ISSUE

Winter 2005

Citizen Journalism

With the arrival of the Internet, the ability of nonjournalists to “publish” their words and link them with those of other like-minded scribes has altered forever the balance of power between those who control the means to publish and those who have something they believe is important to say. This shift from journalists as gatekeepers to citizens as reporters has profound implications for news organizations that “might have completely underestimated the influence of this new medium.”

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Articles

Opinion

Courtroom Testimony Offers an Excellent Road Map for Reporters

‘… the usual “he said, she said” quotes I read in press accounts have little or nothing to do with the actual issues raised by the Pennsylvania case.’
Paul R. Gross
December 15, 2005
Features

Creating a New Town Square

‘It’s a locus for the kind of civic trust and independence on which the idea of journalism, indeed democracy, is based.’
Leslie Dreyfous McCarthy
December 15, 2005
Features

Drawing the Mood of New Orleans

‘Cartoon ideas presented themselves, but none embraced the gravity of the situation.’
Steve Kelley
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Science and Journalism Fail to Connect

‘How can we expect Americans to know anything beyond what they happen to remember from science class? Journalists certainly don’t tell them.’
Dan Fagin
December 15, 2005
Features

Defining a Journalist’s Function

In one approach to finding a definition, it turns out that being a journalist is about doing journalism.
William F. Woo
December 15, 2005
Features

Reconnecting With the Audience

‘What they say—not what we think—is what counts.’
Clyde H. Bentley
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Bringing Iraqi Voices Into the Conversation About Their Country

A Washington Post correspondent’s book ‘is not a policy screed or a compilation of talking heads and experts.’
Patrick J. McDonnell
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Iraq’s Emerging Press

Providing the public with ‘accurate, complete and fair information was, and remains for most, an unknown concept.’
Maggy Zanger
December 15, 2005
Features

Citizens Media: Has It Reached a Tipping Point?

New media initiatives emerge when citizens feel ‘shortchanged, bereft or angered by their available media choices.’
Jan Schaffer
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Winter 2005: Words & Reflections Introduction 1

“Night Draws Near: Iraq’s People in the Shadow of America’s War,” a book written by Washington Post correspondent Anthony Shadid, who won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting from…
Melissa Ludtke
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Winter 2005: Words & Reflections Introduction 2

In his opening essay, Dan Fagin, associate director of New York University’s Science and Environmental Reporting Program, plows the common ground beneath the coverage of intelligent design and global warming.…
Melissa Ludtke
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Trying to Achieve Balance Against Great Odds

With the United States’s opposition to Kyoto so strong, a Canadian journalist finds little pressure from editors to include that perspective in his stories.
Jacques A. Rivard
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Culture Contributes to Perceptions of Climate Change

A comparison between the United States and Germany reveals insights about why journalists in each country report about this issue in different ways.
Hans von Storch
December 15, 2005
Features

‘It Looks Like the Third World’

Writing in Southeast Asia, an American journalist comments on reporters’ use of this descriptive phrase in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Philip J. Cunningham
December 15, 2005
Features

How Participatory Journalism Works

A journalist describes why and how ‘a news organization works with its audience to have that “conversation” that is news.’
Steve Safran
December 15, 2005
Opinion

‘Early Signs’: A Journalism Class Project at Berkeley

One Sunday in August 2004, as I set down The New York Times Book Review, it suddenly occurred to me that there was sufficient evidence to explore one of the…
Sandy Tolan
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Accepting Global Warming as Fact

‘It helps that the German media is less strict about the division between editorials and news than the news media in the United States.’
Markus Becker
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Global Warming: What’s Known vs. What’s Told

‘Americans could be forgiven for not knowing how uncontroversial this issue is among the vast majority of scientists.’
Alexandra Berzon
December 15, 2005
Features

When the Internet Reveals a Story

‘The challenge for me was to get the story off the Internet and into print.’
Seth Hettena
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Weight-of-Evidence Reporting: What Is It? Why Use It?

Journalists ‘find out where the bulk of evidence and expert thought lies on the truth continuum and then communicate that to audiences.’
Sharon Dunwoody
December 15, 2005
Features

Journalism as a Conversation

‘Only as an afterthought did it dawn on us that the audience is the real content on the Web.’
Jean K. Min
December 15, 2005
Opinion

The Disconnect of News Reporting From Scientific Evidence

Balanced coverage results in a ‘misleading scenario that there is a raging debate among climate-change scientists regarding humanity’s role in climate change.’
Max Boykoff
December 15, 2005
Features

With Citizens’ Visual News Coverage Standards Don’t Change

‘In an era in which digital alteration of images is increasingly easy, credibility is everything.’
Lou Ferrara
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Disinformation, Financial Pressures, and Misplaced Balance

A reporter describes the systemic forces that work against the story of climate change being accurately told.
Ross Gelbspan
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Knowing Uncertainty for What It Is

In reporting on the science of global warming, journalists contend with powerful, well-funded forces using strategies created by tobacco companies.
David Michaels
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Intelligent Design Has Not Surfaced in the British Press

At a journalism seminar, a BBC producer was ‘struck by the concern about intelligent design amongst our transatlantic colleagues.’
Martin Redfern
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Probing Beneath the Surface of the Intelligent Design Controversy

‘… to truly understand I.D., people need to look at things in ways that are different from our accustomed patterns.’
Gailon Totheroh
December 15, 2005
Features

Where Citizens and Journalists Intersect

‘The crucial leap will be helping our audience become involved in the process much more directly.’
Dan Gillmor
December 15, 2005
Opinion

When the Conflict Narrative Doesn’t Fit

‘Conflict does attract readers. But pursued as a virtue unto itself, it can distort news stories and skew public understanding.’
Diane Winston
December 15, 2005
Opinion

In Kansas, the Debate About Science Evolves

One veteran reporter describes the complexities involved in telling this story as like entering ‘The Land of Muck.’
Diane Carroll
December 15, 2005
Features

The Future Is Here, But Do News Media Companies See It?

The news industry is a resilient bunch. Newspapers, in particular, represent some of the United States’s oldest and most respected companies. So far they have weathered storms of significant social,…
Chris Willis
December 15, 2005
Features

Citizen Journalism and the BBC

‘… when major events occur, the public can offer us as much new information as we are able to broadcast to them. From now on, news coverage is a partnership.’
Richard Sambrook
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Knowing When to Stop Reporting About a Scandal

A journalist describes the stages of a scandal, explains the news media’s role, and wonders why they don’t keep digging once the person has been punished.
Madelaine Drohan
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Remembering One of Journalism’s Finest Moments

‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ brings to life how and why Edward R. Murrow pushed CBS News to confront Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s un-American tactics.
Don Aucoin
December 15, 2005
Features

Fear, Loathing and the Promise of Public Insight Journalism

A journalist wonders whether the mainstream news media will adapt fast enough to their changing relationship with the public to survive.
Michael Skoler
December 15, 2005
Journalist’s Trade

The BBC’s College of Journalism

The BBC is establishing a College of Journalism to raise and support editorial standards. All journalistic staff in the BBC will be given a minimum level of training each year,…
Richard Sambrook
December 15, 2005
Features

Things I Wish I’d Known Before I Became a Citizen Journalist

Homepage of Coastsider.In May 2004, Barry Parr, a former Web site architect for the San Jose Mercury News and CNET’s News.com, introduced his own new Web site to an online…
Barry Parr
December 15, 2005
Features

Winter 2005: Introduction

“Let me begin with a confession. After watching television coverage of Katrina for nearly every wakeful moment over the first few dramatic days, I quit. Cold turkey,” writes Curtis Wilkie,…
Melissa Ludtke
December 15, 2005
Features

New Orleans’ Lower Nine Fades, Fades, Fades Away

‘Our neighborhood should’ve gotten more media attention well before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.’
William W. Sutton Jr.
December 15, 2005
Features

Witness to the Tragedy

A veteran photojournalist observes that ‘… even during war the deceased are treated with some respect ….’
Carolyn Cole
December 15, 2005
Features

Seeing Is Believing

‘There was so much destruction that I couldn’t put down my camera.’
Nuri Vallbona
December 15, 2005
Features

The Messengers of Mississippi in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina

In small, forgotten towns of the Gulf Coast, a reporter tells the stories she heard amid the hurricane’s devastation.
Elizabeth Mehren
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Strengthening the Line Between News and Opinion

A newspaper editor asks, ‘At what point in our efforts to be neutral in our news coverage do we risk becoming misleading?’
Jeff Bruce
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Editorial Pages and Intelligent Design

‘Once upon a time, I would have been mortified at the thought of exposing my religious views to my readers.’
Cynthia Tucker
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Context and Controversy: Global Warming Coverage

‘… it is heartening to know that the simple inclusion of scientific context might help mitigate the readers’ level of uncertainty.’
Jessica Durfee
December 15, 2005
Opinion

How Do We Cover Penguins and Politics of Denial?

Bill Moyers suggests a new approach to conveying reporting about global warming.
Bill Moyers
December 15, 2005
Features

Questions for Journalists to Ponder in the Aftermath of Katrina

‘The first step is admitting that you don’t know what you don’t know.’
Mary C. Curtis
December 15, 2005
Features

Rumors, Race and Class Collide

‘Class and race are inextricably bound up in New Orleans, and trying to make sense of it was as hard as trying to get accurate information.’
Kevin Cullen
December 15, 2005
Features

Words Triumph Over Images

‘The human element was accentuated, and the best of the writing was impressionistic.’
Curtis Wilkie
December 15, 2005
From the Curator

Nieman Fellowships in Global Health Reporting

Three fellows in the next three Nieman classes will focus their Harvard study—and four additional months of fieldwork—on health issues in the developing world.
Bob Giles
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Political Journalism: It’s Not the Good Old Days

‘But some of what ails American political journalism in our time is an overreaction to the failures of the boys back in Witcover’s heyday.’
David Yepsen
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Childhood Experiences Shape a Reporter’s Journey

‘The great writers he’d discovered in the library at the orphanage became midwives to his talent.’
Lester Sloan
December 15, 2005
Opinion

The Role Women Journalists Played in Poland’s Freedom

Only when Solidarity won did the journalists realize ‘… they had formed the only all-woman cabal in Poland to make a counterstrike against martial law.’
Peggy Simpson
December 15, 2005
Opinion

The Life and Times of Foreign Correspondents in Russia

A book explores the work of covering Russia through the experiences and words of those reporters who did it.
Alvin Shuster
December 15, 2005
Nieman Notes

Photojournalism Students Cover Hurricane Katrina in Their First Leap Into a Real-World Crisis

‘Mark told me he’d learned more in the two days he photographed the hurricane’s aftermath than in his previous two years in college.’
Eli Reed
December 15, 2005
Opinion

Observing Those Who Observe

A journalist travels to the ends of the earth and reports from ‘distant, inaccessible places [that] have a grip on the popular imagination ….’
Daniel Grossman
December 1, 2005