The Onion has satirized the news in print for decades—now it’s moving to video, too.
Other news outlets report on illegal immigration “with facts and information that are very difficult to relate to,” says an anchor on an Onion.com video. Then the Onion team cuts to the heart of the matter with the story of a corporate executive who lost his $800,000 job to a migrant worker willing to settle for $600,000.
“Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free, these are the words enshrined at the base of the Statue of Liberty and in the hearts of every true American,” says Onion Correspondent Jean Anne Whorton.
“But those words were written thousands of years ago.”
These and other cutting reports make up the new video content appearing in the Onion’s online home.
Fair and balanced? No. Funny? You decide.
- ALAN J. McCOMBS / ASNE Reporter
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Sleep in, drink beer, ASNE president says
Announcement made at the Small Newspaper Luncheon Tuesday afternoon by ASNE president David A. Zeeck:
"In the past, we've tended to start our committee meetings at 7:30 in the morning on Thursdays. That is an insane thing to do. We are going to start committee hearings at 4 o'clock on Thursday. Beer and wine will be provided."
-By CONNOR ADAMS SHEETS / ASNE Reporter
"In the past, we've tended to start our committee meetings at 7:30 in the morning on Thursdays. That is an insane thing to do. We are going to start committee hearings at 4 o'clock on Thursday. Beer and wine will be provided."
-By CONNOR ADAMS SHEETS / ASNE Reporter
Find out what's in the swag bag
We just snagged the ASNE convention bag that everyone here is sporting. Jealous?
Inside the made-in-China Leed's tote, we found a copy of keynote speaker Spike Lee's four-hour documentary on Hurricane Katrina. This DVD of "When the Levees Broke" includes a 105-minute epilogue. The last time we read an epilogue was in our 19th-century American novel class. But don't worry, Shelton, we'll watch it before you get here this Friday.
The swag included a self-help guide on "how to help your newsroom get where it wants to go faster" compiled by ASNE and other organizations, as well as a CD chockful of "Featurettes," the top 100 stories from … PR departments.
Other booty: glossies from Reuters and Tribune Media Services, profiles of editors jockeying to get on the Board, and a list of the other conventioneers, so you can find out where to network your way into a new job.
- STACY A. ANDERSON and APRIL YEE / ASNE Reporter
Inside the made-in-China Leed's tote, we found a copy of keynote speaker Spike Lee's four-hour documentary on Hurricane Katrina. This DVD of "When the Levees Broke" includes a 105-minute epilogue. The last time we read an epilogue was in our 19th-century American novel class. But don't worry, Shelton, we'll watch it before you get here this Friday.
The swag included a self-help guide on "how to help your newsroom get where it wants to go faster" compiled by ASNE and other organizations, as well as a CD chockful of "Featurettes," the top 100 stories from … PR departments.
Other booty: glossies from Reuters and Tribune Media Services, profiles of editors jockeying to get on the Board, and a list of the other conventioneers, so you can find out where to network your way into a new job.
- STACY A. ANDERSON and APRIL YEE / ASNE Reporter
Editors confess their greatest fears
Some break out in a sweat at night. Others jump out of bed in the morning worrying about the state of their newspapers. With circulation dropping and readers finding different outlets for the news, editors have plenty of worries.
What are their biggest fears?
“I worry about the future of our product because of all the changes going on in the business.” - David Boardman, executive editor of the Seattle Times
“If there is a bad headline on the front page.” - Glenn Proctor, executive editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch
“That we are not changing things fast enough, are not seeing what the readers want.” - Janet Weaver, executive editor of The Tampa Tribune
-By SHA'DAY JACKSON / ASNE Reporter
What are their biggest fears?
“I worry about the future of our product because of all the changes going on in the business.” - David Boardman, executive editor of the Seattle Times
“If there is a bad headline on the front page.” - Glenn Proctor, executive editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch
“That we are not changing things fast enough, are not seeing what the readers want.” - Janet Weaver, executive editor of The Tampa Tribune
-By SHA'DAY JACKSON / ASNE Reporter
We're nowhere near 'parity,' AAJA executive director says
Rene Astudillo whipped a table out of his ASNE-issued tote. The executive director of the Asian American Journalists Association was mulling a new figure: 3.27 percent. That's the number of Asian Americans that the 2007 ASNE Newsroom Employment Census measured in the workforce this year, a slight increase from 2006.
"There needs to be a more significant change in these numbers," Astudillo said, adding, "If ASNE's goal is to achieve parity by 2025, they're not going to achieve that."
But, Astudillo added, it's not just about the numbers. The challenge is ensuring that editorial decisions at the top reflect local diversity.
"A better way to judge diversity in the news is how the news is covered," he said. "Even if we don't reach parity in the newsroom, it is important that we reflect the communities they are covering."
Read our story on the report here.
-APRIL YEE / ASNE Reporter
"There needs to be a more significant change in these numbers," Astudillo said, adding, "If ASNE's goal is to achieve parity by 2025, they're not going to achieve that."
But, Astudillo added, it's not just about the numbers. The challenge is ensuring that editorial decisions at the top reflect local diversity.
"A better way to judge diversity in the news is how the news is covered," he said. "Even if we don't reach parity in the newsroom, it is important that we reflect the communities they are covering."
Read our story on the report here.
-APRIL YEE / ASNE Reporter
February ad revenue dips don't faze editors
Editors don't seem too concerned by this morning's article in The New York Times about the decline in ad revenue.
"It’s just one month," said Denis Finley, editor of The Virginian-Pilot. "It's no reason to panic."
However, Carolina Garcia, editor of the Monterey County Herald, disagrees.
"I think March is going to be worse," she said, adding that their projections for this month will show a further decline.
The article cited February losses of 10 percent for The Wall Street Journal, 6 percent for The New York Times Company, 5 percent for The Tribune Company, 5 percent for McClatchy, 4 percent for The Boston Globe’s owner New England Media Group and 3.8 percent for Gannett.
"It's obvious one month isn't compensating for the loss of print [revenue]," Finley said. "Eventually, I think online will overtake the losses in print. But it's a scary time."
Garcia said one of the reasons she is attending this conference is to find answers and solutions to this problem. However, her paper's Web site has seen an increase in online readership and a stabilization in online ad revenue.
Just two months ago, The Politico's owner Robert Allbritton told Poynter's Romenesko, "You can get infinitely more advertising money if you have a print product." However, he said that publishing exclusively online is "the future."
Ad spending on newspaper Web sites increased 31.5 percent to $2.7 billion last year, according to the Newspaper Association of America.
"What's really going to suffer is the journalism," Finley said. "Everyone's focused on the money. Not enough people are thinking about the journalism, which is what this business was built on."
-By STEPHANIE WOODROW / ASNE Reporter
"It’s just one month," said Denis Finley, editor of The Virginian-Pilot. "It's no reason to panic."
However, Carolina Garcia, editor of the Monterey County Herald, disagrees.
"I think March is going to be worse," she said, adding that their projections for this month will show a further decline.
The article cited February losses of 10 percent for The Wall Street Journal, 6 percent for The New York Times Company, 5 percent for The Tribune Company, 5 percent for McClatchy, 4 percent for The Boston Globe’s owner New England Media Group and 3.8 percent for Gannett.
"It's obvious one month isn't compensating for the loss of print [revenue]," Finley said. "Eventually, I think online will overtake the losses in print. But it's a scary time."
Garcia said one of the reasons she is attending this conference is to find answers and solutions to this problem. However, her paper's Web site has seen an increase in online readership and a stabilization in online ad revenue.
Just two months ago, The Politico's owner Robert Allbritton told Poynter's Romenesko, "You can get infinitely more advertising money if you have a print product." However, he said that publishing exclusively online is "the future."
Ad spending on newspaper Web sites increased 31.5 percent to $2.7 billion last year, according to the Newspaper Association of America.
"What's really going to suffer is the journalism," Finley said. "Everyone's focused on the money. Not enough people are thinking about the journalism, which is what this business was built on."
-By STEPHANIE WOODROW / ASNE Reporter
When will newspapers die?
Philip Meyer, a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina, once predicted that “the last daily newspaper reader will check out by the year 2044.” Readers could still access news online and through their PDAs, pocket PCs, podcasts and other electronic tools.
When do editors expect the transition to be complete? When will the last newspaper be printed?
“I really don’t care,” said Denis Finley, editor of The Virginian-Pilot. “It’s like predicting the weather – you never know.”
“I think the most important thing is can journalism continue to be a valuable source,” he said.
Few editors believed that the printed versions would become completely extinct. “I think newspapers will be around in one form or another,” said Karen M. Magnuson, editor and vice president/news of the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y. “News will be reported in different ways.”
Tom Warhover, executive editor for innovation at the Missourian, said newspapers would still be around but would “look more like magazines with less breaking news and frequency. … People will look for breaking news online.”
Jeannine A. Guttman, editor and vice president of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, said some readers will always want the news in paper format.
“I don’t see the gloom and doom of newspapers vanishing,” she said.
-SHA’DAY JACKSON / ASNE Reporter
When do editors expect the transition to be complete? When will the last newspaper be printed?
“I really don’t care,” said Denis Finley, editor of The Virginian-Pilot. “It’s like predicting the weather – you never know.”
“I think the most important thing is can journalism continue to be a valuable source,” he said.
Few editors believed that the printed versions would become completely extinct. “I think newspapers will be around in one form or another,” said Karen M. Magnuson, editor and vice president/news of the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y. “News will be reported in different ways.”
Tom Warhover, executive editor for innovation at the Missourian, said newspapers would still be around but would “look more like magazines with less breaking news and frequency. … People will look for breaking news online.”
Jeannine A. Guttman, editor and vice president of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, said some readers will always want the news in paper format.
“I don’t see the gloom and doom of newspapers vanishing,” she said.
-SHA’DAY JACKSON / ASNE Reporter
Diversity Roundtable closes the door on reporters
Whatever goes on in American Society of Newspaper Editors Board meetings must be pretty important. Of course, we wouldn't know, because the meetings are all closed to reporters and photographers.
Oxymoronic for a pack of editors to present their collective boot to a reporter? You’d think, but this journalist was (very politely) removed from the Diversity Roundtable earlier today after being told the presentation was off-limits so participants could be more “frank”.
Why editors can’t also be “frank” on the record to a fellow newsperson is a mystery to me – must be that hounding other non-journalist sources to allow access to even more super-secret board meetings can really take it out of an editor.
Anyway, a few board members were apparently unaware of the exclusivity of their hotshot club. Board member Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, contributed this nugget outside the imposing closed doors of Salon IV this morning: “I’m all for transparency. I have nothing to hide!”
-By TIFFANY HSU / ASNE Reporter
Oxymoronic for a pack of editors to present their collective boot to a reporter? You’d think, but this journalist was (very politely) removed from the Diversity Roundtable earlier today after being told the presentation was off-limits so participants could be more “frank”.
Why editors can’t also be “frank” on the record to a fellow newsperson is a mystery to me – must be that hounding other non-journalist sources to allow access to even more super-secret board meetings can really take it out of an editor.
Anyway, a few board members were apparently unaware of the exclusivity of their hotshot club. Board member Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, contributed this nugget outside the imposing closed doors of Salon IV this morning: “I’m all for transparency. I have nothing to hide!”
-By TIFFANY HSU / ASNE Reporter
With Craig on their backs, editors ask reporters to change
With craigslist.org stifling their newspapers' classified sales, ASNE editors said they were beefing up their coverage on the Web, according to a survey run by the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism.
Of the nearly 100 editors who responded to the online poll, 46 percent said the free online classifieds site was the culprit behind drops in advertising revenues. Papers with a circulation of more than 100,000 were hardest hit.
Almost all of the editors reported having created multimedia packages online, and 87 percent were putting up online-only content. And staff numbers showed it. Of the editors, 86 percent were requiring reporters to learn how to manipulate video and sound, and 72 percent were hiring journalists solely to run their Web sites.
But it wasn't all about Craig: Editors sounded off on ethics in the survey, too. Read the story here.
Editors can still participate in the poll by going to: freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=ppus0mox8kg3hur273749
- APRIL YEE / ASNE Reporter
Of the nearly 100 editors who responded to the online poll, 46 percent said the free online classifieds site was the culprit behind drops in advertising revenues. Papers with a circulation of more than 100,000 were hardest hit.
Almost all of the editors reported having created multimedia packages online, and 87 percent were putting up online-only content. And staff numbers showed it. Of the editors, 86 percent were requiring reporters to learn how to manipulate video and sound, and 72 percent were hiring journalists solely to run their Web sites.
But it wasn't all about Craig: Editors sounded off on ethics in the survey, too. Read the story here.
Editors can still participate in the poll by going to: freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=ppus0mox8kg3hur273749
- APRIL YEE / ASNE Reporter
What's the Buzz?
Editors at the 2007 ASNE Convention weighed in on their favorite Web sites at The Buzz. What are your must-see sites? Write about them in the comment section below.
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