AJR in the Classroom

Discussion questions for the February / March 2007 issue, along with suggestions for further readings on the future of The New York Times, blogging incentives and ethics, and the blending of opinion and fact on cable TV news.


Story 1: "Challenging Times"  |   Story 2: "Pay Per View" | Story 3: "Is Keith Olbermann the Future of Journalism?" 
 Story 4: "What We're Missing"



Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Photo courtesy The New York Times Co.
New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.: "I don't think there's another company of our ilk better positioned to succeed," he told AJR Managing Editor Rachel Smolkin. (Photo ourtesy of The New York Times Co.)

STORY 1: "Challenging Times: Protected by family ownership, the New York Times Co. plots its future without retreating from ambitious journalism at its flagship paper, despite the wailing on Wall Street about the company's sluggish financial performance. It's bolstering its digital presence and unleashing its futurist-in-residence during a time of wrenching transformation in the industry."  By Rachel Smolkin 

 

MORE INFO FROM THE STORY:  Futurist-in-residence Michael Rogers -- a former vice president of the Washington Post Co.'s new-media division and former editor and general manager of Newsweek.com -- is one of a team of six who report to the Times Co.'s vice president of research and development. In September, Smolkin reports, the group helped the Times newspaper staff launch a beta test of a new digital version of the paper called Times Reader. Created in partnership with Microsoft, Times Reader creates a paginated, newspaper-like experience on the computer -- one that could work easily on a laptop. The team and company are also developing mobile technology initiatives, training print journalists to shoot video, and unveiling user-generated video. And the Times Co. is adding other Internet companies to its portfolio. In March 2005, it purchased About.com for $410 million. But, says New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.: "It is the journalism that will see us through. ...  If you lose that, you've lost your touchstone."  

CLASS DISCUSSION AND RESEARCH ASSIGNMENTS:

  • The New York Times and The Washington Post companies are among the media organizations that are not only leveraging video on their sites -- but also getting into the business of training print reporters to shoot video to enhance their text stories on the Web. It's one of many steps media companies are taking to train their reporters to be more versatile and to add multimedia to their ever-evolving sites. Encourage a class discussion about steps being taken by your college to train students to work across mediums. Include in the discussion thoughts about reporting, research, editing, design, visual and multimedia skills that will be needed by journalists of the future.

  • What are other news companies doing to position their publications - and their journalists - for the future? Ask students to write a research paper detailing steps being taken by one or more media companies. Information may come from paper sources and from interviews with editors, news managers, general managers and publishers. Footnotes or endnotes should be included, as well as appropriate attribution. For a starting point, please read this summary of a convergence panel that met at the Online News Association's national conference in Washington, D.C., last fall: "Convergence Is Evolution In Progress," by Rebecca Shillen, published Oct. 7, 2006, on the ONA conference site.

    RELATED STORIES AND WEB LINKS ON THE FUTURE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES:



    STORY 2: "Pay Per View:     For these bloggers, a fatter audience means a bigger paycheck." Column by Barb Palser 

     

    MORE INFO FROM THE COLUMN:  Business 2.0's editor, Josh Quittner, raised eyebrows when he decided to pay his reporters who blogged for the monthly publication a modest incentive based on traffic. If a blog attracted 100,000 page views, for instance, a reporter would earn a couple hundred dollars. Some journalists worried such an incentive would push the bloggers to cater to the masses, rather than writing thoughtful, analytical pieces. But media critic Jeff Jarvis countered that if the bloggers' pieces became corrupted, "then you can bet that the audience will see through the manipulation, become disenchanted, and leave." Quittner, for his part, told Palser he was more concerned about publishing "boring, pointless blogs" than "hit-whoring."

     

    CLASS DISCUSSION AND RESEARCH ASSIGNMENTS:
  • How ethical is it for news editors to base reporters' financial incentives on traffic to their blogs? And is this practice analogous to online news editors and publishers basing decisions on what sections of their site to keep and what reporters and producers to retain, after studying traffic patterns on specific pages? Are there any sections of an online site that should always be shielded from hiring and firing or payment decisions based on traffic? Spur a class discussion, and invite in editors from local news sites to participate.

  • Are news organizations that are urging reporters to blog for their sites laying down guidelines for how the blogs should be reported and written? If so, how detailed are the guidelines? Are there any concerns that the blogging reporters will begin to lose objectivity when writing for their main job -- or that readers will perceive a loss of objectivity? Ask students to write a research paper on the topic. Footnotes or endnotes should be included, as well as appropriate attribution.

    • RELATED RESOURCES AND LINKS:



    STORY 3: "Is Keith Olbermann the Future of Journalism? The MSNBC anchor's unorthodox amalgam of the serious and the silly and his trenchant criticism of the war in Iraq have boosted the struggling network's ratings and made him a hot media commodity. But some critics dislike blurring the line between fact and opinion."  By Mark Lisheron  

     

    MORE INFO FROM THE STORY:  Lisheron notes that Olbermann did not invent this entertaining and subjective delivery of the news for cable: Larry King beat him to it on CNN, and Bill O'Reilly followed on Fox. Olbermann's "Countdown" show focuses on five stories of the day, counting down to the biggest one. He bashes and baits O'Reilly, his competitor in the 8 p.m. time slot, and has delivered special commentaries blasting the Bush administration for its handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and the war in Iraq. "The audience came, they looked, they liked what they saw, and they're staying," Lisheron quotes Phil Griffin, senior vice president of NBC News, as saying. Viewerships of 600,000 to 700,000 are common now--still smaller than the 2 million for O'Reilly. But some media watchdogs are alarmed with the tone and tenor of the show and fear other news shows may follow. "Far from being the Edward R. Murrow he likes to paint himself as, he's the Walter Winchell of journalism. He stacks the deck with his point of view and he flat out lies," says Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association. However, Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, says not to worry. He says there is so far no evidence that programming with strong opinions can survive the tastes of a mass audience.

     

    CLASS RESEARCH / ANALYSIS ASSIGNMENT AND DISCUSSION:
  • Ask students to read a week's worth of transcripts from "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" (see link below). Ask them to write an 800-word analysis of the shows, describing how objective or subjective Olbermann's anchor delivery is, using specific examples. If they find commentary, is it labeled as such? Students should be prepared to discuss their analyses with the class before turning in their assignments. In the class discussion, they should also be prepared to address the question: Should a blending of commentary and fact be the future of TV news -- or should it simply be a complement to more straight-forward delivery?

  • Invite in a panel of two or three local TV reporters or anchors to discuss the current state and future of cable and broadcast news. Do their stations encourage reporters or anchors to deliver editorials or commentaries (see Deborah Potter's "An Unhealthy Mix") below. And if so, are they clearly labeled as such? Do they find the Olbermann and O'Reilly shows a boon to TV news, or a threat?

    RELATED STORIES AND LINKS:



    STORY 4: "What We're Missing:     It's a shame two new cable news networks are so hard to find in the U.S." Column by Deborah Potter 

     

    MORE INFO FROM THE COLUMN: Potter notes that Americans who want to watch Al Jazeera English -- the Qatar-based network that focuses on coverage of the Middle East and Muslims -- have to watch it online. France 24 -- funded by the French government and a private TV network to "convey the values of France throughout the world -- is aired on only a few U.S. outlets. Potter argues that now that it's possible to get a wider view of the world, in English -- beyond that delivered by CNN and the BBC -- it shouldn't be so hard to tune in.

     

    CLASS RESEARCH / ANALYSIS / DISCUSSION:
  • Ask students to devote four hours to reading the top stories and viewing the top video on the Web sites of four English-language cable news shows: CNN, BBC News, Al Jazeera English and France 24 (see links below). Ask students to take notes on the top three to six stories leading each site each hour; the notes should then be turned into a written analysis of the coverage. Among the questions answered in the analysis should be: How similar were the stories covered on each of the sites during the four-hour time period? How similar was the spin or angles of those top stories, from site to site? How beneficial might it be to viewers to have access to all four sites/networks on a regular basis? Were there any surprises? Students should be prepared to discuss their analysis and observations with the class, before turning in their papers.

    • RELATED STORIES AND     LINKS: