A few years ago, Alabama Media Group moved its photo archives into one place. Nearly 100 years of negatives from The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and Mobile’s Press-Register were brought to the building that housed the presses in Mobile. It was a reminder, said Michelle Holmes, vice president of content, of what they had. The newspapers started using more from the archives. “And we kept going […]
Politico has terminated its contract with magazine writer Julia Ioffe after she sent a tweet that referenced a possible incestuous relationship between President-elect Donald Trump and his daughter, Ivanka. In a note to Politico staff Wednesday, Editor-in-Chief John Harris and Editor Carrie Budoff Brown said Ioffe violated guidelines against displaying “gratuitous opinion” on social media. “Julia Ioffe’s tweet this afternoon about President-elect Trump – currently and understandably […]
The Washington Post is a profitable and growing enterprise, the newspaper’s publisher announced in a memo to staffers Tuesday evening. In the seventh paragraph of a rally-the-troops announcement, Post Publisher Fred Ryan made a winking nod to burying the news: Not to bury the lede, but thanks to the incredible work of the entire team, The Washington Post will finish this year as a profitable and growing […]
When Liev Schreiber visited The Washington Post for a sitdown with Executive Editor Marty Baron, the veteran newsman tried to keep it quiet. Baron hadn’t told anybody the award-winning actor was there to talk with Baron before portraying him in “Spotlight.” But, since it’s a newspaper, word got out anyway. People streamed by Baron’s office, “including a woman who went by the first time with her hair […]
Elizabeth Ailes, wife of former Fox News chief Roger Ailes, announced on Tuesday that she’s selling two newspapers in Putnam County, New York. Ailes, the owner and publisher of the Putnam County News & Recorder and the Putnam County Courier, is selling the papers to Editor-in-Chief Douglas Cunningham for an undisclosed sum. In an unbylined report, the Putnam County News & Recorder said the transaction was “a […]
Hamil Harris, who has been a staff writer at The Washington Post for more than two decades, is leaving the newsroom. The departure was announced on Tuesday in a memo by local editor Mike Semel, who called Harris “a presence at virtually every major news event in the Washington area for the past 24 years.” Harris covered the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11, anchored coverage of […]
Former New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker will make an abrupt return to Washington, D.C. from Israel to cover the White House, the newspaper announced Monday. Baker, who moved to Jerusalem earlier this year after covering the run-up to the election, is being brought back to complete the Times’ political team. Baker is a 15-year veteran of the White House beat and has covered Barack […]
Today’s news that Peter Baker is rejoining the White House beat for The New York Times was a historic one for the newspaper. With Baker’s addition, the Times now has six reporters covering 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the highest number in its 150 year-plus history, Baker told Poynter in an interview Monday. “When I started covering the White House in 1996 for The (Washington) Post, there were two […]
Punctuation helps a reader understand your story. Commas, periods, dashes and other marks convey the writer’s voice. They signal an emphasis or tone in language, as well as telling a reader when to stop or pause. Think of punctuation this way: The comma is a slight break in the thought of a sentence; the semicolon is a longer pause; and the dash represents an abrupt, dramatic turn. […]
Rick Telander admits he has an addiction. “I read three to four hours each day,” Telander said. “Sometimes as much as eight hours. I can’t stop myself. I am addicted to the English language.” Naturally, Telander jumped at the opportunity to be the editor of “The Best American Sports Writing: 2016.” The annual anthology, overseen by series editor Glenn Stout, should be a must-read for every sports […]
Editor’s note: A version of this story originally appeared on Medium In March, I started a new role as project manager of elections overseeing a first-time collaboration with four public media organizations: KPCC in Los Angeles, KQED in San Francisco, Capital Public Radio in Sacramento and KPBS in San Diego. We called it California Counts; collectively, we set out to boost civic engagement while reporting on election […]
News last month of Gwen Ifill’s death hit hard for many journalists. Ifill, who was co-host of “PBS NewsHour,” was a pioneer in newsrooms and on the television. On Thursday, “PBS NewsHour” shared letters and a video from journalists that Ifill inspired. Reporter Kenya Downs wrote that “women journalists of color offer a special reflection on her impact in an industry once dominated by White men.” After […]
The Associated Press is laying off two-dozen employees in its global news department, the cooperative told Poynter Friday. While AP makes every effort to cut costs elsewhere before affecting jobs, AP is laying off 25 staffers in the global News department this week. Like so many media companies, especially in the news business, AP must reduce expenses in order to continue to provide its objective, indispensable news […]
Tom Brokaw has a theory about covering politics that can be summed up in three letters: U.F.O. The basic idea is this: If something unforeseen can occur, it will. That’s why, when asked what the biggest news story will be one year from today, he gave an honest answer: “I don’t know.” “We don’t know what’s going to happen with Donald Trump,” Brokaw said. “We don’t know […]
Journalism took a beating in 2016. Donald Trump was elected president, thwarting pollsters and shaking off seemingly endless fact-checking. News organizations continue to lay off journalists as Facebook and Google gobble up the advertising market. And trust in media sunk to an all-time low, helped along by abuse on the campaign trail. Despite that, a former whistleblower thinks journalism still has the power to make big changes. […]
December is always marked by a run of fantastic journalism from news organizations across the United States. The flood of ambitious work nearly always coincides with the publication deadline for the Pulitzer Prizes (Dec. 31), as newsrooms gear up for journalism awards season. Here’s a quick look at some of the most ambitious journalism that’s been published recently. If you know of a great project that I […]
Good morning. Regrets laced with irony Glenn Beck is sorry. He really is. He swears. He’s sort of like Miss Otis in Cole Porter’s oft-recorded 1934 “Miss Otis Regrets” (I’ll take Bette Midler’s version). She “woke up and found that her dream of love was gone, madam.” And, them, “from under her velvet gown, she drew a gun and shot her lover down, madam.” In this case, […]
Breaking News, the popular alert app from NBC News, is shutting down at the end of the year. The entire staff at Breaking News — more than 20 editors, developers and administrative staffers — will stay on payroll at NBC News until Jan. 20, a spokesperson for NBC News told Poynter. Meanwhile, an effort is underway at the company to try to find jobs for as many […]
Since announcing the creation of ProPublica Illinois, president Richard Tofel has heard from people in other states hoping the nonprofit investigative organization will set up shop in their cities, too. And it might. But first, they have to figure out the prairie state. ProPublica announced Wednesday the creation of ProPublica Illinois, the search for a Chicago-based editor and seed funding from the Ford Foundation. Two important things […]
Mark Katches has spent his career battling one of the cruel realities of journalism: Hard-hitting and important investigative reporting rarely creates the kind of online buzz that a good cat video does. “I have been involved in Pulitzer Prize winning projects that were getting 20,000 pageviews,” Katches, the editor of the Oregonian, told Poynter. So when his team discovered that National Guard armories around the country are […]
Chicago politicians will have one more reason to look over their shoulders in 2017. The city’s history of political corruption and high crime rates have long made it fertile territory for investigative reporting. Next year, investigative nonprofit ProPublica plans to capitalize on that opportunity by colonizing the city with its first regional expansion. ProPublica plans to open the expansion in 2017 and is recruiting an experienced, Chicago-based […]
Anne Hull, a five-time Pulitzer Prize finalist who won the award in 2008 for coverage of the poor care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, is leaving The Washington Post. She is traveling to Berlin with her partner, a German journalist. Hull, who serves on Poynter’s board of trustees, is departing The Post “reluctantly” after spending 17 years at the paper, according to a farewell memo sent […]
For the 75th anniversary of the bombing at Pearl Harbor, newspapers around the country shared images and stories many Americans no longer remember for themselves. Those front pages led with the story of the attack, personal stories from survivors and memories from their loved ones. Here’s a collection via Newseum: Kristen Hare covers the media for the Poynter Institute. Her work for Poynter has earned her a […]
There’s a well-documented tradition of journalists sending pizza to their colleagues in other cities amid big, breaking news. It happened in Boston, Baltimore, Charleston and Orlando (Orlando actually got lots of food, including pizza). The Dallas Morning News also had a well-fed newsroom while covering the recent attack on Dallas police officers. Now, it looks like there’s a newsroom pizza chain alternative. On Tuesday, the Morning News […]
