Kamis, 23 Februari 2012

Nieman Journalism Lab

Nieman Journalism Lab

A partnership too valuable to give up: Why The Miami Herald and WLRN are sticking together

Posted: 22 Feb 2012 11:00 AM PST

View of the sunrise over Biscayne Bay from the Herald's newsroom

Last summer, McClatchy sold its 14-acre Miami bayfront compound to a Malaysian casino developer for $236 million, sending two news organizations looking for new homes. The Miami Herald had occupied the space since 1963, and for the past eight years, WLRN Radio had shared reporters, scoops, and a newsroom with the Herald. (Full disclosure: I’m a former WLRN employee.)

So with the Herald moving into a former military complex 10 miles west, in the neighboring city of Doral, WLRN’s news operation had a choice to make. WLRN's non-news operations already occupy a separate building in downtown Miami, so the radio news team could have just moved there. Instead, WLRN will follow the Herald west and build new radio studios together.

"Parting ways was never really on the table," said Rick Hirsch, managing editor at the Herald. "Someone is going to break something big and you have print, radio, online, and video right in the middle of it." With other collaboration models in the works — for instance, the Knight-funded plan in Macon, Georgia, to put a j-school, a public radio station, and a newspaper all under one roof — it’s worth looking at how the WLRN-Herald collaboration works.

Sharing both ways

Last year, WLRN and the Herald collaborated on Neglected to Death, an investigation into deplorable practices at assisted-living facilities. One radio reporter and three print reporters were assigned to the investigation, and the team produced a series of print and radio stories.

Print and radio reporters collaborate on daily coverage, as well. Print reporters often duck into the radio studios to give updates on breaking stories. Radio reporters publish stories in the paper and on the Herald's website.

WLRN and the Herald sometimes borrow reporters from one another. For example, Karen Burkett runs the Herald's video studio and produces a weekly radio segment on business and personal finance. WLRN provides Edirol audio recorders and audio training to Herald reporters. Veteran print reporters sometimes produce sound-rich features to compliment their published work. Herald reporters often gather raw audio in their reporting process, and WLRN hosts and producers weave these sound bites into their newscasts. The radio department will be fully integrated into the Herald's new building; the 'WLRN-Miami Herald News' co-branding for all radio news content will remain in place.

Managers at the Herald and WLRN wouldn’t discuss the cost of building the new studios. WLRN general manager John LaBonia said the model would likely follow the existing arrangement: The Herald covers the cost of construction and WLRN provides the radio equipment (microphones, mixing boards, some of the studio's audio-editing software). WLRN employs the radio staff; the Herald employs the print reporters. WLRN also plans to create a shared workspace for Herald and WLRN reporters in its downtown Miami offices.

Building capacity to weather disruption

As the Herald's staff has shrunk through layoffs and attrition, WLRN's news staff and budget have grown. Radio news director Dan Grech attributes this growth in part to WLRN's investment in reporting partnerships. The station has secured two grant-funded positions — a reporter for HealthyState.org, funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Local Journalism Centers, and a reporter for StateImpact, the NPR effort formerly known as the Impact of Government project. WLRN has hosted one NPR Kroc Fellow and is preparing to welcome a second in the coming months.

Grech says the multipronged investment in reporting partnerships is a proactive move. A former Herald print reporter himself, Grech says he feels an urgent need to get ahead of the impending assault to terrestrial radio from the Internet in connected cars.

Grech said he believes the end of the antenna age could massively disrupt public radio’s business model, and he thinks WLRN's partnership with the Herald gives radio a stronger hand to play in terms of brand equity and sheer reporting horsepower. For example, WLRN placed an experienced radio reporter in the Herald's capitol bureau for 20 hours a week. During her first month on the job, Grech says the reporter produced about 30 stories. He credits her productivity in part to her working closely with the Herald's seasoned political reporters.

"I estimate my reporters are two to four times more productive because we work with Herald reporters," said Grech. "Disruptive technology has not hit radio yet, but I believe it's coming. We need to build up capacity now while times are good."

Speaking Friday at MIT: Wadah Khanfar, formerly of Al Jazeera

Posted: 22 Feb 2012 08:00 AM PST

Attention Bostonians and Cantabrigians: You should head to the MIT Media Lab Friday evening for a remarkable event with Wadah Khanfar.

Khanfar was the main driver of one of the most compelling news-industry stories of the past decade: the growth of Al Jazeera from a single regional network to a true global player. The fact that a news network based in Qatar could have influence around the world, become essential watching during the Arab Spring, and fetch compliments from Hillary Clinton — “Viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news” — would have seemed unthinkable 10 years ago. Khanfar — who led the Arabic-language channel starting in 2003 and the entire network of networks in 2006 — led that shift.

He left Al Jazeera in September and now leads the Sharq Forum, an international think tank focused on political and economic development in the Arab world.

Friday at the Media Lab, Khanfar will talk about the Arab Spring and the current situation in the Middle East, and I’m sure he’ll also have compelling things to say about Al Jazeera and the changing face of media, in the region and beyond. After his remarks, he’ll have a conversation with MIT’s Joi Ito and Ethan Zuckerman and take question from the audience. Here’s a link to the Media Lab page on the event; the details are below. Hope to see you there.

Wadah Khanfar: “One Year After Mubarak: The Past and Future of the ‘Arab Spring’”
Friday, February 24, 2012, 6:00pm – 7:30pm
Location: MIT Media Lab, E14 6th Floor
Speaker: Wadah Khanfar

Co-Hosts: MIT Media Lab; Center for Civic Media; the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University; Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University; Edward R. Murrow Center for Public Diplomacy at Tufts University

Wadah Khanfar is president of the Sharq Forum, an international think tank focused on political and economic development in the Arab world, and former director general of the Al Jazeera network. Under Khanfar’s leadership, Al Jazeera offered to the world a front-row seat to witness the fall of dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt, and the wave of rebellion that swept the Arab world. A year later, Khanfar reflects on the hopes raised by the Arab Spring, the changes that have—and haven’t—taken place, and the challenges Egypt and other countries face on the road towards democracy.

Khanfar’s talk will be followed by a dialogue with Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab; Ethan Zuckerman, director of MIT’s Center for Civic Media; and Mohamed Nanabhay, head of online at Al Jazeera English, as well as questions and answers with the audience.

Biography: Wadah Khanfar first appeared as a commentator on Al Jazeera shortly after the network was founded, in 1996. In that role, he developed a reputation for a willingness to report from the front lines of international conflict, managing the network’s Kabul bureau, reporting from Kurdish Iraq, and serving as bureau chief for Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein. In 2003, he became managing director of Al Jazeera, and in 2006, director general. He announced his resignation from the network in September 2011, and subsequently co-founded the Sharq Foundation.

In 2011, Khanfar was one of Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers, and headed Fast Company’s list of the 100 Most Creative People in Business. He was also named one of the most “Powerful People in the World” by Forbes magazine in 2009.

Khanfar photo by Joi Ito used under a Creative Commons license.

Summer in the city: Come be a summer intern at Nieman Lab

Posted: 22 Feb 2012 07:00 AM PST

I’ve got a terrific opportunity for two of you.

This year, for the first time, we’re having full-time summer interns here at Nieman Lab. Two of them, to be precise.

Hopefully, if you’re reading this, you already know the kind of work we do here: We’re interested in journalism innovation and the future of the news. Our summer interns will be right in the thick of that work, reporting and writing stories on traditional news organizations, online-native startups, nonprofit outlets, technology companies, social media platforms, and all the other players influencing how we learn about our world.

This isn’t a busy-work internship; we can all get our own coffee, thanks. Along with coming up with story ideas and seeing them through, our interns will share in the work we do on social media, like helping run our Twitter account, along with working on whatever other interesting projects we come up with. It’ll be a great experience.

The details

The basics: The internship is 10-12 weeks long. Exact dates and length can be tweaked for your schedule, but we’re probably looking for someone to start in late May or early June. You’ll be based here in Cambridge, in our office at Lippmann House (pictured above in more autumnal times). Cambridge is really nice in the summer.

Pay: We pay $13.75 an hour, and it’s a 35-hour work week here. You can do the math. (Journalists should be able to do math!) No health insurance or other benefits — sorry. You should be aware that, while this is more money than lots of other internships offer (i.e., it’s a positive integer), this won’t be enough money to live luxuriously in Harvard Square — you’ll likely be hunting Craigslist for a sublet and a roomie.

Who we’re looking for: There’s no restriction on age or experience, but we expect this’ll be a great opportunity for current j-school grad students or recent graduates. Our interns should be bright, motivated, and already have some reporting chops. They should also be ready to geek out about the intersection of journalism, technology, business, and sociology we focus on. Well-rounded nerds, basically.

Also, please note that we’re not in a position to obtain work visas for international applicants, so you must be already eligible to work in the United States to be an intern.

Course credit: We don’t offer any credit (Harvard doesn’t even have a journalism school). But if you’re a currently enrolled student, undergraduate or graduate, I’d be happy to write a letter to your university at summer’s end, detailing the work you did, if that makes a difference to your home institution.

How to apply

Please follow these instructions carefully.

To apply, email me at joshua_benton@harvard.edu, using the subject line “Nieman Lab intern application.” Your email should include four things:

  1. A brief intro note that explains why you want to be a Nieman Lab intern and why you’d be awesome at it.
  2. Links to 3-5 examples of your past work that you’re proud of. (It’d be especially helpful if any or all are Lab-like, either in form or in subject matter.)
  3. A link to your favorite Nieman Lab story, plus a couple of sentences saying why you liked it.
  4. Your resume, attached as a pdf.

Do all that by 5 p.m. on Friday, March 2 — that’s about a week and a half from today. Good luck.
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