We've read hundreds of pages this semester on journalism — its history, its successes, its failures and its future. As communicators and as citizens, it is essential that we understand and appreciate this profession and the rights and responsibilities it carries like no other thanks to the First Amendment.
After all the readings and discussions over the semester, I've found little nuggets here and there that I know I will take from the class well into the future. Perhaps one sentence that I think best describes journalism appears early in The Elements of Journalism by Kovach and Rosenstiel. The purpose of journalism, they wrote, "is defined not by technology, nor by journalists or the techniques they employ, but by something more basic: the function news plays in the lives of people."
As naive as it may sound to some or as pretentious as it may sound to others, I think journalism truly is a unique profession. It is a way to serve our communities and our society as a whole that no other profession, industry, business or whatever term one wants to use can. It helps create an informed citizenry so our democracy can function properly. It shines a light on injustices and wrongdoing as well as on good deeds and generosity. It can investigate and educate. It can be a voice on our behalf when we think no one hears us.
Certainly it is not without its problems. Its highs and lows over the decades are documented. It has been used by some as a tool to further an agenda and by others as a cover to engage in unethical or illegal practices. And now it faces another era of change as it adapts to technologies that are shaping it in ways we may not be able to foresee fully.
If as news organizations transform structurally and philosophically, they keep in mind Kovach and Rosenstiel's words — that journalists' ultimate loyalty is to their readers and viewers, and that the role journalism can play in their lives should be its guiding principle — then the decisions they make will be the right ones, even if it takes a while for them to succeed.
Monday, December 8, 2014
Top 20 network TV stories of 2013: Mea culpa, sort of
I have to admit that I rarely watch television news. For one thing, I just don't take the time to sit in front of the TV for half an hour or longer. I also must say that my impression of TV news is, for the most part, like the old beer commercial: tastes great, less filling. There just seems to be a lot of repetition and vacuous fluff that passes for news.
So I was a little surprised, but willing to admit my bias, when I saw this chart on the Pew Research Center website. It lists the top 20 stories covered by ABC, CBS and NBC, rated by the cumulative number of minutes of coverage, for 2013. With the exception of Prince George's birth, I consider everything on the list to be pretty substantive. So kudos to them.
However, the chart does not (and cannot) describe the type of coverage. I still believe that some network coverage of these stories is sensationalized or dumbed down to the lowest common denominator (do the reporters really have to stand out in the hurricane-force wind?). And when you consider that the three networks' newscasts total a little more than 24,000 minutes in a year, these top 20 stories took up only about 17 percent of those minutes. Bring on the fluff.
So I was a little surprised, but willing to admit my bias, when I saw this chart on the Pew Research Center website. It lists the top 20 stories covered by ABC, CBS and NBC, rated by the cumulative number of minutes of coverage, for 2013. With the exception of Prince George's birth, I consider everything on the list to be pretty substantive. So kudos to them.
However, the chart does not (and cannot) describe the type of coverage. I still believe that some network coverage of these stories is sensationalized or dumbed down to the lowest common denominator (do the reporters really have to stand out in the hurricane-force wind?). And when you consider that the three networks' newscasts total a little more than 24,000 minutes in a year, these top 20 stories took up only about 17 percent of those minutes. Bring on the fluff.
...but what kind of news?
Not all news is created equal. The Pew Research Center also has charts that show what kind of news people get through Facebook and what they do with the news they access on social media. The latter shows how much news really has become a two-way conversation with the advent of the Internet and, more particularly, social media.
What we don't see on the Facebook chart is breaking news. Pew says that while other sites like Twitter are all about sharing news as it's happening, Facebook is less so. Perhaps that's at least partly because of the way people generally use Facebook — for entertainment and connecting with friends.
What we don't see on the Facebook chart is breaking news. Pew says that while other sites like Twitter are all about sharing news as it's happening, Facebook is less so. Perhaps that's at least partly because of the way people generally use Facebook — for entertainment and connecting with friends.
Social media as a pathway to news...
We've talked in class this semester about the impact that social media has on news consumption. We also know the importance of visual elements to a story, so here are a couple of charts from the Pew Research Center that demonstrate how people use social media to access news.
What "unbundling" means for news organizations
The New York Times story about Facebook News Feed that I wrote my previous blog post on also mentions the term "unbundling," which we have talked about in class this semester. It's a term used to describe changes occurring in the way a number of professions and industries serve their clients and customers.
As one non-communications example, some attorneys are — within the parameters of their codes of professional conduct — unbundling services in an effort to save clients money (and keep them from using products like LegalZoom). They may represent clients only through specific steps in a court proceeding, for example, or break up what once had been a package of services into smaller, less expensive alternatives.
The Times article cites the changes in the music industry that have occurred over time as comparable to the journalism profession. No longer do consumers have to buy an album or CD to get the one or two songs they like; now they can purchase individual songs online. Likewise, readers and viewers increasingly have less "brand loyalty," opting to go to single stories of interest that they find through their social media feeds or search engines rather than to a specific news source like the Times or NBC News.
As mentioned in the previous post, this puts pressure on both the editorial and business sides of news organizations to rethink how they present their content. The Times story also mentions a move by The Washington Post to look at ways it can deliver "different versions of [its] journalism to different people, based on information about how they have come to an article, which device they are on and even, if it is a phone, which way they are holding it."
The Post's digital editor says more than half of its mobile readers are millennials who get their news online and primarily through social media sites. “We’re asking if there’s a different kind of storytelling, not just an ideal presentation,” the editor said. People reading the paper on a mobile phone during the day may prefer a different kind of "reading experience" than those who are on a laptop at home in the evening, she said, adding that such a change is “ultimately about sustaining our business or growing our audience.”
As one non-communications example, some attorneys are — within the parameters of their codes of professional conduct — unbundling services in an effort to save clients money (and keep them from using products like LegalZoom). They may represent clients only through specific steps in a court proceeding, for example, or break up what once had been a package of services into smaller, less expensive alternatives.
The Times article cites the changes in the music industry that have occurred over time as comparable to the journalism profession. No longer do consumers have to buy an album or CD to get the one or two songs they like; now they can purchase individual songs online. Likewise, readers and viewers increasingly have less "brand loyalty," opting to go to single stories of interest that they find through their social media feeds or search engines rather than to a specific news source like the Times or NBC News.
As mentioned in the previous post, this puts pressure on both the editorial and business sides of news organizations to rethink how they present their content. The Times story also mentions a move by The Washington Post to look at ways it can deliver "different versions of [its] journalism to different people, based on information about how they have come to an article, which device they are on and even, if it is a phone, which way they are holding it."
The Post's digital editor says more than half of its mobile readers are millennials who get their news online and primarily through social media sites. “We’re asking if there’s a different kind of storytelling, not just an ideal presentation,” the editor said. People reading the paper on a mobile phone during the day may prefer a different kind of "reading experience" than those who are on a laptop at home in the evening, she said, adding that such a change is “ultimately about sustaining our business or growing our audience.”
Kudos to big organizations like The Post for looking for every advantage in today's news market, but most smaller news operations don't have those kinds of resources. They must look for other opportunities to reach readers and viewers, such as by offering content — such as local news specific to their communities — that no one else has. That will be difficult in today's age of reduced newsroom staff and smaller news holes.
Facebook's News Feed: "A personalized newspaper"
A personalized newspaper. That's what Greg Marra, an engineer at Facebook, calls the platform's News Feed function in a recent New York Times article. The Times story calls Marra, whose team writes the News Feed algorithms, "one of the most influential people in the news business." There's something you wouldn't have heard a decade ago. (Hmm, will he be a communications pioneer studied by some future Pro Sem class?)
About 30 percent of U.S. adults now get their news through Facebook. "The fortunes of a news site, in short, can rise or fall depending on how it performs on Facebook's News Feed," the story said, adding:
About 30 percent of U.S. adults now get their news through Facebook. "The fortunes of a news site, in short, can rise or fall depending on how it performs on Facebook's News Feed," the story said, adding:
Though other services, like Twitter and Google News, can also exert a large influence, Facebook is at the forefront of a fundamental change in how people consume journalism. Most readers now come to it not through the print editions of newspapers and magazines or their home pages online, but through social media and search engines driven by an algorithm, a mathematical formula that predicts what users might want to read. It is a world of fragments, filtered by code and delivered on demand.One of our primary discussion points this semester has been the development of a new business model(s) by news organizations. This increasing fragmentation of how people get their information means "norgs" must incorporate both editorial and business strategies for bringing readers/viewers — and advertisers — to their websites. "All the news that's fit to print" will take on a new meaning....
Sunday, December 7, 2014
"Old" v. "New"
We have discussed in class and in our blogs about the need for change within news organizations, and in particular those with print publications as their primary outlet for content, to stem the loss of revenue and personnel and make/keep themselves relevant. The clash of "old" versus "new" media has been playing out for the past several years at small community newspapers and international media conglomerates alike.
Last week, one clash at one organization was made very public. More than two dozen staff members at The New Republic, founded 100 years ago and based in Washington, D.C., quit to protest changes at the magazine by its new owner, Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook. Twenty former editors and writers penned an open letter to Hughes lamenting what they call the "destruction" of the magazine. Hughes' plans reportedly include moving it to New York and "rebranding" it as a "digital media company."
"The New Republic cannot be merely a 'brand.' It has never been and cannot be a 'media company' that markets 'content,'" Politico quotes from the letter. "Its essays, criticism, reportage, and poetry are not 'product.' It is not, or not primarily, a business. It is a voice, even a cause. It has lasted through numerous transformations of the 'media landscape' — transformations that, far from rendering its work obsolete, have made that work ever more valuable.
"The New Republic is a kind of public trust," it continued. "That is something all its previous owners and publishers understood and respected. The legacy has now been trashed, the trust violated. It is a sad irony that at this perilous moment, with a reactionary variant of conservatism in the ascendancy, liberalism’s central journal should be scuttled with flagrant and frivolous abandon. The promise of American life has been dealt a lamentable blow."
Without commenting on the virtues (or lack thereof) of Hughes' plans, this goes beyond just some longtime writers unable or unwilling to adapt to changing technologies. Those who signed the letter include Andrew Sullivan, who founded The Daily Dish (one of the first political blogs) in 2000; Sidney Blumenthal, the former Washington bureau chief for Salon.com; and Evan Smith, editor-in-chief and CEO of The Texas Tribune, one of the most successful and acclaimed digital news organizations.
These are not people who are afraid of technology or of change; they embrace it. This is a deep philosophical divide over the meaning and mission of The New Republic. I think this is something many other news operations will face as they rethink their business and editorial models. Hopefully we as readers and viewers and citizens will not be the losers in the end.
Last week, one clash at one organization was made very public. More than two dozen staff members at The New Republic, founded 100 years ago and based in Washington, D.C., quit to protest changes at the magazine by its new owner, Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook. Twenty former editors and writers penned an open letter to Hughes lamenting what they call the "destruction" of the magazine. Hughes' plans reportedly include moving it to New York and "rebranding" it as a "digital media company."
"The New Republic cannot be merely a 'brand.' It has never been and cannot be a 'media company' that markets 'content,'" Politico quotes from the letter. "Its essays, criticism, reportage, and poetry are not 'product.' It is not, or not primarily, a business. It is a voice, even a cause. It has lasted through numerous transformations of the 'media landscape' — transformations that, far from rendering its work obsolete, have made that work ever more valuable.
"The New Republic is a kind of public trust," it continued. "That is something all its previous owners and publishers understood and respected. The legacy has now been trashed, the trust violated. It is a sad irony that at this perilous moment, with a reactionary variant of conservatism in the ascendancy, liberalism’s central journal should be scuttled with flagrant and frivolous abandon. The promise of American life has been dealt a lamentable blow."
Without commenting on the virtues (or lack thereof) of Hughes' plans, this goes beyond just some longtime writers unable or unwilling to adapt to changing technologies. Those who signed the letter include Andrew Sullivan, who founded The Daily Dish (one of the first political blogs) in 2000; Sidney Blumenthal, the former Washington bureau chief for Salon.com; and Evan Smith, editor-in-chief and CEO of The Texas Tribune, one of the most successful and acclaimed digital news organizations.
These are not people who are afraid of technology or of change; they embrace it. This is a deep philosophical divide over the meaning and mission of The New Republic. I think this is something many other news operations will face as they rethink their business and editorial models. Hopefully we as readers and viewers and citizens will not be the losers in the end.
Solutions journalism
In chapter 4 of Searchlights and Sunglasses, Eric Newton discusses how critical it is for newspapers to engage, as well as to be engaged in, their communities:
The story also quotes David Bornstein, a New York Times columnist and founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, who advocates the need for this type of reporting and writing:
In the digital age, we don’t just consume the media; we are the media. Friends, neighbors, co-workers, family — seemingly everyone is tweeting, posting, liking, commenting, creating and using news.
But news by itself is not enough. Knight Foundation believes communities are at their best when informed and engaged. For news to matter, people must act on it. Solutions require people to engage with each other as well as the issues at hand. Impact requires community.
Newton and the Knight Foundation believe newspapers should not only identify problems in their communities, but solutions as well. A post last week on Columbia Journalism Review's "Behind the News" blog titled "Building a New Storytelling Movement" discusses a new fellowship program by Images and Voices of Hope, a nonprofit organization whose goal is to make media "agents of positive change." The five fellows in the program will spend six months exploring the potential of "restorative narratives" — stories that demonstrate how people can contribute positively to a problem in their town.
[Bornstein] would like to see journalists take advantage of multiple angles when reporting any one story—solutions journalism and restorative narratives are just two prisms through which a story can be told. The more angles available, the more comprehensive stories can be, he says. The problems faced by society today are increasingly complex, Bornstein says, and it’s no longer adequate for journalists to point to problems without showing readers how people are trying to solve them.
This makes sense to me, and I think it can be a way for local newspapers to make themselves more relevant to their communities again. While a majority of people value local news, they don't always make the connection that if their local newspaper downsizes or even closes, news about their schools, their elected officials, their neighbors and their communities may become nearly impossible to find.
The Marshall Project: Non-profit journalism at its finest
I was excited to receive an email a few weeks ago titled "We're Live" from The Marshall Project, a new journalistic enterprise I've been following. Bill Keller, former editor of The New York Times, left the paper earlier this year to help spearhead the creation of "a nonprofit newsroom devoted to coverage of the American criminal justice system" — The Marshall Project, named for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. As a former newspaper reporter who covered cops and courts for almost 15 years, I am rooting for this to succeed and to make a difference in our country.
Keller, the Marshall editor-in-chief, wrote in the email:
Keller, the Marshall editor-in-chief, wrote in the email:
We have assembled a diverse team of journalists, set in motion a wide range of reporting projects, built a website to serve as a worthy stage for our journalism, and forged partnerships with a range of established media organizations who will amplify our voice.
Now it begins. On Sunday and Monday, Nov. 16 and 17, in partnership with The Washington Post, we are publishing a Marshall Project investigation of a legal quirk that can be a matter of life and death. We aim to offer something original every day — sometimes an investigative project, sometimes a sharp insight into the news, sometimes an argument, sometimes a quirky sidelight.
The Marshall Project was founded by Neil Barsky, a former New York Daily News and Wall Street Journal reporter who amassed a fortune as a hedge fund manager. An Inside Philanthropy story earlier this year detailed Barsky's reasonings behind the project, one of which is that he's never lost his interest in journalism (I'm not sure any of us former reporters ever do). He also believes that nonprofit journalism has better long-term prospects for sustainability than traditional for-profit journalism.
"A nonprofit organization has to sustain itself by being excellent and having an impact," he said in the article. "So does for-profit, frankly. But the difference is there are people of good will out there who are willing to support us if we do good work."
In our second book, Out of Print, George Brock says philanthropy "looks as if it will only be enough to protect specialized journalism — and then in societies where rich, disinterested donors are thick on the ground." I'm not sure about the "disinterested" part, but so far nonprofit news organizations primarily are specialized, either with their focus, such as investigative reporting or politics, or with the geographic area they cover, like the example we mentioned in class, the Voice of San Diego.
As we have discussed all semester, the current business model for newspapers, and really for all legacy news organizations to varying degrees, is not working. The only way to find a model or models that do work is to be innovative and be willing to fail. Unwillingness to change cannot be an option.
"A nonprofit organization has to sustain itself by being excellent and having an impact," he said in the article. "So does for-profit, frankly. But the difference is there are people of good will out there who are willing to support us if we do good work."
In our second book, Out of Print, George Brock says philanthropy "looks as if it will only be enough to protect specialized journalism — and then in societies where rich, disinterested donors are thick on the ground." I'm not sure about the "disinterested" part, but so far nonprofit news organizations primarily are specialized, either with their focus, such as investigative reporting or politics, or with the geographic area they cover, like the example we mentioned in class, the Voice of San Diego.
As we have discussed all semester, the current business model for newspapers, and really for all legacy news organizations to varying degrees, is not working. The only way to find a model or models that do work is to be innovative and be willing to fail. Unwillingness to change cannot be an option.
Sunday, November 16, 2014
The Google Effect, Part 2
I wrote Part 1 of this post after our class discussion a few weeks ago on "push" and "pull" media and how people are remembering less information because they know they can find pretty much anything online. After writing the first part, I went to Google and typed in "why memorize facts when information is so easily available on the Internet." The results? About 34,000,000 of them. Thus the second part of the post (and a new title for the first part) was born.
Not surprisingly, there were multiple points of view on the idea of people's inability or unwillingness to memorize facts they can find online. Headlines ranged from "Piece of mind: Is the Internet replacing our ability to remember?" to "How the Internet is making us stupid" to "The Internet is changing our brains — but so what?" (Yikes.) There even is a term for it (hence the blog post title) — the Google effect, coined by three researchers who conducted a 2011 study at Columbia and Harvard universities that found people are less likely to remember certain facts when they think they can find them using a computer.
I hate to sound like a curmudgeon, but I don't think this bodes well for us as humans. I fear it will curtail our innate curiosity — something that journalists and other communicators need in spades. In one of the 34,000,000 results was a quote from Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the script for the film 2001: A Space Odyssey:
Merriam-Webster now lists "google" as a verb, so there's probably no going back. I just hope Google with a capital G is a benevolent emperor....
Not surprisingly, there were multiple points of view on the idea of people's inability or unwillingness to memorize facts they can find online. Headlines ranged from "Piece of mind: Is the Internet replacing our ability to remember?" to "How the Internet is making us stupid" to "The Internet is changing our brains — but so what?" (Yikes.) There even is a term for it (hence the blog post title) — the Google effect, coined by three researchers who conducted a 2011 study at Columbia and Harvard universities that found people are less likely to remember certain facts when they think they can find them using a computer.
I hate to sound like a curmudgeon, but I don't think this bodes well for us as humans. I fear it will curtail our innate curiosity — something that journalists and other communicators need in spades. In one of the 34,000,000 results was a quote from Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the script for the film 2001: A Space Odyssey:
Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.I also wanted to share the infographic below that I saw on Edudemic.com.
Merriam-Webster now lists "google" as a verb, so there's probably no going back. I just hope Google with a capital G is a benevolent emperor....
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
The Google Effect, Part 1
As we talked in class tonight about "push"
and "pull" media, and how people increasingly are retaining less
information because they know they can find whatever they need online, I was
reminded of a New York Times opinion piece that I read, heartily agreed with
and bookmarked a few months ago titled "Faking Cultural Literacy." In it, journalist Karl Greenfeld laments
that the technology that puts the world at our fingertips also can keep us from
learning much at all. Information is pushed into our lives non-stop — so
much information, so quickly, that it physically is impossible to absorb, and
eventually we don't even try:
Greenfeld also readily admits to being guilty as charged, and surmises that "those of us in the business of gathering, dispensing and otherwise trafficking in information may be among the worst offenders." He is right, sadly. We as communicators often are expected by our readers, viewers, bosses, CEOs or whomever to know something about pretty much everything, as unrealistic an expectation as that is. The pressure to break a news story before anyone else or keep up with the latest social media statistics for our PR clients is immense, and we fear overlooking that one bit of information that could be the game changer. Yet how can we possibly keep up with the overflow in our inboxes and Twitter feeds? We can't, really, so we skim, save and hope we remember what we need when we need it.
In The Elements of Journalism, Kovach and Rosenstiel acknowledge the pressure that the 24/7 news cycle puts on journalists, but say the stakes are too high to fake it. "The pursuit of truth is a process that requires an intellectual discipline and vigilance," they wrote in Chapter 2. "And the need for this is greater, not lesser, in the new century because the likelihood of untruth has become so much greater."
Now if you'll excuse me, I DVR'd "Chicago Fire" last night, and yes, I'm going to fast-forward through the commercials (sorry advertisers).
It’s never been so easy to pretend to know so much without actually knowing anything. We pick topical, relevant bits from Facebook, Twitter or emailed news alerts, and then regurgitate them. Instead of watching “Mad Men” or the Super Bowl or the Oscars or a presidential debate, you can simply scroll through someone else’s live-tweeting of it, or read the recaps the next day. Our cultural canon is becoming determined by whatever gets the most clicks. ... What matters to us, awash in petabytes of data, is not necessarily having actually consumed this content firsthand but simply knowing that it exists — and having a position on it, being able to engage in the chatter about it. We come perilously close to performing a pastiche of knowledgeability that is really a new model of know-nothingness.
Greenfeld also readily admits to being guilty as charged, and surmises that "those of us in the business of gathering, dispensing and otherwise trafficking in information may be among the worst offenders." He is right, sadly. We as communicators often are expected by our readers, viewers, bosses, CEOs or whomever to know something about pretty much everything, as unrealistic an expectation as that is. The pressure to break a news story before anyone else or keep up with the latest social media statistics for our PR clients is immense, and we fear overlooking that one bit of information that could be the game changer. Yet how can we possibly keep up with the overflow in our inboxes and Twitter feeds? We can't, really, so we skim, save and hope we remember what we need when we need it.
In The Elements of Journalism, Kovach and Rosenstiel acknowledge the pressure that the 24/7 news cycle puts on journalists, but say the stakes are too high to fake it. "The pursuit of truth is a process that requires an intellectual discipline and vigilance," they wrote in Chapter 2. "And the need for this is greater, not lesser, in the new century because the likelihood of untruth has become so much greater."
Now if you'll excuse me, I DVR'd "Chicago Fire" last night, and yes, I'm going to fast-forward through the commercials (sorry advertisers).
Thursday, September 25, 2014
A couple of thoughts from the first few weeks of class
This is my blog for COM 510: Professional Seminar, my first grad class in the communication studies master's program at Shippensburg University. I'm looking forward to reacquainting myself with and learning more about the communications profession, though I am less enamored of the idea of writing this blog. (I also didn't like it when the publisher of the newspaper I worked for 20 years ago decreed one day that all the reporters were to write weekly columns. But I guess I digress.)
We talked one night about the resignation of investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson from CBS News and some other recent, high-profile departures from national media organizations. Some left quietly; others, like Attkisson, made some noise. Then there is this video that CNN Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins made after losing her job. She is critical of CNN to a degree, questioning its decision to cut back on national affairs coverage, but also expresses her thanks for the opportunity she had with the network. The video has gotten more than 295,000 views on YouTube; I think it's great.
We also have had some discussion on how news coverage has changed over the years, most especially with the advent of 24-hour cable news channels and, later, social media. The desire to be first with a story, whether or not you have the facts right, and the need to fill every hour of every day with something at least resembling news have taken journalism down a road to a place from which it may not return. As Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel note in the first book we're reading, "(W)hile technology has created an unprecedented free flow of information and opinion, shrinking newsrooms have also meant a decline in accountability journalism. ... In the end, the question is this: Can journalism sustain in the twenty-first century the purpose that forged it in the three and a half centuries that came before?"
I don't know if Ryan Schuessler is sure that it can. His blog post, "I will not be returning to Ferguson," is thought provoking. A freelance journalist, he was in Ferguson, Missouri, in mid-August covering the killing of Michael Brown and its aftermath for Al Jazeera America. What began as national coverage of a tragic event quickly became a media circus, one that disgusted Schuessler to the point where he told his employer he was leaving.
"The behavior and number of journalists there is so appalling that I cannot in good conscience continue to be part of the spectacle," he wrote on Aug. 21, nearly two weeks after Brown was shot by a police officer. He highlights some of the most egregious behavior he said he witnessed, including another reporter who told Schuessler that he came to Ferguson as a "networking opportunity" and later asked Schuessler to take a photo of him with CNN's Anderson Cooper.
"We should all be ashamed, and I cannot do it anymore," he concluded. "I am thankful for my gracious editors who understand that."
I hope you'll take a minute to read it and let me know what you think:
http://ryanschuessler.com/2014/08/21/i-will-not-be-returning-to-ferguson/
We talked one night about the resignation of investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson from CBS News and some other recent, high-profile departures from national media organizations. Some left quietly; others, like Attkisson, made some noise. Then there is this video that CNN Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins made after losing her job. She is critical of CNN to a degree, questioning its decision to cut back on national affairs coverage, but also expresses her thanks for the opportunity she had with the network. The video has gotten more than 295,000 views on YouTube; I think it's great.
I don't know if Ryan Schuessler is sure that it can. His blog post, "I will not be returning to Ferguson," is thought provoking. A freelance journalist, he was in Ferguson, Missouri, in mid-August covering the killing of Michael Brown and its aftermath for Al Jazeera America. What began as national coverage of a tragic event quickly became a media circus, one that disgusted Schuessler to the point where he told his employer he was leaving.
"The behavior and number of journalists there is so appalling that I cannot in good conscience continue to be part of the spectacle," he wrote on Aug. 21, nearly two weeks after Brown was shot by a police officer. He highlights some of the most egregious behavior he said he witnessed, including another reporter who told Schuessler that he came to Ferguson as a "networking opportunity" and later asked Schuessler to take a photo of him with CNN's Anderson Cooper.
"We should all be ashamed, and I cannot do it anymore," he concluded. "I am thankful for my gracious editors who understand that."
I hope you'll take a minute to read it and let me know what you think:
http://ryanschuessler.com/2014/08/21/i-will-not-be-returning-to-ferguson/
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