We have to get better as journalists. From my perspective, this actually helps long-form in-depth journalism since the crowd is less likely to go that direction. In fact, they’re taking some of the burden off of us in producing and discovering the things that waste our time. For me, the larger question is why we are wasting our time and skills covering stories that the crowd is all over. Why are we, as professional journalists, allocating our resources for such daily, perishable stories? We should be allocating them for things that are in-depth, investigative and require the kind of expertise and professionalism that we have.

Here is more:

People are asked to do less with more and not given the time. Time is the greatest luxury in journalism. It’s why we don’t publish on a deadline. We publish when we feel a project is ready. All of these things connect to each other and in really interesting ways to passion. What an exciting time to be practicing journalism!

NPR News announced Wednesday that it is canceling two daily radio programs — Day to Day and News and Notes — as part of a broader effort by the company to close a projected budget shortfall of $23 million for its current fiscal year. Overall, NPR will cut 7 percent of its work force and slash expenses further around the company.

The story adds:

Day to Day was designed as a midday complement to mainstays Morning Edition and All Things Considered, while News and Notes, a successor to The Tavis Smiley Show, was intended to draw more African-American listeners. Beyond the two shows, another 12 journalists will lose their jobs throughout NPR News.

Companywide, NPR is laying off 64 people and eliminating 21 other positions that are currently vacant. NPR News will still have more than 800 employees on staff, including about 300 journalists. . . .

Interest payments from an endowment created from the bequest of the late Joan Kroc, which have typically paid out about $10 million a year to NPR, were wiped out by the sharp downturn in the financial markets. However, NPR’s board authorized the company to draw down $15 million from the company’s operating reserves, most of which also came from the Kroc gift.

In interviews, company officials said they decided to try to make big, specific cuts to mitigate their effect on NPR’s ability to gather and report the news.

Update: Here is more from the Washington Post and here from The New York Times.

Hello Romenesko readers, to learn more about Representative Journalism go here and to see our Rep J experimental project in Northfield, MN go here.

Welcome Current.org readers too. You might want to read the attached comment about the possibility of PBS and NPR forming a partnership.

So were people miffed about the long line? I thought they would be, but you listen to what this random sample of folks had to say, you might be surprised. I was.

YOUTUBE, PULITZER CENTER TO PUT MEDIA IN HANDS OF THE PEOPLE WITH PROJECT: REPORT

SAN BRUNO, CA–(September 8, 2008) – YouTube™, the leading online video community that
allows people to discover, watch and share originally created videos, announced the launch of Project: Report in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and made possible by Sony and Intel. The first of its kind program begins September 8 and encourages aspiring journalists to produce short, high-quality video pieces focused on stories that are not usually covered by the traditional media.

The program will take place over three rounds. The first round will be judged by the Pulitzer Center and
will narrow the field down to the top ten reporters. The YouTube community will then vote to select the top five finalists and the ultimate winner. The winner will receive a $10,000 grant for travel abroad and the opportunity to work with the Pulitzer Center on a story of global importance. The finalists will also receive high-end video and editing equipment from Sony and be featured on the YouTube homepage. Additional prizes will be given to the top ten and top five participants as the contest progresses. “Central to the Pulitzer Center’s mission is coverage of stories that are being under-reported in today’s media environment,” said Jon Sawyer, executive director of the Pulitzer Center. “With YouTube’s global reach and popularity we have the unique opportunity to offer a program that encourages aspiring journalists to tell these stories in a fresh and compelling way.”

“Project: Report was inspired by the thousands of individuals around the world who have used YouTube
to change the way news is reported in today’s media landscape,” said Steve Grove, head of news and
politics for YouTube. “From videos of natural disasters to investigative reports on political candidates,
YouTube has become a go-to site for rare and dynamic news stories from around the world. Project:
Report will support and cultivate this type of content, encouraging aspiring journalists to continue
informing the world through YouTube.”

Starting today and continuing through October 5, contestants will create and submit a profile of three
minutes or less of an individual of significance in their community. An expert panel led by the Pulitzer
Center will choose the top 10 entrants. Each of the 10 semi-finalists will receive technology from Sony.
They will also participate in a journalism conference hosted by the Pulitzer Center.

The second round of the program will call on the 10 semi-finalists to create a video of four minutes or less to tell a local story that has global impact. The top five videos will be chosen by the YouTube community and the reporters who produced them will receive additional video equipment from Sony, as well as one-on-one mentorship with a journalist as they head into round three of the program.

In the third and final round, the five finalists will tell the story of an under-represented community — with a further reporting technique required. Each of the finalists will be provided with two additional Sony video cameras to give to members of the group they are reporting on, so that they can participate in the telling of their own stories. The reporter will then use this footage and integrate it into the telling of the story of five minutes or less.

Each of the three rounds will feature model videos from work sponsored by the Pulitzer Center as well as videos on reporting techniques from the journalists involved. The contest channel page will also feature videos with tips on technique from Sony and Intel.

Goodman is certainly a journalist in the same way the big network anchors are. For people from the progressive left, handcuffing and arresting Goodman has the same impact that it would if network news audiences saw cops put NBC’s Katie Couric in handcuffs.

Here is a quote from Goodman, in the Post:

“They seriously manhandled me and handcuffed my hands behind my back. The top ID [at the convention] is to get on the floor and the Secret Service ripped that off me. I had my Democracy Now! ID too. I was clearly a reporter.”

The police also raided a house with folks from I-Witness Video, which films police abuse around the country. Several other journalists, both mainstream and citizen, have been arrested or pepper sprayed.

In this era of citizen journalism, we should all be very concerned for everyone’s First Amendment rights.

Here is Goodman getting arrested:

Here is a member of Democracy Now!, who describes an earlier police raid at an I-Witness house.

Tampa Bay’s 10 is looking for twenty people around the Bay area to help us with a special project. We will teach twenty lucky people how to shoot a video camera, and how to get the video to us here at the station.

And not only THAT, there is even more great news for those LUCKY 20:

Each time you send me a video story that either makes it on the news or on our web site, Tampa Bay’s 10 will pay you TWENTY DOLLARS!

The caps and bold are all theirs. But look at this added piece of generosity:

If you hold up your end of the deal, after a year, you will KEEP the video camera we assign you.

So let’s see, if you as a citizen keep up your end of the bargain, which is 40 web posted pieces a year, Tampa Bay’s 10, would pay you all of $800, and throw in a video camera too. Wow, how generous of this Gannett owned station.

Update: Amani Channel, who has worked with citizen journalists making video, has his own take on this Tampa Bay project.

Mention that cit. journalists in Atlanta are creating a “virtual” newsroom… I’m getting in reports from people on ground and redirecting them to MSM at the moment. Can’t head to field right now as I have to be home with kid, but soccer moms such as moi can surely pass info along like nobody’s business!

Also, CNN newsroom just took on water; they’ve moved ‘em to another part of bldg. Another huge storm getting ready to come through, which will send wind and rain into all the now-exposed, blown out windows/roofs of all the many damaged office buildings downtown, not to mention the homes. It’s like Hurricane Andrew… whereas the scope of the damage is just now starting to trickle in and be comprehended. It’s vast. Wish you were here!

From an earlier Daughters email:

Citizen Journalism “network” is working this Atlanta downtown tornado hard. With cells and Twitter. For instance, I just heard from pal with still cam on scene that Vine City area just behind CNN, poor and black, was hit hard, lots of damage, yet no MSM press had shown up there yet. The people were wondering why no one cares about their area. So I called AP and CNN, and a few v-loggers of course!

I was on-scene last night. Vid getting good play on YouTube and iReport.

Grayson directs me to:

Last night I turned on CNN and I heard lots of their commentators, their talking heads about the damage and the same footage over and over, but no real reporting like Daughters provided here. Am I missing something –certainly CNN did some real reporting — or has the mainstream media really given up on honest to god reporting, even when it is literally in their own house.

Public radio thrives because it is so much cheaper and because we spend so much of our time in cars; indeed, public radio insiders talk of the tent poles where listenership peaks on the drives to and from work. Of course, there is plenty of other radio options, but if you want to hear news there are none. So it thrives. To get  where it is today, public radio, in many cases, had to cut back on its classical or other music programming. It got a younger, news passionate audiences with money to contribute.  

Of course, anyone who watches television knows there is a real news void on television. We are stuck with a bunch of talking heads blabbering away, Sunday morning “Gasbags” as Calvin Trillen calls them. But now it is seven days a week. So why doesn’t PBS turn to producing real news. The kind where a reporter goes out and gathers information. Yes, they do it on local commercial TV, but really it is all about blood and gore with no depth. I am talking about news that will make a difference in people’s lives. 

Of course, television is expensive, if you have all those big trucks and million-dollar editing stations. But what if PBS news turned to the television eqivalent of Cinema Verite, hand-held cameras, no big sets, just people out in the trenches collecting information. A kind of professional journalism YouTube, supplemented by the people’s contributions when needed.

Form a community around saving PBS by helping it create better, more impactful news oriented television.  Use that news to boost audiences and push them to better general programming.

Take chances, one chance might be to kick government financing out of bed and then really do some hard hitting journalism with some of it aimed at the scoundrels in government while praising the good guys. Instead of walking on your knees with hat in hand to collect the government subsidies, stand tall and if you go out, go out with a scream and not a whimper.

 I used to love to watch TV news, now it is a waste of time. Bring on real news and bring me back with my donations in hand. Better yet, find out how I and all the folks with cameras in hand can add to your content. Everyone else is trying it, but you already have the brand as in P-u-b-l-i-c Broadcasting. Watch what is about to take place at the Media General station WNCN-TV in Raleigh, North Carolina, which we hear is hiring 40 community embedded reporters plus teaching citizens how to shoot video, imagine that for our local PBS programming here in Georgia.

Come on PBS, stand up, brush off the dust and charge into the bright new future.