Wednesday, March 31, 2010

2010 High School Media Awards Announcement

Wednesday, March 31, 2010


Take a moment to check out the McCormick Foundation 2010 High School Media Awards announcements. The winners were announced March 18, 2010 at the 18th Annual Scholastic Press Association's Chicago conference. Thirteen Chicago high schools participated in this year’s conference. The competition highlights some of the best Chicagoland high school newspapers, news websites, articles, photos, drawings and graphics.

Congratulations to all the participants for putting forth their best work!

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Monday, March 29, 2010

Director's Notes: Critics of Journalism

Monday, March 29, 2010


  • A View from the Far East: Japanese journalist Kayo Matsushita offered his views of journalism education in the United States by emphasizing "there is a firmly rooted notion of journalism as the basis of democracy. Matsushita's thoughtful commentary, which appeared in the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's second largest newspaper, uprooted "digital," entrepreneurship" and "collaboration" as the buzzwords of 21st Century American journalism education.
  • Among schools cited in the piece are Arizona State University, the University of California/Berkeley, Northwestern University, American University, Boston University, Columbia University and Florida International University.
  • These schools, the report said, are "working to develop, through real-world training, the leaders of a diversifying media industry...while raising a new type of journalists, are even managing to create new jobs. The American journalism schools are only just beginning to take on an unprecedented and exciting role in the future of the media."
  • Church-State Trap: Media economist Robert G. Picard says efforts to professionalize journalism began early in the 20th Century as a response to the hyper commercialization of newspapers and the anything goes approach to news." But in his recent Shoptalk column in Editor and Publisher, Picard said editorial staffers must not embrace the business side, or perish. "If journalists continue to deny responsibility for the operation and survival of their news enterprises, it will be impossible to create sustainable news organizations for the future."
  • Quote of the Week: "In America, the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever." -Oscar Wilde

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Wednesday, March 24, 2010

McCormick Foundation Awards $50,000 Grant To Youth Media Los Angeles Collaborative

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The McCormick Foundation has awarded a $50,000 grant to the Youth News Service L.A. Bureau to support the Youth Media Los Angeles Collaborative (YMLAC).

“We are excited and honored to receive this prestigious grant,” said Linda Bowen, project manager of the YMLAC and assistant professor of journalism at California State University, Northridge.

The YMLAC is a citywide group of youth media organizations and individuals dedicated to training young people in producing journalism across multimedia platforms. Initially, the collaborative will coordinate the various youth journalism and media programs and organizations throughout the greater Los Angeles region and create an online database of youth media and student journalism programs.

“The idea is to create a networking foundation and Web-based interactive resource that can bring these diverse groups and individuals together to help young people become and stay interested in journalism,” Bowen added. “Fostering civic engagement and news media literacy are critical project components.”

Ultimately, the collaborative will connect youth media producers and young journalists to a broad network of mentors – from university students, educators and professional journalists to non-profit agency trainers and members of advocacy and literacy organizations. Eventually, professionals and students could be geographically matched.

“McCormick-funded research shows that students who study journalism do better
academically,” said Clark Bell, McCormick Foundation Journalism Program director. “By
fostering collaboration among student media organizations, we can expand the network of
journalism opportunities for Los Angeles youth.”

The YMLAC is intended to serve as a model for organizations throughout the country seeking to improve the state of journalism by sharing resources, cultivating journalism skills and promoting First Amendment rights.

The McCormick Foundation’s Journalism Program invests in projects that enhance content, build news audiences and protect the rights of journalists. The Chicago-based Foundation believes nothing is more critical to the vitality of a democracy than a free, vigorous and diverse news media, providing citizens the information they need to make reasoned decisions. This mission furthers the Foundation's overall commitment to children, communities.

CONTACT:
Linda Bowen
Office: (818) 677-3238
Email: linda.s.bowen@csun.edu

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Monday, March 22, 2010

Director's Notes: Learning More About Journalism

Monday, March 22, 2010

  • Reinvention Trends. The Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual "State of the News Media" spots six major trend lines for reinventing the news media:
(1) The unbundling of news seems increasingly central to the future of journalism.
(2) The future of new and old media are tied together.
(3) There is a mistaken notion that news media are shrinking.
(4) Technology is further shifting power to newsmakers, including their ability to control the initial account of the events.
(5) News organizations must define their relationship to the growing ranks of self-interested information providers.
(6) When it comes to audience numbers online, traditional media content still prevails, which means the cutbacks in old media heavily impact what the public is learning through the new.
  • In response, PoynterOnline's Bill Mitchell wonders "just what sort of commercial and editorial reinvention will it take to close the gap between the shrinking capacity of legacy news operations to deliver the news we need and the still halting initiatives of start-ups hoping to take their place."  
  • Suggested Read. Former McCormick Foundation board member Jack Fuller will explore how journalism lost its way in a new book scheduled for release in May.  The University of Chicago Press says "What is Happening to News: The Information Explosion and the Crisis in Journalism" locates the surprising sources of change where no one has thought to look before.  Fuller traces journalism's ragged retreat from its great traditions to a collision between a revolutionary new information age and a human brain that is still wired for the threats faced by our prehistoric ancestors. In addition to offering "unprecedented insight," the UCPress publicity machine says Fuller's book tells "how journalists can adapt to this new environment while still providing the information necessary to a functioning democracy.
  • Quote of the week.  "I hope we never live to see the day when a thing is as bad as some our newspapers make it." -Will Rogers

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Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Spotlight on Jamie McIntyre’s Military-Media Blog: Line of Departure

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Part of McCormick Media Matters' mission is to share sources of information with journalists that help them develop a thorough coverage of issues, including national security issues. Jamie McIntyre hosts Military.com’s Media and National Policy Journal blog, “Line of Departure,” that reports on military-media topics. As a veteran reporter from CNN and a voice in McCormick’s 2009 Military-Media Conference, McIntyre covers media coverage of the military, Pentagon security and the overseas war. “We’re really seeing an information revolution that has completely changed the way we do things,” McIntyre said in the McCormick report about the changing information landscape journalists face.

Military-Media Conferences: Since 1992, the McCormick Foundation has hosted a series of conferences at Cantigny that bring together journalists focused on national security with military top brass to discuss best practices and challenges. These off-the-record conferences on timely topics are a well-regarded contribution to coverage of national security. The 10th Military-Media conference was held in September 2009.

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Monday, March 15, 2010

Scholastic Press Association of Chicago-McCormick Foundation High School Media Awards

Monday, March 15, 2010


We’re looking forward to recognizing this year’s winning student journalists at tomorrow’s annual High School Media Awards. And for all those high school journalism advisers, we’ve prepared a list of resources below. We’re eager to hear what your needs are, so let us know how we can help.  

McCormick-Roosevelt Mini Tech Grants for Educators
Learn how to apply for a tech grant:

News Literacy
Learn about the the latest news literacy initiatives and resources.

Chicago Youth Voices Network
Stay up to date with CYVN’s youth polling and reporting project—NUF SAID.

McCormick Foundation Journalism Program
Stay in touch with the Journalism program in the following ways:

Other resources:
Youth Media Reporter

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Director's Notes: Foundations for News

Monday, March 15, 2010

  • Forever the Province. The American Journalism Review puffed up the Huffington Post Investigative Fund in its March issue.  The fund aims to create a new nonprofit business model and "to reinvent the way investigative journalism is done," according to Investigative Fund Executive Director Nick Penniman. Foundations shoulder a healthy percentage of the fund's operating budget.  Brant Houston of the University of Illinois notes that questions are bound to surface about the motivations of foundations that fund newsgathering.  "In the end, I think a lot of people are going to measure the importance and success of any of these ventures on the stories they produce, and the credibility of those stories," Houston said. 
  • Penniman believe it makes perfect sense for media groups to forge alliances with large foundations.  "Because investigative journalism is the most expensive and time-consuming, in my mind it will forever be the province of the nonprofit world."  He likens enterprise journalism to museums and educational and environmental causes.  "People have always understood that those things need to be funded through philanthropy," Penniman said.
  • Sexual Assault Study. Meanwhile, a recently released McCormick Foundation-funded investigation on campus assaults raises a provocative question about disclosure.  The national project on campus sexual assaults was managed by the Center for Public Integrity with feeds from regional nonprofit news organizations, including the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.  Phoenix.com questioned why the Boston University-based New England Center offered no data on BU.  More more on the brouhaha, click here
  • The final word goes to the Neiman Journalism Lab's Laura McGann, who came up with a set of three questions to distinguish the legitimacy of a nonprofit news organization:

1. Does the nonprofit create original news or commentary on a regular schedule?
2. Does it directly reach an audience (or does it fuel news outlets)?
3. Does it spend its money on and dedicate the bulk of its resources to journalism?

  • Quote of the week:  "Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault.  It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air." -Henry Anatole Grunwald

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Sunday, March 7, 2010

Director's Notes: Reaction to the Shrinking Newsroom

Sunday, March 07, 2010



  • J-School Lifeline. Inside Higher Ed poses the provocative question of whether journalism school can save journalism in their article "J-Schools to the Rescue?" You know the scenario: While newsrooms are shrinking, J-schools are flourishing. The result is more explicit arrangements to have journalism students, who will work for course credit, fill the gaps left by the pros when the news outlets can no longer afford to pay. Inside Higher Ed focuses on the recently announced partnership between New York University and the New York Times, which slashed 200 newsroom jobs last year. The problem, according to Choire Sicha of The Awl, is that the skills picked up by the students while providing free content to the Times will not mean much when they graduate and go looking for salaried positions that no longer exist.
  • The McCormick Foundation got into the game in January 2009 by supporting Florida International University student feeds to the South Florida News Service, a content-sharing partnership among the Miami Herald, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Palm Beach Post. Our grant was contingent on support by the three newspapers in the FIU project.
  • Peter Scheer, another MF grantee, speculated that journalism schools may be continuing to enroll students at high levels despite an anemic job market because news organizations need them to be producing young reporters who are professionally trained but cost less than their more experienced forebears.
  • Train Everyone to be a Journalist. Poynter Online columnist Al Tompkins has another idea to combat those shrinking newsrooms. "As we pare back our staffs, and as emergencies hit, you will find you need everyone in your building to help out in ways you never imagined."
  • Quote of the Week: "The best use of a journal is to print the largest practical amount of important truth, truth which tends to make makind wiser, and thus happier." -Horace Greeley

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Wednesday, March 3, 2010

McCormick Journalism Tips To Preparing a Letter of Inquiry

Wednesday, March 03, 2010


In the first segment of a series of videos, McCormick Foundation Journalism Program's Aaron Smith explains the first step in applying for a grant, preparing a letter of inquiry.

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McCormick Journalism 2009 Grantee Map

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

We've created a map of our 2009 grantees and their McCormick-funded projects to help connect them to others who may be doing similar work and share the impact and contributions they've made. Navigate the map below for information on journalism projects, trainings, workshops and collaborations. 

To view a larger version of the map, click here.

View McCormick Journalism Grantees 2009 in a larger map

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