Rabu, 17 Juli 2013

Nieman Journalism Lab

Nieman Journalism Lab

How did journalists respond to the critique of Season 5 of ‘The Wire’?

Posted: 16 Jul 2013 11:50 AM PDT

The academic journal Journalism has posted a new paper by the University of Maryland’s Linda Steiner, Jing Guo, and Raymond McCaffrey and Paul Hills of Rhodes University in South Africa. The subject: how journalists responded to Season 5 of The Wire, which famously critiqued a fictionalized version of The Baltimore Sun:

The concept of paradigm repair was used here to explain journalists' responses to The Wire. Our qualitative analysis of articles from 44 newspapers, as well as radio transcripts, dealing with the 2008 season shows that a fictional challenge can precipitate vigorous efforts by journalists to restore their reputation after what they regard as an attack on their professional identity and credibility. The [real] Baltimore Sun and other papers where Simon's journalistic nemeses worked were the most likely to call Simon vindictive and obsessed and to use this to marginalize his stinging critique of corporatized newsrooms.

Some highlights:

As Kuhn underscored, paradigm revolution is frighteningly difficult. If possible, journalists may try to ignore the problem, like scientists, ignoring the anomalous evidence. Eventually, given the resulting stress, they try to alter or repair and restore the paradigm…

They can try to justify actions or methods undertaken by an accused person or organization; contextualize the problem, emphasizing their good intentions; deny that the breach ever occurred, given their professional work routines; or claim a case is 'old' or outdated and already corrected. If 'renegades' can be identified, journalists can blame the greed, stupidity, laziness, or pathology of individual reporters, editors, publishers or entire organizations — that is, as not merely deviant but 'exceptional'. Often a specific platform or genre is blamed. After Princess Diana's death, 'serious' journalists ritually separated themselves from tabloid journalists, whom they said constituted a different (unethical) phenomena altogether…Meanwhile, the tabloids blamed sensationalism-hungry audiences and aberrant paparazzi.

The Sun's TV critic, whose reviews were syndicated nationally for McClatchy-Tribune, had celebrated The Wire's past seasons. He hated Season 5. Among other reasons, Zurawik (2007) said the episodes he previewed said almost nothing about newspapers' biggest story: 'the vast technological change sweeping through media today'. Zurawik's (2008) review of the finale repeated each of his initial criticisms, including the 'unconvincing, one-dimensional characters' that populated the 'improbable' and 'deeply flawed' newsroom narrative.

A remaining question is why the Baltimore Sun, and to a lesser extent, the Inquirer and Tribune were so thin-skinned. After all, many 'non-invested' journalists, while mentioning the Baltimore back story, saw this as about US journalism. The Wire took on not merely problems of 'all media, and the growing confusion over how to deliver news, but also the way those changes are buffeting the culture of journalism, the leadership, and the media's ability to have a positive impact on society' (Kushman, 2008). This narrative is now very well known, including outside the profession. So-called 'public editors', required to criticize their own newspapers, painfully recognize that, as one ombudsperson put it, 'Journalists love to probe, and criticize, but are famously thin-skinned themselves' (Moses, 2000).

Ushahidi hosts panel discussion on crowdsourced crisis mapping in Syria

Posted: 16 Jul 2013 10:17 AM PDT

Ushahidi — the crowdsourced mapping technology — has grown from one project in Kenya to more than 100 countries around the world. Today, they hosted a Google Hangout with three organizations utilizing Ushahidi’s technology to track and document the crisis in Syria — Women Under Siege, Syria Tracker, and Syria Deeply.

Lauren Wolf is the director of the Women Under Siege project, which has been tracking the use of sexualized violence as a tactic in Syria. Speaking to the presenter from Syria Tracker about keeping data sources confidential and safety, she said:

I think both our projects are an interesting mix of human rights research and journalism. I know you guys aren’t journalists, but I am. I think that, because both projects are so public facing, the media does interface with each one a lot — reporting on our data and methods. And at our project, I do a lot of reporting on our work. So it’s an interesting mix of what you make public and what you don’t. The safety of the people reporting and your team members is the number one issue, but there is this funny back and forth issue about what to share and what not.

Here’s the recording of their conversation — check out Twitter and the Hangouts page for more conversation on the topic.

A look at Defense One, Atlantic Media’s new site for the military-industrial complex

Posted: 16 Jul 2013 07:21 AM PDT

defense-one-screenshot

Defense One, the Atlantic Media site for national security types we first told you about in May, launched this morning. Here’s the intro note from editor Kevin Baron:

Defense One will deliver a daily mix of stories by award-winning journalists and useful, insightful commentary across the entire national security spectrum — from politics and procurement to global affairs and ground troops. Expect breaking analysis on the top news events of the day to run alongside deeper dives that shine a critical light on lesser-known facets of a national security world that most never see. Look for a range of voices from senior leaders in Washington to commanders abroad and next-generation thinkers far from the political scrum.

A few initial thoughts:

— The design and UX don’t try to break ground as its big brother Quartz’s did, with a bold front-page-less, tablet-oriented approach. Defense One is attractive and reflows well on mobile devices, but it looks a lot like…a nice news site circa 2013.

— Like Quartz, Defense One is editorially flat. I don’t mean that the content falls flat — I mean that the site’s structure isn’t larded up with blogs and verticals. It does feature what Baron calls channels (including one called “Threats”), but the layout of those channels seems to indicate that they’re more navigation tools than true verticals. That echoes the ongoing blog murder spree at the Times.

— Initial advertisers (“sponsors” in Defense One lingo) include PricewaterhouseCoopers, Northrop Grumman, and AT&T, which pitches “Solutions for the warfighter.” Ad sizes are variable on article page sidebars — as small as 250px and as large as 1000px tall — and there’s a giant 940×470 slot at the bottom of each article and the front page.

— Comments are hidden by default, but available with a click of a “Show Comments” link. (Quartz has no comments, with its staff still working on the best way to integrate them into the site.)

— Defense One launches with a total editorial staff of just three: exec ed Baron, associate editor/senior reporter Stephanie Gaskell, and digital producer/reporter Kedar Pavgi. But it also features a number of “regular contributors,” most notably Marc Ambinder, and I saw several bylines from Government Executive Media Group staff. “Defense One will continue to expand its staff and contributor team in a manner similar to Quartz, the recently launched Atlantic Media international business brand,” the press release says — which would imply pretty steady, incremental growth over time.

— Also from the press release: “In addition to its digital presence, there will be an events component and research and print initiatives down the road.” Events will include a Defense One Summit this fall; it also promises “two groundbreaking editorial research projects, including an in-depth report on defense technology and a sweeping analysis on the future of defense, and a comprehensive e-book providing leaders with a compendium of must-read journalism on key defense topics heading into 2014.” Whatever events prospects Quartz has, you can probably double them for Defense One, where the community of readers is even more tightly defined, both by interest and by geography.
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