Winter newsletter, Jan. 16 meeting

NINA's Winter 2008-09 newsletter is available now online in PDF format. The snail-mail version should show up in your newsroom the first week of January.

One key item: The board meeting on Friday, Jan. 16, is also a general membership meeting for two purposes: to approve NINA's new mission statement (our bylaws require this step), and to set the course for our 2009 workshops and conferences. Any staffer from a NINA-member organization, and any individual member, is welcome to attend. The board meeting starts at 9 a.m. and the general membership meeting is at 10. Location is the Northern Star office in the Campus Life Building, NIU-DeKalb.

Identifying trouble spots for new reporters

A column from Jason Akst of the NIU journalism program:

Forget for a moment the mundane grammatical, stylistic and organizational problems that plague beginning journalists. They are important considerations, but in today’s rant I want focus on conceptual journalistic issues our students battle.

Why? So that, just in case we’re only partially successful at fixing everything below, you know where our training left off when you graciously and wisely hire our talented, bright young journalists.

Let’s talk about Me

"The story is not about you!" Ad nauseum, I emphasize that beginning news writers are not columnists. I include the part about how there’s no complete objectivity, but when we construct news stories, as much as possible, we’re supposed to be accurate, impartial, dispassionate, careful observers and transmitters of what happened.

Deaf ears. Perhaps because of Facebook, texting, blogging, K-12 emphasis on personal expression, all of the above, novice journalists find it increasingly difficult to keep themselves out of the story. The signals aren’t subtle. They write, "I think that …."

Numbers, schmumbers

No matter the topic, I emote, good stories are a smooth, potent blend of humanity and data. "Humanity" comes from good quotes, descriptions, narrative, etc.; "data" comes from information upon which those good quotes, descriptions, narrative, etc. rely. News revolves around reports, deaths/injuries, statistics, research … something that measures something.

They get the concept of compelling storytelling, and that’s important, but we’re supposed to tell nonfiction stories, and the nonfiction part comes from the numbers. They don’t like that, often don’t understand the information upon which stories are based, and struggle with incorporating information into the story.

According to this Web site …

We have created the monster that’s eating us. Even though students know that just about anybody can construct a Web site and make it seem real, they just can’t break away from using the Internet as primary – and only – source material.

I can’t tell you how many stories I read that say something like, "According to blahblahblah.com …." No mention talking with anyone at the Web site, no effort to talk to actual people. Just the idea that information on the Web is good enough is very troubling.

Report, yes; cheerlead, no

I blast editorialization because I think bloviating journalists (in places other than the Op/Ed section) give our profession the black eye we all-too-often deserve. Later we can debate a responsible level of advocacy, but in a basic news writing class, I focus on the layup, not the alley oop.

Interesting, however, is that when my students editorialize, overwhelmingly, they cheerlead rather than criticize. Over the past decade or so, the harshest media analysis seems to point mainstream media’s disinterest/inability to dissect and critique policy and policymakers in both public and private sectors. If anything, we should train our students to be more critical and less supportive.

News, yes. Paper? Maybe

The American Society of Newspaper Editors is considering removing "paper" from that name. Which is similar to the conversation we've been having within NINA.

"It is time for ASNE to recognize in its name and its membership that we are way beyond print-only newspapers," president Charlotte Hall said. "All journalists are now digital news producers, and while print remains an important delivery mode, more and more news is being produced only for the Web."

We have an opportunity

A collective gasp emanated from newsrooms today when the Detroit News and Free Press announced they no longer will provide home delivery on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Are we, as one colleague in college media put it, witnessing the death of a major newspaper? Or is this just an accelerated shift toward what all newspapers will look like in the near future?

Those of us who work in newspapers can’t imagine not having one at our breakfast tables, or at our desks when we arrive to work in the morning. But ask a roomful of college students – even journalism majors – how many of their families have a daily newspaper delivered to their homes. I’ve done this for several years, and the percentage is quickly diminishing. It’s about 33 percent in a good class, and more like 20 to 25 percent in most.

Ironically, today’s news, and last week’s bankruptcy filing by the Chicago Tribune, come at a time when the importance of watchdog reporting could not be clearer to the nation. Without pressure via diligent reporting from the Tribune and Sun-Times, would this kind of heat have reached the governor? Illinois is an international joke right now, but we’ve finally taken a step in the right direction.

Newspapers always have done a bad job of, as they say in the PR business, telling their story. We don’t spend a lot of effort promoting our importance to democracy … or the fact that we do most of the heavy lifting for our broadcast-news brethren, who then take our stories, add some superficial reporting and present them as their own.

We have an opportunity in Illinois, where this month even the least news-conscious citizens are realizing the danger of unchecked government. Newspapers have never been more important in this state. We can help illuminate the path toward good government and restored public trust.

And we can let people know we’re doing it: in our own news products, by word of mouth among opinion leaders, even by a coordinated public-service ad campaign in print, broadcast and online media.

Otherwise, citizens may not know what they have until it’s too late.

'Finish line of my 50-year dash'

It's about time we saw some news from our industry that elicits a smile rather than a panic attack. Here's one such item: Bob Frisk retired this month after 50 YEARS of covering high-school sports for the Daily Herald. In his final column, published Dec. 5, Bob refers to retirement as "the finish line of my 50-year dash."

You can't put 50 years of your life into something without having it become a part of you. Yes, I am retiring, but a part of me is staying on and, hopefully, will remain in the positive way the Daily Herald covers high school sports and the way our reporters continue to understand they are dealing with impressionable teenagers and not prima donna and overpaid professionals.

Here's a sampling of praise from Daily Herald colleagues: Barry Rozner, Jim Slusher, John Radtke and Marty Maciaszek.

Time for NINA to revisit its mission

From Sharon Boehlefeld, NINA's outgoing president:

As we’ve talked about conferences and workshops during the past few years, the NINA board has repeatedly discussed what we can do that will be most valuable to newspaper journalists in a multi-media world.

Last summer, we started talking about whether we should redefine ourselves in light of the new media realities. After all, even the smallest papers among our members are dabbling with Web sites. The largest are leading the way with a variety of multimedia platforms and partnerships with radio and television.

Board members also have talked briefly about whether we should change our name from Northern Illinois Newspaper Association to Northern Illinois News Association. In a straw poll at our fall banquet, about half the room supported a change. We aren’t yet bringing that to a membership vote, but we welcome pro and con discussion from our members here on Digital Ink.

At our October board meeting, an ad hoc committee (Rick Nagel, Lonny Cain, Roger Ruthhart and Jim Killam) presented a proposal for a new mission statement. Our current statement reads: "NINA is an organization of newspaper professionals dedicated to advancing print journalism, print-journalism education and training in northern Illinois."

Knowing that few of us are still only “print” journalists – even as we acknowledge a preference for the medium – the committee attempted to come up with a broader statement. The proposal reads: "NINA’s mission is to advance the quality, integrity and credibility of journalism and journalism education in northern Illinois."

We all know our industry is reeling from changes, both in and out of our control. Printed newspapers are, in a sense, an endangered species. Yet, it was the printed word – the press – for which the First Amendment was penned.

We all believe our medium is still critically important in our communities, and will probably have some kind of future for years to come. We remain dedicated to professional standards in news gathering and reporting, professional standards that we believe should not disappear just because our means of delivering news may change.

But, just because this board thinks our organization might need some redirection as we move into the future, that doesn’t mean our membership sees things the same way. At our fall conference, I briefly explained the board’s discussions and read the current and proposed versions of the mission statement. I also invited comments here on Digital Ink. The comment period remains open until Jan. 15.

A change of the mission statement requires approval of two-thirds of members voting at a general membership meeting. A general meeting, part of our Jan. 16 board session, will begin at 10 a.m. in the Student Life building on the campus of Northern Illinois University. Please join us as we take the vote on our mission statement.

No holiday cheer here

Yikes. Editor & Publisher reports this week that a major credit-ratings firm predicts ...

Newspaper and newspaper groups are likely to default on their debt and go out of business next year -- leaving "several cities" with no daily newspaper at all, Fitch Ratings says in a report on media released Wednesday." Fitch believes more newspapers and newspaper groups will default, be shut down and be liquidated in 2009 and several cities could go without a daily print newspaper by 2010," the Chicago-based credit ratings firm said in a report on the outlook for U.S. media and entertainment.

Fix it

Just received the Dec. 8 issues of Time and Newsweek. Time's cover story is, "How to Fix America's Schools." Newsweek's cover is "How to Fix the World." So, if you're in a fixing mood but also in a hurry, Newsweek would appear to be your more comprehensive choice.

'Black Friday' death points to us, too

Interesting, introspective column by David Carr in today's New York Times, about the Wal-Mart employee being trampled to death on "Black Friday." Carr writes:

The willingness of people to walk over another human being to get at the right price tag raises the question of how they got that way in the first place. But in the search for the usual suspects and parceling of blame, the news media should include themselves.
Just a few days ago, the same newspaper writers and television anchors who are now wearily shaking their heads at the collective bankruptcy of our mass consumer culture were cheering all of it on.

Attention job seekers

Inland Press Association lets you post your resume for free here. They also offer a free directory of newspaper internships. It’s not a comprehensive list, but still.

And a reminder that NINA offers free help-wanted ads for news media and related fields.

The too-much-information age

Fascinating article in the November/December issue of Columbia Journalism Review, about the news media and information overload. The gist is: The news media has spent a disproportionate amount of money, time and resources on "increasing the volume and frequency of production -- sometimes frantically and mindlessly." And that it's only made things more difficult for consumers already overloaded with constant updates and breaking news.

"The best journalism does not merely report and deliver information, it places it in full and proper context," writes author Bree Nordenson. She concludes the long piece:

Ironically, if out of desperation for advertising dollars, news organizations continue to chase eyeballs with snippets and sound bites, they will ultimately lose the war for consumer attention. Readers and viewers will go elsewhere, and so will advertisers. But if news organizations decide to rethink their role and give consumers the context and coherence they want and need in an age of overload, they may just achieve the financial stability they’ve been scrambling for, even as they recapture their public-service mission before it slips away.

What J-schools don’t teach young journalists

Journalism schools try to prepare students for the world that awaits them. We offer tools in reporting, writing, editing, design, photography, new media, law and ethics. Too often, though, one set of tools goes missing: How to deal with trauma.

That was the subject of a workshop at Chicago’s Loyola University last weekend by the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. Attendees ranged from professional journalists to psychologists to high-school and college journalism teachers and advisers. The common theme: Young journalists need this kind of training – and without it, they’re often unprepared for what they encounter.

Young reporters’ first full-time jobs often are police and fire beats. They may be exposed to traffic accidents, natural and man-made disasters, crime scenes and, unfortunately, events like school shootings. Maybe all of those things in a relatively short time period. Even young journalists on sports or government beats almost invariably find themselves called upon to help cover big, traumatic events.

And it may be getting worse.

“We have been pounded left and right with a level of intensity never before seen in journalism,” speaker David Handschuh told workshop attendees. Handschuh brings a special kind of credibility to this conversation. A photographer for the New York Daily News, he was severely injured on 9/11 as one of the World Trade Center towers collapsed. The shock and debris wave hurled him a block through the air and nearly killed him.

“We have to look after the people we interview, and we have to look after each other,” Handschuh said.

A University of Maryland study shows that, in 75 percent of college journalism programs, trauma is not formally taught in any way. Those schools that do teach it usually place it in an ethics class rather than as part of any skills classes.

Here’s what Dart believes all journalists need to know: Even the most cynical and hardened among us can’t escape some basic human characteristics. We are programmed to trust the world. We go about our daily routines assuming we are basically safe. And, we are programmed for survival – that’s the fight-or-flight (or freeze) response. In the face of traumatic events, those two characteristics can clash.

At the Northern Star, we have firsthand experience with the Dart Center and the tremendous work it does. A few weeks after the Feb. 14 NIU campus shootings, Dart dispatched its director, Bruce Shapiro, and board member Deb Nelson to DeKalb. They met first with area journalists who covered the tragedy, and then with the Northern Star staff.

Those sessions helped students and professionals understand and, in some cases, recognize signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. Shapiro said they include:

• Intrusion: Images that just won’t go away. Or, even just a continued sense of unease. Disturbing dreams.
• Hyper-arousal: Extreme sensitivity to potential danger. Jumpiness. Irritability. A short attention span.
• Numbing / avoidance: Avoidance of anything that will arouse those other two problems. The person’s emotional life is constricted. Long-term, you don’t feel things in a normal way.

These symptoms are completely normal immediately following exposure to trauma. It’s also normal for symptoms to show up four to six months after an event, Shapiro said. What should set off alarm bells is if a person experiences all three symptoms for six weeks or more. Left untreated, it can persist for years.

Also of concern is something called vicarious traumatization. Basically, journalists who listen to other people’s traumatic stories – even without an at-the-scene experience – have to be careful, too, Shapiro said. And, we need to realize we can have the same effect on readers and viewers.

It’s not all about PTSD. Journalists through the years have experienced anxiety, depression, substance abuse and relationship breakdowns. Certainly not all of that can be attributed to covering trauma. But as Dart creates a field of knowledge where none existed previously, it’s providing some “aha” moments for journalists, too.

It strikes me that this topic would make a great NINA workshop.

The Africa hoax

Here's Exhibit A for why we continue to need trained journalists who can think critically and who take the time to check things out.

Obama front pages

Here's a powerpoint file with 58 front pages from around the world last Wednesday (courtesy of the Newseum, where you can find even more).

Cheering in the press box?

One interesting note from the Obama rally was that umpteen souvenirs were for sale, even in the media areas, and journalists were buying them right and left (ha!). Obama umbrellas, Obama glowsticks, T-shirts, buttons, etc.

Back in DeKalb, our newsroom did a particular good job, I thought, of ethical behavior. Editors allowed no staffers to wear campaign buttons, either on assignment or in the newsroom. A couple of reporters had shown up wearing Obama buttons, and said they thought it was OK because the paper had endorsed Obama.

Which raises all sorts of questions about endorsements and the perception they may create, both in the public and in the newsroom.

Election and new media

What election coverage did you see online Tuesday night that was particularly innovative?

The Northern Star sent three people to the Obama rally and they sent back Twitter updates all night via cell phone texting. It's given us a blueprint of how to do this for other big events (including sports). We also had two columnists, one on the left and one on the right, live-blogging all evening here and here. When spontaneous celebrations broke out all over campus, we had students shoot video that was posted to our site soon thereafter.

What did others do that worked?

New media and monks

A few big ideas from today’s NINA Fall Conference. Speakers Steve Buttry and Curt Chandler were outstanding, by the way.

Curt’s five tips for becoming a better online journalist:

1. Make a Facebook page and use it every day for a month.

2. Showcase a piece of reader-submitted content.

3. Record some family history and share it.

4. Interact with your Web site by contacting the newsroom with a news tip, and by buying an ad.

5. Read and share a great story every week

And a quote: “ Make the story people care the most about the story we do the best each day.”

Obstacles and monks

At his lunchtime keynote, Steve talked about overcoming obstacles, both in covering a big story and in successfully innovating as a newspaper. A few of his thoughts that I scribbled down:

“Part of our DNA in this business is, we’re going to get the story, no matter the obstacles. That’s the approach we need to take toward innovation.”

He talked about visiting the Guttenberg museum in Mainz, Germany – how emotional it was for him to see original Gutenberg bibles and the history of print. The museum also has pre-Gutenberg Bibles, each handcrafted by monks. Moveable type presented a huge change.

“But their product was a message that they believed in their souls to be the word of God.”

And Gutenberg had given them a new method to deliver that message to the world.

Today, we have a technology that will change the world just as moveable type did in the 15th century. Our product is not ink on paper. It’s vital information. As long as we understand that, then we’ll figure this out.

Contest winners announced

Winners of NINA's 2008 Newspaper Contest were announced today at NIU-DeKalb, and the list is here. Congrats!

More training opportunities this week

From NINA President Sharon Boehlefeld, of The Observer newspaper:

NINA members invited to share training opportunities

If ...

• You didn’t hear Curt Chandler when he spoke to NINA members last spring (or want a refresher before his Friday NINA talk), or
• You’d like to learn more about Web publishing from one of our own NINA board members – Denise Renckens of The Daily Journal in Kankakee, or
• You’d like your ad people to spend a day with Tom Zalabak of and his “Ad-Ucation” school,

then consider joining us for their presentations at the Midwest Regional meeting of the Catholic Press Association Oct. 22 and 23 in Rockford.

We have more program options on both days, and are happy to let NINA members pick and choose at special rates. You can choose to attend one or more sessions.

The sessions will be at the Diocese of Rockford Administration Center, 555 Colman Center Dr., just off the East State Street exit of I90 in Rockford.

Check our Web site at http://observer.rockforddiocese.org for more details. Click on the yellow box with the red type that’s near the top of our home page.

You can pay when you arrive, but please let us know if you’ll be coming as soon as you can.

NINA contest results

NINA contest results are in. While we are not posting the list online until next Friday after the ceremony, we CAN help your papers decide whom to send to the Fall Conference by telling you which of your staffers won something. If you'd like to know this, please call me this week at 815-753-4239. (This takes a few minutes to comb through a long list, but I think phone calls will be easier than typing e-mails.)
And please, only one caller per newspaper.

It's about community

A column by John Puterbaugh, a version of which which originally ran in our Northern Star Alumni newsletter, is on the Poynter site today. John wrote about his experiences during the NIU tragedy last February, and what they taught him about community journalism. Key point:

The work you do will only be as good as how much you care about the people you're doing it for. And you'd better be doing it for the people in the community you care about enough to live and/or work in.

Must-See TV

I watched Tuesday night's debate on CNN, which runs that silly, EKG-looking graphic across the bottom of the screen that tracks whether their focus group likes or dislikes what they're hearing at the moment. And I thought: What would REALLY make for a great TV debate coverage would be to hook both candidates to a polygraph and show THAT readout moving across the screen.

Speaking of which, if you don't already know about it, www.factcheck.org is a really good place to test the claims you hear in debates and campaign speeches. It's pretty even-handed.

Opportunity for journalism educators

This is from Stan Zoller, journalism adviser at Rolling Meadows High School. Please forward to high school journalism educators in your area:

Greetings Journalism Colleagues and Friends,

Your are invited attend the Outreach Academy at the Fall JEA/NSPA National Convention in St. Louis. The deadline for this opportunity is quickly approaching; please respond to me by October 15. The Outreach Academy is a one-day intensive workshop for journalism advisers, AT NO CHARGE!

The convention takes place November 13-16 at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown St. Louis. Participants are all invited to come and learn from the professionals and others just like you. We are expecting around 5,000 participants from across the United States.

Thirty participants can attend the Outreach Academy on Thursday, November 13, along with the rest of the helpful sessions and workshops at the convention. Details are provided below.
Basically, to qualify, teachers should teach in a low-income urban or rural school which is traditionally underrepresented in JEA membership. Ideas, materials, and a wealth of information are available to you as a participant.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please contact marywilliams@u-city.k12.mo.us or marywilliams40@earthlink.net. Application forms are available online at www.jea.org. Just click on the registration booklet and go to page 11. Print out the application and send it to the address listed.

It's (never) gonna happen

Baseball axiom from Wrigley Field last night, penned by Mike Nadel of Gatehouse News Service: It is impossible to field a ground ball with both hands clasped firmly around one's neck.

On mornings like this, I look at the sign on my office door, which has hung there since the day after Brant Brown dropped a fly ball in September 1998: "Being a Cubs fan is like being hit over the head with a mallet every day. After a while you become numb -- but it still hurts in the gut." - Eddie Gold, Chicago Sun-Times

Then I fire up that OTHER Steve Goodman song, the one not sung by drunken frat boys in Wrigleyville: "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request."

And I realize I fell for it again. AGAIN. To mix sports metaphors: Like every other time, Lucy pulled the football away.

Fighting Godzilla

Ever watch old Godzilla movies? In those stories, Godzilla and pals were the result of mutation from nuclear fallout after WWII. Invariably, there’s a scene where the monster is destroying Tokyo and someone suggests using an atomic bomb against him. And the answer is always, “No, that would cause more damage than the monster itself.”

I think that’s basically the debate right now with the financial bailout. Everybody agrees we’ve irresponsibly created a monster, and something has to be done to stop it. The president and some in Congress want to nuke it, while others say handing taxpayers a $700 billion bill would do more damage than the monster itself.

That's a very superficial look, but maybe this is the sort of thing journalists can do right now on a little bit deeper level: Take complex issues and break them down into something readers can understand. We can’t simply take a pass, rely on AP, and say it's too complicated for a bunch of journalists. We can educate ourselves, just as much of America is trying to do. For journalists, sites like Poynter.org are offering all sorts of good ideas to bring the story home to your community. And for background, papers like the Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune are doing a very good job of explaining it all.

NINA Fall Conference

New ways
to tell big stories

DeKalb – NINA’s Oct. 24 Fall Conference features two top-flight speakers, along with our annual awards luncheon.

New media remains a heavy focus for NINA, with the day’s topics centering on new ways to cover big stories, along with steps journalists can take to retrain themselves for an uncertain future.

Steve Buttry, editor of the Gazette and GazetteOnline of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, will talk about "Covering Disaster in the Digital Age." Buttry was brand-new to the Gazette this June when floods ravaged Cedar Rapids. Running on generator power, the paper and Web site heroically continued to publish despite flood waters being just outside the office door.

Buttry will talk about how the Gazette took advantage of new media to provide comprehensive coverage of the disaster.

Our second speaker, Curt Chandler of Penn State University, makes a return visit to DeKalb, after leading our spring conference on new media. Chandler will continue that conversation with "Five Things That Will Make You a Better Online Journalist." He will focus on reporting, social networking and interacting with readers.

Here are some of the attendees’ comments from Chandler’s NINA presentation in April:

• "This guy was great. This workshop helped me start to think about reporting the news in different ways depending on the story."


• "Best, most informative NINA event I have attended."

Fall Conference info

When: Friday, Oct. 24, 2008

Schedule:
8:30: Registration / refreshments
9-10: Steve Buttry
10-10:15 Break
10:15-11:30: Curt Chandler
11:30-11:50: Q&A with speakers
Noon: Awards luncheon and keynote by Steve Buttry

Sessions venue: Campus Life Building, Room 100, NIU-DeKalb

Awards Luncheon venue: Duke Ellington Ballroom, Holmes Student Center, NIU-DeKalb

Cost: $60 for the first attendee from each newspaper; $30 for each additional person; $20 if attending the workshops only.

Parking: Use the Newman Center lot, just north of the Campus Life Building on Newman Lane. Parking pass available here. If the Newman lot is full, use the NIU visitor lot (follow signs off Lincoln Highway).

Registration deadline: Friday, Oct. 17. Registration form is here.

Questions? Contact Valerie Clawson at 815-753-1564, or vclawson@niu.edu.

About our speakers

Steve Buttry joined The (Cedar Rapids) Gazette and GazetteOnline as editor this year. He has spent 37 years in journalism, starting his senior year of high school as a sports writer at The Evening Sentinel in Shenandoah, Iowa. He has been a reporter, editor and writing coach for the Des Moines Register, Kansas City Star and Times, Minot Daily News and Omaha World-Herald. Steve has been training journalists and newspaper executives for more than 11 years. He has trained and consulted at more than 200 newspapers, conferences and seminars in 40 states, eight Canadian provinces, Mexico, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Ecuador. Before joining The Gazette, he spent three years with the American Press Institute, focusing mostly on teaching and research in the Newspaper Next innovation project. He remains affiliated with API, conducting the Upholding and Updating Ethical Standards seminar series.

Curt Chandler is senior lecturer specializing in multimedia reporting at Penn State University. Before entering the academic world last summer, he was the editor for online innovation at the post-gazette.com in Pittsburgh. Curt has a degree in newspaper writing from Northwestern University and more than 25 years of newspaper experience as a visual journalist, manager and online editor. He also worked for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Ogden (Utah) Standard-Examiner and the Pueblo (Colo.) Chieftan. He has conducted multimedia training in newsroom and seminars for working journalists in addition to working in the classroom with students who aspire to be journalists.

Troublesome trends

A column from NINA's Fall '08 newsletter by NIU's Jason Akst:

Troublesome trends
land close to home

I dance maniacally when the checkbook balances, so it’s troublesome when somebody like me sounds an alarm on news numbers.

We already know most measures of the print news business paint a gloomy picture, but a new national study (while surely confirming the gloom) also indicates opportunity.

According to "Audience Segments in a Changing News Environment," released by The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press on Aug. 18, print newspaper readership is hemorrhaging.

"This year for the first time in roughly 15 years of asking the question, fewer than half of all Americans report reading a daily newspaper on a regular basis. Only 46% say they read the paper regularly - this number is down from 52% in 2006 and was as high as 71% in 1992," the report said, adding that the readership decline between 2006 and 2008 happened across all demographic strata.

The report emphasizes that age continues to correlate strongly with newspaper readership: young people are much less likely to read a daily newspaper. Only 15 percent of people under 25 read a newspaper "yesterday." In the 25-34 age group, 24 percent read a newspaper yesterday, the report said.

However, online newspaper audiences have grown modestly since 2006. "About 13 percent of survey respondents said they read the Web version of a newspaper yesterday, or both the print and online versions, up from 9% two years ago," the report said. "The increase has not made up for the steep loss in print readership (from 34% to 25%)."

The "ah hah!" datum: "Still, online newspapers are gaining readers, especially among people ages 25 to 34," the report said. "The proportion of this age group reporting it read an online newspaper yesterday has doubled — from 9% in 2006 to 19% in 2008."

This report is new, but the trend data is not. Let’s shorthand, because here’s where the rubber meets the road for NINA and our profession:

• Print is down
• Online is up
• Young people don’t read print, but more are starting to read online versions of newspapers.

So even as we fight today’s fires, it seems clear that in order to have tomorrow, we have to do better about getting and keeping young readers, and delivering news the way they like. I’m sure we all get that, but …

Based on other new numbers with which I’m familiar, NINA member efforts in attracting young readers and improving online content are faltering.

I’m coordinating NINA contest judging and the awards luncheon this year. NINA members submitted 615 contest entries. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but those numbers felt pretty solid to me; however, NINA long-timers say entries are low.

Regardless, it’s the subset of contest entries that worries me. In the two contest categories I hoped EVERYBODY would submit something – "Best Effort to Attract Young Readers" and "Best Web Site" – the numbers are dismal.

The Web site category drew seven entries, and the young reader recruitment category drew eight.

Jason Akst is a journalism instructor at Northern Illinois University. Contact him at jakst@niu.edu.

Taking your kids to work

Here's a column by Dirk Johnson from NINA's Fall '08 newsletter.

Take your kid to work;
benefits are many

When my children were younger, I would often bring along a "young apprentice" on a story I was reporting for The New York Times. It was a good way to spend time with a kid. It was also a good way to humanize myself with the people I was covering.

On plenty of these feature stories, the presence of my daughter or son served to break the ice with people I had come to interview. It was especially useful for stories that involved families. It provided common ground, and served to remind people that reporters are people too.

Over the years, my children have played with other kids at housing projects and trailer parks, sat on the laps of Utah polygamist wives and sat at a kitchen table listening to a gay man describe how his own family disowned him as a "sinner."

Being a parent in action, and making a bond with people, it was my experience, typically opened the way for better quotes and more honest, freewheeling discussions. One of my editors at The Times, John Darnton, a Pulitzer Prize winner, once told me he used to take along a child while reporting stories in Eastern Europe during the reign of the old Soviet Union. Even the most hardened Communist party members, he said, tended to soften around kids.

There are stories in which this approach wouldn’t work as well, I suppose, such as interviews with a major politician (although I have taken a child along to many of these, too, including Mayor Richard Daley). Interviews that might turn antagonistic, or involve investigation of wrong-doing, might not be the best place to bring along a kid.

But journalism is more of an art than a science, so it’s impossible to say precisely when it’s a good idea to bring along a kid, and when it’s not. In doing some reporting that got her fired, television reporter Amy Jacobson brought kids along to a pool party hosted by the family of a man being investigated for the disappearance of his wife. Jacobson was wearing a swimsuit, and, after a rival station taped the reporter at work, there was a lot of clucking that she was dressed in an inappropriate way that showed her getting too cozy to sources. I don’t see it that way. Seems to me it makes sense to wear a swimming suit to a pool party. I doubt a male reporter would have been subject to the same scrutiny.

In the end, she was judged guilty of being inappropriate for wearing the bikini to cover the source. But it did seem to help her case, at least with me, that she had brought along her children.


Dirk Johnson is NINA’s executive director. He has spent the past 25 years writing for The New York Times, Newsweek and the Chicago Sun-Times. Currently, he also teaches in the NIU Communication Department. Contact him at sycamoredirk@aol.com.

Chocolate on Brussells sprouts

Relayed from an e-mail from retired NIU journalism prof Avi Bass:

The top editors of the Chicago Tribune are set to unveil the paper's new redesign on "Chicago Tonight" on Monday, September 22, at 7 p.m. on WTTW-11.

The show will be repeated at 1 and 4:30 a.m. Tuesday.

The redesign is set for launch this Sunday ... though you've probably noticed a soft rollout lately on portions of it. Basically, it's going to look a lot more like RedEye.

Question I've heard raised today: "Is the Trib selling out its older readers in an effort to reach younger people who aren't likely to read it anyway?"

I guess my thought is, does one have to equal the other? If you can package the same solid reporting in a visual way that will also engage younger readers, why wouldn't you? I do a design presentation where I liken it to putting chocolate sauce on Brussells sprouts to get people to eat the sprouts.

UPDATE 9/24: The redesign is now set to launch Monday, Sept. 29. Visualeditors.com's Charles Apple reveals a bunch of the new pages.

Old boys and good old boys

Here's a pet peeve that too many politicians and journalists are missing lately. When you hear candidates talk about the “good old boy network,” that’s actually not what they mean. The proper term is “old boy network,” meaning an unofficial system in which men from a particular group or social class exchange favors and connections in politics or business.

On the other hand, this is a good old boy:

Free and easy online help

Here's a post from Denise Renckens, NINA board member and V.P. for Audience Development at the Small Newspaper Group:

Do you love the word "free"? I do, too -- especially when it's in the same sentence as "software."

As an editor, I'm also a big fan of software that help me execute ideas without having to ask for help from programmers. They're great people, but they usually have full plates, and I don't have the patience to wait for my turn in line.

So, for all of you frugal non-programmers with big online ideas and the courage to poke around at unfamiliar software, here are two products that I've recently found useful:

ZeeMaps: This software allows you to build a custom online map and publish it on your Web site. I used ZeeMaps to create a map to accompany a weekly dining column that I write. I used color-coded tacks to indicate the type of business, such as restaurant, bar or coffee shop, and I included custom fields to indicate a business' hours and specials.

If you already have the addresses and information in a spreadsheet, creating your custom map is even easier. Save it to a CSV file and ZeeMaps can import the data. (CSV stands for "comma-separated values", and it should be an export option in your spreadsheet application.) ZeeMaps can also export the data, so your data isn't trapped in the software.

When you are ready to share your creation with the rest of the world, review some settings (such as if you want a legend to appear at the bottom of the map, and what location the map should be centered on) and the HTML code will be generated for you. That code can then be pasted into a Web page. When you add markers or update entries, your changes will appear automatically on any sites using the original HTML.

I've been happy with ZeeMaps and haven't had a reason to try alternatives, but there are other options. One is mapbuilder.net, and Google and Yahoo both give the public access to their mapping engine. However, in the latter cases, the need for a custom API key deterred me from going further.

Sprout Builder: A few months ago I was looking for a way to build a simple Web site. I didn't own a Web development application like Dreamweaver, nor did I have the time to learn to use it.

Sprout Builder saved the day. The Web-based software lets you "build, publish, and manage widgets, mini-sites, mashups, banners and more. Any size, any number of pages. Include video, audio, images and newsfeeds and choose from dozens of pre-built components and web services."

To start a project, choose from numerous Web-standard sizes or indicate a custom size. A handful of templates are available to help you get started. I found them useful as practice projects while learning how the software works. Once a project is created, add and manipulate elements using the various palettes. Insert media, including photos, audio and video. There are also "services" that allow you to insert special functions such as an RSS feed or a Yahoo map.

When you're done, clicking the "Publish" button will generate the initial HTML code or update the code if it's already been published. That means you only have to worry about the HTML once, which is a big plus. After the HTML is embedded somewhere (like a Web site or Facebook page), you can update all instances of your Sprout just by making a change in the Sprout Builder interface and selecting the "publish" button again. To my knowledge, the only change that requires fresh HTML is if you modify the size of your Sprout.

Adapting, mid-career

Good article here from SPJ about journalists adapting to new media in mid-career. Key point from journalism professor Doug Cumming:

“Writing is key. No matter what the medium — that’s the intellectual tool. That’s primary. And no matter what form it takes or the pace or technology, if you got that, then you can learn the new tools. And there’s a lot to learn.”

Font conference

Designers will like this video. If you're not a font geek you probably won't get it. What's astounding to me is how much time and effort somebody put into this.

The next step in cameras

I'm relaying this from my College Media Advisers e-mail list: Nikon is introducing the first digital SLR camera that can also shoot video. My colleague Adam Drew at the University of Texas at Arlington writes this:

What really makes this camera interesting to me is that you can use a full array of lenses, including high power zooms and fisheyes — for video. It will be neat to see how people use prime lenses like the 50mm f/1.4 for shallow depth-of-field and blurred backgrounds. It should do very well in low light since it can use fancy lenses with large apertures. The sensor is also considerably larger than the ones in most camcorders, so the images should have much less noise. The only limitation is that sound is mono and clips are limited to 5 minutes in HD mode, or 20 minutes in regular (640x424) mode.

More info here. Amazon is taking pre-orders and listing it for $1,299.95.

Digital Ink, for real

The October issue of Esquire will feature the world's first digital magazine cover. That means moving, changing images on a paper magazine cover, and it just might change everything.

It runs on a tiny battery that lasts about 90 days. I've heard the magazine will cost $7, with a lot of the cost having been underwritten by Ford Motor Co. Esquire hasn't said exactly what this is going to look like, or whether we're talking words, pictures or both. I'm imagining the digital-print equivalent of Pong.

But still. Can you picture a day in the not-too-distant future when a newsstand will basically be about a hundred TV screens with moving pictures? Or when newspaper pages will be updated via a satellite beam before readers' eyes?

Tons of trade articles on this. Here's a Google search page that will give you a bunch.

Tribune redesign coming

If you haven't heard, the Chicago Tribune's print edition is undergoing a radical redesign, to debut sometime in September. Here's one of several prototypes being circulated.

Editor & Publisher story here.

Back after these important messages

Digital Ink is taking a short hiatus for the end of summer and start of the academic year here at NIU. New posts soon.

Not letting facts get in the way

I mention this link as a firmly undecided voter, so there's no agenda other than good journalism. It's a really interesting look at how a story, not based on fact, still can get a lot of traction when journalists don't do their jobs.

It's from the blog Get Religion and it's about how the press has been quick to report that Obama is getting more support from white evangelicals than have previous Democratic nominees. Turns out, it ain't true. Mollie Ziegler writes:

Now, it may be true that presumptive Republican nominee John McCain has failed to get many folks, including evangelicals, excited about him. But given all the coverage to the contrary, I was somewhat surprised to see the results of a new Pew study that indicates that Obama is getting slightly fewer — that’s right — fewer white evangelical supporters than John Kerry was at the same time four years ago.

Portrait of the NIU killer

This was widely reported last week, but Esquire magazine today has posted its entire long story by David Vann about Steven Kazmierczak, the NIU shooter. It is absolutely chilling, from beginning to end. And it finally answers a lot of questions that have been frustrating this community.

What journalists make

From Payscale.com, here are median salaries in American journalism. There's a good discussion of this today in Mindy McAdams' blog "Teaching Online Journalism."

Median Salary by Job - Degree: Journalism (United States)

Compare your salary: Get a free Salary Report

A Flight to Remember

The Sun-Times News Group has a big multimedia package about the Honor Flight, a movement to transport and pay for WWII vets' trips to the memorial in Washington, D.C. Lots of videos, a live blog and more. There are some wonderful stories here.

interns and bathroom tissue

Two good links to pass along today.

The FIRST is a piece by Adelle Waldman in The New Republic about big-city journalism internships. Often, she writes, they're inaccessible to students who aren't already well-off financially. And they may not be good for journalism, anyway.

There's a social good problem at play when news is delivered by people who harbor such similar ambitions and come from such similar backgrounds, people who have spent their summers in the same cities and have worked at the same types of organizations. Naturally, they are likely to keep spotting and writing about the same types of issues--and keep missing different ones.

The SECOND is a George Carlin bit about soft language. (e.g. "When did toilet paper become bathroom tisue?") Might be good to use at a copy desk meeting. A little bit of foul language, but pretty clean by Carlin's standards. And hilarious.

Outsourced editing

Well, this is novel ...

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- An Indian company will take over copy editing duties for some stories published in The Orange County Register and will handle page layout for a community newspaper at the company ...

Full story here.

Newspapers and debt

The cover story in the June issue of Editor & Publisher does a good job of showing how the newspaper industry is awash in debt. Key line: "Newspapers across the nation are racing to drive down costs so they can service debt with declining or flat revenue streams." Talk about a vicious cycle.
The article is available online to subscribers only, but here's a column by Mark Fitzgerald about McClatchy that pretty well sums up the problem for many others, too.

"We will figure this out"

At an NIU freshman orientation recently, I talked to an incoming student who said, without question, his passion is sports journalism. But he's majoring in elementary education because he's afraid he'd never find a job in journalism.

He does want to work for the Northern Star, so at least there’s a chance. But the conversation got me thinking: As we read news almost every day about newspaper layoffs, we become increasingly gloomy about the state of our industry. We are not a good advertisement. And maybe we’re falling victim to 20th-century thinking. People lamented the decline of the horse and buggy, too, but transportation simply evolved into bigger and better means.

NINA and the Chicago Headline Club sponsored a panel discussion June 12 in Chicago, called, “Deadline: Will Newspapers Survive?” One of the thoughts that stuck with me came from Bill Adee, the Chicago Tribune’s assistant managing editor for innovation.

“We’re getting too hung up on newspapers,” Adee said, admitting that the newspaper industry as we have known it probably is dying. Journalism, he added, is not. “People want what journalists do more than ever.”

Now, whether people are willing to pay for what journalists do is a tougher question. The ultimate answer, I’m convinced, will be yes. Figuring out the best business models is the immediate obstacle, and one that, 50 years from now, might be remembered only as a speed bump.

It’s difficult to take that kind of an aerial view when we’re living at ground level, grinding through a tough transitional time. That’s no small problem for those of us who teach journalism. Sometimes we feel like we’re helping students pack their bags for a train that left two hours ago.
The high-school seniors featured a few posts down on this blog are going to need some convincing from those of us who practice and teach journalism. The next generation is taking cues from us about whether this still can be a great career. If we don’t first convince ourselves, we can’t evangelize.

In fact, the opportunities could be pretty exciting for bright people who aren't afraid of the uncertainty. The catch is, would-be journalists are going to have to be creative and make their own breaks. And many of those breaks won't come in traditional newspapers.

Still, there’s still plenty of room in newspapers for innovative minds. Take Kevin Wendt, an NIU grad who, at age 30, just became editor of the Huntsville (Ala.) Times. The Society for News Design asked him for predictions about the industry. His response: “Just one: We will figure this out. Journalism and newspapers are too important, and there are too many talented people still affiliated with both, for us not to create a sustainable business model that supports what we do.”

So, as the opinion leaders in our industry have begun to realize, it’s time to quit crying in our beer and start reinventing the news business to fit the 21st century. Sure it’s scary at times, but what better time for creative people to be journalists?

Here’s a short checklist as our industry searches for new business models. Sure, it’s idealistic. But that has to be our starting point.

• Get it through our heads that we are not necessarily trying to save newspapers, at least as we know them today. We are trying to help journalism evolve. Whether we’re still reading printed newspapers in 20 years is not the point.
  
• Encourage private ownership. Stockholder-driven journalism is a failed idea. We are not like other industries and we shouldn’t be treated like them. Our success or failure helps determine the course of democracy.
  
• Absent stockholder pressure, reduce profit margins and pay journalists a competitive wage. (Even those in small towns!) For too long, this industry has taken advantage of people who are in it because of passion, not because of money. Well, passion doesn’t pay off student loans. As college costs escalate and grads emerge with more and more debt, we will no longer attract the best and brightest on fast-food wages. Think of the number of suburban journalists who can’t afford to live in the community they cover.
  
• Rethink journalism education. Does it always have to require a four-year degree? Or could intensive two-year programs, paired with real-world experience, train students just as well? Carrying half the student loan debt makes a lower starting salary more palatable.
  
• Commit to professional training at many levels. Brown-bag lunches. Inexpensive, half-day workshops like the ones NINA provides. In-newsroom training from professionals and educators. Travel opportunities like Poynter and the American Press Institute. Publishers, editors, please understand: In tough economic times, slashing the training budget is a huge morale killer. Training makes staffers feel valued and rewarded by their company.
  
• Embrace a smaller footprint. Cover your town better than anyone else. Do not try to cover 40 towns. We’ve seen good papers accomplish this, and make money, but I just don’t think it’s the long-term answer. A newspaper that’s a hundred miles wide and a half-inch deep will not save journalism.
  I think of The Hinsdalean, the paper started by Jim Slonoff and Pam Lannom. It is hyper-local. It covers one ZIP code, Hinsdale’s. It has a tiny staff, it’s doing great journalism and it’s making money. Imagine that.
  
• Remember why we’re here. Invest most heavily in what’s most important: local news. Not entertainment blogs, not food pages or travel pages with information readers could get anywhere. In the most innovative ways possible, show readers what’s happening in their community and why it’s relevant.
  Whatever the technology, citizens always will need convenient access to necessary, reliable local news. If I’m crunched for time, why would I want to read five blogs and try to sift fact from opinion, when I could read one trusted news site or newspaper of record?
  
• Tell inspiring stories. We do this well on our news pages and Web sites, but we don’t do it well in our industry. For the sake of those who come behind us, we need to compile and share success stories of young journalists who have blazed their own trail.

Journalism is anything but a dead-end career. Let’s stop treating it like one. Embrace the challenges and encourage our best and brightest students in our communities to join us.

After all, how often does anyone get to re-invent their whole profession?

A way to help flooded journalists

This comes by way of Steve Buttry, editor of the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette:

In Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Iowa City and other towns in the flood zone, a number of employees from news organizations have had their homes and personal belongings destroyed or severely damaged by the floods ... all while they covered the devastation for their communities.

The Iowa Newspaper Foundation has established a fund to help these employees. You can send tax-deductible checks to Iowa Media Employees Disaster Relief Fund at Iowa Newspaper Foundation, 319 E. 5th St., Des Moines, IA 50309. Or, you can donate online and get more info HERE.

“You can't get flood insurance unless you live in the 100-year flood plain and this flood went beyond the 500-year flood plain, so we truly are looking at a disaster of millennial proportions, with much of the damage uninsured,” Buttry wrote. “And we are only now getting our first glimpses of the devastation in some homes. While we know victims will receive FEMA assistance, we also know that is not enough. We will take steps to ensure that any aid we collect is used only for legitimate flood damage beyond any reimbursement from insurance, FEMA or other public assistance.”

The NINA board voted Friday to donate $300. As newsrooms and individuals, please consider joining this effort to help our colleagues.

Will Newspapers Survive? (Part 2)

Here's part 2 of the video from the June 12 panel discussion in Chicago. It's also available on YouTube.





Thursday update: The Chicago Reader also has a blog entry about the event, here.

Video Report: Will Newspapers Survive?

Here's video 1 from the June 12 panel discussion in Chicago. A second part is coming soon. Please post your thoughts about what the panelists had to say. Also available on YouTube.

Young journalists honored

NINA honored six talented student journalists this spring in its 11th annual Northern Illinois High School Journalist of the Year Scholarship competition. Pictured here is is first-place winner Rebecca Krase of Deerfield High School, receiving the award from Pete Nenni of the Daily Herald. Full story and photos of all winners are posted here.

Graduates shortchanged

Charles Hayes has posted a terrific opinion piece this week on the First Amendment Center's Web site. He argues that high-school seniors are graduating this month "with little or no idea about what it means to be a free, active and engaged citizen in a democracy."

The reason? Censorship in a multitude of forms, usually attributable to cowardice.

... the widespread practice of censoring the political and religious views of students simply because their speech might offend someone or might be controversial contradicts everything schools are supposed to teach about freedom of expression.

Anyway, it's a persuasive argument that schools can't very well teach the First Amendment and then not let their students practice it. Great fodder for local columns or editorials. Or, simply send a copy to your local school administrators.

Deadline: Will Newspapers Survive?

Here's a press release about a very worthwhile event coming up on June 12 in Chicago. Thanks to Dirk Johnson for pulling this together:

In a story that hits too close to home, a panel of prominent Chicago journalists will gather on June 12 for a candid discussion about whether newspapers can survive in the Internet age, with circulation falling and advertising shrinking at almost every big paper in America.

It is hard to imagine life without newspapers. But the bottom line rules. And the question begs: Is print news the horse-and-buggy of the 21st Century communications world?

In a rare and candid conference, award-winning Chicago journalists have agreed to sit down and face the tough questions about what the newspaper business needs to do to survive. The program is set for 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on June 12 at the offices of Mayer Brown LLP, 71 S. Wacker, 33rd Floor. Guests are invited to gather afterward at the Billy Goat tavern, where beer, wine or soda will be compliments of the Northern Illinois Newspaper Association (NINA), one of the sponsors of the event.

The panelists:
Mark Brown, columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times; Bill Adee, Assistant Managing Editor for Innovations for the Chicago Tribune; Monroe Anderson, EbonyJet columnist who formerly worked for Newsweek, the Tribune and WBBM-TV, and served as press secretary for the late Chicago Mayor Eugene Sawyer; Cindy Dampier, former Chicago Bureau Chief for People magazine and currently an editor for the Chicago Tribune; Jim Slonoff, publisher and co-owner of The Hinsdalean; Tom McNamee, editorial page editor of the Chicago Sun-Times; and Eileen Brown, director of innovations at the Daily Herald. The moderator will be Dirk Johnson, a former bureau chief for The New York Times and Newsweek magazine who teaches journalism at Northern Illinois University.

The event is being sponsored by NINA, Chicago Headline Club and Northern Illinois University. Mayer Brown has donated the office space. According to building security policy, people who plan to attend must send an e-mail to Kathy Catranbone at chc.kathy@gmail.com by June 10.

2008 NINA contest

2008 NINA newspaper contest materials have been mailed to members. (I accidentally just typed "NINJA Contest," which I guess we could also do sometime and would be impressive.)

In the meantime, here's everything you'll need for the newspaper contest:
Contest rules and categories
Entry form
Plaque authorization form


Everything's also available on our Web site. Note the postmark deadline for entries: Monday, June 30.

Newsroom innovation

In her "Teaching Online Journalism" blog today, Mindy McAdams forwards 10 tips for fostering newsroom innovation. These are worth circulating in your own newsroom.

Getting a job in journalism

In the midst of a lot of doom-and-gloom talk about the future of journalism, we are graduating a dozen or so students next week who want to get into the biz. Yesterday, I watched a NewsU Webinar called "Getting Your First Journalism Job," by Colleen Eddy of the Poynter Institute and Joe Grimm of the Detroit Free Press. Here are a few notes:

Cover letter
The cover letter MUST address the employer’s needs – not yours. If you are answering a job posting, take note of the qualifications they list and then use the cover letter to show them how you match those qualifications.

Practice a phone script – never get caught off guard if someone calls you back. Have a quick speech ready for when they say, “Tell me about yourself.”

Resume
One of the biggest attention-getters you can have on your resume is experience in multimedia journalism. If you or your paper has won awards and you’ve contributed to that effort, make sure that’s on your resume.

Other resume tips:
- Action verbs that show results achieved and a demonstrated growth pattern
- Clean, clear presentation – judicious use of white space, 11-12 point font (10 point is too small to be read easily by anyone over about 40)
- 1 page, unless you have 10 or more years of experience
- Your name at the top, in big, bold type
- Permanent e-mail and phone number
- A professional-sounding e-mail address
- Test your resume to be sure it photocopies well

An objective is not recommended. It can disqualify you if it’s too specific. Specific objectives are best left for the cover letter. Instead, use a summary line: a dynamic statement about yourself and your best selling points. Example:
"A proven journalist with a record of success in print reporting, editing and multimedia work. Strengths include newsroom management experience and investigative reporting skill."

Don’t put references on your resume. Employers don’t need them yet and it wastes space. Put them on a separate sheet.

A copy of your most recent performance review can serve as a reference, if you don’t want your current employer to know you’re looking for another job.


Clips
If you want to e-mail clips to someone, don’t send image files. They’re too big for some e-mail systems. The best solution is to send links.

A story written for a class is not worth sending if it was never published anywhere. The standard is published clips.

Build your own Web site, with links to your best work. This not only shows your clips, but also shows you can build a Web site.

The interview
Do your homework. Know about the employer, the leadership team, the competition, the company’s print and online history.

Be ready to answer questions like these:
- What are your strengths?
- What’s your biggest weakness?
- Have you ever failed at an assignment? How did you learn from it?
- Tell me about a time you tried and failed.
- Have your values changed over time?
- What’s the ideal job for you?
- Where do you need to improve?
- Have you ever been fired?
(look for opportunities to talk about how you learned from a mistake)

Ask your interviewers for their business cards.

After the interview
- Write an immediate e-mail thank-you note
- Then send a hand-written thank-you note. Those are difficult to ignore, and few people do them.
- After a few days, call or e-mail. “I’m interested. What can I expect next?”

Negotiating
You have a window: after they make an offer and before you accept it.
Get all the info you can, then take a little time before you say yes or no.
Know what’s negotiable: pay, vacations, moving costs, start date, training.
Know what’s probably not negotiable: insurance, retirement plan.


Resources
Joe Grimm’s “Ask the Recruiter” column
Colleen Eddy’s “Colleen on Careers" column

Sex, ads and blow-up dolls

I'm usually not a big fan of Tribune sports columnist Mike Downey, but today's offering is priceless. It's about the Sun-Times' outrage over the White Sox and their blow-up dolls, while at the same time the paper's sports section runs ads for strip clubs, escort services and the like.

... If you are going to condemn a baseball team and its manager for offending the public's taste, then your own house better be squeaky clean.

Does a newspaper weaken its moral authority by the types of ads it accepts? In the eyes of its journalists, probably not. But in the eyes of its readers, I think the answer is yes.

Audio ethics

An interesting ethical question came up this morning when one of our reporters interviewed the university president. The reporter used a digital voice recorder, and of course asked permission to record the interview. At the end, he asked the president if he minded the Star putting part of the interview online as an audio file. The president declined, and said he would have spoken differently had he known the interview might be put on the Web.

So the question is, are "print" reporters legally or ethically obligated to tell a source exactly how an audio recording might be used? My gut reaction is yes, ethically, because we're still at a stage in journalism where if a reporter is not from a TV station or radio station, sources expect to see only a print version of the story. I'm interested in hearing other thoughts on this, though.

2008 NINA contest

In case you're wondering, materials for the 2008 NINA contest will be mailed to member newspapers in the next week or so, and also will be posted here. The period for eligible entries is May 1, 2007, to April 30, 2008. Categories will be basically the same as last year. Entry submission deadline will either be June 23 or 30. Full details soon.

Citizen Journalism Academy

This could be a great opportunity for stringers. Here's part of the press release. Follow the link for more. Note that the registration deadline is this Saturday.

INDIANAPOLIS – The Society of Professional Journalists will launch the first of three Citizen Journalism Academy programs May 17 at DePaul University in Chicago.
The workshop will teach citizens how to practice accurate and ethical journalism. The Society aims to help participants understand how such practices could increase reach and reputations within a specified community and around the world.
“As people are practicing journalism through blogs, Web site production and interaction with sites maintained by mainstream news organizations, they’re contributing to the daily news cycle while influencing how community members get their news and perceive the world around them,” said SPJ President Clint Brewer. “SPJ sees this as an opportunity to help citizen journalists by arming them with the tools they will need to be an effective citizen journalist or community watchdog.”
Topics in these one-day workshops will explore:— Journalism ethics. The new-media landscape is rife with dilemmas for anyone wanting to report accurately, fairly and outside the bounds of special interests.— The basics of media law. The same longstanding laws concerning libel, slander and access to people and information apply to 21st-century news-gatherers.— Access to pubic records and meetings. Public information can add substance and value to every news story. But knowing where to look for it can be tough.— Standard and responsible reporting practices. With media ethics and law in mind, how else should news-gatherers approach sources?— The use of technology. We'll show you an array of tools you could start using — or continue using even more effectively.
The program will take place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The cost to attend the Citizen Journalism Academy is $25, which includes lunch and course materials. For more information about this program or to register, visit SPJ's Citizen Journalism Academy page. Please note, the registration deadline is May 3 and seating is limited.

In praise of quiet leaders

Rockford Register Star Managing Editor Lil Swanson gets
high marks as a newsroom manager from Poynter's Jill Geisler. An excerpt:

Unlike some of us who think by speaking and form ideas as we hear ourselves deliver them, Lil thinks carefully and then offers her ideas. She seems to take great care to make certain that other voices are heard and is careful to never step on people's ideas. Make no mistake, she voiced strong opinions on ethics cases we were discussing, but with a gift for engaging thought, not shutting it down.

Bombastic bosses often think that their volume, sarcasm, or ability to terrify is what gets them results. There's plenty of literature out there that says they're wrong...

The Poynter piece also includes a video interview with Lil.

Some great multimedia work

Here's some of the stuff mentioned either by Curt Chandler or attendees at the NINA workshop:

Dail: Life Unbarred, from the Raleigh News & Observer.

Kingsley's Crossing, from Media Storm (and check out other projects on this site.)

The Las Vegas Sun's multimedia section.

iPhone: The Musical, from David Pogue of the New York Times

And some from Jim:
News Videographer, blog by Angela Grant of the San Antonio Express News.

Roanoke.com's video section.

Obviously this is nothing close to an exhaustive list, and there's also great stuff being produced by some NINA newspapers. But I've found the above links to be worth a look.

More equipment advice

A few more hardware and software suggestions from Curt Chandler's workshop:

Video editing
Curt recommends Sony Vegas as video editing software that’s a little easier to learn (and less expensive) than Apple's Final Cut Express or Final Cut Pro.

(And from Jim: For entry-level video editing, try iMovie, which comes free with newer Macs as part of the iLife suite. Windows also includes a free video editor, Windows Movie Maker. It works for very basic stuff, but it lacks some needed features like the ability to overlay multiple video tracks.)

Video camera
Curt, a pro photographer, shoots video with a Canon XH A1. That's pretty high-end for newspaper Web sites. It's an HD video camera -- not important for the Web, but important for taking frame grabs and using them as still photos for print. If you want to do frame grabs, use a camera that shoots progressive video, not interlaced video. Progressive captures whole frames. Interlaced captures half frames that your brain assembles into a full image.

Generally it's a good idea to record on tape, not the video camera’s hard drive. This becomes important because in most smaller newsrooms, the camera is also used as a tape deck to capture video to the computer. If you fill up the hard drive, you have to unload it before someone else can use the camera.

Digital voice recorders

At last Friday's NINA workshop, speaker Curt Chandler recommended the Olympus WS-100 as a digital voice recorder for journalists. It typically sells for $60 to $80 at most electronics retailers. But, Overstock.com sells a reconditioned model for $46.99. Unfortunately they're out of stock right now, but it's worth checking back. The advantage there, Curt said, is that an engineer has hand-checked the unit to be sure everything is working.

Here are a bunch of other places to find the WS-100. The newer model is the WS-110, which is basically the same and usually runs about $70.

I use a WS-100 and can recommend it. The sound quality, even from the condenser microphone, is really good. It plugs directly into a USB port and you can transfer all recordings as Windows Media files. Other models do this via a USB cable, which works fine provided you don't lose the cable.

These recorders do work with Macs. You can use a free conversion program like Switch to turn the files into MP3s. Here's another place to get that.

Program reminder

Just a reminder that you have one more week to register for NINA's April 25 Spring Conference on visual journalism, with speaker Curt Chandler from Penn State University. This should be a terrific program, and the cost is only $20.

Full details here. Registration deadline is Friday, April 18 (register by e-mailing me or calling me at 815-753-4239). You can pay on the day of the event.

Score one for the First Amendment

Good news, if you haven't heard: The IHSA has figured out that they'd better knock it off. A settlement reached this week puts news photographers back on the sidelines for IHSA events, with no more exclusivity for the IHSA's selected photographer. Big thanks to the Illinois Press Association, the State Journal-Register and the Northwest Herald for pursuing this legally. And for state legislators who placed pressure on the IHSA.

Here's the settlement, from Sangamon County Circuit Court, via the State Journal-Register.

High school journalism workshop

Forwarded to me by Rick Nagel at the Beacon News. Please pass this along to high school journalism advisers, and/or run it it in your paper:

Scholarships Available for 2-week Journalism Workshop

High school students interested in journalism are encouraged to apply for full scholarships to a two-week workshop to be held July 13-26 in Charleston.
Selected students will stay on the Eastern Illinois University campus expense-free to learn about reporting, writing, photography and putting a newspaper together. A brief internship is included with the workshop, and the program culminates with students producing their own newspaper.
Since 1993, dozens of professionals from 30 newspapers and news organizations have provided the bulk of the instruction for the workshop. The Illinois Press Foundation underwrites the program. The Project for Ethics and Excellence and the Pulitzer Foundation also are significant contributors.
The first week of the program is spent on instruction and journalism exercises. During the second week, students pair up at various newspapers and begin writing their articles. Past students have covered murder trials, interviewed the governor and explored county fairs.
The program includes other field trips for instructional and entertainment purposes. Past trips have included an Amish community, the Lincoln Log Cabin, the Ernie Pyle Museum, the largest bagel bakery in the world, a canoe trip, a hospital and a courthouse.
Applications for the workshop must be received by May 5 and are available from the Journalism Department at EIU. Students must have completed their sophomore year in high school by the beginning of the workshop and must write a 500-word essay about their career goals and how the workshop would help them. Writing examples and letters of recommendation from teachers are also required.
For an application or to ask questions, one may contact Sally Turner, director of the 2008 IPF/EIU High School Journalism Workshop at 217-581-7867 or by e-mail at seturner@eiu.edu. Her fax number is 217-581-7188.

Covering Tragedy - Join a Conversation

We've invited a couple of people associated with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma to come talk with our students here at the Northern Star on Friday, April 4. Not only will it be a valuable conversation with experts in covering tragedy, but it will serve as a chance for our students to decompress a little and talk about the experience they’ve just been through.

I'm also looking to "share" our guests with the larger journalism community. If you or co-workers have covered tragedy (especially NIU’s), you are welcome to come to the Northern Star office that morning for a journalists-only conversation starting at 9:30 a.m. If you or anyone on your staff is interested, just let me know sometime this week.

Our guests are Bruce Shapiro, the executive director; and Deb Nelson, who teaches at the University of Maryland, is a former Pulitzer winner with the Seattle Times and more recently was investigations editor at the Washington Post. She's also an NIU and Northern Star alumna.

Visual Journalism in Print and Online

NINA continues its commitment to new-media training with our April 25 spring conference, “It's a Visual World.”

The event will offer help for publishers, editors, reporters and photographers in learning to think more visually to take advantage of video and photos with limited resources.

We'll look at ways newspapers are electrifying their storytelling with better use of pictures in print and a commitment to photos and videos on the web. And, to emphasize how each medium requires its own approach to visual journalism, we'll take three traditional print ideas and show how they could be done differently -- and more powerfully -- for print, Web and other casts.

The conversation will address not just the “how-to” questions, but also the “why” questions. We’ll look at philosophies for doing video and other multimedia on the Web. What’s working? What’s not working? What are reasonable expectations for small to midsize newspapers? What kind of time and training investments are necessary?

"This is relatively new territory for most small to mid-sized weekly and daily newspapers in northern Illinois," said NINA First Vice President Pete Nenni of the Daily Herald. "So, having someone of Curt's background and experience talk on this subject will provide some valuable insight."

Who should attend: Editors, publishers, reporters, photojournalists, online staffers.

Speaker: Curt Chandler is senior lecturer specializing in multimedia reporting at Penn State University. Before entering the academic world last summer, he was the editor for online innovation at the post-gazette.com in Pittsburgh. Curt has a degree in newspaper writing from Northwestern University and more than 25 years of newspaper experience as a visual journalist, manager and online editor. He also worked for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Ogden (Utah) Standard-Examiner and the Pueblo (Colo.) Chieftan. He has conducted multimedia training in newsroom and seminars for working journalists in addition to working in the classroom with students who aspire to be journalists. He has done seminars for the Poynter Institute, the Online News Association, the National Press Photographers Association and the Society for News Design.

When: Friday, April 25, 2008
Time: 8:45 a.m. to noon
Where: Holmes Student Center, Room 305, NIU-DeKalb
Cost: $20 for NINA members and attendees from member publications; $40 for nonmembers.
Parking: Use either the NIU visitor lot or the Newman Center lot. Both cost $5 a day. See map.
Registration deadline: Friday, April 18. Contact Jim Killam.

Schedule
8:45 – 9:15 Registration / refreshments
9:15 - Noon Program

Lessons learned since Feb. 14

I just spent an hour talking with someone who was in the Cole Hall basement at 3 p.m. Feb. 14. Seven people down there heard the whole horrible event overhead – gunshots, screaming, a mad stampede for the auditorium exits. Those in the basement barricaded themselves in offices for 90 minutes, not knowing if a shooter would burst through the doors at any moment. Finally, police arrived and led them out.

As a journalist, I should have been taking notes and running a voice recorder. As a college newspaper adviser, I should have asked if he minded if a student reporter interviewed him. But this was a friend, telling me not only about what he experienced that day, but what he’s experienced since, emotionally. At some point, his will make a compelling story. Just not right now.

Such has been the day-to-day experience of helping my students cover this story, while we also have been part of the story and dealing with the emotional fallout. We are all experiencing thoughts and emotions that are difficult to explain to someone who wasn’t here that day. Here at the Northern Star, we’ve learned a lot about being friends first, journalists second. One of our students, Dan Parmenter, died that day. Two others were in the auditorium and escaped without being hit. They are dealing with a lot right now.

We’ve heard the term “NIU family” bandied about lately. To be honest, I’d never really thought of NIU that way. The Northern Star and its alumni are most definitely a family, but the whole university? We have 25,000 students, and 3,300 faculty and staff. It’s more of a small city than a family.

That perception has changed, at least for now. Wherever we were at 3 p.m., we all experienced something absolutely awful together. Whether we knew each other or not, “Where were you?” became the first line of almost every conversation for a few days.

We also have become a lot more aware of what’s going on around us. We watch each other’s backs. I sat this week in the Holmes Student Center coffee shop, talking with Geri Nikolai from the Rockford Register Star. Across the room, two male students ran toward a door, trying to catch a Huskie Bus. I completely lost my train of thought by zeroing in on those two guys until I knew they weren’t dangerous.

When a lone student stands outside a building, we give a second and third glance. When someone walks into a classroom late, everyone turns and looks. And I suppose I’ll never look at a guitar case the same way again. It’s not that we’re fearful, at least outwardly. We’re just more alert.

We’ve also grown to understand something counselors call “event fatigue.” We are talked out, counseled out and just plain tired. It’s not that we mind talking about the tragedy. We’re just out of things to say.

Since Feb. 14, I’ve probably done 30 interviews with reporters (print, broadcast and online) from all over the world. Some of our Northern Star students have done even more. We learned quickly how to distinguish between reporters who see you as that day’s story, and those who genuinely care.

Examples of the former: A national TV producer, on the phone an hour after the shootings, who told one of our students, “This could be your one chance to be on national TV.” Or the network camera man, covering a church service, who asked parishioners to sit down during the scripture reading because they were blocking his shot.

Examples of the latter: The many reporters who used the Northern Star as an office from which to write and file. They were unfailingly gracious in asking our students for interviews and background information, and sensitive in understanding what we were dealing with.

At a workshop I attended recently, news videographer Seth Gitner of The Roanoke Times said this about interviewing people: “It’s always an honor when someone lets me into their life.”

Of all the journalistic lessons I’ve been reminded of through this whole, awful experience, that may be the best. When I interview someone, the honor is mine. No one is just a source, an eyewitness, or a skin color to satisfy perception of fairness and balance. When people agree to be interviewed, they trust us with their words, and often their emotions and their dignity. The best reporters appreciate and uphold this trust.

Certainly, our students who go on to become professional reporters will cover tragedy again. I think they’ll do so with empathy and sensitivity … knowing how it feels to be on the other side of those notebooks, cameras and microphones.