We're a bit delayed in learning about this post on PJNet Today ("A Public Journalism Network Weblog by Leonard Witt and Colleagues),  but Jan Schaffer's remarks certainly are in line with what the IAJ is learning as we dive into the analysis of last fall's online survey (in five languages) of journalism educators. 

"September 13, 2006

Jan Schaffer Critiques Journalism Education

Jan Schaffer, director of the J-Lab at the University of Maryland, recently took a few pokes at the way journalism is taught.

Here are the key parts of a just-posted talk she gave at the AEJMC entitled: What's Next for Newspapers and Journalism Education?

I read several newspapers a day now. I read them now first as a citizen, second as an old Type A assigning editor. So often, I find myself unsatisfied with the stories and angry at the coverage.

I worry about the CONVENTIONS of journalism that we are teaching our students. I worry that some of the conventions that were used both to define "news" and to safeguard fairness and balance in journalism are being gamed by media strategists for their own ends. The result is a journalism that is not serving the public well - and that the public doesn't much trust.

She adds:

I think the academy itself needs to create some oxygen for entrepreneurship and innovation in journalism. We need to rethink our RECRUITING. We reward long-time professionals, who often don't have the skills to bridge the new media environment. Indeed, one of Maryland's marquee professors doesn't even do e-mail. When I suggested this year that all professors be required to put their course syllabi online, I was told it was not the kind of thing that the school could require and besides a lot of people wouldn't know how to do it.

We reward long-form storytellers and feature writing, even though a lot of newspapers and even magazines don't run long stories or features. We reward Ph.D.'s when often their research is not very relevant to the future of journalism - and in many cases, in my view, doesn't really add a lot of value to the knowledge base of journalism.

I think we need to find new ways to recruit a new diversity of people - diverse in their skill sets and mindsets - to our faculties. Maybe they are with us for two to three years, then go back into daily journalism to refresh their skills, then back into academia. No more sinecures."

 

A interesting mapping project today from Abuquerque's DWI Resource Center.  A map showing a surprising clustering of the city's DWI-related events.  Wouldn't it again be an interesting reporting tool -- and a draw for readers -- if a newspaper were to create a dynamic and regularly updated map of this sort for its market area?

Bernalillo County (New Mexico) DWI Crash Map
http://www.dwiresourcecenter.org/crashmap.shtml

The Bernalillo County DWI Crash Map is a new tool to help citizens avoid drunk drivers by assisting them in locating the more dangerous roadways in and around Albuquerque and allowing them to plan alterative commuting routes and times. The DWI Crash Map indicates locations around the county with the highest incidents of alcohol-related crashes, and the areas in the county with the highest concentrations of alcohol establishments. The map also contains charts showing alcohol-related crashes and DWI arrests by time of day.

Although a citizen's best defense against a drunk driver is to always wear a seat-belt and drive defensively, this map can assist you in planning your daily commute to avoid high-risk intersections and times of day when alcohol-related crashes are most likely to occur.

To view the map, you will a need free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

DOWNLOAD the DWI Crash Map (PDF - 4MB)

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Here's another example of how most any newspaper could (a) create a database helpful to reporters and (b) generate revenue for the organization.  Not much, perhaps, but revenue.

Earlier this week, BT (formerly British Telecom) announced that it was partnering with Ancestry.co.uk to post "more than a century of its telephone books" online.  This will be of special interest to geneological researchers, of course, but surely reporters would find it a helpful tool to research individuals or companies.  To the extent that street addresses are available, this is also a potentially rich source of GIS data for historical mapping.

And here's the revenue connection:  "Publishing the BT Phone Books Archive, which is most complete set of phone directories in existence, represents a coup for Ancestry.co.uk who are establishing themselves as a leading proponent of family and social history research on the internet."  A subscription to Ancestory.com (though it is not easy to find the cost) is £69.95 (US$132) per year.  Surely, BT is going to get a cut of the phonebook-specific searches.

Obviously, all newspapers could do something similar.

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Friend Laura Soto-Bara posts the following to the NewsLib listserv:

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Any discipline always has subsets of argument, typically about definitions, methodologies, process or significance.  Statistics, of course, is no different.  Below is an interesting article from the Washington Monthly about what constitutes statistical significance.  The article is OK, but the commentary below it even better.  See http://www.blogware.com/admin/index.cgi/cmd=post_article

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Eight or nine years back we attended one of the first Crime Mapping conferences sponsored by the National Institute of Justice and found it to be one of the most creative and practical events of this type.  (We also have very high regard for the ESRI Users Conference and the Special Libraries Assoc. meetings.)  So we want to be sure to let all analytic journos know about next year's Crime Mapping confab, scheduled for March 28 to 31, 2007 in Pittsburg, Penn.  Here's part of the official call for papers:

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If you want to generate a glazed look of incomprehension in a audience of journalists, just ask, "How many of you work for an organization that has someone assigned to coordinate knowledge management throughout the company or at least for the newsroom?"  

We're not talking about someone who acquires and coordinates databases, a task typically assigned to news researchers, but rather someone who studies what digital (or potentially digital ) data resources exist within the entire company and how might those be leveraged to generate new or better insights, stories and, possibly, revenue streams.

The first journalism-specific book on the topic came of Stephen Quinn, a professor at Deakin University in Australia.  Quinn's book, "Knowledge Management in the Digital Newsroom," appeared in 2002 and draws examples from many U.S., European and Australian publications. 

Now comes a similar work by a team led by Prof. Guy Berger that studied African newspapers of varying size and sophistication.

Author/s: Weza et al.
Date Published: 31/08/2006
File: download (1554.115 KB)

Description: This book tracks the state-of-play in a selection of independent African newspapers, both big and small. It also points the way forward, with explanations of "convergence", "content management", and "enterprise management". In short, it shows what theories and systems of Knowledge Management can offer the African media.
For other titles, see: http://www.highwayafrica.ru.ac.za/publications.cfm

We will be posting a review in coming days, but until then, go to the link above and download a copy for yourself.  The download price is right -- free -- and doing so will save the mailing costs from Grahamstown, South Africa.

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The 2006 Knight-Batten Awards given by J-Lab are out.  All are worth looking at, but one caught our eye, one of the "Niche News" awards in the "Notable Entries" category.  Clearly, a lot of legwork on the streets of Boston went into this well-designed project.  Now the only question is: Who will keep it updated and how?

bostonchinatown.org
Emerson College Journalism (Boston, MA)

"Quintessential visualization of civic mapping ... Tell us more about these people." -2006 Knight-Batten Advisory Board Judges Sixteen Emerson journalism graduate students put in a combined 500 hours of original reporting to develop this web chart. The chart displays connections between more than 100 newsmakers, organization leaders and activists in Boston’s Chinatown based on who talks with whom about local news. The map also acts as a directory with personal profiles available to help people connect.

Friend Steve Guerin tips us to "Cabspotting," a fascinating site created by San Francisco's Exploratorium.  It's about georgraphy, traffic flow, and complexity.  Give a look to "Cabspotting"

We are currently in South Africa, primarily to participate in Highway Africa 2006 sponsored by the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University in Grahamstown.  But before heading to Grahamstown, we were asked to give a series of lectures in the Durban, South Africa area.  Below is the schedule and links to the presentations (as soon as they are uploaded).

• Tuesday, 5 September at the Natal Witness: "No, it is not all about telling stories."
  
Wednesday, 6 September at Durban's Independent Newspaper: "Analytic Journalism: Investing in an Intellectual  Portfolio to Secure Journalism's Financial Future" and "Investigative Journalism in the Digital Age."

Thursday, 7 September, School of Journalism - Durban University of Technology.  Opening of Annual Research Seminar.  "Investigative Journalism in the Digital Age" and "No, it is not all about telling stories."



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