SF pioneers journalism ‘crowdfunding’ model

Update on the political ad fact-checking project, a Public Press collaboration with Newsdesk.org:
As of Aug. 24 we have raised 89 percent of the $2,500 goal, courtesy of David Cohn’s experimental "crowdfunding" tool, Spot.us. We’re already working with two reporters who have started researching ballot initiatives and candidacies on the Nov. 4 election in San Francisco. The goal is to scrutinize claims from all sides of these political contests, research where the money is coming from and hold the partisans to account.

Who’s a journalist anyway?

San Francisco free-speech poster child Josh Wolf, who was alternately defended and attacked as an "anarchist and activist" for refusing to disgorge to the authorities his video of a protest — and paid the price by serving 226 days in federal prison in 2006 — is now a "real" journalist, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. His job at the free-circulation Palo Alto Daily Post, requires him to write several "just-the-facts" reports, such as police blotter. Wolf now "files 10 to 15 stories a week written in standard newspaper style, devoid of personal analysis, and most of his stories are only a few hundred words long and fail to include what Wolf calls the ‘significant nuances’ of his reporting," writes the Chronicle’s Justin Berton.

There are many reasons why we still need print journalism

Where else will people find the solid reporting on events near and far that no other outlet creates?By Leigh Donaldson Recently, the American Society of Newspaper Editors reported that about 2,400 full-time newspaper-related jobs were lost in 2007, considered the largest annual drop in 30 years. You don’t have to be in the journalism business to see this as a troubling trend. In the article, "The Internet is No Substitute for the Dying Newspaper Industry," Chris Hedges says, "Some 6,000 journalists nationwide have lost their jobs, news pages are being radically cut back, and newspaper stocks have tumbled." He adds that advertising at many papers is experiencing double-digit drops. So why should non-journalists care about the possible complete demise of the written word in the form of the daily newspaper? After all, many readers are disenchanted with the press and are able to eke out their news through the Web and independent journalists’ Web sites, who often work without corporate sponsorship.

Consolidation woes

Two interesting postings from journalists, expressing outrage at the destructive effects of corporate consolidation in the newspaper industry:

  Alan Mutter, media blogger at Reflections of a Newsosaur, describes the slashing of staff, infrastructure, institutional memory and community connection at the San Mateo County Times under the management of Northern California newspaper oligopolist MediaNews. His posting, "A paper’s sad decline in debt’s grip," reminds us that the County Times was sold to MediaNews in 1996, when it had nearly 50 employees. Now its staff hovers somewhere around 10, though MediaNews contends that it’s really higher than that because the company’s got regional reporters and copy editors scattered across the region. He also points out that even though some papers, like the County Times, have seen their circulation numbers plunge, MediaNews, which specializes in cutting staff costs by eliminating editorial "redundancies" from newsroom to newsroom, exceeds the circulation of the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times combined.Joe Torres from the media-policy organization Free Press writes in "Journalists Must Speak Up," at CommonDreams.org, that minority journalists, who had made uneven but real progress for decades in approaching parity in representation in newsrooms, are now losing ground, as more have left the business as a result of layoffs and consolidation than have entered. This, Torres writes, is an important public policy issue that has real consequences for the quality of coverage in increasingly diverse American communities.

The Public Press’ bid for tech-innovation grant goes public

The Public Press is gearing up to compete in the Knight News Challenge this year. The $5 million award from the Knight Foundation goes to a handful of projects deemed by the judges to be innovative uses of technology for the fulfillment of the unmet information needs of society.This year the foundation opened up what it’s calling the "garage," a Web space where applicants, thinkers, critics and dreamers can post preliminary ideas and debate them in public. Check out our page and leave some comments for the Public Press project and others.  

Petition seeks to bring attention to possible retaliatory layoffs

The controversy concerning layoffs of Northern California Media Workers Guild leaders at the Contra Costa Times we posted about in July has resulted in an online petition calling for fair labor practices, with the intention of presenting it to management of the Bay Area News Group on Wednesday.According to the petition, 20 of the 29 employees laid off at the Times were highly active in union organizing, including Sara Steffens, who was chosen to negotiate the new union’s contract.The layoffs are under review by the National Labor Relations Board.

S.F. Chronicle refugees needed

We were saddened to learn late last week that the San Francisco Chronicle again is pursuing another round of staff reductions, seeking to eliminate 125 jobs through buyouts. Carl Hall, the eternal curmudgeon (we love you, Carl!) at the Northern California Media Workers Guild, told SF Weekly that "It looks like the end for print journalism." We’re not so sure about that. It is true that the advertising market has tanked with the advent of Craigslist and Monster. It’s also true that for national and international news, there are a surfeit of online alternatives to the newspaper. But we continue to believe that there’s a hunger out there for quality, timely and accurate news about the local community.