| Another One Bites the Dust |
[Jul. 10th, 2009|12:28 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Porch | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sad | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Birdsong | ] |
Eagle Publishing closed its doors today with less than 12 hours' warning. They published the Eagle Times, a daily covering the Claremont, N.H. and Springfield, Vt. area, and several weeklies.
I am saddened, but not surprised, by this turn of events. They started making the same mistakes the other dailies are making: putting the bottom line ahead of product quality. Thus, veteran reporters who knew and understood the area were fired in favor of unseasoned recent college grads; stories were truncated and often ran several days after they were timely or relevant; staff morale crashed.
Today's edition, the last, is a masterpiece of denial. All the explanation we readers got were a few lukewarm comments from the publisher about how sad this was. On the Web site, the only mention of the closing is under state news -- for the wrong state. However, both versions have rather large ads proclaiming to advertisers that they reach 90,000 readers per week. Whoops!
I feel terrible for my colleagues and friends over there, especially a freelancer who may not get paid after having provided page 1 coverage almost every day on the trial of a couple of anti-tax nutcases with a massive arsenal.
Good luck, colleagues. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|09:39 pm] |
A few recent Poynter articles I found to be of interest:
Hartford Courant Reverses Redesign Based on Reader Feedback
"Taking cues from readers in a recent poll, The Hartford Courant has opted to return to a traditional, horizontal nameplate on their front page. The oldest continuously published paper in the U.S., The Courant is reversing its move to a vertical nameplate in a redesign launched last September."
( Continued... )
This is a prompt to share your favourite redesign horror stories.
MinnPost Experiments with Real-time Ads
Joel Kramer, MinnPost.com founder, explained the project in an announcement, saying:
"Imagine a restaurant that can post its daily lunch special in the morning and then its dinner special in the afternoon. Or a sports team that can keep you up-to-date on its games and other team news. Or a store that could offer a coupon good only for today. Or a performance venue that can let you know whether tickets are available for tonight. Or a publisher or blogger who gives you his or her latest headline."
( Continued... )
This could be good, yes? However, isn't this what Twitter is already doing? |
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| Reports of papers' deaths exaggerated |
[Jul. 2nd, 2009|10:14 am] |
Here's a view that runs counter to the "we're all fucked" position. Granted it's by a news executive with a vested interest in the product but there's some good points in there along with some truly terrible ones.
There's more in the actual speech transcript.
May write more on this later when I'm not at work. |
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| Russian and American bussinesmen |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|10:09 pm] |
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Hey, guys. I'm a journalist from Russia and now I'm working on an article, that involves analisis of Russian and American business. The article concerns family business. As I gathered information about businesses in my city I came to quite an interesting conclusion. A great number of small businesses are "girlfriends' businesses". Dresses, ice, cars etc. are not enough for a bussinesmen to express his love and devotion for a young nymph. They create small businesses for their girlfriends (for example: a local magazine, a shop, ads-agency). This kind of businesses are considered to be "foolproof" by our businessmen and their girlfriends, i.e. they bring money no matter how unprofessional their owner is (which is of course far from being the truth). So Russian businessmen are eager to make their girlfreinds financially independent. But they are not eager to make those girlfriends their wives. Very often a girlfreind gets a firm, but the wedding ring stays for her out of reach. I'm interested whether there's a similar tendency in USA. If there isn't anything of the kind, then it would be a good contrast. I would apreciate any relevant information. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|02:03 am] |
For all of you who work full-time as freelance writers, how did/do you market yourselves? I've done a lot of the 'new-school' things like creating a website and sending e-mails, but getting a bit of a dismal response. Has anyone ever tried posting things in their hometowns, putting cards at businesses, and other 'old-school' marketing techniques like that? What kind of advice would you give?
What I'm trying to do is really get myself out there and get more and more writing jobs, besides my full-time job, and eventually go completely freelance. My niche is music journalism, and I've had pieces published in nationally-syndicated magazines and have done some more current work writing bios for PR firms and writing about local places for an upstart magazine here in Milwaukee.
So, my post has a couple of points: first, how do you market yourself?
Secondly, I would really love if a handful of you could look through my portfolio site at lizvanpay.com and let me know what you think about it. Constructive criticism is definitely appreciated! |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|09:24 pm] |
Hey my fellow journalism-lovers,
I am an aspiring journalist and slowly entering my senior year of high school. I have absolutely no clue where to go to college for a journalism major. I live in California and currently have a 3.4 overall GPA and scored a 1540 on my SAT (though I shall retake it!). Does anyone want to help a girl out? I have oodles of extra circulars such as being the EIC of my high school newspaper for two years and being the president of certain clubs on campus.
I would really appreciate ANY HELP I could get... |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|12:46 pm] |
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Any journalists working (or who have worked) in South America? I'm moving there in a few months and am curious about the freelance culture. Thanks! |
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| Surprised beyond repair |
[Jun. 22nd, 2009|10:11 pm] |
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Recently I've got a book, a teacher's workbook, guideline on subjects what to teach aspiring journalists in universities. This book was published 3 years ago and I suppose used in universities in a southern part of Russia. I read it and I must say, was surprised beyond repair. First of all, I was surprised to find that examples given are dated 70's and 80's, time when all press reports was sanitized by state and final hit was - I couldn't find a bloody single word about responsibility of a journalist or journalist ethics... |
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| Irony much? |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|12:23 am] |
Arianna Huffington is going to get a big award from Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Communications.
Glad to know that one of the nation's top J-Schools is lauding and fete-ing someone who believes that ALL JOURNALISTS SHOULD WORK FOR FREE! And I hope Syracuse's class of '09 is smart enough to see the irony in this award and cancel their donations to the Alumni Association.
Oh wait, what donations? They can't donate a cent back to the university! They're all going to be hardworking journalists working for free..... At least in Huffington's world.
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=136968 |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 27th, 2009|09:47 pm] |
So the newspaper I'm interning at next week is taking me to a black-tie reporting awards dinner next Thursday. It's advertised at AU$210 a head. The closest thing I've been to before this was high school graduation.
Anyone been to something like this before? What should I expect and how do I not embarrass myself? |
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| The stuff essay research turns up |
[May. 25th, 2009|11:36 pm] |
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Rather amusingly written but highly depressing piece on what's gone wrong that has helped lead us to this point. The issues are nothing you don't already know, but some of the examples are pretty striking. |
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| Death Row Challenges Hurt by Newsroom Cuts |
[May. 22nd, 2009|12:32 pm] |
Via Newser:
Death Row Challenges Hurt by Newsroom Cuts
The huge cuts in newsroom staff around the country may have inadvertently condemned some innocent prisoners to death, the New York Times reports. Lawyers complain that many of the investigative journalists who would have once hotly pursued a story about a wrongly accused Death Row inmate aren't working any more. Overworked reporters who remain are less inclined to take stories that require plenty of legwork. (Continued...)
It's not news that investigative reporting is slipping away because of cuts, but I thought this was an interesting take on it. Web-based news reporting seems to have no problem covering local and smaller features, but what will happen to these sorts of stories? Does it matter? Should the public care? |
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| Cover letter question |
[May. 12th, 2009|03:12 pm] |
Hey guys *waves*
I too am applying for internships, or at least weeks of work experience at various places which can be smushed together to resemble the internship portion of my course. So a question.
If you recieved a cover letter written in the style of an article of sorts, would you find that obnoxious? Witty? Would it make you remember the person more? Would it count against the person? |
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| Internship interviews |
[May. 7th, 2009|11:06 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  anxious | ] |
I have an interview next week for an incredible internship opportunity; however, interviews tend to be my weakness. Do you have any advice on how to impress while applying for a position? What do you look for in a candidate?
Thank you. :) |
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| Best layoff ever |
[May. 5th, 2009|03:52 am] |
Whether the story about the Baltimore Sun layoffs has everyone more bummed out than ever, I don't know, but it sure didn't help. The prevailing feeling of the day seem to be that we've passed the point of no return in this industry.
So let's dance.
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| (no subject) |
[May. 4th, 2009|10:41 am] |
Regarding the latest harbinger of doom...
News coverage of the NYT-Globe union negotiations has ignored the fact that the Times has a reason to take a blustery hard-line stance with respect to the Globe's future.
The Times is itself in debt.
By threatening to be jerks, the Times hopes to squeeze the last drops of liquidity from a soaked Globe, specifically by freaking out Bostonian philanthropists so badly that a few are willing to pony up a few million dollars extra to save the Globe's name, employees, and circulation.
None of the reporters covering the issue has called the Times out on its bluff -- including Howard Kurtz, embarrassingly. The guy runs a fucking media analysis show on CNN, yet doesn't realize he's getting played.
Oh, and remember all those folks who said it was a bad idea to sell the Globe to ANYONE in New York? I'm not sure they feel like gloating at the moment, though they have every right. Nothing good would come of it!
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