The Newsroom : Colorado Springs Gazette, CO

We’re linking out to Memorial’s liveblog

February 5th, 2010, 3:03 pm by Jeff Thomas

Talk about citizen journalism.

A week ago, Brian Newsome was on the payroll of the Gazette, covering health. This week he’s at his new job, employed by Memorial Health Systems, and is liveblogging the City Council’s interviews of citizens who have applied to serve on the Citizens’ Commission on Ownership and Governance of Memorial Health System.

We’ve posted a link to Brian’s liveblog on the gazette.com homepage, because the Memorial issue is important to the community, and because no single news organization can be everywhere all the time. We’ve been vigorously covering the questions and suggestions surrounding Memorial, and reporter Daniel Chacon plans a complete news account later today, but we aren’t blogging the interviews. Brian is, so why not link out to his work?

Can we vouch for the accuracy of Brian’s liveblog? No. Do we understand that his new employer has a direct interest in the proceedings? Yes. Do we think gazette.com readers can take all of this into account? Of course. We’re in the business of helping citizens obtain information, not in the business of building walls between them and information. The future of journalism is a partnership with the community, helping to enable the discussion.

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Posted in: community as network | 1 Comment »

Satellites, outmoded

February 3rd, 2010, 4:36 pm by Jeff Thomas

Today we received this communication from the Associated Press:

apnote1

For most folks, this means little. For newsrooms, this is a big change. AP began transitioning to web delivery a few years ago, and we’ve been relying on AP’s web-based delivery for a while to search for stories. But our editorial system, which we use to assemble the daily paper, is still hooked up to the satellite, which pushes everything from box scores to bulletins into our computer system through a 9600 baud modem. Once AP shuts down the birds, our editorial computer system’s intake valve will be hooked up to to AP’s web pipeline instead.

The switch won’t be visible to readers. Our I.T. department, however . . . .

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Posted in: Uncategorized • AP • getting the paper out | Post a Comment »

The Internet gets you coming and going

February 3rd, 2010, 2:12 pm by Jeff Thomas

On the same web page as this story at gazette.com, announcing the second bankrupty filing in three years for the company that owns Hollywood Video rental chain, appeared this automated, Google-fed ad:

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Brutal.

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Posted in: advertising • bankruptcy • digital • web | Post a Comment »

A small rant about a small word

February 2nd, 2010, 5:20 pm by Jeff Thomas

Copy editor David Bean called my attention to this AP story, which moved this afternoon:

NEW YORK (AP) — A massive new federal study documents an unprecedented and dramatic decrease in incidents of serious child abuse, especially sexual abuse. Experts hailed the findings as proof that crackdowns and public awareness campaigns had made headway.

Experts can hail all they want, and reporters can write what they will, but everyone needs to back off the word “proof.”

Very little in this world, even in the physical sciences, is ever “proved.” At best, new and even compelling evidence is produced that strengthens one conclusion and weakens another. Evidence can advance one theory and hold back another. In the face of new evidence — assuming it is accurate, free of bias, relevant and all the rest — premises are rethought and reformed, at least by honest people. Especially in the realm of public policy, where so much is built upon the shifting ground of politics, principle, personal experience, and personal moral constructs, the idea that anything can be “proven” is wobbly indeed.

In 99 times out of 100, substituting the word “evidence” for the word “proof” will result in a more accurate sentence.

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Posted in: editing • words | Post a Comment »

Anonymous sources in our homeless-camps story

January 29th, 2010, 8:30 pm by Jeff Thomas

Our report on homeless camps in Colorado Springs, published Jan. 31, contains quotes from several people who would not provide their full names. Some asked out of embarrassment; others said they had reasons to remain undiscovered. We asked everyone to provide their full name, and plenty did, but when someone asked us to use a partial name, we complied.

We have an ethics policy that frowns on anonymous sources, but we can’t rule them out in every possible circumstance. So, we apply a four-part test whenever a sources asks to remain unnamed:

1. Is this news story of vital community interest? Would we be doing a disservice, or even harm, to the community by failing to report this story?

The first part of the test is the most difficult for the anonymous campers to overcome. The issue of homelessness is eternally important, so our story isn’t breaking any news. The fact that there are homeless in Colorado Springs is no surprise. While the camps are a health and safety concern, there is no impending catastrophe. This would argue against allowing anonymous information.

The spread of homeless camps in the Springs, however, is a comparatively new dimension to the issue. It has generated deep and wide community debate. Well-attended community forums have included the homeless themselves and those who provide charitable services to them, merchants and other businesses whose livelihoods are affected by the presence of homeless people, law enforcement, elected officials, and regular citizens. The City Council, surrounded by loud and compelling arguments on all sides, is approaching a moment of truth when it will decide whether to outlaw or somehow regulate camping on public land.

Our report to be published Sunday is focused on conditions in the camps, and the realities of daily living in them. By doing so, it provides basic information that can help inform the city’s decision about how to manage the situation. That puts the story not in the emergency category, but in the “vital community interest” category.

2. Is the information provided by the anonymous source essential to the story? Would the story collapse without that information?

Collapse? No. But it would be noticeably weakened. The whole point is to learn, from those who live in the camps, what they must do to make it to the next day. To get a sense of homeless life through their experience, it’s necessary to ask them, and therefore to listen. Moreover, the focus of the story is not so much on the history, circumstances and motives of the individuals we interviewed as it is on what it is like to live in them.

3. Can the anonymously attributed information be obtained from anyone else who would be willing to provide the same information on the record?

In some cases, yes; in others, no. Some people provided us their complete names, and we have used them. When similar information was provided by a person who provided a name and by a person who did not, we quoted the person who provided the name. Some of those who asked that their full name not be used, however, gave us a look and provided a description of their lives that was not obtained from anyone else.

4. Does the information from the anonymous source attack someone else? Does the source have an ax to grind?

None of the people who asked for anonymity said anything that attacked another person.

It’s a judgment call. In my view, the anonymous information marginally passes the four parts of the test.

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Posted in: housing • anonymity • ethics • homeless | 5 Comments »

Not everyone was amused

January 20th, 2010, 5:06 pm by Jeff Thomas

Some second-guessing in the newsroom today about our lead headline:

Those following the news lately know there’s been a rash of robberies this month, and Subway sandwich shops have been the victim of more than their fair share of the holdups. One store manager, pictured above, is fed up and told reporter Maria St. Louis-Sanchez that if a robber darkens the door of her store (for the third time since October), she’s prepared to hop in her car, follow the perpetrator and keep him in her sights until police arrive.

Clearly, this is one businesswoman who’s Mad as Hell and Isn’t Going to Take it Any More. On that level, the headline works. It accurately captures the kind of mood a would-be robber is likely to encounter at Subway — or this particular Subway, anyway.

On the other hand, this is a serious, and possibly a life-and-death, topic. In a few of the 2010 robberies disclosed by Colorado Springs police, guns were used, and were fired in at least one instance (no one was hit). This is not the kind of topic that warrants clever wordplay, the argument goes.

On the tonal scale, I’m comfortable with the headline. Clearly, this businesswoman is ticked — who wouldn’t be? — and plans (or at least wants) to give as good as she gets.

My biggest reservation has to do its precision. No one at Subway is proposing to use force against any robber. The store owner promises only to follow a suspect, not to confront one. The smaller subhed under the main headline makes that much plain, true, but the main headline has already set the table.

It’s a tricky art, headline writing. Be interesting, but stay square with the nature of the news. Be accurate, but not boring. Be clever, but not flippant. What’s your reaction to it?

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Posted in: headlines | 6 Comments »

The “A” word: accuracy

January 18th, 2010, 9:39 pm by Jeff Thomas

Today we are accused of pussyfooting around the Sept. 1 news of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by our corporate parent, Freedom Communications Inc.

Asks John Hazlehurst on a post he made today on his blog at the Colorado Springs Business Journal:

How do you report on your own bankruptcy? Judging from reports in the Denver Post and the Gazette, you do your best to avoid that nasty “B” word.

Bankruptcy, that is. He goes on to assert that the Gazette did nothing more than publish the corporate press release on the Chapter 11 filing:

The suits told the publishers and editors at all of Freedom’s/Media News Group’s properties to run corporate’s pathetic B.S., and they complied.

This belated attack on the character of the Gazette’s journalism arises today because on Friday the corporate owner of the Denver Post announced it, too, would seek protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

I won’t address Hazlehurst’s comments about the way the Post handled the announcement of its own bankruptcy. I can answer only for the G, and my answer is simple: bull.

No “suit” at the G or beyond told our reporters what to write, period. If they did, we apparently didn’t listen very well. Here are the first two paragraphs of the story we published in the Sept. 2 edition, which was the very first edition off our press following Freedom’s Chapter 11 filing:

Freedom Communications, the Irvine, Calif.-based parent of The Gazette, filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday as part of an agreement with its lenders to restructure the media company’s debts. A plan to emerge from the Chapter 11 bankruptcy already has the approval of a majority of Freedom’s creditors, which should speed the company’s exit from bankruptcy, said Burl Osborne, Freedom’s interim chief executive officer.

That plan doesn’t call for selling or shutting down any newspapers, magazines or television stations, nor does it require layoffs, salary cuts or furloughs — except as dictated by business conditions, he said.

By my count, that’s three “bankruptcy”s in two paragraphs. On Page One. Overall, the word was used six times in the story. Just what was Hazlehurst reading?

Ah, wait — here it is. It’s the corporate news release that was issued Sept. 1 by Freedom and posted at 2:55 p.m. Sept. 1, online, at gazette.com. The release skated around the term “bankruptcy” in favor of language along the lines of “agreement with its lenders on a restructuring of the Company’s debt.”

We know bankruptcy when we see it. We published that release under the headline “Freedom news release on bankruptcy filing”

But here’s the thing: We published our own news story two hours earlier, at 12:43 p.m. under the headline “Gazette owner files for bankruptcy protection.” Here is the first paragraph:

Freedom Communications, the Irvine, Calif.-based parent of The Gazette and dozens of other newspapers, filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday as part of an agreement with its lenders to restructure the media company’s debts.

The final update to the story was posted at 10:25 a.m. Sept. 2.

We published this at gazette.com at 9:25 p.m. Aug. 30, two days prior to the bankruptcy filing:

Freedom Communications, the owner of the Colorado Springs Gazette, is expected to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week, according to a published report.

We published this on our biz blog on Aug. 31:

This was a long time in the works, but Freedom and its bankers appear to be ready to push the button and reorganize the company through bankruptcy.

More to come when we learn it.

We published this on the biz blog at 12:18 p.m. on Sept. 1, the day of the filing:

If you missed it on the main page:

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — The owner of the Orange County Register in California and dozens of other newspapers became the latest publisher Tuesday to seek bankruptcy protection, hurt by a jarring drop in advertising revenue.

We published a company timeline at gazette.com at 1:05 p.m. Sept. 1 with this entry:

Sept. 1, 2009: Freedom Communications Inc., owner of the Gazette, files a reorganization plan with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

We published this at 4:01 p.m. Sept. 1, also the day of the filing, under the headline “Freedom bankruptcy filing Q&A”

Freedom Communication Inc., the Irvine, Calif.-based owner of The Gazette and other newspapers and television stations across the nation, filed for U.S. Bankruptcy Court protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy law. The filing came Tuesday in Delaware. Gazette Publisher and President Steven Pope and Freedom CEO Burl Osborne answered the following questions about the filing:

The following day, Sept. 2, we published (online on Sept. 2 and in print Sept. 3) an interview with one of the members of the Hoiles family, founder of Freedom, about her thoughts on the fate of the company that has been in her family’s hands for generations. Her quote:

To be the generation that puts the company into Chapter 11 is devastating.

Tell me again, exactly, how we’re avoiding the B word?

The newspaper business is in trouble. Freedom Communications, the Tribune Co., the Philadelphia Inquirer, Sun-Times Media Group Inc., Journal Register Co., Star-Tribune Holdings Corp. — and now the parent of the Denver Post, too — each have sought refuge of the bankruptcy court, or emerged from it, in the past year. There’s no sugar-coating it: We’re in a fight for the survival of the news business.

What we haven’t lost, however, is our integrity. John Hazlehurst is an active citizen, often thoughtful observer, noted philanthropist, and an unquestioned champion for this community. But he’s way off base with this accusation.

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Posted in: bankruptcy • blogs • business | 2 Comments »

The RNC thinks I can help Republicans win the next election

January 17th, 2010, 3:19 pm by Jeff Thomas

Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, has mailed me something called the “2010 Congressional District Census.” This being a decennial census year, borrowing vocabulary from the actual 2010 Census to wedge into the consciousness of constituents is a clever idea. Apparently, however, the RNC has assigned to me a “census tracking code” (A10PD240), that, besides looking official and all, is meant to mark me “as a respresentative of your area.” So it’s not really a census, in the sense that every person is counted. It is, at most, a survey, though the letter gives no clues about its sampling methodology.

I received the survey, Steele wrote, “because of your high level of political involvement and steadfast commitment to the Republican Party.” This comes as a bit of a surprise, given that my level of political involvement is confined to marking a ballot and that I am not a registered member of the GOP, or of any political party. Like the plurality of Colorado voters, I am unaffiliated. I don’t write checks to candidates. I don’t sign petitions. I don’t go to rallies, put bumper stickers on my car, or plant candidate signs in my lawn. Nor will I respond to the RNC survey. As I see it, part of my obligation as a journalist is to keep my politics between me, my wife, and the ballot box. Yet somehow I’m on the requisite mailing lists; I get these kind of pleas from the RNC and from the Democratic National Committee regularly.

My selection by the RNC as someone whose views are “central to our party’s ability to devise a winning Republican strategy” in the 2010 elections also might surprise the Gazette readers who regularly write and call me to complain of a liberal slant to the news coverage in The Gazette. Apparently they don’t know that Michael Steele and I are like this.

Anyway, the survey struck me as such an overt attempt to obtain predetermined results, on topics that are getting lots of news attention, that it got me thinking about bias. It got me thinking about others who receive the survey, read the questions and then will read Gazette news coverage of the same topics — coverage that is stripped of the same leading language of the RNC survey.

The RNC is not a newspaper. Its people are not journalists. Its purpose is to win elections, not inform citizens. Its survey is meant to provide the RNC with 2010 campaign ammunition, and at least create the impression that GOP candidates will carry the views of ordinary Republican voters into campaigns up and down the ballot across the country. I’m sure the Democratic National Committee is working just as hard to manufacture survey results that serve its own campaign agenda.

It’s perfectly legitimate, even healthy, for partisan organizations to do this. And even as they wage partisan politics, they are entitled to news coverage that is as free of bias as possible. They are correct to demand journalism that is eternally vigilant against bias. Journalism serves all citizens, even those devoted to party politics.

That doesn’t mean the RNC or the DNC view of the world is the definition of objectivity. Yet some of those who have complained to me of a liberal bias in Gazette coverage have said that for us to be objective, we must frame issues from their point of view — a point of view similar to that expressed in the RNC survey.

Some of the questions on the survey are perfectly benign. Example: “Do you favor or oppose increased American troop presence in Afghanistan?”

But a greater number of questions are constructed in a way to lead someone to a predetermined answer. One example: “Do you believe the huge, costly Democrat-passed stimulus bill has been effective in creating jobs or stimulating America’s economy?”

Another: “Do you think the record trillion dollar federal deficit the Democrats are creating with their out-of-control spending is going to have disastrous consequences for our nation?”

The stimulus bill is, by any observable standard, huge. The federal deficit is, in fact, in record territory. But these questions, asked in these ways, would earn a reporter a trip to the woodshed. One citizen sees the stimulus bill as “huge” and “costly;” another citizen sees the bill as “necessary” and “wise,” even if it is huge and costly. Reporters are obligated to avoid either characterization when probing for information.

Keeping the “huge and costly” characterization out of a news story would not be evidence of liberal bias, any more than keeping the “necessary and wise” characterization out of the story would be evidence of conservative bias.

The whole point here is rather banal: People tend to regard themselves as at the center of opinion. Views to the right or left of them have the appearance of bias. More to the point of this post, they also can regard news stories that don’t start from their personal frame of reference as biased.

None of which is to say journalism isn’t, or can’t be, biased. If a journalist attempts to draw a specific policy conclusion from the facts, that’s bias. It happens, and shouldn’t.

But if a journalist refrains from constructing a report from the same world view of the reader — e.g., if he fails to characterize the stimulus bill as “huge and costly” — that’s not bias. Declining to drink anyone’s flavor of Kool-Aid — yours included — is not bias.

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Posted in: bias • politics | Post a Comment »

The new front lines of journalism

January 13th, 2010, 2:31 pm by Jeff Thomas

Driving home from Nebraska last night after a family-intensive few days away from the news, I flipped the satellite radio to CNN to catch up on the world and to help the miles roll by. It was then that I learned about the earthquake in Haiti.
At the time I tuned in CNN, the earthquake was three hours past, and the dominant message at that early point was how there was so little information available. Most usual communications channels had been knocked out in a country where physical and digital networks are decrepit in the best of times.
Then the CNN anchor began announcing the arrival of photos. Not from news photographers or the AP, but from Twitpic and Facebook. Then CNN began contacting people in the interior of the island — where the quake’s effects were not as profound — via Skype. As long as someone with a computer had a source of electricity, satellite hookups to the Internet remained possible, and for the duration of my drive home, CNN seemed to be connected to Haiti almost exclusively by Skype.
The voice quality of those reporting by Skype what they saw, by the way, was far superior to the usual back-of-the-closet-quality sound of patched-through long-distance phone calls.
It’s the rhythm of breaking news: the first, front-line reports show up on Twitter and Facebook and by text message — the tools of the citizen, carried in just about every pocket. It’s not even a new rhythm, either. The same was true of the 2008 earthquake in China. And the emergency landing on the Hudson River. And at Virginia Tech: To this day, the cell-phone video of a CNN “iReporter” remains the the Zapruder-like iconic document of the massacre.
Every day, the reporting of the news is increasingly a job that the community at large is taking upon itself.

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Posted in: breaking news • community as network • social networks | Post a Comment »

A new year, a new organization

January 6th, 2010, 4:47 pm by Jeff Thomas

A new year’s resolution to post more frequently here. By way of explaining the recent lull, we’ve gone through some big changes in the newsroom.

Once again, staff reductions have forced us to realign ourselves. We are concentrating our manpower on covering news, while preserving the skills we continue to need to turn all that information into a daily newspaper. Lots of hands are necessary to move the photos and words from the hands of reporters to the printing press. Copy needs to be edited, proofread, sometimes rewritten, fitted with headlines and captions, and arranged on the page in an interesting and organized way. This does not happen by magic, it happens by focused attention, and it must happen 7/365. Last night was a good example: The late-breaking news about Gov. Ritter forced the copy and design crews to abandon the plan for the front page they had been working on for hours, and to craft a new A1 on the fly.

So our manpower is pulled in two directions: get reporters on the street to cover the news. And get that news onto pages.

The two roles are blending. We’ve created smaller teams of reporters. Leaders of each team will edit the reporters’ work, but they also will help report the news. Reporters will help edit the work of others on the team. The structure is flattened.

Meanwhile, copy editors and page designers are getting more involved in news coverage. One of our sports designers also was the Sky Sox beat writer in 2009. Our copy editors are handling the editing and updating duties at gazette.com in the evening. Copy editors in sports spend a couple shifts a week putting together high school sports video.

With all the changes are some new assignments:

Barbara Cotter is covering the “safety net” — homelessness, social-service agencies, news affecting the most vulnerable.
Lance Benzel has taken over military coverage
Tom Roeder moves to state legislative and political coverage
Joanna Bean is team leader of public affairs news
Bill Radford is business team leader
Joel Millman is leader of the public safety team
Bill Vogrin, who writes the Side Streets column, leads a team that handles safety net issues and general assignments
Bill Reed is team leader for health and religion coverage
Warren Epstein continues to lead arts and culture coverage
Jim O’Connell continues to lead sports coverage
Stuart Wong remains the photo director
Sue McMillin leads the education and military team

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Posted in: Change • staff | Post a Comment »

We’re linking out to Memorial’s liveblog

Satellites, outmoded

The Internet gets you coming and going

A small rant about a small word

Anonymous sources in our homeless-camps story

Not everyone was amused

The “A” word: accuracy

The RNC thinks I can help Republicans win the next election

A new year, a new organization

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