Final Projects for Fall 2013

All of the student projects are at this URL.

http://www.jclass.umd.edu/652352/2013fall0401/mmoj13fallumd/index.html

Conflict of Interest in the World Cup

The World Cup is scheduled to be held in the oil-rich Middle East nation of Qatar in 2022. South Africa hosted the 2010 tournament amidst serious issues in building stadiums and preparing the national infrastructure for the gravity of the event, and since then, nations have been under a microscope in the years leading up to the event, much like Brazil is now.

Qatar has come under fire for human rights violations, allegations of bribery/political corruption, and the deaths of thousands of workers, and the country needs to make good impressions on the rest of the world if this international event is to run smoothly. 

To accomplish this, the Qatar 2022 World Cup Committee gave ESPN soccer columnist Phil Ball an all-expenses-paid trip to a conference in a hotel in Doha, the nation's capital, and he wrote a glowing referendum on the nation's preparedness for the event in return, despite fairly obvious evidence that they aren't ready.

The question is - is this a conflict of interest? ESPN removed the article - did they need to do it?

Journalists Faced With Advertiser Conflict of Interest

As Black Friday nears, the Nieman Journalism Lab discussed possible issues that modern journalists face when writing articles that may involve possible advertisers that work with their publication. The main concern: do you avoid any writing that could shine a negative light on these advertisers OR do you risk the possibility of losing money for your publication/risk getting fired for doing so?

Caroline O'Donavan writes about a Buzzfeed staffer who claims he was recently fired for articles criticizing Axe and other big funders of the Website. In his words:

Ben Smith made me delete a post I did on Axe Body Spray’s ads, titled, “The Objectification Of Women By Axe Continues Unabated in 2013″ (it was initially called something to the effect of “Axe Body Spray Continues its Contribution to Rape Culture,” but I quickly softened it). Get this: he made me delete it one month after it was posted, due to apparent pressure from Axe’s owner Unilever. How that’s for editorial integrity?

Understanding that no online news outlets are immune to pressure from advertisers, would you avoid risky topics dealing with a company if there could be repercussions for yourself or your publication? Or would you write the piece anyway?

How Journalists are Dealing with Redskins Controversy

As I am sure you all know by now, the Washington Redskins have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons thus far this season. While their play on the field has been less than inspiring, to say the least, they've created the most headlines for their steadfast refusal to change their team name. Consequently, since the name is essentially a racial slur, many people would like to see them change their name; including the likes of many prominent sports journalists and personalities such as Bill Simmons, Peter King, and the immortal Mike Francesa. In fact, in their articles, Simmons and King have boycotted the term "Redskins" and only refer to the team as "Washington" or the "Washington Football Team".

So I guess my question is: With the growing resentment toward the team name by the public and the increasing amount of journalists speaking out against the name and even boycotting it, do you believe Daniel Snyder will eventually cave and change the name due to media scrutiny and all the negative coverage this whole incident is causing? Also, is it appropriate for journalists to get involved in issues like this or would you prefer the sports media to lay low on these issues and focus strictly on sports?  Or do you enjoy the movement many journalists are making against this particular issue?

Should a newspaper sue the federal government for taking a reporter's notes?

The Washington Times is suing the Department of Homeland Security after the department seized a reporter's notes, the newspaper reported. Agents from DHS took journalist Audrey Hudson's notes while looking for firearms, according to The Daily Caller.

The Washington Times:

The newspaper alleged that federal agents accompanying Maryland State Police on the raid took materials from Ms. Hudson’s office that were not covered by the search warrant that authorized the collection solely of evidence about guns and a potato launcher allegedly possessed by her husband, Paul Flanagan.

The filing asks a federal judge to order the return of “property that has been unlawfully seized … in violation of the Fourth and First Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.”

Should the federal government be allowed to seize a reporter's notes? 

Is the Washington Times right for suing over this issue?

Would you publish mugshots related to a drug investigation at the risk of your publication being seen as racist?

The Chattanooga Times Free Press has received criticism after it ran a front page story showing the mugshots of 32 men that were arrested in an investigation of the city’s crack trade. All of the suspects were black and described by police as the “worst of the worst.” The paper got feedback describing its coverage as racist and irresponsible.

There was disagreement inside the newsroom over whether or not to run the mugshots at all or to put them inside the paper so fewer people would see them. The use of the 32 mugshots got more attention (even if a lot of it was negative) than previous coverage of the investigation that appeared about a week earlier without the photos. 

Would you have run the mugshots on the front page?

Does reporting the truth outweigh public backlash over how a publication presents the news?

Should reporter have been fired for comparing a high school to "Mean Girls"?

According to Poynter, North Adams Transcript reporter Isaac Avilucea was fired for his October 18th story, where he included an interview from a girl who said she had transfered to her new school because her old one was like "the movie 'Mean Girls.' " She also commented how she made the move even though her new school has "somewhat inferior academics and athletics"(Poynter).  The paper received a lot of backlash from the schools. See story

Avilucea responded to his termination by writing an article titled, "I Got Fired For Being A Journalist."

one-that-fired-him/

However, Avilucea was just hired at a sister paper. 

The case involves a few major questions:

1) Do you think Avilucea was wrong in reporting the high schooler's opinions of the schools and should he have been fired? Was he practicing fair reporting?

2) Should the sister paper have hired him?

Restrictions on the Press in the White House

There is a growing battle between the White House press corps and the administration, and it reached a peak during the daily media briefing on Thursday. It stems from the Obama administration's official photographers and videographer releasing photos and videos from events where only they had access, while press photographers are being barred from covering the President.

Here are some highlights from the fight featured in the AP and Politico:

And the press access precedent being set by this WH press office will only be followed in a more rigid way by next POTUS. why we whine
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) November 21, 2013

"It is the responsibility of those of who who sit in your seats to push for more. You're supposed to be agitating for more access. If you weren't, you wouldn't be doing your job." - White House Deputy Secretary Josh Earnest

"As surely as if they were placing a hand over a journalist's camera lens, officials in this administration are blocking the public from having an independent view of important functions of the executive branch of government." - Letter from the White House Correspondents Association to Earnest

"The press corps don't break much news these days, I'm sure they are resentful. When they had a monopoly on communications technology, I'm sure they found folks needing them more, giving them more. But their current colleagues who actually report seem to be doing fine, so maybe big media should stop pretending [the White House] beat is this plum assignment in the Internet age." - Arun Chaudhary, First Official White House videographer

So where do you stand in this debate?

The Role of News on Facebook

A new study says young people, like you, are more likely to be incidentally exposed to news via Facebook than actually watching a newscast or reading a newspaper.

In particular, younger adults, who as a group are less engaged than their elders are with news on other platforms, are as engaged, if not more so, with news on Facebook. Young people (18- to 29– year-olds) account for about a third, 34%, of Facebook news consumers. That far outpaces the 20% that they account for among Facebook users who do not get news on the site.

What’s more, these 18- to 29-year-olds get news on Facebook across topics at roughly the same levels as older age groups, turn there as often for breaking news and deem the site as important a source of news.

Your thoughts?

http://www.journalism.org/2013/10/24/the-role-of-news-on-facebook/

Future of Journalism?

An episode of Portlandia included a sketch where a local paper was bought out by a blog.


Some of the lines are:

• They probably read every fifth word... so just make it those five words.
• When you make things Top 10 automatically it makes it easy enough for people to digest it.
• People don't read articles anymore and we don't want to provide people things don't care about. 

Full article by NewsCastic 

Do you think the future of journalism will be similar? 

Do you see yourself in this story?

I found this report about Next-Gen Reporters accurately represents most of the journalism students I've encounter over my two years of teaching at Maryland. Do you agree? Why or why not?

I am a fan of listicles, this one has 14. They are part of the reason Buzzfeed is so popular. I like # 5. Read the story for more.

5. They believe that a little irreverence and opinion in the news might not be such a bad thing. Think BuzzFeed and The Daily Show instead of CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.

All U Need 2 Know About Next-Gen Reporters
In the spirit of BuzzFeed, here are 14 not-really-so-amazing things you need to know about the next generation of television journalists, based on my recent visit to Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Storify of #oj13fall Twitter coverage of Povich panel

Storify created based on #oj13fall.

This is what it look like in Storify
http://storify.com/richmurphydc/covering-the-povich-panel


This is what it looks like embedded in a webpage
http://www.jclass.umd.edu/652352/2013fall0401/povichstorify.html

Twitter Widget #oj13fall Observations of the World

Tweets about "#oj13fall"

The Onion gets awfully close to the truth about news websites

It's satirical, but the truth part of it hurts. 

Let Me Explain Why Miley Cyrus’ VMA Performance Was Our Top Story This Morning

http://www.theonion.com/articles/let-me-explain-why-miley-cyrus-vma-performance-was,33632/?ref=auto

"Over the years, CNN.com has become a news website that many people turn to for top-notch reporting. Every day it is visited by millions of people, all of whom rely on “The Worldwide Leader in News”—that’s our slogan—for the most crucial, up-to-date information on current events. So, you may ask, why was this morning’s top story, a spot usually given to the most important foreign or domestic news of the day, headlined “Miley Cyrus Did What???” and accompanied by the subhead “Twerks, stuns at VMAs”?
It’s a good question. And the answer is pretty simple. It was an attempt to get you to click on CNN.com so that we could drive up our web traffic, which in turn would allow us to increase our advertising revenue."

Why the Onion is Wrong About CNN and Miley Cyrus

Pretty good response to the The Onion close to home satire. Gives 3 options for news organizations:
1) You can remain in denial that quality alone will prevail despite all evidence of the contrary.
2) You can do whatever it takes to drive traffic and lose any sense of distinct brand identity.
3) You can coordinate a balanced attack between the quality that supports the brand but not traffic with more broadly appealing content that does more for traffic than it does the brand.

http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/why-the-onion-is-wrong-about-cnn-and-miley-cyrus-1200589821/

Bezos Q & A with WaPo staff

Interesting real time tweeting as the Post's new owner, Jeff Bezos, answered questions from staff. 

https://twitter.com/ErikWemple

And Wemple's follow up column:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/09/04/jeff-bezos-and-the-internets-aggregational-appetites/

What points/quotes stick out to you and why? 

And commentary from another aggregator:

http://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/erik-wemple-quoted-me-on-jeff-bezos-so-i-aggregated-eriks-post/"

The Post is famous for its investigative journalism. It pours energy and investment and sweat and dollars into uncovering important stories. And then a bunch of Web sites summarize that [work] in about four minutes and readers can access that news for free. One question is, how do you make a living in that kind of environment? If you can’t, it’s difficult to put the right resources behind it. . . . Even behind a paywall [digital subscription], Web sites can summarize your work and make it available for free. From a reader point of view, the reader has to ask, ‘Why should I pay you for all that journalistic effort when I can get it for free’ from another site?”

Online book ordering info & free digital Washington Post

ONLINE BOOK INFO:

______________________________________

At Holcomb Hathaway, we understand that buying textbooks can be a significant expense for students, and we always try to price our books competitively. For the Fall 2013 semester, we are also offering your students a discount of 20% off the list price for ebooks purchased and downloaded from our website until October 1st. When preparing your syllabus, feel free to mention the discount code shown below or share it via your course management software (e.g., BlackBoard) or by email. 

Online Journalism, third edition | Ebook ISBN: 978-1-934432-29-7 | List price: $38.50 (discounted from the print book price of $48.00) | Discount code:F13eB20 | Price after discount: $30.80

 Please feel free to share this message with your students:

The publisher of Online Journalism, third edition is offering students a 20% discount off the list price of the ebook version of this text until October 1st. With the discount, the ebook will cost $30.80, which may be less than online or bookstore prices for the print book. The ebook will be immediately downloadable to your PC, laptop, or tablet.Visit http://www.hh-pub.com, search for the book title or author name, and use the discount codeF13eB20to receive 20% off your order.

___________________________

Free digital access to the Washington Post for students. 

Dear Dean Dalglish,
Rem Rieder suggested that I get in touch with you. I'm a product manager at The Washington Post. We recently rolled out a process so that anyone who signs up with a .gov, .mil, or .edu email address can get free access to the paper's digital content. I thought that many students at the Merrill College of Journalism would be interested.

All they have to do is follow the instructions on this page:https://account.washingtonpost.com/actmgmt/registration/get-nonpaid-access

Please forward this information to anyone who might be interested. If anyone has any questions, I'm happy to answer. They can contact me at the coordinates below. Thanks!

Best,
Alex Remington

Alex Remington
Product Manager, The Washington Post
alexander.remington@washpost.com
202-334-9512

Welcome!

Welcome to the future of journalism. The rate at which content is created is faster and more accessible than ever.  And there are no signs of it slowing down.

As prospective journalists, you will be the people gathering, dissecting, analyzing and publishing for the public. Your tweet can spread around the world in minutes. Your task is to make sure the information you transmit is correct.

The first time.

Once something hits the internet, it is next to impossible to bring it back. That's why it has to be right when you hit the publish key. We'll spend the semester examining how the content you consume is produced. From the user's perspective and from you, the creator's, perspective.

The journalist's world is moving fast. Keep up.

Multimedia project examples from 352 spring 2013 & 2012

These are the final projects from previous students so you have an idea of what you will be creating.

http://www.jclass.umd.edu/652352/2013spring/0101/352mm/index.html

http://www.jclass.umd.edu/652352/2012spring/oj12/index.html