Do Guild members at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have reason to worry that their paper is for sale? Blogger Bruce Murphy, who cites a Guild member's email questioning the possibility of a sale, says he thinks there's something to it. He writes that it could be a "disaster" for employees and the community alike if a sale leads to "laying off yet more reporters... The JS is still the state's biggest journalistic entity, and there is nothing on the horizon primed to take its place."
The Washington Post's Erik Wemple has had all he can take of Sarah Palin's "lazy and tired indictment of the media," which includes her continued claims that the media is "protecting" Obama. Wemple points to the Pew study this spring that found, "Of all the presidential candidates studied in this report, only one figure did not have a single week in 2012 when positive coverage exceeded negative coverage—the incumbent, Democrat Barack Obama.”
Beating out Citizen Kane, All the President's Men and other films about newspaper journalists, the 2009 movie State of Play is the most popular newspaper-related DVD on Netflix, the company reports. On streaming Netflix video, the top pick is The Pelican Brief.
Christine Haughney and Amy Chozick —
August 15, 2012— New York Times
The New York Times Company has named Mark Thompson, the departing director of the BBC, as its new president and CEO. By hiring the television veteran, Times' chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said "it broadens what we are going to do." "We have people who understand print very well, the best in the business,” he said “We have people who understand advertising well, the best in the business. But our future is on to video, to social, to mobile."
In a keynote address to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference, Richard Gingras, director of news and social products at Google, says, "the future of journalism can and will be better than it’s past. We have never had a more open ecosystem for the expression of information and ideas." Poynter posts the full transcript.
He witnessed Germany surrender to the allies in 1945 and broke the news that WWII was over, arguably the biggest scoop of the 20th century. And yet Ed Kennedy’s reporting – which defied a U.S. government order to keep mum on Germany’s surrender for 36 hours – not only got him sacked from the Associated Press, but largely discredited him in journalism circles. Sixty-seven years later, a group of journalists are working to nominate Kennedy for a 2013 posthumous Pulitzer award.
CJR praises the Detroit Free Press, Minneapolis Star-Tribune and USA Today for pushing beyond the notion that employers, particularly manufacturers, can't find enough qualified workers -- the so-called "skills gap."
Poynter says AP's guidelines for political reporters during the election season "are a welcome guide to maintaining journalistic sangfroid while covering political passions: Not just nuts and bolts stuff (e.g., “press secretary” is “Seldom a formal title and thus lowercase”) but also a roadmap to help journalists avoid cliches like “pressing the flesh” (use “shaking hands” instead) and not wander into linguistic minefields (e.g., don’t use “Democrat Party”).
The Portland Press Herald will pay a woman $400 for publishing a photograph from her Flickr account after she complained that she hadn’t given permission or been contacted beforehand.
In a Q&A with The New York Times, National Press Photographers Association lawyer Mickey Osterreicher says, "Literally every day, someone is being arrested for doing nothing more than taking a photograph in a public place," and that it's not just news photographers being targeted. Tourists are routinely being told they can't take photos.
