What's wrong with email interviews?

Poynter reports that a growing number of campus newspapers have decided to ban email interviews.  The latest is the University of South Florida.  Why?

 In a letter to readers Monday, Editor-in-Chief Divya Kumar said an increasing number of sources are requesting email interviews in hopes of having more control over their message.

As a newspaper, is it our job to provide readers with the truth, directly from the source — not from the strategically coordinated voices of public relations staff or prescreened e-mail answers.

We don’t think these responses provide our readers with the unvarnished truth, and we will no longer include them in our articles at the expense of compromising the integrity of the information we provide. University departments do not have one, centralized voice, but rather are made up of a multitude of diverse perspectives.

Other universities, such as Princeton and Stanford also veto email interviews:

Princeton University’s The Daily Princetonian did so last September, saying email interviews have “resulted in stories filled with stilted, manicured quotes that often hide any real meaning and make it extremely difficult for reporters to ask follow-up questions or build relationships with sources.”

Sure, email interviews can be convenient for fact-checking purposes or follow-up questions -- or for setting up initial interviews.  But the information you get via email always has to be slightly suspect -- and incomplete.  Plus, there's this:  even under the best of circumstances, sources will not only be tempted to varnish their replies, but are likely to keep their answers short and sweet, simply because it's more work to write a long answer than it might be to relay the same information via a phone call or in-person interview.

And, as the late ABC News anchor Peter Jennings said back in 2001, -->

"The Internet is a great research tool, but when it comes right down to it, the thing that bothers me is I'm never quite sure if I'm talking to a goat."

Today's Newsroom: How to thrive -- not merely survive

Depressing or invigoriating? Five good ways to thrive in the newsroom -- and change the world while you're at it -- via Poynter's Tom Huang. Here's one:

Be a learner. I can’t think of another business where you can learn as quickly, widely and, potentially, as deeply as in journalism. Whether you are challenged to understand the latest trends on your beat, how to comb through an obscure public record, or how to employ a classic narrative-writing technique, you are learning something new every day. We make our living by our wits and curiosity. We get paid to ask questions. That’s pretty cool. So even when learning is scary and exasperating (um, what’s that latest tech tool?), let’s embrace that part of our jobs.

will all those who think journalism classes are about writing, please stand up... and then go away.

I just read this piece on Poynter by Ernest Wilson, dean of the Annenberg School of Communication at USC, decrying the absence of journalism schools in the public debate on the future of news, but more importantly, castigating them for not teaching for the future.

That makes me crazy. Unless of course -- and it happens -- those who know nothing about journalism consider courses in same to be writing (Or blogging. Or video. Fill in the blank) courses. Learn how to craft a lead. Learn the inverted pyramid. Shoot good video. Make sure you spell names right. All important, sure. But only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

If that is what people consider to be journalism education, well, no wonder we aren't taken seriously. Or asked to contribute to the larger debate. And if that's what you learn -- or teach -- you've got it so wrong.

From day one, students (at least in my class, and I would hope others) learn why journalism matters, how to do it responsibly and ethically, and most important, how to look creatively toward an unknown future. These students, the ones who walk into an intro class, will be the leaders of the industry some years down the line. They are the ones who will be equipped to direct tomorrow's newsrooms. That's what journalist education is -- and should be -- about: as Mitchell Stephens once suggested, to critically question journalism and envision how to make it better.

I see that. My students see that. Doesn't anyone else? Journalism education isn't writing. Or even, truly, craft. It's about much more more.

From Wilson's piece: Several years behind the times?

Finally, our profession needs to raise its sights much higher and link our teaching and research to broad issues of media, democracy and societal changes, and eschew the self-referential, inward-looking focus that marks too many academic exercises. The leadership of journalism and communications schools must step forward with a more coherent, sweeping vision of what our profession can become, and mobilize the non-stop vitality that the current crisis demands of us. Done properly, we can help our students and the public interest. If we fail, then like much of the media industry today, journalism schools will continue a long, slow descent into less and less relevance for addressing the major issues of our time. We must rise to the task of helping save journalism, and in the process saving ourselves. The stakes couldn't be higher.

Haven't many of us already been doing this? Just ask my students, aka "the architects of the change" who early on, are tasked with coming up with a blueprint for the newsroom of the future. Many of them have come up with forward-thinking ideas that far surpass anything many of those in the field have yet to propose. Get angry. bk

Rosen on blogging

Go here for a transcript of a live chat with NYU prof Jay Rosen on blogging pointers, via Poynter. As you'll see, while anyone can create a blog, there's a lot more involved in making a success of it.

Among his tips:

"It is best to learn to be a great linker, and from that become a thinker. One of the simplest forms I would teach students is 'the round-up post,' pulling together the best of what's online on a recent controversy (Gingrich calling the judge a racist, for example). And from those posts students can learn to think about.... what's missing in this conversation? That is the next post!"

pay to play

Poynter's Romanesko posts this memo from Dean Singleton, owner of MediaNews, who outlines a pay scale for online content. Not a whole lot here that is new, especially since the plan relies on "great local journalism" MediaNews will make available online. There's one problem right there: local reporting requires local reporters, and Singleton has been cutting their numbers right and left.

As for going to MediaNews for national or international news, and paying for it, really? Would that be your first stop?

It's a complicated plan, one that might be too complicated for most readers' time or interest level. But I could be wrong.

Don't forget to read the comments. bk

non-profit journalism: the other side

The debate continues in Romenesko's column today. Slate's Jack Shafer votes no. From yesterday's piece:

"The plans to "save" the [New York] Times and [Washington]Post by rescuing their newsrooms from commercial pressure by sticking them inside protective domes strike me as conservative and futile. The market for news—and for ads—is trying to tell them it wants them to transmogrify into something new or, in the worst-case scenario, something gone. Turning any newspaper over to rich historic preservationists only postpones solving the problem of what newspapers need to be in the 21^st century."

L.A. Times columnist Tim Ruttan also votes no on what he calls a "government funded National Public Newspaper." Along with other media-watchers, he agrees that newspapers have destroyed themselves by giving the news away for free online. As remedy, he calls for an antitrust exemption so that news organizations can agree on a price to charge for online content. From his piece, which ran today:

"Two major newspapers -- the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times -- charge readers tiered fees to view their online journalism. The rest of the industry has decided there's more money to be made in charging advertisers for the larger audiences that free content attracts than in selling online subscriptions.

"That's wrong, in my view, but it's hard to argue with as long as some major newspapers are giving their online journalism away; until they stop, nobody can risk charging for theirs. That's where the antitrust exemption would come in: It would allow all U.S. newspaper companies -- and others in the English-speaking world, as well as popular broadcast-based sites such as CNN.com -- to sit down and negotiate an agreement on how to scale prices and, then, to begin imposing them simultaneously.

"That, in turn, would set the stage for tackling the other leg of this problem -- how to extract reasonable fees from aggregators like Google and Yahoo, which currently use their search engines to link to news that newspapers and broadcasters pay to gather. As veteran journalist and book publisher Peter Osnos said this week, newspapers and magazines 'have to start demanding payment for use of their material or they will disappear.'"

Not sure I completely agree in either case, but clearly, the plot is thickening. Too little, too late? You have to wonder why we let the advances in technology outpace our ability to think about them. Too dazzled by the wow factors to think about business? bk

objectivity, redefined. again

Editor and Publisher columnist Joe Stupp poses an interesting question today about how, when new media is folded into old, we are forced to reevaluate what we mean by objectivity. He thinks that may be a good thing.

What we now consider journalism has morphed into a digital hybrid of straight reporting, blogging, commentary, and personality journalism -- complete with the dreaded first person -- often on the same webpage. And with one reporter often wearing several of those hats, lines blur.

It's not that the core values of journalism -- honesty, accuracy, fairness -- don't still hold, even when it comes to blogging and commentary, Stupp's piece suggests. But maybe now that one form is bleeding into the other, it's time to throw the old definition of objectivity as a 50/50 balance straight out the window.

And acknowledge that it never really existed anyway.

From the column:
Andrew Malcolm, who has covered politics since 1968 and blogs at the Los Angeles Times' "Top of the Ticket," says he still treats each item like a fact-based story, but with some buzz and style. "Most non-newspaper blogs are committed, one way or another — there is a slant," he says. "They are selling a particular view. Our niche is to be sort of unexpected. But it is possible to be a real professional. Cover something straight and develop a perspective to inform your discussion."

L.A. Times Washington bureau chief Doyle McManus points out the different views of what is objective. "I think it means presenting every side of an argument fairly in ways that the proponents would accept as valid," he says.

But more and more, both new media and old-fashioned news types are disagreeing with that approach. The growing trend is that the truth must surpass the 50/50 doctrine. "We have gotten it so wrong with the idea of giving equal play to both sides," says Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief of Huffingtonpost.com and a longtime proponent of trading arbitrary "balance" for truth. "We are not always going to be balanced. Very often, it is one side or the other." She cited the ongoing arguments against global warming, which she contends mainstream journalists allowed for too long to go unchallenged: "We wasted a lot of journalistic capital on global warming trying to be balanced." She says the recent government rescue of financial institutions is another, noting too many mainstream outlets did not question if the bailout was needed: "Those of us who live online already dismissed certain elements of the bailout, such as the lack of oversight."

Adds [Keith] Woods, [dean of faculty at the Poynter Institute]: "Whether you quote both sides does not change what is the truth. We allow the 50/50 idea to substitute for truth. Where we often fail is when we may get somebody on one side with deep knowledge, understanding, perspective, and credibility to speak and on the other side someone with just an opinion, but they have no credibility."

[Boston Globe Editor Martin] Baron agrees: "We are involved in journalism, not stenography exercises. It is finding out what is actually happening. Balance means every story gets 50/50? I don't believe that."

who says liberals have no sense of humor?

The headlines read:

"Iraq War Ends"
"Nation Sets its Sights on Building Sane Economy"
"Ex-secretary Apologizes for WMD Scare"

And my personal favorite in the bogus business section: “Public Relations Industry Forecasts a Series of Massive Layoffs.”

Other articles tell readers that we have initiated a national healthcare program, have abolished corporated lobbying, and established a maximum wage for CEOs.

It's all the elaborate and expensive work of a bunch of pranksters -- clearly progressives with a sense of humor -- who printed and distributed free copies of the fake NYT at busy subway stops throughout the city. A group that calls itself the Yes Men took credit for the hoax:

"In an elaborate operation six months in the planning, 1.2 million papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged pickup locations, where thousands of volunteers stood ready to pass them out on the street."

On a more serious note, one of the writers told Poynter.org the rationale behind the spoof:

"It's all about how at this point, we need to push harder than ever," said Bertha Suttner, one of the newspaper's writers. "We've got to make sure Obama and all the other Democrats do what we elected them to do. After eight, or maybe twenty-eight years of hell, we need to start imagining heaven."

The newspaper is dated July 4, 2009.