Journalists seek out and collect massive amounts of information, from many sources. Often they gather conflicting stories, first-hand accounts, statistical data, ambiguous descriptions, complicated jargon and get fed a heaping dose of spin and lies to season the mix. From this, they assemble the information, sythesizes it, simplify it and attempt to present it in a way that is readable or accessible to the widest possible audience. Journalists take mess and make sense.

Academics approach the world from the other entrance. We take very simple, small ideas or observations, examine them, dissect them, pile a bunch of theory, critique, previous literature (more dissections, theories and critique) on top of them and then write about it all in a way that no one wants to read, including other academics. We take sense and make a mess, then propose more research that we hope will ultimately allow us to make sense again. I described this to a veteran journalist who has been in higher education for several decades and he agreed. He said that he once heard someone refer to what academics do as “anti-journalism.”

Really, it’s no wonder that journalism schools experience conflict between the practitioners and the scholars. Ultimately, we have only two things in common: We all truly believe our work can change the world, and we like to give ourselves lots of awards.

3/9/10: Post-script, of sorts: In truth, my snarky little description probably refers to the best kind of journalism and the more frustrating types of academic research, while at the same time conveniently excluding all the bad examples of journalism and the many useful, interesting types of research. But were I truly fair and diplomatic in writing the above, it wouldn’t have amused me as much.

Last week, in a less annoying situation (for me), this blog began receiving traffic from people searching for Michele S. Jones, the special assistant to the defense secretary who is a figure in the White House party crasher story. This gave me a bit of a chuckle, except that my blog stats showed that someone was searching for “should Michele Jones be fired.” I’m currently a graduate student assistant, so it is very difficult for me to get fired, and I know this search referred to the other Michele Jones, but still…  I’ve never been fired from a job and I’d rather people not speculate about doing it in the future.

So for the record, I am NOT:

- The first female command sergeant major of the Army Reserves who is also the newsworthy Michele Jones,

- A talented California artist who makes really cool jewelry ,

-  A family practice physician in Allentown, Pennsylvania,

- A woman holding a fish

- A British wedding photographer

- A mixer of wine and cold medication

- A Canadian project manager

Not that I’m opposed to making cool jewelry, photographing weddings, or holding fish. I just want to clear up any confusion that might drive people to my little corner of the Internetz.

So, please don’t fire me.

So I’m curious…

When you see some of the terms and labels below, what do they mean to you? How much do you associate these terms with writing and reporting, visual communication, audio, video, etc.?  What others have you heard that I didn’t list?

Multimedia
Online journalism or media
Digital journalism or media
Cross-platform
Convergence
New media
Multiplatform
Social media
Computer assisted reporting (that one’s been around for a while, but I’ve heard it used in new ways)
Backpack journalism

I realized that I’ve grown accustomed to seeing this person (and people I know, in general) on Facebook so much that seeing her on the newspaper site wasn’t a big deal. Now, media psychology is not my area, but it seems to me that this means something in terms of the way we process information online, on social networking sites, and/or in media in general. There’s probably a theory involving familiarity and recognition to apply. So if any of you media effects/psychology/human-computer interaction folks want to take a stab at that one… have at it. It’s not my thing, but I’m curious.

From what I did hear, including my conversations with representatives from schools who are hiring assistant professors of journalism, the overarching theme of this year’s conference was that journalism is in major upheaval and journalism educators don’t know exactly what to do about that.

That theme was the topic of a research panel where which I presented a paper titled “What is Taught & What is Sought: An Analysis of Online Journalism Course Syllabi and Job Ads.”  My two co-panelists, Serena Carpenter of Arizona State University and Zhegjia Liu of Iowa State University presented papers with similar themes. Basically, we all looked at what journalism employers were wanting in their new hires in order to suggest what we should be teaching in j-schools and programs. The discussion that followed was interesting.

There has always been the debate in journalism education about whether to emphasize a broad-based liberal arts curriculum or teach mostly professional skills, including specific technical skills. With the emphasis on online journalism, this debate grows a bit louder: should we teach Flash, HTML, CSS, Photoshop, etc. or should we emphasize the concepts behind communication online and encourage students to explore content fields, such as political science, health, or business?  What will best prepare them for their professional lives?

My thoughts, some of which were echoed in the research panel and in various conversations I had during the week, and are based on the study I did and my own personal observations and professional experience:

• Skills will prepare students for their first job. But the technology changes rapidly and students need to be equipped with the knowledge and critical-thinking skills necessary to identify and self-teach whatever new programs come along. Therefore, spending a lot of time on Flash or advanced programming is a waste. Let the students with an aptitude for that pursue those skills further, but don’t force-feed it to all journalism students beyond the introductory level.
• Writing, reporting and editing skills never get old. Those are the backbones of good journalists. The new needs are for journalists who can write and report in a variety of ways. So if you have students who want to learn to be newspaper reporters and not worry about anything else, tell them they’ve got another think coming. Likewise, if your photojournalism students think they don’t need to write, they need a bit of a wake-up call. Students need to learn to write for online audiences, for video, for audio, and for professional publications. And they need to write short, breaking stories and long-form features. And they need to know the difference and when each style is appropriate.
• New journalists should be jacks or janes-of-all-trades who are masters of at least one. In other words, they need to be media generalists, but be particularly skilled in at least one area and have strong expertise in a content area. The best example of this new type of journalist is a friend of mine who went to Medill at Northwestern and got her degree with a specialization in broadcast. She then went to do an internship at the Tampa News Center where she worked with TV, newspaper, and online, got hired on as a newspaper reporter after her internship, and now works as an online video journalist in the White House Press Corps for the AP. She can do everything, but she can do video particularly well and now she has a focus in politics. (When we worked together, she also put in 18 hour days on the regular, so being an insane Superwoman is also apparently part of the recipe for success.)
• Employers also want certain abstract, intangible qualities in their employees that are hard for us to teach and even more difficult for us to find out if students are learning. The ability to work collaboratively while still being an independent self-starter is an example. Students need to be able to work with people from a variety of departments and organizations, not just other journalists. They also need to be able to take initiative and direct themselves. The term that we use a lot now is “entrepreneurial.” Flexibility and adaptability are key. The problem with this is that it is impossible to recreate the professional world in the classroom or lab. So, emphasize the need for internships, job-shadowing, work on student media, and practicums to get this type of experience.

So what else do we as journalism educators need to do? More bullet points:

• I think we need to continue breaking down the walls between the sequences and departments to enable students to be media generalists. No one should major in broadcast journalism or print journalism. Students can specialize in video production or news writing, but those are specializations that come after gaining a familiarity with everything.
• Work on redefining what online journalism and multimedia actually are, because it’s changing in and of itself. Many schools equate online journalism with visual communication, specifically graphics, photo and Flash. Certainly, that’s a big part of it, but what online journalism is really about is having myriad ways to present information to many different audiences. Flash presentations with audio and video are great ways to tell a story and present features and human interest stories. For presenting investigative journalism, database-driven mashups that incorporate maps or searchable interfaces might be the way to go. And for breaking news, blog-style reporting and social media like Twitter might be the best options. We have to broaden our concepts of what online is all about.
• Learn from students, professionals and audiences. This involves leaving egos at the door of the classroom and acknowledging that we are not authorities on journalism here to bestow our wealth of knowledge on previously empty minds of students. We have experience and knowledge to guide our students, but we have to continue to learn constantly.

This means opening our minds to new technologies and concepts and letting go of the so-called “good old days” of newspaper and broadcast journalism. Instead of lamenting losses (though I realize it’s hard if we’re talking about job losses), recognize the promise of this new age of journalism and be excited about all the possibilities. One of the keynote speakers at AEJMC, Carole Simpson, formerly of ABC News and now at Emerson College in Boston, talked about those good old days and the fact that many veteran journalists are being dragged kicking and screaming into the new era. That attitude is not productive. No one needs to kick and scream. Instead, embrace and seize the opportunities.

Today, this brief from the Chicago Tribune caught my eye: Driver fatally shot on Near North Side. I used to live on the Near North Side of Chicago near Cabrini-Green, but my memory fails me as to where Larabee and Oak Streets are exactly. So naturally I went to pull up Google maps to find out where this occurred. Turns out, it was not near my old apartment and I immediately got a better impression of the situation because I know which parts of that area are more prone to crime.

It took me maybe 30 seconds to pull up the map and link it here. (Were WordPress not giving me issues, I could have also embedded the map itself in this post.) The reporter or producer who posted the story could have done the same thing on the ChicagoBreakingNews.com blog and provided valuable information to the reader. Since the site already uses mapping in other contexts, there’s really no reason not to.

I spent a chunk of time this spring analyzing McClatchy Company’s situation (yes, it was a class project) and determined:

• Too much success for too long led to the arrogance necessary to make the disastrous choice to purchase the Knight-Ridder chain. This purchase, not the recession, is the cause of McClatchy’s woes no matter what Gary Pruitt spins. The recession just made that situation worse.
• McClatchy could slash costs and hold on with white knuckles until their next loan payment is due in 2011, but ultimately, they’re doomed and will have to declare bankruptcy. The recent improvement (and by improvement, I mean “shift from wretched to less horrible”) in their profits as shown in their Q2 earnings will make the time until 2011 less painful for the survivors of the layoffs… but it’s still coming.
• If local investors who are willing to purchase newspapers because they see the need in their communities could materialize, being sold could be the best thing for the local properties. McClatchy is so focused on survival, none of the papers have the luxury of thinking to the future. (The Charlotte Observer might be the exception. They appear to be working as if they will continue to exist no matter what, which is the right attitude.) Potentially good papers are languishing under McClatchy’s rule. Unfortunately, such buyers are really a wish, not a strong likelihood.

Other newspaper companies are in it bad, but not as bad, and they too are seeing less horrible results in their Q2 numbers. So why am I worried? Because newspaper companies are arrogant and their recent economic troubles could serve as the massive splash of cold water necessary to shake them from their complacency of success and force them to the hard reality: They must innovate, change, and reinvent in order to survive. And I mean drastic change; a complete shake-up from their old “daily broadsheet- 80 percent ads/20 percent subscription- online as an afterthought-we know what customers want without ever asking them” mindset.

Too many of the media companies have (publicly, at least) blamed their troubles on the recession, saying that when it turns around, they’ll be back in the game. In reality, the recession didn’t cause newspaper’s problems, it just accelerated them. The real problem is the disruptive technology of the Internet and the cultural lock-in caused by a century of newspaper dominance. But if a turn-around (or the appearance of one that’s really caused by the cost-cutting they undertook this year) gives any credence to CEO’s claims that the recession is the sole cause of the problem, newspapers will ignore the wake-up call they received and fall back into old habits… until the next disaster ends them altogether.

Instead, I hope newspaper companies such as McClatchy, Gannett, Media General, etc. will take a lesson from their position at the brink and realize the need for innovation and reinvention. Even if the parent companies go down, the individual newspaper properties may continue to exist and need to adapt to serve their communities in a new era.

I still believe in newspapers, and by “newspapers” I don’t mean the dead-tree edition. I mean the big picture concept of a news organization that is dedicated to serving a community with high-quality, ethical journalism and engagement with citizens. It’s past time for them to adapt.

But if I did write such entries, that would defeat the original purpose of this blog. I started this to be an outlet for my ideas and ruminations as they relate to my work, both teaching and research. The process of working out ideas and refining opinions is a messy one. So in lieu of long manifestos about my views on journalism, I’m going to start posting short brain-dumps with greater regularity. This will include what I’d like to call open-source dissertating in which I throw out what I’m working on and (assuming anyone actually reads this blog) anyone can comment on it. Maybe this will help me draw connections and get past speed bumps. Please forgive any spelling and grammar mistakes in these posts, as I’m taking a more free-writing approach to them now.

Today, I’ve gotten hung up on logistics: I’m working through a section of my lit review about the libertarian and social responsibility theories of the press. (On a side note: A friend of saw the books I have for this section and said, “Those look… really boring.” This same friend is starting a PhD program in media effects in which she will study theories of cognitive psychology. In other words: like she’s one to talk. Some of us are micro and some are macro. To each her own.)

Anyway, I’m digging out some of the works of the old, dead philosophers and realizing how fortunate I am to be in academia in 2009 instead of, well, any time before now. Everything I’ve needed today including John Milton’s Areopagitica from 1644 and the complete works of Thomas Jefferson was available via UNC’s library in ebook format of some sort.

The problem I encounter is figuring out how to cite the blasted things.  For example:
How do you cite in APA style the e-book version of a 1792 reprint of a pamphlet originally published in 1644? Riddle me that, Batman. I ended up using a different version of it, in the end, but that version wasn’t much more simple in citing. Oddly, in this proposal, I will also be figuring out how to cite Twitter tweets. I think I’ve got the full range of literature covered, at least in terms of time-frames.

And thus enter the members of the MetaFilter community, who this week questioned the authenticity of a photo on the NYT Magazine Web site. Their questioning appears to be warranted and got the attention of the editors at the NYT – the photo gallery has been pulled from the newspaper’s site and other photos in the essay are now in question.

Read the thread that started it here:

Ruins of the Second Gilded Age | MetaFilter.

There are still links to the photo, despite the paper’s attempt to pull it, because one of MetaFilter’s members, unixrat, a.k.a. Adam Gurno of Minnesota, created an animated demonstration of how the photo was likely faked. Gurno was interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio about the image. We can’t see the true original photo to compare to the published one, but Gurno created a comparison between the published photo and an image he created by taking half of that photo and mirroring it to the other half. Showing how similar the two are demonstrates the fact that the published photo was likely mirrored itself.

Digital photo manipulation is a major topic of discussion in journalism ethics and one that prompts excellent discussions in the classes I’ve taught.  The site 10,000 Words offers a run-down of 10 of the top offenders, including the infamous National Geographic cover that showed the Great Pyramids of Giza a little too close together.

What interests me about this new New York Times controversy is not the fact that the photos were faked (that part is easy: faked photos=bad), but how the fakery was exposed and how the Times is responding. According to Gurno’s interview with Minnesota Public Radio, he emailed the New York Times and got a canned response. Then the paper pulled the photos and left a brief note saying that the photos were removed after questions were raised as to whether the photos might be digitally altered.

Care to take bets on the follow-up? Controversy and discussion about the photo essay will swirl around Romenesko, Twitter, the blogosphere, etc. Then, some type of blog post or column will be published in which the NYT promises to uncover the break-down in the editorial process that allowed this to happen. Clark Hoyt, the public editor, will write a column. The photographer, Edgar Martins of Portugal, will of course never work for the Times again. And life goes on as normal with some poor, duped photo editor kicking him or herself for not catching what a computer programmer in Minnesota noticed in five seconds on a Web site. The Times will regret the error… but will the Times ever change?

What if, instead of following this predictable pattern of screw up/clean up, the Times tried an appropriate response, fitting to the situation and the way the ethical transgression was exposed? What if they tried being transparent; tried owning their mistake, not just owning up to it?

The Times could put the photos back up – not as photos about the news, but as the news itself. Write a story about Metafilter and how the discussion of the fakery took place. Interview Adam Gurno and have him explain his accusation and how he backed it up. Open up the comment board. Engage readers in a conversation. Rebuild trust before it has time to erode any further.

As of this writing, the Times has made some efforts, albeit small ones. The comment board on the story by Andrew C. Revkin, Post-Bubble Landscapes, has some readers inquiring as to the vague statement regarding questions raised about digital alteration, and a comment by Gurno with links to more information was made an “Editor’s Selection.” Additionally, there are links to the Editor & Publisher article about the situation.

The theme of this response is to acknowledge that others are talking about it while the Times crafts its response. This is a mistake. Transparency is the prime ethical value that separates newspaper-based journalism and the open-source culture of the Internet and its communities. Unless traditional newspapers embrace transparency in their processes and responses, trust in the press will continue to erode until more than just dwindling advertising dollars threaten to destroy the industry.

The Times and other newspapers have to step out from behind their veils of secrecy, descend from on-high and talk to the mortals… because the mortals just pwnded them. Again.

Among the excellent advice for those who are certain they are geniuses just waiting to be discovered:

“Why bother actually completing something before you let people tell you how great it is? Your genius should be clear from a couple paragraphs, or a handful of rough sketches, or even a vague description of the kick-ass story you’re going to tell.”

and

“It’s possible that you’ll find your work analyzed by someone with genuine talent and years of experience. This is a stroke of luck for you, because you can safely ignore them. After all, they obviously consider you competition and will do anything to discourage you from horning in on their turf. You can also dismiss anyone who isn’t a professional, because if they’re so smart, why are they still stocking shelves at Best Buy? By process of elimination, you can conclude that your best critics are your grandmother and those motivational posters about how dreams are like eagles.”

The overall point of this and my last post: Give good criticism. Take good criticism. Dial down the arrogance on both sides.