7 JS newsroom staffers reportedly take buyout

The latest word is that the Journal Sentinel has had seven takers from the newsroom in its current attempt to slash people in the newsroom. Supposedly two more are being sought and, should they not voluntarily agree, involuntary cuts (read "firings") will be made.

I have a suggestion: Get rid of company CEO Steven Smith who has totally destroyed the company (stock is worth less than a quarter of it's value when he took the company public and began cutting) and use his multi-million-dollar pay package to increase staffing in the newsroom. That would directly improve the product.

A real news cafe

The Winnipeg Free Press offers an interesting way to engage readers -- by actually seeing them in person. Read about the newspapers' News Cafe, where readers engage reporters and editors in person. They use it to host online events as well as a base for reporters. Great idea

I remember when the Journal and Sentinel had a lively crossroads of the community in the lobby of the Journal Building (it's public service department went back decades). Of course the far-sighted (note sarcasm here) management killed the budding operation in the first of its many ill-considered cutbacks that have led directly to today's newspaper which is neither hefty in bulk nor in content.

If I were attempting to stabilize a newspaper, I'd look hard at what they are doing in Winnipeg. It seems to be working.

Journalism and transparency

OK, journalists' talking about journalism isn't rare. But sometimes it's worth listening to. Yesterday, on Poynter's blog, Matt Thompson urged journalism to follow the "scientific method" of transparency in reporting. That means reporters should make it very clear how they conducted the reporting they did, not only what a quote said but the context in which it was gathered -- that along would end some of the worst offenses of national reporters -- and how a reader/viewer could replicate the story.

Of course, that's the underlying argument in Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel's Elements of Journalism from nearly two decades ago, and the reason I still use the class in Journalism 1964, when we talk about what makes a journalist different from a non-journalist.

The point is that it's the way journalism must work for credibility today, and the more discussion the better.

Overwhelmed by friends

Nina Khosla, who describes herself as a 22-year-old designer who founded a social media startup, offers an interesting look at community, friendship and social media. Her premise is that we can become so friendly that we lose connections. In other words, we have too many friends on Facebook or Twitter just because of the volume.

This is a point I've made to several social media "experts," many of whom don't really understand. For example, I have so many connections on Twitter that my feed this morning goes back only two hours -- and it's morning. By midday when traffic rises, it'll go back about a half hour. And I don't have time to check it every half hour.

Anyway, Khosla's essay should be looked at by everyone attempting to get their mind around how social media fits into the larger mass media world.

Color the "Fairness Doctrine" gone

Broadcast's "Fairness Doctrine" is officially dead. I suppose that since it's been ignored for so long that this is a good thing. It certainly fits with our country's tilt toward corporate rule.

OK, that's the cynical view. But the truth is that actually ordering broadcaster to be "fair and balanced" is as impossible as expecting media outlets to live up to their slogans, whether they are "fair and balanced," "All the News That's Fit to Print," or even "Own Your Power." "Fair and balanced" depends is subjective. "All the News That's Fit to Print" often gets shortened sarcastically by reporters to "All the News That Fits" after their stories are cut.

It was a good effort, and it's tragic that the "marketplace" hasn't really created fairness since more than 90 percent of the broadcast comment seems conservative, while less than a third of Americans list their political leanings as that way.

But a rule that is so flagrantly disregarded should be discarded, so this is a good thing.

As you write today, think links

It's not news that we are going through a media sea change. Nor is it news that links are very important. What is news is a new study from the Knight Digital Media Center that demonstrates the importance of linking.

A blog post by Amy Gahran uses an excellent example to show how interconnected reporting strengthens individual reporting. She also discusses the past practice of major media outlets rewriting local reporting without giving any credit -- and how that practice is so questionable these days when Google so easily brings up all sources.

So it's a question not only of ethics but of creating the best content possible. At times, when I write these simple posts, I find myself with multiple links to the material I'm citing because media today approaches nearly every story from many angles. Links make our work stronger and more complete.

Who pays the legal costs of 'citizen journalism'

The report was fairly simple, Elliot Spitzer -- former prosecutor, governor and commentator -- was sued for libel by two executives of an insurance giant over a column he had written for Slate. But it raised a question that is troubling more and more recently: Who foots the bill for citizen journalism?

Slate has owners with deep pockets who can afford lawyers, but many Internet sites don't. That leaves them open to pressure, especially from corporations and those who want to intimidate. Think of it, you run a neighborhood blog, writing about local happenings. A local corporation -- or even a citizen -- threatens to sue you for libel. An attorney asks thousands just to take the case, and you -- assuming you're in the state most "citizen journalists" inhabit -- don't have thousands to battle.

OK, I'm describing the problem. Hopefully, soon I'll be able to describe a solution.

And the answer is "yes"

Are magazines treating women as sex objects more than in the past? This study uses Rolling Stone covers to dramatically make its point.

Magazines looking to crowdsource some covers

One of the things I've learned over the years is the value of reading across a broad spectrum. I've also learned that magazines like Ad Age and Woman's Wear Daily have a lot of material of interest to me.

For example, WWD offers a nice piece about the lengths magazines are going to appeal to young people, including the pictured current cover of Seventeen magazine, which is offering a cover spot to regular readers (OK, it's a contest with finalists already selected). But it demonstrates the lengths magazines will go to in appealing to their target demographics. The story has some real insights into what magazine folks are thinking these days.

It also shows how unscientific these plans really are.

Attention web designers, news works

In a sophomoricly-written piece (actually it's the stretch in the lead that I object to), Nieman Research Labs offers some excellent research and advice for news websites by examining the Los Angeles Times' website, which, it says, is showing major gains in traffic.

The report emphasizes reader engagement and constant updating, but another look at its numbers reminds me that what it's really talking about is content -- the Times is offering readers/viewers lots of content. I still think content is king. It doesn't matter if its in a blog, a story, a Tweet or whatever. If a site/stream/feed offers me something I want to know, I'll look for it.

Search engines, email still favorites

Surprise, surprise. People "stubbornly" keep ignoring social media platforms for old school search engines and email, Pew reports. That means that, no matter how dorky it is, web designers need to keep those old-fashioned technologies in mind while designing their sites.

OK, the snarkyness is mine, but after years of reading "digital experts" tell me that this new platform or that one is "the one that everybody will use," I'm sort of burned out on those predictions. Search engines do what I want, quickly and efficiently. If I want to know how something works, I'm not going to Twitter the subject. I'm going to use Google or Yahoo to find out. Same with email. I get more than a hundred messages a day. I miss so much of Twitter and Facebook because new posts keep crowding out old posts, and I'm not going to spend my entire day just updating social media accounts.

Obviously, I'm not alone.

Would you care?

Once upon a time newspapers viewed their front pages as a way to guide people into their newspapers. In fact, comics were often wrapped around the Sunday papers since they were high readership items. Editors and Publishers used front pages and headlines to make their newspapers interesting to readers.

That was then and this is now. The Richmond Time-Dispatch covered its front page with an ad. When someone complained, the publisher blithely blew them away telling Poynter's Jim Romanesko that "the reaction here is a real snoozer." I suspect that's because most people threw away the paper thinking it was just more of the trash that appears on our doorsteps or in our mail.

Or that they're so used to being abused by publishers that they don't care any more, and are too busy reading real content on their iPads to care.