Good afternoon,

I am saddened to say that News is a Conversation is closing down for now, although it may return in some other form later.

All blogs have a lifespan and I believe this blog has reached its end with me serving as lead poster and admin.

I'll bring it back at some point, but with someone else at the helm.

I remain dedicated to newsroom transparency. Our new web system will allow me to set up single topic "blogettes" from time to time. In fact, we'll do just that to report back on the newsroom reorganization.

I will launch a personal blog soon where I can discuss journalism and newspaper industry issues. But I won't be posting anything specific about The Spokesman there.

That blog is under construction, but you'll be able to find it at stillanewspaperman.com

I've really enjoyed my two-plus years in this space. I've made quite a few friends, received enormous support and learned a great deal about my shortcomings. Believe it or not, I think I have learned something about patience and tolerance here.

And I'll never forget the support I received on the death of my father last December.

Thank you.

steve

Good morning,

I find myself in a position where I can walk to the office -- 20 minutes to a half hour each way depending on pace.

But in the few weeks I've been doing this, I find myself essentially running for my life as often as I stroll.

I have met other walkers with the same stories.

Downtown area drivers are, to be blunt, too often insane. Crosswalks mean little or nothing. Red Lights mean little.

I've come within a foot or two of being hit on several occasions and not long ago was literally brushed back by a car that ran a red light. My briefcase left a scratch, I'm sure.

I always cross with the lights, figuring that my family will have a better chance in court if I die.

Maybe it's time for another crosswalk emphasis patrol by our overworked cops (who really have more important priorities).

Are there other solutions? Or is this just an isolated problem? Maybe I have a target painted on my chest.

Steve

Warning: The following is "inside baseball" and will be of interest to only those few really interested in knowing what is going on inside our newsroom.

As you will recall, I've had two staff groups studying our processes, priorities and structure with an eye to yet another newsroom reorganization mandated by our downsizing late last year.

After receiving the report of the Content Study Group, I asked them to go back and return with some specific suggestions about subjects we should be covering, subjects we should drop and how our reporters, especially, could be allocated to cover it all.

They sent me their report late last week and it already has been the subject of a newsroom discussion.

But because I've posted the earlier reports on this blog, I felt I should share this addendum, as well.

I think the study group, both in the first report and in the addendum, did an enormous amount of work.

I thought they skirted some of the hardest questions in the addendum by suggesting that reporters take on more than one "beat" and that most reporters should also be able to do "general assignment," meaning whatever else needs to be covered at any given time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Good afternoon,

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge ruled today on several motions filed in the Joseph Duncan sentencing case by regional news media, led by The Spokesman-Review.

In his first rulings of the day, the judge ordered the unsealing of several documents previously closed to public scutiny. He denied access to others, including the one document most sought by the media -- the results of Duncan's mental evaluation which prompted the judge to allow Duncan to represent himself in court.

Here is a link to that story by our Boise reporter, Betsy Russell.

In his later rulings, the judge agreed to let the press see the video evidence presented to the jury.

Read the rest of this entry »

Good evening,

I just returned home from the three-day innovators summit in Stevenson, WA.

I need some time to synthesize what I learned. Suffice it to say for now the innovations most helpful to newspapers probably won't come from our own industry. This conference was a chance to spend time with innovators in a variety of business and non-profit roles. The ideas I will steal from them will help push our own transformational change, I hope.

But today's end-of-conference discussion did have an epiphinous moment worth sharing.

We were discussing the writings of noted social activist Dorothy Day.

This line jumped off the page for me.

"No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do."

Words a weary editor, all weary editors and newspaper people, need to take to heart.

steve

Good evening,

Our new hour-long radio show, On the Record with Rebecca mack, debuts Monday at 11 a.m. on KJRB, 790 AM.

Here's the the story describing the show:http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=15975

We started our daily, on the half-hour newscasts in April. The new show, which will air each weekday, represents a major step forward in developing a more substantive radio platform for SR journalism.

Rebecca brings name recognition and a respected, sharp edge to the show. Dan Mitchinson will provide the news reports and SR columnists and reporters will make occasional appearances.

We hope to develop additional long-form programming later this year.

Give it a listen then tell me what you think.

steve

Good evening,

I'm writing from Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, WA, at the annual Public Innovators Summit organized by The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation. Of the 50 or so participatns, I am one of only a handful of journalists and the only active editor in the commercial newspaper business. Most here are from the non-profit world, organizations dedicated to fostering democracy, protecting children and doing any number of other good things for their communities.

I came here for the most personal of reasons. I really wanted to spend some time with non-journalists whose world view is amazingly optimistic even though many work to solve the darkest problems we face. Optimism is a force multiplier and so the weekend has been a tonic. I may get back to some of the important issues discussed here, but one discussion today really connected with the reaction to my Still a Newspaperman thread.

What is the role of memory in driving needed change?

My thread drew an enormous amount of personal communication and unusually high traffic for this blog. But there was a real difference in the responses.

Personally, I heard from literally of dozens of people who connected with what I had to say, reacted to it in very personal ways and found some value in their connection to my personal memories, which really grow out of our craft's collective consciousness.

On the blog, maybe the most dominant response (aside from the pissy scolds who pop up occasionally) was a dismissal of memory as a contributor to needed change. If you go back to the responses you'll see any number of comments that say, more or less, "you can never move forward while you're stuck in the past." Or, "You are dying because you can't let go of the past." And so on.

There is a bit of irony here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Good evening,

Well, first my thanks to all who have weighed in on this thread. And thanks to the dozens of people who have sent me personal e-mails. It will take some time to wade through it all and recycle some of it to this blog.

I didn't intend for this post to take on such an astonishing life. I was in a nostalgic mood, saddened at the loss of so many good journalists from newspapers all over the country and by the loss of yet another of my mentors from the early days.

There was no hidden message to my staff in the post. The staffing situation at the SR is no better and no worse than it was a few days ago. I can't promise there will be no more layoffs, though I will move heaven and earth to avoid that.

And i wasn't signaling my resignation. I'm still the editor, at least last I checked. As many as might be pleased at that bit of news more will be distressed. No editor can win a popularity contest, with the public or with his own staff in these troubled times.

Nope, I was just indulging in a moment of nostalgia for an era that was important to me and, I know from my e-mails, important to many other newspapermen and (yes, I got it) newspaperwomen.

The larger issue is buried in my first post. Newspapers have served as the public square in the communities they have served. As newspapers decline and morph into niche publications, the public square goes away.

The new media create virtual squares, but rarely around large geographic communities. And by their nature, new media are linear. The beauty of the newspaper's public square was that all views could be brought to the public's attention at the same time creating a shared base of knowledge and an understanding of conflicting values.

In the linear, new media people can easily limit the information they receive to ideas that coincide with their own. See the thread below on liberal vs. conservative for the proof of that.

Of course the core of my reminiscence was personal. Yes, the newsroom was too much a boys' club. Yes, all that drinking and smoking was detrimental to our physical and mental well-being. Yes, some of our peers and colleagues were hacks and a lot of newspapers were crap.

But...for those of us who were there, it was more fun. I'm not having so much fun these days. And from what I heard today, I am far from alone.

So, no apologies. I will mourn the death of the American newspaperman.

Again, thanks to all who posted here. It has been a lively conversation. I've really enjoyed it.

Thanks,
steve

I am a newspaperman.

For some unexplainable reason, I am compelled to say that tonight.

Something is coming, some turn in the media universe, a turn in the future of my newspaper. A turn that will mean the end of me, of us. There will be reporters. Editors. Something called online producers and multi-media coordinators. Mojos. Slojos and Nojos. Bloggers, froggers and twitters.

But there won't be newspapermen. At 58, I am among the last of a dying race.

And what a race it was. An American archetype.

A newspaperman was a writer. An author. The true, first voice of history. A newspaperman chronicled the life of his times on old Remingtons with faded ribbons. A newspaperman wrote on copy paper, one story in one take. If he wanted a copy, he used carbon paper. If it didn't sing, it was spiked.

Read the rest of this entry »

Good afternoon,

By now, I hope you have seen the story today on the Washington Supreme Court ruling protecting the names of teachers who have been accused of sexual misconduct. (Link here)

It's a pretty amazing ruling. If I read it correctly, it even provides the districts cover if officials choose not to notify police agencies of accusations even though they are so-called mandatory reporters.

In my view, this is another example of bureaucrats being given the power to hold back information critical to the public.

Some will argue the ruling protects the privacy of the accused until charges are substantiated.

But who decides the charges have been substantiated, or even properly investigated? And in cases of sexual abuse by teachers, publicity is often what brings victims forward to provide the substantiation?

If there is a balance to be struck, I believe it ought to be struck in the public interest. Read the dissent for more on that view.

In any event, this ruling, like other recent decisions against public disclosure, is sure to lead to calls for legislative action. But it will take real legislative oomph to overcome the powerful teacher lobby.

steve

Good afternoon,

The story is still developing, of course. But I suspect many of you saw the online report that Avista's second quarter profits rose 69% year over year. (Link here)

Utility financials are more complicated than those of the newspaper industry. So I'm the last person to question whether such profits are too high or just right.

But from a PR standpoint, I can predict Avista will be in for another rough ride. Natural gas rate hikes already have been foreshadowed for this fall, and they will be steep.

And we know that every time Avista releases executive salaries, the public responds angrily even though those salaries may be in line with industry standards.

But whether or not the profits are justifiable isn't really the point from a PR standpoint.

A population reeling from increases in food and gas is likely to respond badly to this latest news.

steve

Good evening,

As promised, here is a link to the report from the second of our newsroom task forces, the content study group.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/conversation/media/content_report_20080728.pdf

As with the earlier report, this is not a blueprint. There are some strong ideas here and we'll use them as a starting point for further discussion.

I have asked this group to get together again to put some priorities to their recommendations. Given existing staff, we could not implement all of the recommendations even if we wanted to do so. So I'm asking for some priorities.

Lest you wonder, I am understand fully that I am responsible for making the final decisions. I am not asking this group to make those decisions for me. Rather, I am interested in their thoughts now that they have studied the newsroom and know it as well as any group out there.

I know this is inside baseball for many of you. But for those who are interested, the report is now available. Comments welcome, of course.

steve

Good afternoon,

If you haven't seen it yet, we have just posted the full list of recipients of the phony degrees handed out like candy through the now-defunt Spokane diploma mill.

Here is the link to Bill Morlin's exclusive report and the link to the actual list.

As you will recall, the feds had decided they could not release the list because of Department of Justice policy.

Thwarted through those official channels, Morlin obtained the list in the tried and true manner of all great investigative reporters. He worked his sources and contacts.

Obviously, we will not be disclosing the source.

For that reason, we took the data base provided to Morlin on disc and redacted some portions in order to protect sources. Also, we redacted the Social Security numbers of degree recipients where those were listed. And we redacted e-mail addresses, not so much to protect recipients but because confirming adddresses as current and accurate was not going to be possible.

As Morlin notes, recipients include educators, federal employees, even employees of NASA and the NSA.

We believe printing this list is a public service and fully expect that other news organizations will pick up names from their areas.

steve

Good morning,

We have 14 young people in our newsroom this week, participants in our first-ever J-Camp.

It's a journalism boot camp for young people in grades 7 through 12. Erin Daniels, our Vox advisor, will run the camp with the help of several Vox editors.

The camp participants will work on a reporting project that we'll publish later this summer.

We'll have a second J-Camp session in August.

J-Camp is just the latest wrinkle in our ongoing effort to provide journalism education to young people. We also have an Explorer Scout program that is targeted at high school freshmen and sophomores. Those students can then move on to The Vox.

I'll post more about the J-Camp experience through the week.

steve

The newsroom sprung into action very early this morning to cover the three-alarm fire in the downtown Spokane Joel building.

Our coverage plan was textbook; this newsroom definitely knows how to cover breaking news. We mobilized reporters and photographers. We pulled in a videographer, a graphics artist, and online producers to package all the story elements online.

The result was a pretty rich online package by late morning, and an outline for the stories we're working on for tomorrow morning's paper.

I'm guessing the 10 or so staffers working this story haven't yet had time to realize we mobilized like an authentic multi-platform newsroom.

Yesterday during Steve's staff meeting there was more than a little concern about our ability to do that. Reporters and editors are worried about whether we can produce quality journalism simultaneously on the Web, on the air, and in print with fewer people and resources.

We just did.

(Click extended entry to read the rest of this post)

Read the rest of this entry »

I know we have the "too liberal/too conservative" debate frequently in this space.

But I received the following e-mail from someone from West Palm, FL, in response to earlier posts on the future of the newsroom.

Steve, I'm afraid that it is your "news values" that are killing you. Why don't you try a "Conservative and Liberal" point of view for a change. As long as most newspapers in this country ignore the Conservative side of the news, more and more will go out of business -- which, by the way, is happening here in my home state of Florida. Ask the Orlando Sentinel, Sun Sentinel and the Palm Beach Post how many people they are laying off. We are tired of the Associated Press running your newspapers. So, we Conservatives cancel our newspapers and go on the internet. We can't even get our news from TV -- it's all the same crap. Look at all this drooling over Obama, the Messiah. Doesn't that tell you something?

L. Graham
West Palm Beach, FL

I thought the note was worth sharing, if for no other reason than to enliven the debate here during a slow summer week.

So, from your perspective: Are we too liberal in our news columns? Are we too conservative? Are we just right? And do you distinguish between any perceived bias in our news columns and opinion on our editorial pages?

There is no right or wrong answer and I already know how many of the regulars feel. Maybe we can hear from some of the lurkers.

And would a perceived change in bias make you more or less likely to read the newspaper in print or online?

Steve

Good afternoon,

Even in these tough times, this newsroom and its reporters can produce provocative, insightful and world-changing journalism.

Kevin Graman's Sunday story, "Lives Lost at Home," about veterans who have killed themselves this year while under the VA's care, has been picked up by blogs and websites around the country and was the basis for a speech today by Sen. Patty Murray on the Senate floor.

Here is a link to the original Graman story.

Here is a link to Murray's statement.

Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher magazine, the news industry bible, wrote (link here) about Graman's story today.

And it also was linked out of one of the biggest blogs out there, The Daily Kos, which has quite a few user comments posted. (Link here)

This is all well and good. And I could not be more proud of Kevin's work.

But we still need your help.

Read the rest of this entry »

Vanity Fair, sister publication to The New Yorker, satirized the misguided, misjudged satire of the latter's Obama cover from last week with a McCain cover of its own this week.

It's really quite clever.

Here is a link to the VF site where the cover is posted along with a funny editor's note.

Steve

Good afternoon,

In a post Friday, I suggested the SR is becoming -- make that will become more of a niche publication.

That term -- niche -- caused a bit of a firestorm in our newsroom. We have talked about a smaller, more focused paper for some time. And we have talked about placing more emphasis on the mobile and web news platforms.

But I hadn't actually said the dreaded niche word before.

Because we haven't really talked about the newspaper specifically in those terms, there is a great deal of confusion about what I meant.

I asked Carla Savalli, our assistant managing editor for local news and an attendee at last week's digital media seminar, to define niche for the staff.

Here is what she wrote, caputring my views as well:

Read the rest of this entry »

Good morning,

The Project for Excellence in Journalism has released today a long-awaited survey of American editors looking at the rapidly changing face of American newspapers.

It seems, on a first, quick read, the most comprehensive survey ever looking at the unprecdented, seismic shifts in our industry. (I was one of the 250 editors surveyed.)

For those who have been following this blog and who have an interest in these issues, the survey results are a must read.

"The Changing Newsroom—What is Being Lost and What is being Gained in American Newspapers," can be found by clicking here.

The executive summary reports these key findings:

Read the rest of this entry »

Good morning,

As you all know, I wasn't very comfortable with The New Yorker's odd Barack and Michelle Obama cover last week. I thought it used incendiary imagery better suited to an editorial cartoon and so, as a result, muddied the magazine's message.

Nevertheless, I am saddened to see that the Obama camp's response has been to ban The New Yorker campaign writer from the candidate's plane next week. Here is what Rachel Sklar said in a Huffington Post report:

Wow. So it's gonna be like that, is it? Retribution for unfavorable coverage is a chilling thing to contemplate — literally, as in, it carries with it the very real risk of chilling bold, outspoken coverage. Whatever one thinks of the New Yorker cover — that it was clear satire that clearly lampooned ridiculous rumors, that it went way overboard, that it was a comedic misfire — a robust press can't operate under threat of reprisal for unwelcome items.

This notion that Obama is something new, a man divorced from petty politics, always has troubled me. JFK, the president Obama seems to channel, was the consumate politician with a petty streak now obscured by mythology.

Sadly, here is one bit of evidence that Obama may be more JFK like than many would like to believe. It turns out he is no more tolerant of diverse and controversial opinions than the president he strives to replace.

That doesn't mean he shouldn't be president. But maybe it's time for some number of citizens, including members of the press, to take off the rose-colored glasses.

steve

Good morning,

This Los Angeles conference has been both sobering and encouraging.

Sobering because the pace of change in our industry is faster and the nature of that change more extreme than any of us imagined. Hearing from specialists in electronic/digital media organizations other than newspapers has made it crystal clear that whatever we have done to this point is dangerously inadequate.

If we don't change more dramatically and faster, there will not be an industry to support the sort of value-driven journalism that is at the heart of our craft.

The encouraging news is that the tools we need to make the needed changes are readily available to us and that our ability to deliver quality news and information can only be enhanced...if we make the bold leaps.

Read the rest of this entry »

Good morning,

Social networking was one of the major topics in our Knight Digital Media Center symposium discussions late Wednesday.

This is an area where the SR really is in the stone age. Our excuse, to one extent or another, has been bad technology. But new off-the-shelf social networking tools -- as well as our new back-end web framework that will support our rebuilt web site beginning Sept. 3 -- takes away that excuse.

But how best to use social networking tools in a "traditional" newsroom is an open question.

If you were in my shoes, what lessons would you take from social networks such as Facebook or My Space and how would you adapt such network systems to the newspaper/news organization universe?

How many of you know about Twitter? How can news organizations use Twitter to improve content?

Should we allow reader comments on some or all of our stories (beginning with the launch of the new site in September)?

steve

Good morning,

We had our first actual gay marriage announcement in today's paper. The couple had been married in California.

We've had civil union announcements in the past, but this is the first legal marriage.

Here is a sample of some of the feedback we expected from some people.

Anderson-Warhime. While I recognize their marriage was legalized in
California, same sex marriage is not legal in the state of Washington.
Thus, I feel the Spokesman Review has done a grave disservice to their
readers/subscribers by placing a picture of something not legal in the
celebratory section of the paper. It is one thing to place illegal
behavior on the front page when reporting criminal activity. It is
quite another to place it in a place of celebration. I highly doubt the
Spokesman would place a picture of a minor drinking alcohol in this
section. I find this picture similar in legality respects. As a long
time subscriber I enjoy the TODAY section for it's celebratory nature,
it's local flavor, and it's cultural involvement. This put a damper on
that enjoyment.

I'm sorry the reader was offended. However, a wedding announcement is a wedding announcement. If the reader chooses not share in the enjoyment of this important event in the lives of two people, that is the reader's choice.

Our weddings and engagements section exists to celebrate important moments in the lives of everyone in our community. We will continue to be inclusive.

And with respect, readers who are offended by such announcements should simply look away.

steve

One of the best presentations today came during lunch. Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future and a research professor at USC, discussed his long-term, worldwide research that describes the ever-changing nature of the (new) media user.

For several years, Cole has been studying the way the Internet and new media technology has changed media usage patterns.

As he has worked through his research, one conclusion echoes what most of us have concluded anecdotally.

Cole says that media development and evolution never leads to the demise of a medium. Radio survived TV, changed, became a smaller business, but remains healthy.

In the same way, newspapers will survive the current media revolution, but they will be smaller businesses.

That's a reality journalists have difficulty accepting, particularly as smaller newspaper businesses will lead to smaller newspaper newsrooms.

But he argues the ongoing revolution also presents newspapers with their greatest opportunities in generations.

Here is a crude summary of some of the conclusions growing out of Cole's research:

The Internet is not a threat to TV. In the old dialup days, it was because people concentrated their online time in big chunks, and that did take away TV time. Now, with broadband, online time is spent in countless little chunks and is even integrated with the time spent on TV. As TV and video merge, and TV viewing increasingly goes mobile, TV will explode. For the first time, TV viewing will be freed from the home. Research shows people are willing to watch 30-minute and 60-minute programs on small, mobile screens.

TV advertising has been threatened for 30 years, long before the Internet. Biggest threats to TV advertising came from the remote control and then the VCR and its successors, TIVO and DVRs. But advertisers are coming up with tricks to fool the DVR generation.

Newspapers and other print products have the biggest opportunities growing out of the media revolution.

But there are some real challenges. For example, the current generation of teenagers is more interested in news than any previous teen generation ever. But they do not now and won't ever go to an offline publication (print newspaper) for that information.

The second biggest challenge is growing concern for global warming. Newspapers are not really a significant "green" problem. But the political perception may be the opposite. And digital isn't at all green, but the perception is otherwise. Increasingly, the children in a home are asking their parents to save a tree by not reading a newspaper.

But even with these challenges, there is opportunity.

For the first time in 88 years, newspaper journalists are in the breaking news business. TV may grow in importance in the new era, but local TV news will be the loser in this new competition.

While attitudes have changed rapidly, online users today accept online advertising as a necessary reality to pay for the product. Specific subscriber fees never really worked and will not work in the future. The average household may pay for cable or satellite TV, maybe broadband, maybe one other thing. They will not pay subscriber or content fees for news and information content.

Cole's research can be viewed online at digitalcenter.org. I haven't had time to look at the site. But some of you may well want to give it a look.