Tag Archives: New York Times

July 13, 2011 · 10:45 am

Watching the watchers

By Chris Daly

The news about the news business is suddenly all-Murdoch, all the time.

I am struggling with my reflexive reaction to government meddling with journalism, which is to say: hands off. Murdoch is the one person in the news business for whom I might consider an exception. (And that is based not on his right-wing politics, but on his declared intent to destroy the NYTimes. That puts him in a different category — a destroyer or vandal of journalism.

[Aside: is it just me, or does it seem that the Times is on a mission to print as many unflattering, aging photos of Murdoch as possible?]

AFP/Getty

So, it is with somewhat mixed feelings that I greet the news that Sen. Jay Rockefeller (who may actually be richer than Murdoch) has called on U.S. authorities to investigate the behavior (not the views) of all Murdoch employees in the United States for possible criminal actions. That would involve FOX TV News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and other properties.

Here’s a story from The State, based in Rockefeller’s home state of West Virginia.

Stay tuned.

 

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March 25, 2011 · 3:04 pm

Who reports?

By Chris Daly

The always-interesting Nate Silver, in a recent post, put his finger on a really key issue in journalism: who does the reporting that everyone else fights over, analyzes, re-purposes, aggregates, or just steals?

Silver did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and came up with this chart:

(I must say I am very gratified to see that two of the top 10 — The AP and The Washington Post — are the places were I spent most of my years as a journalist.)

As anyone in the news business could tell you, there are no real surprises here. Silver is trying to identify who does the bulk of the original reporting about national and international affairs for American audiences. (He is not looking here at local news, which is another story.)

Two news organizations in particular stand out, almost in a class by themselves.

First is the AP, the enormous but nearly invisible news organization that still operates in every state in America and most countries around the world. The non-profit cooperative functions as a giant wholesaler of news — gathering, re-writing, shooting, editing, and distributing vast amounts of stories, images, sound, and data every hour of every day. Almost all of AP’s output is delivered to other news organizations, and not directly to the public. So, most people think they “get their news” from whatever retail outlet they happen to frequent, rather than from the ultimate source, which is often the AP.

 

Number Two on the list is The New York Times. Again, no real surprise. Say what you will about its management, business model, stock price and all the rest, the Times has no real peer among “general news” organizations. (By that, I mean organizations that have a broader sweep than a particular topical niche like business, sports, or celebrities).

The point is worth making again: reporting is expensive (and sometimes dangerous), and the world would be a better place if more people got out, walked around, took notes, made photos, and shared what they found.

‘Nuf said.

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March 23, 2011 · 8:08 am

More news about the news

By Chris Daly

More news today about journalism.

~First, an update from the NYTimes about the harrowing captivity of four of its own journalists (including Tyler Hicks, a BU alum who will be the commencement speaker this spring at BU’s College of Communication — assuming he stays out of any further serious trouble). And thanks to Joe Klein, on today’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, for pointing out that when certain people (he mentioned Sarah Palin) whine about the “lame-stream media,” they should realize that they are disrespecting people who deserve better. 

 

Photo by John Moore/Getty Images

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~Whither Glenn Beck? Who the heck knows?

 

~Thanks to Michael Miller for pointing this out, here are some interesting further thoughts on the NYTimes pay model (including bold assertions about the future) from John Gruber at Daring Fireball. (With a name like Daring Fireball, no wonder he’s so confident about his predictions…)

 

~A happy prospect: help-wanted from Talking Points Memo, which is seeking to fill a new position, that of associate editor for Washington news. Here’s the take-away:

Crackerjack news judgment, experience as an editor and deep familiarity with politics and political news are each a must. Competitive salary for qualified applicants; health care, three weeks annual vacation and 401k benefits provided.

 

Glad to see health care benefits being offered. Wonder what is meant by “competitive salary”. . .

 

 

 

 

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March 21, 2011 · 11:56 am

NY Times pay wall

By Chris Daly

 

So often, the field of media criticism/analysis partakes of the spirit of sports journalism. If you watch ESPN a lot, you realize that most of the people on the screen have a very specific skill set: the ability to make bold, provocative statements about the near future. (There is a similar skill set involved in politics and military analysis, too.)

 

I will admit that this is an activity I am not very good at, so I will not try. Instead, I take a more agnostic and empirical approach (more in keeping, I think, with the genius of journalism and history, which are essentially backward-looking enterprises). I am applying it now to the NY Times newly announced pay-for-news plan.

 

To its credit, the paper has started covering the issue a bit better, including a piece today.

Some of those people who are gifted with knowledge of the future are already weighing, as here.

I say: let’s get some data first, then try to figure out what it means.

Until then, I must say I wish the Times good luck in figuring this out.

 

NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. last week.

 

 

 

 

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February 8, 2011 · 9:14 am

Whose press freedom?

By Chris Daly

Today’s Times includes a “sidebar” piece (column?) by legal correspondent Adam Liptak. I found it frustrating for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it is a bit of a mystery why it is running now (except for the thin reed of the anniversary of the Citizens United ruling from the Supreme Court). There is no discernible “news peg.” But that’s not really important.

What is more frustrating is that the piece provides so few links to the scholarly literature on this vast subject. That’s where the Times could have really used the Web to help its readers go deeper. I am going to try to find some of this material and post those links here.

Meanwhile, let me throw out a thought: At the time the Founders enshrined the idea of “freedom of the press” in the Bill of Rights, the press of the day was small, local, independent, and opinionated. The typical form of ownership was a “sole proprietorship” — that is, the printer who ran the press owned the business entirely himself. But even then, many “job printers” handled printing chores for all manner of customers, including customers whom they disagreed with. So, in that scenario, who enjoyed press freedom? The owner of the business that facilitated the mass communication? The author of the words? Both?

Keep in mind, the main goal of the founders was to prevent “prior restraint” — the use of government power to prevent certain facts or ideas from ever getting published in the first place. That seems like as worthy a goal as ever. Therefore, the rights of all individual human beings who want to communicate with other individual human beings should be protected from government interference. That, it seems to me, ought to be the operating principle here.

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June 7, 2010 · 10:53 am

Reckless? Pointless?

By Chris Daly

In today’s NY Times, there is a story about the arrest of two suspected terrorists that contains a troubling paragraph. (It was the 15th graf in the version I read on-line.)

A law enforcement official said the undercover officer who made the secret recordings was in his 20s and was a five-year police veteran of Egyptian descent.

The troubling thing about this paragraph is that it presents apparently gratuitous details about an undercover agent. Readers can learn the following:

–the undercover officer is “in his 20s”

–the undercover offices has worked for NYPD for five years,

–the undercover officer is “of Egyptian descent.”

To those in the know, this much information is probably more than enough to identify this person. This much information could readily compromise this investigation or other investigations that this undercover officer is involved in.

The question: WHY?

This information is of zero value to the average reader. There is no indication that this undercover officer has done something wrong or anything of the kind of misconduct that might possibly justify “outing” the agent.

So, what was the point? Why did the anonymous “law enforcement official” pass that information along to the Times? Why did the reporter put it in the story? Why did several editors let it get out to the public?

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