Recently in Journalism Category
Murdoch to media: You dug yourself a huge hole | Coop's Corner - CNET News
"The complacency stems from having enjoyed a monopoly--and now finding they have to compete for an audience they once took for granted. The condescension that many show their readers is an even bigger problem. It takes no special genius to point out that if you are contemptuous of your customers, you are going to have a hard time getting them to buy your product. Newspapers are no exception."
Ace of Spades HQ: After 12 Years, Alan Colmes Quits Hannity & Colmes
Not the main point of the piece, but I agree with Ace's comparison of three leading conservative radio talkers:
"Limbaugh avoids (mostly) the self portrayal of hero via the distancing lens of irony. His boasts are so over-the-top they're funny (and meant to be). He undermines his own authority by poking fun at it, which has, as it turns out, the probably intended effect of increasing his authority.
"On the other hand, Hannity and O'Reilly deliberately set out to portray themselves as heroes. O'Reilly's always famously 'looking out for the folks' and 'on your side.' Hannity indulges too much in earnest caring and all-around good-guyism.
"It's a bit too much, at least for me. It's oversold.
"I prefer the self-mocking irony of a Limbaugh rather than the earnest crusading of Hannity or O'Reilly."
Michelle Malkin » Newspapers dying. You should care.
From August, but See-Dubya's words are worth keeping in mind as we read about layoffs and price increases: "As much as I'm for amateur and semi-pro sleuthing, the fact remains that most news gets reported because someone, somehow, gets paid to report it. Obviously, newspapers need to adapt and respond to market pressures. And maybe someday maybe the web will be organized to deliver the same degree of full-time local reporting and investigation that print media does, and a paperless news environment will come about. Until then I'm going to keep subscribing to a paper-even though I'm not in any particular hurry to get cable TV."
YouTube - CKLW's 20/20 News Team
Radio news in the good old '60s and '70s -- a documentary segment about the tabloid style of news on Detroit/Windsor's Big 8: "Disk jockeys without music." Click here for CKLW soundchecks, jingles, and history. He's not in this segment, but CNN's Bob Losure was at CKLW prior to his stints in Tulsa at KRMG and KOTV. (Hat tip to KFAQ's Brian Gann.)
Hemingway's Kansas City Star stylesheet
Ernest Hemingway encountered these rules on word usage, sentence length, dates, and abbreviations during his brief stint as a reporter for the paper in 1917-18. I'd write more about them, but I'm afraid of violating a style rule in the process. (Via Dawn Eden, whose link to a different copy of the style sheet is broken, even after it was fixed once.)
Washington City Paper: Editorial Workforce Reduction at WaTi
A memo announcing layoffs at the Washington Times, via Rod Dreher, who calls it "a masterpiece of Dilberty corporate-speak," and writes, "If you want to get an idea of the mood inside the journalism business these days, wait till midnight tonight, turn off all the lights in your house, shut yourself in your bedroom closet, put on your sunglasses, pull a paper sack over your head, and stare expectantly at the future."
