Cronkite’s Career Sans Any Diploma

The late Walter Cronkite edited his high school newspaper, worked as a reporter for his college newspaper, went full time into commercial print press and then eventually into both radio and television broadcast news. But he dropped out of college in his junior year (although I’m sure he received many honorary degrees and there is a journalism school named after him). Today, many successful journalism job candidates have advanced degrees and such lofty academic qualifications are often listed as requirements for many news positions. It is amazing to realize that so famous a newsman had a career based on work-life experience rather than holding a BA or MA. Is this even possible anymore?

Google Among Senate’s Journalism Statements

Here’s the formal agenda for tomorrow’s Senate subcommittee hearing on journalism; Google managed to get on the list. There may be a live Internet feed for the session. Also, downloadable files of the printed statements by witnesses may be available on the web site during or after the hearing.

WHO: Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet

WHAT: “The Future of Journalism” – Commerce Subcommittee Hearing

WHEN: Wednesday, May 6, 2009 – 2:30 pm

WHERE: Commerce Committee Hearing Room, 253 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510

WITNESSES:

Opening Remarks

Panel I
Senator Ben Cardin
United States Senate

Panel II
Marissa Mayer
Vice President
Google Inc.

Albert Ibarguen
President
The Knight Foundation

David Simon
Former reporter
The Baltimore Sun

Steve Coll
Journalist
Former Managing Editor of the Washington Post

James Moroney
Chief Executive Officer
The Dallas Morning News

Arianna Huffington
Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief
The Huffington Post

“It’s a critical time to examine the future of journalism in the digital Information Age and what it means to our country and our democracy,” said Kerry in a press release. “American history is inextricably linked to the narrative of our free and independent press, and today, America’s newspapers, which have been the bedrock of the free press, are struggling just to stay afloat as new means of delivering information are multiplying by the day. Whatever the model for the future, we must do all we can to ensure a diverse and independent news media endures.”

Senate To Probe Journalism’s Fate

Well this should be interesting. Can’t imagine a “bailout” package for the press so what’s the point? We’ll see. The full agenda for this hearing, including the witness list, has not yet been revealed. This subcommittee is part of the larger U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

For Immediate Release: April 20, 2009
Contacts: Jodi Seth/Whitney Smith, 202-224-4159
Media Advisory

KERRY TO CHAIR COMMERCE COMMITTEE HEARING ON FUTURE OF JOURNALISM

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, has scheduled a hearing to address the issues threatening today’s news media. This is the subcommittee’s first hearing since Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) appointed Kerry to lead the panel. The hearing will address the economic recession’s impact on media and discuss the future of journalism.

“An independent news media is vital to our democracy,” said Sen. Kerry. “It holds power accountable while giving voice to the people and interests who might otherwise never be heard. The history of our Republic is inextricably linked to the narrative of our free and independent press, yet today, America’s newspapers are struggling just to stay afloat. I called this hearing to directly address a problem that for too long has had us turning the other way. Whatever the model for the future, we must do all we can to ensure a diverse and independent news media endures.”

WHO: Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.)
Chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet

WHAT: “The Future of Journalism”
Commerce Subcommittee Hearing

WHEN: Wednesday, May 6, 2009 2:30 pm

WHERE: Commerce Committee Hearing Room
253 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Besides Kerry, the other “majority” Democrats on the subcommittee are Daniel K. Inouye, Byron L. Dorgan, Bill Nelson, Maria Cantwell, Frank R. Lautenberg, Mark Pryor, Claire McCaskill, Amy Klobuchar, Tom Udall, Mark Warner and Mark Begich.

The “minority” Republicans are John Ensign (the ranking member), Olympia J. Snowe, Jim DeMint, John Thune, Roger Wicker, Johnny Isakson, David Vitter Sam Brownback, Mel Martinez and Mike Johanns .

Majority Contact: 202-224-0415
Minority Contact: 202-224-4852

Committee Website

Subcommittee Website

Photojournalism History Repeating Itself

President of the United States Barack Obama and dog Bo running.
Photograph by Pete Souza/White House via AP (2009)

Presidential Candidate Robert Kennedy and dog Freckles running.
Photograph by Bill Eppridge/LIFE Magazine (1968)

Future News Without Printed Words?

Perhaps someday, like in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, people will no longer be reading the printed word.

The science fiction story occurs to me in grim moments when news items increasingly appear about the demise of major city newspapers in the United States:  closings, bankruptcies, layoffs or ceasing print publication in favor on online-only formats.

A lot is being written and will be written about how newspapers are struggling with new business models in the Internet age, how blogging and Web sites are displacing the established news media and how print journalism publishers are dinosaurs. The latter charge is not necessarily gloating among the accusers, because they display a common worry involving journalism itself.

All this and more is probably true, but another underlying truth is that many people – among Americans at least – are reading less and less of words printed on paper.  And what they do read – online or elsewhere – they don’t want to pay for.

The evidence has been around a long time and is accelerating. Few of us can deny that print newspapers and news magazines decades ago were already being considered as endangered species due to the electronic mass media – first radio, then television, then cable. Along comes the Internet these days and some regard the development practically as a coup de grâce for newspapers.

A survey released in December 2008 by the Pew Research Center illustrates what is happening. It said that the Internet, which emerged in 2008 as a leading source for campaign news, had surpassed all other media except TV as an outlet for national and international news (Pew Research Center chart follows).

Alleviating our worries somewhat, Americans younger than 30 claimed slight increases for newspapers, magazines and radio as news sources – so maybe reading won’t die out?

Pew, nevertheless, also stated that nearly six-in-ten within this younger crowd said they get most of their national and international news online; an identical percentage cited TV, but the TV figure was less than in a similar 2007 survey. One could also wonder if the news being gleaned online is even necessarily displayed on the screen for reading – it could be a lot of videos.

There are probably comparable online trends concerning local, county and state news, but more data may be needed; anecdotal evidence suggests the same dire situation for newspapers, however.

In addition, although I’m not knowledgeable about actual book sales, past surveys by Gallup and others have underlined that Americans are reading less, especially books.  An Associated Press-Ipsos poll released in August 2007 said one in four U.S. adults say they read no books at all in the past year.

The National Endowment for the Arts published a 99-page study in November 2007 concluding that Americans in general are spending less time reading and their reading comprehension skills are eroding. It drilled deeper with disappointing findings about young adults and teenagers.

Finally, we have also heard that when it comes to reading tests for college-bound students, average SAT scores remained flat in 2008 after a couple of years of declines while average ACT scores showed a slight decrease.

But we don’t want to review all the evidence in order to simply condemn our reading habits – or lack thereof; instead, we might speculate and conjecture on a couple of points surrounding such an issue:  online news itself may not involve only reading because of the video content available and future news sources may not involve any reading at all.

Radio news, according to the Pew survey, remains relatively strong and that involves no reading. With the exception of brief captions, news locations and reporters’ names that are broadcast on the bottoms of TV screens, all viewers really have to do is watch and listen.

This leads us to the fast growing populations of cellular telephones and other wireless devices. Right now, they have FM and digital radio capability and even mobile TV is starting to come on stream.  Hopefully mobile TV watchers will be the passengers and not the drivers, but maybe cellular handsets and other wireless devices will become the next primary sources of news – listen only, no reading needed.

Lastly, it looks like people want to get news information for free as much as possible – a great incentive for advertising-based radio, TV and online news sources. Cable is a bit confusing since news is likely to be bundled into larger subscription programming packages; besides, cable TV news also gets advertising support plus it is also online for free, so that’s a wash.

Many of us who were in the trade press long ago saw pubs based on paid reader subscriptions fall victim to controlled circulation (freebie pubs supported monetarily only by ad revenues); now controlled printed pubs are falling victim to the equally free and technology user preferable Internet news.

It can be disheartening to believe that the public wants news for free or that the news work may be worth virtually nothing to them. After all, free or worth nothing is even lower on the economic ladder than a product or service characterized by commodity pricing.

OK News People – Who Took Nasty Mortgage Loans?

All right already. We’ve seen plenty of press reports about the greedy white-collar types who benefited or tried to benefit from the bad mortgage loan environment. Yet there apparently is a black hole on stories concerning who took out those loans in the first place.

News coverage to date seems mostly fixated on the high profile guys that can be identified in the economic scandal – mortgage brokers and bankers plus sometimes-lackluster government regulators. Well there isn’t any a problem with covering these bad guys, but they are not the only ones that might be held accountable – or at least subjected to press and public scrutiny – for the whole mess. And I’m not talking about private, activist or political message blogs – I’m wondering about so-called “mainstream” media.

Unless my Internet search capabilities have suddenly gone dead, I’m just not finding published items that discuss the demographic breakdowns (if any are available) on the consumers that are also responsible. Who are they? Where are they? What was their economic status at the time they cut the deal for what turned out to be a bad mortgage loan?

If this information is not yet available nor easily available, the press should at least say that much in an effort to address such open questions – confess current ignorance. But one way or another, journalists should be pursuing this information as part of the story – who, what, when, where and why. Simply Journ101.

The pros and cons of the bail out plan details and “toxic” bank assets – as well as the bonus payments to executives from financial companies now on the taxpayer dole – are distracting editors and writers from examining who did and is doing the defaulting. It is not enough for media sources and the press to attribute the behavior and mistakes merely to “American consumers” as a whole. It is really not digging deep enough, not telling the whole story.

And I’m not interested in brief profiles and features about individual homeowner losers, but large-scale, cross-section demographics presenting the whole, larger picture.

Why be suspicious of this? Purported evidence repeated by the press points to a type of subprime loan issued to borrowers with No Income, No Job and No Assets (a.k.a. NINJA) as a central factor in the mortgage crisis. We’ve heard and read enough reports on experts, analysts and politicians who blame NINJA loans or underscore the obvious, i.e., that NINJAs were prime examples of poor lending practices during the U.S. housing bubble.

Besides NIN JA being an acronym, some definitions suggest the term also refers to borrowers defaulting on loans and disappearing like ninja fighters. So once again, who are they? Inquiring readers want to know.

PS: While we are at it, I’d also like to see more press examinations of whether any government regulations and/or legislation encouraged or fostered the poor lending practices.

Post Script Re Covering U.S. CIO Kundra

Back quickly into the headlines is the new Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the United States of America. He took a brief leave of absence after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided his former District of Columbia information technology offices and arrested two men on corruption and bribery charges.
The breaking news scoop on Vivek Kundra’s return to the White House job apparently came out of a “cross-partisan group blog” called TechPresident.com that also sponsors an advocacy-for-change platform called PersonalDemocracy.com – both waving a “technology is changing politics” web site banner. “Obviously, this is very good news for the transparency movement,” they gush. “Stay tuned for more details.”
TechPresident now has real news bragging rights. Its story was picked up by the New York Times and further confirmed by the White House. Then the Washington Post picked up the story, dutifully attributing it to the White House, the NY Times and TechPresident.
The Washington Post and the NY Times were among a handful of major newspapers that covered the initial U.S. CIO and FBI raid developments – usually in modest-length but respectable items – but the high technology trade press paid a great deal of attention to the Kundra matter; too bad, they are now stuck writing follow up and second day leads on his return.
Kundra apparently wasn’t implicated in the matter, but the NY Times report had an interesting twist, claiming that Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who is also chairman of the Democratic National Committee, had pleaded Kundra’s case to the White House to get him reinstated.
Despite not being involved, Kundra reportedy felt his reputation had come under a cloud, but Kaine supposedly persuaded the U.S. CIO and the Executive Branch otherwise. But we shouldn’t necessarily expect this to be the end of the story.
The high tech press, in particular, will want to continue covering Kundra’s decisions and speeches, yet there may be a little more of a critical eye on his management of contracts and personnel, his credibility in spearheading change and initiatives and his overall leadership strengths. The general press – at least the conservatively leaning segment – may hang in there also.
In fact, reports leaked to the press are that a conservative blog dug up details about Maryland state records showing that Kundra, 34, was convicted of a misdemeanor theft charge (less than  $300) in 1996 when he was 21; he pleaded guilty to the petty theft charge 12 years ago and was fined $500.
The White House (and former employers) apparently knew but certainly nobody told the press (granted, nobody from the press previously found out on their own either). Well, now the press knows and is telling everyone. This is leading to press and blog recaps on how many other Obama would-be appointees had secrets and bailed out.
Lucky Kundra – he might escape additional high profile scrutiny and rough general press publicity because his post is not subject to Senate confirmation.

Coverage Of U.S. CIO Kundra Unravels

It may not be not as juicy as a spy, call girl or income tax evasion scandal.  But it will be interesting, nevertheless, to see how much press attention eventually will now be given to the new Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the United States of America. He already has had a brush with bad publicity after less than one month on the job.
In fact, the burn of the spot light apparently was severe enough for the White House to recently announce that federal CIO Vivek Kundra – named to the newly-created post by President Barack Obama on March 5 – has taken a leave of absence from the job due – somewhat obliquely – to a current Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) matter.
So far this story is not the stuff of the biggest print headlines nor television news leads and most people probably haven’t even heard of Kundra. But public folks in Washington, D.C. – where partisan culture and behavior dis-affectionately gained the “Inside the Beltway” rubric – have a way of getting into all sorts of jams.  And the nation’s capitol – with press often playing a major role as antagonist – certainly can crucify almost any untouchable.
Kundra is a chum of Obama and advised the president’s transition committee on technology issues; he reportedly was considered to be one of many possible candidates for various other White House positions.  He was Virgina’s Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Technology in the governor’s cabinet and after that – just before taking the new White House post – was the District of Columbia’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in the mayor’s administration.
Here comes the rub. According to law enforcement officers talking to the general press, Kundra was not implicated at all in the FBI matter, yet his former information technology (IT) offices in D.C. were raided by the FBI as part of an ongoing investigation into a contractor managed by that office. The contractor is being scrutinized for evidence into corruption charges involving a software procurement process; news reports say at two arrests were made and bribery charges will be filed.
Although Kundra was not a part of the FBI investigation, he took the leave of absence, pending results of the legal inquiry. This has been reported by major press and TV news media, most of which I dare say probably paid minimal attention to his initial appointment.
The benevolence in us is likely to hope that any deepening scandal avoids the man and he can return to work at his new post; the realist in us (yes, some might say cynicism) knows this is not always how the Beltway works and the outcome could be far different.
Kundra’s future position in Washington, D.C. – particularly if it is in doubt – would be followed by both the general news media and what is called the trade press. This latter group consists of scores of domestic and international publishing organizations and journalists covering virtually every American and worldwide business and industry. The U.S. obviously is filled with trade press; but for our purposes, we’re talking mostly about editors and reporters handling stories about the Internet, computers, software, communications, electronics, information technology, etc..
Many citizens feel the general media is an intrinsic element in the machinations of Washington, D.C., along with all the players that much of the public equally suspects: the elected officials (a.k.a., politicians), the unelected staff members, the appointed big shots, the political strategists, the bureaucrats, the pollsters, the lobbyists, the image spinners, the lawyers and sure, more lawyers.
How much importance this crowd chooses to place on the FBI investigation into Kundra’s former office will probably determine how much early attention the story gets from general press.  The formal disposition of the inquiry – and Kundra’s role or lack of role in it – will place the story going forward. Obama popularity and political correctness may very well determine the degree of general coverage too, possibly shielding Kundra from the glare.
For the trade press, however, the criteria is usually different, although to be sure, this segment of the press has its own version of games people play in the Beltway. Trade press coverage of business and industry, especially aspects of technology in the marketplace, has its cut and dried characteristics: supply and demand, success or failure, profit and loss, et al.
Oh, there are trade press story controversies like patent lawsuits, trade disputes, technical standards fights, management reorganizations and such, yet none more so than what comes out of Washington, D.C. – legislation, regulation and government policy.
So the trade press will want to cover Kundra – sans any juicy scandal – because of his new CIO role in the White House. This includes helping to set policy, restructuring U.S. deployment of IT, initiating contract reform, leading by example (i.e., the U.S. as a high tech user community), testifying before Congress, providing input into regulators and so forth.
General and trade press both have a financial/commercial agenda connected with news coverage, like advertising revenues, paid subscribers, web site clicks and eyeball time on the Internet.  The high tech trade press also feeds off the technology itself, like cutting edge R&D, end user procurements, new products and services, new government initiatives, new generations of this and that, and new yet again.
And while Kundra to some extent was known around the trade press because of his past history, he has a new role in a new administration. Lots of news stories about him, his ideas and his actions. Grudging attention to the FBI affair, however, must still be paid.

Twitter Web Sources Scoop The Press

The story about a German teenager who with a handgun killed 15 people in and around a school before taking his own life included an increasingly-expected side development about the power of the Internet to gather and disseminate news.
As the deadly incident unfolded in Winnenden, it turned out that subscribers on the Twitter social networking site were both reporting and commenting publicly on developments in real time. This was happening even as broadcasters, online news groups and other established publishing organizations were still mustering their staffs to report their understandably limited information on the crime.
Of course, many professionals in the press as well as Internet observers have probably seen instances of this modern phenomenon before. Social networking sites, email and messaging technology and blogs, populated by what one might call news novices, are perfectly capable of scooping media organizations.
For members of the press – new and old – this twist in competition certainly can be rattling because “the scoop” remains one of the traditional mainstays of pride in the business. Yet, the press clearly must live, cope and deal with the growing realization that news gathering in effect is becoming much more democratic thanks to public accessibility to the documenting technology and the World Wide Web.
In fact, we’ve seen how many television and online news groups now outright solicit images of breaking news that consumers can garner with their camera-ready cellular telephones. Members of the public obviously can be anywhere when news breaks and this is a clear advantage over the limited news staff capabilities.
One ethical difficulty these days is whether news pros must or should embrace the Internet’s emerging public sources of information – often appearing on line without writers’ real names and locations – or continue to rely on themselves and government authorities before delivering what are believed to be the facts. Plus one legal difficulty is that – at least in the United States – many states have laws that restrict who can formally release information (such as police chiefs and county sheriffs) to the press.
But sources are sources and they’re probably fair game if news people take care. Are there inaccuracies about the news being discussed on open web sites? Well, yes. Are there rumors and innuendo? Yes again. Are there good facts? Yes again. Might also these questions and answers apply to established news organizations attributing facts to nameless sources? Yes, of course.
An example of the trend in the Winnenden, Germany incident involved the identity of the alleged killer. Initial reports had the police saying only that one Tim K. was the perpetrator, although by day’s end or the next day young Tim Kretschmer was being held responsible for the bloodbath. Yet there are sidebar stories claiming that not only were Twitter postings describing the incident – including the youth’s death – as it happened, but additionally that follow up commentaries were revealing his name.
The importance and speediness of identifying any of the parties in a breaking news story may be highly debatable – no matter what one thinks of bad news in general or news organizations. Opinions aside, reporters can often have a tough time getting such details out of government authorities and sometimes must publish without the benefit of names.
I had first hand experience with this difficulty many years ago as a young reporter when a local youth was killed by a police officer in a suburban New Jersey community. The municipal police – with whom I had been dealing on many other routine crime stories for some time – would not tell me anything. It took repeated calls and visits from several other staff members to extricate the needed information (we had literally stopped the presses and held up the page one story, pending the proper ID).
Since that time, solely as a news reader, I’ve observed other incidents of crime victims, accident fatalities and even suicides where the press can’t get the identities formally released. Yet it also was learned that many folks in the community – by word of mouth, telephone calls, email or text messaging – had been passing along the ID information all along.
Perhaps news pros should be plugged into and be able to verify such community sources, but even that skill is easily rendered moot when citizens openly post the details on Twitter, other social networking sites or blogs, and more importantly, when most of their information is essentially correct. Otherwise, the press can easily appear uninformed and ostensibly are then of less help and value to readers.