AJR in the Classroom

Discussion questions for the February / March 2006 issue, along with suggestions for further readings on the health of the newspaper industry, on using care not to implicate innocents while covering the police beat, and on the podcasting boomlet.

 

 

Story 1: "Under Siege" | Story 2: "Dilemma of Interest" | Stories 3: "IPod, You Pod, We All Pod"  and 4: "Hype or the Real Deal?" |  Story 5: "Blogging on the Hustings"



Jay Smith / Photo courtesy Cox Newspapers
Jay Smith: The future doesn't have to be dismal. (Photo courtesy Cox Newspapers)

STORY 1: "Under Siege: Last year was a tough one for the newspaper industry. Papers slashed staffs, shuttered bureaus and cut back on newsholes. What does the future hold?"  By Paul Farhi 

 

MORE INFO FROM THE STORY:  Editor & Publisher estimated in November that newspapers cut about 2,100 jobs of all kinds in 2005; it appears the business is in the midst of "drastic change, if not grave distress," Farhi reports. Competitive pressures from the Internet and 24-hour cable, shareholders' demands for high returns and rising newsprint prices have all contributed. And activists decrying the cuts' impacts on newspapers' watchdog roles - and thus democracy - are joining newsroom staffers in their alarm. But some say there's room for optimism: "...if we think about how to preserve and protect the daily paper and how we can reinvent it, if we build a huge online presence, if we can build other businesses around it, I think the future looks bright," says Jay Smith, president of Cox Newspapers and chairman of the Newspaper Association of America.

 

CLASS RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT / DISCUSSION:

  • Ask students to write a 1,500- to 2,000-word research paper (with footnotes or end notes) on the future of the news business. The paper should cite futurists, industry analysts and editors and publishers on where they think the industry is headed in 5, 10, 20 years or more. Will the deadwood product become extinct? Students could write the paper as a literature review, but they could also include attributed interviews with sources.

  • Invite to the class a panel of top editors or publishers from area professional papers. Ask panelists to discuss if their publications have been hit by cutbacks, or if they have taken other cost-cutting measures. If so, what are the implications for the journalism they produce? Also ask them to discuss the market for graduating seniors: Are they hiring? Where will the jobs be?

ADDITIONAL READINGS AND OTHER LINKS:
Courtesy wikipedia
The term "person of interest" came into prominent use in 1996, when the FBI leaked the name of security guard Richard A. Jewell in reference to the Olympics bombing in Atlanta. Eventually someone else was convicted. Jewell reached out-of-court settlements with several newspapers.
(Photo courtesy wikipedia)




STORY 2: "Dilemma of Interest: Many law enforcement officials now use the vague term 'person of interest' to describe people caught up in their investigations. That poses a challenge for journalists, who must try to convey a situation accurately without unfairly tarring someone's reputation.” By Donna Shaw

 

MORE INFO FROM THE STORY: According to Shaw, news reporters last year used the term to describe dozens of people in more than 40 cases, including an Idaho man named by police in connection with the deaths of a woman, her boyfriend and her son in their Coeur d'Alene home. At least half of those described as "persons of interest" had not been charged with a crime. Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, urges reporters who name "persons of interest" to do so with context in their stories - after questioning authorities on "why this is a 'person of interest,' " why that person hasn't been charged, what police have as evidence against the person, and what their motives are in having the media publish the information. 

   

CLASS DISCUSSION / INTERVIEWING ASSIGNMENT:

  • Lead a class discussion on when - if ever - it is acceptable to name someone as a "person of interest" in a published story. What guidelines should be followed in doing so? And what steps should a news publication take to correct the perception of guilt surrounding that person, if someone else is eventually arrested, charged and convicted of the crime?

  • Ask each student to interview (in person or by phone) a police reporter for a campus or or other local news publication - TV, newspaper, radio or Web. Find out under what circumstances each reporter would name someone as a "person of interest" - and what kinds of context and background the reporter would use in that story.

 ADDITIONAL READINGS:



STORIES 3 and 4: "iPod, You Pod, We All Pod,"  By Deborah Potter  and "Hype or the Real Deal?" by Barb Palser

 

MORE INFO FROM THE TWO COLUMNS: Audio and video podcasts - digital files that can be downloaded on demand onto portable devices such as iPods - are becoming popular with such media giants as National Public Radio, washingtonpost.com, CBS, NBC and ABC - but also with smaller outlets, such as the all-news WTOP radio station in Washington, D.C. But who's actually listening to the programs? Palser reports that Bridge Ratings put the number of Americans who had ever sampled a podcast at about 1.6 percent of the population in late 2005. And media companies, she says, are still working on a sustainable business model.

 

CLASS DISCUSSION / FIELD TRIP / EXTRA CREDIT:

  • Discussion: Ask students to lead a discussion on podcasts that they have listened to or watched. Be sure to get them to describe what kind of content they contain, how frequently they listen to or watch the podcasts, and if they are listening to them instead of other radio on TV programs. Do they view this programming as a threat to traditional broadcast programming, or as a complement to it?

  • Field trip: Bring the class to a local new-media or broadcast outlet where they are producing or packaging podcasts. Ask editors/news directors to describe their programming - and why they've gotten into podcasts - and to demonstrate how their podcasts are produced.

  • Extra credit: Ask students who own laptop computers and iPods to demonstrate how they set up their devices to receive and play podcasts.

 ADDITIONAL READINGS AND OTHER LINKS:

 

STORY 5: "Blogging on the Hustings: Bloggers were a significant and cacophonous force in Virginia's gubernatorial election. What was their impact, and was that journalism they were practicing?" by Marc Fisher

 

MORE INFO FROM THE STORY: Fisher reports that by last November's statewide election -- won by Democrat Tim Kaine -- more than 50 political bloggers had commented on and helped change the course of the campaign. Bloggers gossiped, formed friendships and pushed agendas under sometimes-anonymous postings. Most acknowledged their dependency on traditional media: Few bloggers did original reporting. But some traditional reporters also noted their dependency on the blogs, using them as tip sheets for what other newspapers were reporting and for what bloggers were saying about those reports.



CLASS BLOG ANALYSIS / DISCUSSION:

  • Ask students to spend time with each of these blogs, which proved popular during Virginia's 2005 gubernatorial contest: Commonwealth Conservative, Not Larry Sabato, Bacon's Rebellion, ChangeServant, Raising Kaine and 750 Volts. Then ask students to evaluate them, jotting down notes to be referred to during a follow-up class discussion. Were the sites written by a journalist, a partisan or a concerned citizen? Do they post original information, or do they simply comment on already published news reports? Do they encourage freewheeling debate, or are discussions lopsidedly partisan? Are these sites complements to traditional news? Are they worth visiting again?

 ADDITIONAL READINGS:


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Teachers' guide written by Chris Harvey, online bureau director at the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism and former managing editor of AJR.
First two items published Feb. 7, 2006; two podcast items added Feb. 10, 2006; blog item added Feb. 17, 2006.

Copyright © 2006 University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism. Permission is granted to freely print, for classroom use, up to 100 copies of the most up-to-date version of this document, as long as the document is not modified.