“You can’t cut your way to prosperity,” holds a favorite truism about the news business. But when Tronc inc. recently reported improved financial results for the fourth quarter of 2016, cost controls were the big driver. The company went from operating at break-even in the fourth quarter of 2015 to posting a $19.4 million profit in the last three months of 2016. Expenses were down 14.2 percent […]
As CEO of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson was accustomed to going where he wanted, when he wanted, with whomever he wanted. It comes with being the CEO of one of the most valuable companies in the world. He doesn’t seem compelled to act much differently as Secretary of State — at least in the early going. It’s why news bureau chiefs will hold a conference call this morning to […]
Hey, it’s boss week here at Local Edition. This week, we’re going to spend a little time with a Florida editor who doesn’t fit many molds (started as a designer, doesn’t care for sandy beaches, etc.) As a reminder, this is week three in our four-week conversation about why we’re still in journalism. (You can subscribe here.) Hang around after the boss talk for a peek at […]
Writing is a process – a set of predictable, repeatable steps in the journey to the finished work. While there are probably as many processes are there are writers, here are some of the identifiable steps. Explore: All good writers express a form of curiosity, a sense that something is going on out there. See your world as a storehouse of story ideas. Gather: Writers collect words, […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. When it comes to Russian hacking and other subterfuge, the obvious and unavoidable media and political talk involves either the Clinton presidential campaign or the Trump White House. As Bloomberg’s Michael Riley discloses, there’s more for the press to obsess […]
By Vicki Krueger • March 6, 2017 Investigative reporters turn routine observations, reports, tips and conversations into questions about the way the world works. Curiosity is your starting point for great stories. Here are some places to begin: Observation. Be curious about the people and places you see every day. Your questions may be the seed of an idea for an investigative story. Tips. Tips can come […]
Poynter’s Ren LaForme has spent a lot of time with digital tools (the things you use to create new things, not the online know-it-alls). (OK, Maybe both.) As we look at the big ideas that explain what local journalism needs to evolve, we want to look at the small ideas, too. Tools seem like a good place to start. So, beginning this week, LaForme and I are […]
White House reporters are trashed with regularity by President Trump, but at least they can get a good cup of joe courtesy Tom Hanks. Hanks, the star of “You’ve Got Mail,” “Turner and Hooch,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Castaway” and “Catch Me If You Can” on Thursday sent an espresso machine to the break room for the White House press corps: The White House press corps is grateful […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. So what have you heard more often: “Fox & Friends” shilling for President Trump or sophisticated people confiding their real reason for reading The New Yorker is the cartoons? Ah, if only Bob Mankoff had long ago negotiated some piece […]
For years, editors have mocked the sports section, calling it the “toy department” of the newspaper. The unflattering moniker was applied to sports pages because they didn’t usually concern themselves with serious news like politics, the meat-and-potatoes of many newsrooms. Now, with the election of Donald Trump and the ascendency of politically minded athletes, that distinction is getting thrown out the window. So says Bryan Curtis, an […]
One of these sites is not like the other: ESPN.com, CBSSports.com, FoxSports.com, SBNation.com. To the titans of sports coverage, networks with broadcast rights to major sporting events, SB Nation is a scrappy flotilla of sports blogs led by its eponymous flagship site. Because it can’t air games, SB Nation has carved out a niche for itself as a multifaceted clearinghouse for sports fans, with individual sites for […]
Juan Thompson, who was fired from The Intercept last year for fabricating quotes, has been arrested on suspicion of making bomb threats against Jewish community centers. Thompson, who joined The Intercept at the end of 2014, stands accused of one count of cyberstalking in addition to making eight threats against Jewish community centers, according to NBC News. An anonymous threat emailed to a JCC in Manhattan earlier […]
Poynter announced today that longtime national and foreign correspondent Indira Lakshmanan is joining the institute as its Craig Newmark Chair for Journalism Ethics. Lakshmanan, currently The Boston Globe’s Washington columnist, has worked for newspapers, a wire service, digital and print magazines, TV and radio. The new position, which is funded by a $1 million gift from Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, will focus on best practices of verification, […]
Last month, The Intercept published a massive investigation into alleged war crimes committed by members of Seal Team Six, the elite naval special operations unit responsible for killing Osama bin Laden. The investigation, which spans five parts and thousands of words, was written by Matthew Cole, a longtime national security reporter whose resumé includes stints at ESPN the Magazine, ABC News and NBC News. In his capacity […]
When it came to once slice of the media Thursday, Jeff Sessions was generally trumped by Evan Spiegel. Contacts with Russians? Lying to a Senate committee deliberating his nomination? Need for a special prosecutor? Step aside as Attorney General? Well, that was grist for the mills of Washington-focused media and the cable news channels Thursday — and with good reason. But on CNBC and Fox Business, as […]
Beginning today, rank-and-file journalists at NPR are responsible for making sure appropriate financial disclosures are made in their stories — and they have the information to make that happen. Until now, the responsibility to disclose who funds NPR’s journalism was left to senior supervising producers. But in response to conflict-of-interest questions raised by NPR’s coverage of the Iran deal (a review found no journalistic impropriety), the public radio […]
Craig Newmark, the entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded Craigslist, announced on Wednesday a $1 million gift to ProPublica. The gift will “allow ProPublica to deploy resources and address opportunities, including adding staff, where they are most needed over a wide range of issues in the public interest,” according to an announcement from the investigative nonprofit. “A trustworthy press is the immune system of democracy,” Newmark said in […]
Facts-don’t-matter headline writers take note: According to new research, fact-checking may be an effective medicine against misinformation. However, it doesn’t seem likely to move people at the ballot box. A study published today by Royal Society Open Science concentrated specifically on statements — both factual and inaccurate — made by Donald Trump during the Republican primary campaign. The study’s most helpful contribution to the discussion over the […]
In the early days of his presidency, Donald Trump has called journalists the “enemy of the American people” (twice), assailed unflattering reporting as “fake news” and brought aboard a press secretary who’s shut news organizations out of a briefing. It’s behavior that has press freedom organizations across the United States worried. So, they’re working together to do something about it. Later this year, a coalition of organizations […]
This was originally published in our weekly newsletter, Local Edition, which is a product of the Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative. Subscribe here. Have you ever had a party and looked around the room at some point and thought, Wow, there are a lot of cool people here? Well, that’s how my inbox felt this week. Thanks to everyone who contributed last week by answering our first question in […]
Shortly after breaking the Panama Papers, an international exclusive that shed light on illegal offshore banking around the globe, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists should have been riding high. Instead, the scrappy cross-border investigative team was facing the dreary prospect of laying staffers off due to a financial squeeze at its parent organization, the Center for Public Integrity. “I did feel a little deflated,” said Gerard […]
Several news organizations, including BuzzFeed, Mic and Business Insider, were affected by today’s glitch with Amazon Web Services. Amazon Web Services, one of the largest hosting providers in the world, is experiencing problems in its U.S. East region, which contains many of the servers that news organizations headquartered on the East Coast rely upon. “We’re working as quickly as possible to resolve some issues caused by Amazon […]
This piece was originally published by the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism. It has been republished with permission. You can join the author for a free Webinar about building trust on Facebook at 2 p.m. Thursday, March 2. Relationships take work. You don’t get intimacy without putting in some time. You don’t ask for favors without offering the equivalent yourself. You earn trust […]
Every so often, I like to dream about how we could think differently about the building blocks of the news industry. So far, I’ve tackled headlines, homepages, bylines, analytics, podcast ideas, comment sections and ideas for covering the President; in today’s installment, I’ll list some new ideas for newsletters. The nice thing about newsletters is that they’re great experimental platforms to test ideas and try new things. […]
