For journalists looking for work

You may have heard: A lot of journalists are looking for work right now. You may be one of them. The Northern Illinois Newspaper Association wants to help. If you or someone you know is looking for full-time, part-time or free-lance work, visit http://www.ninaonline.org. You can send us a position-wanted ad and we'll post it on our Web site for free. And then we'll promote the site to employers.

This is rather unsophisticated for now -- a simple e-mail response from you, and me posting those on our site. We'll see how it works and may make adjustments. But please spread the word on this and will hope it helps people out.

Over-the-top headlines

Lots of today’s inauguration front pages are online at www.newseum.org. Apparently in many newsrooms, "no cheering in the press box" was suspended for a day. To read some of the headlines, a visitor to this planet would think America had been wiped out by volcanoes and was starting over. These were some of the most over-the-top headlines I saw:

America 2.0 – RedEye (Chicago)
From the mountaintop – Baltimore Examiner
We begin again – Cape Cod Times and several others
At last – Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press
A glorious beginning – New York Daily News
We must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America (no quotes) – The Repository (Canton, Ohio)
Let’s GOBama – Bild, Germany
Let the remaking of America begin today (no quotes) – The Guardian, London
Renewal – Brownsville (Texas) Herald

Hope over fear – Many. Some put it in quotes, some didn’t
A new era – many. Some with quotes, some without.

And from a few who managed to play it straight and not faint with excitement:
Obama takes oath, and nation in crisis embraces the moment – New York Times
Obama pledges to remake America – USA Today
Obama takes charge – Washington Post
Many went with President Barack Obama or just Mr. President

To be sure, Tuesday was a huge day in American history and worthy of celebration. But I think you saw a lot of headline writers get caught up in the hooplah and momentarily forget what we’re here for. Even just adding quote marks to some of the headlines would have made a big difference, journalistically.

And don’t even get me started on the TV news coverage.

Northwest Herald reporters honored

Big congrats to Kevin Craver and Danielle Guerra of the Northwest Herald, who were named Monday as national Journalists of the Year by Suburban Newspapers of America.

Here's the story from the Northwest Herald about the honor. And here's the reason they won, a six-month investigation that led to a series of stories, both print and multimedia, about brain cancer lawsuits in McCullom Lake.

The tabloid Trib

So, the Tribune is going tabloid for its street editions, while remaining broadsheet for home delivery. I think this follows news-design guru Mario Garcia's opinion that all papers will be tabloids in the next few years.

What I found even more interesting than the Trib story were the reader comments. Some still equate "tabloid" with trashy, loud and garish. I'm betting that those are older, longtime readers. I don't see those same negative connotations with younger readers. I guess it's all about what you're used to.

Another interesting question raised by a reader: Will readers plunk down 75 cents for a tabloid Trib when it's right next to the RedEye, which is free?

This seems like an interim step.

Newspapers and automakers

And from TIME, here's another take on media challenges, with an interesting comparison to the automotive industry. Highlights:

Now, those of you working for car-parts suppliers (or those of you laid off by them) can be excused if you don't break out your tiny violins out of pity for journalists. Where all this becomes your problem is that the daisy chain of free info--the Drudge links, the news crawls, the text updates--ultimately leads back to a professional journalist, somewhere, getting paid to learn stuff. And right now, he or she is weighing job opportunities in telemarketing. ...

Like the car companies, individual media outlets will probably have to learn to be smaller. And they'll need to see their new-media "problems" as part of the solution. Internet users don't hate the media. In fact, when given the tools by something like Twitter or YouTube, they want to be the media. People want the vetted information the news media offer--and they want to riff on it, respond to it and even, as in Mumbai, add to it. Journalists should embrace that rather than futilely fight it.
This means offering users more ways of interacting, commenting and contributing. It means seeing new media not as the dumbing down of civilization but as a new way of telling stories and even finding stories. And it means recognizing that the audience is no longer passive--it wants and expects to participate, even as it wants help in making sense of the info deluge.

Media predictions for 2009

In a post called "Pragmatic Media Predictions for 2009," NIU and Northern Star alumna Diane Mermigas, who writes the daily "On Media" column for Mediapost (requires free subscription), lays out a very iffy coming year for all media. A couple of her predictions:

Some local TV broadcasters and newspapers will begin to monetize enough to stay in business. Some internet players will begin to dabble more in this huge void. Relevant local information, social sharing, retail coupons, school and community data, sports scores, car pools, etc. remain a big missed opportunity. It will be delivered to internet-connected mobile devices, including smartphones. A new player will emerge and do for local content and services online what Craigslist did for regionalized classified advertising.

Major advertisers such as automotives, financial services, retail and real estate will not return any time soon; they will be diminished and different when they rebound a year from now. That is a disaster for local media, which could easily see more than half their ad revenue base wiped out in 2009. For instance, automotives generally have comprised 40% of local TV income.