With News Business in Crisis, What Do Journalism Professors Tell Students?

Falling ad revenue. Plunging profits. Layoffs. Downsizing. Bankruptcy filings.

The news in the news business can’t get any worse. Some days it seems as if those who write the first draft of history have little in the way of a future.

So what are journalism professors, those charged with grooming the next generation of reporters, editors and producers, telling their students these days about the news business in general, and print journalism, that seemingly most endangered of species, in particular?[Click for MORE]

> New California law protects school journalism advisors

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End of the World! NY Times Prints Color Ad on Front Page!

In its latest concession to the worst revenue slide since the Depression, The New York Times has begun selling display advertising on its front page, a step that has become increasingly common across the newspaper industry.

The first such ad, appearing Monday in color, was bought by CBS. The ad, two-and-a-half inches high, lies horizontally across the bottom of the front page, below the news articles and a brief summary of some articles in the paper. In a statement, the paper said such ads would be placed “below the fold” — that is, on the lower half of the page. [Click for MORE]

> Front page ads in the New York Times cost $75,000 daily, $100,000 on Sunday
> Former newspaper rivals cooperate as jobs are cut Sphere: Related Content

Dailies Go Darwin

Reports of newspapers' death are exaggerated — but after the changes coming in 2009, will we still recognize them?

If you're a tree, you're probably feeling pretty good right now. We've long known that the traditional newspaper — a hard-copy compendium of the previous day's events, printed on an obscene amount of wood byproduct — was terminally ill. But two of 2008's big media developments — the Christian Science Monitor's plan to kill its daily print edition outright, and the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press's decision to radically scale back their print operations and refocus online — suggests that the traditional newspaper's death will come sooner than anyone imagined.

But the term "newspaper" has another meaning, too: it's an organization staffed with men and women who report and analyze the news for the public. Newspapers in this sense aren't about to go extinct. [Click for MORE]

> AsianWeek to cease print publication Friday
> Kansan going online-only starting Jan. 10
> Lee Enterprises warned by NYSE it may be delisted
> Village Voice Lays Off Nat Hentoff and 2 Others
> Gannett, Register cuts extend into eastern Iowa Sphere: Related Content

Uncle Jay Explains the News of 2008

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Grow a Pair

From Jeff Jarvis' Buzz Machine:

Via Ryan Sholin on Twitter, I find a post by journalism student and practitioner Suzanne Yada (what a great name for blogging) with great advice for journalism students. Ryan’s and my favorite bit:

Grow some cojones. Let me level with you. The world doesn’t need more music reviewers or opinion spouters. The world needs more people willing to ask tough questions. The first step to reversing journalism’s tarnished image is to have the guts to dig for information the public can’t easily find themselves, and be an advocate of unbiased, straightforward truth. If you can show depth and research with your reporting clips, if you can show you can ask the tough questions and be more than just a parrot for your interviewee, if you can fact-check the living snot out of your articles, you will rise to the top of the crop.

She has tons more superb advice (including: be prepared to go entrepreneurial), which I recommend to all my students and j-students anywhere.

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The Miller Chop

Rafael A. Olmeda and Juan Ortega, or one of them anyway, had one of those rare ideas for a perfect lede paragraph. It was for a bank robbery story where the dye pack exploded but the bandit got away. Here's the lede:

DEERFIELD BEACH - The man who robbed a bank here Wednesday might have thought he was about to make a clean getaway. He was half right.

Or that's what the lede should have been. It's freaking beautiful, with a bit of Miller chop to it. [Photo of Gene Miller, right] There's an intrinsic question in it; nobody is going to stop reading at that point. But here's what actually ran in the newspaper:

DEERFIELD BEACH - The man who robbed the Washington Mutual branch at 1100 E. Hillsboro Blvd. at midday Wednesday may have thought he was about to make a clean getaway. He was half right.

Not only is the name of the bank there to break any clean flow, but also the address in all it's numeric and abbreviated clunkiness. The beauty is still there at the end, but it's like filet mignon drowned in cheap steak sauce. It's hard to get to and it doesn't taste as good as it should. [Click for MORE]

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Government Aid Could Save U.S. Newspapers

Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. But others think he and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press.

Nicastro represents Connecticut's 79th assembly district, which includes Bristol, a city of about 61,000 people outside Hartford, the state capital. Its paper, The Bristol Press, may fold within days, along with The Herald in nearby New Britain.

That is because publisher Journal Register, in danger of being crushed under hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, says it cannot afford to keep them open anymore. [Click for MORE]

> Should the Government Bail Out Newspapers?

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