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Nieman Reports Winter 2005 Vol. 59 No. 4

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Nieman Reports Winter 2005 Vol. 59 No. 4 N R NIEMAN REPORTS THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY VOL. 59 NO. 4 WINTER 2005 Five Dollars Citizen Journalism Words & Reflections Intelligent Design Global Warming Hurricane Katrina Coverage “… to promote and elevate the standards of journalism” —Agnes Wahl Nieman, the benefactor of the Nieman Foundation. Vol. 59 No. 4 NIEMAN REPORTS Winter 2005 THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY Publisher Bob Giles Editor Melissa Ludtke Assistant Editor Lois Fiore Editorial Assistant Sarah Hagedorn Design Editor Diane Novetsky Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) is published Editorial in March, June, September and December Telephone: 617-496-6308 by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, E-Mail Address: One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098. [email protected] Subscriptions/Business Internet Address: Telephone: 617-496-2968 www.nieman.harvard.edu E-Mail Address: [email protected] Copyright 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Subscription $20 a year, $35 for two years; add $10 per year for foreign airmail. Single copies $5. Second-class postage paid at Boston, Back copies are available from the Nieman office. Massachusetts and additional entries. Please address all subscription correspondence to POSTMASTER: One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 Send address changes to and change of address information to Nieman Reports, P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108. P.O. Box 4951, ISSN Number 0028-9817 Manchester, NH 03108. Vol. 59 No. 4 NIEMAN REPORTS Winter 2005 THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 4 Citizen Journalism 6 The Future Is Here, But Do News Media Companies See It? BY SHAYNE BOWMAN AND CHRIS WILLIS 11 Where Citizens and Journalists Intersect BY DAN GILLMOR 13 Citizen Journalism and the BBC BY RICHARD SAMBROOK 16 With Citizens’ Visual News Coverage Standards Don’t Change BY SANTIAGO LYON AND LOU FERRARA 17 Journalism as a Conversation BY JEAN K. MIN 20 Fear, Loathing and the Promise of Public Insight Journalism BY MICHAEL SKOLER 22 How Participatory Journalism Works BY STEVE SAFRAN 24 Citizens Media: Has It Reached a Tipping Point? BY JAN SCHAffER 26 Reconnecting With the Audience BY CLYDE H. BENTLEY 28 Creating a New Town Square BY LESLIE DREYFOUS MCCARTHY 29 Things I Wish I’d Known Before I Became a Citizen Journalist BY BARRY PARR 31 Defining a Journalist’s Function BY WILLIAM F. WOO 33 When the Internet Reveals a Story BY SETH HETTENA 35 Hurricane Katrina Coverage 36 Words Triumph Over Images BY CURTIS WILKIE 37 New Orleans’ Lower Nine Fades, Fades, Fades Away BY WILL SUTTON 40 Witness to the Tragedy A PHOTO EssAY BY CAROLYN COLE 43 Rumors, Race and Class Collide BY KEVIN CULLEN 45 ‘It Looks Like the Third World’ EXCERPT FROM AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP J. CUNNINGHAM 45 Seeing Is Believing A PHOTO EssAY BY NURI VALLBONA 50 Drawing the Mood of New Orleans A CARTOON EssAY BY STEVE KELLEY 54 The Messengers of Mississippi in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina BY ELIZABETH MEHREN 56 Questions for Journalists to Ponder in the Aftermath of Katrina BY MARY C. CURTIS Cover photo: Page from Thomas Paine’s “The Age of Reason” (Truth Seeker, 1889). Image courtesy of Geoff Price from www.rationalrevolution.net. 57 Words & Reflections: Intelligent Design and Global Warming 59 Science and Journalism Fail to Connect BY DAN FAGIN 60 Strengthening the Line Between News and Opinion BY JEff BRUCE 63 Editorial Pages and Intelligent Design BY CYNTHIA TUCKER 65 In Kansas, the Debate About Science Evolves BY DIANE CARROLL 67 When the Conflict Narrative Doesn’t Fit BY DIANE WINSTON 69 Courtroom Testimony Offers an Excellent Road Map for Reporters BY PAUL R. GROSS 71 Probing Beneath the Surface of the Intelligent Design Controversy BY GAILON TOTHEROH 73 Intelligent Design Has Not Surfaced in the British Press BY MARTIN REDFERN 75 Knowing Uncertainty for What It Is BY DAVID MICHAELS 77 Disinformation, Financial Pressures, and Misplaced Balance BY ROss GELbspAN 80 Observing Those Who Observe A PHOTO EssAY BY DANIEL GROssMAN 86 The Disconnect of News Reporting From Scientific Evidence BY MAX BOYKOFF 88 Context and Controversy: Global Warming Coverage BY JEssICA DURFEE AND JULIA CORBETT 89 Weight-of-Evidence Reporting: What Is It? Why Use It? BY SHARON DUNWOODY 91 Global Warming: What’s Known vs. What’s Told BY SANDY TOLAN AND ALEXANDRA BERZON 95 How Do We Cover Penguins and Politics of Denial? AN EXCERPT FROM A SPEECH BY BILL MOYERS 97 Accepting Global Warming as Fact BY MARKUS BECKER 99 Culture Contributes to Perceptions of Climate Change BY HANS VON STORCH AND WERNER KRAUss 103 Trying to Achieve Balance Against Great Odds BY JACQUES A. RIVARD 104 Words & Reflections: Books, a Film, and Scandal 105 Bringing Iraqi Voices Into the Conversation About Their Country BY PATRICK J. MCDONNELL 106 Iraq’s Emerging Press BY MAggY ZANGER 108 Childhood Experiences Shape a Reporter’s Journey BY LESTER SLOAN 110 Political Journalism: It’s Not the Good Old Days BY DAVID YEpsEN 111 The Role Women Journalists Played in Poland’s Freedom BY PEggY SIMpsON 113 The Life and Times of Foreign Correspondents in Russia BY ALVIN SHUSTER 115 Remembering One of Journalism’s Finest Moments BY DON AUCOIN 117 Knowing When to Stop Reporting About a Scandal BY MADELAINE DROHAN 3 Curator’s Corner: Nieman Fellowships in Global Health Reporting BY BOB GILES 119 Nieman Notes COMPILED BY LOIS FIORE 119 Photojournalism Students Cover Hurricane Katrina BY ELI REED 120 Class Notes 125 End Note: PHOTO EssAY BY UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS STUDENTS 2 Nieman Reports / Winter 2005 Curator’s Corner Nieman Fellowships in Global Health Reporting Three fellows in the next three Nieman classes will focus their Harvard study—and four additional months of fieldwork—on health issues in the developing world. By Bob Giles he world is going through a cyclical period of high in- fieldwork in a developing country at the end of the Nieman terest in global health. Avian flu is on everyone’s mind year at Harvard. Adding four months of fieldwork is an exciting Tnow, with building anxiety about whether this deadly innovation in the Nieman program. It emphasizes the value of respiratory virus might spread across the planet and become sending fellows to places in the developing world where they a pandemic among humans. Two years ago the subject was can get closest to the problems of disease, prevention and SARS, and previously such illnesses as HIV/AIDS have been potential treatments. At the end of the fieldwork, the fellows the subjects of intense public interest that lose their urgency will be expected to produce stories that draw on their intense before long. exposure to health conditions in a developing country. The recent Time magazine Global Health Summit brought The decision to select fellows from the United States, Eu- together an extraordinary gathering of practitioners, research- rope and the developing world recognizes several important ers, scholars, public officials, activists and journalists to discuss realities about global health. The United States and Europe strategies for addressing global health issues. The magazine’s are among the richest places in the world. Major resources for special issue on global health and the six-part television se- research and treatment exist there. It is critical for the public ries on PBS explained the critical nature of global health to and policymakers in these countries to be better informed wide audiences. News reports from Africa about the poor about the problems of global health. Including a journal- populations affected by malaria and HIV/AIDS, and stories ist from a developing country recognizes the challenge of about international pressure on the Bush administration to providing basic knowledge about health to populations at commit the United States to paying a fair share of health costs risk in Africa and other parts of the developing world, where in Africa, are giving the American public other reasons to pay local reporters typically are ill-equipped, and sometimes ill- attention, for now. But it is difficult to maintain continuing informed, on these topics. public attention among Americans and Europeans on global We expect the fellowships will attract an applicant pool health; and people in the developing world, where the most both from journalists who have experience in reporting on serious health problems exist, have little access to accurate public health and who represent news organizations with a information. commitment to continuing coverage of global health and from To help educate journalists to cover these important sto- journalists with a strong interest in global health but little ries, the Nieman Foundation has begun a pilot program to actual experience in reporting on it. Dedicating three of our provide three annual Nieman Fellowships in global health 25 fellowships for each of the next three years to global health reporting for three years under a $1.19 million grant from reporting reflects our belief that the resources of the Nieman the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The fellowships are a Foundation and Harvard’s commitment to global health can joint initiative with the Harvard School of Public Health. The contribute to building broader public understanding about Nieman Foundation worked closely with the school’s Center illnesses that burden the world’s poorest people—and could for Health Communication in writing the grant proposal. Jay potentially threaten the entire globe. A. Winsten, an associate dean and director of that center, was A recent editorial in The Lancet, a British scientific journal, a true partner in persuading his faculty to enable the global said that “the eradication of disease and the alleviation of health fellows to have access to courses throughout the school suffering depend more on developing the skills of talented and work with advisors in course selection and in planning people than on technology.” fieldwork projects.
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