nieman spring 2013 Vol. 67 no. 1 Nieman Reports The Nieman Foundation for Journalism REPOR Harvard University One Francis Avenue T s Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 Nieman VOL Reports . 67 67 . To promoTe and elevaTe The sTandards of journalism n o. 1 spring 2013 o. T he signal and T he noise The SigNal aNd The NoiSe hall journalism and the future of crowdsourced reporting Carroll after the Boston marathon murdoch bombings ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Fallout for rupert mudoch from the U.K. tabloid scandal T HE Former U.s. poet laureate NIEMAN donald hall schools journalists FOUNDA Associated press executive editor T Kathleen Carroll on “having it all” ion a T HARVARD PLUS Murrey Marder’s watchdog legacy UNIVERSI Why political cartoonists pick fights Business journalism’s many metaphors TY conTEnts Residents and journalists gather around a police officer after the arrest of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect BIG IDEAS BIG CELEBRATION Please join us to celebrate 75 years of fellowship, share stories, and listen to big thinkers, including Robert Caro, Jill Lepore, Nicco Mele, and Joe Sexton, at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism’s 75th Anniversary Reunion Weekend SEPTEMBER 27–29 niEMan REPorts The Nieman FouNdatioN FoR Journalism at hARvARd UniversiTy voL. 67 No. 1 SPRiNg 2013 www.niemanreports.org PuBliShER Ann Marie Lipinski Copyright 2013 by the President and Fellows of harvard College. Please address all subscription correspondence to: one Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 EdiToR James geary Periodicals postage paid at and change of address information to: Boston, Massachusetts and additional entries. SEnioR EdiToR Jan gardner P.o. Box 4951, Manchester, Nh 03108. reseaRchER/reporter Jonathan Seitz SubscriptioNS/BuSiNeSS iSSN Number 0028-9817 617-496-6299, [email protected] PostmasteR: Send address changes to dESign 2communiqué Nieman Reports P.o. Box 4951, Manchester, Nh 03108 Subscription $25 a year, $40 for two years; EdiToRial officES add $10 per year for foreign airmail. Nieman Reports (uSPS #430-650) is published in March, June, one Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 Single copies $7.50. September and december by the Nieman Foundation at harvard 617-496-6308 | [email protected] Back copies are available from the Nieman office. university, one Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098. CoveR PhoTo: FeyzA Burak AdLi. Contents (cloCkWiSe FRoM ABove): Matt RouRke/AP; dougLAS SoNdeRS; MARk FioRe Back CoveR PhoToS (cloCkWiSe FRoM ToP LeFT): JohN SoAReS, kiRSTy WiggLeSWoRTh/AP, JohN MiNCheLLo register at nieman.harvard.edu/75 contents Vol. 67 no. 1 spring 2013 p. 39 cover story THE SIGNAL AND THE NOISE 26 Organize the noise A reporter and a programmer analyze what social media coverage of the Boston bombings means for journalism By Seth Mnookin and Hong Qu 28 Reporting on radicalization A call for more Muslim voices and faces in the media By Souad Mekhennet 31 New challenges, new rewards In the age of crowdsourced reporting, we need professional journalists more than ever Features By Borja Echevarría de la Gándara 8 Writing naked Former poet laureate Donald Hall on poetry and 32 Curation is the Key How to curate social media By Ludovic Blecher journalism Interviewed by Mike Pride 33 The (new) industry standard 14 Staggering Drunks and Fiscal cliffs Everyone is a publisher, so make everyone a journalist Why metaphors matter By Peter Coy By Betsy O’Donovan 16 Face to Face with the enemy Photography brings combatants together By Karim ben Khalifa 22 Stop the press departments The U.K. phone hacking scandal and press freedom By Katie King 2 From the curator By Ann Marie Lipinski 34 Small pieces, loosely Joined The future of news is small By Nicco Mele 4 heard @ lippmann house Kathleen Carroll, The AP’s executive editor 38 Change starts small Fewer reporters, more efficiency By Kate Galbraith 6 niemans at work A photography book on the Bosnia War, Judaism in 39 Calm at the Kitchen table Latin America, and transnational journalism Going it alone doesn’t mean you’re on your own By Laura Amico 54 books “The Art of Controversy” 41 Playing Big “To Save Everything Click Here” Keeping traditional news organizations alive “Midnight in Mexico” By Robert Blau “Half-Life” 42 From shoe leather to Big Data 58 2014 NIEMAn FELLOWs ProPublica offers innovation in investigative reporting By Robin Fields 60 nieman notes 68 sounding 44 Ask the right Questions Katrin Bennhold, NF ’13 Collaborating online to find the truth By Michael Morisy 45 Truth or consequences Where the watchdogs are—and what they’re doing p. 54 By Dan Froomkin from the curator Signal vs. Noise when the first of the bombs darkened the sunny euphoria at the Boston Marathon finish line, Nie- man Fellow David Abel crouched mere yards from the blast, steadying a camera from Harvard’s Depart- ment of Visual and Environmental Studies, where he had been study- ing introductory video. Abel, a Boston Globe reporter who worked during his Nieman year to acquire visual storytelling skills, found generous support from professor and filmmaker Ross McElwee. The short documentary Abel was making for McElwee’s class featured the inspirational story of Juli Windsor, who was about to claim marathon history as one of the first two dwarfs entered in the grueling race. But at 2:49 p.m., as Abel waited with his camera to capture Windsor crossing the finish line, a bleaker narrative emerged. Windsor, like many runners, was stopped after the percussive blasts brought terror to Boston, while Abel documented the tragic aftermath in what would become one of the most heavily viewed videos of the year. In addition to his news footage and eyewitness account for the Globe, Abel completed his short movie, a stirring account of Windsor’s interrupted quest. Abel’s contributions to coverage of the Boston bombings were significant and widely distributed. They were also but the most visible contributions made by Nieman Fellows, several of whom were at work on projects or analyses that found new urgency in the aftermath of the marathon attack. Some of that work is documented in this issue and focuses on the need to manage the speed and volume of breaking information, which, during the Boston coverage, tripped up trained reporters just as it did the crowd. The unprecedented power to publish possessed by every unfolded. The live test drive helped him refine an algorithm and owner of a smartphone requires new tools and practices. criteria for credibility that he hopes will help journalists and oth- That notion is central to the work of Nieman visiting fellow ers tracking the next big story. Hong Qu, a programmer and one of the earliest developers at For French fellow and editor Ludovic Blecher, the challenge YouTube. We invited him to Nieman in order to amplify cross- to journalists working with crowdsourced information during disciplinary discussion between journalists and the technologists breaking news events is twofold: saying too much by pass- building new tools. He used his time at Harvard to develop ing along inaccuracies, or staying silent “when social media is Keepr, an open source application for separating good sources producing so much noise.” Blecher, working with Nieman fellows from bad while following breaking news on Twitter. The need for Borja Echevarría de la Gándara of Spain and Paula Molina of such a tool grew more pressing in the aftermath of the bombing. Chile at MIT’s Center for Civic Media, has been developing One tweeter boasted of a “game-changing victory” for crowd- a peer-to-peer journalism app that would segregate verified sourcing in the early hours of the Boston area manhunt. But information from the chaff during breaking news stories. The what began as a low-grade fever on Twitter and Reddit spiked key to their approach is an acknowledgement that the crowd is with the wrongful naming of a bombing suspect. All the while no longer a passive recipient but a partner. Breaking news isn’t Hong was testing Keepr as a screen for credibility and post- just for journalists anymore, writes Blecher, “but we still have a ing early results on the Nieman Reports website as the story mission: to organize the noise.” 2 Nieman Reports | Spring 2013 from the curator Additional Nieman articles about coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings online: http://nieman.harvard.edu/marathon NIEMAN REPORTS “a marathon Without a finish” by David abel, Nf ’13 Boston Globe reporter David Abel was standing on the finish line of the Marathon with a video camera when the bombs went off “the Story of a Lifetime” by David L. marcus, Nf ’96 Two weeks after the bombings, Boston Globe editor Brian McGrory explains how his regional newspaper stayed ahead on national news “Social media and the Boston Bombings” by hong Qu Hong Qu used Keepr to identify the tweets that “broke” news of the bombing. Read more from Qu in “Organize The Noise” in this issue “Journalism & the Boston marathon Bombings” by Jonathan Seitz In a town hall discussion at the Nieman Foundation, citizens, journal- ists and public officials discussed coverage of the bombings “Niemans cover the Boston marathon Bombs” “terror at home, abroad” Two collections of coverage by Nieman Fellows ess R P “mapping the twitterverse” D e MIT researcher Todd Mostak shows how the news spread on Twitter ociat e Ass H NIEMAN JourNaLISm LaB ez/T ort C “Breaking News Pragmatically: Some reflections on silence and IO Jul timing in networked journalism” by mike ananny Other fellows identified non-technological ways in which “Wrong narratives may outweigh wrong facts, but reporting journalism could be fortified and communities better informed. with respect means getting both right” by caroline o’Donovan German fellow Souad Mekhennet, a Muslim who has covered Islamic radicalization in the West, reflects on her experience “When the media—traditional or new—get a suspect wrong, and belief in the importance of having Muslim journalists report what are the legal ramifications?” by Jeffrey hermes on Muslim communities.