Most Fridays, I try and offer a compilation of journalism and media-related stories published on Medium from the week. Why? Even though it’s growing up at bit, Medium still seems like the Wild West – a place where journalists often publish directly. Unlike other platforms, though, Medium feels less urgent and breaking, which is why it seemed like a good place to look for weekend reads. Here’s what we saw this week, with thanks to Gurman Bhatia for helping curate.
Journo Salary Sharer: How much do reporters make?
Julia Haslanger, a Master’s student at the City University of New York, followed an earlier piece explaining the Salary Sharer and asking people to participate. Haslanger broke down the results so far.
How does reporter pay increase with experience?
The median salary for first year reporters in the survey was $36K. But by the time a reporter had five years of experience, the median salary increased to $50K. And of the reporters with ten years of experience who took the survey, the median salary was $64K.
How Journalism could learn from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Journalist David Dunkley Gyimah found lessons for journalism at a festival.
The crisis in journalism, though real, is generally a Western one. In many of the conferences and talks in its bow, it’s the loss of revenue from having it so good for so long, or the challenge to that particular type of Western hegemonic voice, that’s been irritating.
You know the voice that purports to know it all, when others are suitably more qualified.
Edinburgh’s egalitarian movement means anyone can punt a show, so long as you can book, find somewhere to stay, and do your own PR. But it’s a chance to play on a leveling field.
Ferguson takes Twitter: August 18, 2014
Cole Goins with the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal wrote about watching events in Ferguson unfold on Twitter.
What follows is a complete transcription of those tweets, extracted from the confines of Twitter and nearly verbatim to their original sources, repurposed to preserve a snapshot of what I personally read that night as the protests escalated and the tear gas was deployed. A year later, the events below are achingly familiar. As I type this, police in St. Louis have fired tear gas on a crowd protesting the officer-involved shooting death of 18-year-old Mansur Ball-Bey — exactly one year after Kajieme Powell was fatally shot by St. Louis police.
Marquette University student Wyatt Massey wrote about learning of James Foley’s death one year ago and how it impacted Massey’s own life.
The sad reality is that the day I learned your name was the day you left this world. As time passed, I learned not only about you but also from you.
You taught me that between the words of every law and amid the actions of every government are real people. There are no faceless stories. Instead, real people — future friends and forever strangers, alike — are forced to face the consequences of our choices.
Writing less like a journalist because that’s a thing for millennials?
Howard Goldberg, a former AP bureau chief, explores what’s changing and what’s staying the same in digital journalism.
OK, putting the important information first and writing concisely is not a new idea in journalism, but is digital writing simply adapting to new formats, or is there a generational change under way? I’m thinking about this because I am advising a blogger on retirement planning whose audience skews older. But anyone publishing news or commentary has to consider what the intended audience craves or tolerates.
Beyond the Numbers: Media Diversity and Local News
Josh Stearns, director, Journalism & Sustainability at the The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, looks at recent studies on media diversity and what the numbers don’t tell us.
This issue gets at the heart of what journalism is and what it does. It is about telling the full truth of a story. It is about accuracy. It is about ethics. The Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics includes, “Boldly tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience. Seek sources whose voices we seldom hear.” Too often, we are not living up to that promise.
