New Alternative Press Resource

It's my pleasure to introduce a new open access database on the block, Independent Voices, a collection of alternative press materials from three pretty important decades of the last century--the 60s, 70s, and 80s. The database is the product of a four-year project by Reveal Digital to digitize over 1 million pages from academic library special collections across the United States.  Source libraries at Northwestern University, Duke Univeristy, University of Wisconsin, University of Buffalo, Michigan State University, University of Texas, University of Kansas and others are contributors.

So far the database is comprised of feminist, GI underground, LGBT, and the (literary) little press.  Other categories to be added will be the African American, Native American, underground campus, anarchist and right-wing press. In addition to newspapers and magazines, the archive includes little magazines, newsletters, pamphlets, and calendars.

Access to proprietary alternative press resources, namely Left Index and Alternative Press Index, is available through the Penn Libraries/ASC homepage.

Report on User-Generated Content (UGC) in TV and Online News

Another interesting report from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism: AMATEUR FOOTAGE: A GLOBAL STUDY OF USER-GENERATED CONTENT IN TV AND ONLINE-NEWS OUTPUT is by Claire Wardle, Sam Dubberley, and Pete Brown. 

This Phase 1 Report (April 2014) represents research that has been split into quantitative and qualitative phases with this report focusing largely on the former.  I couldn't find a timetable for when we might expect Phase II, which will focus on interviews with over 60 journalists and editors, but I'll keep an eye out for it.

Conclusions from the Executive Summary:

1) UGC is used by news organizations daily, but only when other content is not available to tell the story.

2) News organizations are poor and inconsistent in labeling content as UGC and crediting the individual who captured the content.

Our data showed more similarities than differences across television and Web output, with troubling practices across both platforms. The best use of UGC was online, mostly because the Web provides opportunities for integrating UGC into news output like live blogs and topic pages.

Post-Industrial News Spaces

The Tow Center for Digital Journalism has just published Moving the Newsroom: Post-Industrial News Spaces and Places. This 61-page multimedia report by Nikki Usher shows what The Miami Herald, The Des Moines Register, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and The Seattle Times have done "to turn from sadness to opportunity through a journey of physical space" and concludes that "symbols--buildings--matter."

Table of Contents

I. Introduction: Moving the Newsroom: Post-Industrial News Spaces and Places

II. Why Move Now?

III. Moving Out: From Leaving the Heart of Downtown to Resettling a Block Away

IV. Symbolic Space: It Matters

V. Reconfiguring Physical Space to Make Way for the Digital Future

VI. The System Behind the Hubs—Change for the Better

VII. Mobile Journalism: Leaving behind Physical Space

VIII. What We Can Learn From All of This

IX. Physical Spaces, Newsroom Places: Considered

Appendix: Newsroom Photo Galleries

State of the News Media 2014

It's that time of year again.  Don't forget to check out The Pew Research Center's STATE OF THE NEWS MEDIA 2014. The Pew Center's Journalism Project has been assessing the news media since 1997 and these annual reports, chock-full of data, researchers and students have come to rely on for insight on developing trends in the news media. If you want to compare new findings to previous years click on Datasets for data (in .zip files) from 2008 through 2013.

I've raided the Overview for these six findings you can
read more about in the whole report:

1) Thirty of the largest digital-only news organizations account for about 3,000 jobs and one area of investment is global coverage. 
2) So far, the impact of new money flowing into the industry may be more about fostering new ways of reporting and reaching audience than about building a new, sustainable revenue structure. 
3) Social and mobile developments are doing more than bringing consumers into the process – they are also changing the dynamics of the process itself.
4) New ways of storytelling bring both promise and challenge. 
5) Local television, which reaches about nine in ten U.S. adults, experienced massive change in 2013, change that stayed under the radar of most. 
6) Dramatic changes under way in the makeup of the American population will undoubtedly have an impact on news in the U.S, and in one of the fastest growing demographic groups – Hispanics – we are already seeing shifts. 
One thing that confused me about this year's offering is that there is no single pdf for it. When you go to the link the Report is broken down into separate boxes that add up to the full report. Don't be fooled by the Overview page that has a pdf called Complete Report--it's only the Overview. Go figure. 

Article Feature: Mapping a Media Controversy (Trayvon Martin)

In case you missed First Monday's extensive analysis of the way the Trayvon Martin story moved through the media...The Battle for 'Trayvon Martin': Mapping a Media Controversy Online and Off-line, by Erhardt Graeff, Matt Stempeck, and Etan Zuckerman.

ABSTRACT
One of the biggest news stories of 2012, the killing of Trayvon Martin, nearly disappeared from public view, initially receiving only cursory local news coverage. But the story gained attention and controversy over Martin’s death dominated headlines, airwaves, and Twitter for months, thanks to a savvy publicist working on behalf of the victim’s parents and a series of campaigns off–line and online. Using the theories of networked gatekeeping and networked framing, we map out the vast media ecosystem using quantitative data about the content generated around the Trayvon Martin story in both off–line and online media, as well as measures of engagement with the story, to trace the interrelations among mainstream media, nonprofessional and social media, and their audiences. We consider the attention and link economies among the collected media sources in order to understand who was influential when, finding that broadcast media is still important as an amplifier and gatekeeper, but that it is susceptible to media activists working through participatory or nonprofessional media to co–create the news and influence the framing of major controversies. Our findings have implications for social change organizations that seek to harness advocacy campaigns to news stories, and for scholars studying media ecology and the networked public sphere.

First Monday is one of one of the first open access (since 1996), peer-reviewed journals devoted to the Internet. The Trayvon Martin piece appeared in the February issue and new March articles are upon us, such as Taking tweets to the streets: A spatial analysis of the Vinegar Protests in Brazil and Homelessness, wirelessness, and (in)visibility: Critical reflections on the Homeless Hotspots Project and the ensuing online discourse. If you're not keeping up with First Monday, you're not keeping up with the Internet. 

Global Media Worlds and China

The 20th anniversary edition of Javnost - The Public The Journal of the European Institute for Communication and Culture is devoted to China. 

Global Media Worlds and China

Articles: 

Hu Zhengrong, Ji Deqiang

Retrospection, Prospection and the Pursuit of an Integrated Approach for China’s Communication and Journalism Studies 

Yuezhi Zhao

China’s Quest for “Soft Power”: Imperatives, Impediments and Irreconcilable Tensions? 

Daya Kishan Thussu

De-Americanising Media Studies and the Rise of “Chindia” 

Lena Rydholm

China and the World’s First Freedom of Information Act: The Swedish Freedom of the Press Act of 1766 

Susan Brownell

“Brand China” in the Olympic Context: Communications Challenges of China’s Soft Power Initiative 

Göran Svensson

“China Going Out” or the “World Going In”? The Shanghai World Expo 2010 in the Swedish Media

NOTE: While Javnost is freely available electronically beginning in 1994, the most recent years (last two) are not available online; 2012 and 2013 issues of the Journal in paper are available in the Annenberg Library. 

Undercover Reporting Database

Undercover Reporting: Deception for Journalism's Sake: A Database 
is "a collaboration with NYU Libraries [that] collects many decades of high-impact, sometimes controversial, mostly U.S.-generated journalism that used undercover techniques. It grows out of the research for [Brooke Kroeger's] Undercover Reporting: The Truth about Deception which argues that much of the valuable journalism since before the U.S. Civil War has emerged from investigations that employed subterfuge to expose wrong. It asserts that undercover work, though sometimes criticized as deceptive or unethical, embodies a central tenet of good reporting--to extract significant information or expose hard-to-penetrate institutions or social situations that deserve the public's attention. The site, designed as a resource for scholars, student researchers and journalists, collects some of the best investigative work going back almost two centuries." --website

This unique resource collects a substantial amount of coverage--articles from major and not-so-major news publications, along with books, film, and television. In addition to author/reporter, date, and publication, the database is organized around thematic clusters--issues such as prisons, migrant workers, the Welfare system, gender, class,and many more. One can also filter searches by journalistic method (posed as, undercover, disguised, lived as, worked as). The database strives where it can for a deeper history than the last few decades. For example, there is a cluster called "Antebellum Undercover," which provides full-text articles of undercover reportage (1854-75) from the New York Tribune based on the work of journalists who headed South prior to the Civil War.  

This is a really interesting resource. Kudos to the NYU Libraries for getting the database to this point and for its future development. They welcome suggestions for new material as they plan to "deepen and internationalize" the collection. 

New Televsion News Archive on the horizon

CommPilings posts are usually about resources; this one is about the promise of a resource. According to a recent story in Salon.com, the collecting obsession of a devoted Philadelphia-area librarian, Marion Stokes, may result in the largest television news archive to date--some 140,000 VHS tapes of network, cable, and local news programming between 1977 and 2012.  Librarian Roger Macdonald of the Internet Archive has taken on the collection which will be digitized and indexed for all. Not sure when it's slated for completion but the project has begun and, well, it's the Internet Archive (!) which already delivers a serachable database of the last four years of television news (2010-2013).

Of course the most famous television news archive is the Vanderbilt Television News Archive, a searchable abstracting service for national television network news broadcasts, 1968-present, with CNN and NBC broadcasts available as RealMedia video streams from 1998-present.  Unlike the Internet Archive initiative, it cannot post all of its footage online for free; researchers have to borrow clips on DVD for a small fee.

Communication scholars and historians certainly appreciate all of these archival efforts--it will be interesting to see the vision of Marion Stokes come to fruition, hopefully not too far from now. 

Website Feature: Journalists's Resource

I thought I'd check out Journalist's Resource, a project of the Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center, since it was named (with 25 others)  “Best Free Reference Web Site 2013” by the American Library Association. I was not disappointed. While the site is for practitioners, it is rich in research, research journalists need on the topics they are reporting on. By extension, non-journalists interested in wading deeper into an issue are welcome as well:

We invite all those interested in policy and public affairs to use the site’s materials. No registration is required; the materials are free and are under a Creative Commons license. Our open-access project is designed to provide state-of-knowledge information on topics of public interest. In an era of information overload, we hope you’ll see us as a useful tool that condenses quality information from authoritative sources and presents it succinctly. - See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/about#sthash.gMmiM669.dpuf

We invite all those interested in policy and public affairs to use the site’s materials. No registration is required; the materials are free and are under a Creative Commons license. Our open-access project is designed to provide state-of-knowledge information on topics of public interest. In an era of information overload, we hope you’ll see us as a useful tool that condenses quality information from authoritative sources and presents it succinctly. ...Establishing and promoting the concept of “knowledge-based reporting” animates the project; the philosophy is articulated in the new book Informing the News: The Need for Knowledge-Based Journalism, by Tom Patterson, our research director. Many of the nation’s top journalism educators and thinkers have been promoting the idea of bringing journalism closer to the research world — both to meet the profession’s social mission and to ensure its high value in an increasingly crowded marketplace — and our site strives to provide a structure for accomplishing this.

Establishing and promoting the concept of “knowledge-based reporting” animates the project; the philosophy is articulated in the new book Informing the News: The Need for Knowledge-Based Journalism, by Tom Patterson, our research director. Many of the nation’s top journalism educators and thinkers have been promoting the idea of bringing journalism closer to the research world — both to meet the profession’s social mission and to ensure its high value in an increasingly crowded marketplace — and our site strives to provide a structure for accomplishing this. Our project has been partnering with the New York Times, for example, to help create more research-related resources for readers. We also actively foster the improvement of Wikipedia pages relating to policy topics. - See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/about#sthash.UFIkxch7.dpuf

The meat of the website is the “Studies Database” which can be key-word searched or one can browse the list of topics in the following areas: economics (banks, jobs, real estate), environment (food, climate change, pollution) government (budget, infrastructure, Congress), international (human rights, globalization, China), politics (elections, digital democracy, campaign finance), and society (race, education, internet). Searches will produce research articles from academic journals, some of which are otherwise behind pay walls. A research roundup piece on Twitter, Politics and the Public provides articles from Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Social Science Computer Review, Duke Law & Technology Review, Information, Communication & Society, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Microsoft Research, Pew Internet and American Life Project, various society conference papers, and so on. 

The site also has the beginnings of a rich syllabus section, only nine so far, all addressing coverage skills (business reporting, political reporting, science reporting, etc.) but they may add critical journalism and media studies related syllabi in the future. 

I was wondering this very question posed in the FAQ: Can I suggest a study? "Definitely. If you know of scholarly material that meets our research criteria, send it to... Also, if you feel that material that we’ve included doesn’t meet these standards or if better research on a similar topic is available, feedback is always appreciated."

As we are wont to bemoan the level of the discourse in our media culture this initiative offers some hope for raising the bar a little. It is also a much needed bridge for journalism scholars and practicing journalists to cross from both directions.

We invite all those interested in policy and public affairs to use the site’s materials. No registration is required; the materials are free and are under a Creative Commons license. Our open-access project is designed to provide state-of-knowledge information on topics of public interest. In an era of information overload, we hope you’ll see us as a useful tool that condenses quality information from authoritative sources and presents it succinctly. - See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/about#sthash.gMmiM669.dpuf

We invite all those interested in policy and public affairs to use the site’s materials. No registration is required; the materials are free and are under a Creative Commons license. Our open-access project is designed to provide state-of-knowledge information on topics of public interest. In an era of information overload, we hope you’ll see us as a useful tool that condenses quality information from authoritative sources and presents it succinctly. - See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/about#sthash.gMmiM669.dpuf

Based at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, the Journalist’s Resource project examines news topics through a research lens; we focus on surfacing scholarly materials that may be relevant to other media practitioners, bloggers, educators, students and general readers. The American Library Association named it a “Best Free Reference Web Site 2013.” - See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/about#sthash.gMmiM669.dpuf

American Library Association named it a “Best Free Reference Web Site 2013.” - See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/about#sthash.gMmiM669.dpuf

American Library Association named it a “Best Free Reference Web Site 2013.” - See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/about#sthash.gMmiM669.dpuf

American Library Association named it a “Best Free Reference Web Site 2013.” - See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/about#sthash.gMmiM669.dpuf

American Library Association named it a “Best Free Reference Web Site 2013.” - See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/about#sthash.gMmiM669.dpuf

Shorenstein Center

Shorenstein Center

Shorenstein Center

Shorenstein Center

October CommQuote

There are many hotbeds around the world where it is dangerous to work as a journalist. Honduras is one of them. In the past ten years at least 32 journalists have lost their lives and many more have been violently attacked or threatened. It doesn't seem to matter if they work for mainstream newspaper and broadcasting outlets or alternative/community media outlets. One of the most shocking and recent cases is that of television journalist Anibal Barrow, abducted on June 24, 2013 only to be discovered, his body dismembered, days later (pictured below is his grieving son). The message to journalists is clear. Writes Dina Meza in the latest Index on Censorship (Volume 42, No. 3), in a piece titled Reign of Terror : "Those reporting on human rights violations, drug trafficking, organised crime, US intervention in Honduran politics and corruption are clearly vulnerable. Land issues are also highly contentious topics. Whether it’s the destruction of the environment for profit, particularly by mining and hydro-electric companies, land ownership or land-grabbing, these live issues galvanise communities and journalists alike, who use both traditional media and social networks to spread information."

So our CommQuote this month is our saddest one to date. It is a list, one compiled by the Honduran Human Rights Commissioner.

Honduras’s murdered journalists, 2003–2013Anibal Barrow, Globo TV, Cortes – 24 June 2013 Celin Orlando Acosta Zelaya, freelance, Olancho – 31 January 2013 Angel Edgardo Lopez Fiallos, journalism student, Francisco Morazan – 8 November 2012 Julio Cesar Cassaleno, Direction Nacional de Transito (Transport) – 28 August 2012 Jose Noel Canales Lagos, Hondudiario and SEPROC, Tegucigalpa – 10 August 2012 Adonis Felipe Bueso Gutierrez, Radio Naranja, Cortes – 8 July 2012 Erick Martinez, Asociacion Kukulcan, Francisco Morazan – 7 May 2012 Noel Alexander Valladares, Maya TV, Francisco Morazan – 23 April 2012 Fausto Elio Valle, Radio Alegre, Colon – 11 March 2012 Fabiola Almendares Borjas, journalism student, Cortes – 1 March 2012 Luz Marina Paz, Honduran News Channel, Francisco Morazan – 6 December 2011 Medardo Flores, Radio Uno, Cortes – 9 September 2011 Nery Jeremias Orellana, Radio Joconguera, Lempira – 14 July 2011 Adan Benitez, 45TV and Teleceiba Canal 7, Atlantida – 5 July 2011 Luis Mendoza, Macrosistema Company and Canal 24, Danli – 19 May 2011 Hector Francisco Medina Polanco, Omega Visión, Yoro – 10 May 2011 Henry Orlando Suazo, HRN, Atlantida – 28 December 2010 Israel Diaz Zelaya, Radio Internacional, Cortes – 24 August 2010 Luis Arturo Mondragon, Canal 19, El Paraiso –14 June 2010 Luis Chevez Hernandez, Radio W105, San Pedro Sula – 09 April 2010 Victor Manuel Juarez Vasquez, Canal 4 de Juticalpa, Olancho – 26 March 2010 Bayardo Mairena, Canal 4 de Juticalpa, Olancho – 26 March 2010 Nahum Palacios, Canal 5 de Aguan, Colon – 14 March 2010 David Meza, El Patio and Radio America, Atlantida – 11 March 2010 Joseph Hernandez, Canal 51, Francisco Morazan – 1 March 2010 Nicolas Asfura, Construction Company, Francisco Morazan – 17 February 2010 Gabriel Fino Noriega, Radio America, Atlantida – 3 July 2009 Osman Rodrigo Lopez, Canal 45, Francisco Morazan – 19 April 2009 Rafael Munguia, Radio Cadena Voces, Cortes – 1 April 2009 Bernardo Rivera Paz, Freelancer, Copan – 14 March 2009 Fernando Gonzalez, Radio Mega FM 92.7, Santa Barbara – 1 January 2008 Carlos Salgado, Radio Cadena Voces, Morazan – 18 October 2007 German Rivas, Corporacion Maya Vision Canal 7, Copan – 26 November 2003 To date, no one has been prosecuted for the above crimes Source: Honduras Human Rights Commissioner.

News Site Feature: News Americas

Along the lines of  AllAfrica, NewsAmericas is a news aggregating, producing, and distributing site for Caribbean, South and Central American readers.

From About NewsAmericas:
News Americas aims to be the HuffPo of the Americas! It was created to give writers from this region and with an interest in this region a platform to showcase Top News from this region and their individual countries – including business, sports and entertainment news, as well share independent and radical opinions and lifestyle and travel features.

The site includes links to pertinent articles from outside the region as well (New York Times, Miami Herald). It sports a Breaking News ticker and RSS feed option.

April CommQuote

Since April is Poetry Month a poem is in order, one from Andrei Codrescu called the new gazette. It's from his collection, So Recently Rent a World: New and Selected Poems, which I recommend picking up because Codrescu is not only a good poet, he's one of the giants. When looking for a copy of the poem to post I stumbled upon this 2006 NPR radio interview with Robert Siegel (excerpted below the poem), Codrescu talking about this very piece.

the new gazette 

I want to be the publisher of a vicious illuminated newspaper.

All the viciousness in it will be gold-leafed, raised and colored-in

by art students with medieval bodies.

The bend of their heads and the angle of their breasts
will outlast sunset

to exchange body with Chartres.

My writers will hate everything
with passion, fervor and murderous disregard for their safety

which will take in writing the form of classical tragedy.

Sophocles will be movie reviewer, Richard Speck desk editor.

Euripides and Charles Manson will be in charge of the clergy.

The translators under penalty of death will have to be faithful.

In the office only foreign languages will be spoken.
Faithfulness and alienness will be the order of day and night

since they will succeed each other on the front page.

The paper will appear twice a day, four times a night.

The readers will be mean, nervous and ready to kill for the cause.

There will be plenty of causes, one for every hour, and in later
issues, one for every minute,

The causes will be biological and spiritual and they will incite
war for molecular differences.

Molecular terrorists in hiding will write letters to the editor.
Two persons, a man and a woman, called Tolerance and Intolerance,
will be in charge of love and lights.                 
--by Andrei Codrescu

From: Virtual Privacy: A Myth of the 21st Century, November 03, 2006 4:00 PM, National Public Radio

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:In some ways, Commentator Andrei Codrescu is a member of the avant garde. Take a poem he wrote back in 1973, which looked ahead to the rise of blogs.

ANDREI CODRESCU: I wrote a poem called The New Gazette that said, among other things, I want to be the publisher of a vicious, illuminated newspaper. The paper will appear twice a day, four times a night. The readers will be mean, nervous and ready to kill for the cause. There will be plenty of causes, one for every hour and in later issues, one for every minute. The causes will be biological and spiritual, and they will incite war for molecular differences. Molecular terrorists in hiding will write letters to the editor. Two persons, a man and a woman called Tolerance and Intolerance, will be in charge of love and lights.

I've quoted at length from this youthful work not only because it proves that I'm a prophet, but also because I used to write pretty great poetry. Looking back on early work is not advisable though, just as it isn't advisable to look back into the past when one was vital, strong, blustery and brilliant. Truly, youth is wasted on the young, but only if one looks back. The past is a mirror that shimmers and draws the soul in. More people die everyday from falling into the mirror of the past than fall from horses or get snuffed in car crashes.

Anyway, when I wrote that poem, I had no clue that in 2006 every person alive on earth would be able to broadcast their most intimate thoughts everyday into a new public nervous system that collects every human now. Back in 1973 I still suffered from the trauma of childhood under a totalitarian government who looked into every thought of its subjects and used that knowledge to terrify and belittle us. Surveillance was a bad thing. Privacy was sacred.

In 2006, we still hold privacy to be a right and we pay lip service to it. In reality, privacy means little in the age of personal computing. Anyone can find out in minutes all they need to know about you and everyone is ready to broadcast everything anyone might want to know. The desire to expose everything one feels or experiences and the need to translate all of it immediately into an urgent bulletin is an inexorable process, a progressive disease that leads to the foreshadowing of every difference. Every half-baked thought or passing incidence takes on a personality, a body for consumption.

Bloggers produce molecular bodies blown up like balloons with significance. This type of communication is not friendly to threat, a form of rape maybe. Of course, you don't have to read anybody's blog or submit to the increasingly epileptic flicker of television, but you are hooked. There's no escaping it. If you were born before the time when communication was compulsory, you might be tempted to look to a more innocent past and then you'll fall in it, blinded like a bird.

Mapping Digital Media: India

Mapping Digital Media: India is the latest Open Society Foundation report examining "global opportunities and risks created by the transition from traditional to digital media." This 154-page report is part of a series covering 60 countries; each is evaluated in terms of how digital media  affect "core democratic service that any media system should provide: news about political, economic, and social affairs." Since September of 2012, reports on Croatia, Slovenia, China, Spain, Central Africa have been published and March 2013 has produced reports on Kenya, and Bulgaria, and now India. 

For a perspective on "digital switchover" country by country from broadcast analog systems, especially as it effects democracy and freedom of expression, you'll want to check in with these reports.