ISSUE

Spring 2006

What Katrina Revealed, Will Journalists Now Cover?

The unfortunate reality is that American journalists do not systematically or analytically cover the plight of the poor, the marginalized, the isolated, or the powerless. When we put together elaborate hurricane coverage plans, organize medical beats, determine Iraq war coverage, or decide on approaches to stories about globalization of the economy, our focus generally is on implications for the affluent and what "experts" have to say, while keeping a watchful eye on breaking news.

Articles

Journalist’s Trade

Wrong Turns Make a Difficult Situation Worse

A journalist lists Top 10 bad decisions editors make when facing cuts in staff.

Journalist’s Trade

Spring 2006: Newspapers’ Survival Introduction

"Reinvent or die. It's that simple," is advice offered to newspapers by Tim Porter, an editor and writer with newspapers and now a news media consultant. "And the death will…

Features

Wealth Is Displayed, While Poverty Goes Unnoticed By Many in the Mexican Press

‘What one almost never reads or hears about in Mexico is the immense gap dividing the more well-to-do Mexicans from the native Indians ….’

Ana Cristina Enriquez

Features

When the Role Race Plays in Societal Gaps Is Unspoken

A journalist faces ‘obstacles — some institutional, some personal — that stand like an invisible line between covering race and covering it up.’

Claudia Meléndez Salinas

Features

Finding Perfect Pitch

‘… the stronger their facts, the more vivid their detail, the less reliant they are on the poetry.’

Features

As Health Care Gaps Grow, Coverage Shrinks

Stories about the have-nots don’t ‘fit into today's paradigm of health news.’

Trudy Lieberman

From the Curator

Community Journalism’s Pathway to the Future

‘A newspaper can't be independent unless it is interdependent with its community of readers.’

Features

Advice About Doing Project and Daily Reporting at the Same Time

What follows is more practical guidance about how to do large projects reporting at a small-staffed community newspaper, while also continuing to get news into the daily paper. — D.E.…

Features

Spring 2006: Introduction

In recounting her reporting experiences for the Palm Beach Post after Hurricane Wilma hit Florida, Jane Daugherty speaks to the “retrospective dynamic of our coverage,” in which journalists seem to…

Nieman Notes

The Atlantic Leaves Boston

Last December the January-February issue of The Atlantic Monthly went to press. It was the last one to be published in Boston of the 1,771 issues of The Atlantic published…

Nieman Notes

Old Newspapers Lead Students to New Discoveries

A valuable collection of historic newspapers is used to put ‘journalistic skills to work on news long dead.’

Nieman Notes

Nieman Reports Heads to Journalism Classrooms

In our new outreach to journalism professors and students, Nieman Reports initiated an effort to help teachers use the content of our magazine in their classrooms. To do this, we…

Nieman Notes

Journalist Liu Binyan: China’s Conscience

On December 5, 2005, the news that 80-year-old Liu Binyan, a 1989 Nieman Fellow, had passed away saddened Chinese, both in China and abroad. Numerous condolence letters and memorial articles…

Journalist’s Trade

Training Frontline Editors: Once Overlooked, Now Happening

‘Despite their importance and the tough transition when they switch from reporter or copyeditor, frontline editors often are sent to the end of the line for training.’

Michele McLellan

Journalist’s Trade

Teaching Journalism for an Unknown Future

Journalism professors work to align essential skills with emerging technology.

Journalist’s Trade

Can the Newspaper Industry Stare Disruption in the Face?

‘Lessons learned from past failures can help to ensure future triumphs.’

Clark G. Gilbert

Journalist’s Trade

Aiming to Put the Right People in Charge

New online tools will help prospective assigning editors see whether they have what it takes to succeed.

Journalist’s Trade

A Shrinking Staff Propels a Newspaper’s Transformation

‘If we’re forced to be a smaller place, then let’s aggressively teach ourselves the virtues that go along with that sensibility.’

Opinion

Spring 2006: Words & Reflections Introduction

“The first accurate description we heard of the storm’s wrath was told to a Sun Herald reporter in four words: ‘Your city is gone,'” writes Stan Tiner, executive editor of…

Features

Views About Race Cloud Discussions About Disparities

‘Do these labels — “health disparities” and “the achievement gap" — create a more comfortable way for us to talk about contemporary impacts of race?’

Martha Bebinger

Journalist’s Trade

Resources for Midlevel Editors

This list of books, articles and Web sites has been compiled by Carl Sessions Stepp, a former assigning editor and now journalism professor at the University of Maryland. Books About…

Carl Sessions Stepp

Journalist’s Trade

Exploring What Makes Training Successful

Whether editors’ training takes place in a single newsroom or as a regional gathering, its essential elements remain consistent.

Lillian Swanson

Features

The Working Poor: Is Their Gap With the Middle Class Narrowing?

A reporter looks for ways to merge coverage of the middle class and the poor.

Features

The News Gap With the Poor: Engagement, Then Silence

‘I got the feeling that once welfare had been “reformed,” the news story was simply over.’

Jennifer Friedlin

Features

Remembering Those Who Are Usually Forgotten

The unfortunate reality is that American journalists do not systematically or analytically cover the plight of the poor, the marginalized, the isolated, or the powerless. When we put together elaborate…

Opinion

The Connective Threads of the News Media and Government

A journalist sets forth a reform proposal to alter the incentives and break apart the ‘mediaocracy.’

Journalist’s Trade

Editor and Reporter: A Writing Journey Together

‘Then Joanna found her vision. It was crisp and clear. She made me see it, too.’

Journalist’s Trade

Preserving What It Is Newsrooms Do

A teacher challenges his students ‘to devise a proposal for the protection of newsroom independence and integrity’ in a changing media environment.

Journalist’s Trade

Community News Drives a Newspaper’s Vigorous Growth

‘We joke about how almost every day maintenance people seem to be assembling another desk.’

Journalist’s Trade

If Newspapers Are to Rise Again

‘Reinvent or die. It’s that simple.’

Features

Exploring Connections and Tensions

The small local newspaper in Greeley, Colorado devoted considerable time and space to examining the gaps emerging in its community.

Features

Reporting on Gaps in a Country Devoted to Harmony

In China, social and economic gaps are acknowledged, but the news media rarely probe their causes or their consequences.

Features

Questioning Assumptions About Poverty

A North Carolina public radio station devotes extraordinary time and resources to an exploration of what it means to be poor in this time and place.

Features

Probing the Shifting Ground of Wage and Benefit Gaps

Business reporters need to keep a careful watch on the numerous ways in which corporate executives are thriving, while promises to workers are being broken.

Features

Investigating the Nation’s Exploding Credit Squeeze

When I started out, my film was going to be about other people’s economic woes. Soon I realized I was part of this story of how the credit industry targets…

Danny Schechter

Features

Untangling the Achievement Gap’s Factors

‘Gaps intersected and converged like earthquake fault lines; what affected one rippled through the others.’

Features

Numbers Don’t Tell a Story That Connects With Readers

With reports about tough economic times in hand, a journalist relies on families’ experiences to illuminate the significance of the findings.

Features

Violence Attracts the News Media to a Story Not Reported Enough

Coverage of the riots in France reaffirmed the need for ongoing, in-depth reporting of poor immigrants’ circumstances and the issues they confront.

Françoise Lazare

Journalist’s Trade

When Journalists’ Voices Are Missing

A former newspaper editor examines the impact of the lack of journalists serving on media company boards.

Journalist’s Trade

A Newspaper’s Redesign Signals Its Renewal

‘… newspapers have enormous strengths to rely on — and that is where we need to concentrate.’

Anders Gyllenhaal

Journalist’s Trade

Lessons From a Newsroom’s Digital Frontline

In Roanoke, Virginia, a midsized newspaper has had ‘the freedom to run some experiments, fail, try again, and along the way discover some meaningful success.’

Journalist’s Trade

Damaging Ripple Effects of Newsroom Cutbacks

‘In previous downturns, rookie reporters reinvigorated the newsroom; now, there might not be any quality, young journalists to take over.’

Journalist’s Trade

New Metaphors Needed for Changing Roles

‘It is time for some new language to describe the role and value of the assigning editor. Even the job title is dated and limiting.’

Jacqui Banaszynski

Journalist’s Trade

Moments Illustrate the Lives of Frontline Editors

Mae Cheng, regional editor at Newsday, president of UNITY: Journalists of Color, and former president of the Asian American Journalists Association, collected capsule reports from a diverse group of frontline…

Journalist’s Trade

Listening to Editors’ Difficulties Helps Find Solutions

‘Frontline editors usually come from reporting ranks, and it is not unusual for problems to emerge in the transition.’

John F. Greenman

Opinion

Seeing Lives as They Once Were and Are Today

More family album than newspaper report, a book published by the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Mississippi documents Hurricane Katrina's life-altering force.

Opinion

A Recurring Image in Art: The Newspaper

‘Though there is little shared cultural ground for these artists, newspapers have become a shared tool of storytelling across countries and eras.’

Opinion

The Coverage of Soviet Dissidents by Western Journalists

KGB memos about Andrei Sakharov reveal the government’s increasing fear of him as his ideas received press attention in the West.

Opinion

Delivering the News in Two Languages

What’s happening in several regions of Spain with bilingual journalism offers American editors and publishers a valuable ‘case study and a cautionary tale. …’

Journalist’s Trade

Spring 2006: The Job of Frontline Editor Introduction

The frontline editor’s job is one that, in the words of Jacqui Banaszynski, who holds the Knight Chair in Editing at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, “has expanded…

Journalist’s Trade

The Dearth of Resources for Entering Editors

There are available ‘… few books, a large but scattered field of articles, and the handouts and tip sheets collected at relatively few Web sites.’

Carl Sessions Stepp

Opinion

An Open Letter From Knight Ridder Alumni

What follows is a letter signed by 92 journalists who have worked for Knight Ridder newspapers. It was distributed to news media outlets in November 2005. RELATED ARTICLE“When Journalists’ Voices Are…

92 journalists who have worked for Knight Ridder newspapers

Journalist’s Trade

Will the Meaning of Journalism Survive?

‘Journalism educators are in a state of disquiet, if not distress, at their students’ lack of the broad background essential for independent journalism.’