In the nick of time: An end-of-weekend read

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Some heavy-lift reading just as the weekend ends:

"Investigative Shortfall" (American Journalism Review): This long read on the state of investigative journalism is worth the time, but I've got to tell you that it left me lamenting the loss of talent and institutional memory in so many newsrooms. Yes, new enterprises devoted to investigations are exciting, but seems that too many experienced journalists have had to give up the profession as they were kicked to the curb.

"The Journalists Formerly Known as the Media: My Advice to the Next Generation" (Jay Rosen: Public Notebook): New York University professor Jay Rosen is one of journalism's present-day pundits, the one who taunted the media with the line "the people formerly known as the audience" to describe the shift in power away from MSM (mainstream media). This lecture to an incoming class of students at a journalism school in Paris continues the pattern: If the media no longer is mass, then a journalist is ... well, many things. You have to wade through his long, long history lesson before getting to his bulleted points of advice. I took solace with Nos. 7 and 8: that the new news landscape can accommodate professional journalists because they still can deliver information not widely available -- the stuff that recipients don't yet know they want and need.

"Laid off? What are you going to do about it?" (Adam Westbrook): Coming full circle on this "Now what?" theme is a short piece by Adam Westbrook in which he draws attention to a new study on the state of journalism in the U.K. -- where the estimate is that up to 40 percent fewer jobs in journalism exist today than in 2001. (Click on the link to the study that Westbrook provides to see some heart-wrenching comments by those deemed "redundant.") Be sure to read to the end of his short piece for his cynical kicker close.

Here's a video reward for your attentiveness.

Labor Day weekend reading

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It's a three-day weekend, so there's more time for reading. Here, with a Labor Day theme, are some gems:

"Most 'Re-employed' Workers Say They're Overqualified for Their New Job" (Pew Research Center): The folks at Pew have come up with some interesting statistics in this national survey, conducted in May and released on Thursday:

• A quarter of the U.S. labor force -- or 36 million of the 139 million currently employed -- faced unemployment at least once during the recession that began in December 2007.
• A third of those cut loose from jobs during the recession received a pink slip more than once; 16 percent found themselves out of work three or more times.
• Only 4 in 10 of those who found a new job say they're earning more now than in their former position; just 28 percent say their current benefits are better.
• More than half of the newly re-employed say their household is worse off financially than before the recession; 35 percent say they've had to make "major changes" in lifestyle.
• A quarter of the re-employed went from full-time jobs to part-time ones.
• While out of work, 6 in 10 of the re-employed thought about switching fields; 4 in 10 considered relocating to an area where jobs seemed more plentiful.

The survey's release preceded by a day the government's report on the U.S. labor picture for August, which showed a slight uptick in the jobless rate, to 9.6 percent. The number of long-term unemployed (six months or more) declined in August, to 6.2 million from 6.5 million, or about 42 percent of the jobless, vs. almost 45 percent in July. The median time unemployed also dropped, to just under 20 weeks, from nearly 23 weeks in July. (Incidentally, the payroll category that includes print journalists -- so-called publishing/except Internet -- saw a slight gain in jobs: to 761,600 in August from 761,300 the month before.)

"Warning: Why Cheaper Money Won't Mean More Jobs" (Talking Points Memo): The political blog featured a post by Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's labor secretary, that throws cold water on the idea that getting money into the hands of consumers and small businesses will grease the wheels of the economy. Neither is in a position to borrow, no matter how cheap the money may be, Reich says. Only large companies would benefit if the Fed made money cheaper, and "they're already sitting on mountains of money." As a result, he says,

If Bernanke and company make it even cheaper to borrow, they'll be subsidizing a third corporate strategy for creating more profits but fewer jobs -- mergers and acquisitions.

And we all know that M&As usually seek economies of scale that endanger jobs.

Labor Day video interlude No. 1.

"What the Spot.Us Community Thinks of Objectivity" (MediaShift IdeaLab): There seems to be a lot of discussion of late as to whether reporters ought to routinely include a kind of confessional sidebar to the stories they write, to alert readers to viewpoints and experiences that might color their work. (Honestly, though, the talk isn't all that new.) Spot.Us, the website that allows reporters to pitch story ideas for funding, surveyed its "community" -- supporters and funders -- to see where they stood on objectivity in journalism.

Nearly 45 percent of the respondents agreed with the statement that "objectivity is possible but difficult," but almost 28 percent said they believed "transparency is the new objectivity." Said one respondent about the latter, "... reporters ought to reveal their biases in each story as part of the narrative so as to partially disarm whatever criticism of bias they may receive. Doing so will provide a better service to the public and will create better journalism."

Be sure to read the smattering of comments from respondents at the end. They're pretty interesting.

"A Journalist Laughs at the Thought that his Layoff Anniversary Is Worth a Story, But..." (Poynter Online): Broadcaster Michael Goldfarb interviews himself about his layoff five years ago from public radio station WBUR in Boston and the slow rebuilding of his professional life as a freelance journalist and author. His conclusion: "I commit as much journalism today as I ever did" -- but he now earns 50 percent less doing it.

Labor Day video interlude No. 2.

"All the Men That's Fit to Print" (The NYTPicker): In case you missed it, a discussion of gender inequality in the obituary pages of the New York Times, by the internal blog that keeps a critical eye on the paper. Interestingly, a Google search turned up a posting to an online version of a Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying (2003) article, "Gender Discrimination after Death," by Robin D. Moremen, that cites numerous academic studies, dating from 1977, that looked at newspaper obituary pages to determine whether men received "greater public recognition after death than women." The answer, not surprisingly, was yes: more obituaries, longer obituaries and obituaries usually accompanied by a photograph.

It's the weekend: Time to read

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For your reading (and listening) pleasure this weekend:

"Americans Are Dumping Cable TV, but Execs Say Economics to Blame" (Advertising Age): This article caught my eye because of something I had read earlier from DigiDave, the twentysomething new-media thinker who says he favors online options like Hulu to a "giant box in the corner collecting dust." When you think about it, TV watching (cable or broadcast) is pretty passive -- accepting the programming someone else has determined will be shown at a particular point in time. TV execs apparently fear the revolution playing out in print media that has destroyed the business model as it has given voice to "the people formerly known as the audience." So they're creating new online video options, available through subscription, to stay relevant. Interesting statistic quoted: that just 42 percent of Americans see landline phones and TV sets as "essential," according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. And only 30 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds would agree.

"Newspapers Gone by 2022 Says Futurist" (The Australian): Ross Dawson, a speaker, author and futurist on business and technology, previewed for the newspaper the proclamation he promised to deliver in his closing talk at the Newspaper Publishers Association Future Forum conference in Sydney. (I haven't found a copy of the talk, but here's his blog with "pre-talk primer notes" or talking points.) The story is similar to the one here in the U.S.: Newspapers have been slow to adapt to the now-online world and will become more and more irrelevant unless they move quickly to digital and mobile platforms. An interesting prediction: "By 2020 entry-level devices to read the news will cost less than $10 and often be given away." Cool.

Time for a musical interlude.

"SEO Makes It Too Late for Truth for 'Ground Zero Mosque' " (Poynter Online): Here's a riddle for the Google-ized world: Once a concept has gained momentum online and the search engines are pumping, how do you remake the SEO (search engine optimization) if the concept itself has been debunked? As Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at The Poynter Institute, writes, you can't because Google won't let you. In the case of the Islamic center in Manhattan that raised a stir when news reports mischaracterized it as a mosque at the site of the fallen Twin Towers ("ground zero"), a story can set the record straight. "But what about ongoing coverage? Must you keep using the inaccurate term? Sadly, the answer is yes, according to people familiar with SEO practices," McBride says. "That's because accurate or not, people are searching for the term 'ground zero mosque.' So if you want to reach people who are looking for information, you have to use that term."

"In Battle of the Weeklies, Local Focus Is the Key" (The Bay Citizen): Jonathan Weber, editor in chief of San Francisco's media newcomer, The Bay Citizen, the nonprofit online operation started in May and backed by billionaire financier Warren Hellman, profiles one of the granddaddies in town -- the San Francisco Bay Guardian, an alternative weekly. It's a finely written profile of the alt-weekly's founder and publisher, Bruce Brugmann, a self-described "newspaper guy" who vows never to give up print -- even after 44 years. "We're a valuable resource, kind of irreplaceable," he tells Weber.

"The Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy" (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System): OK. Set this one aside for a time when you're wide awake. But with all the talk this week of a slowed recovery and a double-dip recession, you might as well get a bird's-eye view of things from Ben Bernanke himself. The Fed chairman, at the group's annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo., says that while financial conditions "are generally much improved " from a year ago, "growth ... has been too slow and joblessness remains too high." But while the economy is not out of the woods yet, the Fed continues to stand ready to do what it takes to guide the economy forward.

And if you want a look back at an event that signaled the start of everything unwinding, listen here to the NPR Morning Edition story on "How Wall Street Made the Mortgage Crisis Worse."



The report, a collaboration by NPR's Planet Money and the investigative nonprofit ProPublica, is in written form here.

Starbucks as public library

Starbucks' cinnamon dolce latte:
Espresso with steamed milk and cinnamon
dolce flavored syrup, topped with sweetened
whipped cream and cinnamon dolce topping.

Remember when public libraries worried they were losing patrons to the chain book- stores and chain coffeehouses and so began experimenting with adding coffee and pastry? Now, it seems, Starbucks is returning the favor: its Starbucks Digital Network, due in the fall, is library-like in some of the online services it promises.

Want to vault that Wall Street Journal paywall? You'll be able to do so while sipping a grande cinnamon dolce latte at your local Starbucks.

When the Seattle-based company announced it was making its wi-fi service free, many wondered why. Wireless Internet access already was available, but at a fee ($3.99 per two hours) to most customers. Starting July 1, though, the service became free and unlimited at company-owned stores.

Then the company began to fill out the "why": the Starbucks Digital Network, which would offer a collection of premium digital content -- iTunes, The New York Times, Patch, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo!, Zagat, Rodale, Nick Jr. Boost and DonorsChoose.org.

It's all part of what Starbucks long has called the "third place experience": a location beyond home and work where people choose to gather -- with Starbucks recommending music, books and movies to help them start a conversation. “We’re creating an online destination that will be true to, and expand upon, the Starbucks experience by delivering free, premium offerings that are selected specifically for our customers and localized for increased personal and community relevance,” Stephen Gillett, general manager of the company's digital unit, said in the Aug. 12 announcement.

And listen to this library-like description: "The Starbucks Digital Network will offer ... customers access to a one-of-a-kind destination featuring free access to various paid sites and services, exclusive content and previews, free downloads, career tools and local community news."

Alert the reference desk!

The content will be available to wi-fi-enabled laptops, tablets and smartphones through six "channels": news, entertainment, wellness, business and careers, My Neighborhood, and Starbucks. The news and "My Neighborhood" channels could be interesting for media companies, the former for the giants that will be part of the network (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today) and the latter for the online operations of smaller papers and local websites that might be able to elbow their way in alongside a hyperlocal like Patch.

Because as it has done with music, books and movies, Starbucks plans to "aggregate and compile the best content that [customers] can’t get any where else," Adam Brotman, another executive in the company's digital ventures unit, told Mashable.

And in music at least, that has meant a boost for newbie and legacy artist alike.

UPDATE: The service launched Oct. 19, according to cnet news. One thing I didn't realize was that Starbucks' network would be available only on wi-fi in its stores.

How long will journalism wander?

Remember this classic?



It came to mind after reading a blog post by a smart young entrepreneur, then seeing that view expanded upon by a career newspaperman who has turned away from print.

The entrepreneur, David Cohn, founded Spot.Us, a website that brings together reporters wanting to do stories and readers willing to contribute money to see that the stories get done. He's a young new voice getting a lot of mic time as he's invited to make presentations at journalism and new-media conferences.

It was in connection with an appearance last week at the annual Aspen Institute Forum on Communications and Society that Cohn says he began to see what is happening in journalism today in terms of Jews wandering the desert for 40 years before gaining entry to the promised land. That is, journalism's old business model is broken and a new one hasn't yet taken hold, but the generation that has been in charge of news-gathering these past few decades is holding on to what it has known and is resisting calls for a change in "faith."

As a result, journalism as it has been practiced is doomed to continue losing readers and relevance until these geezers retire, die or just leave the field and a new generation can take the lead and put the news on a robust path again.

The salient part of Cohn's blog is under the heading "Generations In The Desert – Journalism" (and the picture of the camel); make sure you read the first comment posted on the piece, too.

Steve Buttry, the career newspaperman, soon took up the Cohn analogy, responding on his blog: "I have to say that I am embarrassed at the outlook, performance and leadership I have seen from much of my generation when it comes to journalism innovation. Dave may be right that we need to wander around in the desert and die off ... or at least retire before we can see a rebirth of journalism -- or whatever we will call it then."

Buttry left newspapers behind when he joined TBD.com, a site in Washington, D.C., that is experimenting with a new journalism model as it delivers news and community information via TV and the Web. It launched Aug. 9.

Buttry also writes, "I think, though, that the wandering won’t take a full generation. I think right now organizations such as Spot.us ... and TBD are already taking the first steps toward a prosperous, meaningful future. Dave and his generation may not have to wander as long as he fears."

As to the Boomers now in charge, though, "We might make it out of the desert, but I think our generation has blown our chance to lead the way."

It's that time again: the weekend read

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For your reading pleasure this weekend:

"The End of Wishful Thinking" (The American Spectator): Ben Stein has had a good life -- government lawyer, presidential speechwriter, actor ("Ferris Bueller's Day Off") and award-winning game show host ("Win Ben Stein's Money") -- so what's he doing here characterizing me and other unemployed Americans as "generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities"? He starts out expressing dismay that so many formerly successfully people he knows have seen their lives turned upside down by the Great Recession. Then he goes on to slap the unemployed as "people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job." Jeez! Doesn't he know that long-term unemployment is at record levels and that employers are still hesitant to add to payrolls?

But Joe Grimm gets a Huzzah! for ripping Stein and coming to the defense of downsized journalists like me in his Ask the Recruiter column at Poynter Online: "They were laid off because the industry is rapidly changing. In several cases, whole newspapers were shuttered. It was not because the journalists lived imprudently."

So there, Ben Stein!

"To Create Jobs, Cut Everyone's Pay 10%" (MarketWatch): Here's another wacky essay, this one suggesting "EVERYBODY -- from the president down to the chambermaid" take a cut in pay in order to redirect that money to efforts to re-employ about 8 percent of the unemployed. Why 8 percent? It's what would be needed to get the unemployment rate to 4.5 percent, or so-called full employment. (Interestingly, author Ken Mayland is working off a number for unemployed American of 19.2 million, not the 14.6 million represented in the current 9.5 percent unemployment rate. The difference? The underemployed, or people who are working part-time when they really want a full-time job, whom he thinks are being undercounted.)

Mayland realizes his proposal is a bit "whimsical": "Can you imagine union workers acceding to the plan?" he asks.

"In U.S., Confidence in Newspapers, TV News Remains a Rarity" (Gallup): Sigh! It's never good to hear that you're losing the confidence of the citizens you're supposedly serving, but the Fourth Estate didn't make a good showing in this year's Confidence in Institutions poll by Gallup. Of 16 institutions rated, the military did best and Congress did worst, according to the survey. "Americans' confidence in newspapers and television news is on par with Americans' lackluster confidence in banks and slightly better than their dismal rating of health management organizations and big business," say the folks at Gallup.

One ironic twist in the findings: "While 18- to 29-year-olds express more trust in newspapers than most older Americans, Gallup polling has found they read national newspapers the least."

"Your Online Presence Says a Lot More About You than a Resume Can" (The Business Insider): I've always hated the use of sports terminology in business ("hail mary," "heavy hitter," "power play"), so I'm thankful we don't yet have to worry about this one: "Roll the game tape." Or do we?

Author Keith Cowing writes that rather than static résumés, jobseekers now can present more three-dimensional portraits of themselves through blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube/Vimeo, etc. His advice is to leave these kinds of bread crumbs lying around to give "a slightly raw view" of who you are.

"Don’t wait until you need a game tape to make one," he says. "Make it as you go. Tell the world who you are and how you think. Share some thoughts, take part in discussions, and let your game tape represent you truthfully as you go through your career."

But it's probably a good idea to Google yourself occasionally to see just how "raw" you might be coming across.

Finally, there was an interesting discussion this afternoon at an online Poynter Institute chat about women being underrepresented at journalism technology conferences and how to remedy it. That led back to this archived article:

"Revenge of the Nerds: Fighting Sexism at Tech Events" (Wendy Norris blog), which is, sadly, a hoot on bad taste: female crotch shots on the big screen, scantily clad sirens at trade show booths. In trying to discourage the latter, one tech event co-organizer offered, "At last year’s conference, someone had a bunch of stripper types in hot pants and absurdly tight t-shirts. It was totally cheap, cheesy and lame. It’s 2009, people, really."

Really, indeed.

For your (not-yet-ended) weekend reading

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A few hours still are left in the weekend, so technically I didn't miss this deadline. (My excuse: the unbelievable amount of prep time it takes to get organized for a neighborhood-wide garage sale!) So for your end-of-weekend reading pleasure:

"For four out of five unemployed workers, there are no jobs" (Economic Policy Institute): As she does each month, Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, looks at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey -- better known as JOLTS. It's released soon after the government, on the first Friday of the month, puts out the official report on employment/unemployment for the just-concluded month. JOLTS lags by an additional month, so the latest one is for the month ended June 30.

Using JOLTS and other U.S. Department of Labor numbers, Shierholz comes up with a ratio of unemployed workers to available jobs -- which has been as high as 6.2-to-1 in this recession. For June, the ratio was 5-to-1 -- to which she gives this twist: "The 5-to-1 ratio means that ... for every four out of five unemployed workers there simply are no jobs." That's sobering.

Even more sobering: The ratio doesn't say anything about the number of applicants per job, which Shierholz says could measure in the "throngs."

"The Evolution of the Journalism Job Market" (Mandel on Innovation and Growth): Until late last year, Michael Mandel was the chief economist at BusinessWeek magazine, where he had worked for 20 years. He left with the sale of the magazine to Bloomberg L.P., the well-known financial news powerhouse. Now, he's an entrepreneur, founding a company called Visible Economy that is described as combining news and education via "streams of lively news stories and videos that cover today's events with clear and correct explanations."

He also writes about innovation and growth on a blog, where this discussion of a "Golden Age of Journalism" occurs (that is, that "the combination of the falling cost of communications and the high demand for news just opens up all sorts of possibilities for doing journalism in different ways.")

Well, yippee! I have a future after all. Oh, but wait a minute: "In terms of jobs, journalistic occupations are outperforming the overall economy. However, many of the journalistic jobs are not being created in conventional journalism industries," he says, which means I still could be out of luck unless I become an entrepreneur, too. (Shudder!)

"Carl Bernstein: The 'Golden Age' of Investigative Journalism Never Existed" (Big Think): You can't have a Nixon resignation anniversary go by without some mention of Watergate, right? So Big Think obliges by posting interviews conducted last month with Carl Bernstein, the former Washington Post reporter who with Bob Woodward uncovered the link between the bugging of the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., and the administration of Richard Nixon. Their reporting won a Pulitzer Prize for public service for the Post.

In the interviews, Bernstein covers many topics, including whether a story as complex and politically charged as Watergate could be reported today. He thinks the Fourth Estate is up to the task, but that the legislative and judiciary branches of government -- which played vital roles in Watergate -- might not be. Congress, in particular, is dysfunctional, Bernstein says. "I’m not nearly as worried about the press as I am about the political system," he tells Big Think.