Here are the ways I now get my news: My New York Times iPhone application which I read each morning at breakfast. My NPR News iPhone application which I listen to on my commute to work (On Point, Intelligence Squared, and Fresh Air are my favorites) “My News Channel” Twitter list which contains the real-time […]
Read moreIs Social Media More Important than Traditional Media?
What is better for a brand? A.) 25 million Facebook fans B.) An article in the New York Times Ideally, you’d like both. But if forced to pick, I’d probably go with A. Facebook fans are a constant – a set of people who have opted into your content. While they don’t all receive your […]
Read moreThe Sorry State of Political Journalism
Not even NPR is immune anymore. This morning, WBUR, a NPR affiliate radio station in Boston, broadcast a story about the results of a poll about U.S. Senator Scott Brown and his likely Democratic opponent Elizabeth Warren. The story reported that the two candidates were neck-and-neck. But the content of the piece centered on two […]
Read moreThe End of Channel Media
CNN used to be a cable news network. The New York Times used to be a newspaper. The Huffington Post used to be a blog. But that’s not the case anymore. CNN, New York Times and the Huffington Post (like almost every other major news organization) are no longer defined by their channels. This is […]
Read moreThe Day of Infamy for Newspapers
For the newspapers, July 1, 1980 is a day of infamy. (And no, it isn’t because at the time “Do That To Me One More Time” by Captain & Tennille was one of the biggest hit songs.) July 1, 1980 is the day when the Columbus Dispatch launched the first newspaper website and put free […]
Read moreNewspapers Should Replace Reporting with Journalism
Reporting isn’t journalism. This is a distinction that few people understand, including many in the news business. And an inability to distinguish between the two is one reason why newspapers and other traditional media outlets continue to lose paying customers to the Web. We no longer need traditional media and professional reporters to inform us […]
Read moreJournalism Ethics in the 86,400-second News Cycle
It is difficult to imagine the ethical journey for journalists who would authorize hacking into a missing teenage girl’s mobile phone in order to scour the content for a salacious headline. Worse is when these same journalists then delete messages from a full voicemail box so that additional messages could be left behind – giving […]
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Balance Continues to Undermine Journalism
Balance in journalism needs to be reassessed. It damages the fundamental purpose of journalism, which is to provide readers with the truth, and has led to a proliferation of misinformation. The latest example is the increasing numbers of the people who believe President Obama was born in Africa. A recent poll showed that nearly half […]
Read moreIs American Journalism Working Anymore?
Peter Finley Dunn, the late writer and humorist, once described the role of journalism to “comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable.” When I was a journalist, Dunn’s quote was at the heart of how I practiced the craft. I believed deeply in Dunn’s assessment and even scribbled the quote onto my journalism notebooks as a […]
Read moreThe New York Times Big Gamble: Paywalls (Again)
Starting on March 28, the New York Times will dive headfirst – yet again – into digital subscriptions and… take a deep breath… paywalls. Or should I say the dreaded and much maligned paywalls. The last time the New York Times tried this they dove into the shallow end of the pool and nearly broke […]
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April 4, 2012 


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