American Journalism Review back issues from February 2006:
Toward a paperless society: and why that will bring happiness to the corporate suites.(ABOVE THE FOLD)
Feb 01, 2006; ... Twenty-five years ago I arrived at the Miami Herald as an editor on the national-foreign desk, which produced the front page and a fat A-section. If life was my journalism school, that desk was where I got an advanced degree. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Every frenzied ...
Small wonders.(Letter to the Editor)
Feb 01, 2006; ... I was heartened, but also a bit bemused, to read "Wonderful Weeklies" by Julia Cass (December 2005/January 2006). Our industry unfortunately focuses almost exclusively on what's going on at daily newspapers, despite the fact that most of the newspapers in America are weeklies located in ...
Helping out.(Letter to the Editor)
Feb 01, 2006; ... The author and some of her subjects in "Off the Sidelines" (December 2005/January 2006) find ethical conflicts where none exists. This arises from a misconception of what Rachel Smolkin calls the "basic tenet" that "journalists shouldn't intervene." Journalists shouldn't be participants ...
Isn't it ironic?(Letter to the Editor)
Feb 01, 2006; ... I enjoyed reading Kim Hart's piece on "Inbox Journalism" (December 2005/January 2006) but found a couple of things ironic. First, it's surprising that people who teach writing for a living would assume that the written words of a source's e-mails are "just a collection of stale, lifeless ...
Going native.(Letter to the Editor)
Feb 01, 2006; ... When I was a stringer for Memphis' Commercial Appeal, its Mid-South editor, the late Eugene Rutland, told me that Editor Frank Ahlgren had banned from the paper the word "native" unless referring to a ...
An alternative model.(Letter to the Editor)
Feb 01, 2006; ... Lori Robertson's informative article "Adding a Price Tag" (December 2005/January 2006) completely left out an important alternative model for funding newspapers that the Internet makes possible. All media, including newspapers, do not tell us enough of what we need to know about our world ....
Falling to "pieces": a best-selling memoir unravels.(A Million Little Pieces, James Frey)
Feb 01, 2006; ... When Jayson Blair's massive fabrication and plagiarism problems came to light, the New York Times published an astonishingly detailed--and candid--look at his transgressions. It played the story on page one and jumped to four open pages inside. Rarely has a newspaper displayed so much ...
Beacon of Light: an ambitious, award-winning weekly gets a new owner.(Robert Plotkin, Point Reyes Light, weekly newspaper)
Feb 01, 2006; ... Daily newspapers across the country are slashing staff, freezing travel budgets and generally singing the blues as readers and advertising dollars continue their migration to the Internet. The conventional wisdom is that it's a pretty grim time to be in print journalism. So ...
Penetrating the fog.(Weasel Words: The Dictionary of American Doublespeak, words and meanings)
Feb 01, 2006 ... In "Weasel Words: The Dictionary of American Doublespeak," University of Maryland professors Paul Wasserman and Don Hausrath shine the spotlight on language that obscures rather than illuminates. Some examples: [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Behavior transition corridors: ...
Diversity U.: the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute trains talented minorities to be journalists.(DROP CAP)
Feb 01, 2006; ... Roxye Arellano probably would have stuck with the familiar grind as an editorial assistant if she hadn't attended the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute--a program that trains minorities to be journalists in three short months. Now a full-time staff reporter at Colorado's Greeley ...
The bad boy of Baltimore.(H.L. Mencken's biography by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers)(Interview)
Feb 01, 2006 ... H.L. Mencken, the "bad boy of Baltimore," had an erudite opinion about or phrase for almost everything from his own popularity ("Let's not forget that the embalmer may be waiting just around the corner") to Southern culture ("The Sahara of the Bozart"). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...
Weird, wet and wild: when a key source calls, reporters answer--no matter what.(DROP CAP)
Feb 01, 2006; ... Reporters get into this business knowing full well that they can forget any notions of a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. workday. But now cell phones, the Internet, e-mail and BlackBerrys have made it all but impossible to ever truly leave the newsroom. How far would you go to make sure you got a story? ...
Cherry-picking.(Cliche Corner)(Brief Article)
Feb 01, 2006 ... <Pre> "There was a lot of cherry-picking going on, and the reports that were given to them were pretty darn selective." (NBC's Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC's "Hardball") "I've been the non-hysterical person in any organization I've been in, and yet I find when I look at the facts--and I ...
That'll teach her.(Take 2)
Feb 01, 2006 ... "Md. Woman Dies After Hitting Horse" ...
Ew!(Take 2)
Feb 01, 2006 ... "Teeth run in family's blood" (Mount Pleasant, ...
Say what?(Take 2)
Feb 01, 2006 ... "Beeb Win Bells Telly Ding-Dong" ...
That's an understatement.(Take 2)
Feb 01, 2006 ... "Two charged in cutting off man's ears waive ...
That explains it ...(Take 2)
Feb 01, 2006 ... "The roadster's styling and low price attribute ...
Great minds think alike.(Take 2)
Feb 01, 2006 ... "The Phillies have moved to Plan B, and that could mean that Ryan Madson is the team's newest starter." (Philadelphia Inquirer) "No starting pitching to be had, Phils turn to plan B" (Philadelphia ...
Newsthinking.(newspapers closing)(Brief Article)
Feb 01, 2006 ... "I don't know about you but I'm tired of listening to our obituaries. I ACCEPT death: Everybody dies sometime. If newspapers are going to die, as most 'smart' people seem to think, let's go down swinging. Let's go down like the Texans at the Alamo. Let's publish the best, most interesting, ...
Sherman's March: how Naples, Florida, money manager Bruce S. Sherman muscled Knight Ridder--the nation's second-largest newspaper company--into putting itself up for sale.(Cover Story)
Feb 01, 2006; ... On July 19, the board of directors of Knight Ridder, the country's second-largest newspaper chain, held a most unusual meeting. It was at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel near the top of San Francisco's Nob Hill, and it was unusual because, as the 10 board members convened, representatives of Knight ...
"The world needs what we do": despite the sad tidings in the newspaper business, a reporter-turned-journalism professor sees bright futures for today's j-school students.
Feb 01, 2006; ... The news about newspapers wasn't very encouraging in 2005. More than 2,000 newspaper jobs were lost. Knight Ridder suspended its minority scholarships and internships for 2006, this after putting itself on the block in response to demands from large shareholders. Along with the ...
Under siege: last year was a tough one for the newspaper industry. Papers slashed staffs, shuttered bureaus and cut back on newsholes. What does the future hold?
Feb 01, 2006; ... How bad are things in the newspaper business? So bad that it's newsworthy when a newspaper isn't cutting its staff, chopping its newshole or taking some other action that requires another of those ominous Message to Our Readers announcements. In mid-December, the Providence Phoenix, the ...
Waivering: a number of journalists have testified about their conversations with confidential sources after receiving waivers from the sources freeing them to do so. Is this a pragmatic way to stay out of jail or a breach of journalistic ethics that could pose big problems for the profession?
Feb 01, 2006; ... When reporter Judith Miller emerged from jail in late September after 85 days, she and her boss at the time, New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., were united in declaring victory. She had received a voluntary, direct waiver from her source releasing her from her promise of ...
Blogging on the hustings: bloggers were a significant and cacophonous force in Virginia's gubernatorial election. What was their impact, and was that journalism they were practicing?
Feb 01, 2006; ... One morning at the height of last fall's campaign in Virginia, my e-mail queue informed me that political journalism had changed: First came a missive from a reader passing along a blog item about a news release from a candidate for the state Legislature. A few minutes later, the blogger ...
International intrigue: after establishing the times as a national newspaper, the New York Times Co. decided it was time to go worldwide. It took full control of the Paris-based International Herald Tribune by strong-arming its partner, the Washington Post Co., into selling its half-interest. Now the Times Co. is in the midst of a three-way global shootout with Dow Jones and the Financial Times.
Feb 01, 2006; ... When Arthur Sulzberger Jr. visited the International Herald Tribune offices in Paris last July to host a town hall meeting, he faced a far less hostile crowd than the first time he met with the staff three years ago. Back then, he was the new owner, the chairman of the New York Times Co ....
Dilemma of interest: many law enforcement officials now use the vague term "person of interest" to describe people caught up in their investigations. That poses a challenge for journalists, who must try to convey a situation accurately without unfairly tarring someone's reputation.
Feb 01, 2006; ... When Robert Lutner saw on the news that two close friends, Brenda Groene and her boyfriend, Mark McKenzie, had been bound and bludgeoned to death along with Groene's 13-year-old son, Slade, he broke down and wept. Frantic, he began calling other friends, trying to get more information ....
The blog revolution.(Blog! How the Newest Media Revolution Is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture)(Book Review)
Feb 01, 2006; ... Blog! How the Newest Media Revolution Is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture By David Kline and Dan Burstein CDS Books 402 pages; $24.95 A blogger interviewed for this book tells a charming story about launching his Web site back in 2002. ...
iPod, you pod, we all pod: eager to lure news consumers, media outlets are experimenting with news-on-demand podcasts. They're fun, fresh--and often unpolished.(BROADCAST VIEWS)
Feb 01, 2006; ... The "ABC News Shuffle" sounds like something the network's executives might have been doing in their recent search for a new anchor team. But the shuffle that's been under way at ABC for more than six months now is something entirely different--a weekly 15-minute podcast hosted by ...
Hype or the real deal? Everyone's jumping on the podcasting bandwagon, but is anybody listening?(THE ONLINE FRONTIER)
Feb 01, 2006; ... Is podcasting rocking the nation? Or have we been sucked into a media-manufactured bubble? The answer is probably both. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Podcasting fever was so high in 2005 that it all but eclipsed the media's obsession with blogging; the New Oxford American ...
Web of lies: a vicious Wikipedia entry underscores the difficulty of holding anyone responsible for misinformation on the Internet.(FIRST AMENDMENT WATCH)
Feb 01, 2006; ... It's hard to imagine anyone with better First Amendment credentials than John Seigenthaler. The 78-year-old former assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, ex-editor of Nashville's Tennessean and founder of the Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center has long been an uncompromising ...
Keeping the faith: newspapers are taking a beating, but don't sound the death knell yet. The work they do will remain unique--and important.
Feb 01, 2006; ... At times in the past, worry about the future of newspapers has loomed large, but never so persistently as now. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The current concern is driven by the continuing, and apparently accelerating, decline in newspaper circulation. Add to that the rapid ...