SPJ national update II: Suspended journalism teacher receives student-rights honor; and Pentagon's YouTube ban fought. As her suspension wound down and she awaited a transfer to a different school, an embattled Woodburn, Ind., teacher jetted to Washington, D.C., to receive an award for her fight for student rights. On May 19, former Woodlan High School teacher and journalism adviser Amy Sorrell received the Mary Beth Tinker Award from American University's law school and the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project. Earlier this year, the Woodlan principal demanded that each edition of the school newspaper be approved before it went to print. The action came after the paper printed a student's column advocating tolerance toward homosexuals. More here. ... YouTube's co-founders challenged the Pentagon's assertion that soldiers overseas were sapping too much bandwidth by watching online videos, the military's principal rationale for blocking popular web sites from Defense Department computers. "They said it might be a bandwidth issue, but they created the internet, so I don't know what the problem is," CEO Chad Hurley said. More here and here.
SPJ national update III: Why China relaxed blogger crackdown; and Iraq bans photographers, TV cameras from bombing site. The Chinese government, which spent months mulling over ways to restrict bloggers, is retreating from its campaign, a development that illustrates the difficulty China faces as it tries to control technology. Since September, the central government has deliberated the need to enforce a real-name registration system, which would have required nearly 20 million Chinese bloggers to register. The technology industry sharply protested. The Chinese government sees the online world as a conduit for slander, pornography and antigovernment views. More here. ... Police prevented TV cameramen and news photographers from filming the scene of a bombing May 15 under a new policy limiting coverage of the explosions that have become a hallmark of Iraq's violence. To enforce its order that a group of Iraqi journalists leave Tayaran Square, police fired several shots in the air. Brig. Gen. Abdel Karim Khalaf, the operations director at the Interior Ministry, denied the government was trying to curtail press freedom. More here.
SPJ national update IV: We demean, you decide; and news site postpones coverage by reporters in India. Bill O'Reilly may proclaim at the beginning of his program that viewers are entering the "No Spin Zone," but a study by Indiana University media researchers found that the Fox News personality consistently paints certain people and groups as villains and others as victims to present the world through political rhetoric. The IU researchers found that O'Reilly called a person or a group a derogatory name once every 6.8 seconds, on average, or nearly nine times every minute during the editorials that open his show. More here and here and here. ... A news web site editor who hired two reporters in India to cover suburban Pasadena, Calif., via the internet was so overwhelmed by reaction to his plan that he had to postpone publication of their first stories. James Macpherson, editor and publisher of the Pasadena Now site, said he hadn't found the time to train one of his new staffers to cover a City Council meeting, which is shown live on the web. From nearly 9,000 miles away, the outsourced journalists plan to write their stories while their boss sleeps (India is 12.5 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time). One of the reporters lives in the Indian financial center of Mumbai and will be paid $12,000 a year. The other will work in Bangalore for $7,200. Macpherson used to run a clothing business with manufacturing help from Vietnam and India. More here and here and here.
SPJ national update V: What's this -- an editor stands up for real journalism and gets rewarded for it; and criticism rains down like police batons over injuries to journalists at melee. The International Data Group removed the chief executive of its largest-circulation computer magazine, PC World, and reinstated its top editor, who had quit days earlier over the executive's decision to kill an article critical of an advertiser. Harry McCracken rejoined the magazine May 9 after the disputed article, "10 Things We Hate About Apple," was posted on the magazine's web site. It was a hero's homecoming for McCracken, who was praised on the PCWorld.com message boards and in the blogosphere for sacrificing himself in the name of journalistic integrity. More here. ... News organizations condemned the Los Angeles Police Department for its use of batons and riot guns against members of the media after several reporters and camera operators were injured while covering an altercation at an immigrant rights rally in MacArthur Park. "We are sorry for what happened to our employees and find it unacceptable that they would be abused in that way when they were doing their job," said Alfredo Richard, spokesman for the Spanish-language network Telemundo. More here.
SPJ national update VI: Washington state enacts sunshine, shield laws; and media layoffs nearly double in first quarter. Washington taxpayers may see more government records, and reporters can protect their sources without being jailed under two bills Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law April 27. Under the new sunshine law, a state committee will examine more than 300 exemptions to the state's public records act, a voter-approved law that spells out which government documents must be publicly disclosed. Attorney General Rob McKenna requested the measure, which he said would repair years of damage done by laws and rules that keep government information out of taxpayers' view. More here. ... According to a report from the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, media companies announced 4,391 layoffs during the first quarter of 2007, up 93 percent from the 2,271 layoffs in the first three months of last year. The New York Times and Dow Jones also announced layoffs in the first quarter. Challenger said 12 percent of the job cuts came from newspaper publishers. The magazine business is also in turmoil, with 6 percent of the media sector's job cuts taking place in publishing. More here.
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Life After Layoffs: Learn How to Market Yourself
by Susan Tallant
It took an extra table to seat everyone who wanted to hear the Fort Worth SPJ May meeting. You think there's a little job anxiety going around?
Times are indeed difficult for news journalists, programs VP Paul LaRocque acknowledged before a packed house -- 41 people at 42 place settings -- at Joe T. Garcia's. "But we are not here to have a wake."
And what followed was anything but, as magazine freelancer John Ostdick; Paige Hendricks, who owns her own PR firm; and moderator Paula LaRocque set out to prove that your career doesn't have to end just because your journalism job does.
"Some fear being downsized. Some of you just want a change or are thinking about leaving," Paula LaRocque said. "Or maybe you have already left."
A former assistant managing editor at The Dallas Morning News, she said people change not only jobs but careers two or three times and that most moves are natural progressions. "Except for my friend who was an editor and then went on to own a tattoo parlor."
Hendricks said the demand for public relations professionals is there and the field is wide, but the search starts with being able to write. "There is a lot of potential for people out there who know how to think, for those who are curious and know how to use the written word to communicate." A former journalist just needs to see if that new job is a good fit.
Hendricks started in print journalism right out of college but found the demands awfully difficult for a young mother of two. She opened Paige Hendricks Public Relations almost 30 years ago.
She said employers mainly need good writers but that journalists also should be familiar with other elements of the business such as graphics programs, HTML and simple web site set-up. "I can teach someone who can write how to use Adobe Illustrator," she said, "but I cannot teach someone who knows Adobe Illustrator how to write."
Ostdick, a former Dallas Morning News writer and editor in chief for American Way magazine, advised that freelancers need a thick hide for the rejections they will get. He said his biggest adjustment after going from the newspaper and leaving the magazine was learning how to market himself.
The publishing world is just more difficult to crack today, he said. "It's hard when a good idea, thoroughly researched and matched to the publication, hits the editor's desk and the editor says, 'It's just not right for the magazine.' "
Times are tough because freelance budgets are drying up, story lengths are shrinking, and editing staffs are being used as writers. The pay is also not keeping pace with inflation. "I pay a plumber $100 per hour to work at my house," Ostdick noted, "yet most magazines are paying writers what they did in 1950."
Sometimes it takes three or four stories until editors get confidence in a writer. Ostdick told the writers in the room to be stubborn, keep pushing, work all available contacts and not give up.
"You just can't take it personal," he said. "That is the hardest lesson."
