Spike Lee, Katrina survivors urge journalists not to forget Gulf Coast Sunday, Apr 1 2007 

ASNE Reporter Stacy A. Anderson 4:57 PM

By Stacy A. Anderson, ASNE Reporter

March 30, 2007

 http://www.asne.org/index.cfm?id=6579

 New Orleans residents displaced after Hurricane Katrina joined director Spike Lee on Friday to encourage ASNE members to use the most essential skill of a reporter:  listening to tales of their ongoing struggles.

Lee, who directed the HBO documentary “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,” implored editors to maintain continuous news coverage after the disaster, a topic that has been abandoned in newsrooms across the country as the Gulf Coast region continues to rebuild 19 months later.

Lee and three New Orleans residents featured in his film discussed journalists’ roles in molding the views of impressionable audiences.

Fred Johnson, a resident of the 7th ward, said he became a part of Lee’s project “by choosing not to run.” He remained in New Orleans after the disaster to aid residents also left without homes.

Johnson and other Gulf Coast residents who are still experiencing the hurricane’s aftermath told the ASNE Reporter they wanted editors to keep a spotlight on the story.

“We want to make sure we reach the forefront about what happened and what hasn’t,” Johnson said “If they are really concerned about seeing a great American city come back, they should come and help to keep news on the front page.”

Johnson said newsrooms should just report the story objectively. “There’s good news and there’s bad news, they should promote both,” he said. “That’s what I call good journalism, telling the whole story.”

Other panelists included New Orleans residents Gralen Banks and Phyliss Montana LeBlanc, who remain in their FEMA-issued trailers more than a year after the disaster.

“I sense the frustration,” said Stan Tiner, executive editor of The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss. “We thought we would be further along by now. New Orleans has been ignored, and we as a subset and shadow of that city, have been ignored too.”

Tiner said he’s happy to hear that Lee plans to continue documenting other areas affected by the hurricane.

Jim Amoss, editor of The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, which won a pair of Pulitzer Prizes in 2006 for coverage of Hurricane Katrina, said Friday’s closing session gave editors a better view of the importance of following up on a developing event.

“It serves to represent the attention of a story we covered intensely as a nation, when it was breaking,” he said. “Now that is an ongoing tale of rebuilding a broken city.”

Amoss said he would like newsrooms to cover meaningful topics more thoroughly.

“The story can’t be done after a few weeks,” he said. “Recovery is a marathon, not a sprint,” he said.

Lee is best known for controversial films including “Do the Right Thing,” “4 Little Girls,” “Jungle Fever,” and “Malcolm X.”

 

Tribune Co. personnel await imminent news about possible sale Sunday, Apr 1 2007 

ASNE Reporter Stacy A. Anderson 4:51 PM

 

 Tribune Co. headquarters in Chicago.

By Stacy A. Anderson, ASNE Reporter

March 29, 2007

 http://www.asne.org/index.cfm?id=6568

Tribune Co. editors will be checking their cell phones and BlackBerries between sessions at the ASNE convention Friday, anticipating news about the company’s possible sale.

A change in ownership could further shake up an industry battered by falling circulation, job cuts and a string of newspaper sales.

Tribune, which owns a number of newspapers including the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the Sun in Baltimore, as well as television stations and the lucrative Chicago Cubs baseball team, is expected to announce a decision about its ownership by Saturday.

A leading contender is Chicago real estate entrepreneur Sam Zell, who entered a bid in February. But two previous bidders, Los Angeles billionaires Eli Broad and Ronald Burkle, who expressed interest in January, recently requested additional financial information about the company, perhaps forcing a longer wait for a decision.

Anthony Moor, associate managing editor for online at the Orlando Sentinel, a Tribune property, said the pending sale has gained attention in the newsroom.

“It’s been distracting, and there’s no question about that,” Moor said. “The overlay of the potential sale has taken our eye off the ball. But we don’t have the luxury of gloom and doom.”

“We have this industry-wide transformation” to digital media, said Moor, who has frequently visited Tribune headquarters in Chicago to develop online projects

“Regardless of what the Tribune does, we have to change,” he added.

James E. O’Shea, who became executive vice president and editor of the Los Angeles Times last November, said the focus of reporters and editors should be on the news and the best way to present it.

“The biggest thing you can do is remind people, despite this time, is that they have the best job in the world: going out and telling stories,” O’Shea said. “What’s going to happen is what’s going to happen.”

O’Shea said news will always be vital to readers, regardless of ownership.

“People are not going to quit needing news,” he said. “Things are changing and we have to adapt. … We have to go off and do our jobs with integrity and aggressiveness.”

John F. Greenman, former president and publisher of the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer, knows the task of newsroom reorganization all too well.

McClatchy Co. bought the Ledger-Enquirer from Knight Ridder a year ago.

“It’s very difficult,” Greenman said. “New ownership means uncertainty, and uncertainty is uncomfortable.”

Newspapers should seek advice from other news organizations that have experienced change, he said.

“The best thing I can say to people is that it will take some time to shake out,” Greenman said. “There is a fair amount of instability and change in the entire industry. They are not the first.

“They can look to other examples in major markets such as Philadelphia, San Jose and Indianapolis,” he said. “They have some company.”

 

Absorbing news: Study finds more text is read online than off Sunday, Apr 1 2007 

ASNE Reporter Stacy A. Anderson 4:26 PM

 

Pegie Stark Adam (left) and Sara Quinn are the directors of the EyeTrack07 study. 

By Stacy A. Anderson, ASNE Reporter

March 28, 2007

http://www.asne.org/index.cfm?id=6543

Internet users are known for bouncing around the Web, but a recent study found they’re actually reading news online more comprehensively than newspaper readers.

The research by the Poynter Institute involved 200 people reading broadsheets, 200 reading tabloids and 200 viewing Web sites. The results showed that online viewers read about 77 percent of the story text, compared with print readers who viewed 62 percent on a broadsheet and 57 percent on a tabloid.

The project, Eyetrack07, was Poynter’s fourth and largest “eye-tracking” study. It assessed reading behaviors using eyeglasses with tiny cameras to record eye movement and behavior patterns.

Almost two-thirds of online users who select and article read it thoroughly, the study found. About 71 percent of participants read some type of news four or more times a week.

Pegie Stark Adam, the study’s co-director, said the data debunks the idea that people are reading less news when they’re on the Web.

“We found the opposite,” she said. “People are reading more online, and that is surprising. They scan for a story online and then choose a story to read.”

In print editions, the study found that story jumps do not discourage most readers. Tabloid readers who moved to a jump read about 68 percent of the jump text. Broadsheet users read an average of 59 percent.

Two major reading behavior patterns were assessed: methodical and scanning. Most print readers are methodical, with about 75 percent reading a story in a similar pattern or sequence. The rest skim a story, headline and graphics and may not return to the page. The approach for online readers is about half methodical and half scanners.

In addition to reading published editions of four newspapers in print or online, participants viewed three mock print editions and three mock online editions to determine a reader’s focus. In print, alternative story forms, such as timelines or lists, drew 15 percent more attention than regular text.

J. Ford Huffman, a USA Today deputy managing editor, said the latest data show the effectiveness of alternative storytelling formats and using varied layouts “instead of it being one long narrative.”

Huffman said the findings will help his newsroom, which used results from Poynter’s first study in 1991 for its newspaper design. That research, like the recent study, concluded that bigger headlines and photographs draw in readers.

Sara Quinn, co-director of the study, said those elements are now the point of entry on printed news. Also, readers are more attracted to color photos than black-and-white in printed news. And photos with action and real people also draw a larger response than staged photos or mug shots.

As for online news, the points of entry are “directionals” such as navigation bars and teasers, Quinn said.

“It’s great that we have hard data that shows patterns, since we just assumed before,” said Robbie Morganfield, executive director of the Diversity Institute at Vanderbilt University. “It will help us as we train and educate people,” he said.

Poynter will release the full report in June. The directors said they wanted to expand the study to include more in-depth research about reading news online and through other formats, such as handheld devices.

 

The eyes have it in Poynter study Sunday, Apr 1 2007 

ASNE Reporter Stacy A. Anderson 4:16 PM

By Stacy A. Anderson, ASNE Reporter

March 27, 2007

 http://www.asne.org/index.cfm?id=6524

Research from the first combined study of reading behavior in broadsheet, tabloid and online news formats is to be released Wednesday morning to help newsrooms present their content more effectively.

The Poynter Institute project, EyeTrack07, used video recorders to analyze how eyes move across a page, in print or online, while reading news.

“It’s the first one of its kind,” said Sara Quinn, the research co-director and a visual journalism faculty member at Poynter. “Our findings deal with the amount of text people read, and also we are able to look at different styles of reading. And there are significant differences.”

Poynter tested about 600 print and online readers using researchers from the University of Florida and Mediamark Research Inc. of New York.

EyeTrack07, the fourth and largest study about eye tracking from Poynter, tested 200 readers for each of three news formats using editions published by the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, the Philadelphia Daily News, the St. Petersburg Times and the Star Tribune in Minneapolis.

All of about 600 participants also viewed three mock newspaper samples, each version displaying more complexity in graphics and layout.

Eyeglasses with two small cameras recorded eye movement and behavior patterns over a 15-minute period. The equipment measured how much a participant read and in what sequence.

The research group also created numerical codes for about 150 text and design elements such as captions, headlines, photographs, graphics, briefs, stories, obituaries, comics and sports on each Web and newspaper page to identify where the reader’s attention focused.

Keith M. Woods, Poynter’s dean of faculty, said the research would assist newsrooms on how to better present news content.

“Things are changing much too rapidly, and the industry needs contemporary guidance,” Woods said. “They can use this information from the research to make immediate changes.”

Conclusions from the study, conducted from July to November last year, is to be presented at Poynter April 10-12 and at journalism conventions throughout the year.

Poynter conducted its first eye-tracking study, Eyes on the News, in 1991 to look at newspaper reading behavior. Pegie Stark Adam, who directed the first study with newspaper designer Mario Garcia, co-directed the recent study.

She is to present at Wednesday’s session.

Poynter joined with Stanford University in 2000 to view live Web sites and release Eye Track II. It conducted Eye Track III in 2004 with the University of North Carolina and incorporated mock prototypes.

Watch video of readers being surveyed at Poynter’s EyeTrack07 Web site: http://eyetrack.poynter.org

 

Has ASNE become a four-letter word? Sunday, Apr 1 2007 

ASNE Reporter Stacy A. Anderson 4:07 PM

Photo by KRISTOFFER TRIPPLAAR/ASNE Reporter
 

By Stacy A. Anderson, ASNE Reporter

March 26, 2007

http://www.asne.org/index.cfm?id=6500

Journalists primarily used pens and notebooks when the American Society of Newspaper Editors was founded in 1922.

Now they’re using recorders, cameras and advanced software to tell stories for their newspapers’ Web sites.

Some editors are spending as much time on online initiatives as the printed paper.

Is it time for ASNE – a group of newspaper editors – to change its name?

ASNE’s executive board took a step in that direction last fall, rebranding the organization. It created a new description – “ASNE: Leading America’s Newsrooms” – to reflect its increasing attention on technology, said Charlotte Hall, ASNE’s secretary.

“It reflects the digital age and print world, broadening our mission,” said Hall, editor of the Orlando Sentinel. “The name serves us well since newspapers are online,” she said, though she conceded that an eventual name change is likely.

“We need to invent a name for what we do, like News Machine,” she joked.

Newspapers still draw the bulk of their revenue from print editions, even as they expand online capabilities with interactive maps, photo galleries, podcasts and video clips.

Advertising on newspaper Web sites last year accounted for about 5.4 percent of all newspaper ad spending in 2006, the Newspaper Association of America reported this month. But ad revenue for newspaper Web sites is increasing rapidly, jumping 31.5 percent in 2006 to almost $2.7 billion, NAA said.

Newspapers are turning to online media aggressively because of that trend, said Lori Schwab, executive director of the Online News Association.

“It’s been a steady increase in the revenue online, and it’s a move toward the future,” Schwab said. “It’s a generation shift. Younger people are looking toward the Internet for news. Papers have the ‘moving to the future’ philosophy.”

Pamela B. Fine, managing editor of The Indianapolis Star, said newspapers’ online revenue streams will continue expanding as their Web audience grows.

“The demand for print will contract over time,” she said. “So in order to fulfill our watchdog rule in the democracy, we need to be where the eyeballs are.”

Print editions are still valuable because they provide more perspective and depth about how a story affects people, Fine said.

How much time a newspaper reporter devotes to a print story compared with an online version depends on the topic’s newsworthiness, she said. An unfolding hostage situation may consume 100 percent of a reporter’s time updating the assignment on the Web, Fine said, while reporting a court ruling may require spending 25 percent of the time to break the news online and 75 percent to develop the history and responses in a print story.

Some editors see no distinction between online and print. “There is not a meaningful measurement,” said Kenneth A. Paulson, editor of USA Today. “It’s a single entity. The newsroom is about gathering news and information nonstop.”

Merging the print and online newsrooms at USA Today 14 months ago has built a new culture, Paulson said. “It’s not us and them. It’s we.”

Paulson advised newspapers to “develop expertise in a culture of innovation online, but also publish the best print newspaper you possibly can.”

As online efforts continue to advance in the newsroom, Paulson said he’s not concerned about the future of USA Today’s print publication. “Both our revenue and readership continue to be print-based and will be for a long time,” he said.

The name ASNE is suitable for the organization for now, he said. “Newspaper is a synonym for news organizations that gather news and information and report in a credible way.”

The Society for News Design, an organization for visual journalism, changed its name – for the second time – more than a decade ago to address the evolving newsroom.

The organization had been named The Society of Newspaper Design since 1981. It had been founded two years earlier as The Society of Newspaper Designers.

Elise Burroughs, SND’s executive director, said ASNE’s latest motto is a reasonable approach. “We had ideas similar to ASNE. News is no longer just in newspapers, and we wanted our name to reflect that.”

Although Fine said she believes ASNE’s name will change in her lifetime, it has made a lasting impact.

“ASNE has become a tremendous brand and respected newspaper name,” she said. “It’s a gravitas that other organizations don’t have.

“What’s critical isn’t the name, but what we do as an organization,” Fine said.