Audio
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December 23, 2008 02:37 PM
The New Age of Citizen Journalism
Audio of the Jarvis/Darnton panel on citizen journalism
On November 20, 2008, CJR and Consumer Reports staged a conference called "Consumer Revolution on the Web: Opportunities and Dangers for Journalism." The conference was designed to address questions about how professional journalists should cover consumer issues at a time when big-name bloggers, online vigilantes, and anonymous user-reviewers have turned word-of-mouth into a powerful weapon and traditional consumer reporters are falling victim to budget cuts. CJR publisher Evan Cornog moderated a panel discussion on the relative merits of citizen and professional journalism. Sitting on the panel were CUNY professor Jeff Jarvis and veteran New York Times reporter John Darnton. Audio of the panel is available here.
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December 23, 2008 02:31 PM
Are Consumers the Right Watchdogs?
Audio of the panel discussion on amateur vs. professional consumer reporting
On November 20, 2008, CJR and Consumer Reports staged a conference called "Consumer Revolution on the Web: Opportunities and Dangers for Journalism." The conference was designed to address questions about how professional journalists should cover consumer issues at a time when big-name bloggers, online vigilantes, and anonymous user-reviewers have turned word-of-mouth into a powerful weapon and traditional consumer reporters are falling victim to budget cuts. Consumer Reports editorial director Kevin McKean moderated a panel discussion on how to strike a balance between professional and amateur consumer reporting. Sitting on the panel were veteran consumer reporter Trudy Lieberman, On the Media host Bob Garfield, The Consumerist editor Ben Popken, Pulitzer-winning reporter David Cay Johnston, and Harry McCracken, editor of Technologizer. Audio of the panel is available here.
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December 23, 2008 02:25 PM
David Pogue: A Reviewer Reviews the Users
Audio of the NYT columnist's keynote at CJR's recent consumer reporting conference
On November 20, 2008, CJR and Consumer Reports staged a conference called "Consumer Revolution on the Web: Opportunities and Dangers for Journalism." The conference was designed to address questions about how professional journalists should cover consumer issues at a time when big-name bloggers, online vigilantes, and anonymous user-reviewers have turned word-of-mouth into a powerful weapon and traditional consumer reporters are falling victim to budget cuts. New York Times columnist David Pogue delivered the keynote address, in which he discussed the rise of user-generated consumer reporting on the Web. Audio of his speech is available here.
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November 21, 2008 11:09 AM
On the Importance of Cultivating Sources
The winners of the Chancellor Award
On November 19, The New Yorker's Jane Mayer and The New York Times's Andrew C. Revkin were presented with the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism and spoke at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism.
Mayer was honored for her reporting on the use of torture by the Bush administration. (Two examples of her excellent work can be seen here and here.) Revkin was awarded for his coverage of climate change. (In addition to his Times articles, he also runs the lively and informative Dot Earth Blog.
In her talk, Mayer emphasized the importance of developing strong relationships with sources and finding innovative strategies for reporting on topics shrouded in secrecy. For his part, Revkin encouraged journalists to think of scientific knowledge as an advancing and evolving set of ideas.
Listen to the full lecture here.
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November 14, 2008 01:03 PM
The Changing Media Landscape 2008
New media experts discuss the state of the news media
On Tuesday, November 11, Columbia's Journalism School convened its annual "Changing Media Landscape" panel to discuss the current state of the news media and the direction it will take in the future. Participants--Sewell Chan, editor of The New York Times's City Room blog; Jacob Weisberg, chairman of Slate; Erica Smith, news designer of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Paper Cuts blog; Adriano Farano, executive editor of CafeBabel.com; and David Cohn, founder of the crowd-funding investigative platform Spot.us--found both reasons to be hopeful and reasons to be vigilant.
One reason to be vigilant, according to Weisberg: "New media and the traditional media are diverging rapidly after a period of peaceful coexistence,” he said. “We are moving into a conflict model.”
One reason to be hopeful, though, is that conflict often leads to innovation. “Finally, experimentation is being embraced,” Cohn said. “We should think of it as research and development; journalism will survive on the shoulders of its failures.”
Listen to the discussion here.
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October 29, 2008 10:00 AM
The State of Mexican Journalism
An address from Grupo Reforma president Alejandro Junco de la Vega
Nowhere in the Americas is it more dangerous to practice journalism than in Mexico. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, twenty-one journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000, seven of them in direct reprisal for their work. Those deaths, and the many other assaults that are a constant threat to Mexican journalists, mirror a rising trend of drug-related violence in the country.
Earlier this month, Columbia's Journalism School hosted a conference, “Scared Silent: Mexican Journalists Under Attack by Drug Mafias,” to foster awareness of the threat Mexican journalists face in their work and to increase cooperation among those who are trying to aid them. Sponsored by the Knight Foundation, the conference brought many journalists to Columbia University from Mexico to provide a safe venue for discussion and to meet their U.S. counterparts.
Delivering the keynote address at that event was Alejandro Junco de la Vega, president of Grupo Reforma, which publishes seven daily papers in Mexico, among them outlets in Mexico's three largest cities: Mexico City (Reforma), Guadalajara (Mural) and Monterrey (El Norte). The publishing conglomerate, and its president, have been instrumental factors in the evolution of journalism in Mexico. And the powerful speech Junco delivered highlighted not only the many challenges Mexico's press faces, but also his abiding faith in the power of truth to effect change.
You can listen to audio of the speech here.
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August 21, 2008 05:09 PM
David Isay At Columbia
StoryCorps founder on the art of the interview
Radio producer David Isay is the founder and executive director of the StoryCorps project, which collects and preserves oral American oral histories.
On August 20, Isay spoke at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism about the beauty of stories, the art of the interview, and power of listening.
An audio file of the talk is available here.
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August 20, 2008 02:22 PM
Shankar Vedantam on Bias in Reporting
Washington Post reporter discusses how bias factors in reporting
Shankar Vedantam writes the Department of Human Behavior column at the Washington Post.
On August 14, he spoke at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism about why reporters may not be aware of their hidden biases, and the role that such preconceptions may play in covering presidential elections. Vedantam refers to several psychology experiments that help his audience discover their own biases.
An audio file of the talk is available here.
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May 22, 2008 12:00 PM
The Washington Post's Dan Balz
The veteran political reporter discusses life on the campaign trail and the changing world of political coverage
Dan Balz, political correspondent for The Washington Post—and a principal voice in the coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign—believes that “this is a truly fabulous time to be a political reporter.” The historic election we’re in the midst of, he says, “has been a reawakening to the central role that journalism plays in the advancement of democracy.” Speaking on Tuesday to the Class of 2008 at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, Balz shared the wisdom he has garnered over the thirty years he has spent covering politics for the Post, giving advice to graduating journalists and reflecting on his own tenure in the field. “To say that I have loved every minute of my career as a political reporter is not an understatement,” he says.
Balz, like CJR, has his concerns about the way we cover politics, both on and off the campaign trail—“we talk more and more about less and less,” he says, and “we do less reporting than we used to do”—but overall, he is optimistic about political coverage and the wider landscape of reporting and storytelling. “None of us should be pessimistic about journalism itself,” Balz says. “This is an extraordinarily exciting time for anyone in the business of news and information, a wonderful time to be a journalist.”
Listen to Balz’s speech here.
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April 23, 2008 09:00 AM
The Week's Felix Dennis
The irreverent publisher on the power of the magazine
Felix Dennis is the chairman of The Week magazine, which keenly—and sometimes irreverently—curates, summarizes, and contextualizes the news and opinion content of other publications. Dennis is also a high school dropout, has been jailed for obscenity in his native Britain, is a best-selling poet, and created a media empire that includes such magazines as Maxim, Blender, and Stuff. The Guardian named him “one of the most powerful men in British journalism.”
On April 17, Dennis spoke at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, sharing his strong opinions about the “heresies” to be avoided in journalism, the power of talent to combat the industry’s financial woes (“talent has always ruled in the media. It always will”), the fact that we should “relax” about the so-called threat of the Internet (“as far as writers and editors are concerned, the growing power and reach of the Internet represents, I believe, nothing but good news for you guys”), and the relationship that readers develop with the magazines they read regularly:
Familiarity is a vital weapon in the armory of virtually all periodicals and magazines. It’s a kind of armor against direct competitors and other forms of media….Readers on the whole, don’t want innovation….What they want in their magazines is just about the same for every magazine in the world. They want to be informed, they want to be entertained, simultaneously, and in a familiar format…. Consistency and stamina really count in our business.
An audio file of the talk is available here.
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April 16, 2008 09:00 AM
Delacorte Lecture with Susan Lyne
The president and CEO on the makings of a media empire
Susan Lyne is the president and CEO of Martha Stewart Living OmniMedia, where she oversees the company’s developments in publishing (both magazines and books), broadcasting (television programs and satellite radio), the Web, and merchandising. From January 2002 to May 2004, she was the President of ABC Entertainment—responsible for, among other shows, Desperate Housewives and Lost—and held various executive positions at the ABC television network from 1998 to 2002. From 1996 to 1998, Lyne was Executive Vice President of Walt Disney Pictures and Television, Inc.
On April 10, Lyne spoke at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, discussing the connection between the worlds of entertainment and journalism, the financial opportunities in magazine publishing, and why “it is literally the best buy in the world to subscribe to a magazine.”
An audio file of the talk is available here.
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April 02, 2008 09:00 AM
Delacorte Lecture with Bitch’s Andi Zeisler
The editor discusses feminist journalism
Andi Zeisler is the editorial/creative director of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture. She co-founded the magazine as a ‘zine in 1996 with two of her high school friends—“we basically wrote the stuff for Bitch that we wanted to read ourselves, and that we weren’t seeing a ton of out there,” Zeisler says—with no financial backers or publishers; they wrote the ‘zine’s content, copied it themselves, and hand-delivered those copies to be sold in neighborhood bookstores. From its humble origins, however, the now-quarterly magazine has grown into a respected journal of cultural discourse. Bitch, Zeisler says, is “part of a bigger movement toward media criticism and media literacy.”
On March 27, Zeisler spoke at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, discussing the portrayal of women in pop culture, the mediating role feminist criticism can play in that portrayal, and why she loves magazines.
An audio file of the talk is available here.
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March 31, 2008 11:00 AM
Pete Hamill on A.J. Liebling
The legendary author discusses the work of another legendary author
Pete Hamill is the author of twenty-two books, including News Is a Verb: Journalism at the End of the Twentieth Century, Why Sinatra Matters, and the novels Forever and North River. As a journalist he has reported on wars in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Lebanon, and Northern Ireland; written columns for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, Newsday, The Village Voice, New York magazine, and Esquire; and served as editor-in-chief of both the Post and the Daily News.
Hamill has edited a Library of America volume, A. J. Liebling: World War II Writings, which anthologizes the classic war reporting of another legendary writer, the New Yorker's A.J. Liebling. On March 25, Hamill spoke at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism about the book, its groundbreaking subject, the evolution of war reporting, and his own views of journalism today.
An audio file of the talk is available here. Enjoy.
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March 28, 2008 03:00 PM
The Wire's David Simon
The Wire creator talks about the series, urban reporting, and, yes, the future of journalism
In the January/February issue of Columbia Journalism Review, we explored the challenges journalists face portraying cities in a way that both explains their systemic problems and illuminates their residents’ humanity. Our cover story, "Secrets of the City," profiled The Wire creator David Simon—himself a former city reporter for the Baltimore Sun—in the context of journalism, asking how wide an angle reporters should use in framing their narratives of urban life.
On Wednesday, March 26, Simon spoke to students at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, discussing The Wire, whose final season recreates a fictionalized Sun, and the challenges—reportorial, financial, ethical—that paper’s reporters face. In journalism, explaining “the who, the what, the where, the when, and the how” are relatively easy, Simon told his audience. “The why," however, "is epic. The why is where journalism becomes an adult game.”
An audio file of the talk is available here. Enjoy.
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Desks
The Audit Business
- Amplifying the Drumbeat on the “Overdraft Protection” Racket The issue picks up momentum in the financial press
- Journal: Wall Street Pay Could Set Records
The Observatory Science
- Some Optimism for the Future of Science Journalism And especially for international collaboration
- NSF “Underwriting” Coverage… And other controversies from the World Conference of Science Journalists
Campaign Desk Politics & Policy
- More PitneyGate Fallout? Press focused on who asked questions at Obama town hall
- The Economy Today: School’s Out With Money Tight, Classes Are Slashed