N IEMA NIEMAN REPORTS ONE FRANCIS AVENUE N R AMBRIDGE ASSACHUSETTS C , M 02138 EPO NIEMAN REPORTS THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY R TS VOL. 60 NO. 1 SPRING 2006 Five Dollars V OL . 60 N O What Katrina Revealed, Will Journalists Now Cover? . 1 S PRI N G 2006 W 2006 HA T K A T RI N A R E V EALED , W , ILL J OUR N ALI STS N O W C O V ER ? T ? HE N IEMA N F OU N DA T IO N A T H AR V Journalist’s Trade ARD U N I V Newspapers’ Survival ER S I T Y The Job of Frontline Editor “… to promote and elevate the standards of journalism” —Agnes Wahl Nieman, the benefactor of the Nieman Foundation. Vol. 60 No. 1 NIEMAN REPORTS Spring 2006 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 2006 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. 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Vol. 60 No. 1 NIEMAN REPORTS Spring 2006 THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 4 Reporting on Gaps That Katrina Revealed 6 Remembering Those Who Are Usually Forgotten BY JANE DAUGHERTY 7 Questioning Assumptions About Poverty BY EMILY HANFORD 10 Exploring Connections and Tensions BY DAN ENGLAND 12 Views About Race Cloud Discussions About Disparities BY MARTHA BEBINGER 14 When the Role Race Plays in Societal Gaps Is Unspoken BY CLAUDIA MELÉNDEZ SALINAS 16 Probing the Shifting Ground of Wage and Benefit Gaps BY KEVIN NOBLET 19 Investigating the Nation’s Exploding Credit Squeeze BY DANNY SCHECHTER 21 As Health Care Gaps Grow, Coverage Shrinks BY TRUDY LIEBERMAN 23 Untangling the Achievement Gap’s Factors BY CATHY GRIMES 26 The Working Poor: Is Their Gap With the Middle Class Narrowing? BY PAUL NYHAN 27 Finding Perfect Pitch BY SUSAN BRENNA 28 Numbers Don’t Tell a Story That Connects With Readers BY JASON JOHNSON 32 The News Gap With the Poor: Engagement, Then Silence BY JENNIFER FRIEDLIN 33 Wealth Is Displayed, While Poverty Goes Unnoticed by Many in the Mexican Press BY ANA CRISTINA ENRIQUEZ 35 Reporting on Gaps in a Country Devoted to Harmony BY YUAN FENG 37 Violence Attracts the News Media to a Story Not Reported Enough BY FRANÇOISE LAZARE 39 Journalist’s Trade Newspapers’ Survival 41 If Newspapers Are to Rise Again BY TIM PORTER 43 Can the Newspaper Industry Stare Disruption in the Face? BY SCOTT D. ANTHONY and CLARK G. GILBERT 45 When Journalists’ Voices Are Missing BY JAMES NAUGHTON 48 A Shrinking Staff Propels a Newspaper’s Transformation BY AMANDA BENNETT 50 A Newspaper’s Redesign Signals Its Renewal BY ANDERS GYLLENHAAL AND MONICA MOSES Cover photo: Demetrius Thomas, 2, of Biloxi sits in line at the Red Cross check distribution site parking lot. Demetrius’s house was flooded with eight feet of water. He and his father arrived at the site at 6 a.m. to get in line with about 100 people in front of them. Photo by John C. Fitzhugh/Courtesy of the Sun Herald. 53 Lessons From a Newsroom’s Digital Frontline BY MICHAEL RILEY 56 Wrong Turns Make a Difficult Situation Worse BY CAROL BRADLEY 57 Community News Drives a Newspaper’s Vigorous Growth BY JOE ZELNIK 58 Will the Meaning of Journalism Survive? BY MELVIN MENCHER 59 Teaching Journalism for an Unknown Future BY PEG FINUCANE 61 Damaging Ripple Effects of Newsroom Cutbacks BY JOEL KAPLAN 63 Preserving What It Is Newsrooms Do BY STANLEY FLINK The Job of Frontline Editor 65 New Metaphors Needed for Changing Roles BY JACQUI BANASZYNSKI 66 Moments Illustrate the Lives of Frontline Editors COMPILED BY MAE CHENG 68 Editor and Reporter: A Writing Journey Together BY STUART WARNER 71 Listening to Editors’ Difficulties Helps Find Solutions BY JOHN F. GREENMAN 73 Training Frontline Editors: Once Overlooked, Now Happening BY MICHELE MCLELLAN 74 Aiming to Put the Right People in Charge BY MARTY CLAUS 75 Exploring What Makes Training Successful BY LILLIAN SWANSON 77 The Dearth of Resources for Entering Editors BY CARL SESSIONS STEPP 79 Words & Reflections 80 Seeing Lives as They Once Were and Are Today BY STAN TINER 82 The Connective Threads of the News Media and Government BY DAN KENNEDY 84 A Recurring Image in Art: The Newspaper BY MARIA HENSON 86 The Coverage of Soviet Dissidents by Western Journalists BY MURRAY SEEGER 88 Delivering the News in Two Languages BY SETH LEWIS 3 Curator’s Corner: Community Journalism’s Pathway to the Future BY BOB GILES 91 Nieman Notes COMPILED BY LOIS FIORE 91 Old Newspapers Lead Students to New Discoveries BY DOUG CUMMING 92 Class Notes 100 End Note: Journalist Liu Binyan: China’s Conscience BY JUNTAO WANG AND XIAOPING CHEN 2 Nieman Reports / Spring 2006 Curator’s Corner Community Journalism’s Pathway to the Future ‘A newspaper can’t be independent unless it is interdependent with its community of readers.’ By Bob Giles he transformation of the mainstream media being corporate ownership of newspapers pose challenges today, driven by digital technology has brought citizens’ voices he said, “the core mission of informing our community is still Tinto territories where once only journalists trod and there and still needs doing.” altered “the balance of power between those who control Words and expressions not typically heard when journal- the means to publish and those who have something they ists discuss their craft and their business seemed a natural believe is important to say.” With those words Nieman Reports part of the Anniston conversation. For example, “backpack opened its Winter 2005 issue’s exploration of the emerging journalism” becomes an antidote to gathering information by engagement of citizens in newsgathering and commentary Internet and e-mail in the newsroom. Tools—a computer, cell and the impact these new voices are having on traditional phone, camera and video-cam—go into reporters’ backpacks news organizations. as they head out to their local hospitals, police stations or In Anniston, Alabama in February a different kind of dis- homeless shelters, not to do old stories but to bring back a cussion took place on the subject of citizens and journalism, new perspective to share with readers. advancing more conventional ideas around the belief that “The Wal-Mart nation” symbolizes those places in the com- community newspapers can and should make enduring con- munity where journalists can find a diversity of values and nections with their communities. The focus was on an impor- a range of religious and economic circumstances that can tant kind of journalism that takes place when journalists are broaden the thinking and understanding in newsrooms. This embedded in their communities with stories conveyed largely is important, noted John X. Miller of the Detroit Free Press, through the printed pages of local newspapers. Participants because diversity that focuses only on color and ethnicity in these discussions characterized Weblogs and other forms creates a workplace of journalists that share commonly un- of digital communication, including those at their own news- derstood values of journalism but don’t necessarily relate to papers, as impersonal and less effective than the face-to-face the diversity of aspirations in the community. conversations that are at the core of the continuing conversa- “Family relationships” speaks to the connection between tion between the newspaper and its community. the newspaper and its community, which in many cases “is so “The Emerging Mind of Community Journalism” confer- distant it has become aloofness,” said H. Brandt Ayers, owner ence was held at The Teaching Newspaper, a new enterprise and publisher of The Anniston Star. “A newspaper’s ties to in journalism education that seeks to emulate the traditions the community should embrace all the emotions you have in of the teaching hospital in training doctors by merging a family—scolding, loving, challenging, grieving, celebrating, teaching with practice. To do this, masters degree students sometimes hurting, sometimes being hurt—emotions people in community journalism from the University of Alabama feel intensely.” will study in the newsroom of The Anniston Star. The Knight “The industrial age of journalism,” in which newspapers Community Journalism Fellows program, funded by a grant tend to separate themselves from the community, is crumbling. from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, will enroll A promising replacement is a newspaper that can create a its first class in August. sense of hope and belief in the possibility that communities The conference drew more than 200 students, university can solve problems. This model is constructed on a central professors, and journalists who work at community newspa- idea: A newspaper can’t be independent unless it is interde- pers (fewer than 50,000 daily circulation). These newspapers pendent with its community of readers.