By Christopher B. Daly
As a public service, I am rounding up some recent reports and commentary about journalism and history.
Here is a new report from our friends at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation, asking:
Where are the women in the executive ranks of the news media?
Good question.
Here’s the latest episode of NPR’s “On the Media.” This week’s show looks at the decline in “beat reporting.” Any thoughts from my JO310 alumni?
Here’s the latest episode of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” — much improved since Brian Stelter replaced Howie Kurtz. So, should news organizations censor ISIL’s propaganda videos? I say, yes.
And from the NYTimes. . .
—Here is B.U. Prof. David Carr on TMZ’s sacking of the NFL.
—Here is a confusing story about NPR doing “live” shows. (Isn’t all of NPR live?)
—Here is a story about the sale of Digital First Media. Want to buy a newspaper? (I don’t mean one copy, I mean a whole paper!)
—Here is an update on the Hachette-Amazon brawl. I am still not sure which side to join in this one.
Prof Chris Daly's Blog 
Which shows the flaws of the Nieman report more vividly–that it never mentions one of the two best known female newspaper leaders in recent history–Rebekah Brooks–because it is contrary to the agenda of the writers or that they cite Al Jazeera America as a model of diversity without noting the restrictions on women in Qatar, Dave Marash having resigned from Al Jazeera America because of its anti-American bias or the likelihood that Al Jazeera America is simply a PR ploy by Al Jazeera and Qatar to improve their image in the West–pay no attention to the lack of women (or non-Sunni) executives in our corporate headquarters, the Nieman folks have given us their seal of approval?
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I don’t know if I agree with the NPR talk. I think especially because of my particular interests in journalism, I’ve become more aware of who’s in the science beat, who’s winging it, and who’s in the subsections–tech, evolution, medical, etc. I think it’s safe to say it the way that you did in 310 a few times–it’s not dying out, it’s just relocating online and into particular news outlets. I will say, however, I wish that beats relocating didn’t mean that in the widely produced papers, you sometimes get reporters covering a topic they don’t know a whole lot about or didn’t have time to do proper research on (which is what I think is making it appear as though the beat reporter is a dying breed).
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Very good comment–as budget pressures cause cuts in staff, you have fewer reporters covering more topics, which limits their expertise and increases their reliance on press releases from interested parties.
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