Future of News Summit

There's an important event going on today in Minnesota: The Future of News Summit. You can watch it live HERE. It's being put on by Minnesota Public Radio.

Facebook Webinar reminder

Don't forget about Thursday afternoon's Poynter Webinar: "Facebook for Journalists." $10 discount for NINA members. You'll need to contact me in advance for the code.

Full info here.

Uncle Jay Explains the News

Insightful analysis of the past week's TV news coverage, from a guy named Uncle Jay.

Thanks to retired NIU journalism professor Avi Bass for spotting this one.

A tough call

Tricky ethical situation in DeKalb. An NIU student jumped in front of a train and was killed Wednesday. Though not officially declared as such, it was pretty clearly a suicide. The Northern Star had the name late last night but decided not to use it in the story. The Daily Chronicle did use the name - presumably because this happened semi-publicly, just west of town, and because it hadn't been ruled a suicide yet.

My take on these types of things is, when in doubt, err on the side of not causing further pain to a hurting family. Unless a presumed suicide creates a major public spectacle, or involves someone well-known, I don't think printing the name is all that helpful. And if this week's case turns out to be something other than suicide, then printing the person's name in a follow-up story seems like a better approach.

Declaring winners and losers

Here's a post from the GetReligion blog about how the media frame political stories. Forget for a moment that the issue is gay marriage, and look instead at how easy it is for journalists to slant any story -- knowingly or unknowingly -- in subtle ways. It's a good lesson.

"Old Dogs are the Best Dogs"

Just a great piece of writing here from Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post. Sometimes we need to remember why we got into this business. Telling stories like this one tops my list.

A week without AP?

Tribune will try going next week with little or no AP copy. Phil Rosenthal blog entry. Thanks to several who forwarded this.

Seems that an even bigger issue for Illinois could be that, if the Trib were no longer a member, AP could not offer Trib rewrites to the rest of the state.

"Losing the News"

In case you missed this: Kathleen Parker's column in today's Chicago Tribune. It's about Alex Jones' new book, "Losing the News," about the state of the newspaper industry. The book is important, and the column is optimistic!