Media Giraffe Project --
Link & reference blog

ORIGINAL URL: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/16334481.htm

Posted on Thu, Dec. 28, 2006

Web news opposites
NEWSTRUST.COM, DIGG.COM: TWO VISIONS OF WHAT ONLINE READERS WANT

By Elise Ackerman
Mercury News

Two years ago, the inspiration for creating a Web site for news junkies hit two men with vastly different ambitions. One hoped to make boat-loads of money. The other dreamed of enriching American democracy by identifying trusted news sources hidden in the deluge of information available online.

The latter turned out to be the tougher task.

Fabrice Florin, a successful technologist and a veteran of Apple Computer, launched the beta version of NewsTrust.net last month after turning 50 and deciding it was time to give something back to society.

Florin had founded three for-profit companies, but feared that if he focused on profits with NewsTrust ``the public interest would get cheated.'' So he raised a small amount of money from donors and funded the rest himself.

Meanwhile, Kevin Rose, 27-year-old host of an obscure cable TV tech show, lost no time in launching Digg.com in October 2004. Rose's site lets people give a thumb's-up or a thumb's-down to stories other users had found on the Web and submitted to Digg.

Stories with the most ``diggs'' were listed first. ``We find unique stories that no sane editor of a traditional Web site would put together,'' Rose told Newsweek in October.

Digg didn't screen for accuracy. Fake stories, like a recent one about Sony recalling the PlayStation 3, can stay at the top of the site for hours. Still, Digg was listed this week among the top 20 U.S. sites, according to Alexa, which provides information on Web traffic. NewsTrust's Alexa ranking is 106,502.

The two sites ``are completely different,'' said Dan Gillmor, director of the Center for Citizen Media and a NewsTrust adviser. While Digg strictly measures popularity, NewsTrust asks users to rate a story on the basis of 10 factors, including accuracy, balance, context and evidence. It also asks users to write a short summary. ``It's adding judgment about quality,'' Gillmor said.

``The initial mission was, `How do we get people to become more tolerant of each other's viewpoints, to listen better?' '' Florin said of the comprehensive rating system. By critically analyzing a news story in detail, Florin said, he hopes people will overcome preconceived notions about a topic in the news and end up less polarized in their political beliefs.

NewsTrust's more thoughtful approach can yield dramatically different top stories. On Tuesday, NewsTrust's users selected ``Top Ten Myths About Iraq 2006,'' from a blog written by Juan Cole, president of the Global Americana Institute. Digg's top story was ``50 Reasons -- why it's great to be a Guy!!'' from a blog written by someone named Mike in Los Angeles. Reddit, a Digg competitor that was recently acquired by Conde Nast, featured ``Why iPods Are Never on Sale,'' from Salon.com.

``Civic vitality depends on stories about things that matter,'' said John McManus, project director of Grade the News, which operates in association with Stanford University's Graduate Program in Journalism. McManus is also a NewsTrust adviser.

``It seems to me that what they are doing is really important,'' said Jim Emerman, executive vice president for Civic Ventures, a San Francisco non-profit that seeks to encourage older Americans to actively participate in social ventures. ``We are working in an environment in which the media is under attack and struggling to maintain journalistic standards.''

The idea that journalism is in jeopardy and that technology can make a difference motivates Florin, who started his career as a television journalist before joining Apple's Multimedia Lab as a founding member. Florin subsequently launched Zenda Studio, an independent development studio that provided software R&D services and multiplayer games.

From Zenda, Florin moved to Macromedia, where he helped create Shockwave.com. In 2001, he founded Handtap.com, which provides multimedia content to mobile phones. Now owned by Andrews McMeel Universal, Florin continues to advise Handtap on content and business strategy.

Florin said he is concerned by both the cutbacks in traditional media, as well as the enormous increase in unconventional sources on the Web. ``There's a problem: It's hard to know if you can trust the information that you can get. But there's also an opportunity,'' he said.

A community has already begun to form around NewsTrust, with more than 2,600 people submitting stories for review. Florin believes the rigor built in to the site can help ordinary people evaluate new sources of information, at the same time forming connections with each other and deepening the dialogue about civic affairs.

NewsTrust is also trying to offer extra rewards to participants; for example, subscribers can receive e-mailed digests of highly rated stories that otherwise might not get called to their attention. ``What we care most about is seeing the community enlighten itself,'' Florin said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact Elise Ackerman at eackerman@mercurynews.com or (408) 271-3774.
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owner.

# posted by newshare @ 8:10 PM

ORIGINAL URL:
http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1167407151269730.xml
http://www.mlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-8/1167407151269730.xml

Brighton historian scrutinizes new landscape New book delves into the blogosphere

THE ANN ARBOR NEWS

Friday, December 29, 2006

(byline just says: "News Special Writer")

The news media are in a state of change. Over the past decade, traditional outlets such as newspapers and evening television news have been supplemented, and sometimes supplanted, by 24-hour news stations and cable news channels, online news sites and blogs. Brighton-based historian Judy Daubenmier focuses on this new media landscape in her new book, "Project Rewire.''

Part of the Informed Citizen Series, which aims to collect the best blog entries on U.S. social and political issues, "Project Rewire'' is a book of media criticism. It specifically looks at how Internet media cover traditional media. Other books in the series include "Untidy: the Blogs on Rumsfeld'' and "Special Plans: the Blogs on Douglas Feith and the Faulty Intelligence that Led to War.''

"The whole idea of the series is to try to find the best articles on one topic because usually when you read the Internet you start out on one topic and you click on a link and pretty soon you're reading stuff that's far afield from where you started out,'' says Daubenmier, a Brighton resident and part-time lecturer at the University of Michigan. "I did read a lot and found a lot of blogs I didn't know about and pruned them down.''

A former Associated Press journalist, Daubenmier is an enthusiastic blogger herself. She was a researcher for the 2004 documentary "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism.'' As part of that project, she had to monitor Fox News programs. She still watches Fox News every day and writes about it for News Hounds at www.newshounds.us, a blog that records about 20,000 visitors a day.

"I think we need neutral media. I don't want to return to the 19th century partisan papers,'' Daubenmier says. "I think we need neutral, honest brokers of information. But at the same time I think the left needs to counter the constant criticism of the media by the right wing in order to keep it in the middle. That's why I think blogs have a role to play, providing media criticism and acting as a watchdog to the media and providing some kind of competition to the media because they do break stories.''

"Project Rewire'' begins with a thoughtful essay by Daubenmier on "how the media got disconnected.'' The piece analyzes problems such as concentration of ownership, self-censorship and bias. The second part of the book provides concrete examples of media criticism and commentary by bloggers, with topics ranging from John Kerry's manicures and George W. Bush's National Guard service to Hurricane Katrina and the Downing Street memo on the war in Iraq. Bloggers featured in the collection include some colorful characters such as the Cranky Media Guy and Pundit Pap as well as high-profile journalists such as investigative reporter Greg Palast and New York University professor Jay Rosen. Their articles are passionate and immediate, a style of writing that's easier on the Internet without the pressure of publishers and advertisers, Daubenmier says. "There's just more freedom on the Web, I think. There's just more of an edge to the writing.''

The blogs on John Kerry's supposed manicure during the 2004 election campaign are a case in point. J.C. on the Media Matters' blog analyzes Fox News' fixation with the manicure story, while Josh Marshall on Talking Points Memo follows a fabricated Fox news story about the manicure hour by hour from its first appearance to its eventual retraction.

"I had done a post on the same thing, but I liked the way he showed how the story developed during the day. It's a different product than what you get when you read a story in the newspaper, which is a finished product. Here you see the story develop throughout the day, dynamic. That's one of the strengths of the Internet,'' Daubenmier says.

Despite the problems in the current media that surface in her book, Daubenmier has a positive outlook. "I am hopeful because people have a hunger for information,'' she says.
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The article above is copyrighted material, the use of which may not have specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided by Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this blog for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

# posted by newshare @ 4:32 PM

Should high school's in America get a free DVD of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"? The National Science Teachers Association has apparent declined to help. Read various viewpoints on the controversy.

The conservative Media Research Center's post on the subject by Noel Sheppard
at NewsBusters:
http://newsbusters.org/node/9262

The liberal-progress Center for American Progress post on the matter:
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/25/oil-propaganda/

Both of which are a reaction to this op-ed piece in The Washington Post,
written by Laurie David, the producer of the Al Gore movie, "An Inconvenient
Truth."

Other reaction:
http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/777

ORIGINAL URL:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112400789_pf.html

ORIGINAL HEADLINE IN WASHINGTON POST:
"Science a la Joe Camel"

By Laurie David
Sunday, November 26, 2006; B01

At hundreds of screenings this year of "An Inconvenient Truth," the first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.

The producers of former vice president Al Gore's film about global warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.

The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.

In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other "special interests" might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they didn't want to offer "political" endorsement of the film; and they saw "little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members" in accepting the free DVDs.

Gore, however, is not running for office, and the film's theatrical run is long since over. As for classroom benefits, the movie has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading climate scientists worldwide, and is required viewing for all students in Norway and Sweden.

Still, maybe the NSTA just being extra cautious. But there was one more curious argument in the e-mail: Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place "unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters." One of those supporters, it turns out, is the Exxon Mobil Corp.

That's the same Exxon Mobil that for more than a decade has done everything possible to muddle public understanding of global warming and stifle any serious effort to solve it. It has run ads in leading newspapers (including this one) questioning the role of manmade emissions in global warming, and financed the work of a small band of scientific skeptics who have tried to challenge the consensus that heat-trapping pollution is drastically altering our atmosphere. The company spends millions to support groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute that aggressively pressure lawmakers to oppose emission limits.

It's bad enough when a company tries to sell junk science to a bunch of grown-ups. But, like a tobacco company using cartoons to peddle cigarettes, Exxon Mobil is going after our kids, too.

And it has been doing so for longer than you may think. NSTA says it has received $6 million from the company since 1996, mostly for the association's "Building a Presence for Science" program, an electronic networking initiative intended to "bring standards-based teaching and learning" into schools, according to the NSTA Web site. Exxon Mobil has a representative on the group's corporate advisory board. And in 2003, NSTA gave the company an award for its commitment to science education.

So much for special interests and implicit endorsements.

In the past year alone, according to its Web site, Exxon Mobil's foundation gave $42 million to key organizations that influence the way children learn about science, from kindergarten until they graduate from high school.

And Exxon Mobil isn't the only one getting in on the action. Through textbooks, classroom posters and teacher seminars, the oil industry, the coal industry and other corporate interests are exploiting shortfalls in education funding by using a small slice of their record profits to buy themselves a classroom soapbox.

NSTA's list of corporate donors also includes Shell Oil and the American Petroleum Institute (API), which funds NSTA's Web site on the science of energy. There, students can find a section called "Running on Oil" and read a page that touts the industry's environmental track record -- citing improvements mostly attributable to laws that the companies fought tooth and nail, by the way -- but makes only vague references to spills or pollution. NSTA has distributed a video produced by API called "You Can't Be Cool Without uel," a shameless pitch for oil dependence.

The education organization also hosts an annual convention -- which is described on Exxon Mobil's Web site as featuring "more than 450 companies and organizations displaying the most current textbooks, lab equipment, computer hardware and software, and teaching enhancements." The company "regularly displays" its "many . . . education materials" at the exhibition. John Borowski, a science teacher at North Salem High School in Salem, Ore., was dismayed by NSTA's partnerships with industrial polluters when he attended the association's annual convention this year and witnessed hundreds of teachers and school administrators walk away with armloads of free corporate lesson plans.

Along with propaganda challenging global warming from Exxon Mobil, the curricular offerings included lessons on forestry provided by Weyerhaeuser and International Paper, Borowski says, and the benefits of genetic engineering courtesy of biotech giant Monsanto.

"The materials from the American Petroleum Institute and the other corporate interests are the worst form of a lie: omission," Borowski says. "The oil and coal guys won't address global warming, and the timber industry papers over clear-cuts."

An API memo leaked to the media as long ago as 1998 succinctly explains why the association is angling to infiltrate the classroom: "Informing teachers/students about uncertainties in climate science will begin to erect barriers against further efforts to impose Kyoto-like measures in the future."

So, how is any of this different from showing Gore's movie in the classroom? The answer is that neither Gore nor Participant Productions, which made the movie, stands to profit a nickel from giving away DVDs, and we aren't facing millions of dollars in lost business from limits on global-warming pollution and a shift to cleaner, renewable energy.

It's hard to say whether NSTA is a bad guy here or just a sorry victim of tight education budgets. And we don't pretend that a two-hour movie is a substitute for a rigorous science curriculum. Students should expect, and parents should demand, that educators present an honest and unbiased look at the true state of knowledge about the challenges of the day.

As for Exxon Mobil -- which just began a fuzzy advertising campaign that trumpets clean energy and low emissions -- this story shows that slapping green stripes on a corporate tiger doesn't change the beast within. The company is still playing the same cynical game it has for years.

While NSTA and Exxon Mobil ponder the moral lesson they're teaching with all this, there are 50,000 DVDs sitting in a Los Angeles warehouse, waiting to be distributed. In the meantime, Mom and Dad may want to keep a sharp eye on their kids' science homework.

laurie@lauriedavid.com

Laurie David, a producer of "An Inconvenient Truth," is a Natural Resources Defense Council trustee and founder of StopGlobalWarming.org

MORE ON LAURIE DAVID:
http://www.smmirror.com/MainPages/DisplayArticleDetails.asp?eid=4260

A version of David's op-ed piece first appeared on The Huffington Post on
Saturday, Nov. 25:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/11/25/laurie-david-science-tea_n_34864.html
which includes posted comments.

REUTERS PROFILE:
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=reutersEdge&storyID=2006-11-21T183212Z_01_N20315601_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIRONMENT-HOLLYWOOD.xml&WTmodLoc=HealthNewsHome_R3_reutersEdge-3

ORIGINAL HEADLINE:
Hollywood environmentalist targets Middle America

Tue Nov 21, 2006 1:32 PM ET

By Mary Milliken

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood environmentalist Laurie David's fight to convince America of the dangers of global warming begins in her own bathrooms.

David, producer of Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth," is taking her crusade to Middle America and Washington next year, setting her sights on convincing President George W. Bush and average U.S. citizens to make changes to safeguard the planet.

But first she had to deal with her preteen daughter, who stole toilet paper from friends, and comedian husband Larry David, a creator of "Seinfeld" and HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," who rebelled when she switched to toilet tissue made from recycled consumer waste.

"I had a contest to see who in my family would complain first ... it was the husband, who complained bitterly," David said in an interview with Reuters last week.

David, 48, has overcome bigger obstacles, like convincing a reluctant Hollywood that there was wide interest, and money to be made, in "An Inconvenient Truth," a film about former vice president Gore's slide show on global warming.

The unlikely box-office hit was the third-largest grossing documentary of all time and is on the short list for an Academy Award nomination. The DVD version goes on sale this week.

While admitting to being nervous about Oscar season, David is moving on to her next headline event to "kick up the dirt" in mid-America and the nation's capital with one of the biggest names in music.

"Sheryl Crow and I are going to go out on her biodiesel tour bus, starting in Texas, and invite friends to join us on various stops," said David, speaking in the garden outside her Los Angeles-area home office overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

"We really want to go to places where people are not talking about these issues as much as they should be."

During 10 days in April, the two women will drive to Washington, D.C., for Earth Day, where she hopes some of her 525,000 virtual marchers -- people who have signed on to her Web site http://www.stopglobalwarming.org ) -- will join them in person.

"There is a window closing here," said David, citing experts like NASA climatologist James Hansen who say the world has 10 years to take action against global warming or face widespread climate disaster.

"If they say nine years or 10 years, I am thinking maybe it is five years because scientists are the most cautious people on the planet," David said.

GORE IN 2008?

Despite having spent most of her adult life around comedians as a talent manager and comedy producer, David can be awfully serious, especially when talking about the lack of leadership in Washington.

"The rest of the world is so much more engaged on this issue than the United States," she said. "We're the biggest cause of global warming pollution now and we are doing the least about it and that is not acceptable."

But she sees hope after the Democrats won control of Congress in the midterm elections and vowed to make the environment a priority.

"Action on global warming has to happen while the Bush administration is still in office," David said. "I am not waiting for 2008."

But looking toward the next elections, she said she would do anything to get Gore to make another run at the presidency after he was edged out by Bush in 2000.

"He's not planning on it for the moment but it would be one of my dreams to see him run for president again," David said.

Even with the shift in political power, David said her goal is unchanged: "To permeate popular culture in every way I can to get people to wake up to what is going on."

She believes Hollywood is doing an admirable job on fighting global warming, from studios like Warner Bros going green to celebrities like Leonardo di Caprio embracing the hybrid cars her family has been driving for years.

And what is Larry David's role in his wife's crusade? Well, he drives a hybrid on his HBO show, funds some of her activities and, perhaps most importantly, keeps her laughing.

"It is a bit of burden to feel like we have this giant problem and I personally feel like I have to do something about it," she said.

"If you can be married to a comedian, that's a good start."

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved.

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The articles above are copyrighted material, the use of which may not have
specifically authorized by the copyright owners. The material is made available
in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First
Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided by Section 107 of U.S.
Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the
material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this blog
for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner.

# posted by newshare @ 11:44 PM

ORIGINAL HEADLINE:
'Little' Papers Keep Coming Up Big
Published: December 07, 2006 5:00 PM ET
in Editor & Publisher Online
ORIGINAL URL:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003494331

By Roger Plothow

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The author is editor and publisher of the Post Register, a locally owned
26,000-circulation daily newspaper in Idaho Falls, Idaho. He also is
president of Idaho Allied Dailies, an association of 15 newspapers in
Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Utah.
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To read about it in our own newspapers and industry periodicals, circulation is in freefall, margins are plummeting, newsrooms are being eviscerated and it's only a matter of time before the daily newspaper is a bittersweet memory.

Of course, the numbers for metropolitan newspapers tell a discouraging story. In some cases, circulation is falling by high single digits per year. I'm no Pollyanna. This performance demands immediate and revolutionary change -- change that the metropolitan papers have sneered at for a decade. They have been among the most stubborn resisters of any change in "that's the way we've always done it."

But telling the "metro" story leaves out a major piece of what's happening. While large papers account for a majority of the total circulation in the U.S., they account for a fraction of the newspaper titles serving American readers. Said another way, 99% of American newspapers have circulations under 250,000, and 86% have circulations less than 50,000.

Newspaper circulation follows the old 80/20 rule, on steroids. The top 10 newspapers in the country account for 20% of the total circulation. So, in a way, it's understandable why they get all the attention.

But ignoring the other 1,420 daily newspapers means ignoring successful new models for serious journalism that readers are willing to pay for. Wall Street focuses on large, publicly held companies that operate in mostly metropolitan markets, so business writers tend to verify what the stock analysts say. With a little digging, however, a trade journal reporter would learn American journalism is changing from the bottom up.For example, Inland Press Association conducts a monthly revenue and margin survey of mostly smaller newspapers that tells a pretty upbeat story:

-- Profit margins among these newspapers average above 20%, and many report margins of more than 30%.

-- Through October, most are reporting solid revenue increases across all segments, so margins aren't being produced purely through expense cuts.

-- Many of these same newspapers are reporting consecutive years of circulation growth.

Beyond the metrics, it's easy to find small daily newspapers doing innovative, cutting-edge work in print and online. We're finding new revenue sources and new ways to attract readers, and we're experimenting with different business models with our long-term future in mind. Because many of us are owned by smaller companies, we are often more agile and able to try (and, when necessary, quickly discard) new things. And perhaps because we're staffed by younger folks, we tend not to be overly invested in defending traditions.

Attend a gathering of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Association and you'll hear an exchange of ideas rivaling -- dare I say, exceeding -- those I hear at Nexpo.

Upbeat publishers, editors, and ad directors talking about ways to combat Craigslist and Monster are inspirational. They expect to develop paid online models and to reach young readers. But our industry's trade journals obsess over the metros' devotion to the kind of national and world news readers no longer get from newspapers.

The Bakersfield Californian, with a circulation of about 75,000, is one of America's most innovative newspapers. Perhaps it's no coincidence that it's relatively small, serves a comparatively isolated market, and is locally owned. When we redesigned the Post Register more than a year ago, we used the Californian as one of our models and challenged ourselves to go farther still.

The next time you read a grim update of the newspaper industry's inexorable slide into oblivion, check to see if the reporter talked to anyone in red America. Then, perhaps give Inland Press a call to see what its latest report shows.

Odds are that'll tell a whole different story.

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The article above is copyrighted material, the use of which may not have specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided by Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this blog for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

# posted by newshare @ 10:34 AM

Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and an early dot-com
millionaire, explains how he thinks local TV, radio and newspaper sales
forces should retool so that they are selling advertising across all
platforms -- even those they don't own.

It all sounds a bit like a local advertising agency.

Here's the link:
http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/11/27/the-google-brilliance-applied-to-newspapers-and-local-media/

Originally cited by Jack Shafer at Slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2154678/

# posted by newshare @ 9:58 AM

ORIGINAL URL:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003467099
Published: December 02, 2006 11:55 AM ET

'Newsday' Staffers Writing Protest Letter To Trib Chairman Dennis
FitzSimons

By Joe Strupp
Editor & Publisher Magazine

NEW YORK -- Several dozen Newsday employees are planning to send a protest
letter to Tribune Company Chairman Dennis FitzSimons that blasts the
corporate parent for what they see as "throttling Newsday's individuality"
through bureau staff cuts, and seeking instead to "inflate the corporate
profit margin."

A draft of the letter, a copy of which was obtained by E&P, states in
part, "In its pursuit of maximum profits, Tribune has cut Newsday's news
staff by 33 percent and slashed our Washington bureau. Amid wars and
crises abroad, it has ordered our foreign bureaus closed. It has halved
our staffs covering national news, and health and science. It has forced
us to curtail coverage even of New York City and Long Island and has made
other cuts that fail our readers."

The letter, which is still being edited by staffers, later notes, "Our
reduced staff is spread too thin; we're missing stories we should have
gotten. Too often, when we see news important to our readers, we are told
there is no space for it." (The entire text of the draft letter is
included below.)

Dozens of Newsday employees met Thursday at the paper to discuss how best
to protest what they see as "Newsday's dismal decline" and deterioration
at the hands of staff and budget cuts in recent years. The letter,
expected to be sent in the coming weeks, was one of the major subjects of
the meeting.

James Rupert, who is currently reporting from Islamabad for the daily,
drafted the initial version of the letter to FitzSimons, which a group of
Newsday staffers is continuing to edit and plans to send to the
Chicago-based ownership once it is passed among newsroom workers for
signatures.

"We're polishing it," Rupert said by phone from the Pakistan city where he
is reporting. "We are discussing the letter. We had a meeting to polish
this in a way that we are sure it gets newsroom consensus."

The letter would be the latest attack on Tribune, which has come under
scrutiny for recent battles over staff cuts at the Los Angeles Times and
efforts to sell all or part of its many media holdings. Newsday workers
appear to be miffed that cutbacks in recent years, which have included a
2004 buyout, have hurt the paper's credibility and journalistic efforts.

"We find the recent evolution unacceptable," Rupert said. "We think it
needs to changed."

Rupert said as many as 55 staffers attended the informal Thursday
gathering, calling it "a good first meeting for something like this" and
"a significant chunk" of the paper's personnel. The final letter is
expected to be sent out before the end of the year, Rupert said. "It will
be a little different to express everyone's concerns."

The veteran reporter, who worked at The Washington Post before joining
Newsday in 2000, said many of the staffers' concerns are prompted by what
they hear from readers. "People on Long Island have noticed a change in
Newsday," he said. "The paper is thinner and duller. They need to hear
from the journalists that we share that regret."
***

DRAFT LETTER FROM NEWSDAY'S NEWSROOM TO TRIBUNE CO. ===

Dear Mr. FitzSimons:

In the newsroom and bureaus of Newsday, we watch with growing dismay the
Tribune Company's stewardship of our newspaper. In its six years of
ownership, Tribune has significantly damaged Newsday as an instrument of
public information and accountability in Long Island and New York City.

In its pursuit of maximum profits, Tribune has cut Newsday's news staff by
33 percent and slashed our Washington bureau. Amid wars and crises abroad,
it has ordered our foreign bureaus closed. It has halved our staffs
covering national news, and health and science. It has forced us to
curtail coverage even of New York City and Long Island and has made other
cuts that fail our readers.

Our reduced staff is spread too thin; we're missing stories we should have
gotten. Too often, when we see news important to our readers, we are told
there is no space for it.

Tribune is throttling Newsday's individuality by forcing us to replace
much of our own journalism with wire copy, by dictating the layout of our
website and insisting that we promote our local news coverage at the
expense of all else. Newsday doesn't need Tribune to tell us to cover Long
Island - local news has always been this paper's core. But we deplore the
parochial idea that readers are interested only in what happens within
their zip codes. New Yorkers understand all too well that events in
Hamburg, Beijing or Beirut affect us at home.

When permitted, we still do plenty of work that we're proud of - as local
as uncovering the waste of public funds in Long Island firehouses, and as
global as reporting from Cuba, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Washington on
innocent men imprisoned at Guantanamo.

We know that rising competition from Internet firms makes this a tough
time for newspapers. And we know that Newsday worsened its situation with
the shameful, illegal and costly inflation of our circulation figures.

But we also know that Tribune's constant cutting of resources to inflate
the corporate profit margin and shore up the stock price is a failure.

Newsday is a profitable business, even more than most newspapers. Our
paper has grown handsomely since Alicia Patterson founded it in a garage
66 years ago. But we didn't do that by cutting corners to guarantee a
profit every 90 days. We did it by building a newspaper so complete that
Long Islanders didn't need another one. Newsday invested in the reporters,
editors and many others needed to explain complex issues, investigate
corruption and dig out whatever news affects our readers. That same
investment in creative, original journalism is what will serve our readers
and make our company thrive in the Internet era.

If Tribune wants to successfully own large newspapers, it must show more
respect for their individualities and communities. It must reduce its
demand for short-term profit and commit to building, rather than cutting,
newspapers for the future. And it should do so quickly or sell Newsday to
an owner who will.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Strupp (jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is a senior editor at E&P.

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The article above is copyrighted material, the use of which may not have specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided by Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this blog for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

# posted by newshare @ 9:37 AM

The New England News Forum initiative at UMass Amherst is considering working
with the non-profit California startup, Newstrust, to operate Newstrust New
England.

A story below from The Guardian, U.K., refers. Both Jemima Kiss, the author,
and Fabrice Florin, Newstrust developer, attended MGP2006.

Also see: http://test.newenglandnews.org/?q=newstrust

http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1960653,00.html

'Next generation' news site to launch

By Jemima Kiss
Thursday November 30, 2006
MediaGuardian.co.uk

A non-profit news project in the US is aiming to combine the appetite for fast,
aggregated news tools with a campaign to promote quality journalism.

Newstrust is being hailed by its producers as the next generation of social
news websites and is hoping to promote the credible journalism and media
literacy among its audience.

Launching in full this week after a seven-month trial, users sign up and
recommend news stories by linking, rating and tagging articles on any news
website. The executive director, Fabrice Florin, said the site differs from
existing aggregators like Digg and Del.icio.us because it measures not just the
popularity of the story, but asks readers to consider how balanced it is, the
diversity of sources it refers to and whether it provides enough context.

"We aim to go beyond popular appeal to the next level of measuring and tracking
the quality of a piece," said Mr Florin, a former journalist and digital media
entrepreneur who has worked at Apple and Macromedia.

He said that by building up an archive of ratings and recommendations over
time, Newstrust will provide an increasingly comprehensive database of
credibility for individual publications and even individual journalists. Blogs
are rated and assessed alongside mainstream news organisations. Mr Florin said
that comment pieces are just as relevant as long as they present their argument
logically and factually, and acknowledge the counter argument effectively.

"We want to encourage people to use critical thinking and encourage media
literacy. All of us tend to make snap judgments based on our pre-existing
opinions - the first thing we look at in a piece is whether it is a view we
agree with." He said people will become more discerning about the news that
they link to, and that current services evaluate news based on the "mob vote".

Newstrust has around 1,600 members rating news stories so far, all of whom are
encouraged to sign up using their real names and detail their background,
politics and experience on a public profile page. Other news aggregation
services, most notably Google News, rely solely on computer-driven algorithms
to compile and rate news stories. One Google News executive, Mike Dickson, is
on the Newstrust board, and Mr Florin said that Google is interested in working
with Newstrust to improve its own news service.

Newstrust is working with the University of Massachusetts, the University of
California at Irvine and at Stanford University to promote the site and partner
on some relevant research.The site is focused on English-language news but
hopes to expand. Mr Florin said Newstrust also wants to partner with news
organisations to include its ratings system next to stories.

"We're not on a vendetta against mainstream media. Still the bulk of the best
journalism comes from them," he said.

· To contact the MediaGuardian newsdesk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or
phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian
switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

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The article above is copyrighted material, the use of which may not have
specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available
in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, democracy, First
Amendment, technology, journalism, community and justice issues, etc. We
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' as provided by Section 107 of U.S.
Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1, Section 107, the
material above is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this blog
for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner.

# posted by newshare @ 1:50 PM