Liberal/Conservative... no matter what your leaning, the newspaper is the opposite.

While the newspaper industry struggles to figure out the business model of the future, some reader arguments never really change.

I've not been in the business long enough to have lost my hope and belief in a better tomorrow, that people are inherently good and that if its good versus evil, good will always win. My optimism stays with me, even though many people I know have lost their positive outlook on life long, long ago.

One thing I am finding you can count on, no matter what you write, people will accuse the paper of taking a stance. The coverage is consistently liberal AND conservative depending on the what are the views of the person you are talking to.

Here I give an example. A San Jose Mercury News columnist Mike Cassidy opened the door to incredible waves of criticism when he suggested the readers and the newspaper have a conversation about the state of the paper's financial affairs. Every newspaper has endured severe cuts that meant certain sections and features would disappear forever.

In journalism school, they still teach you that there should be something for everyone inside so that each person may have a reason to pick up the newspaper. Each time the newspaper chooses to eliminate one thing, does it run the risk of eliminating a reader as well?

Even if that is a risk, Cassidy followed up his column with some of the reactions of readers. In this column he quotes a reader who says they pray the newspaper folds. That really made me upset.

When I was a teenager, I got a job working as a telemarketer for a company that sold accidental death insurance policies to people who had JCPenny cards. I had some people who were actually grateful to have been offered an affordable policy, others who only wanted to listen to my voice and still others who told me I was the scum of the Earth. Now, imagine I was standing right in front of you, would you still say that?

I think people have these harsh thoughts all day long, but common courtesy prevents us from saying things we know will accomplish nothing more than inflicting pain. This particular caller could just stop reading, rather than wish the entire newspaper staff were out of a job.

Why would anyone ever think that was OK? It's much the same as those who will consistently say the newspaper is against them. Maybe that's why the caller was so mad. Stinking liberal rag...

Ugh, can you believe this guy

One thing that old-school journalists seem to have stuck in their heads is this idea that the news is a lofty, high-minded organization that tells readers what they should think about. Take this fuddy-duddy, and 35-year veteran of the business:
His name is Mark Whicker. He's a sports columnist for the Orange County Register. And he doesn't get why so many people were offended by his most recent attempt at journalism. And he doesn't actually care.

Whicker has been getting flack ever since the OCR published a column in which he informs a woman kidnapped, raped and held prisoner for 18 years of all the unimportant sports-related happenings she missed out on while she was squirreled away in the backyard of a sex offender.

Then Whicker writes an unapologetic apology in which he expresses his failure to understand what was so offensive about making light of the woman's horrific experience as a segue into a column about nothing.

He apologizes not for the content of the column, but for its disconnecting effect with long-time readers of the OCR. Clearly this expresses the fact that he does not get why his column was the most distasteful thing anybody's read in a long time.

Whicker goes on to tell Poynter Institute reporter Mallory Jean Tenore that the only reason so many people were disgusted was because of the Internet. Well, welcome to the world we write in Mr. Whicker. Lots of people have access to your disappointing work and they will tell everyone they know if its bad enough. It's the way of the modern world.

What I don't understand about Whicker's responses is how obvious it is that he still doesn't get it. What's so wrong with using a real person's personal tragedy as a jumping off point for a column about the last 18 years in sports?

Looking from an ethical standpoint, let's begin with the simplest question: How many are harmed and how many are helped? The content potentially harmed the woman and her family while the content helped Whicker gain notoriety. Should journalists publish something for personal gain? Uh, no.

What benefit was there in crafting his column around this woman's awful experience? You know, I'm having a hard time with this one.

Those two questions right there should have stopped this man from writing the column in the first place. But he's so out of touch he can't even see what the problem is. Young journalists all over the U.S. are looking at this guy to be fired or voluntarily resign, his words were so offensive and his "regret" so insincere.

Move over buddy, it's time to make room for someone who remembers their ethics classes. I say Mr. Whicker should revisit the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics. I think minimizing harm and being accountable are especially worth review.

Long form journalism going down the tube

Whatever happened to the Sunday story? It took up two pages of text, ran with tons of art and evoked emotion in its readers. Readers could get up with a lazy cup of coffee and have something to talk and think about for the rest of the day.

This article online at American Journalism Review laments the end of long-form stories in an eloquent, if not elongated way. Of course, what would you expect from a story of the demise of magazine journalism printed in the newspaper?

One thing I have had to get used to working at the H&N is this idea of multiple entry points. It's not a new concept to me, but I always considered subheads, breakout boxes and compelling cutlines to be entry points. I also thought of it in a digital sense, where links within the story can lead readers to more information. It has been hard adjusting to writing the same story in four pieces. And with a small news hole day after day, it seems like its wasting space to put in so many different headlines.

But that's the way it's done here. It almost seems to me that online might be the new place for long-form journalism. I am tempted to write two stories, one that is cohesive that could appear online, the other that is pieced out for the print edition. I'm not trying to create more work for myself, but when stories appear online, sometimes they don't all get there. Then our online readers are less informed, ask questions that the stories answered, and think the newspaper has failed in some way.

I plan to mull it over some more before attempting to submit two versions of my stories. I think online stories that jump give readers a break, give sales reps a space to put ads and give editors a gauge of how much of longer stories are being consumed. Do people ever get to the last page? I know when a story is written well enough, I sure do.

Where have you been?

While I don't think I ever had any regular readers, it occurs to me that continuing to keep this blog is the only way I'll ever get any. Should someone stumble on this industry blog, they aren't likely to stay long if the last post is a year old. And it is.

Today I'll simply update what has happened in the past year in my journalism career and then I'll make a wholehearted attempt to be a regular blogger on the topic. Some may argue that the market has been cornered, but I think it will help keep me fresh in ideas.

After graduating college and joining the reporting team at The Register Guard as an intern with the Snowden program through the University of Oregon, I was fortunate enough to land a position with a small regional newspaper, Herald and News, located in sunny Klamath Falls.

At the H&N, I write about city government and agriculture primarily. I have carved myself a niche within environmental issues reporting and housing, two topic areas that both lacked a dedicated reporter and are vitally important to knowing what exactly is going on in this area. I feel that environmental issues and agriculture in the region go hand-in-hand, and are a natural fit. Housing interests me as I am one of those who would like to become a first-time homebuyer with all the advantages that possibly could bring.

Also, housing often drives a community's economy, and here is no different. Having experienced a short-lived boom in housing, there are many half-built subdivisions that lost steam and left behind a eerie grouping of roads and power lines leading to perhaps a single house, or two. Their neighbors have addresses, just no homes or mailboxes.

At the H&N I've been given tons of freedom to pursue the stories I want to do, am completely trusted to write about what's important in the city's government decisions and dealings and am encouraged to shoot videos whenever I wish, or take my own photographs. That last part is necessary because the newspaper employs just one photographer, and he works just two days out of the five in my work week.



I'm pleased here, although the job market afterward looks mighty tough. I'm glad to not be looking right now. Furloughs, an industry standard, have reduced my salary by more than $1,000, and for a starting reporter, that hurts. A lot. But I am gaining experience and hopefully will be granted the entertainment blog I proposed several months ago. I can't help but make connections in the community when I am out because I anticipate getting it someday.

I'll get back to the discussion of the journalism industry in the next post, and I won't wait an entire year to make it.