Chapter 20: Ethics in the Changing Media Environment

Overview: The Environment for the News Media

Project for Excellence in Journalism, “The State of the News Media 2011,” the annual in-depth study of American journalism: http://stateofthemedia.org/

Columbia Journalism Review, “The Reconstruction of American Journalism,” a report on Oct. 19, 2009, by Leonard Downie Jr. and Michael Schudson. This is a detailed, definitive study by two distinguished authors – Downie is a retired editor of The Washington Post and Schudson is a professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. The study examines the current state of the news media, including alternative sources of news such as pro-am partnerships. A key conclusion: “Many newspapers can and will find ways to survive in print and online, with new combinations of reduced resources. But they will no longer produce the kinds of revenues or profits that had subsidized large reporting staffs, regardless of what new business models they evolve.” The authors make recommendations for financing journalism. http://www.cjr.org/reconstruction/the_reconstruction_of_american.php?page=all&print=true

Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves, “The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism,” May 10, 2011. You can download this detailed study from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. An excerpt: “[M]any sectors of the traditional news industry have been slow to embrace changes brought on by digital technology. They also have been flummoxed by competitors who invest minimally in producing original content but have siphoned off some of the most profitable parts of the business. At the same time, digital journalism has created significant opportunities for news organizations to rethink the way they cover their communities. And in several organizations, old and new, we see promising signs that a transformed industry can emerge from the digital transition—one that is leaner, quicker, and, yes, profitable. We do not believe that legacy platforms should be disregarded or disbanded. It simply is not reasonable to assume that any company would cast aside the part of its business that generates 80 to 90 percent of its revenue. But we do think that companies ought to regard digital platforms and their audiences as being in a state of constant transformation, one that demands a faster and more consistent pace of innovation and investment.” http://www.cjr.org/the_business_of_digital_journalism/

Alex S. Jones, Losing the News: The Future of the News That Feeds Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

· Jones, who directs Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, was interviewed on NPR’s “Fresh Air” on Aug. 19, 2009. A recording of the interview and an excerpt of the book are at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111985662

Mike Webb, “ProPublica editor Paul Steiger discusses emerging ethical questions for journalists,” ProPublica, Oct. 21, 2010. Steiger identified four distinct issues: the blurred line between presentation of fact and opinion; the quest for building a larger audience versus the need for journalism of substance and civic importance; the new business challenges facing the industry; and the need for greater transparency from news organizations.” This file contains the full text of Steiger’s remarks. http://www.propublica.org/atpropublica/item/propublica-editor-paul-steiger-discusses-emerging-ethical-questions-for-jou

Project for Excellence in Journalism, a survey of newspaper and broadcast news executives’ attitudes about the economics of their industry, April 12, 2010. This survey was conducted in association with the American Society of News Editors and the Radio Television Digital News Association.

http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/news_leaders_and_future

John Sullivan, “PR industry fills vacuum left by shrinking newsrooms,” ProPublica (co-published with Columbia Journalism Review, May 2, 2011. Sullivan writes that, as the number of journalists has declined, the number of public-relations professionals has grown. “The dangers are clear. As PR becomes ascendant, private and government interests become more able to generate, filter, distort, and dominate the debate, and do so without the public knowing it.” http://www.propublica.org/article/pr-industry-fills-vacuum-left-by-shrinking-newsrooms/single

Jodi Enda, “Retreating from the world,” American Journalism Review, Winter 2010. A detailed accounting of how many American news organizations have diminished their reporting of international news. http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4985

Justin Peters, “On Facebook and freedom: Why journalists should not surrender to the Walmarts of the Web,” Columbia Journalism Review, November/December 2011. Peters contends that in offering news organizations the opportunity to publish Facebook-specific editions of their content, Facebook “furthered its ambitions to control every segment of online activity, from commerce to conversation.” He concludes his essay, “[T]he news as a public good will not survive if its future rests in the hands of people who don’t actually care about the news.” http://www.cjr.org/essay/on_facebook_and_freedom.php?page=all

Financing Journalism in the Digital Age

Should online users pay for news content? Would they?

Lee Thornton, “Can the press fix itself? Steven Brill answers the question he asked a decade ago,” American Journalism Review, February/March 2009. The entrepreneur says newspapers are “committing suicide by giving journalism away for free.” http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4694

Walter Isaacson, “How to save your newspaper,” Time, Feb. 5, 2009. The author and journalist proposes micropayments – “something like digital coins or an E-ZPass digital wallet, a one-click system with a really simple interface that will permit impulse purchases of a newspaper, magazine, article, blog or video for a penny, nickel, dime or whatever the creator chooses to charge.”

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1877191,00.html

Rick Edmonds, “Is paid online content a solution or an impossible dream?” Feb. 20, 2009. http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=123&aid=158663

Brett Schulte, “Against the grain,” American Journalism Review, March 2010. Walter E. Hussman Jr., publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, took the contrarian approach by charging for online content from the beginning, and it has paid off for him. http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4859

John Morton, “The Morton Plan: Here’s how America’s newspapers can save themselves,” American Journalism Review, April/May 2009. Morton, a newspaper consultant, proposes that newspapers simultaneously offer readers the choice of getting their paper online or in print for the same price. http://ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4738

Michael Kinsley, “You can’t sell news by the slice,” The New York Times, Feb. 10, 2009. A rebuttal to Walter Isaacson’s proposal. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/opinion/10kinsley.html

Lauren Rich Fine, “Micropayments? Won’t work. Here’s a better plan for newspapers,” Feb. 23, 2009. The former newspaper stock analyst assesses the situation. http://paidcontent.org/article/419-micropayments-wont-work.-heres-a-better-plan-for-newspapers

David Carr, “Let’s invent an iTunes for news,” The New York Times, Jan. 12, 2009. A proposal to have consumers pay for news with an electronic device. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/business/media/12carr.html

Peter Osnos, “What’s a fair share in the Age of Google?”, Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 2009, 25-28. Osnos is the founder and editor-at-large of PublicAffairs Books and a senor fellow for media for The Century Foundation. A particularly useful passage in this article is his analysis (on page 26) of the current state of journalism economics, in which he urges that a way be found to “redress the growing imbalance of power and resources between traditional content creators and those who provide links to or aggregate that material.” The Osnos piece is one of four articles in the magazine grouped under the heading “No Free Lunch”: i.e., gathering the news is expensive and a way has to be found to pay for it. http://www.cjr.org/feature/whats_a_fair_share_in_the_age.php?page=all

Seth Mnookin, “The kingdom and the paywall, New York, July 24, 2011: “Some people thought that on Arthur Sulzberger’s watch, The New York Times could actually become extinct. They might need to issue a correction … Thedigital-subscription plan – the famous ‘paywall’ – was working better than anyone had dared to hope.” http://nymag.com/news/media/new-york-times-2011-8/

Clay Shirky, “Why we need the new news environment to be chaotic,” Shirky.com, July 9, 2011. Shirky argues that news has to be subsidized, cheap, and free. http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2011/07/we-need-the-new-news-environment-to-be-chaotic/

What business models might work for newspapers?

Mark Glaser, “Your guide to alternative business models for newspapers,” mediashift, Dec. 18, 2008. http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/12/your-guide-to-alternative-business-models-for-newspapers353.html

Douglas McCollam, “Somewhere east of Eden: Why the St. Pete Times model can’t save newspapers,” Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 2008. http://www.cjr.org/essay/somewhere_east_of_eden.php

Could nonprofits and philanthropy pay for journalism?

David Swensen and Michael Schmidt, “News you can endow,” The New York Times, Jan. 28, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/opinion/28swensen.html

David Shedden, “The role of philanthropy in journalism’s future,” poynteronline. Links to articles about the topic. http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=132&aid=163568

Howard Kurtz, “ProPublica’s nonprofit’s news gathering pays off for partners,” The Washington Post, April 19, 2010. “There was a time when most journalistic investigations were carried by newspapers, when revenue was abundant and ‘I-teams’ were all the rage. But with nearly all papers hurt by cutbacks and some in bankruptcy, ambitions have been downsized. And that has left a vacuum for ventures that don’t have to worry about Wall Street expectations.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/18/AR2010041803107.html

Richard Pérez-Peña, “A.P. in deal to deliver nonprofits’ journalism,” The New York Times, June 13, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/13/business/media/13press.html

Barb Palser, “Will the iPad save print?”, American Journalism Review, posted online Feb. 28, 2011. Technology is offering a glimpse of what the digital future could look like, but it’s going to take a lot of trailblazing to get there. http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=5022

What if newspapers fail?

Rachel Smolkin, “Cities without newspapers,” American Journalism Review, June/July 2009: “As the economic noose tightens, the notion of big cities without local dailies seems a real possibility. What would the impact be on civic life? And what might emerge to fill the gap?” http://ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4781

Paul Starr, “Goodbye to the age of newspapers (hello to a new era of corruption),” The New Republic, March 4, 2009. An analysis of the changing media environment. http://www.tnr.com/article/goodbye-the-age-newspapers-hello-new-era-corruption?page=1

Gary Kamiya, “The death of the news,” salon.com, Feb. 17, 2009. If newspapers die, so does reporting. If reporting vanishes, the world will get darker and uglier. http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2009/02/17/newspapers/

The Problem of Infotainment

The Anna Nicole Smith case:

Mark Jurkowitz, “Anna and the astronaut trigger a week of tabloid news,” Project for Excellence in Journalism, Feb. 12, 2007. http://www.journalism.org/node/4096

PEJ, “Anna Nicole Smith – anatomy of a feeding frenzy,” April 4, 2007. http://www.journalism.org/node/4872

Carl Hiaasen, “We have seen the future, and it’s not pretty,” Miami Herald, March 4, 2007. (Lexis/Nexis Academic)

A general discussion of infotainment and its implications for journalism:

Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect (New York: Crown, 2001), 150-155.

David Shaw, “News as entertainment is sadly becoming the norm,” Los Angeles Times, July 11, 2004. (Lexis/Nexis Academic)

Michael Schudson and Susan E.Tifft, “American journalism in historical perspective,” Geneva Overholser and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Eds., The Press (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 40-41.

Thomas E. Patterson, “Doing well and doing good: How soft news and critical journalism are shrinking the news audience and weakening democracy – and what news outlets can do about it,” Joan Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2000, 4. http://www.hks.harvard.edu/presspol/publications/reports/soft_news_and_critical_journalism_2000.pdf

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, “Public blames media for too much celebrity coverage,” Aug. 2, 2007. The survey was based on a nationally representative sample of 1,027 adults conducted July 27-30, 2007.

http://people-press.org/report/346/public-blames-media-for-too-much-celebrity-coverage

Eric Alterman, “It ain’t necessarily so,” The Nation, Sept. 10, 2007: “Despite what many in the media believe, the American public is interested in more than just right-wing punditry and celebrity gossip.” http://www.thenation.com/article/it-aint-necessarily-so

Deborah Potter, “Past their prime: Their audience shrinking, TV newsmagazines go tabloid,” American Journalism Review, August/September 2005.

http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3939

Quality Implications of “Media Convergence”

Deborah Potter, “Doing it all: Having the same person report and shoot the stories may save money, but at what cost?”, American Journalism Review, October/November 2006. http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4213

Jane B. Singer, “Cross-platform journalism, partnering, and cross-ownership,” in Cecilia Friend and Jane B. Singer, Online Journalism Ethics: Traditions and Transitions (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2007), 198-222. This chapter includes an essay by Mark Deuze, “Conversing about convergence,” 204-207.

David Zucchino and Rick Loomis, “The Lifeline: A three-part Los Angeles Times series following the lives of soldiers wounded in Iraq,” April 2-4, 2006.

http://www.latimes.com/la-na-wounded-series,0,5762347.special

Bob Haiman, “Can convergence float?”, poynteronline, Dec. 18, 2002. The president emeritus of the Poynter Institute thinks convergence is bad for journalism. http://poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=14540

The Internet’s Unresolved Issues

These issues are discussed in Chapter 18 and recapped briefly in this chapter because they are among the new media environment’s important unresolved challenges. See Chapter 18’s resources.

What Is Journalism? And Who Is a Journalist?

Knight Citizen News Network, “A guide to ‘crowdsourcing’: Reader-supplied information and documents help nail down stories.” This site offers “tools for citizen journalists.” http://www.kcnn.org/tools/crowdsourcing

Kelly McBride, “The problem with citizen journalism,” poynteronline, Sept. 24, 2006. http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=67&aid=97418

The Colbert Report, “Stephen Colbert’s meReporters: CNN lays off 50 staff members, and Stephen gets in on the uncompensated future of news,” Nov. 28, 2011. In this video, Colbert satirizes a new world in which citizen journalists, which CNN calls “iReporters,” take over from the professionals. http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/403149/november-28-2011/stephen-colbert-s-me-reporters

Neil Henry, The American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 10-12, 31: “[The] arguments in favor of citizen journalism, in which anyone with digital skills is presumed able and equipped to report the news, also presume that effective and meaningful journalism in service of the public interest is not a particularly difficult endeavor—that anyone can do it.”

Andrew Finlayson, “Live on the scene—on any screen,” The Communicator, Feb. 17, 2009. With a camera in every pocket, journalists aren't the only ones reporting the news. http://www.rtnda.org/pages/posts/live-on-the-sceneE28094on-any-screen401.php

Geoffrey A. Fowler, “ ‘Citizen journalists’ evade blackout on Myanmar news,” The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 28, 2007. “Citizen witnesses are using cellphones and the Internet to beam out images of bloodied monks and street fires, subverting the Myanmar government’s effort to control media coverage [of anti-government protests].”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119090803430841433.html

Leonard Pitts Jr., “Citizen journalists? Spreading like a cold,” The Miami Herald, Oct. 6, 2010. “You cannot be a journalist – citizen or otherwise – if credibility matters less to you than ideology.” (News databases)