Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Via the PBS Ombudsman Column:
…Dec. 4, was the final broadcast of what has been known for many years as The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. The following Monday, Dec. 7, the new-look version of the venerable, one-hour, weekday nights, news broadcast made its debut as the PBS NewsHour. Lehrer was still in the anchor chair but his name was gone from the logo and some things had changed. I’ll come back to that.
One of the things that has not changed, however, is Lehrer’s unwavering approach to journalism. So, in closing that final broadcast on Dec. 4 and providing a glimpse of the forthcoming new look, Lehrer said:
“I promise you, one thing is never going to change. And that’s our mission. People often ask me if there are guidelines in our practice of what I like to call MacNeil/Lehrer journalism. Well, yes, there are. And here they are:
- Do nothing I cannot defend.
- Cover, write and present every story with the care I would want if the story were about me.
- Assume there is at least one other side or version to every story.
- Assume the viewer is as smart and as caring and as good a person as I am.
- Assume the same about all people on whom I report.
- Assume personal lives are a private matter, until a legitimate turn in the story absolutely mandates otherwise.
- Carefully separate opinion and analysis from straight news stories, and clearly label everything.
- Do not use anonymous sources or blind quotes, except on rare and monumental occasions.
- No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously.
- And, finally, I am not in the entertainment business."
A couple of people wrote to me in the aftermath of that Dec. 4 sign-off to say how much they liked Lehrer’s guidelines and asked how they could get a copy. That’s why they are reproduced above. A subscriber to the widely-read Romenesko media news site also posted them there on Dec. 6 and they also were posted on the campus site of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). “Whether you agree with all of Lehrer’s guidelines, or not,” that posting read, “he has surely earned our attention.”
Read the Ombudsman column.
Monday, January 11, 2010
I love Tina Dupuy (teen-a doo-pwee), she’s a ballsy chick, and I mean that in the BEST way possible. Awhile ago, a Google alert informed the award-winning writer and stand-up comic that one of her witty little pieces had been published in the Tampa Tribune. Quite a little coup. Except that 1. they didn’t ask her permission, and they 2. they didn’t pay her. Rude, cheap bastards that they are. Yeah, yeah, I know, probably shouldn’t say call them that, but it’s not like I’m ever going to work for them, and I’m tired of being screwed over by assholes who don’t pay, or who pay super-late which means trouble for me when it comes to mundane stuff like paying my rent and bills. I had this one gig for a year where I was supposed get paid every month, and only got paid 4x. Yeah, I finally got all the money, but not in a timely or convenient fashion. Still, this isn’t about me, it’s about Tina. And what she did to get her money.
From her blog:
They never contacted me prior to publishing it. I sent them an email telling them I was never asked for my permission. The editor Jeff Stidham, responded explaining my unsolicited submission didn’t ask for payment or permission. Which is not how copyright works.
Anyway, I wrote them back, sending them an invoice for $75, which is the amount newspapers of their size and circulation normally pay guest columnists. I have not heard back from them.
Read the full post. The second video is her follow-up:
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Gladys Arnold in Paris, 1938
University of Regina ArchivesWhen World War II broke out, Gladys Arnold (1905–2002) was the lone journalist in France. In 1935, she’d left her job at the Regina Leader-Post where she’d started as an editorial assistant in 1930, but had soon started writing editorials and feature articles. She lived in Paris and covered the start of the war up until 1940 when the Germans occupied the city in June of 1940.
According to The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan:
She found herself in Paris, where she intended to study the modern age philosophies of socialism, communism, and fascism. Arnold began submitting freelance pieces to the Canadian Press and was soon hired as their Paris correspondent. In the next four years she reported from France and Germany on the Spanish civil war, the Austrian Anschluss with Germany, and the Munich agreement regarding Czechoslovakia.
Via Ryerson Review of Journalism:
Gladys Arnold was an eyewitness to history, sending home reports on the Nazis’ rise, meeting de Gaulle, working for the Free French and earning a modest reputation as a trailblazer in Canadian journalism.
It was mid-October 1939 when Gladys Arnold sailed aboard the luxury liner the Washington, on her way back to France. There was a strange atmosphere on the ship. The truth hung low over the almost 300 passengers’ heads; they were sailing into the unknown. Watching land fade into open sea, Arnold wondered whether she would ever see Canada again. Lights onboard the ship blazed into the darkness.
Although there was an underlying feeling of dread among the passengers, they filled their time watching movies, eating grand dinners and spending evenings in the lounge, where they had long chats about Canada, books and music—everything except the war. Decades later, in her memoir One Woman’s War: A Canadian Reporter with the Free French, Arnold would recall, “[M]y crossing of the Atlantic was full of foreboding. The unreality of that trip still troubles me.”
Arnold, Paris correspondent for The Canadian Press since 1936, was on the Washington because she “wanted to see firsthand the conflict between fascism and democracy.” Gillis Purcell, her CP editor, tried to warn her off—“We can’t be responsible for you if you go back”—but later Arnold would explain that she couldn’t imagine not going. Purcell raised her salary from $15 to $20 per week and wished her bonne chance.
Read Kate Grainger’s full article.
