ISSUE

Fall 2003

Journalism and Black America: Then and Now

Black and white journalists, at times working as colleagues, at other times separately, have produced the first draft of our nation’s difficult history of race relations. In this issue of Nieman Reports, journalists examine reporting at the intersection of black and white America and look at the racial conditions, climate and conversations in newsrooms. – Melissa Ludtke, Editor

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Articles

Books

‘Coloring the News’ Collides With Journalists

‘… too many of those with heavy investments in the diversity crusade either read my arguments wrong or preferred not to review their investments.’
William McGowan
September 15, 2003
Nieman Notes

A Nieman Visit to Cuba

The fellows discovered risk-takers who ‘live with a wink, a fiction, and perhaps a few bribes.’
David Dahl
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

A Weblog Sharpens Journalism Students’ Skills

‘Students—the writers and editors—publish a respectable, if not professional, product every day on the World Wide Web.’
Larry Pryor
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Blogging Connects a Columnist to New Story Ideas

‘… I have always suspected that many of my readers know more than I do.’
Mike Wendland
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

An Editor Acts to Limit a Staffer’s Weblog

‘This is not an issue of freedom of speech.’
Brian Toolan
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Excerpts From the DMN Daily Weblog

Since The Dallas Morning News’s editorial board Weblog began on July 20, editorial writers have been sharing their views and, in some cases, arguing amongst themselves for the wired world…
The Dallas Morning News Daily Weblog
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Readers Glimpse an Editorial Board’s Thinking

Creating a Weblog offers ‘a way for us to demystify what we do and how we do it.’
Keven Ann Willey
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Blogging Journalists Invite Outsiders’ Reporting In

‘To be interesting, the blog must have a discernible human voice: A blog with just links is a portal.’
Sheila Lennon
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Weblogs Bring Journalists Into a Larger Community

‘… we need to drop grandiose claims of being aloof, objective observers and be more transparent about how we do our jobs.’
Paul Grabowicz
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Benefits Blogging Brings to News Outlets

What benefits do Weblogs bring to journalism? Several.
J.D. Lasica
September 15, 2003
Nieman Notes

‘Sister in the Band of Brothers’

A reporter accompanies the 101st Airborne during the Iraq War and turns the experience into a book.
Katherine M. Skiba
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Blogs and Journalism Need Each Other

‘The transparency of blogging has contributed to news organizations becoming a bit more accessible and interactive ….’
J.D. Lasica
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Weblogs Threaten and Inform Traditional Journalism

Blogs ‘challenge conventional notions of who is a journalist and what journalism is.’
Tom Regan
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Blogging From Iraq

With a borrowed laptop, rented satellite phone and reader-generated budget, an independent reporter sends back stories from the war.
Christopher Allbritton
September 15, 2003
Diversity

Why Journalists Can’t Talk Across Race

‘What we found is a conversation fraught with frustration and mistrust.’
Dori J. Maynard
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

A Guide to Various Weblogs

RELATED WEB LINKSDan Gillmor– dangillmor.comDave Barry– blogs.herald.comToday in the Sky– blogs.usatoday.com/sky/Clergy Abuse Tracker– www.bishop-accountability.org Weblogging PioneerThe pioneer among blogging columnists is Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News. He…
September 15, 2003
Diversity

Newsroom Diversity: Truth vs. Fiction

Before and after the Times’s debacle, American newspapers are still ‘telling our readers an incomplete, inaccurate story.’
Bryan Monroe
September 15, 2003
Opinion

Reporting in Southern Africa

A prominent white journalist revisits his reporting during apartheid and reflects on the news media’s work today.
Wilson Wanene
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

A Reporter Is Fired for Writing a Weblog

He wonders whether there is ‘a place for Weblogs in the Fourth Estate firmament.’
Steve Olafson
September 15, 2003
Opinion

Contemplating the Relevancy of Age and Race

‘My youth and race have been assets to my journalism during my budding career.’
Errin Haines
September 15, 2003
Features

A Racially Motivated Murder Leads to a Uniquely Reported Documentary

Whites interviewed whites. Blacks interviewed blacks. The stories came together.
Marco Williams
September 15, 2003
Diversity

Racial Reverberations in Newsrooms After Jayson Blair

‘The coverage of the scandal showed once again that African Americans are still not allowed to be seen as individuals when they fail.’
Neil Henry
September 15, 2003
Opinion

Reflecting on a Different Era in Political Journalism

Scotty Reston ‘and his peers felt comfortable making those choices based on their sense of what was best for the nation.’
Alex S. Jones
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Weblogs: A Road Back to Basics

‘Weblogs will not save journalism as we know it. However, they might end up improving journalism as we know it.’
Bill Mitchell
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

The Infectious Desire to Be Linked in the Blogosphere

‘Weblogs offer journalists tangible ways to achieve that Number One feeling.’
Mark Glaser
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Weblogs and Journalism: Do They Connect?

‘… the vast majority of Weblogs do not provide original reporting— for me, the heart of all journalism.’
Rebecca Blood
September 15, 2003
Opinion

Journalism’s ‘Normal Accidents’

By exploring theories about how organizations fail, a journalist understands better what is happening in newsrooms and why.
William F. Woo
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Fall 2003: Journalist’s Trade Introduction

At a time when access to the high-speed Internet is getting easier and do-it-yourself publishing software abounds, Weblogs are cyberspace’s quick-moving, multilinked, interactive venues of choice for millions of people…
Melissa Ludtke
September 15, 2003
Opinion

The Siegal Committee Report

Examining suggested changes through the lens of normal accident theory.
William F. Woo
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Is Blogging Journalism?

A blogger and journalist finds no easy answer, but he discovers connections.
Paul Andrews
September 15, 2003
Diversity

Twelve Questions On Race

If you were asked to grade race relations in Marshall, what grade, from 1 to 100, would you give? How might we improve our score? For the most part, predominantly…
Phil Latham
September 15, 2003
Diversity

Reporting on Race: Building a New Definition of ‘News’

A report on race reporting by civic journalists highlights some common approaches.
Jan Schaffer
September 15, 2003
Diversity

Having Conversations Across Race in Newsrooms

We have not ‘found a safe place or way to discuss racial issues with each other.’
Condace L. Pressley
September 15, 2003
From the Curator

Nieman Reports Revisits the Coverage of Black America

Journalists explore connections between the racial climate in newsrooms and news organizations’ coverage of race.
Bob Giles
September 15, 2003
Opinion

Asking Questions So a Community Thinks About Race

The Marshall News Messenger played a central role in creating a new dialogue.
Phil Latham
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Moving Toward Participatory Journalism

‘If contemporary American journalism is a lecture, what it is evolving into is something that incorporates a conversation and seminar.’
Dan Gillmor
September 15, 2003
Diversity

Reporting on the Minority Education Beat

At The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, attention is focused on how race affects education.
Tim Simmons
September 15, 2003
Diversity

The Black Press: Past and Present

‘Once considered an outdated protest medium, the black press today is appreciated as crucial to ethnic progress.’
Larry Muhammad
September 15, 2003
Opinion

Lacking a Worthy Story, a Columnist Retreats From Writing About Race

‘Race is a subject that needs lowered voices, or even some benign neglect.’
Jack E. White
September 15, 2003
Diversity

The Work and Struggles of Black Reporters

Covering the Black Power revolution ‘was the only time that mainstream media put an important story entirely in the hands of black reporters.’
Dori J. Maynard
September 15, 2003
Opinion

Fall 2003: Words & Reflections Introduction

Accidents happen in newsrooms, and some even can be expected to happen, according to William F. Woo, a former editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who teaches journalism at Stanford…
Melissa Ludtke
September 15, 2003
Books

Documenting the Orangeburg Massacre

At 10:33 p.m. on the night of February 8, 1968, eight to 10 seconds of police gunfire left three young black men dying and 27 wounded on the campus of…
Jack Bass
September 15, 2003
Diversity

Reporting on the Civil Rights Movement

‘… the issue seemed so cut and dry and the injustices so stark that reporters struggled to remain objective….’
Jack Nelson
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Bloggers and Their First Amendment Protection

Web writing is a protected right, but more limits exist outside the United States.
Jane E. Kirtley
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Weblogs and Journalism: Back to the Future?

A blogger predicts that Weblogs might push Big Media back to better news reporting.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Journalists: Want to blog?

Take advantage of the newness of blogging to newsrooms and become a blogger before the publisher turns the assignment over to his/her favorite columnist. Just blog. Make a prototype. Show…
Sheila Lennon
September 15, 2003
Opinion

While the Watchdogs Slept

Five months went by before many in the press questioned the administration’s evidence for going to war.
Gilbert Cranberg
September 15, 2003
Diversity

Mainstreaming and Diversity Are Gannett’s Core Values

But these programs ‘are not without controversy.’
Tom Witosky
September 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Determining the Value of Blogs

‘Without, say, the imprimatur of The New York Times, a blogger has only his or her reputation to recommend the work ….’
Eric Alterman
September 15, 2003
Diversity

Making Race a Part of Local TV News Coverage

A news producer describes KRON’s reporting on race and the way this led to changes in how people work in the newsroom.
Craig Franklin
September 15, 2003
Features

Fall 2003: Introduction

Black and white journalists, at times working as colleagues, at other times separately, have produced the first draft of our nation’s difficult history of race relations. In this issue of…
Melissa Ludtke
September 15, 2003