- The Observatory
- Mission
- Staff
- Books
- Creative Destruction: The Downturn and Reinvention of U.S. Newspaper Journalism
- Merging Media Converging Newsrooms
- A Complicated, Antagonistic & Symbiotic Affair: Journalism, Public Relations and the Struggle for Public Attention
- Media Journalism in the Attention Cycle
- Business Journalism, Corporate Communications, and Newsroom Management
- Journalism Textbook
- The Journalist as “Homo economicus” (Textbook)
- The Wizards of Information
- Partners
- Opportunities
- Contact us
Posts Tagged Columbia Journalism Review
Magazine Migration
Posted by Kate Nacy in New Media, Newsroom Management, Quality Management on March 15, 2010
What happens when magazines move online?
According to a Columbia Journalism Review study, they get sloppy. Led by former Nation editor Victor Navasaky, the study surveyed 665 magazines of varying circulation size, analyzing the online practices of print magazines. Goals include 1.) uncovering the best and worst online practices, 2.) clarifying journalistic standards for new media and 3.) aiding journalists and media companies in devising profitable models that adhere to high quality standards of newsgathering. Read the rest of this entry »
What is the “Public Interest”?
Posted by Stephan Russ-Mohl in Ethics on January 14, 2010
When and under which conditions is journalism in the “public interest?”
If one does not complacently assume whatever journalists publish is serving the common good, one gets into trouble finding a plausible answer to this question, or even an answer on which consensus may be reached. Stephen Whittle and Glenda Cooper from the Reuters Institute at Oxford University set out to provide clarification on the subject with their study, “Privacy, Probity and the Public Interest,” which asks when peeking through a keyhole or whipping out a camera phone is justified in the conflict between private sphere and public service.
White and Cooper may not deliver breathtaking new insights, yet their research, which focuses on a selection of widely-discussed cases of media coverage in the U.K., gets close to the point. Read the rest of this entry »
Taking a Stand
Posted by Stephan Russ-Mohl in Media Economics on November 5, 2009
Schweizer Journalist, Nr. 10 + 11/2009
American journalism is in a “protracted moment of painful change,” and “both its business model and its sense of mission are in full retreat.”
How might journalism regain its relevance, asks Brent Cunningham, managing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, as he describes today’s journalists as being driven rather than driving. According to Cunningham, the keeper of the record is “aggressively catered to by a public relations apparatus that permeates every public or private institution,” emitting “an endless stream of incremental developments” keeping reporters “busy, busy, busy.”
This leaves “far too little room” for more important roles of the press such as “investigator, explainer, and arbiter of our national conversation” – all functions not easily adopted by amateurs and bloggers. Cunningham suggests the press should pay “less attention to breaking, event-driven news and more to sustained coverage of ideas and – crucially – solutions.” It should stop “reflexively marginalizing voices that come from the fringes simply because no one ‘official’ is embracing them.”
Hunger Strike
Posted by Stephan Russ-Mohl in Media Economics on June 4, 2009
Die Furche, May 28, 2009
In his latest book, American media activist Robert McChesney envisions a dark future for American newsgathering.
The author devises a U.S. government demanding “the reduction of international reporting, the closing of local editorial departments and trimming of employees and budgets.” In addition, McChesney’s president commands the media to focus on “celebrities and trivia instead of the serious investigation of scandals and law violations in the White House.”
Supported by
