REACTION? Schudson and Downie journalism funding / Teach for America?
Bill Densmore
I'm forwarding a note from Mike Hoyt of the Columbia Journalism Review
York City encouraging a dialog on the Downie/Schudson report: "The
Reconstruction of American Journalism."
Also, note one of the ideas advanced by Martin Langeveld, was one of the
four people to whom CJR gave pre-release access to the report so that they
could write conversation-starting comments. Martin's comment is here:
http://www.cjr.org/reconstruction/report_ignores_webs_nimble_nat.php
The idea he advances is something we talked about among the RJI Fellows
last year -- "Report for America." I'd love some feedback on what anyone
thinks of this idea, and how it might be funded and launched.
Martin wrote:
" -- Report for America. With Teach for America as a model, could the nation
(or better yet, a well-heeled foundation) fund one-year, post-college
fellowships for young reporters who might apprentice at mainstream or new media
organizations with the only requirement that they produce works dealing with
important civic issues?"
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:41:51 -0400
From: mike hoyt <mh...@columbia.edu>
Reply-To: CJR Press Release Recipients <cjr-...@lists.jrn.columbia.edu>
To: CJR Press Release Recipients <cjr-...@lists.jrn.columbia.edu>
Subject: [WINDOWS-1252] Schudson and Downie^Twhat think?/CJR
Dear reader,
Yesterday the J-school where we live released a report by Michael
Schudson, a communications professor at Columbia, and Len Downie, the
former editor of The Washington Post. The report, available in a
reader-friendly shorter version on CJR.org (and in the next issue of
the Columbia Journalism Review), starts with a broad overview of the
business models and animating philosophies of the many non-profit,
for-profit, hybrid, and university-housed journalism startups that
have come to life across the country in the last few years.
Schudson and Downie argue that these encouraging efforts could
increasingly supplement the American news diet, but that they are
also fragile, and in danger of fading away without significant
financial help from society. They make six specific recommendations
for changes in policy that would create an environment that sustains
serious reporting in all realms—commercial, noprofit, and public media.
The responses are rolling in—in newspapers, on Twitter, and on blogs.
We also invited four media thinkers to respond to the report, on our
site. And tomorrow, Schudson will respond to the responders.
But first we’d like to extend an invitation to all readers of the
report to discuss its findings here, in today's News Meeting feature
on CJR.org. What do you think of Schudson and Downie’s diagnosis of
the causes of journalism’s financial and readership declines? What
about their summation of the state of play today? Which of their
recommendations would you support and which give you pause? And,
perhaps most of all, what do you think this report misses or gets
wrong about the past, present, and future of journalism? Join the
discussion.
And in the first of a series of regular podcasts on CJR.org, our
Clint Hendler interviews Michael Schudson and Len Downie about their
landmark report. We hope you enjoy it.
the Editors
The Reconstruction of American Journalism
What do you think of the report?
By The Editors
http://www.cjr.org/news_meeting/the_reconstruction_of_american_2.php
Podcast: Leonard Downie and Michael Schudson
By Clint Hendler
http://www.cjr.org/reconstruction/podcast_leonard_downie_and_mic.php
Josh Stearns
We also recommended a "Report for America" style program in our May
report on journalism and public policy. You can find it around page 27
in this document: http://bit.ly/2kz0Q8 (pdf link) & Ken Doctor has
written about this idea here: http://bit.ly/29DpOt
Best,
Josh
SaveTheNews.org
MFerrier
in on the report. I've posted the comment below to the CJR site:
> Please add your comments to the Columbia Journalism Review report on
> reconstructing journalism. It seems like we're missing some diversity here.
>
> http://www.cjr.org/news_meeting/the_reconstruction_of_american_2.php
>
> My view on the lack of diverse voices represented in the report is below:
>
> Michelle Ferrier
> "I commend the report for outlining the six specific fundingstructures --
> from low-profit limited liability corporations or L3Cs tofoundation support
> beyond specific programmatic objectives, anduniversity support and
> development of investigative, communityjournalism functions. I think any and
> all of the recommendations willhelp to foster what the authors call
> "accountability journalism."
> However, the report barely discusses efforts to bring diverse voicesand
> news about diverse people into this new media landscape. While theJ-Lab
> report about foundation funding cites $128 million to newsnonprofits, just a
> small percentage of that funding went directly topeople of color for
> projects related to underrepresented populations.Of that $128 million, about
> 10 percent or $12 million went to oneproject called New American Media,
> according to Jan Schaffer, directorof J-Lab.
> The funding structures outlined may help in diversifying this
> medialandscape or may perpetuate mechanisms that have limited diverse
> voicesand news from being part of mainstream conversations. With
> newsroomdiversity at risk in the shifting landscape, our new funding
> structuresmust be accessible to all with a desire to serve the public
> interestwith news and information.
>
> Posted by Michelle Ferrier on Tue 20 Oct 2009 at 05:45 PM"
On Oct 20, 5:57 pm, Bill Densmore <densmo...@rjionline.org> wrote:
> I'm forwarding a note from Mike Hoyt of the Columbia Journalism Review
> York City encouraging a dialog on the Downie/Schudson report: "The
> Reconstruction of American Journalism."
>
> Also, note one of the ideas advanced by Martin Langeveld, was one of the
> four people to whom CJR gave pre-release access to the report so that they
> could write conversation-starting comments. Martin's comment is here:
>
> http://www.cjr.org/reconstruction/report_ignores_webs_nimble_nat.php
>
> The idea he advances is something we talked about among the RJI Fellows
> last year -- "Report for America." I'd love some feedback on what anyone
> thinks of this idea, and how it might be funded and launched.
>
> Martin wrote:
>
> " -- Report for America. With Teach for America as a model, could the nation
> (or better yet, a well-heeled foundation) fund one-year, post-college
> fellowships for young reporters who might apprentice at mainstream or new media
> organizations with the only requirement that they produce works dealing with
> important civic issues?"
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:41:51 -0400
> From: mike hoyt <mh...@columbia.edu>
>
> To: CJR Press Release Recipients <cjr-pr...@lists.jrn.columbia.edu>
Aldon Hynes
balance sheet information for any newspapers, or a good view of a reasonable
breakdown of expenses and revenues as a general rule for newspapers.
e.g.
Expenses
Debt Servicing
Management salaries
Editor salaries
Reporter salaries
Printing costs
Distribution Costs
Revenues
Subscriptions
Classifieds
Business Advertising
Other
As an example, looking at NYT's 3rd quarter 2008 10-Q it looks like New York
Times Revenues were
256,000 Subscriptions
83,000 Classifieds
315,000 Business Advertising
There costs are harder to figure out from the 10-Q, since there seems to be
no differentiation for wages and benefits for reporters, editors and
management salaries; they had big expenses like $111,000 for 'other
production costs' and $321,000 for Selling, general, and administrative
costs.
Aldon
Aldon Hynes
fit into the evolution of journalism?
If so, I'm aldon...@googlewave.com there. I've already run into a bunch
of political friends there.
Also, I was at the Digital Publishing and Advertising Conference in New York
City on Tuesday. Steve Brill of Journalism Online was there debating Mike
Linksvayer of Creative Commons on the Free v. Paid debate. You can read my
comments about that at
Debunking Digital Publishing and Advertising Myths
http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/3804
Aldon