(Now that the Sotomayor hearings are on lunch break, I wanted to put this back atop the page. It is real, real big news for the day...until Hutchison announces her campaign totals later this afternoon. - promoted by Phillip Martin)
Texas newspaper publishers are talking about sharing their content -- outside the usual Associated Press pick-ups, sources say. The implications for the depth and breadth of state government and political news are huge. And dire.
We may have seen the first evidence of new sharing arrangements this weekend. Emily Ramshaw of the Dallas Morning news ran a story Saturday morning about the notorious private prison company, GEO Group,taking over a private psychiatric hospital in Montgomery County. The company's prisons have a history of sexual abuse, riots and suicides.
Texas officials wary of prison company contract
Copyright 2009 Houston Chonicle
July 11, 2009, 8:00PM
Did you catch that? "Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle."
No credit to the Associated Press, the normal avenue for stories taken from other papers. Maybe this was a copydesk error. However, word is that some editors have begun briefing their staffs on the new sharing arrangements.
Sources say publishers and editors have ratcheted up their efforts to come up with news while cutting staff. Additionally, word that Austin investment guru and innovative thinker and businessman John Thornton will soon begin publishing a Texas online newspaper has these same editors and publishers worried.
By sharing content, they hope to head-off competition from a well-funded, hard-hitting, aggressive, online news source that could do in Texas what Politico or Huffington Post have done nationally.
The distance between Austin and voters is already enormous. Layoffs and shrinking space for news in the troubled newspaper industry have meant a dramatic decline in coverage of state politics and government. Chasing distracted audiences, local television affiliates for the most part gave up on state political news long ago. Fires, wrecks, murders and sex are much more salable.
How many Texans even knew there was a regular session of the Legislature this year? How many know what happened? Damn few.
The fate of the dwindling capitol press is very much in doubt. Keep in mind that these are plum jobs, or were plum jobs. Typically, only the best and most responsible journalists were given a chance at the capitol beat. Lose them -- and we've already lost many great ones -- and Texas suffers.
If newspapers are already agreeing to share content, how long before they further reduce their Austin offices?
It's impossible to overestimate the importance of a large and diverse press corps. Not too many years ago, a major event in Austin would attract eight or more cameras and a dozen or more print reporters. Those multiple perspectives were key to accurate, broad reporting. Competition among journalists kept things lively.
We are in a Dark Age of state political and government news. Maybe it's just a transition period. But state blogs -- and there are many good ones like BOR -- have nowhere near the resources, the reporting experience or the reach of newspapers and local TV affiliates. There are high hopes that Thornton and maybe others will succeed in new era publishing. But it hasn't happened yet.
I don't have much sympathy for the corporatized ownership of newspapers. Their commitment to the public's right and need to know has long played second fiddle to their bottom lines. They've rationalized, downsized, and minimized their coverage of state news for years. Texans are paying the price, and that price could get much steeper in coming months and years.
Key Question: Just two days after publishing an accurately critical quote by Republican Senator Jeff Wentworth about Republican Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, why did the Statesman publish an entire fluff piece on Dewhurst on the front page of its paper that not only ignored the original story, but was co-written by Dewhurst himself?
Is this what a wink and a nod between failed elected officials and yellow newspaper editors looks like in the 21st century?
Here's what happened:
Monday, June 29: The Statesman reports that Republican Senator Jeff Wentworth says that the Senate is "not going to put up with" Dewhurst trampling the will of the Senate for his own partisan favors for Governor Rick Perry any longer.
And I'm not joking about Dewhurst writing 1/3 of the front page story. Mike Ward's love letter to David Dewhurst that appeared on the front page of the Austin American-Statesman on Wednesday July 1 was disgusting. The reportstoryprofile promotional flyer -- titled, "Dewhurst: Senate could conclude business in two days" -- was written largely by the Republican official that was the subject of the story.
Don't believe me? Let's look at some facts:
804 words are in the story, total
270 words are direct quotes of David Dewhurst
0 words are quotes from anyone other than Dewhurst
0 words challenge anything Dewhurst says
Dewhurst claims the session was a huge success -- and there is not a single word to challenge that. Not one.
Really, Statesman?
No one who works for the Statesman thought that it might be responsible journalism to follow up with Dewhurst about the fact that a leading Republican State Senator from Central Texas, -- the area the Statesman covers -- declared, "We're not going to put up with this any longer" about Dewhurst? Dewhurst was the sole subject of the entire article -- and you couldn't ask him one question about the remarks you'd reported only two days before?
[Republican State Senator Jeff Wentworth] added, “We’re not going to put up with this any longer. There are a number of senators that I’ve already spoken to that agree with me. It only takes 16 senators to adopt rules.”
Wentworth said Dewhurst told him that Gov. Rick Perry talked to him 20 times about stopping the legislation. And he said former Sen. Ken Armbrister, who works for Perry, “cajoled and threatened” six senators into opposing the measure, giving Dewhurst the cover he needed to not bring up the bill. (Asked about all this, Dewhurst spokesman Rich Parsons said only that the bill did not have the votes necessary to be called up).
Wentworth said there is an unwritten understanding between senators and the lieutenant governor that if 21 senators are willing to debate a bill, Dewhurst will recognize the appropriate senator to bring it up.
“The lieutenant governor should not abuse that power that we give him,” Wentworth said. “He should not have given his word to Perry that he would kill that bill.”
Pretty heavy accusations from one of Central Texas' State Senators. But was there any follow-up about that in the front page story on Wednesday? Nope. Instead, David Dewhurst got an 804-word direct mail piece sent to the door of thousands upon thousands of Texans, bought and paid for by the Austin American-Statesman.
His denials notwithstanding, most in the Capitol now believe that Dewhurst conspired with Sen. Tommy Williams to trick the other senators on the first day of the session. Williams surprised his colleagues by proposing a new rule mandating the Senate take up voter ID, a bill that Democrats otherwise had the votes to block.
The Williams play ultimately led to a session-killing filibuster in the House, by a handful of Democrats. But if Dewhurst was blindsided by Williams as he said, why did he reward him with one of the most important chairmanships at his disposal – Senate Administration?
Perhaps it was because of his upcoming wedding in June and the preparations were distracting. But Dewhurst's erraticism, lack of concentration and inability to keep a schedule were the talk of almost every senator. He was rarely in the chair. By most reports, he was inconsistent and dismissive in his dealings with Speaker Joe Straus.
Dewhurst told reporters Wednesday afternoon that he was “looking for a vehicle” for CHIP expansion, he received some help.
Journalist Harvey Kronberg, whose online “Quorum Report” is must reading in the capital, quickly posted an item pointing out, as he had earlier in the day, that Coleman’s bill was available in the Finance Committee.
Thursday afternoon Dewhurst said Coleman’s criticism was “premature.” Dewhurst said Thursday evening the bill could be revived, but he was exaggerating.
Was it a deliberate charade or callous stupidity?
Does it matter, since Gov. Rick Perry appeared ready to veto the bill anyway?
Yes, it matters. It was a test of either character or competence. Dewhurst and Ogden flunked.
Sounds like a lot of controversy surrounding Dewhurst's role in the last session, doesn't it?
Yet does Mike Ward or the editors at the Statesman bring any of that into context? Not even a little. Instead, this talking point from Dewhurst is published unchallenged on the front page of the Austin American-Statesman:
As for the regular session, Dewhurst insisted that despite a last-minute partisan fight in the House that killed hundreds of bills and left the legislative process in chaos at the end, it was successful for the upper chamber.
"For the Senate and myself, this was almost a textbook perfect session," he said. "We addressed all of our important legislation early, got it passed — even though some Democrats filibustered and killed 200-plus of our Senate bills."
804 words are in the story, total
270 words are direct quotes of David Dewhurst
0 words are quotes from anyone other than Dewhurst
0 words challenge anything Dewhurst says
Oh, and by the way -- this just puts the icing on the cake.
Statesman writer Mike Ward, following the fluff piece that ran Wednesday morning, followed it up with not one, but two blog posts about Dewhurst's wedding the previous weekend. Even Ward, thinking it was cute and recognizing his fan-boy obsession with Dewhurst, closes his final love letter to The Dew with the following:
You asked Statesman.com for more details. We asked Dewhurst.
“What are you, TMZ?” quipped a staffer standing nearby.
Don't flatter yourself, Mike. TMZ would be a welcome change of professionalism.
If Lee Leffingwell proves as effective at running the city as he did running for mayor, the people of Austin will be well served.
What a nice back-handed compliment to start us off!
Having endorsed McCracken, we were disappointed and, frankly, surprised he did not run a better campaign. On election day, he put out an e-mail that said "the mayor's race will be very, very close." But it wasn't close at all.
Really? You were surprised? How is that even possible? I mean -- I was one of the only supporters of McCracken on this site (I even voted for him when we were deciding who to endorse as a site). I wrote a huge solar energy piece that raised McCracken's #1 issue to the front of our site; I wrote about the tech-related stuff a lot; and I never touched the transportation contrasts between Leffingwell and McCracken.
But even I knew he had a major uphill battle ahead of him -- and I'm not even living in the city right now.
Former mayor Carole Keeton Strayhorn's campaign was far more visible on television, while Leffingwell succeeded in mobilizing the Austin Democratic machine
I'd be more impressed with the "machine" talk if I had any evidence that the Statesman wasn't just repeating lines from Brewster (and myself) about the Austin political machine. Brewster was exactly the kind of candidate that could have re-shaped the electorate and done things differently, but (for whatever reason) never got quick enough traction in his campaign.
But one thing that is way worse than any machine -- and I never saw the Statesman editorial board write about this -- are anonymous leaflets, anonymous websites, and last-minute robocalls. I was fine with my support of the McCracken campaign until the Brewster Nation parking ticket fliers came out -- after which the Brewster Nation website was "mysteriously" pulled down and no one from the McCracken campaign really addressed if they were behind it or not. After that, and the robocalls, it became pretty clear that there are things far worse than political machines in our City Council races.
Anonymous leafets from an anonymous website is probably against the law (which is why, I'm sure, the Brewster Nation site was taken down), and even if it's not, it violates so many principles of freedom of speech that we at BOR (and the Statesman, for that matter) should hold above other issues.
But it seems the Statesman just put buried their head in the sand on that one, preferring to talk about other made-up, fictionalized issuess:
Leffingwell, 69, is a retired commercial airline pilot, and he showed the public a studied cockpit calm in his campaign that, he suggested, was just the ticket for the storms beating on the city's financial wings. It's important, though, that he not rely too heavily for advice on the unions, particularly the police and firefighters' unions, that supported him.
First of all, that first sentence about "cockpit calm" is just offensive to me as an English major.
Second of all -- STILL WITH THE UNIONS? I guess one should never pick a fight with someone that buys ink by the barrel (even if they will only be able to afford that ink for a few more years). Again, for anyone that cares to learn any truth about the Lee/union saga the Statesman ed board fictionalized entirely on its own, read here.
For now, Leffingwell has earned our congratulations for his victory and best wishes for a successful term as mayor of a city we all love.
A city the editorial board loves so much that they are surprised by its election outcomes, promote ridiculous statements about the Mayor-elect's ties to unions, and decided twice that George Bush would be the best person to represent the city's interest.
Brewster McCracken was graceful in his congratulations for Leffingwell. It is too bad the Statesman couldn't muster the same respect for our new Mayor.
From Editor & Publisher, we get the news that the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Houston Chronicle, and the Austin American-Statesman are among the top 15 newspapers to have gained in audience from this time last year. They actually list the top 25, but all the TX papers are in the top 15. From E&P:
Here are the top 25 dailies that had the biggest gain in audience when taking print and online readership into account. The papers are ranked by net combined audience (past seven days in print and 30 days online), according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations for the six months ending March 2009 compared to the same period in March 2008.
GREENWICH (CONN.) TIME -- 111,824 -- 30.74%
THE BIRMINGHAM (ALA.) NEWS -- 781,047 -- 11.85%
THE TIMES-PICAYUNE, NEW ORLEANS -- 820,374 -- 11.72%
WILKES-BARRE (PA.) TIMES LEADER -- 196,229 -- 10.45%
FORT WORTH (TEXAS) STAR-TELEGRAM -- 1,236,205 -- 7.09%
THE PATRIOT-NEWS, HARRISBURG, PA. -- 496,700 -- 6.45%
HOUSTON CHRONICLE -- 2,507,835 -- 6.13%
ST. PETERSBURG (FLA.) TIMES -- 1,297,866 -- 6.09%
AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN -- 861,105 -- 5.97%
NAPLES (FLA.) DAILY NEWS -- 265,181 -- 5.97%
The key, of course, is that these figures combine print and online readership. Not sure if you're counted twice if you read the print version and the online version (I imagine you are -- I don't know how they'd control that unless it was a survey, and these are raw figures). In any case, it gets to the quirk of the newspaper industry's problem:
They have plenty of readers. In fact, they have more readers. And as much as some want to wail and moan about the internet and the economic crisis, those aren't the real reasons why the newspaper industry is flailing. Newspaper industry leaders were aware of the coming rise of the internet over a decade ago, and basically sat on their hands. The recent economic crisis merely exacerbated problems that had existed for years -- (1) too many editors on staff, (2) companies demanding too large of a profit, and (3) companies refusing to plan for higher gas prices and increased cost of shipping/cutting their product -- paper.
Most political forces aren't helping matters...though I'd argue there are different levels of blame. Democrats get mad at things like this:
I'll stop there out of mercy for the newspaper industry. But that's how Democrats criticize the newspaper industry. Republicans, on the other hand...
The evisceration of the Fairness Doctrine in the 1980s by conservative Republicans allowed the rise of Rush Limbaugh, who then promoted more conservative Republican policies such as further media consolidation to spread Rush to more channels across the board, along with increased capital to fund more right-wing talk radio.
And...
In any case -- despite their faults and their attackers (those both fair and not so fair), the people are still going to traditional sources of news. They may also be getting their news from the internet -- which the latest Pew Report clearly stated -- but there is still a demand for information from traditional sources of news.
Tomorrow, I'll look at the absolute wrong approach, and hopefully on Wednesday or Thursday talk about the better approach. In the mean time, feel free to discuss your thoughts about all of this in the comments.
This is an unofficial part of our "Shattering Blogger Stereotypes" series. The myth shattered -- that bloggers hate the traditional media. The following is a report on an extensive study I completed as part of my coursework at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University. -- Phillip
In the early twentieth century, five Russian-born Jews living in Manhattan passed out some leaflets denouncing President Woodrow Wilson. They were accused of violating the Espionage Act. They were arrested for criticizing the government, and ultimately -- in Abrams vs. the United States -- the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the arrests.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his dissent, wrote that the leaflets created no real danger, arguing instead that they embraced one of the central tenants of the constitution: a "marketplace of ideas"
[...] The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas...that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution.
Today, in the early twenty-first century, information consumers seek a free trade of ideas much broader than what the market has traditionally offered. Print and television journalism competes with online journalism, where electronic leaflets travel much farther than the streets of Manhattan. YouTube videos, blogs, and Facebook messages are all relevant players in today’s marketplace of ideas.
Texas’ newspapers are adapting to the new online medium in noticeably different ways, especially when it comes to political reporting. An examination of the nearly 1,000 blog posts featured on the respective political blogs of the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, and Austin American-Statesman during the month leading up to the Texas primary shows that formal conventions of journalism often do not make their way from the paper pages to the web pages of Texas’ leading newspapers.
For those of us counting on the successful adaptation of Texas’ political reporting in the rapidly expanding realm of web-based media, the loss of formal convention may be a very, very good thing.
Introduction: About the Study
The purpose of the study wasn’t to determine which paper had the best online coverage – it was to examine what kind of coverage is out there in the first place. Reporters from each of these papers were interviewed for the original study; however, their quotes and input will not be directly attributed here, since the original study was conducted for academic purposes and to ensure their anonymity is respected.
The study examined at length the methods and attitudes of three of Texas’ major newspaper political blogs, focusing on the time period after Super Tuesday (February 6) through just before the Texas primary (March 3):
It should be noted that the Chronicle maintains several political blogs, including Texas on the Potomac, which has a national focus. For the purposes of the study, only the posts on Texas Politics, which has a Texas focus, were tracked, since most of the print reporters that cover Texas politics only blog on the Texas Politics blog. The study was completed for the Harvard Kennedy School of Government course, “Press, Politics, and Public Policy,” as taught by Professor Tom Fiedler, former Editor of the Miami Herald. As the general election approaches, similar studies will be conducted for comparison. Finding an Online Voice: The Choice between Formal and Informal Language
In 1961, Theodore White’s book, “The Making of the President: 1960” set the standard for political and campaign reporting. Ever since that time, political journalists have used White’s model – along with the very traditional “who, what, where, when, why, and how” formula – to create and sustain a formal language in their writing. The use of traditional, non-changing formal language signals a context of objectivity and authority for most readers.
However, many of Texas newspapers’ political blogs have abandoned traditional conventions in favor of a much more informal, opinion-based language. As Chart #1 shows below, the more posts that are written on Texas newspapers’ political blogs, the greater the chance that the language used will be informal.
Chart #1: Type of Language Used from 2/6 thru 3/3
Houston Chronicle
Austin American- Statesman
Dallas Morning News
Total / Average
# of total blog posts
172
304
510
986
Formal
61.6%
46.1%
23.3%
43.7%
Informal
25.0%
50.3%
71.2%
48.8%
Mixed
13.4%
3.6%
5.5%
7.5%
For the purposes of the study, formal language is considered “traditional newspaper” writing, often in 3rd-person. Informal language is considered “conversational-style” writing, which may combine first and second-person language and feature humor and/or editorializing. Mixed language-posts consists primarily of formal language but contain editorializing, humor, or a call for reader response not normally found with the use of formal language.
The Dallas Morning News reporters wrote nearly three times as many posts for their blog than their Houston Chronicle counterparts; not surprisingly, their language was much more informal. Strengthening the observed correlation, the Austin American-Statesman finished in the middle of each category.
Readers expect front-page stories to speak directly and clearly about events and issues. Eliminating the possibility of misunderstanding from our work is a critical part of our daily newsroom routine. When we communicate in a way that could be misinterpreted, we fail to meet our standards.
Our front-page story Sunday about the Netroots Nation convention included doses of irony and exaggeration. It made assertions (that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might find herself at home politically in Beijing, for example) and characterizations ("marauding liberals" was one) meant to amuse. For many readers, we failed.
In trying for a humorous take on the Netroots phenomenon without labeling it something other than a straightforward news story, we compromised our standards.
I appreciate the note, and I think a lot of readers will, too. It takes a lot of courage for a newspaper to talk about compromising their standards -- when credibility is the cornerstone for journalism (both in print and online).
The Statesman goofed and recognized their error. Good. Though, the story has apparently been deleted -- and can now only be found in their archives (which is not the normal timeline for their online stories). Learning from our mistakes is necessary, but trying to hide from them doesn't do anyone any good.
There's still more work to be done. I'll be writing more on that later this morning.
UPDATE:
Just read about all of this at "Editor & Publisher" -- the premiere journal that covers the newspaper industry. The article retraces much of what's gone on so far with the Statesman and this story -- it's worth a read for those who may think we've gone "over the top" on this:
