Change may be in the hands of journalists

By: Kathryn Lisk

The number one rule in journalism is getting the facts straight. Never should a journalist publish anything before being certain that the information they are about to publish is accurate.

However, in the present society where the media is impossible to avoid and the public is obsessed with being informed, I would argue that the media affects its public as much as it informs.

For example, the U.S. is currently attempting to sort through a financial crisis. Obviously the media is providing its audience, whether that be readers of newspapers, listeners of radio stations, or viewers of news networks with information and answers on the Wall Street crisis and the proposed $700 billion bailout plan. In providing this information, journalists surely shift the views of their audience no matter how unbiased they attempt to be.

When it comes to economic problems, the more people doubt the economy, the less they spend and the worse it becomes. Therefore, journalists publishing or reporting about our country's financial struggle could cause Americans to keep their money in their pockets and away from an improved economy.

I am not saying journalists should keep the truth away from the public. Nor do I believe that Americans should be less informed. In fact, I feel the opposite.

Instead, I am simply stating what an important role journalists play in society. The views journalists publish can become the views of the public.

So in a time like this, the pressure is on.

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One Shot Wonder

by Peter Merchlewitz



One of the best skills you can have in the business world is to have a special, attention-getting company logo that will help consumers remember your product.

So why is it that many logos are starting to look the same?

The Creative Review blog delved into this superficial conundrum, wondering why many companies are deciding to slim, cut, and smooth their old logos. Barclaycard just recently received its new face-lift, courtesy from global brand agency, Brand Union.

Apparently, all the cool kids believe that sanded edges, and rounder surfaces give off a more "Look how round and soft and approachable we are."

However, that warm, fuzzy feeling you might get could come at the cost of individuality. In such a competitive market, how can a company get any recognition if consumers can't tell the difference in your company if they all look the same?

In trying to say they’re about the new, the modern, the global, they’re in fact revealing a willingness to simply blend in with everyone else.

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Nielsen online publication suggests editorial restructuring

By: Allison McNeal

Print publications are moving towards consolidating their major companies to impliment a new content strategy.

Nielsen Business Media recently stated that they are starting a company restructuring, which would consolidate editorial staffs.

One proposal for the company restructuring is to merge Nielsen's Adweek, Mediaweek, and Brandweek magazines to increase sales and boost revenue.

According to Foliomag.com, this company restructuring could mean that layoffs are going to be imposed for a second time this year.

Nielsen layoffs have been ongoing since April because of the enormous amount of debt the company has consumed in 2007 and 2008. The company reportedly had "revenues of $4.7 billion in 2007, an increase of about seven percent over the previous year," said Foliomag.com. "The company’s total debt, however, was $8.25 billion on Dec. 31, with cash balances of $399 million."

The organization also had to scale back its print from 47 issues to 36 because of the restructuring.

Nielsen's Web site, Adweek.com, also has been redesigned to appeal to consumers. The Web site now has longer features and more marketing ideas embedded in the site.

Sabrina Crow, Nielsen's Business Media Group senior vice president of marketing and media, states how they are trying to appeal to more consumers.

"This is a rapidly changing industry, and we are staying ahead of the marketplace by delivering the two things our audiences want and need: instant news and thoughtful opinion," Crow said.

She also stated that “we are moving with our audience as they evolve and are maximizing the value we provide our community by delivering [online] content [every day]."

As Nielsen and other companies are revamping their organizations, a primary factor is the audience and what they should get out of the publications.

Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor of NYU's graduate interactive telecommunications program, expanded on how media organizations try to appeal to the average users as a whole, instead of focusing on people as individuals. He also goes on to explain how companies are underestimating the power of their audience and their creavity.

The decision of companies embracing their audience was one topic that we discussed in class and raises the question of what would online newspaper and magazine companies do without input and creativity from individuals? These organizations rely on individual opinion and would want to restructure their company to please their viewers.

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Bailout plan for newspaper industry

By: Callie McBroom

Many journalists are now expressing concern about how the banking crisis will affect the already-struggling newspaper industry.

As Inksniffer puts it, this is a time when "a highly leveraged company with high debts secured against an asset that is small and/or diminishing in value and which is paying steep interest rates on loans, has no prospect of getting out of them because they can't refinance." This situation describes the state of many newspapers in the country even before the crisis hit.
Which, then, brings up an interesting point. If the government has an interest in saving banks for the greater good of its citizens, shouldn't it also be interested in saving the newspapers in the country? Should there be a plan to bailout the newspaper industry?

Newspapers could soon be going out of business at a much higher rate than banks have been recently. Not to mention that a very small number of newspaper companies have and continue to buy out numerous smaller operations.

Just like banks recently, healthy companies have been able to buy newspapers at an increasing rate because it's easy to buy a company that has financial problems. Consolidation over the last 25 years or so has led to falling numbers of independent dailies. Slate says these numbers fell from 1,300 to 700. This is alarming to many people for many different reasons.

I realize that many people would prefer to not have the government involved in the process of newsgathering. However, that may be the lesser of two evils if it means keeping newspapers around to gather news in the first place. Just something to think about.

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Writers will be editors of their own material

By Austin Bates

Recently, Express Newspapers has let writers of the Daily Express and Sunday Express know that they may soon have to edit their own stories before finally submitting them. Express Newspapers has let it be known that they intend to eliminate around 80 editor and support staff positions between the two papers in order to cut costs and make themselves more efficient.

The new plan now is to have writers edit their own material with the help of a pre-made template that will be distributed by the newspaper layout designers, along with lawyers who will do a final check. The newspaper hopes this will keep them alive and running. Others are not so optimistic or happy with the decision, even expressing "anger".

If I was a writer, I'd have to say I would be a little angry as well. I also feel this could be risky, and overstress the capabilities of many of the writers. And editing will not be anywhere as good as it would be with a dedicated person.

Personally, I feel that first of all, having a writer also do his own editing is detrimental to the quality of that writer's work. He'll now not only have twice as much to do, but this means he also has much less time to work on his story, and has to allocate more time just to edit it. Further, the writer will be under a tighter deadline with more to do.

Second, an editor is dedicated to looking over a story and only looking for errors of all kinds, typographical, grammatical, and structural. Everybody knows that after writing something, you can't effectively edit it if it's your own work because not only will you be more concerned with little minute conceptual details, like whether you said want you wanted to say, and whether you sound good, but you won't catch your own mistakes even if you go over it several times, because many times your brain automatically corrects a sentence based upon your memory of what it should say. An editor has no preconceived notions of what a story should say, and will see the sentences that make little sense, or the out-of-context material much better than the writer could.

Overall, I think this sounds like a bad idea for everyone involved. Editors not only see things a writer couldn't have thought of or seen, but they find larger mistakes, like a lack of connection between ideas, or subtly incorrectly organized sentences. Dropping editors will only lead to more mistakes, more carelessness, and less time to perfect stories.

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