Pioneering the Wild West of Journalism

The Internet for journalists is similar to the wild, wild west for pioneers-- there are many unknowns and what the future may hold is a scary thought. After interviewing four successful editors, I have compiled their thoughts on where they think journalism is headed:

"There is no other industry in the world that enjoys covering bad things more than newspapers. Yes, there are serious challenges for big newspapers, but we [The Salem News] report on things you can’t get anywhere else—we’re so local, we’re still essentially the only game in town. Small local papers have a really solid niche.

Anyone that tells you they know where journalism is going is lying to you. People need to catch up to technology in their homes; online news sources need to learn how to make money from their product. I see newspapers going more towards a daily online and having print copies becoming more of a weekly thing. I think eventually we will be reading our news on an electronic tablet—but not for twenty or thirty years. That is at least a generation away because people’s habits will have to change."
Dave Olson, The Salem News


"People want community journalism—I don’t see that going anywhere. One of the things we’ve done is created a partnership with channel five in Boston. I think sharing with other outlets is possible and beneficial. It would also be nice if we could figure out a way to make some kind of revenue off the Internet."
Stephanie Silverstein, Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle


"Sadly, opining is taking the place of reporting. Television news generally is vapid, radio news is almost non-existent, and print news is under financial pressure. I see no reason to assume journalism will survive more than ten or fifteen years."
Eric Convey, Boston Business Journal


“For the average citizen it is too vital and too much work to find out what the real story is when it comes to news. That’s where a journalist comes in. A journalist provides that information to the public so that they don’t have to go out and find it on their own.

I see some kind of hybrid of print, web and television journalism emerging. There are always fads that will be replaced by other things. There will always be a need for accurate information because people need to know what’s going on in order to be able to make informed decisions. This will never change—the format will change—but there will always be a need for that information, which is good for journalists.”
Dan MacAlpine, Ipswich Chronicle


Maybe journalism is a dying art that will not survive the next fifteen years. Maybe journalism's outlook will involve a hybrid of media platforms. Maybe just the small local newspapers will be able to survive. Maybe journalism will transform into something no one could ever imagine. What is clear to me is that the future of journalism is murky and no one really knows where it is headed.

What do you think the future looks like for a journalist?

Interview with Stephanie Silverstein

Stephanie Silverstein, Editor of the Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle

Stephanie Silverstein has been the editor at the Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle for the past year. She graduated with a degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University and worked for the Cape Ann Beacon for a year-and-a-half before coming to the Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle.


Can you describe a typical day on the job?

Working as an editor is a lot of pressure and responsibility. I am the only one that is on staff, the rest of the workers are on a freelance budget. I have never taken a sick day, and although we do get vacation time, we really earn it. In my job, on the important days you pretty much have to be there. People will come in really, really sick and put out the paper then go home.


What are some of the challenges you face?

What’s challenging is not having enough time. I have to do what’s most important, and a lot of times that is going through emails and saying “no” to people. It’s really easy to get off track and get bogged down with the little things.

One thing I have a hard time with is being a young editor. I’m twenty-five and I get a lot of judgment for that.


How do you stay true to the fundamental elements and ethics of journalism when there is so much easily accessible, yet often unverified information on the Internet?

This is one of the great things about being a weekly paper—I can take the time to verify a story. If I have a story in front of me and I think it still needs to be verified I can says “hold this story.” Because of the extra time we have, weeklies always have less errors than dailies.


Do you think the new wave of immediate information is a positive or negative for journalism?

I think that it can be damaging because some people will get the information they receive “out there” as soon as they possibly can, and they might have it first but they also might have gotten it wrong. Also, I see there always being a need for small, community papers in this market because even though there’s so much information, people want to know what’s going on down the street from them and really the only place to go is the local paper.


How do you verify facts? Do you have a kind of check-list that you go through?

First, you always need to go to the source—you can’t rely on community word-of-mouth information or blogs, etc. One thing we do at the Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle is verify every letter to the editor that we get. When it comes to reporters stories, if something is questionable or out of the ordinary I’ll call someone.


How does one stay competitive and ethical on the job?

Try to do things differently and try to do it better than your competition. I try to take a different route or interview different people than what a typical reporter might think to do.


Where do you see journalism going in the future? What other forms of media do you see merging with journalism? Do you think journalism could possibly “die out” in the future?

People want community journalism—I don’t see that going anywhere. One of the things we’ve done is created a partnership with channel five in Boston. I think sharing with other outlets is possible and beneficial. It would also be nice if we could figure out a way to make some kind of revenue off the Internet.


What is the one most important piece of advice you would give to an aspiring journalist/editor?

Go for it if you love it. Whether it’s journalism, photo journalism, writing for a magazine—go for it. Don’t let anything get in your way.

Community journalism is where it’s at—the bigger newspapers all do the same thing. You have to find your niche.

Interview with Eric Convey

Eric Convey, Editor of the Boston Business Journal

Eric Convey has been the managing editor at the Boston Business Journal for the past three years. Before that he was the senior executive city editor at the Boston Herald for one year, deputy business editor at the Herald for one year, a reporter at the Herald for nine years; a press secretary on Capitol Hill for two years; and a reporter on the North Shore for four-and-a-half-years.


How did you get to where you are today?

My first journalism job was as a Gordon student doing a co-op at the Boston Globe for seven months. I went in a happy business major and left focused on getting a job in journalism. I think I got where I am by working really hard and paying attention to what was happening around me. And journalism is a good fit for my personality.


What is a typical day on the job like?

I get to work between eight and nine a.m.; catch up on e-mail; check in with reporters so I know what they’re working on; assign new stories to reporters if necessary; edit stories for our Web site. And e-mail, e-mail, e-mail. It will be my undoing.


What’s the biggest challenge you’ve ever faced in the field of journalism? What are some of the typical challenges you face in the workplace on a day-to-day basis?

The biggest challenge was helping to cover the clergy abuse crisis. It was eighteen months of intense work. The biggest day-to-day challenge is not getting frustrated with reporters. It probably is every reporter’s challenge.


What is the greatest ethical challenge have you faced? What do you think the greatest ethical challenge for modern journalists is?

My greatest ethical challenge was during the abuse crisis—not playing on my faith to build relationships with people I wanted help from. It was a big temptation. The greatest temptation in the field is to be lazy—to cozy up to news sources rather than fight for our independence as journalists.


How do you stay true to the fundamental elements and ethics of journalism when there is so much easily accessible, yet often unverified information on the Internet?

I don’t trust anything I can’t verify, regardless of source. The Chicago School of Journalism holds: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” Amen.


Do you think the new wave of immediate information is a positive or negative for journalism?

I think it’s a positive in that it allows much more context in stories and saves reporters considerable time. It’s a negative in that it breeds laziness and seems to tempt young reporters. Especially, to take information on a silver platter when they should be ferreting things out for themselves.


How do you verify facts? Do you have a kind of check-list that you go through? Do you have certain requirements when you verify facts?

I have a mental checklist. I ask myself: How do I know this? How do my sources of information know this? Do I have multiple sources? If so, did these sources get the information from different places? What motives would people sharing information have? What assumptions am I making? Do I have the context right? What could I possibly have done wrong in nailing this point down? And I try to be relentless in getting to the bottom of things.


How does one stay competitive and ethical on the job?

There’s no conflict there. Set high standards. Pursue stories aggressively. Don’t let fear prompt you to lower your standards. Write what’s true.


Where do you see journalism going in the future? What other forms of media do you see merging with journalism? Do you think journalism could possibly “die out” in the future?

I take issue with the question. In a sense, journalism is medium-agnostic. Sadly, opining is taking the place of reporting. Television news generally is vapid, radio news is almost non-existent, and print news is under financial pressure. I see no reason to assume journalism will survive more than ten or fifteen years.


What is the one most important piece of advice you would give to an aspiring journalist/editor?

Write as much as you can for the best editors you can find.

Interview with Dave Olson

Dave Olson, Editor of The Salem News

Dave Olson has spent the past three-and-a-half years as the editor-in-chief at The Salem News, a local paper with a print readership of 28,000. He was an English and journalism major at the University of New Hampshire and started his journalism career as an intern at The Gloucester Daily Times, a sister paper of The Salem News.


What ethical challenges do you face?

Letters to the editor are always challenging. We try to verify all letters before we print them. We don’t use anonymous sources, when someone has to put their name on something you know they stand behind it.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve ever faced?

There is nothing too dramatic that I can think of off the top of my head. The real challenge is the daily ethical challenges. Those are the ones that resonate the most. The big ethical choices are easy to make. One of the hardest things I’ve faced in the day-to-day is when someone asks ‘can you not put that in the paper?’ These are human beings we are writing about, but you can’t make exceptions—this is when making unethical choices becomes the most tempting. You can’t say yes to one person and no to another, there has to be a standard.

How do you stay true to the fundamental elements and ethics of journalism when there is so much easily accessible, yet often unverified information on the Internet?

The Internet has made things a little more difficult—before the Web, you had a day to get stuff ready for print and time to verify, now news can go up almost immediately. To avoid issues, we might put up less than we think we know. Take the ‘Balloon Boy Incident’ for example, it all happened in one day and nobody knew what was actually going on. People were tweeting and blogging and getting all worked up about it. You have to learn to wait until you have a little more information. I always step back and wait and see—there’s always another shoe to drop.

The process for verifying news is the same for print as it is for online news. I have two editors who work with the reporters and literally sit down with them and work through every story before I even read it. Each story is usually read three times before it goes to print. I typically stick to the rule that I can’t use it if I can’t verify it somewhere else on the record.

Do you think the new wave of immediate information is a positive or negative for journalism?

I think it’s a positive. Journalism itself is what’s valuable—the reporting and writing and building of trust with readers. Quality writing and quality journalism will find its niche wherever. Online journalism also exposes readers to a wider range of writing which should make for better citizenry.

How does one stay competitive and ethical on the job?

I would rather be a step slower than another outlet and be right. I think that’s what is correct ethically. When you’re dealing locally you know a lot of people. In the end, you’ll be remembered for being right or for being wrong.

How do you verify facts? What happens if there are mistakes?

As an editor, if mistakes are made it is my responsibility to run corrections as fast and accurately as possible. We’re not perfect—if you make mistakes own up to them quickly and transparently. Being able to put up corrections quickly is another positive of the Web.

I see more mistakes among younger reporters, but they have to make those couple of mistakes to learn. It’s not the big stories that the mistakes get made on—it’s more the middle-of-the-road stories where things tend to get lost or forgotten. Editors are guilty of this, too.

Where do you see journalism going in the future? Do you think journalism could possibly “die out” in the future?

There is no other industry in the world that enjoys covering bad things more than newspapers. Yes, there are serious challenges for big newspapers, but we [The Salem News] report on things you can’t get anywhere else—we’re so local, we’re still essentially the only game in town. Small local papers have a really solid niche.

Anyone that tells you they know where journalism is going is lying to you. People need to catch up to technology in their homes; online news sources need to learn how to make money from their product. I see newspapers going more towards a daily online and having print copies becoming more of a weekly thing. I think eventually we will be reading our news on an electronic tablet—but not for twenty or thirty years. That is at least a generation away because people’s habits will have to change.

What is the one most important piece of advice you would give to an aspiring journalist/editor?

Do it because you love it. You’re not going to get rich in this business. Work on your craft everyday—work on writing. Whether it’s Web or print, it’s the story that matters. Get the story first and then figure out how to tell it.

Interview with Dan MacAlpine

Dan MacAlpine, Editor of The Ipswich Chronicle

Dan MacAlpine is basically a one-man-show at The Ipswich Chronicle. He has been in journalism for twenty-five years—most of which was community journalism. Before that he wrote for small, “how-to” business publications.


Describe your typical day on the job:

I have to write three to six news stories a week. We only have freelance writers. Basically stuff that breaks during the week is my responsibility. I have to write articles and editorials, although I typically don’t write editorials on issues I write articles about.


How do you stay true to the fundamental elements and ethics of journalism when there is so much easily accessible, yet often unverified information on the Internet?

I tend to be more conservative. If you’re going to put something ‘out there’ that hasn’t been verified, at the very least you say that it is an unverified report and that you’re working to verify it.


Do you think the new wave of immediate information is a positive or negative for journalism?

Ultimately I think it is positive. It is easier for people to access journalism. This is not the end of journalism—it is the end of journalism as we knew it. The new form of journalism is more open, there is a better relationship with the reader.


How do you verify facts? Do you have a kind of check-list that you go through? How is your editor involved? Do they have certain requirements when you verify facts?

I take the information I get and go straight to the responsible party to try and verify as quickly as possible. Be upfront with your stories and say that your waiting and trying to get some verification.

Desperately try and verify as quickly as possible—that’s what separates us as professional journalists. Anyone can get out there and talk about rumors.

At smaller publications there are limited resources. We can’t take a reporter's time to chase down a rabbit hole—if I had time to track down all the stories I come across, I’d have five Pulitzer prizes sitting on my desk.


How does one stay competitive and ethical on the job?

People don’t separate out the blog from hard news—you have that responsibility. At some point someone needs to separate the wheat from the chaff. That is a journalist’s job.

Be honest with the reader, do your best, work your hardest to verify—work to verify first. The 'do what we can' attitude is a positive of the Web.

We have gotten far more lax with the web from when I started. It is important to acknowledge when things are unverified and then work to verify. Update your work as much as possible and allow the reader to know that this is the best you can do at the current time.


Where do you see journalism going in the future? What other forms of media do you see merging with journalism? Do you think journalism could possibly “die out” in the future?

For the average citizen it is too vital and too much work to find out what the real story is when it comes to news. That’s where a journalist comes in. A journalist provides that information to the public so that they don’t have to go out and find it on their own.

I see some kind of hybrid of print, web and television journalism emerging. There are always fads that will be replaced by other things. There will always be a need for accurate information because people need to know what’s going on in order to be able to make informed decisions. This will never change—the format will change—but there will always be a need for that information, which is good for journalists.


What is the one most important piece of advice you would give to an aspiring journalist/editor?

People need to trust the information they're getting from journalists. If your reporting isn’t accurate you’re not going to get very far in this field.

Accuracy, brevity and clarity. Follow those three tenents and you won’t go wrong.

Fulbright Blog

I recently introduced that I will be covering the Gordon College Fulbright scholar, Dr. Akintola. I have decided that instead of blogging about him on BecomingLoisLane, I will create a separate blog. The link to this blog is:

http://gordonfulbright.blogspot.com/

Check it out!

Make Yourself Unique

Mike Williams, the station manager of WDHD Channel 7 of Boston, has spent more than a handful of years working his way up the ladder of professional success. “The only limits you have in this business are the ones you place on yourself,” said Williams. As I spent time touring the news station in downtown Boston, I met and conversed with people from all areas of production and if there is one thing I learned, it is that hard work and creativity equals success. In order to stand out and make an impression in the field of journalism, you have to make an effort and be unique, Williams said.

An interesting idea that Williams raised was the idea that broadcast stations are becoming obsolete and outdated. “We don’t believe that in the long run there will be very many news stations," he said, stating that cost is rising and viewership is waning, and that will put many stations out of business in the future. If this is true, online publications are even more important. Nearly six-in-ten Americans younger than 30 say they get their national and international news online. Since I’m such a verification junkie, this idea impresses the fact of how important online news really is, and how it must follow the elements of journalism if it needs to be the truth if it is going to empower the public with knowledge.

So, taking Mike Williams’ advice to heart, I’ve decided that in addition to blogging about verification, I am also going to post about my work. Right now, I’m taking the time to introduce my latest project. From October 19 until November 7, 2009, Gordon College will be hosting Dr. Is-haq Akintola, it’s first ever Fulbright scholar. Dr. Atkintola focuses his studies on the peaceful teachings of Islam and he is the associate professor of Islamic studies at Lagos State University in Nigeria, a country where tensions have risen sharply between Christians and Muslims in the past decade.

As a college communications worker at Gordon, I have been assigned to be Dr. Akintola’s point person. I will be following him to his different lectures and events and keeping tabs on the issues and topics that arise on a daily basis, the questions posed, and the community’s reactions and responses. I plan on using my Fulbright assignment and Becoming Lois Lane as a tangible way to expose and delve more deeply into the elements and ethics of journalism. The first of which being, how does one cover a story like this?

Stay tuned. . .