A thriving weekly newspaper: Revenue tripled in three years at the Malheur Enterprise, with in-depth local reporting and an ad salesperson.
Tom Goldman describes the turnaround and the prize-winning journalism. There’s an appetite for good reporting, Goldman writes, and the paper’s editor and publisher “has earned his readers’ trust with his devotion to bedrock principles of journalism.” He’s called “the ideal community journalist.”
BuzzFeed adopts rules for covering mass shootings: Don’t shy away from the story, but don’t glorify the assailant.
Sydney Smith describes guidelines for language on mass shootings. All interviews should be considered on the record until a reporter agrees to go off the record or on background.
Lagging Freedom of Information Act: Passed in 1966, but “it’s more difficult than ever to pry loose documents about the federal government”, writes C.J. Ciaramella.
Roughly 800,000 FOIA requests were made in 2017. A record number were denied or censored in the first year of the Trump administration. Ciaramella calls the act “a wheezing, arthritic artifact of more optimistic times.”
Covering wildfires: The devastating California fires change the landscape and journalism, writes Audrey Cooper.
“There is a perception that journalists simply take from the victims,” she writes. “We do take their stories, their photos. We do these things not because we relish it but because the public must know. There is power in the truth, even if it is a truth some would rather not see.”
Shoeleather promotes local reporting: National database helps editors find local reporters.
They are “local, knowledgeable and ready to tell their community stories” says the website, and a way to avoid “parachute journalism.”
Hexing tax collectors: Sydney Smith offers a roundup of recent media corrections.
Historical facts, names and numbers trip journalists, including Romanian witches.
“Stories aren’t the only content that needs editing,” writes Smith. “Case in point, an NPR graphic on the midterm elections had numerous errors.”
American bias: David W. Moore explores American racism.
“It is in the realm of possibility, I think, to suggest that most of us, and maybe all of us, are afflicted to some degree with implicit bias — but the notion that we all share the same biases seems completely implausible,” he writes. There may be a dominant culture related to race, but there also are many subcultures that produce different feelings.
Conceptual scoops and wit: Essential to thinking in new ways about a familiar issue is wit, writes James Geary.
“Journalists need to be witty to bear witness to the connections others don’t see — or don’t want to see,” he writes, adding that as journalists come under attack, “we need to keep our wits about us.”:
Reporters making statements: CNN’s Jim Acosta lost press credentials after questions for Trump ended with a statement, note Al Tompkins and Kelly McBride.
“Ask tough questions, avoid making statements or arguing during a press event and report the news, don’t become the news,” they write.
News media found more divisive than Trump: A POLITICO/Morning Consult poll compares President Trump with national news media, writes Steven Shepard.
Fifty-six percent say Trump divides the country, writes Shepard. “Even more voters, 64 percent, said the media have done more to divide the country….”
Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists 