When News is In Your Backyard
Posted by James Hill on June 26, 2009
On most days, Washington's Metrorail rapid-transit system is a wonder to behold -- clean, reliable and fast. But almost everyone who has ever been a rider, and that includes just about everyone who lives in the metropolitan area plus the legions of tourists that descend on the nation's capital year-round, has a horror story about a train being mysteriously taken out of service, of being stuck in a tunnel for what seemed an eternity, of escalators and elevators that break down, of announcements you can't hear or, if you can, are unintelligible.
No one, however, could imagine the horror that visited Metro on Monday, June 22. A train on the heavily traveled Red Line hurtled into the back of another train stopped outside a station, and nine people lost their lives. Eighty were injured.
A catastrophic breakdown must have occurred somewhere in the fail-safe system designed to keep trains at a safe distance. All of that will be determined after a thorough investigation.
But on Monday evening, the only thing most people in the Washington area wanted to know was just the facts: Were loved ones on one of the trains? Would other Metro lines continue to run? How could you get home if you depended on the Red Line? How long before service could be restored? How would you get to work the next day? In other words, the very definition of news: What happened?
Before the Internet, a story of this magnitude would have belonged to the broadcast media during the initial hours of coverage. Newspaper reporters would have jumped on it immediately, but their more in-depth stories would have to wait until the next edition was published, in most cases the next morning.
No longer. Through their Web sites, newspapers today have to be ready to start publishing information the minute they get it in hand. That's not an easy chore, given that in addition to reporting the news -- a time-consuming process -- editors must then sort it, verify it, and make sure it is understandable. A newsroom in a situation like this is the picture of controlled mayhem, and the adrenaline rush is why most journalists got in the business.
As it was, I was able to read the first Washington Post story online on my cellphone about an hour and a half after the crash occurred. I then read another one that was speculating on the causes -- and reporting that a similar tragedy had been averted four years before when two train operators realized the computerized fail-safe system was not working and manually stopped their cars.
Once home, I again went to washingtonpost.com and a more thorough picture of events was beginning to unfold, including answers to many of the questions I referred to above.
The next morning's Post was what you would expect of such a newspaper, its reports thorough, authoritative, richly illustrated with photographs and graphics. A contributors box noted 19 names of reporters who had worked on the story besides those who received bylines. But of course, many, many more were involved -- in truth, the entire newsroom on duty that evening.
Online, the same thoroughness of the morning's paper was evident, yet also changing as updates came in during the day.
I point all this out because there is a great temptation today to say that newspapers should just throw in the towel. Their time is passed -- Twitter brought us the news of what was happening in the streets of Tehran (a libel, I might add, against the work of reporters such as The Post's Thomas Erdbrink in Tehran).
Truth is, when news consumers want information, they turn to the most reliable sources they know, and in most cases -- particularly when it is happening in your backyard -- it is still the local newspaper.
Publishers, consultants and bean-counters busily trimming staff and cutting back on reporting resources should ask themselves what they would do if suddenly their operation had to cover a huge story -- and do so immediately. How they meet this challenge will determine their futures.
James Hill is managing editor of The Washington Post Writers Group.
Conversation Starter
Posted by James Hill on June 19, 2009
If the good Lord's willin' and the creek don't rise, we plan to go live on this Web site next week with a project that I hope -- fingers crossed -- generates a lot of talk and maybe even a little buzz.
We call it Editorial Roundtable, and it will take the form of a conversation that editorial director Alan Shearer and I will have with a Board of Contributors made up of editorial page editors from around the country.
The idea is to pose a question to the contributors about their thinking on the crucial issues of the day -- and ask them to tell us how they develop their approaches for their commentary.
Then, once the Roundtable has been posted, we ask readers to join the conversation.
Our debut Board of Contributors is a stellar one, and I can vouch for all because they are professional friends I have come to know mostly through my association with the National Conference of Editorial Writers.
They are: Harry Austin, editor of The Chattanooga Times editorial page in The Chattanooga Times Free Press; Dick Hughes, editorial page editor of the Statesman Journal in Salem, Ore.; J.R. Labbe, editorial director of The Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Mary Ann Lindley, editorial page editor and columnist for the Tallahassee Democrat; Mark Mahoney, editorial page editor of The Post-Star in Glens Falls, N.Y., and recipient of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing, and Dan Radmacher, editorial page editor of The Roanoke (Va.) Times.
In addition, I have asked Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University of Science and Technology, to provide regular comments on the answers. I hope to enlist others to comment as well.
We'll post these Roundtables weekly here on The Writers Group site, and participating editors can link to the Web sites of their own newspapers. In addition, we'll be on Facebook.
Now, just a little bit about objectives: The idea was originally hatched as Alan and I were tossing about thoughts on how to make our Web site more, as they say, user-friendly. Most of the columns we sell are targeted for editorial or commentary pages, and they are meant to complement the work of local editorial writers, who provide the institutional voice for a newspaper.
What better way, we reasoned, than to provide those who are directing that institutional voice to tell us how they go about crafting their product? Meanwhile, if we could get the conversation going, it would allow readers to join in on this fascinating aspect of daily journalism.
I at first had hoped to enlist about 20 editors in the project, but that turned out to be unrealistic, at least for the launch. Most of those approached begged off because of time-restraints. I understand. Journalism is in crisis today because the poor economy is seriously cutting the revenues needed to put out a quality product.
Nevertheless, the news doesn't stop, and one thing I hope readers pick up from the Editorial Roundtable is the tremendous commitment these editors have to serving the public in the spirit of the First Amendment and the right to have an informed citizenry.
Don't look for ideological food fights in the Roundtable, because we're going to keep that off-limits. Same goes for discussions about the plight of the industry -- there's more than enough of that already out there.
What I hope you do find is a lively exchange of views. As I said in an e-mail to potential contributors: "My idea is to have a forum where editors can candidly discuss what still gives journalism its incredible kick, why we feel so passionately about issues, and what tools we use, be it print or online, to reach as wide an audience as possible. In other words, a little mix of philosophy and shop talk.
"And I hope we have a blast doing it."
Join our conversation. You might have a blast too.
James Hill is managing editor of The Washington Post Writers Group.
Fingers in the Cookie Jar
Posted by James Hill on June 5, 2009
Thanks to a combination of Washington's god-awful traffic and a satellite radio receiver that picks up the BBC, I've been able to get a pretty good briefing these last few weeks on a developing scandal that, any day now, could topple the Labor Party government of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The reason: Members of Parliament, included Cabinet ministers, got caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. Like the House Post Office scandal in the early 1990s, what gives this story legs is not the amount of money fleeced from the taxpayers (small change, in the majority of cases) but the audacity of the fleecers: They were expense accounting everything from dry cleaning services and upkeep on second homes to pornographic DVDs.
For Brown, who always seems to have a black cloud hovering over him, the scandal couldn't have come at a worse time. Already battle-scarred by the world financial meltdown and facing a revolt from within his party, he's now had to contend with several Cabinet members stepping down and a likely drubbing for Labor in the European Parliament elections. On Friday, he reshuffled his government in a desperate attempt to keep the wolves at bay.
But, man, what a gift it has been for Britain's lively and highly competitive newspapers, especially the Daily Telegraph, which broke the story. Sales are up, buzz is keen, and the plight of the dour prime minister is now becoming of interest in the European and American press as well.
Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair magazine, thinks this story has lessons for U.S. newspapers. In the current issue, he writes: "My suggestion to newspapers everywhere is to give the public a reason to read them again. So here's an idea: get on a big story with widespread public appeal, devote your best resources to it, say a quiet prayer, and swing for the fences."
Amen to that. But before editors start filing freedom of information requests to look at the expenses of city council members, they should probably read the rest of Carter's article, concentrating especially on his point to "devote your best resources to it."
Scoops like the Telegraph got just don't fall in your lap. Indeed, as Carter notes, it was a four-year quest to break down the bureaucratic wall that blocked the Telegraph from seeing what should be on the public record.
At papers that already do admirable investigative work, reporters know this story all too well. Watergate might have been knocking on doors and making a lot of calls, but today's investigative reporters are just as likely to tap into databases. And that's not so much a wall as it is a morass. You've got to be highly skilled to get through.
But what a treasure trove you can find. I've been particularly enjoying The Washington Post's examinations of companies that have close ties to Rep. John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat and earmark king. I can only imagine what some defense supplier CEO must feel like when he realizes that Carol D. Leonnig, the lead reporter, is on the phone to ask a few questions about those campaign contributions and that government contract.
Investigative reporting like this isn't so much swinging for the fences as it is doing the job of holding government accountable, and the Post excels at it. It consumes a lot of resources, not only in reportorial talent but in legal talent as well. And it takes commitment, starting at the top and all through the newsroom.
Not all newspapers are going to be able to meet such standards, and editors live in fear of loose cannon reporters who can present a story that looks so right until it turns out to be so wrong. Still, as Carter notes, the expenses scandal has been a boon to the Brit press, proving that newspapers aren't dead. So with evidence that they are still kicking, he asks, "aren't you growing just a bit tired of reading about the demise of newspapers -- in the papers themselves?"
Count me in on that. I'd rather like to read about who has their fingers in the cookie jar.
James Hill is managing editor of The Washington Post Writers Group.
What Readers Want
Posted by James Hill on May 20, 2009
Editors like to think they have a pretty good feel for what their readers want. Or more appropriately, don't want. After all, editors are the ones who get the earful when readers are displeased.
Yet suggestions for how editors can reverse circulation slides and bring back newspaper journalism's golden era are about as plentiful these days as home runs in the new Yankee Stadium, and most of them involve, not surprisingly, ways to reacquaint papers with their readers.
One of the more provocative essays I've seen appears in a recent issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. Written by veteran Washington Post newsman Walter Pincus, it begins with a lead that should grab any journalist's attention:
"American journalism is in trouble, and the problem is not just financial. My profession is in distress because for more than a decade it has been chasing the false idols of fame and fortune. While engaged in those pursuits, it forgot its readers and the need to produce a commercial product that appealed to its mass audience, which in turn drew advertisers and thus paid for it all. While most corporate owners were seeking increased earnings, higher stock prices, and bigger salaries, editors and reporters focused more on winning prizes or making television appearances."
Pincus argues that neutrality (others call it objectivity) and chain ownership have produced a national press that is noted more for its dullness and irrelevance than for the vibrancy and verve envisioned by the Founders when they wrote the First Amendment.
In other words, we got too big for our britches.
Pincus' essay appeared around the same time many Post editors, apparently forgoing television appearances and the pursuit of prizes, were trying to quell a small revolt by the devoted fans of the "Judge Parker" comic strip.
The judge, along with five other strips, had been shipped off to washingtonpost.com as part of a downsizing of the print edition that began with the elimination of Book World as a stand-alone section in the Sunday paper and continued with merging the daily Business section -- minus the stock tables -- into the A, or main news, section. Together, all the moves saved tons of newsprint, and that in turn should save a lot of resources for the Post to do its essential work, which is to report the news.
The comics cull, which was undertaken in order to reduce the comics pages from three to two, was based on surveys that assessed the popularity of each strip the Post carries. Yet when "Judge Parker" was pulled, his loyal fans contacted the Post like voters in Chicago used to do -- early and often.
They weren't online readers, many of the protesters contended, and would be lost without it. Their subscriptions might be lost, as well. After a brief hiatus, the strip made it back into the newspaper.
It's a similar story elsewhere. The trade publication Editor & Publisher reports that when newspapers make a direct pitch to their readers about what comics to save or ax, they usually find out how to really light up a switchboard. And editors quickly back off.
So the moral here, it seemed to me, was that readers tended to care passionately about what they liked in their newspapers -- maybe even more so than editors who had to put the paper together.
Did we ever think about consulting them? I put that question to Laura Evans, the Post's director of market research.
"All the time," she informed me. New subscribers. Long-time subscribers. Subscribers who have canceled.
In fact, it turns out we know a lot about our readers. The key is in sorting it all out.
"Everything in this paper has readers," Evans said. That's why, in a recession like the one we are in now, decisions on what stays in the paper are so challenging. Compromise is in order.
In the case of the Sunday Post, Book World is no more, but book reviews now run in Outlook, a section of news analysis. And to make room for the reviews, the editorial pages were moved to the A section, with an extra commentary page. It's a good fit. Daily readers of the financial news no longer have their own section, but the news is running with the national and foreign reports, another good fit.
All this to accomplish what Evans calls a "bunch of little pieces" that all come together to serve "a loyal population."
Too me, that's not too big for our britches.
A heartening development this year is that home delivery circulation -- the core of the "loyal population" -- is up from last year. Evans notes that many readers say they would gladly pay extra to have a newspaper delivered to their driveway. Others say the price is already high enough, while some say they can no longer afford the product. So like everything else, getting the paper into homes is a balancing act.
"It's about the experience," Evans says of readers. And the challenge for editors is to make it a fulfilling one.
James Hill is managing editor of The Washington Post Writers Group.
So Who First Started to Twitter?
Posted by Alan Shearer on May 6, 2009
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I don't mean who dreamed up Twitter. But who was the first twitterer?
Smoke signals and semaphores don't count. Maybe it was the telegram writers of yore. Words were costly, so some of those old messages read like today's tweets of 140 characters or less.
To my mind, former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida may have been one of the first to twitter, as we have come to know the term. This was well before the Internet age, but Graham's notebooks, which he started keeping in 1977, had plenty of items that sound like today's tweets. He managed to record everything about his day. Mixed in with Senate business: eat tuna fish sandwich for lunch; rewind a movie videotape; apply "scalp medication."
All this was put in pocket notebooks to be preserved for ... what? "For me, it is a means of organization and discipline," Graham told Katie Couric in 2003.
One wonders whether Graham realized that his cereal preferences, lunch fare and, oh yes, blue shorts (in one passage) would ever be made public.
Which brings us to today's Twitterati. The big difference is that our tweets are meant to be read by others. And their tweets are meant to be read by us. To be sure, there is news in the blizzard. New York Times writer Jenna Wortham notes that she learned of Stephen Hawking's illness that way, as well as "rumors" of a possible appearance by Michael Jackson at the 2009 Coachella music festival.
A recent Mediaweek story that made the rounds of journalism circles noted that 60 percent of new twitterers don't stick with it. You could sense the gloating, but it was misguided.
Twitter is simply another form of connectedness. Through Internet-based and other high-tech tools of our age, we are able to keep in touch with friends and relatives, and find long-lost acquaintances. And we can keep ourselves informed. I've heard over and over someone say that if there's anything he needs to know, he'll find out through his social network. Such as Hawking's illness.
The Austin American-Statesman has turned Twitter into a resource, to build a community among readers. For journalists, it can be a source of news tips.
Had something like Twitter been prevalent in June 2007, perhaps someone might have seen Sen. Larry Craig being placed under arrest in the Minneapolis airport. Or maybe noticed when he pleaded guilty in early August. The story of his arrest and plea didn't break until later that month. We can visualize Craig being recognized, by name or by photo, and the news blasted worldwide in seconds.
But would it have been accurate? It certainly wouldn't have been checked or verified. And if first impressions last longest, what if the original tweet had been wrong? What if it wasn't Craig, or anyone famous? For that matter, how many people still believe Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11?
In days of instant everything, too much of it is wrong -- or, to be more polite, is uninformed. If you watched cable news soon after the swine flu outbreak, you would have seen anchors call it a pandemic, even though that wasn't the case. Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz described surfing the cable channels "where the swine flu outbreak was being treated as possibly the next bubonic plague." Mainstream reporting soon began offering stories that put the flu into perspective: The virus wasn't that unusual and would likely be less deadly than other outbreaks. It was as if we were back to hearing about shark attacks, which obsessed cable news in the summer of 2001. No one can forget what occupied our thoughts a short while after that.
Did Twitter play a rule in spreading flu panic? There is evidence of this. PCWorld offers a piece with this headline: "No, You Cannot Catch the Swine Flu from Twitter."
In Foreign Policy, (which is owned by The Washington Post), writer Evgeny Morozov cites some examples and says it's only a matter of time before cyber-terrorists "take advantage of the escalating fears over the next epidemic and pollute the networked public sphere with scares that would essentially paralyze the global economy." Morozov is writing a book on the impact of the Internet on global politics.
If we are unconcerned about being panicked unnecessarily, and if it doesn't matter that stories are hyped, that the guy arrested may not be who we think he is, or that the rumors about a Michael Jackson appearance are false, we will continue to rely on social networks for our news.
But if we are determined to know what really happened and get the facts -- as undistorted and unbiased as possible -- we will go to the most authoritative of sources, those with a reputation for integrity and a track record for accuracy. These sources are available at the touch of a keyboard.
Not everyone will see this as so stark a choice. But we could become a society of two large groups. I'll call them the Knowledge Group and the Rumor Group.
One will run the country, the state, the city, the university. The other won't know for sure what those in power are up to.
And in case you were wondering, Michael Jackson's appearance at Coachella was ... rumor.
Alan Shearer is editorial director of The Washington Post Writers Group.
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