Quick Read: The Houston Chronicle investigative team—double the size it was just a year ago—digs deep into the questions that matter most to Houstonians
Tag: Editor & Publisher
On impact and advocacy
E&P started a series a couple of years ago, which we call “J-school profiles.” To create a bridge between the next-generation of aspiring journalists and E&P’s readers — many of whom hail from C-suite offices at news organizations small to massive — we began to write about journalism schools across the country. We wanted to know how curricula is changing as technology and journalism itself evolve, and how young people coming into the profession see their future roles.
Often, during those conversations with faculty and students, the topic of journalism’s “impact” came up. Many of those young people spoke about being compelled to pursue journalism because they wanted to do work that is meaningful, that inspires change, that has real, measurable value. In speaking with deans and professors, they often echoed hearing this from their students — the desire to be impactful. And yet, some of those educators also spoke from a place of concern, noting the important distinction between pursuing stories that may ultimately have impact and being an advocate for a particular community or cause.
It left me wondering: At what point does creating impactful journalism cross over into the realm of advocacy? And what are the ethical implications? The answer, it would seem, isn’t clear-cut, but I’d argue it’s still a discussion worth having. So, I asked three experts about their takes on advocacy versus journalism. Here’s what they had to say:
Reporting On: Pollution and Contamination
In the latest installment of E&P’s “Reporting On” series, we look at the environment beat, with particular interest in reporting on communities impacted by pollution and contamination.
This was a particularly personal assignment for me, having grown up in a town with a notorious Superfund site not far from my childhood home. It was likely a contributor to lifelong health problems for our family and for so many others in our community. Today, nearly six decades after the malfeasance that contaminated the site — and despite EPA intervention and remediation efforts — the land remains contaminated by military-grade Vietnam-era defoliants (just one category of “forever chemicals.”). Not long ago, it was sold to a developer who built housing on it.
Reporting on these public health and safety dangers is critical journalism. At the link, I speak with two reporters — Halle Parker at NPR affiliate WWNO in New Orleans and Alex Rozier at Mississippi Today — about the importance and challenges of environmental storytelling.
Elinor R. Tatum is E&P’s Publisher of the Year
Elinor R. Tatum, publisher and editor-in-chief of New York Amsterdam News, exemplifies what it means to be E&P’s Publisher of the Year. For 30 years, she’s thoughtfully led the news organization through formidable challenges—the advent of the internet and digital media, greater competition for audience, uncertainty related to revenue, and most recently, the COVID pandemic era.
Tatum’s contribution far exceeds her work for the newspaper. She’s devoted her time and expertise to elevating other news media outlets and creating a sense of camaraderie so needed throughout the news media today. She’s a strategic risk taker and innovator—a change agent for the local news community, and especially the Black press.
And one of the many things I found to be so inspirational about Tatum as I wrote this month’s cover story was her long history of motivating, encouraging, empowering and challenging her staff, peers, all of us.
Read about Publisher Tatum at the link below, and check out E&P’s Editor-in-Chief Robin Blinder’s editorial introduction here: https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/inspiration-in-harlem,252692?newsletter=252745&vgo_ee=aWQmgzV5rfy%2BxfAMqNpxLpDgiOmuqKa8RiKGAIgxC8yh5T9ZH4Vq%3AFy1VRjwwp9beea%2F5LyuRkhAuWNTKp5vs
https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/leading-with-grace-and-power,252691
Reporting on the war in the Middle East: Reporters contend with lack of access, harassment, censorship, arrests and danger to bring the front lines to readers worldwide
In late summer, I spoke with two journalists — Julian Borger, world affairs editor for The Guardian, and Nabih Bulos, who is the Los Angeles Times’ Middle East bureau chief — tasked with telling the story of the broadening war in Gaza. We spoke about the challenges of war coverage — about safety, working with local fixers and other journalists on the ground, about reporting on a region that it was nearly impossible to gain access to, and about the unpredictable nature of the work itself. For foreign correspondents, war means perpetual motion, a never-ending chase for anecdotes and atrocities, and meaningful context in sea of gray.
The only certainty, it seemed to me, was the volatility and the potential for the war to entrap or entice other nations and other terrorist groups to join the fight. And that’s precisely how it’s playing out. With just a few days of my discussions with Bulos and Borger, Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel.
Since, Israel retaliated by detonating pagers and mobile devices they believed to be in the hands of Hezbollah operatives. Iran-launched missiles rained down on Israel, and now the world holds its collective breath for Israel’s inevitable response to Iran’s assault. The one-year anniversary of the war passed.
The statistics I cited in the story are already obsolete. Since October 7, 2023, the war has now claimed the lives of 1,706 Israelis, 42,409 Palestinians, and 2,448 in Lebanon.
It is also one of the deadliest wars in the modern era for journalists. 128 have died. 40 have been wounded. At least 2 remain missing, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Please consider their sacrifices as you read this latest installment in our “Reporting On” series:
https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/reporting-on-the-war-in-the-middle-east,252455
Nuzzi is not all of us
I cringed when I saw Jeremy Fassler’s headline for his Medium column this week, “The Olivia Nuzzi Scandal Is an Indictment of Journalism.”
Nuzzi was placed on leave this week — and should lose her job — at “New York” magazine for an undisclosed personal relationship with presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a controversial public figure she was assigned to report on. People have speculated about the degree of ethical breach, which Nuzzi contends did not veer into a physical relationship. She has been castigated and slut-shamed online, while Kennedy’s behavior has largely been brushed aside as de rigueur for the serial-philandering, vaccine-denying, dog-eating, dead-bear staging, whale head-sawing, brain worm-addled oddball he is.
Make no mistake, Nuzzi’s behavior is a gross — and I mean that in every sense of the word — ethical breach. It reflects poorly on her, certainly, but it also stains the “New York” magazine brand. Nuzzi is just 31 years old and entitled to make journalistic mistakes that we all made in our young careers, but this one is beyond the pale. She should be fired, and she should have to rebuild her career and earn the trust of the public before given another megaphone — print, broadcast or otherwise.
But this is hardly a condemnation of journalism, as Fassler claims in his headline. The public and especially the news media itself needs to get away from these broad, sweeping condemnations. Look at the sins of David Pecker’s tabloid empire and its “catch and kill” practices. Imagine if every reporter at local papers and nonprofit news outlets around the country had to carry the weight of that on their shoulders. It’s patently out of context and unfair.
If you read past the headline, what Fassler is getting at is Nuzzi’s case is — and should be — an indictment of access journalism. Access journalism is when journalists favorably report on their subjects and sources in order to be granted access to them, to gain insider insight, and to get scoops that elude other news outlets.
I wrote about access journalism in a 2021 “Editor & Publisher” magazine.
Nuzzi is certainly a glaring example of a journalist who’s traded on access — and, I dare say, on her beauty. Across news media, we’ve had some of the most popular, visible and broadly followed journalists who can be accused of the same, even at the nation’s most prolific legacy institutions. It is a bane, no question, yet not a reflection of the whole.
Nuzzi’s recent work has been “sus,” as the kids say, and Fassler gives a number of examples of that. Yet, controversy attracts eyeballs and audience — still the most coveted currency in today’s news business. And she (and others) have been rewarded for it.
Still, to lump all journalists and media companies in with Nuzzi and those who enabled her along the way — even in a headline — does disservice to all the earnest, dedicated and toe-the-line reporters around the country.
And it emboldens the “dishonest press” and “enemies of the people” rhetoric. Let’s stop that.
Watch “Print It Black” on Hulu
In the week that followed the horrific mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, I was one of thousands of calls into the local newspaper, the Uvalde Leader-News. I was working on a story for E&P—part of the magazine’s “Reporting On” series—about journalists who have the daunting task of reporting mass shootings.
On a few occasions that week, a member of the newsroom there would answer—audibly exhausted and grief-stricken, yet polite and professional—and take down my message for the owner-publisher Craig Garnett. I, of course, wanted to speak with him about my assignment, to learn in those still-raw moments what it takes for a newsroom to cover a story of this magnitude and tragedy. But so much more importantly, I wanted to express my sorrow, to let him and his entire newsroom know that we shared in their grief. After all, a member of our news community had been personally and profoundly impacted by this crime. ULN’s Crime Reporter Kimberly Mata-Rubio’s 10-year-old daughter, Lexi, was among the victims.
Despite an enormous weight on his shoulders, Garnett called me back a few days later, and generously, thoughtfully spoke about what his newsroom was going through. Through tears that seemed never-ending, I wrote the story.
I’ve thought about that local paper—Garnett and the small, tight-knit staff—the Rubio family, and the community of Uvalde every day since.
I had the great honor to reconnect with Garnett last week, to talk about the ABC News documentary, “Print It Black,” now streaming on Hulu. It’s a difficult-to-watch yet important film that I implore everyone to see—a complex, nuanced and honest look at mass shootings in America, about life in a small town, about racism, poverty and classicism, and about a local newsroom rising to an occasion for which it never could prepare.
#Uvalde #LocalNews #RobbElementary #UvaldeLeaderNews #ABCNews #documentary
Producing a step-by-step FOIA guide
As FOIA director at @washingtonpost, Nate Jones is a government records specialist — expertise he gladly shares with other journalists and the public
#newsmedia #FOIA #illustration #journalism
https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/producing-a-step-by-step-guide-to-foia,250976
Two of ProPublica’s Editors Talk About the Past, Present and Future for the Nonprofit News Leader
It’s hard for me to believe that nearly 20 years have passed since ProPublica first came on the news media scene. I immediately followed their work, because I believed in their mission and the void they were filling. Yet, I worried that the then-fledgling news outlet and the nonprofit model wouldn’t pan out.
Thankfully, they flourished.
We wanted to write about ProPublica now, in a year when its journalists earned a 7th Pulitzer Prize (added to a considerably long list of other awards) and has become an unquestionable leader in the industry — not just for the impactful journalism their newsroom produces, but for the way in which they’re enabling other newsrooms around the country to excel in their own accountability work through partnerships.
I spoke with two of the editors who’ve been there since the beginning — about what it was like to stake their careers on the new nonprofit; how the newsroom has evolved; and what keeps them motivated all these years in. At the link, hear from Charles Ornstein, ProPublica’s managing editor, local, and Editor-in-Chief Stephen Engelberg.
TV and Radio Broadcasters Launch Hyperlocal Digital and Streaming News Services
I’ve long appreciated the concept of hyperlocal news. What better way to make communities and neighborhoods feel seen and heard than to cover the news expressly for them and about them? We’ve seen news outlets like Block Club Chicago and Trib Total Media have rousing success taking a street-level neighborhood approach to news.
I was pleasantly surprised when E&P’s Robin Blinder and Mike Blinder returned from Borrell Miami this spring with a new story in hand about hyperlocal news—TV and radio broadcasters leveraging their brands and trustful audiences to launch hyperlocal digital sites and streaming services. So, I followed up with Gordon Borrell to get his take on why hyperlocal news was seeing a renaissance of sorts and followed up with three media executives in the throes of starting up new hyperlocal media properties. Here are their stories:
#communitynews #hyperlocalnews #TV #Radio #Streaming #digitalmedia
Gretchen A. Peck 