Why I Write: Q. and A. With Seven Times Journalists

Seven Times reporters from a variety of beats told us what they write, how, and why — even if, for at least one of them, the storytelling is more often done through multimedia than words.

via NY Times

Journalism a Social Endeavor

In this social business report issued by Net Prospex, The New York Times was ranked number 1 across a survey of the 100 most social companies in the U.S. beating off established tech companies like Google, Apple, eBay and Amazon.

To out rank giants such as Googe, Apple, eBay and Amazon is no small feat. Moreover, a newspaper, a publication that was supposedly obsolete, is now the front runneer in a list of social companies.

The Gray Lady is known for setting standards in its own rite, but can the social media world expect other publications to follow suit?

Will the journalism industry be synonymous with sociability? Liz Heron of the New York Times identifies their short list of standards when merging social media with journalism with a few short words: “Don’t be stupid.”

H/T: Lauren Fisher, Simply Zesty, “How newspapers are leading the way in social  media. Yes, really”

The Ebb and Flow of Meta Media

Journalism voyeurs, or, “accuracy crusaders” as Steve Myers describes in his article, are part of a new web-based reading phenomenon. In his article, he discusses pieces of news that are changed or altered before they are published, but only after other writers/readers accept the original version as truth.

Perhaps the most notable example is that of the New York Times article that cited Executive Editor, Jill Abramson, as saying “In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion.”

In response to editorial changes like this, which, in print journalism, were undetected and arguably trivial, there are now entire sites dedicated to their appearance.

This kind of media transparency lends to credibility, but does it make “inhibit” journalism? At what point do the writer/editor have to retain a certain amount of obscurity to produce a finalized product without criticism? 

H/T: Poynter

Cyborgs out, real people in at @nytimes - for now

Color it a John Henry moment:

The New York Times is turning off the automatic feed for its main Twitter account this week in an experiment to determine if a human-run, interactive approach will be more effective.

A Great Recap of the panel discussion titled “The Future of Media, Publishing, and Paid Content” at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism

On Tuesday night, New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and New York Times Company president and CEO Janet Robinson spoke at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in a panel discussion titled “The Future of Media, Publishing, and Paid Content.”

CJR article by Lauren Kirchner

People raised great questions about the NYT paywall.

The title was perhaps a bit too grand, as the discussion, not surprisingly, mainly focused on the Times’s new subscription strategy. (“Don’t call it a ‘paywall!’” moderator Bill Grueskin, Dean of Academic Affairs, kept reminding himself aloud throughout the conversation.)

The first questions were about how the Times staff went about structuring the digital subscription plan, and what kinds of factors went into its pricing. For instance, Bill Grueskin noted, some have wondered whether the relatively high price of online access is meant to encourage more readers to subscribe to home delivery, which would in turn bring the Times more print ad revenue from the increased circulation numbers.

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