- Jim Romenesko examines some not-so-promising effects of winning a Pulitzer
- Rick Edmonds on Pulitzer Week, newspaper stocks and circulation losses
- Scott Libin delves into the full disclosure and “value” of video news releases
- Sree Sreenivasan on the passing of Don Fitzpatrick
- David Shedden on the Pulitzers and the anniversaries of the Oklahoma City bombing and the San Francisco quake
Can Winning a Pulitzer Lead a Career on a Downward Spiral?
By Jim Romenesko
Senior online reporter/ROMENESKO
Pulitzer day always has me thinking about the two winners I’ve worked with. One, who won for her reporting, ended her career writing cutlines on the photo desk. The other — also honored for his reporting — spent a lot of time writing weather stories many years after winning the prize. The award seems to be a career-killer for some.
I took last Friday off to make my annual trip to St. Paul. (I worked at the Pioneer Press from 1996 to 1999.) I saw that a few sites took notice of my absence, including Gawker and Snarksmith. A blog called Pod Rows of Hell had this headline on my vacation day: “Where have you gone, Joe Romanesko?” Joe? RomAnesko? I guess I’ll be working on my brand on my next day off.
Pulitzers, Times Stock, ASNE Indicators & Circulation Losses
By Rick Edmonds
Writer/researcher
This Week: Pulitzers and NY Times stock
Pulitzer Week is always a nice occasion for reflecting on the amount of superb work the industry still does, challenging economic times or no. Besides the Katrina coverage and rock-em-sock-em performance of The Washington Post and The New York Times on national security matters, consider just how good some of the runners-up were:
- The Sun-Sentinel of South Florida’s breaking news coverage of Hurricane Wilma and prescient investigation of FEMA’s dysfunction.
- The Los Angeles Times investigation of graft at the Getty Art Museum that cause the biggest of heads to roll there.
- Cynthia Tucker’s consistently zippy commentaries on local and national topics for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Next Week: ASNE Indicators
The American Society of Newspaper Editors has some top-draw speakers for its annual convention in Seattle — Bill Gates and Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz. Inquiring minds will want to know how he gets away with charging $2 to $4 for a cup of coffee when consumers balk at paying 75 cents for the experience of reading a superior metro newspaper.
Even so look for attendance to be down and the ratio of hangers on like me to real editors to be up. Travel budgets are tight, it’s a long trip, and Knight-Ridder “limbo” won’t help either.
On Tuesday ASNE will announce the result of its annual newsroom census. Our guess is that it will show 1,200 to 1,500 full-time professional newsroom jobs lost in 2005 (roughly double the announced cuts at big papers). You never know, though: sometimes the cuts get all the attention while many other papers stay even or make modest increases.
The Week After: More Circulation Losses
The first week in May typically brings reports on circulation changes for the six-month period ending March 31. Both the grapevine and simple math suggest comparable losses to those reported six months ago — about 2.5 percent daily and 3 percent Sunday. A reminder: because these comparison are versus the same period a year ago, what happened last April through September is a big drag on results. The industry would actually need to gain 2.5 percent daily in the most recent six months to break even.
By Scott Libin
Leadership & Management faculty member
Conversation continues this week about the use of video news releases by local television stations. The controversy caught one of the country’s leading media critics off guard on national TV. The story highlights how marketing material masquerading as news ends up on the air, below the radar of even some industry experts.
Last week, the Center for Media and Democracy released a study saying it had caught 77 stations using VNRs and satellite media tours, or SMTs, in newscasts without disclosing their source. Last week, the Center for Media and Democracy released a study saying it had caught 77 stations using VNRs and satellite media tours, or SMTs, in newscasts without disclosing their source. Sunday, on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” host Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post spent several minutes interviewing Daniel Price, co-author of the report “Fake TV News, Widespread and Undisclosed,” and FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein.
“Your local TV reporters wouldn’t repeat corporate press releases word-for-word, would they?” Kurtz asked in the “tease” leading into the segment. “These are taped packages that are nothing but PR for corporate clients,” Kurtz continued after the commercial break. “But now a media advocacy group has documented how local TV stations across the country are using these tapes without identifying where they came from, passing them off as the station’s own work.”
What neither Kurtz nor his guests mentioned is that CNN itself is in the VNR business, distributing such materials to the more than 800 affiliates of CNN Newsource, the network’s syndicated news service.
“The ‘Reliable Sources’ segment on Sunday should have included that CNN distributes video news releases to its affiliates through CNN Newsource,” CNN spokesperson Laurie Goldberg told me by e-mail. “The omission was noticed immediately prior to airtime, but since the show was taped, that information was unable to be included.”
Kurtz himself explained it somewhat differently: “It was clearly a misstep on our part. We never shy away from criticizing CNN on ‘Reliable Sources.’ Had I known of the network’s role in distributing these questionable news releases, I would have mentioned it. I should have looked into it more deeply.”
And Kurtz says he is doing just that, looking into the practice for an update on this Sunday’s “Reliable Sources.” It will air live, as the program normally does. But Kurtz says the unusual practice of pre-recording is not an adequate explanation of the omission. “We were a little rushed pretaping a show for Easter weekend, but that’s no excuse,” he said. “I wish we had gotten this info before the broadcast.”
Kurtz clearly is no fan of VNR use in newscasts without disclosure. “I found the practice so outrageous that I suggested the segment,” he told me.
Network spokesperson Goldberg says “CNN clearly identifies such material — which are third-party segments not produced by CNN,” so that affiliate stations will not mistake VNRs for news. She acknowledged that the distribution of VNRs generates revenue for CNN, but would not go into detail.
The producers of VNRs do pay us but we do not disclose financials,” Goldberg said. “It is fair to say it is not a material impact one way or the other.”
CNN is not alone among networks in distributing VNRs. The Web site Pathfire, which provides digital distribution systems to CNN-affiliated television stations, lists ABC’s news feed system and CBS as customers too. Pathfire’s online company profile prominently lists delivery of VNRs as one of the ways its system “delivers unprecedented control for both content providers and stations.”
By Sree Sreenivasan
Web Tips contributor
To me, a story that didn’t get enough coverage this week was the death of Don Fitzpatrick, veteran television talent scout. Long before blogs and wikis and podcasts, Don understood the true power of electronic communications and used it to shed more light on the goings-on in the TV business.
His daily take on the world of broadcast news, through “Rumorville” and, later, “Shoptalk,” was a must-read for anyone who wanted to know the latest. “Shoptalk” was the first truly influential e-mail newsletter of the media business because it went to everyone’s mailbox — not just to the top brass. Be sure to read the tribute to Don, by Larry Kane and George Case, on the RTNDA site.
He also understood the importance of diversity and reaching out to minorities and helping them get into broadcasting. This he did long before it was popular to do so.
Back in 1995, Don was kind enough to come and speak to my Columbia students about the TV news business. He was supposed to talk for an hour but stayed for more than two, answering every question — almost all of them with a small smile.
I asked broadcast writing coach Mervin Block about Don’s passing, and here’s what he wrote: “Don’s death is a loss to broadcast professionals, broadcast students, and to me personally. Count me among his admirers — and mourners.”
Amen.
Pulitzer Prizes and Anniversaries in History
By David Shedden
Library Director
Monday, April 17:
Journalists started clicking their Web browser “refresh” buttons after 3:00 p.m., EST, to find out the winners of the 2006 Pulitzers. Here is an excerpt from a story in the next day’s (Biloxi, Miss.) Sun Herald:
Sun Herald Wins Pulitzer
GULFPORT, Miss. — The Sun Herald on Monday received a Pulitzer Prize for public service, and three of the newspaper’s editors were listed as finalists for a prize in editorial writing.
“Today is your day, Sun Herald family,” executive editor Stan Tiner told employees gathered in the newsroom shortly after they erupted in applause at the announcement. “You are truly the best. And to this newsroom I say this: Never have so few worked so hard and so long to tell such a story — an unending story, as you all know.”
Tiner dedicated the Pulitzer Prize gold medal to the people of South Mississippi.
“Finally, this Pulitzer Prize, this gold medal, is dedicated to the people of South Mississippi whose magnificent hearts and spirit moved us every day that we have been privileged to tell the story of their struggle and triumphs,” he said. “They will not be defeated, not by Katrina, or anything.”
Publisher Ricky Mathews told employees: “It’s been a hell of a journey, you guys, and this is the ultimate honor.” Mathews said the newspaper has been “a reflection of our community: the pain, the joy, the unbelievable agony and everything that comes with that” and added that “Our best journalism is still ahead of us because this Sun Herald is in a community that has never been in the situation that we’re in right now. We’re in no-man’s land.”
The following report in The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune announced their Pulitzer awards:
TP wins two Pulitzers, in public service, breaking news
With reporters and editors in the newsroom of their battered city cheering and crying at the same time, The Times-Picayune won two Pulitzer Prizes on Monday, including a gold medal for meritorious public service, for the newspaper’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.
The newspaper also received a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished reporting of breaking news for Katrina coverage. Both prizes were awarded to the newspaper’s staff.
In addition to the paper’s two awards, Chris Rose was honored as a finalist in the commentary category for his columns about the devastating psychic and emotional toll of the storm on the community. The commentary award was won by Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times.
The Times-Picayune newsroom erupted in applause when the awards were announced Monday afternoon. But with much of the New Orleans area still in ruins, and with dozens of staff members among the tens of thousands of residents who lost homes and possessions in the storm, the celebration was more subdued than what normally attends the achievement of journalism’s pinnacle.
“Our celebration today is tempered by the knowledge that we lost so much — more than 1,000 people dead and our communities so deeply wounded,” editor Jim Amoss told the staff as many quietly wept. “If there is a saving grace here, it’s the love that tragedy lays bare — our love for each other, our love for this newspaper, our love for this community. We must love it back to life, and that’s what we celebrate today.”
Tuesday, April 18:
The Great Quake: April 18, 1906
From Smoke and Ruin, A New City
Why is it important to remember the Bay Area’s biggest disaster?
Because the 1906 earthquake and fire was a terrific story — a force of nature that shook a famous city without warning, a fire that destroyed the ruins, a story that was both a tragedy and a science lesson, with myths and legends, and even with survivors, living relics of another time.
Wednesday, April 19:
11 years ago today:
On April 19, 1995, the news media reported that a bomb had exploded at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma City bombing was an early example of a major news story reported on the Web.
Here is how Jim Lehrer, from the PBS “NewsHour”, began his report:
There was a bombing at a federal building in downtown Oklahoma City today. Much of the nine-story office building was destroyed. Twenty people have been confirmed dead, including seventeen children. At least 200 people were injured. Scores are missing.
The building housed offices of the Social Security Administration, the Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms, among other federal agencies. It also contained a day care center. Officials said the bomb detonated in a car outside the building. They said they were looking at the possibility of a terrorist attack. No one has claimed responsibility. President Clinton spoke this afternoon at the White House.
Thursday, April 20:
Friday, April 21:
