AS ONE OF THE TOP TEN WORKS OF JOURNALISM OF THIS DECADE

CHICAGO PUBLIC RADIO’S THIS AMERICAN LIFE AND NPR SHARE HONOR

FOR LAUDED EXPLAINER OF SUBPRIME MORTGAGE CRISIS

April 5, 2010; Washington, D.C. – It was a compelling, even humorous, hour of radio, making sense of the mortgage crisis and Wall Street turmoil, and in the process creating one of the finest pieces of explanatory journalism on the economy – months ahead of its collapse. Now, “The Giant Pool of Money,” an hour-long documentary co-produced by NPR News and This American Life from Chicago Public Radio and distributed by Public Radio International, has been named one of the decade’s best.

New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute announced today that “The Giant Pool of Money” was selected as one of the Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade in the United States. “Giant Pool” is ranked fourth on the list and the only broadcast piece cited out of all ten works. The works were selected by the NYU journalism faculty and a panel of outside judges representing media, the non-profit sector, philanthropy and academia. The full list is available at: http://journalism.nyu.edu/decade/

“The Giant Pool of Money” was reported by NPR economics correspondent Adam Davidson, This American Life producer Alex Blumberg and host Ira Glass, and aired on that program in May 2008. With personal narratives and memorable storytelling, Davidson, Blumberg and Glass told the story of the housing crisis, mortgage backed securities and the collapse of the banking system in a way that made sense. The program was heralded as “a brilliant piece” by the Columbia Journalism Review, TIME wrote of “a riveting narrative with distinct characters and plot twists” and it earned Peabody, duPont-Columbia and George Polk awards. “Giant Pool” was cited by the Peabody committee as “impressive for the arresting clarity of its explanation of the financial crisis we’re in, and even more so for its having aired so early – in May 2008.”

“’Giant Pool’ forever changed how we approach storytelling. To take something so complex and make it relatable, even entertaining – it struck just the right chord at the perfect time,” says Ellen Weiss, Senior Vice President for NPR News. “We are incredibly humbled to be included among the works on this list, and thank NYU for such an honor.”

The success of “Giant Pool” led to the creation of NPR’s Planet Money, a multimedia reporting project led by Davidson and Blumberg, covering the global economy on radio and through a blog, podcast and social media (all available at www.npr.org/money). It launched, by coincidence, on the first day of the acute financial crisis – September 7, 2008 – and has since established itself as the place for clear and innovative financial reporting. The Planet Money team regularly reports for NPR and This American Life, has recently covered Haiti’s post-earthquake economy and is following the progress of its very own toxic asset – purchased to help track how the housing bust is playing out.

-NPR-

Google’s new enhanced business listings, which it started to test quietly in Houston and San Jose, Calif., early this month, have an obvious competitor: the Yellow Pages. -read the entire post at NYTimes.com

Here is the link to Google Map’s Enhanced Listing page (the yellow tag option is probably not available in your area yet though.

Thursday, Oct. 8, 2009
1-2 pm ET
(see local time around the world: http://bit.ly/wY15O )

Listen live, or later to a recording:
http://bit.ly/columbiajcm
(you can set an e-mail reminder for yourself at that link)

Or call-in to listen and/or talk to them at +1-646-915-9583

Send your questions/comments via e-mail to sree@sree.net (subject = webcast) of via Twitter @sreenet or #columbiaj. You can also use the chatroom that will be open at the link above to ask live questions.

Even if you miss the live version, you can listen to the archive at the link above or via the MP3 info below.

ABOUT THE CASE METHOD: The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism two years ago launched a new program, the Knight Case Studies Initiative. Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Initiative aims to give journalism educators a powerful new tool for the classroom. The Case Method–long familiar to students of business, medicine, law and other professions—is an interactive, discussion-based approach to learning which asks students to think for themselves by confronting them with real-life dilemmas of leadership, management and ethics.

Join us to learn what works about this teaching method! You’ll hear from both Initiative Director Kirsten Lundberg, and from Prof. Sheila Coronel, an experienced case teacher and director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism.

In the Case Method classroom, students put themselves in the shoes of a protagonist facing a decision to which there is no “right answer.” Students are expected to analyze the problem, identify options, predict the likely consequences, prescribe a solution, defend their views, and persuade their colleagues. The vicarious real-world experience students gain in the case classroom will stand them in good stead when they become news industry leaders and managers in their own right.

Learning happens on three levels: students master the content; they acquire and hone critical thinking, judgment and behavioral skills; and they assess their personal values. Faculty have found this teaching method stimulating to student and instructor alike. One teacher said: “I found that this case allowed us to go deep on a number of tactical and strategic investigative-reporting lessons that would otherwise be hard to teach.” A student observed that: “This case study was so useful to me because it introduced a conflict that I could ACTUALLY see one of us encountering in our own professional lives.” To see more about Case Method and journalism, go to: http://casestudies.jrn.columbia.edu – or e-mail Kirsten Lundberg at kol2101@columbia.edu

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS: Prof. Sheila Coronel is director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. A journalist since 1982, she worked for decades in the Philippines, where she founded the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism to promote investigative reporting and train journalists. She is the author and editor of more than a dozen books, including Coups, Cults & Cannibals. She joined the Columbia faculty in 2006 and was one of the first in the school to adopt case studies for her teaching.

Kirsten Lundberg started the Knight Case Studies Initiative in 2007. She was a reporter in Brussels, London, Stockholm and Moscow in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and later became a case writer for the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She has run numerous workshops on Case Method, both in the US and abroad. In just 2.5 years, the case collection at the Journalism School has grown to nearly 25 cases.

To see more about Case Method and journalism, go to: http://casestudies.jrn.columbia.edu – or e-mail Kirsten Lundberg at kol2101@columbia.edu

MODERATOR: Prof. Sree Sreenivasan, Dean of Student Affairs and member of the digital media faculty

===> HOW TO LISTEN VIA YOUR IPOD: The audio webcasts are also available as downloadable MP3 files for your personal collection and on-the-go listening. If you want to subscribe to these as podcasts on iTunes, go to “Advanced” within iTunes, then select “Subscribe to podcast” and type in http://www.blogtalkradio.com/columbiajournalism/feed and hit OK.

==> See/hear our full lineup of 50+ webcasts: http://blogtalkradio.com/columbiajournalism

NEW-ISH WAYS CONNECT WITH COLUMBIA JOURNALISM SCHOOL:

Facebook: friend “Columbia J-school”
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=611726581

Twitter: http://twitter.com/j_school

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/columbiajournalism

Blip.tv: http://cujs.blip.tv/ (five- and 12-minute mini-documentaries about the school + events at the school)

Audio webcasts with faculty, alumni and more: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/columbiajournalism (set automatic e-mail reminders there for yourself)

MAIN WEBSITE: http://www.journalism.columbia.edu

Prof. Sree Sreenivasan | sree@sree.net
Dean of Student Affairs, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
http://www.sree.net | http://www.sreetips.com
SREE’S TWITTER GUIDE FOR NEWBIES & SKEPTICS: http://bit.ly/twitterideas
TWITTER: @sreenet – http://twitter.com/sreenet

Read the entire article here

Read my interview with Alan Jacobson to learn more about “community of interest” news sites and how TweenTribune can monetize a newspaper’s NIE campaign while bringing it into the internet paradigm.

Printcasting is a first of its kind online tool that assists users in dynamically creating customized newspapers and magazines comprised of information gathered from local news sources such as blogs, newsletters, news organizations, user content, and other Contributors.  Creating your own publication is as simple as adding the elements you want included in your publication through the easy to use Printcasting.com interface.  Without having to hire a team of editors, graphic artists, or authors you will be able to create your own, professional publication for distribution.

Publishers will also be able to allow Advertisers to place targeted advertisements in their publications and, in the future, receive a portion of revenue generated from those advertisements.  Publications created by the user may then be available for print, download, and distribution to Subscribers.

I wrote about the years-ago-created RSS to print application FeedJournal and it’s potential for a digital newspaper application last year, so Printcasting’s claim to be the “first of its kind” in this realm isn’t necessarily true, what is unique though is their attempt to monetize the resulting product with a simple ad creation tool (among other things).

Printcasting is a Knight News Challenge winner and their website is inviting so I decided to give it a try for Metaprinter.  I want to emphasize that the Printcasting site was in open Beta / preview mode when I did this so don’t judge too harshly.

Step 1. Definitely watch this instructional video before doing anything.

Printcast Your Blog from Dan Pacheco on Vimeo.

Step 2. Publish your blog and tweak the layout.

I had a problem with this part in that I wanted to use my Metaprinter logo in the header.  No problem with the upload but the Printcasting interface commands the blog Title and Tagline on, there’s no way to remove them from the header.  I got around this by resizing my header logo smaller and turning the text to white.  If you look closely though you can see the white type cutting into the bottom of the words “news media” in the screen capture below.  Not a huge deal but maybe in the future they will allow publishers to turn off the text in these locations.  Here’s a closeup of how the header looked before I tweaked it.

Step 3. Done!

When you are completely done a screen pops up giving you the option to email up to 100 people a link to your new Printcast and also gives you the embed codes for several different widgets like the one below.

How does the completed product look?  Pretty good except I didn’t expect the PDF to cut off my articles (I’m not that wordy am I?).  When they reach a certain word count (I guess), an automatically created tinyurl is placed at the end of the offending article and redirects the reader to the Printcasting site to complete reading the article.  Also all my hyperlinks in my articles are dropped which I can understand if the product is destined for print, but they’re dropped everywhere, the pdf version, the magazine view, and the quick read view.  Hyperlinks are a huge part of blogging, sometimes being unable to link out makes an article less usefull to the point of uselessness.    Here’s the PDF if you want to see how it turned out.

Step 4. Advertising

Just for kicks I started putting together an advertisement to see how easy it was and I am happy to report that the experience is pretty straightforward and intuitive.

What did I like?

• The entire process was straightforward and intuitive.
• I like the idea of being able to offer my readers a print version of my blog.
• Creating an advertisement was easy.
• I might be able to sell advertising on my printcast.

What didn’t I like?

• Not being able to turn off the Title and Tagline text in the header.
• My hyperlinks disappearing everywhere.
• My blog posts being cut off despite using only 5 pages in my pdf.
• Not being able to read the small text in  “magazine view” despite zooming in and viewing on a 24″ monitor.
• Not knowing what ads will appear in my printcast.

What I’m not sure about.

• #25 in the Terms of Use says Printcasting is for California Use Only.  um… can you explain this layman terms?  What am I, as an out of stater, opening my self up to here?
• Specifically, how is advertising revenue shared?
• How can I sell ad space on my printcast?

I hope to get someone from Printcasting or Bakersfield.com to respond in the comments section to clarify my issues.   What I’d like to see in the future is a paid feature where publishers can eliminate all ads from their printcast or select which ones appear / add their own.   If I can get the above problems corrected and gain control over the ad space or eliminate it altogether I might consider Printcasting as the print solution for Metaprinter.

UPDATE:

See Printcasting creator Dan Pacheco’s response below and check out his new post about revenue streams at MediaShift Idea Lab

This map and project was inspired by Metaprinter — let Erica know if you have an idea for a project.

How did this turn into a project?

Metaprinter reader Eric Cox director of national sales for PNG Laboratories LLC was looking for a list of related information.  I started the list, then started a google maps mashup, realized it would look and act much like the one Erica Smith already has on her papercuts blog.  I contacted her about collaborating on the project and she was all for it!

The result is a dynamic map which will provide information about newspapers who have switched to online only publication. Hover over the markers to find detailed info about the newspaper.

Goodbye, Encarta. A cautionary tale for newspapers? -John Yemma CSM

The death of Wikipedia May 24, 2006 -Nick Carr roughtype

Encarta, R.I.P (cont.): A Reply from Tom Corddry -Britannica Blog

Wikipedia is dead!  Long Live Wikipedia!

Murdoch also predicted that the New York Times Co. (NYT) will have to charge online for access to its flagship newspaper.

“The inventory of display advertising on the web is doubling every year,” said Murdoch. “They’re never going to make money on an advertising model to replace what they’re losing.”

This is a paid article available only to subscribers, ironically, if you access this article through google news, you don’t have to sign in to access it.  I’m sure that will change too though.

I’m not sure why newspaper publishers are attempting to create their own eReaders though.  Can you imagine having a Hearst reader for their titles, a newscorp reader for their titles, a cell phone, and Ipod and a laptop to carry around?  Crazyness.

RELATED:

The fundamental problem of newspapers on the internet – The Krugman Paradox

News Media Innovation, Convergence and Sustainability – Interview with Don Carli

Murdoch says papers should charge on Web

Podcast – Video Game Revenue Models To Save The New York Times?