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2/2/2009 3:35:53 PM |  By Tracey Robinson-English
Hope for the future is the new nectar—forged by Barack Obama's "hope over fear" ascent to the White House—that people all over the world are craving in these times of teeth-clenching uncertainty and economic downturn. Nowhere is that craving stronger than in the media industry as it goes through seemingly endless rounds of blood-letting.
Fortunately, in the midst of it all, some signs of hope and innovation are appearing. And, some of that change is being led by McCormick Fellows. Just look at two members of the McCormick Fellows Class of 2006 - Julian Posada and Donna Rogers.
Posada, the former general manager of the Tribune's Hoy, bet on a new magazine for the next generation of Chicago Latinos, rolled up his sleeves and founded Café Media during a recession with the first issues rolling out late last year.
"I didn't think there would be a huge recession," says Posada. "But on the flip side, I've been pleasantly pleased by finding a silver lining in this. There is massive displacement in media. We're very young and new, but I think we might be able to figure out a way to take advantage of that. You can challenge the status quo in times like this because people are looking for unique ways of getting to an audience, and at the end of the day we're a niche publication."
Written in English with Spanish idioms throughout, the free bimonthly magazine (Posada says it will turn monthly with the March 2009 edition) Posada started with his wife, Gina Santana, along with a small group of experienced Latino media professionals, whom are a generation or two removed from the old country, are educated here, and have a strong but diffused sense of Hispanic culture.
 Posada is the publisher; Santana, with a background in marketing for Leo Burnett, is managing editor. The magazine reflects affluence, elegance and a blended cultural identity—a duality—of Chicago's upscale and urbane Hispanic community.
"Its readers will be inspired to live the richest life possible, both at home and in the workplace; to relish the infinite cultural offerings of our great city and suburbs; and to continually learn about topics that matter to them and their extended families," Posada says.
According to Café literature, there are some 1.8 million Latinos in metro Chicago, of whom 260,000 use Spanish and English equally; 404,000 are bilingual but prefer English and 241,000 are "English dependent." From this pool, Café seeks a target reader who's 34 or younger with a college education and a household income of at least $75,000 a year.
The press run for the first issue was 45,000 copies: 20,000 were mailed to Latino households as an inducement to subscribe and the rest were distributed in public places—banks and hospitals in particular. About 30 percent of the total distribution was suburban, with a focus on Latino concentrations in western suburbs such as Aurora and Elgin. 
Print is just one platform Posada uses. He's also branding Café on multiple platforms with online content, a newsletter and some events educating the community about issues that matter most to them, including literacy, money matters and health care.
Café's future success may lie on the ability of Posada and Santana to lure advertisers based on the couple's theory that the next generation of Chicago's Latinos will increasingly have buying power and diminished cultural differences.
Meanwhile, the South Bend Tribune is collaborating with its sister properties in Schurz Communications to create opportunities for future revenues, reports McCormick Fellow Donna Rogers, an editor at the Tribune. For example, the newspaper and a prominent radio station in town have created a joint one-stop Web site, geared toward folks getting married.
"It appeals to a wide variety of businesses, such as reception halls, florists, bridal gown retailers, caterers, event planners, jewelry retailers, photographers and videographers, rental places and wedding cake retailers," Rogers says. The newspaper also uses the Newspaper Next 2 database process to identify opportunities.
Among other innovative approaches are GlobalPost.com, RealClearPolitics and the Huffington Post, to name a few. Just a few weeks ago, GlobalPost launched a Web-based foreign reporting news startup to much adulation. It currently employs 70 freelance correspondents covering nearly 50 countries. The outlet's three-tiered financial structure relies on advertising, syndication (in print and online) and reader subscriptions, according to news sources.
While many newsrooms are trying to retrofit, GlobalPost is being created for the Web right from the beginning. It's a tremendous advantage, says founder Charlie Sennott, a veteran journalist. "Resources both physical and financial can thus be channeled directly toward GlobalPost's primary goal: being there, and telling people what it's like."
GlobalPost's model is driven not only by the core premise that good journalism should be paid for, but also by the hope that the promise of investment on an editorial level will engender investment on a financial one as well. The key word is hope.
Tracey Robinson-English is an associate of the Media Management Center and has worked closely with the McCormick Fellows program. She will continue to write a few blogs for the Fellows site in February, then depart to consult and lead a major case study project for Kellogg Professor Steven Rogers.
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1/12/2009 10:42:18 AM | 
By Retha Hill, MF 1999
Director, New Media Innovation Lab
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism
Arizona State University
For years, long after I left the safety of the Washington Post newsroom to set out as a new media pioneer, people would ask me if there would be a day when the newspaper would be no more. And for years, my pat answer was "not anytime soon." It seemed to satisfy the inquirer and it bought me and others of us in online news a little more time to figure out how to postpone the death sentence.
I still get those questions, usually from doe-eyed freshmen who suddenly realize that their dreams of being members of "the press" may have been ill-conceived. "Are newspapers going to die?" they ask and I often hesitate because it is not nice to lie, even to the young. The honest answer would be that the newspaper industry as we knew it is dead; has been for some time and reporters are, for the most part, just carrying around the body like those goofy kids in "Weekend at Bernie's," trying to fool people into thinking it is still the top dog that it used to be. But like Bernie's decomposing nose and fingers, things keep falling off the industry in full view--13,000 jobs last year, veteran reporters and editors whose life work made our country safer, revenue and, in too many communities, credibility itself. There is plenty of blame to go around for the industry's demise: arrogant publishers and advertising execs who believed they could year after year continue to raise ad rates under the mistaken belief that advertisers "had nowhere else to go;" investors who got used to double digit profit margins, arrogant reporters who cringed at the thought of interacting with the public or of making their process transparent and even new media types who thought shoveling content, coupled with a poll and an occasional message board, was enough to satisfy a public that "wanted in" in the communications game. Rebuffed, the public, egged on by those Silicon Valley entrepreneurs that provided so much amusement for the press when their dot coms went bust during the first go-round, simply changed the game leaving, the news industry panting to catch up.
Yet -- and this is what I tell the students because I like to accentuate the positive and what I know to be true -- news is thriving. The old newspaper industry may be gone, but the information age is just getting started and there is plenty of room for journalists who understand the new news economy or, to be more precise, who want to create the new news economy. Doubt me? Then remember this: Blogging only took off five years ago. Facebook, in its current open iteration, is only 2 1/2 years old. The Iphone is barely two; developers have only been able to create apps for it for less than a year (geez, how did we live before all that finger candy?). The term Google Mashup was unheard of just three years ago. Twitter just turned one. The one-year-old EveryBlock is turning the concept of local news on its head. As of this posting, the change from analog to digital television is still incubating and who knows what all that could bring? And mobile? In the United States at least, we haven't begun to tap -- from a content delivery and revenue generation standpoint -- the richness of the devices 2 billion people worldwide carrying around with them every day.
Yes, it is terrible and scary when friends get laid off and newspapers literally shrink in size or disappear from the streets altogether. Yes, the evening news is increasingly awful, silly and irrelevant. But there are 300 million Americans who want and need news and are going to find a way to get it, even if they produce it themselves. The new news economy has to open itself up to embrace and help organize all those voices so we can hear the dialogue about where our country and our planet need to go; it has to restructure itself so that each city has a hardy band of super reporters and bloggers who can continue its watch dog function and be innovative and nimble with, rather than resentful of, the new technologies as they come our way. The old news industry got too comfortable and forgot what Finley Peter Dunne said more than 100 years ago about the role of journalism, "to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." Oh, how it hurts when the tables turn. I doubt that the new news economy will make that same mistake. At least not anytime soon. | | [View Comments (0)] | |
12/3/2008 10:39:08 AM | 
By DeShong Perry-Smitherman, MF 2007
Producer, WTHR
Radio News Anchor, Network Indiana
My career was in critical condition when I arrived at the Media Management Center in summer 2007. As a local newscast producer my livelihood was being ruled by police chases, house fires and mid-size market politics. My scripts and show-stacking skills had begun to feel stagnant, stale and predictable; and that Killer Show Instinct I'd once prided myself on had lost its arsenal of creativity. I needed a vital dose of career CPR. I got it on day 4 of the Media Management Center's NAB Management Development Seminar.
Enter Kellogg School of Management Professor Steve Rogers: A Harvard B-school alum, successful entrepreneur and business-savvy rock star! Rogers rocked our room of seasoned journalists and media execs when he defined a word many may have heard, but very few had put to use. That word was Intrepreneurship. Simply put, it means applying entrepreneurial behavior within a corporate setting. Rogers stressed to us the importance of presenting big ideas at work and adopting entrepreneurial traits as part of our personal strategies.
For me, that meant pitching a proposal to my station that would: (1) Boost sweeps ratings; (2) Get me out of the shackles of show producing; and (3) showcase my skills in the areas of planning, budgeting, and collaborating with on air talent to produce the kinds of stories that would keep our audience on the couch.
My Intrepreneurial Pitch
So, last December, I pitched the idea of producing a series of stories about how a team of Indiana University and Kenyan doctors was working in Kenya to save 75,000 HIV/AIDS patients. A week after the pitch, I applied for NABJ's Ethel Payne Fellowship - a $5,000 award for reporting stories in Africa. While my news director bought into the idea of the trip, he only agreed the station would fund it if NABJ chose me as a Payne Fellow.
Career Resuscitation - 12 Days In Kenya and a Visit with "Mama Obama"
By February 2008, I received the news that resuscitated my career. NABJ's Global Affairs Committee was sending me a check for a trip to The Motherland. Seven months later WTHR sent me, our main anchor and a photographer 8,000 miles away to Kenya. Over the 12 days of our journey, we trekked to six cities chronicling countless stories from a people gripped by disease, poverty and war. But what was so inspiring was the kind of soulful resilience each Kenyan we talked to chose to live by.
As an added bonus, I scored us an interview that left the other stations sick with envy. Unbeknownst even to those in our newsroom, I had worked for months on gaining contacts, a driver and translator who could take us to the remote village of President-Elect Barack Obama's Kenyan bloodline. It was on Day 6 of our journey that we passed through officers armed with machine guns - and sat down inside the 2-room home of "Mama Sarah," the woman who raised Obama's father.
On the day that interview aired in our 11p.m. newscast, we doubled our lead-in ratings - and pulverized the competition.
Five more stories followed the next week in my 5:30 p.m. newscast - each one winning its time slot - and building our audience.
Celebrating Success
I had succeeded in doing something no other anchor, reporter or producer in our station's history had done before: Visualizing a big idea and finding outside funding to make it happen - all on my own. Because of the success of my series, my station is finally considering Special Projects producing as a mainstay in early evening newscasts during sweeps periods.
Today, as I reflect on the past 12 months, I am so thankful for the emergency medicine I received as a McCormick Fellow.
I look at Fellow Allison Hunter as the paramedic who saw I needed help.
The Media Management Seminar was my E.R.
Steve Rogers lecture was my defibrillator.
Africa was my rehab.
My stories were my therapy.
And today - my station, WTHR, is my home.
The series of stories, called Compassion for Kenya, can be viewed on the WTHR website here:
www.wthr.com/Global/SearchResults.asp?vendor=wss&qu=compassion+for+kenya
More about NABJ's Ethel Payne Fellowship can be found here: www.nabj.org/mediainstitute/fellowships/paynefellowship.php
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11/5/2008 12:41:01 PM | 
By Bill Church, MF 2006
An Internet-based survey conducted July 16-31, 2008, affirmed that many newsroom managers have concerns about the industry's future and its commitment to a diversity hiring/retention policy. The survey was part of my master's research project at Central Michigan University.
The research project broke down responses from newsroom managers by racial, gender and circulation categories.
The findings included:
• Minority news managers at newspapers 100,000-under were most optimistic about the future compared with other groups.
• Perceptions about diversity hiring/retention progress still vary and fall along racial lines.
• There's a lot of uncertainty in the industry yet signs of hope that online might offer opportunities.
Newsroom managers who participated in the survey were neutral about the progress of diversity hiring/retention efforts, what the future holds, and whether online would offer opportunities to hire/retain minority journalists. Translated: They neither disagreed nor agreed that progress had been made or that the future offered new opportunities.
One of the most significant distinctions in the survey involved responses to the statement "I'm optimistic about the future of the newspaper industry." Minorities were more optimistic than whites, particularly minorities at newspapers with circulation 100,000-under.
The findings contrast with a long-held assumption in the newspaper industry that minorities are more interested in - and therefore happier - working for metro newspapers because cities tend to have a larger multicultural population base.
The survey showed that managers at newspapers 100,000-under spent more time in online duties - 13 percentage points higher than their metro counterparts - which means they already have been intimately involved in shaping the industry's future.
The large-vs-small distinction may also be a sign of the times. The Project for Excellence in Journalism study showed that newsroom cuts have been most dramatic at newspapers 100,000-over.
The survey wasn't intended as a white/non-white assessment, but the reality remains there is a racial divide about the core aspect of this research project - the policy of diversity hiring and whether progress has been made. Survey results showed that whites and minorities see diversity from widely contrasting perspectives.
Survey respondents believed in grooming the next generation of minority news managers now. Among their suggestions:
• Develop succession plans for journalists of color at all levels to ensure continuous skills development and goals for promotion.
• Train minority journalists in online roles.
• Promote minority managers to senior manager roles.
• Track minority hires for their first five years, if not longer, to see if they are happy and satisfied in their jobs.
• Make commitments to develop people and then stand by them.
• Make sure there are opportunities for growth, especially as new media matures.
What's evident is that the newspaper industry is in transition. Yet, with few exceptions, survey respondents expressed satisfaction with their careers in journalism. The idealism that spurred many to become journalists remains an intangible, perhaps unexplainable aspect of their self-being.
The research showed that newsroom managers were more optimistic about their professional future than that of the industry itself. And managers of all racial backgrounds believed that their careers in journalism have been satisfying.
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10/15/2008 10:20:23 AM | 
By Donna Rogers, MF 2006
Months before UNITY '08 became a reality, the McCormick Fellows committee working on the group's presence at the conference was trying to determine the best way to leave an impression.
As a member of the committee, I was part of the discussion. Several ideas emerged, but the committee settled on a back-to-the-future idea: focus on the 1968 report from the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, its impact on diversity in media and the future of diversity as the issue moves into the 21st century. The report is known as the Kerner Report, named for its chairman, Illinois Governor Otto Kerner.
We agreed that one of the main components of our presentation would be the production of a DVD that could be shown to UNITY '08 attendees and distributed inside and outside the conference to spark discussion.
I can say that we achieved our goal, as reflected in discussions at the South Bend Tribune in Indiana, where I am 24/7 editor. I showed the wonderfully produced DVD, "Kerner Plus 40: Change or Challenge?", at two discussion sessions in August and September. All employees at The Tribune were invited. Many of the people who came to see the DVD and discuss diversity in media staffing and coverage ― African-American, Asian-American and white employees at the newspaper, including top editors, and a Schurz Communications Inc. executive ― talked openly about their views on the topics.
I started the sessions by showing the DVD, which includes actual footage of black people being attacked by police and black journalists giving details of how they were treated as pioneers of diversity in media. I believe this footage and these stories made an impression on employees at the sessions.
One African-American employee said to me afterward that it was painful watching the actual footage of black people being attacked. A white editor, who came to the newspaper in 1968 as a young reporter and ended up covering minority issues, echoed what was said in the DVD: that progress has been made in diversifying media organizations over the 40 years since the Kerner Report was released.
"Over 40 years, the change I've seen in this newsroom is dramatic," he said, adding that the South Bend Tribune caught on quickly in diversifying its newsroom. The problem was that the public couldn't tell that black journalists were hired because they didn't have bylines that reflected their ethnicity, he added.
While the Chicago TV stations hired people you could see were African-Americans, "it wasn't as visible" at newspapers, he said.
One Asian-American reporter suggested that the person covering issues in minority communities shouldn't have to be a minority.
"The mindset that needs to be in every newsroom is that everyone can cover every issue," she said. The idea should be to get people out of their individual comfort zones.
The issues under discussion turned out to be:
*How much different is writing about issues in minority communities versus majority communities? Don't you have to approach them the same way journalistically, putting in the same amount of research and legwork before and during the reporting process?
*How do you ensure that coverage is diverse?
*How should newsroom staff members approach minority staff members: as staff experts on diversity or not?
*How do you educate the staff on diversity issues?
*How do you identify minority sources for stories?
*How do you keep in touch with minority communities?
After the final discussion session, we concluded that I should try to connect with existing writing and editing groups at The Tribune in an effort to move the discussion of diversity in staff and coverage at the newspaper to core groups. That way, people who would be affected by policies and can affect changes at the basic levels in the newsroom will be included in the discussion.
Footnote: The Chicago Tribune has a good background story on the Kerner Report in its Perspective section of March 2, 2008. I used the article and some information from the booklet "Building Unity" in leading the discussions. "Building Unity" was produced by UNITY: Journalists of Color for the UNITY '08 conference.
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8/27/2008 10:11:16 AM | 
By Sidmel Estes-Sumpter, MF 2000
When I volunteered to be part of the McCormick Fellows committee that would plan some kind of presentation for the Unity convention in Chicago, I had no idea that it would eventually be one of the most fulfilling and meaningful projects I have ever done. I know that sounds a little grandiose, but that's the only way I can describe my ten-month journey that led to the presentation of Kerner Plus 40: Change or Challenge that was aired as part of the opening plenary for the historic convention. I told several of my colleagues on the morning that the session was held that it felt as if I had given birth a third time. We had gone through so many challenges, euphoria, tensions and pleasures in the preparation of this project that it rapidly became a labor of love.
The McCormick Fellows wanted to make a big statement at Unity and it seemed only natural to tie in to one of the biggest anniversaries in the annals of journalism...the 40th anniversary of the Kerner Commission Report on Civil Disturbances in the United States. That report pointed fingers directly at the nation's newsrooms as a sort of co-conspirator that contributed to the racial malaise and frustrations that permeated our country. We thought the convention would be a perfect teachable moment for the young journalists who don't have a clue about the Kerner report, much less the riots that ravaged our cities in the 60s and 70s. We also thought it was a good time to assess the progress that has been made in the past 40 years to address the problems outlined in the report. We decided that we would talk to several of our Fellows and news pioneers who were in the trenches during this extraordinary time in America.
This project was also very therapeutic for me as I was approaching the second year of my transition out of a traditional newsroom into my own journalistic entrepreneurial efforts. I was going through an extremely rough time, making the adjustment from life in corporate America to a life of hustling every day to make a living. I couldn't have asked for a better project, a better team of people to work with or a nobler cause to help me go through my reinvention.
One of my first interviews was with Chicago broadcasting icon Warner Saunders. He warmly welcomed us into his office at WMAQ where he has worked for decades. I was mesmerized by the tales of abuse, struggle and triumph that he told me. I could feel my heart go into my throat when he looked me in the eye and said, "Sidmel, I've never talked about these things before." Then I remember sitting on the porch in front of the Louisville home of former Courier-Journal editor and fellow NABJ past president Merv Aubespin. We sat outside drinking mint juleps as one of his neighbors stopped by to talk about upcoming neighborhood parties. I later found out that the neighbor was one of the richest men in Louisville, heir to a family fortune, and he lived just two doors down from Merv. I remember thinking that would have never happened 40 years ago. That reality became even clearer when Merv drove me through the burned out communities and boarded up houses that have never been replaced when they were burned down during the riots. It looked like a vast wasteland. I remember thinking, "the more things change, the more they remain the same."
Perhaps one of the most eye-opening revelations was a consistent theme spoken by most of our Fellows who were interviewed, that while we have made substantial progress since Kerner, we still have a long way to go. Our McCormick Fellows are living testimonies about how far we have come. We are sales managers, managing editors, executive producers, assistant news directors and in a variety of top-level management positions. However, most of those interviewed said that news organizations are still controlled and led by old, white men who interpret the news through their prism. But that perspective is not valid in today's America and I believe is a huge contributing factor to the troubles facing the news industry today. Not only have we failed to take full advantage of the technology revolution, but news organizations have failed to deal with the "new America" with all of its diversity, just like news organizations didn't "get it" 40 years ago when our country was described as two Americas... one black and one white.
Seventeen hours of interviews, 23 interview subjects, countless hours of transcriptions, dubbing, pre and post-production, scripting and editing resulted in the 15 minute video that we now call Kerner Plus 40. As you can imagine, there are countless stories from our news pioneers that were left on the "cutting room floor." I hope that we will find some way to bring those stories to you because we have captured history. The stories that they told, in many cases, have never been shared before and if we don't capture them now, they will be lost forever. That is the beauty of the McCormick Fellows program. We brought history to life and we must never let it die. | | [View Comments (0)] | |
7/28/2008 12:27:11 PM | 
By Mark Russell, MF 2003
Most newspaper redesigns have a few things in common: better storytelling, bolder design, more conversational headlines, and easier navigation.
The Orlando Sentinel, where I've been managing editor for nearly four years, launched a closely watched redesign on June 22 that sought to go far beyond its past redesigns. We wanted to showcase more alternative story forms -- such as Q&As, in-their-own words accounts and briefing-style reports -- to make the our content more compelling and accessible for time-starved readers. We also wanted to tell stories from a visual perspective, using charts, graphics, and maps to better explain the news and help draw in readers. One example: we now run maps with the scannable digests of news from the world, nation and region.
And we also wanted to highlight more voices, including staff bloggers, columnists and, especially in the editorial page, readers. Some of our signature columnists sometimes now appear on Page One instead of of their usual section-front homes. And, in a big departure from the Sentinel of old, we now run an editorial cartoon on Sunday's Page One and offer a guide to opinion columns in that day's paper. All of these features run in the space just below the nameplate in a spot we've come to call the promotional "shelf."
The changes extended to the editorial page, a bastion of traditionalism at most papers. We put more visual emphasis on the key opinions, now labeled "What we think" for our editorials, "What they think," for the op-ed columns and the views of others, and "What you think," when it's the readers giving their take.
The Sentinel is the first of the Tribune-owned newspapers to launch a more reader-focused redesign. But the Sentinel's redesign is not a template for the rest of Tribune papers. Our design fits our vibrant central Florida market. Other Tribune papers, including the (South Florida) Sun-Sentinel and Chicago Tribune, are taking different design paths.
Our design path started in early spring when the Sentinel's editor, Charlotte Hall, started talking about a redesign of the paper. Our work was still in its infancy when Tribune's corporate leaders signaled that they wanted the company's newspapers to be bold and aggressive in their design thinking. We were happy to take the challenge. We wanted Orlando to be viewed as a place of innovation, experimentation and smart risk-taking. Plus, we relished the chance to be first off the starting blocks with a redesign.
Almost immediately, Hall started peppering me, Bonita Burton, the AME/visuals, and other top editors with suggestions for the redesign and how the newsroom would need to change. Burton and her team began a series of long days of design work. It was the teamwork between visuals and the other teams that helped us shape a design within a few months.
These concepts evolved over several weeks, and we refined our ideas in at least a half dozen small, staff brainstorming sessions. An often-repeated question from reporters and editors centered on whether we would remain committed to doing public-service journalism and longer stories and projects? My answer was an unqualified yes.
Indeed, the redesign would help us pare down the space we give to routine court and crime coverage because we created a digest for such short items called Cops and Courts and On the Road, where we run traffic deaths and other calamities on the roads. While we need to do fewer government-process stories and rein in the lengths on those that we do, we remain committed to watchdog reporting of all kinds. And it was no coincidence that, on the Sunday debut of the redesign, we featured a Page One centerpiece by our NASA reporter on a rocket system that some engineers favor but space-center leaders don't want to see built over one their favor.
We also reached out to folks in other areas of the Sentinel for their feedback. Four top editors held a two-hour "open house" where we invited newspaper employees to see the nearly-finished redesign and ask questions.
All the while, we knew that a redesign would fall flat if we did not extend changes already under way in how we told stories. We also had to change our news meeting structure to support our storytelling and design goals. The upshot: we had to rethink some of the long-held cultural norms of the newsroom to support actions that would generate the content we wanted.
For starters, we changed our daily news-meeting structure, deciding to keep only the 10 a.m. news meeting. In place of the 3:30 news meeting, we now have two shorter meetings at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. At the early afternoon meeting, we check in to see if anything has changed from the morning meeting. And we'll get an early look at the developing Page One centerpiece design. At the later meeting, we intensively look at the front page design and the stories we've picked. We debate whether any late-breaking stories merit inclusion on Page One. And we do the same thing for the Local and Business fronts. And then we discuss what's coming for the following day's paper. Admittedly, we're still getting the hang of this new meeting structure and we may decide to change it still more. But it has helped us improve the planning of centerpieces. And, of course, we're still nimble on news and can change the front page if news warrants.
A centerpiece of our newsroom reinvention was doing more alternative story forms. Many editors now end most every conversation with reporters with a simple question: what's the best way to tell this story? Not surprisingly, the number of Q&As, pro and cons and first-person stories in the Sentinel have mushroomed in the last several weeks.
To be sure, we're in the early stages of our redesign and it will take some months before we determine whether the changes have moved the needle on readership and circulation. But we've already seen the needle move in the newsroom -- and it's a more nimble newsroom with better instincts for storytelling, design, graphics and headlines. | | [View Comments (0)] | |
6/4/2008 10:38:11 AM | 
By Shirley Carswell, MF 2004
It's amusement park season and one of my favorite rides of all time is the Jack Rabbit at Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh, where I grew up. The Jack Rabbit, built in 1921, is a rickety old roller coaster on wooden tracks, with a famous double-dip at the end that brings you out of your seat just enough to get your heart racing every time. The entire ride is over in a breathtaking 75 seconds, hence the name Jack Rabbit. Of course, coasters have gotten a lot fancier since the 1920s, moving at twice the speed and with way more twists and dips. But the Jack Rabbit is legendary, and I can't imagine Kennywood without it.
The last few months in the newsroom of The Washington Post have been a lot like riding the Jack Rabbit. In February, the company announced that there would soon be a new round of buyouts to shave payroll costs--the third in five years--and at the same time the paper named a new publisher. Uncertainty and fear began to build among the staff as everyone tried to guess who would get the early retirement offer and figure out what a new boss would mean. There was a kind of nervous excitement though, because things were clearly about to change, and in a big way. It was like slowly chugging up that first hill on a roller coaster. You're scared but, hey, this can't be too bad and it might even be fun. After all, others have survived it!
In early March, the details of the buyout package were released. To be eligible, you had to be age 50 or older with at least 5 years' service. That was the lowest threshold ever; the previous buyouts required 10 years' service and a higher minimum age. The company must really be desperate to shed employees, the thinking went. And even worse, the L word was actually used in the official announcement! If not enough people took advantage of the generous voluntary early retirement package, layoffs were a possibility, the new boss said, up high, in the lede! Things must be very, very bad, the tea leaf readers surmised. Layoffs had never been threatened before. Newsroom morale plunged as the names of those eligible began to trickle out. Some of the biggest names in the business were on the list, as were some lesser-known folks who quietly keep the place running. Now we were flying down the track at a dangerous speed, holding on for dear life. This was NOT fun, not fun at all!
As the new publisher, Katharine Weymouth, granddaughter of the legendary newspaper executive Katharine Graham, began making the rounds and meeting with staffs, we regained our composure and some sense of adventure. She assured nervous staffers that she shared the journalistic values of her grandmother and her uncle, CEO Donald Graham, and that she loved the printed newspaper as much as we all did, but that change was inevitable and overdue. She fielded endless questions about whether the staffs of the paper and the website would merge and what such a union would look like. She won over some of the most jaded journalists with her wit and openness. The mood seemed to lift. We began climbing again, jerkily at times, but definitely moving upward.
In early April, the newspaper was awarded six Pulitzer Prizes, including one for Public Service for a series that exposed gross mistreatment of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital. We had crept to the top of the summit, that point where you can see the whole amusement park below. We stopped there for a moment, seemingly suspended in time. People were cheering, waving and high-fiving each other! This was great! This is what journalism is all about, not just winning awards but righting wrongs, afflicting the comfortable, comforting the afflicted. We were riding high.
Then May arrived, and the deadline to accept the buyout came close on the heels of a grim quarterly earnings report. Things really were as bad as the March rumors suggested. Classified revenue tanked, and circulation continued to slide. Now we've begun the inevitable fall back to Earth as it becomes clear how profoundly the paper will be affected by the buyout this time around. In the next week, we will begin saying goodbye to more than 100 of our colleagues in the newsroom alone, many of whom will not be replaced. This time, as the bottom drops out, I know that we'll all leave our seats just a bit, and our stomachs will flip-flop as we shoot down the track, hearts racing, breathless and more than a little scared.
At Kennywood, as the Jack Rabbit comes out of that infamous double dip, whips around the last curve and heads into the station, riders usually begin clapping, partly in appreciation for the classic coaster that never disappoints, but also, I believe, because they're so happy to get back to the platform and solid ground.
You can bet I'll be cheering when this wild ride in newspapering turns the corner. Sadly, though, it won't be over as quickly as the Jack Rabbit so I'm holding on with both hands.
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5/14/2008 12:22:13 PM |
By Bill Church, MF 2006
The 2008 American Society of Newspaper Editors' (ASNE) Census released in mid-April shouldn't have surprised anyone who has been following our industry.
Newspapers are hacking payroll (translation: jobs) with the same diplomacy that Simon Cowell dispenses to American Idol's wannabes: "You're not needed. Sorry."
The ASNE shared these findings in its news release about the census:
• Minorities account for 11.4 percent of supervisors in newsrooms. Among minorities, 22 percent are supervisors.
• The census showed that 423 newspapers reported no minorities on full-time staff - a number that has been growing since 2006.
• The first census in 1978 counted 43,000 full-time journalists of which 3.95 percent (1,700) were minorities. The 2008 survey counted 52,600 full-time journalists of which 13.52 percent (7,100) are minorities.
The percentage of minorities employed in daily newspapers actually increased compared with 2007, when 13.43 percent were in the work force, but that's a matter of math instead of progress. Daily newspapers lost 2,400 journalists since the 2007 census through layoffs, buyouts and attrition. One out of eight journalists who left the industry last year is a minority.
Put another way, that's 300 fewer minorities who are working as full-time journalists this year. For the first time since 2001, departures of minority journalists exceeded hires.
The troubling trend is how newspaper hiring hasn't kept up with the nation's changing demographics. One in three Americans is a minority. In newsrooms? One in seven journalists is a minority.
The minority population in the United States topped 100 million in 2006, according to U.S. Census estimates, increasing by about 14 million in six years. During that same span of 2000-06, newspapers hired 700 more journalists of color.
Imagine starting a newspaper with a circulation of 20,000 - and hiring just one reporter. That's essentially how our industry has reacted to the influx of minorities this millennium.
It would take an optimist in need of therapy to believe the trend will change.
Progress? Possibly, maybe. But, like Simon says, it's not good enough. Sorry.
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4/24/2008 4:12:11 PM |
By Sidmel Estes-Sumpter, MF 2000
I know I am jumping on the "Amen corner" bandwagon following Barack Obama's speech on Race in America. Everybody needs to read the full text of his brilliant speech and take away one major point. WE CAN NOT AND SHOULD NOT IGNORE THE ROLE THAT RACE HAS PLAYED IN THE FORMATION, CREATION AND CONTINUATION OF AMERICAN SOCIETY! It is literally astounding to me that some people are acting as if they are hearing the points Obama made for the first time. This is nothing new. What is new is that a presidential candidate made it plain. Let's not forget that former President Bill Clinton tried to open up a national dialogue on race during his administration without much success. I also blame my fellow journalists for not being bold enough to stand up and "speak truth to power." Perhaps it is because we don't really own or control the most powerful media outlets in the world that continue to give us a distorted view of the world.
I am having a flashback to the 60's when people wanted to make a difference and when people had the courage to speak openly and honestly. After the 60's, there was a clamp down on free speech and free thought. The McCormick Tribune Fellows are documenting what happened in a video I am preparing on what has happened in our nation's newsrooms 40 years after the issuance of the landmark Kerner Commission Report. That documentary will be premiered at the Unity convention this summer in Chicago. Just wait until you hear some of the incredible stories told by some of the pioneer journalists who went through the fire and opened the doors that many of us have now walked through. For years I had said that many of the issues associated with diversity are the result of the fact that we are too "scured" to speak up.
I was just a young child in elementary school when John F. Kennedy ran for president. But I still remember, to this day, the excitement and optimism that he generated in that campaign. He brought America to its feet. It was a new day for our country! I feel the same kind of thrill now with the Obama campaign. As a journalist, I try to step back and evaluate all the candidates and of course, don't get into endorsing anyone. But I just wanted to offer my evaluation. I was able to meet Senator Hillary Clinton face-to-face this summer when I produced the opening session for the National Association of Black Journalists convention. She was a part of the four-hour marathon that I was responsible for making work. Senator Obama was supposed to be part of that, but he couldn't make it to the convention until the following day. I remember meeting Sen. Clinton in the backstage area after she had a meet-and-greet with the officialdom of NABJ. The backstage area was full of wires and other tricky obstacles that are all part of a major production. To help guide the Senator from the hallway to the stairs leading to the stage, I held the Senator's hand. Secret Service men scrambled in front of us with small spotlights pointing to the potential traps that could have led to a disastrous fall for either the Senator or me. We made it to the bottom of the stairs without incident. While we were waiting for her introduction, I remarked to Sen. Clinton that I had met her husband years ago in another incarnation. I told her that I was the first NABJ president to bring a national presidential candidate to our convention (Bill) and that I was fortunate to be the first female NABJ president. I'm sure she saw the irony in that and she winked at me and said " Alright, Madam President!"
Her presentation was strong and bold in front of a room full of inquisitive Black folks. Senator Obama was just as entertainment and formidable in his presentation the following day. He even confronted the annoying issue of whether he is "black enough" head on with a joke about the fact that he was a few minutes late in arriving on stage. The rest of his presentation was dynamic.
But now, a few months have passed and several primaries later, it is clear that this year's election is going to be unlike any other. Who would have imaged just ten years ago that the primary candidates for the Democratic nomination would be an African American and a woman? That's how fast things are changing in the world. But I must tell you that I have never seen young people so galvanized, African Americans so energized and such a wave of change happening in our country in more than four decades!!! Perhaps, if Senator Obama is elected president or even the Democratic nominee, then our nation's news media will be forced to finally honestly, openly and boldly deal with the issue of race in America. And that's a good thing.
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Fall Forum 2008
Agenda, reimbursement form
Meet the Fellows
Fellows biographies and photos
Industry Links
Sites for minorities in media
Calendar
An all-in-one look at industry meetings and events
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