has used up some ink lately, if for no other reason that its escalating nastiness. Here's the essence of it as recounted in a Los Angeles Times article by James Rainey this week. Estrich is a law professor at Southern California, the campaign manager for Michael Dukakis' 1988 presidential campaign, and a syndicated columnist. Kinsley is the former editor of Slate.com, a former host of CNN's Crossfire, and currently the editorial page editor of the Los Angelese Times.

And both are adults. More

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

A simple rule

A picture ought to show what the camera and photographer saw. It's the essence of truth-telling. It's the basis of journalism.

Yet, it's happened again. A prominent photo has been found to be a lie. It isn't what the camera or the photographer saw. It was changed beyond recognition, tampered with, made into a "photo illustration" -- a euphemism, in this case, for "a lie."

And it didn't just happen in some podunk place where journalism is a joke. It happened in a national publication where the editors have had years of professional experience. More on this at JPROF.com.

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

Dan Rather, reporter

Dan Rather has ended 24 years in the anchor's chair at CBS News, a remarkable fact in a couple of ways. When Rather succeeded Walter Cronkite, there were more than a few office pools on how long he could last. Few people were as respected by the public as Cronkite, and the fiesty and passionate Rather was not given much of a chance at taking his place. Rather didn't take his place. Instead, through his good journalism and the force of his personality, he carved out a place of his own.

Another of the remarkable facts about all of this is that in the history of CBS News, there have only been three permanent anchors -- Cronkite, Rather and Douglas Edwards.

For all his years as anchor, however, Rather did not take to that job. He was always a reporter first. He was on the scene, not sitting at the anchor's desk, for most of the biggest stories of the last two generations -- Vietnam, the Kennedy assassination, the Civil Rights movement, Nixon's presidency and resignation, Iran-contra, and on and on. Rather's passion to report a story has never left him. Television -- and the world -- would be a better place if there were fewer of the babblerati and more journalists like Dan Rather.

CBSNews.com has a large section of material -- texts, pictures, video, etc. -- recounting Rather's career.

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

Who is a journalist?

The question of who is a journalist is one of the stickier wickets in the whole question of establishing a shield law for journalists. Telling a journalist from a non-journalist used to be a simple matter (or so it seemed). A journalist was a person employed by a media organization such as a newspaper or television station to gather and report news. Today, a journalist might be the guy who swabs autos at the local carwash by day and then hops on his weblog and reports and writes for an eager audience by night. The question came up a couple of weeks ago in the case of a couple of prominent journalists who are seeking to keep the names of a confidential source from a federal prosecutor, and it prompted this original posting on JPROF.com

The question of is playing out in a different way and in a different courtroom. A New York Times story by Jonathan Glater describes the issue in a California lawsuit where Apple is suing a blogger for publishing inside information about its products. The blogger is claiming protection of his sources under California's shield law. Should the judge rule that the blogger can be considered a journalist, it would open up the shield privilege for many people not working for traditional media outlets such as newspapers and television stations. The story says a ruling could come on this as early as this week.

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

Attacking wordiness

Most of the editing students I have taught over the last three decades share this trait: they are reluctant to change anything in an editing exercise, even when it is obviously wrong. Getting them to where they will correct grammar, spelling and style errors in the first step. But to be good editors, of course, they must go far beyond this. They must learn to recognize and attack wordiness – the heart disease of good writing. Here are some lecture/discussion notes about what to tell editing students about wordiness – how to recognize the symptoms and cure the disease.

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

Remembering "Andy" White

Roger Angell is familiar to many of us as the writer of some great books about baseball. He writes with insight and grace, and for those of us who love the game, he had always increased our pleasure. His day job is that he is a writer for the New Yorker magazine. He is also the stepson of E.B. White, and in this week’s New Yorker – the magazine's 80th anniversary edition – Angell has written a gentle remembrance of the man he knew as “Andy." More at JPROF.com.

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

Nice notice for Web Journalism

Journalism and Mass Communication Educator has given Web Journalism a very nice review. The review describes various parts of the book and says

Because of these core concentrations, this book is likely to assist students in their journalism careers well after they graduate no matter how much technologies and software continue to evolve. The book would be a wonderful addition to beginning reporting and writing courses, as well as serving as a main textbook for courses specifically in multimedia Web reporting and design.

The book was reviewed along with three others in the current issue of JMCE. A PDF file of the entire review can be downloaded from the JPROF web site. The journal does not post its reviews on its web site.

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

Students and the First Amendment

A flurry of news reports -- a good bit of hand-wringing -- have appeared in the last couple of days about a new survey that shows that many high school students do not have much knowledge or regard for the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. A third of the students said the First Amendment goes "too far" in granting rights to Americans. Hodding Carter, the head of the Knight Foundation that sponsored the study, called the results "not only disturbing; they are dangerous. Ignorance about the basics of this free society is a danger to our nation's future."

True, but as is the case with many news reports, stories about this survey have failed to put the numbers into some context.

It would be nice if surveys showed that the number of Americans who fully understood and supported the rights granted by the First Amendment to be at about 90 percent; that the majority of people get it when it comes to the press being a watchdog of government (and it would be nice if more of the press would understand that, too); and that the absence of prior restraint is a deeply ingrained American value that defines who we are.

The fact is that surveys don't show this at all.

The First Amendment Center has been conducting an annual survey about people's attitudes toward the First Amendment since 1997. Paul McMasters in commenting about some of those findings points out the following:

-- 30 percent say the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees; although this is a significant drop from the 49 percent spike in 2002 (apparently related to fear and concern in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001), three in 10 is still an unsettling number.

-- 42 percent say the "press in America has too much freedom," although that number drops to 36 percent when the question is whether "Americans have too much press freedom."

-- 41percent disagree with the statement that newspapers should be allowed to freely criticize the U.S. military.

The results of the Center's 2004 survey are on the JPROF.com web site as a PDF file.

In other words, the students in this latest survey are reflecting the attitudes of adults in this nation -- attitudes that have been around for a while. Is this disturbing? Certainly. People should be more aware and supportive of the rights they have.

Is this a disturbing new trend? Probably not. There seems always to have been a significant number of people who trust the government more than they trust the news media and who do not trust themselves to make up their own minds.

The battle to educate people about the First Amendment continues. These new survey results simply tell us, sadly, that it will have to go on for another generation.

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

Guiding the student photojournalist

Those of us who have advised students publications or web sites know the type: the young man or woman who wants to take pictures. Often there is no one who joins the staff who is more enthusiastic or who expresses more willingness to go to work. The problem is that person has little or no experience. They've seen good pictures, but they don't know how to take them. The challenge for the instructor is to guide that young man or woman in the right direction. Here are some things you should do to help the student photojournalist get started and develop good habits.
(HTML page)
(PDF file)

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

Permanence and the web

Permanence is one of the five most important characteristics of the web (the other four being capacity, immediacy, flexibility, and interactivity), as explained in chapter 1 of Web Journalism. Until now. it has not been the subject of much discussion. But a high-level conference on blogging and journalism at Harvard University last week has spurred thinking about one part of the idea of permanence – archiving.

Many major news organizations, beginning with the New York Times, charge for accessing files that are more than a week or two old. Placing these files behind a tollgate has some important implications for the web and the activities that it has engendered.

More on this.

Update: Mark Glasser of the Online Journalism Review has just posted an article on this topic that gives a more in-depth explanation of the view of newspapers that charge for their archieves. One of the article's conclusions is that while the revenue gained from archive sales and afer-market database sales (such as LexisNexis) is not huge, it is significant, and most news organizations do not want to give that up. (Posted Feb. 3, 2005)

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

Rules for using commas

Ever wish you had a single sheet with all the basic rules for using commas on it? You could hand that to your students and say something like, "Here, learn this. We'll have a test next week. You won't ever have an excuse for misusing a comma again." Well, your dream has been fulfilled. JPROF.com offers a single-sheet PDF file that contains all the basic rules for using a comma -- along with examples for each. The same material is also available on an HTML page. And in the quiz center, there are a couple of comma quizzes you can use to help your students learn the rules.


Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.