Here are the links I showed you Tuesday, about the magazine that’s successful with no ads and the relative value of Vox and Buzzfeed.
UVA discussion
Hey guys, I came across a link that gave a little more detail about the rape at UVA that we discussed on Thursday.
Links and slides for personal news class
Here are some slides and links relating to today’s class:
Hannibal Buress video that started the recent Cosby focus.
David Carr column on Cosby’s media enablers.
Washington Post story on the Cosby accusers.
New York Times corrected story on Kim Kardashian.
The Daily Currant the Times lifted the quotes from.
My slides:
Questions about your news use
Please fill out the questionnaire below by Sunday, Nov. 23.
The Catcher in the Rye
Follow this link:
Washington Post Digital Strategy
Since the merger of The Washington Post and The Washington Times-Herald on March 17, 1954 that established The Washington Post’s dominance in Washington metro area, The Washington Post has been an iconic news company in America. While it is well-known for its Pulitzer Prize for its work with the Pentagon Papers and the iconic Katharine Graham who was CEO in 1972, The Washington Post has undergone huge digital innovation in the last decade.
The first big change The Washington Post underwent was in January of 2010 with the merging of its two companies. Up until this time The Washington Post (the print newspaper) and The Washington Post Digital (washingtonpost.com) were two completely independent entities in two completely separate locations. The Washington Post was located (as it still is) in Washington D.C., while The Washington Post Digital was located in Arlington Virginia. This merger was pushed heavily by Katharine Weymouth, the publisher of The Washington Post because of the large rivalry between two opposing organizations within the same company. While Weymoth is quoted saying, “our customers—our readers, users, and advertisers—have always seen us as one organization,” the run of the mill employees saw the other company as competition for the important stories.
The merger was important not only to end this sense of rivalry and create on company but also to end the frequent miscommunications caused by being in two different locations. By January 1, 2010, The Washington Post had renovated the newsroom of its Washington DC location to join together both the digital and the print companies. When asked about the progress of the merger, Weymouth responded, “The motivation behind the integration is to become a more nimble company focused on disseminating news and information on multiple platforms.” This greater communication created an opportunity for The Washington Post to become more involved in the digital advancements.
Later in 2010, The Post began experimenting with new software platform that could handle articles, video, mobile apps, and analytics while allowing designer and producers to quickly create and edit templates. They brought together a group of engineers (some handpicked from within the paper, some brought in for the project) and asked them embed themselves into the newsroom so they could not only familiarize the problems of the current software management system, but also understand what the reporters and producers needed.
Three years later, in the spring of 2013, Post engineers were able to create a new management system called Pagebuilder, which allows the easy creation of page templates. Editors at the Post began quickly switching to this new system because of its simplicity and aesthetic. In one year makeovers were given to the recipes in the Style section, Post TV, and the paper’s video initiative. The new system was also now used to create new articles. Pagebuilder became so successful that The Post began testing the program with two college newspapers The Diamondback, at the University of Maryland, and The Daily Spectator, at Columbia University.
While The Washington Post was able to generate some digital enhancements during this time, it was not able to enhance as much as it wanted to because of its lack of revenue. The Washington Post was more focused on its print news than digital initiative. The print paper money off of ads, and since they were under a tight budget they were unable to put forth the effort they wanted too. After declines in revenue, buy outs, and huge job cuts, Don Graham decided to ended his family 80 year ownership of The Washington Post in 2013 and sold it to Jeff Bezos, owner and creator of Amazon. Graham was excited to sell the Post the Bezos because he believed he could take the paper forward digitally in a way he was unable to.
Bezos wanted to establish The Washington Post as a national paper. Because The Washington Post was mainly focused on print journalism and only sold print papers in the Washington D.C. metro area it was mostly a local paper. To establish as a national paper Bezos understood that he would have to change digital strategy. The first step Bezos made was to hire hundreds of new employees— journalists, editors, bloggers, technicians, etc. He wanted to be able to have a news coverage 24/7 because in the digital age news goes beyond just a nine to five workday.
Bezos’ next step was to join in partnership with six local papers across the United States offering print subscribers to The Dallas Morning News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, and The Blade of Toledo, OH access to The Washington Post’s online exclusive material. It bundles local and national news back together. This allows the Post to get national reach with customers that normally would not look at their website.
The biggest step in digital strategy of The Washington Post is the new mobile initiative, which began early 2014. Designers, producers, and editors are looking more closely at how the news is looked at on different devices and fine tuning each mobile site to the users needs. One of the biggest slogans for the team is “mobile first.” They are working from the smallest screen up. It is a very fast paced project looking at the gifts each operating system offers to the news media and creating prototypes to best harness the uniqueness and create the best user interface as well as the best and easiest tools for editorial teams to quickly create articles, news memos, and blogs . The overall goal is to create platform specific adaptive journalism.
The most recent digital advancement released in October is the Android Wear app, which works with the new smart watches. This app can read you the news from all section of The Washington Post by playing it through your phone. The app also gives alerts for any breaking news.
NEW
http://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/washington_post_local_papers_partnership.php?page=all
OLDER
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/04/washington-post-watergate
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/the_washington_post_cos_self-d.php?page=all
ON PRINT WEB MERGER
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091704500.html
https://gigaom.com/2009/09/17/419-washington-post-online-print-operations-will-merge-jan-1-2010/
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/34569/one-mission-two-newsrooms
A Profile of The New York Times
The Beginning of The New York Times
The New York Times (hereafter referred to as NYT) was founded on September 18, 1851 by a journalist named Henry Jarvis Raymond. Raymond originally founded the paper under the name of New-York Daily Times. The name was shortened to The New-York Times in 1857, and the hyphen was dropped in the 1890s. Raymond was a member of the Whig Party and a chairman of the Republican Party National Committee. As an active political commentator and citizen, Raymond wanted a medium through which he could express his political opinions. The first edition of the paper sold for only one penny, and it was released as a way to explain to the readers what future editions of the paper would entail.
One excerpt from this first published paper reads:
“We shall be “Conservative”, in all cases where we think Conservatism essential to the public good;–and we shall be Radical in everything which may seem to us to require radical treatment and radical reform. We do not believe that “everything” in Society is either exactly right or exactly wrong;–what is good we desire to preserve and improve;–what is evil, to exterminate, or reform.”
This, to me, is a strategic definition of the NYT because it appeals to the conservative audiences as well as the radical, liberal audiences. As a new paper in a polarized 19th century American nation, I believe that the key element to success in circulation, popularity and sales is appeal to a broad range of audiences. By using the statement quoted above, I think NYT editors and owners were attempting to remain neutral in politics before they officially chose a side. Once a side is chosen, if ever a side is chosen, the support of the other party is lost. As a new newspaper, this would be a poor loss of support in the early stages of a growing business.
The NYT originally published on a Monday-Saturday schedule. On April 21, 1861 the paper published its first Sunday paper. This Sunday paper covered the Civil War, and many of the following Sunday papers thereafter would cover the Civil War until its completion. Twenty of the paper’s editorials were published on the Mortara Affair, which was the controversy over Edgardo Levi Mortara, who was removed from his parents by authorities because his parents were not Catholic and it was illegal for non-Catholic parents to raise Catholic children. This was the first controversial editorial that the NYT posted. The Civil War was a significant component of interest in America during its occurrence, so the NYT’s choice to ad Sunday editorials that would detail the war and its progress is a strategic attempt at acquiring new readers. In addition to the Civil War coverage, the NYT’s broader news range covering the Mortara affair gives the paper an advancement beyond other newspapers who were only publishing Civil War ads and reports.
Early Signs of Controversy
The NYT quickly experienced its fair share of adversity. During the height of wartime in America, military conscription for the Northern Union Army began as a means to prepare armies for the Civil War. These drafts began on July 13, 1863, and they gave rise to the New York Draft Riots. The main, administrative office of the NYT was violently attacked by rioters against the draft. In New York City across from City Hall existed Newspaper Row, and this is where the office of the NYT was located. Owner and editor at the time of the NYT Henry Raymond used Gatling guns to break up the riots. Eventually, the Brooklyn City Police aided Manhattan authorities in breaking up the riots.
The New York Times Building
The first location of the newspaper headquarters was at 113 Nassau Street in NYC. It moved into a new headquarter location located at 41 Park Row in NYC. This move into the Park Row district made history for NYT because it was the first time a newspaper cooperation moved into a building that was built specifically for the use by the paper’s executives. The paper’s headquarters then moved to 1475 Broadway in NYC in 1904. The well-known tradition of dropping the New Year’s Eve ball takes place at the NYT headquarters, known as One Times Square. In fact, when the paper first moved to Broadway, the location was known as Longacre Square. It was later renamed Times Square in honor of the highly successful paper. Today, the paper operates from The New York Times Building, known locally as Times Tower, which is located in Manhattan. it was designed by Renzo Piano. The NYT also owns a state-of-the-art printing factory in Queens.
Growing Success and the Search for Identifying a Target Audience
While the paper found moderate success in its beginning years, its true influence and attention grew significantly during 1870-1871 when publications on William Magear (“Boss”) Tweed hit the newsstands. Tweed was the leader of the Democratic Party, which in the 1870s was popularly known as “Tammany Hall”. These publications on William Tweed and his corruption of big business operation led to the demise of what could easily be considered his empire. Tweed dominated New York’s City Hall before the NYT published facts about the corruption taking place right under New York’s watch. Much unlike the first publication of the paper’s stated intentions, the NYT adapted a Republican-favored support position. In the 1880s, though, the NYT transitioned from this republican support towards a politically independent and analytical outlook, which is more true to the original ideals defined by the first published paper. Venturing from republican support to partisan neutrality was not the final stop in the 1880s for the paper. In 1884, the NYT publically supported a democrat candidate for the presidential election—Grover Cleveland.
I think these changing political alliances express the youth of the NYT as a company. It takes time to identify a stance on majorly controversial issues like politics, so I believe it is only natural that the NYT swayed from neutrality to republicanism to democratic views. Nowadays, the NYT is more in favor of democratic views than republican views. This is addressed further along in this comprehensive profile of the NYT.
This decision to support a democratic candidate proved to be detrimental—temporarily—for the paper’s success. The NYT lost conservative, upper-class readers for some time during the presidential election. Thereafter, though, the NYT established itself concretely as providing accurate, fair reporting. In 1896, a new owner of the paper emerged, and his name was Adolph Ochs. With the appointment of a new owner and a now-definite position of bipartisan, equal reporting, the paper quickly gained back its lost conservative readers as well as thousands of other readers. Adolph Ochs is credited with coining the slogan that is still to this day found on the paper’s upper right hand corner of the front page. This slogan says “All the News That’s Fit to Print.”
This slogan is widely thought of as an attack in the media against yellow journalism of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Hearst’s New York Journal. Although a satirical poking-of-fun at the other journalists and newspapers who were printing false news and opinions, I think this slogan is an effective means of advertising the validity and transparency of the NYT.
Growing technological advances supplemented the already-strong news reporting machine. In 1904, the NYT received the first on-the-spot wireless telegraph transmission, and this report came from a naval battle. The transmission reported the destruction of the Imperial Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet during the Battle of Port Arthur. This was one large component of what is known as one of the most historical and significant battles during the Russo-Japanese War. This transmission signal, though only one small signal, provided the NYT with international attention. National attention was growing quickly, too. Philadelphians first read the NYT in 1910 after planes delivered the papers to Philadelphia. Londoners first were able to read the paper in 1919, which was the first year that the papers were flown trans-Atlantic. In 1920, the papers were delivered early in the mornings around 4am by plane into Chicago so that Republican convention delegates could keep up with the political events during the convention season.
Expansion
After nearly a century of success, the NYT had established itself as being an even-handed, fair reporter of the truth within politics, opinions, and worldly news. In order to continue to attract audiences, the NYT extended its content and purpose. In 1942, the crossword section first appeared in the paper. This was an attempt by Ochs to keep the paper friendly, attractive and inviting to its readers. The news and politics offered a heavy realization of the world around the readers, so the crosswords were an attempt to lighten the mood. A fashion section of the paper began publication in 1946. I think this, in addition to the crosswords addition, was a successful move by NYT because it attracts women and teenagers to the papers. Although papers were distributed internationally in 1919, the first official international NYT edition was published in 1946, and it lasted until 1967. The NYT joined alongside New York Herald Tribune and The Washington Post to create the International Herald Tribune. This international conglomeration between the three newspaper companies offered comprehensive, all-in-one news to the world, and it also eliminated potential conflict in sales that would arise with having three international newspapers instead of one. More expansion of the paper’s reach came along win the NYT bought WQXR, a classical radio station, in 1946. This was an FM broadcasting station, but NYT also owned the AM-broadcasted WQEW. By owning these radio stations, the NYT was able to reach a significant amount of people that they couldn’t reach from print alone. In addition to a broader audience, these radio stations gave the NYT a financial edge because they were able to lease out their frequencies to other users such as ABC Radio, who used the NYT radio stations to broadcast their Radio Disney program.
The NYT had a successful increase in sales, population and attention. It is currently the third most circulated newspaper in the United States behind USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. Since the 1980s, the paper has circulated more than one million copies per day, but in 2009, circulation dropped to 928,000 (a 7.3 percent decrease). In December of 2010, 906,100 copies of the paper were reported as being circulated on weekdays. On Sundays, 1,356,800 copies were circulated. It sells for $2.50 every day except for Sundays, when it sells for $5.00. I think that the decrease in circulation since the 1980s is due to an increase in different journalists and newspapers that offer news in new and unique ways. I also think that aggregated news sites like Buzzfeed and Huffington Post which profit from taking previously written articles and redistributing them have caused less attention to be placed upon traditional papers like the NYT.
Even more attempts to keep reader numbers up came around in the 2000s. In October of 2009, the paper added a Bay Area section for readers in California, and in November of 2009, Chicago special editions were added. These unique, geographically-centered editions within the NYT contained information on local news, policy and sports. Local advertisements also existed.
In order to keep up with industry standards, the NYT decided to change their paper size 12 inches wide instead of 13.5 inches. This change became official in print on August 6, 2007. Following additional trends in print media, the NYT has reduced their worker numbers and they’ve cut expenses used to print the paper. This is due to growing online news outlets and social media coverage of the news.
New York Times Company v. Sullivan
In 1964, a pivotal case in mass media became the talk of the country. The NYT advertised negative statements against the Alabama police force under the management of L.B. Sullivan. In this case, the NYT went on trial against Sullivan, and the United States Supreme Court established an “actual malice” standard for any and all press reports regarding those in public office. This ruling said that public figures needed to prove that libel or defamation against the public figure was an act of malice and disregard for the truth. Because this was hard to prove, these cases rarely succeeded. This case allowed journalists and newspapers to freely report the civil rights campaigns of the South. Before the lawsuit took place, though, the NYT did retract their ad due to the demands of Alabama Governor John Patterson.
The retraction of their commentary against Sullivan speaks upon the leadership and character within the staff at the NYT. I think that their initial attempts to right what was viewed as wrong expressed strong public relation skills by the company. By sticking to their lawsuit and their belief in the commitment of providing valid and unbiased news, the NYT has proven itself to be a loyal and dedicated newspaper. I think the end results of the NYT v. Sullivan lawsuit are an incredible representation of the power, loyalty, and passion for accurate news-writing of the New York Times Company.
The Pentagon Papers
Daniel Ellsberg, a former official from the Department of State, and Anthony Russo gave the NYT documents that would follow the paper and the government through the years to come. These documents are known as the Pentagon Papers, and they were passed along to Neil Sheehan of the NYT in 1971. The Pentagon Papers contain secretive information regarding US involvement in the Vietnam War from 1945 to 1967. The Pentagon Papers were so controversial during publication because they revealed expansion efforts taken by the US government during the time when President Lyndon Johnson promised the American people neutrality in the war. Americans were furious, they lost trust in their government, and this all gave the Nixon administration a difficult time in trying to deal with the growing war. Nixon administration filed a lawsuit to get the NYT to cease publication. This lawsuit became known as New York Times Co. v. United States, and on June 30, 1971, the court ruled that the injunctions from Nixon administration were unconstitutional because they didn’t meet the burden of proof. Americans thought that this was a loose win for the First Amendment. They felt that the absolute right to complete freedom of speech, especially in times of national security, was not completed recognized by the government. Future publishers felt like they had little protection when it came to publishing truths regarding the government, military, and politicians.
Woman in the Work Force
Traditionally, the NYT was an all-male staff of writers and editors. The first woman to be hired by the NYT was Jane Grant. She was a reporter for the newspaper, but she was strictly guided to not express that she—a woman—was writing for the NYT. Her career with the NYT ended within the arrival of World War I because Grant decided to leave the paper to pursue a career in the arts with the YMCA. The NYT also hired Kathleen McLaughlin after her successful ten years spent at the Chicago Tribune. During a time when women were not allowed to interview world leaders according to the National Press Club and when there was a such thing as the “woman’s point of view,” the NYT remained dedicated to keeping woman within the working realm of the paper.
Whether woman or man, though, it made no difference for the downfall that came along in February of 2013. The NYT stopped offering tenured, lifelong positions to writers and workers of the paper due to a decline in prominence of print journalism.
Growing demands for social media and online news delivery lessen the demands for print journalism, and this of course lessens the need for tenured reporters and editors. I don’t personally think that print journalism will ever completely die out. There is an element of substance and tradition within printed newspapers, and I don’t think this will ever go extinct. Much like classic, glass bottle coke cans are purchased in stores for fun, so will newspapers be bought on the newsstands.
Ownership
The NYT has been owned and run by the Ochs-Sulzberger family since 1896, and its highest amounts of success were found during this ownership. Previously, the NYT was not as successful as it became when Adolph Ochs purchased the company and renamed it to the New York Times Company. Through the control and ownership of Class B (open voting rights for shareholders) voting shares, the family was able to retain and manage control over the paper. The ownership by the Ochs-Sulzberger family was so powerful that editor Turner Catledge went to great lengths to lessen the influence of the owners. Catledge was editor of the paper from 1952 to 1968, and often the owner, Arthur Sulzberger, would write suggestions for the paper to the editor. In order to avoid pressure to comply to these wishes, Catledge would remove the name from the letters from the owner before passing them along to his workers. This way, the decision to follow or ignore the suggestions from the owner would not be pressured by ownership signatures.
Supporters
A report from the NYT was released on January 19, 2009 with information regarding a $250 million dollar loan from Carlos Slim, a Mexican telecommunications magnate, given to the NYT in order to help its success. Slim has 8.1 percent of Class A shares, and he is an advocate for the success and advancement of the paper. Stockholders are the main power behind the strength of companies, and the NYT seems to be doing well in the stock market.
Organization
The newspaper is divided into three distinct sections. The first of the three is the news. It includes national, international, business, science, health, technology. Sports, education, weather, obituaries, and other subsections. The second of the three main sections is the opinion, and this includes editorials and letters to the editor. The third section of the paper is the features section. This section includes arts, movies, theatre, travel, dining and wine, home and garden, fashion and style, crossword, The New York Times Book Review, and The New York Times Magazine. The Sunday Review is also included in the features section. In order to combat expenses and changing demands, the NYT announced in September of 2008 that certain sections on certain days of the paper would be combined. This began on October 6, 2008. The new method allows for four sections to be printed instead of more than four. The NYT clearly stated that the number of their staff and writers would not be affected by the change in the organization of the paper.
Style
The NYT paper is a six-column paper, (a change from the eight-column paper that was used until 2007) contains 8.7 point Imperial text, uses Cheltenham typeface or headlines, and uses honorifics when referring to people. The six-column size saves the paper $12 million per year, and it forces editors and journalists to be more concise and hard-hitting with their writing. Editor Bill Keller and President Scott Heekin-Caned supported and advocated for the switch to six-column paper. Until 2009, it was tradition for the paper to include no advertisements on the first page. But, on January 6, 2009, the NYT placed a CBS ad across the entire width of the first page of the NYT.
Awards
The NYT has one 114 Pulitzer Prizes for journalism since its inception. It also has four Peabody Awards to its name. One of these four Peabody Awards was one by Jack Gould in 1956. A second of these Peabody Awards was awarded to the NYT for its “A Short History of the Highrise” in 2013. This is a part of a four-series documentary collection of life in highrise buildings.
Online Advancement
In the growing technological world, it is understandable that newspapers like the NYT needed to switch to online journalism due to its rapid exposure to readers. Since 1996, the NYT has been online for this reason. In March of 2005, 555 million page views were attributed to the online website nytimes.com. The website is 59th in the ranks of attracting unique visitors, and it is the most popular newspapers site in the world. In May of 2009, 22 of the 50 most popular news blogs online were produced by the NYT.
Online subscription to the paper began in 2005 through a program called TimesSelect. The program ended two years later because it was financially more desirable to use ads on free sites than paying for subscriptions to ad-free, paid sites. Also, the NYT ran into the problem of paid subscribers sharing the written articles online so that others who haven’t subscribed can read them. All news from 1987 until present day is available online, and all news from 1851 to 1922 is in the public domain. Thomas Friedman, a columnist for the NYT, says that the TimesSelect program “pains him enormously because it’s cut him off from a lot, a lot of people, especially because he has a lot of people reading him overseas…he feels totally cut from his audience.”
The NYT became accessible to the iPhone and iPod in 2008, and it was accessible on the iPad in 2010. It opened up a video game for its readers entitled Food Import Folly, and it produced a blog for members of the East Village in New York as a means of communicating online between residents of the East Village. In addition to all of this online growth for the paper, a company called reCAPTCHA helped to digitize numerous old editions of the NYT.
In addition to online expansion, the NYT also now offers its news in Chinese and Portuguese.
Subscriptions or Advertisements?
Due to failing sales and profit, the NYT decided to begin charging readers to view more than 20 articles per month in 2011. This number was reduced to 10 articles per month in 2012.) temporary readers of the paper could log online and read their 20 articles a month, but heavy readers would have to subscribe. The price of the subscriptions ranged from $15 to $35. Front page news and Top News remained free of charge on the mobile app. Historically, profits were higher for advertisements in free papers than subscribers of paid papers, but in January 2013, Margaret Sullivan, who is the public editor of the NYT, announced that profits due to subscriptions had surpassed those of advertisement placements.
Application on Mobile Devices
Times Reader, a mobile app for accessing the news of the NYT, was created by the NYT and Microsoft. An updated version of the app was released after the first one had minor problems in functioning. Although reviews for the apps were mainly positive, the app was discontinued on January 6, 2014. Creators urged readers to use the “Today’s Paper” app to access their news instead.
Partisanship
40% of critics of the NYT claim that the paper is liberal, 11% think its conservative, and 20% believe it is non-partisan. A study by the University of California, Los Angeles gave the NYT a score of 63.5 on a scale of 0 being conservative and 100 being liberal. Daniel Okrent, a public editor of the NYT, wrote that the newspaper is naturally more liberal on social issues, and this is due to its upbringing in the cosmopolitan New York City. The last republican candidate supported by the NYT was Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.
Criticism of the NYT
The NYT has received its fair share of criticism since its inception. From lawsuits to riots to other newspapers and bloggers devaluing the NYT, it is clear that the paper as its critics. The Huffington Post claims that the NYT is unfair when profiling and writing about world leaders. Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti is favored by the NYT whereas Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa is disliked by the NYT. Both of these leaders came from similar educational backgrounds, receiving PhDs in economics from American schools. The NYT was criticized during the Iraqi War for being factually inaccurate with their reports. Namely, reporter Judith Miller was criticized for her reports in the NYT from her source Ahmed Chalabi, who occupied many governmental positions after his return to the US from Iraq. The NYT did come out and say that they were too dependent upon information from Iraqi exiles as opposed to going into Iraq and capturing the truth themselves. Critics of the NYT say that the paper is pro-Israel and anti-Palestine along with anti-Sematic. As a paper that has established its mission of being even-handed and non-biased, these criticisms struck significantly with the image and respect of the paper. Even in the midst of all the criticisms, editors of the paper still maintain the neutral stance that the paper is supposed to have. Editor Clark Hoyt says the NYT has “tried its best to do a fair, balanced and complete job” when reporting on the Israel-Palestine conflicts. During World War II, the paper was criticized for repressing and refusing to report the truths of the Holocaust. Executive editor Max Frankel wrote about these accusations in the 150th anniversary edition of the paper on November 14, 2001. Reporter Walter Duranty won the Pulitzer Prize for his journalism in Moscow from 1922 to 1936 on the Soviet Union. Critics claim that Duranty left out mass evidence of famine in Ukraine from his report in the NYT. The NYT hired Mark von Hagen to review Duranty’s journalism, and Hagen found the writing to be Stalinist propaganda. He claimed that “For the sake of the New York Times’ honor, they should take [the Pulitzer Prize] away.” More plagiarism arose when Jayson Blair, a NYT reporter, was removed from the staff of the newspaper due to plagiarism charges against him. Interestingly, the NYT was reluctant to fire him (and quick to hire him) due to his racial minority status. In 2006, there were rape cases from Duke University going around in the news. The NYT received major criticism for its publishing of the prosecutor’s stories instead of the victim’s. Due to an advisement not to publish the National Security Agency warrantless surveillance program story by the Bush Administration, editor Bill Keller and journalists James Risen and Eric Lichtblau received major criticism. Much like the criticism received for publishing the Pentagon Papers, here the NYT received criticism for not publishing the NSA story before the presidential election. It seems to me that the NYT cannot catch a reasonable break.
The NYT database was hacked into once and only once on August 29, 2013 by the Syrian Electronic Army, which is affiliated with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This hacking shut down the NYT website servers for hours, and many records within the NYT database were altered.
2014 Innovation Report
In 2014, NYT staff writers conducted an internal, un-published innovation report. This report, among many other findings, found that the world class journalists of the NYT were having trouble getting the news to the readers. The NYT was struggling in the social media-dominated and online-central news world. An incomplete copy of the innovation report was acquired and published by Buzzfeed, and readers as well as critics of the paper were upset that the NYT chose to hide the innovation report from the public.
I think failure to publicize the innovation report represents a lack of qualitative leadership within the NYT. It is expected of a public company within the media to be public about their wellbeing, their future as a newspaper, and their plans to correct any shortcomings. I do not believe that the NYT purposely acted negligently and surreptitiously, but I do not think this is an excuse for their failure to be transparent with their audience. After all, the newspaper fights so hard for transparency within the news reporting (New York Times Company v. Sullivan), so why should the not be transparent about their own company news?
NYT: Here to Stay
The NYT is a global machine of news reporting, and it has established itself as a powerhouse in today’s news-driven society. It’s all about the buzz, the scoop, the story, and the headline. The NYT has been around since the 19th century, and I do not think they will be going anywhere anytime soon. With criticism against them, awards given to them, thousands of papers, crosswords and fashion columns, sports and politics, money and business, international and national groundbreaking news, the NYT is clearly here to stay. Its impact is significant, and I do believe that the NYT has tried as hard as it can within its context to remain true to its original purposes written out and documented in that very first publication of the paper back on September 18, 1851.
Social Media and the Fourth Wave of Feminism
Despite its common use today, the word feminism is still met with confusion and disdain. Many men and women confuse feminist stereotypes with the movement’s goals, forming negative associations with the word. But what is a feminist? And how is feminism seen today? At its core, feminism is about equality for the sexes and the success of both women and men. Today, feminism is most prominently seen on various social media platforms. Social media has helped to fully bring feminism into mainstream culture, creating a shift in society’s perception of the movement. Recently, feminist ideas have been featured in successful advertisements for companies such as Dove, Verizon, and Always. This widespread acceptance of feminist ideals is largely attributable to the power of social media.
Feminism: A Little History
Traditionally, feminism is broken into waves based on time period and ideology. The First Wave, from approximately 1840-1920, developed around the desire for women’s suffrage and equal rights of citizenship. This goal developed from female involvement in the abolition movement, after which women recognized the rights they were being denied. While campaigning for suffrage, early feminists also made remarkable progress for women’s rights by promoting dress reform and birth control, as well as earning women the right to own property, get divorced, pursue higher education, maintain their own income and inheritance, and retain custody of their children following divorce. Following the legalization of women’s suffrage in America in 1920, the women’s movement retained its importance but became more understated. This changed around 1960 with the arrival of the Second Wave of feminism.
By 1960, the Civil Rights Movement was sweeping the United States with incredible force. As young people began to protest for racial equality, women, as in the early 1900s, realized the inequality of their own situation. Instead of suffrage, these Second Wave feminists sought access to traditionally male domains to which they had been denied. This pursuit did not intend to usurp men, but to break “down gender stereotypes, thus emphasizing that feminism was of importance to men as well as to women” (psa.ac.uk). Feminists emphasized their position by coining “the phrase ‘the personal is political’ as a means of highlighting the impact of sexism and patriarchy on every aspect of women’s lives” (psa.ac.uk). This made the movement more relevant, and in response women developed a vocabulary to address common injustices, including the terms date rape and domestic abuse. The feminists’ protests and lobbying, though sometimes radical, earned women greater reproductive rights, protection from workplace discrimination, and the right to equal pay, at least in theory. Despite the wide cultural changes that resulted from the Second Wave, the movement was flawed and harshly criticized. Women within the movement too often considered women to be a homogenous group and did not consider the facets included, such as black women, Latinas, women with disabilities, and lesbians and bisexuals, among others. These minority groups felt sidelined and began critiquing the movement from within, causing tension and divisive splits over feminist theories. By the end of the 1980s, the feminist movement was in a difficult position. Young women of the 1990s and early 2000s sought to address these issues in what is known as the Third Wave of feminism.
The Third Wave represented a monumental shift in the way women approached feminism and the way feminism was shared. This shift was largely influenced by the overall cultural shift toward individualism. By focusing on a woman’s personal struggles, the Third Wave “rejected the idea of a shared political priority list or even a set of issues one must espouse to be feminist” (feminist.com). This individualistic nature allowed for diverse interests to gain widespread attention, including the topics of queer theory, gender and sexuality spectrums, and sex positivity. Feminism’s individualism also made the movement portable- “you didn’t have to go to a meeting to be a feminist; you could bring feminism into any room you entered” (feminist.com). This portability allowed feminism to easily transition into the digital age.
Today, the Fourth Wave of feminism is “characterized by its diversity of purpose” and “…-its reliance on the Internet.” By 2008, “…the Internet had facilitated the creation of a global community of feminists…” in a way that was previously impossible. Without the Internet and social media, the progression of the newest wave of feminism would have been slowed, if possible at all.
Social Media:
At the dawn of social media, online forums were intended for causal connections. Over time, Facebook and Twitter, as well as other prominent social media platforms, have expanded beyond this original intent and have become staples of 21st century activism. Though many were surprised by this development, it is understandable given that the term ‘platform’ brings to mind the sharing of ideas and the promotion of a cause. Following this realization, many social movements took to social media, including feminism.
Today, 74 percent of adults in America use the internet and 76 percent of women online utilize social media. Feminists utilize social media’s person to person model to connect with like-minded women across geographic and socioeconomic boundaries. In an interview with The Observer, prominent feminist and global director of Equality Now, Yasmeen Hassan, stated, “…the internet is opening up channels between women in different countries, and women who might be isolated in their communities….” This open communication allows for improved representation of “often ignored voices” (now.org). Contemporary feminism seeks to move away from the white, middle-class demographic to include all races, sexual orientations and gender identities, and socioeconomic classes.
By diversifying the backgrounds of the women involved, feminists are also diversifying the messages being presented. Feminism no longer has a set agenda, but appeals to the individual struggles of all women and unites them through similar experience. In an article for the HuffingtonPost, Victoria Sadler summed up this idea, stating, “Prior to the era of social media, not only did the forums not exist for these ideas to be fully identified and discussed, but instead women were dictated to about what their issues were…Now with social media, women as a whole aren’t responding to articles in the media, they are creating the news for themselves by shining a light on the breadth of issues that they face.”
Sharing these personal experiences has become easier in the digital age. Prior to the internet, feminists spread ideas through print publications, protest rallies, and gatherings. For women without means to attend such events or in areas without access to feminist publications, information and female solidarity were lacking. Though not all women have access to the Internet today, the number who do is steadily increasing. Once connected to the Internet and social media, these women are able to share topics of interest through either public sharing or direct sharing to specific individuals. ‘Sharing’ is one of the most popular methods of promoting information because it has a viral effect, going from “person to person through connection.” This viral web of information is attention grabbing and is an effective way for feminists to quickly disseminate material to a widespread audience. Another popular method for organizing and spreading information is the hashtag. Hashtags are used on sites such as Twitter and Facebook to organize information under specific topics, thus allowing users to track trends and the usage of certain hashtags. Feminists assign hashtags to certain initiatives within the movement or issues they would like to highlight, allowing women around the world to easily follow posts associated with the movement. This makes it possible for women to remain up to date on feminist happenings, even when the movement is not covered by the mainstream news.
Use across Cultures:
Despite the interconnectedness promoted by social media use, feminists across the world utilize social media for a diverse range of purposes.
In Western countries, prominently the United States, feminists use social media to address issues that are subtly ingrained in our society. A main issue addressed by social media in the U.S. is violence and harassment against women. This issue has received prominent coverage within the last year, especially following the Elliot Rodger shootings in Isla Vista, California in May 2014. Rodger, driven by a misogynistic worldview and a desire for revenge against women, killed six people and wounded multiple others before taking his own life. The day after the shootings, May 24th, the hashtag #YesAllWomen surface online. Within twenty-four hours, the hashtag was being used 61,500 times per hour at the peak of its popularity. #YesAllWomen used the Isla Vista tragedy to illustrate that misogyny and violence against women continues to exist. Furthermore, the hashtag created a forum for open conversation about women’s experiences with harassment and male sexual entitlement. While feminist issues in the United States are more nuanced, they are often very black and white around the world.
In the Middle East, women are using social media to assert their rights in the face of continuing discrimination. Traditionally shying away from the pressure of public forums, women in the Middle East are flocking to social media to assert themselves. Women in Turkey are a prominent example. According to the Political Studies Association of the U.K., women make up 72 percent of social media users in Turkey. This online dominance was useful in July 2014, when Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister, Bülent Arınç, called for an end to women laughing in public. This statement was included in a speech that urged Turkish citizens to cease activities that were promoting a “moral regression” in Turkey. Immediately, women began posting photos of themselves smiling and laughing on social media in defiance of Arınç’s request. They accompanied the photos with the hashtags #kahkaha, #direnkahkaha, and #direnkadin, which translate to laughter, “Resist Laughter”, and “Resist Woman”, respectively. As a sign of solidarity with the women of Turkey, women around the world posted similar photos, including UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson. Though this issue may seem trivial, infringement of the basic right to laugh publicly is a simple example of the oppression women in certain cultures face.
Criticisms:
Despite the good social media has done for the feminist movement, there are many critiques. A prominent criticism is that the online feminist community has become toxic. Like many social movements, there is misunderstanding and division between the movement’s supporters based on single issue interests, race, socioeconomic status, etc. Social media is making these divisions more defined and, in some cases, hostile. Critics state that online feminists quickly turn on one another for breaches of conduct, creating an atmosphere in which women are afraid to speak up out of fear of chastisement. This toxicity taints the whole movement, given that most of today’s feminist activism is being organized and promoted online.
Aside from the instances of bullying, other critics are concerned that minority groups are being underrepresented. As in the past, the majority of feminist attention is garnered by middle class, white women, despite the fact that minority issues comprise a significant portion of the feminist movement. This in turn leads to the problem of ‘privilege-checking’, in which people are reminded not to speak for others- especially people outside of the same demographic group. ‘Privilege-checking’ presents a problem because it has reached excessive heights, causing women to withhold their opinions instead of engaging in open dialogue and making honest progress.
These issues, along with others, have lead many online feminists to denounce the use of social media, stating that the feminist blogosphere is too much of an “insular, protective, brittle environment” for productive change to emerge (thenation.com).
Reflection:
After researching this topic, I have come to several conclusions. Firstly, despite its flaws, social media is an incredible asset to the feminist movement. The ability to share information and organize women across the world almost instantly is an invaluable tool, and one that should not be discredited. Though division exists within the movement and social media helps to exasperate those divisions, I believe that is more a fault of the social media system and less a flaw within the feminist movement. Online toxicity is not exclusive to feminism and never will be. To combat the negative atmosphere created by social media, it may be beneficial for feminists to seek a better balance between social media use and in-person efforts. By promoting in person relationships and gatherings, feminists can remove the impersonal nature of the Internet and humanize the movement. This would allow social media to remain a tool of the movement, instead of a representation of the movement in its entirety.
Secondly, I agree that the feminist movement is flawed and needs to become more inclusive. Divisions may always exist, but that does not meant that feminists cannot be understanding toward other points of view. This issue can be resolved and addressing it will ultimately make the movement stronger. Despite the flaws, I believe the contemporary feminist movement promotes relevant issues and continues to be an important part of society.
Feminism: A Photo History
Works Cited
http://now.org/blog/digifem2-social-media-and-feminism/
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/01/activists-feminism-digital
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-power-of-yesallwomen
http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/genwom/baumgardner2011.html
http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/12/30/social-media-update-2013/
http://www.unwomen.org/en/partnerships/goodwill-ambassadors/emma-watson
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/03/201134111445686926.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/victoria-sadler/social-media-feminism_b_3981098.html
http://www.thenation.com/article/178140/feminisms-toxic-twitter-wars?page=0,3
http://www.psa.ac.uk/insight-plus/feminism-fourth-wave
http://womenshistory.answers.com/feminism/accomplishments-of-second-wave-feminism
http://mashable.com/2014/05/26/yesallwomen-hashtag/
Katrina Takes Aim: The Coverage of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans
Here’s the link to my project: Katrina
Freedom of Expression: America v. The World
Fran O’Steen
Unfortunately my paper wouldn’t upload as a document, so here it is! I’ve also linked a really interesting NY Times compilation of cases across the world that deal with press freedom issues… not all of them pertain to my paper, but they’re really interesting reads!
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/freedom_of_the_press/index.html
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: AMERICA VS. THE WORLD
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AROUND THE WORLD
The right to express opinion and share current events is something that is more varied globally than one might expect. While in our own country we are given an immense amount of opportunity to discover and share news – in spite of the subject matter having possible negative repercussions – several other civilizations around the world do not share American ideals for liberty. Places in the Middle East, for example, take great strides to oppress those who make attempts to report on current events happening within the different countries’s borders. From the recent confiscation of newspapers to censor specific political articles in Egypt, to the imprisonment of American journalists in places like Iran, people who are fortunate enough to be citizens of democracies can clearly note to stark contrast between the freedoms we are provides with and the oppression experienced by others across the globe. One topic that is infinitely more difficult to pinpoint, however, is the division of freedoms between different democracies. On the surface, most countries that establish freedom of expression as a human right seem to be one and the same. A deeper look, on the other hand, reveals that although many countries share the basic idea of maintaining a free state, many differ and contrast with American notions of free expression.
AMERICAN FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: A BRIEF HISTORY
Americans tend to pride themselves on the amount of liberty and opportunity our country provides for us, and in many cases we have good reason to do so. One of the first steps the founding fathers took towards setting American standards for freedom apart was to create a Constitution that outlines the fundamental rights that we have as human beings. While the whole of the constitution is important to Americans in different capacities, The First Amendment covers the simple basics that apply to every day life. James Madison made clear the thought process behind the statues of the first amendment, stating that “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and consult for their common good, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances”. While it includes the specification of free reign in the areas of petition, assembly, religion, and speech, freedom of the press stands out in particular to journalists and media personnel alike.
At a glance, the concept of freedom of the press as defined by the constitution is that the first amendment “protects rights of people to express themselves through publication and dissemination of information, ideas and opinions without interference, constraint, or prosecution by the government”. Many historical cases since the formation of the Constitution have challenged this core ideal and have brought the original statute to light. The US Supreme Court case of Near v. Minnesota has been considered a milestone occurrence since it took place in 1931. The issue revolved around the exposure of political corruption in the city of Minneapolis.
The Saturday Press newspaper editors, Jay Near and Howard Guilford, were taken to court by Governor Olson for “malicious” and “scandalous” publications against himself and other officials. His plea for censorship of the paper lead the Supreme Court to declare that censorship, except in very rare cases, is unconstitutional and is an infringement on the liberty of the press. Other major court cases, such as Branzburg v. Hayes which described freedom of the press as “a fundamental personal right”; or New York Times Co. v. Sullivan which protected journalists from libel laws, are only a few of the many cases that have been brought to the attention of the courts over the matter of free expression. These and many other occurrences dealing with the specific constitutional right have occurred throughout our history and are still prevalent today, and can be compared and contrasted with other countries’ set of freedoms around the globe.
AMERICAN FREEDOMS VS. OTHER DEMOCRACIES
As stated earlier in an earlier passage, the line between America and other Western civilizations is not as clearly defined as the one that can be drawn for countries that openly reject ideas of complete freedom. One of the countries that borders our own in the freedom of expression area also borders us geographically- Canada is a nation that embodies democracy, but enforces certain differences. Canada’s historical background sheds light on their constitution, which is said to be drawn in parts from the Magna Carta and is one of the oldest in the world.
This document that they uphold as an enormous part of their government shares many similarities with our own- they include a “Bill of Rights” of sorts and cover many of the topics that our founding fathers deemed significant enough to include in our own constitution. This fact makes it somewhat difficult to pinpoint the differences between the two views, but certain cases shed light on the distinctions between the two countries’ principles. One of the key differences between American and Canadian freedom of expression is in the way each country treats the exposure and coverage of criminal cases. While Americans have the right to freely publish details and names of the accused, Canadian law has the ability step in and prevent such action from taking place. The protection of those convicted is evident in one of the most recent cases that deals with a former Afghani soldier named Omar Khadr, who is being held in a Canadian prison for killing American soldiers in a war zone many years before his capture. Several reporters who have tried to interview him and take into account his side of the story have been prevented from doing so by the Canadian government. This “rebuff to press freedoms and the publics’ right to know” is a prime example of the way different democracies respond to censorship. In America, names of accused or convicted are part of the public domain, and interviews similar to the one stated above are allowed as protected by the first amendment. In Canada, youth are also protected from being exposed to the media for criminal activity due to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, whereas in America many times those aspects are not kept private. Other differences include the prevention of publishing writing that encourage “hateful statements”, typically in there areas of race, gender, and sexuality. These seemingly small details actually create major differences between the two countries’ views on what is okay to be disseminated and what should be kept from the public.
Another primary democratic country that contrasts with American press is the United Kingdom. According to the New York Times,“Britain has a long tradition of free, inquisitive press, but unlike the United States, Britain has no constitutional guarantee of press freedom.” This standard that is held by the country reflects greatly in the way that they handle certain issues in media and reporting, and the enormous issue that currently embodies this policy revolves around the Edward Snowden/leaked NSA documents case. The Guardian, a prominent newspaper, took the liberty to print several articles that covered the Snowden case, leakage of the documents, and the NSA’s invasion of citizens privacy. The issue involved both American and British governments, whose intelligence agencies overlap frequently. While Congress has taken strides to implement protection against snooping, the British Parliament has approached the issue from a different angle and attacked the Guardian’s recent publications instead. The Times’s coverage of the issue in the UK does an incredible job of depicting the amount of fire British journalists are currently under, as well as detail how truly fragile British press freedom is at this time. Members of British Parliament are currently using their power as officials to heavily scrutinize writers for the Guardian, demand the unveiling of sources, and allow Scotland Yard to pursue the case against the Guardian as a criminal investigation. The stark contrast between the two affected countries reactions- America going after the intelligence agencies who have committed the crime, Britain going after the journalists who uncovered it- is the perfect example of how vastly our two countries differ in the amount of value they place on true freedom of expression.
WHY DOES THIS MATTER?
Freedom of the press, at a glance, may not seem like something that can truly effect the state of the nation or even the world. Many people tend to look at countries that have democracy and write it of as “good enough” just because they allow MOST things to be reported or published. The small details, however, prove to be the most key when it comes to fundamental freedoms of human beings. The argument could be made that acts such that Canada have that protect the privacy of criminals are more ethical on a certain front, or that punishment for hateful journalism is a positive step towards social harmony, the regulation of any sort of journalism has been proven to do more harm than good. While some topics seem unnecessary and fall under the “just because you can say it, doesn’t mean you should” argument, journalists across the country have proposed ethical codes for journalists to keep in mind while reporting. While certain topics seem too crude or inappropriate to share, this does not mean that they aren’t worthy of being available to the people. Government regulation of journalism, though possibly started with ethical intentions, more often that not leads to the prosecution of writers for chronicling “the ugly truth.” Information of all kinds should be accessible and allowed in the public domain, otherwise people across the world have less power over their own lives and decisions. Incidents like the Snowden/Guardian case reveal a side of the world that, although unpleasant, is necessary to be printed in order to push our world forward in a better direction. This fundamental freedom is governed differently from country to country and not one of them does it perfectly. It appears to me, however, that the best approach is that of the United States: to let people speak and write as they wish, so as to give citizens of this country the most power and decision over their own futures as possible.
Introduction to Mass Media 