rules to write by

From Janet Fitch, author of "White Oleander" via the Los Angeles Times: 10 Rules for Writers. She's talking about fiction, but most of the rules apply to journalism, too, such as using dependent clauses, ditching cliches, writing in scenes, and finding replacements for over-used, anemic verbs.

Here you go. bk

off with their heads...

... or some such.

Yeah, yeah, the print newspaper industry is hurting for cash. But this? The front page of today's LA Times was an ad for the new Johnny Depp film, Alice in Wonderland.

You have to wonder if the Mad Hatter is now making editorial decisions. From the HuffPo:

The Los Angeles Times has already cut its editorial staff in more than half, but it's crossed another line here by making the real news little more than an aside to advertising dollars, and selling its masthead off to the highest bidder. Advertising used to sustain the news, now it's obscured it.

laura ling and euna lee ...

.. explain what they were doing in Northeastern China, and how they came to be arrested and imprisoned in North Korea in this L.A. Times op-ed. In the piece, they write about the story they were covering -- the plight of North Koreans who defect to China -- and in the process, provide a little insight into why journalists take risks.

It's about the story. From their piece:

Our motivations for covering this story were many. First and foremost, we believe that journalists have a responsibility to shine light in dark places, to give voice to those who are too often silenced and ignored. One of us, Euna, is a devout Christian whose faith infused her interest in the story. The other, Laura, has reported on the exploitation of women around the world for years. We wanted to raise awareness about the harsh reality facing these North Korean defectors who, because of their illegal status in China, live in terror of being sent back to their homeland.

spot.us: spot on?

The L.A.Times caught up yesterday with spot.us, which features a new business model to support investigative reporting. We first mentioned it here, back in December, in a post entitled "more looks forward" (click on "Jeremy").

From the LATimes piece:

"It's hard not to root for [founder David] Cohn, 26, who had the chutzpah to try something new, the tenacity to get it off the ground and the maturity to know that it might not work.

"God and Google know the old, monopolistic print advertising model will never make a full-scale comeback. So more power to any endeavor trying to push serious journalism into a new era.

"Yes, there is a "but." To wit: The site's platform outperforms its product. Spot.us stories simply need to be better. The four I checked out -- three written and one a radio report -- did not particularly engage, incite or entertain."

While the journalism itself may not yet be up to speed, the plan itself may be, if not a winner, at least a sign that creative minds are out there taking chances on new models to save journalism itself -- rather than propping up the old way of doing business. Beyond the initial seed money -- a $340,000 innovation grant from the Knight Foundation -- Cohn funds his individual stories via micro-donations from interested readers on his site. Check it out. bk

journalism deathwatch

What will become of journalism if smart and talented young people can no longer afford to enter the profession? Go here to read an insightful blogpost written by Alice Joy, one of my former students, who makes several excellent points about what it means to be a young "working journalist" in New York these days.

Scary and sad.

On it goes. I had another email from a former student with excellent full-time cred in both daily journalism and alt-weekly investigative reporting. Now on staff at another paper, what he does, he says, is twitter to promote the paper's articles. What a waste of talent and drive.

And Shannon forwards this piece from LA Observed, that reports that the LA Times will kill the California section, folding local news inside the front section of the paper, "... which will be reconfigured to downplay national and foreign news — despite what an official of the paper confirmed for me was the unanimous and vocal objections of senior editors."

Who cares whether print stays or goes. Who cares whether we add Suzy from Ohio to our blog/follow list. Who cares if you have become the Pied Piper to a cast of thousands who follow your every move on Twitter. To paraphrase that old Clinton-era campaign slogan, "It's the content, stupid." And we need professionals to find it, contextualize it, and to be paid a living wage to report it.

I am reminded of an old quote from a NYTimes piece written by Walter Cronkite (okay, that dates me) that I saved when i first started teaching: "It is the content that is important and the Republic, indeed no society, cannot live without that which only the newspaper provides -- the daily recording of our history and the presentation to the people of the facts on which they can meaningfully participate in this democracy."

Substitute “journalism" for "newspaper". Doesn't anybody get that anymore? bk

P.S. By the way, if you are in the market for a talented, energetic reporter and elegant writer, and can actually offer a paycheck -- go ask Alice.

- more -

Back to thirty:

The LA Times reports that the Christian Science Monitor will become the nation's first newspaper to drop its daily print edition in favor of its online "treeless" edition. A sign of the times, or a prudent economic move? You have to hope that the 5 million online page-views will be able to support a robust reporting staff and that the journalism will remain the same quality that earned the paper seven Pullitzers. But still. It's a sign of the times.

In response, former capstoner Timi Gould, who once had "latimes.com" in her email address, wonders: "IS online the answer? Are online ad sales more profitable? Are online articles the same quality as those that would run in the paper? Is newspaper page layout and design a thing of the past?"

To which my answer is, well, I don't have one. But I do have some questions of my own.

For example, in Monday's column about the increasing polarization of the news media, Howard Kurtz wonders whether Fox's Sean Hannity and MSNBC's Keith Olberman are "watching the same presidential race, or even living in the same country?"

He continues: "Prime-time viewers of Fox News and MSNBC get vastly different perspectives on the campaign that sometimes approach mirror images. This goes well beyond the hosts' political views to the booking of guests and the way stories are framed, pumped up and sometimes ignored. In that sense, the programs reflect the increasing polarization of the media world, where columnists, strategists, bloggers and radio talkers have built thriving careers catering to those who already agree with them."

Here's what worries me: as daily newspapers (and the straight-ahead journalism that they support) shrink, the growth industry appears to be opinion, either via cable or the blogosphere. Not sure that makes for an informed citizenry. Full disclosure: I am an Olberman junkie. Still, I recognize that folks like him and Hannity are preaching to the choir. But. Does everyone?

Finally, this is so preposterous, I can't even comment. According to a piece in USA Today last week, Media News Group CEO Dean Singleton, whose media company has presided over the near-dismantling of our beloved Mercury News, spoke to the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, suggesting that newspapers consider outsourcing many of their daily operations.

Really?!

"One thing we're exploring is having one news desk for all of our newspapers in MediaNews ... maybe even offshore," said Singleton, whose company owns 54 newspapers, several in the Bay Area, and who may well be the poster child for Molly Ivins' apochryphal comment about newspapers committing suicide.

Of course, that's just my opinion (Yep, I'm doing just what I worry about. See above.) bk

life follows capstone

A lot of the discussion in last spring's capstone class revolved around Facebook, mainly because senior Natasha Lindstrom was reporting on the potential of widgets (or applications) to not only wreak havoc with your computer, but -- worst case scenario -- steal your identity. A few days after Natasha turned in her piece, all 4000 words of it, the LA Times broke a story on that very topic.

But we also talked in class -- well, they talked. I ranted -- about the way Facebook can deliver highly targeted audiences to advertisers based on what appears on users' profiles. And again, life follows capstone. In Thursday's Washington Post, staffer Rachel Beckman writes that every time she logged onto her home page, she was bombarded with diet ads.

"Maybe it's my age, my sex or the fact that it knew I was engaged," Beckman writes, "but the site decided I was a gal who needed to drop a few pounds. And it wasn't shy about its tactics."

The old Facebook fear was that prospective employers (not to mention university officials) would have far too much information about what a particular user did on a Saturday night. Now it appears you not only have to worry about losing your identity -- but admen telling you that identity just doesn't measure up.

Natasha, by the way, is currently doing good work as a reporter at the Victorville Daily Press.