Online Community News Sites to Expand Coverage

Four online community news sites will expand their local reporting staffs and bring their communities more content with a combined $390,000 investment from the Miami-based Knight Foundation. "As the news industry cuts costs by reducing staff - including local reporters - citizens are receiving less of the news they need to lead informed lives and hold their governments accountable," said Gary Kebbel, Knight's journalism program director. "These young, online-only sites help fill the void and offer the information needed to make decisions."

To see more about these grants click here
And to visit the four news sites, click below:

MinnPost, which provides news and analysis, including video and audio, from experienced journalists primarily in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
voiceofsandiego.org, the only professionally-staffed, nonprofit online news site in California.
Chi-town Daily News, which uses citizen journalists and staff reporters to cover Chicago’s 75 neighborhoods.
St. Louis Beacon, which emphasizes local news on its site founded by veteran journalists, and partners with its local public TV station.

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DC Reductions

The NY Times has picked up on a trend many are seeing in the media industry: The shuttering of news bureaus and cutbacks in Washington-based correspondents. Richard Perez-Pena describes the trend in a piece this week, noting that the cuts (both in DC and at home organizations) come at a time of increased change and need for scrutiny in Washington: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/business/media/18bureaus.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink.

The troublesome trend comes on the heels of a McCormick-funded study, conducted by Arizona State University's Cronkite School and UNITY, that noted only about 13 percent of the Washington daily newspaper press corps are journalists of color. Though this was slightly higher than a study in 2004, it was conducted in early 2008 so the diversity may have decreased since then. For more on the study, http://cronkite.asu.edu/news/diversity-072408.php.

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Loss of Daily Reporters Hurts Great Lakes

In his turn as Guest Speaker for The Great Lakes Town Hall (www.greatlakestownhall.org), David Paulson of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University makes an eloquent case for the role of the daily reporter. And his or her impact on the Great Lakes.

"When a sewer fails, water suffers. Level a forest and the critters flee. A purple loosestrife invasion chokes a wetland in weeks. But what's the impact on the Great Lakes environment of a failing system of news and information?
Huge..."

See Paulson's posting here:
http://www.greatlakestownhall.org/opinion/guest.php?forumid=3&topicid=1225&sid=124a03fd020c4a77fd24de10b6219fba#starttopic

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It Hurts To Laugh

"What's black and white and completely over?" The answer is (ouch) "Newspapers." Jon Stewart on newspaper industry woes...
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=213347&title=clust

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We Media Game Changers Awards Winners

Online media star ZeFrank, mobile texting service Twitter, Obama campaign mastermind David Plouffe, Japanese digital designer Yugo Nakamura and Kenyan mobile alert service Ushahidi are among nine winners of the We Media Game Changers Awards. The awards, organized and administered by iFOCOS, a media think tank and futures lab, will be given out at the We Media Miami conference Feb. 24-26. Other award winners are The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Innocentive’s crowdsourcing for the science crowd, Humana’s Freewheelin’ and social network Socialvibe.

We Media defines Game Changers as entities that ‘lead society to knowledge.’ It invited entries from ‘big companies, little startups, social entrepreneurs, independent thinkers, brands, causes, tools, ideas, commercial, nonprofit – all were welcome.’ To learn more about the MF-sponsored awards and the winners, click here.

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NYCMA Announces 2008 Ippies Awards

The New York Community Media Alliance (NYCMA) announced the 28 winners of the 2008 Ippies Awards for ethnic and community press in New York City on Friday, Dec. 5 at Baruch College. Established in 2001, the Awards recognized excellent journalism chosen from more than 170 entries, in categories covering: investigative reporting; feature writing, editorial or commentary; coverage of immigrant, racial or social issues; coverage of labor; election coverage; overall design and photography.

To see more about the awards and winning articles and photo essays, click here.

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December is Ethnic Media Month

The Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism at San Francisco State University has posted its MF-funded study “The Health of Ethnic Media: Needs and Opportunities.” The report, directed by Cristina Azocar and Jon Funabiki, offers a snapshot of the health and resiliency of the nation’s ethnic news organizations from the point of view of their proprietors, publishers, editors and reporters. To see the study, click here: http://ciij.org/downloads/Health_of_the_Ethnic_Media_Final.pdf

Also, hyperlocal journalism was celebrated Dec. 5 at Minnesota’s Twin Cities first regional Ethnic and Community Media Awards. Co-hosted by the Twin Cities Daily Planet and New America Media, the event honored stories about such topics as Asian-American theater, the recent arrival of refugees from Bhutan, education in the Hmong community and the Service Employees International Union strike in Minneapolis.

To view a NAM story on this event, click here:
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=2d396e99f74e9f3b7500319ce0b599a2.

For audio coverage of the event, click here: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=979cee7dfd9e5c88c47004478bd04e31.

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Dollars for Ideas

Here at MF we get dozens of ideas for digital media news start-ups annually. Unfortunately, there's not enough support to seed all these ideas or projects, and our work is generally focused in other strategic journalism areas.

But we're happy to point out MF grantee J-Lab's New Voices grants program, that funds the launch of participatory community news ventures. The guidelines are pretty broad and innovation is encouraged.

If you want to start a new Web site or online community, check out their guidelines - they're accepting proposals through Feb. 12, 2009 - for more details at: www.j-newvoices.org/apply/V09.

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AAJA Announces New Executive Director

Former newspaper and television industry professional Ellen Endo has been appointed the new executive director of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), replacing Rene Astudillo, who has led AAJA since 1999.

In her 24 years in TV industry leadership positions, Endo has served as an executive at Republic Pictures Productions, MGM/UA Television, Embassy Communications and ABC. She has also served as managing editor of The Rafu Shimpo, Los Angeles Japanese Daily News and chief operating officer of the nonprofit Go For Broke National Education Center.

Founded in 1981, the San Francisco-based AAJA is a nonprofit professional and educational organization with approximately 2,000 members and 20 chapters in major cities across the U.S. and in Asia.

To see more on Endo’s background and her video introduction as AAJA e.d., click here

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Communities in Flux

With media companies slashing their workforce and opportunities for in-depth reporting waning, the Journalism Center on Children & Families has some promising new free resources for covering the impact of economic turmoil and changing demographics.

The materials, available online at http://www.journalismcenter.org/fellowships/ConferenceMaterialschicago.html, include source lists, speaker handouts and Power point slides from a McCormick Specialized Reporting institute on "Communities in Flux: The Impact of Economic Turmoil and Shifting Demographics" in Chicago Nov. 16-18. Topics included the foreclosure crisis, local government budgets, rise of the working poor, and more. Check it out for some quick, but substantive reporting ideas.

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Journalists in the Crossfire... 'Foregoing the Why'

The Washington Post has a good piece on violence against journalists in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, a gritty industrial city of 1.5 million that has tallied more than 1,300 grizzly homicides already this year. Since 2000, more than 30 Mexican journalists have been slain, and the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Joel Simon calls the border region – where powerful drug cartels are battling for control – ‘ground zero.’ The costs to society are many, including the fact that journalists flee or simply self censor… only exploring the who, what, when and where… but foregoing the why.

To see the WP story, click here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/24/AR2008112402776.html?hpid=topnews

To see CPJ’s recent report on journalists along the Mexican border (“The Disappeared in Mexico”) click here: http://www.cpj.org/americas

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New England Honors Ethnic Media

A Hindu temple raises $10,000 for tsunami relief but donations never reach the victims.
Undocumented carpenters build houses as federal agents with ICE break up their families.
A police officer fatally shoots a young Brazilian immigrant.

These are a few of the award-winning stories celebrated Nov. 20 at the first New England-wide competition celebrating excellent journalism in languages other than English. The awards – called the NEENAs (New England Ethnic Newswire Awards) – were given at the University of Massachusetts Boston. The competition attracted more than 120 entries from Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

To see a piece on the awards on the New America Media Web site, as well as links to the winning publications, click here:
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=9ece804b027dbf5f1c2d0125bdb4b99a

To view the New England Ethnic Newswire, run by Frank Herron of UMB’s Center on Media and Society, click here: www.ethnicnewz.org.

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Online Time Makes Teens Lazy - Or Just Smarter?

The most extensive U.S. study on teens and use of digital media finds
that America's youth develop important social and technical skills
online, often in ways adults do not understand or value. "It might
surprise parents to learn that it is not a waste of time for their teens
to hang out online," said Mizuko Ito, University of California, Irvine
researcher and the report's lead author.

Released this week at the American Anthropological Association's annual
meeting, the extensive study was funded by the John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation's digital media and learning initiative. The
$50-million initiative is exploring how digital media is changing how
young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life.

"There are myths about kids spending time online - that it is dangerous or
making them lazy," said Ito. "But we found that spending time online is
essential for young people to pick up the social and technical skills
they need to be competent citizens in the digital age."

To see the report, click here

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New Michigan Media

While the newspaper and auto industries are rapidly declining in Michigan, the ethnic media in the state continue to blossom, according to Poynter columnist and journalism professor Joe Grimm. He writes about the growth in a recent column describing an MF-funded ethnic media conference at Wayne State University (http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=58&aid=154274).

Wayne State's Hayg Oshagan helped assemble a directory of nearly 140 ethnic media outlets from Albanian to Ukrainian in Michigan that was released at the conference. More than ___ ethnic media members and partners attended, including MF's own Mark Hallett and Sandy Close of New America Media (the inspiration for Wayne State's work). You can access the directory and work by Michigan ethnic media at: www.NewMichiganMedia.com.

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Future of Information

The Knight Foundation is putting its money where your mouth is. The Miami-based foundation just launched a new community site called Knight Pulse. This site - www.KnightPulse.org - will be a place where interested people can talk about the future of information and other pressing topics facing the evolution of journalism and media.

And it's not just lip service. Knight Pulse "is a place for conversations that might later become collaborative projects considered for funding," according to Knight. With more than $25 million earmarked for community news and social media experiments in the next five years, it's a chance for all those innovators to join the funding fray.

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Compentencies of the Next Generation News Organization

How can news organizations keep pace with rapid technological pace. Most have struggled so far, primarily due to the lack of in-house expertise to proactively identify trends and opportunities.

The MF-funded Media Management Center at Northwestern University has a few insights on the subject. Six to be exact. All gleaned from two dozen technology industry leaders interviewed by innovation expert and consultant Annette Moser-Wellman.

In its newly-released report, "Six Competencies of the Next Generation News Organization," MMC suggests priority areas that media organizations should beef up to better compete in the evolving, rough-and-tumble marketplace. The report suggests media companies build around:

• The Platform Strategist
• The Marketer
• The Community Builder
• The Data Miner
• The Complete Storyteller
• The Entrepreneur

Check out the full report at: http://www.mediamanagementcenter.org/research/sixcompetencies.pdf.

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Web 2.0 Arrives at Committee to Protect Journalists

MF-funded Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) unveiled its new Web site this week, with some new bells, whistles and tools that will enable it to reach more people with timely information about defending journalists. Check it out here: www.cpj.org.

You'll notice some a new blog, RSS feeds and some foreign language pages. Key tools for a group working to protect international journalists.

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Your Vote Counts

Voting is en vogue these days. The impressive public interest in the national elections should lead to a record turnout in the general election and, as we know, participation is a key indicator in measuring the health of a democracy.
Now we have another way for you to express your opinion. The We Media Game Changers is a new MF-sponsored awards program that seeks to recognize people, groups, ideas and projects using media to connect people and create change. You can rate and review the 35 finalist nominees at: http://gamechangers.wemedia.com/.
The nominees range from digital projects at mainstream news organizations to blogs to funders of new media innovation. And in this race, your vote will count: The Community Choice winner, selected from online ratings, will be showcased at the We Media conference in Miami in February 2009. That's incentive enough to use media to inspire change!

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Looking for Leaders

The Poynter Institute is looking for a dozen news leaders to help spread the change gospel via a series of high-impact trainings across the country.

The selected corps - the McCormick Change Leadership Fellows - will gather at Poynter next March to share and absorb some of the best change management techniques. Though the Fellows will continue working in their newsrooms, Poynter will dispatch them occasionally to trainings across the country. The idea is to spread best practices for innovating during a tumultous time by using the experts to teach. Costs are covered through the MF grant.

Poynter's call for applicants can be found at (http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=34&aid=152657) . Criteria include:

• Working at a management level.
• Respected and admired as a leader.
• Implementing or accomplishing a significant change.

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Dizzy Dreams

The University of Maryland's Lee Thornton reflects on the dramatic changes in journalism education in the October/November issue of the American Journalism Review. He suggests that the increase in professional training opportunities offered by J-schools prepares students to work on multiple platforms and carve out individual specialties. Thornton also reminds us that Sarah Palin, a 1987 University of Idaho graduate, is the first journalism degree holder to appear at the top of the ticket for either of the two major political parties.

In spite of the economic woes rocking the news media world, enrollment in university journalism/mass communications programs remains strong. The spike in student interest puzzles working journalists and challenges journalism educators to confront a shifting professional environment. An online site asked the journalists of tomorrow to describe an ideal job. One interesting posting cited the need for flexible training and a dream job that offered variety, new technology, working with people, visual platforms, the spirit of teamwork and lots of money.

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Youth Media in Action

Check out the slick new brochure put out by the McCormick Foundation's Youth Voices Network to adverstise their in-school and after-school programs to young people. You can download it here: http://www.mccormicktribune.org/journalism/Chicago%20Youth%20Voices%20Network.pdf.

The Youth Voices Network, a coalition of more than a dozen youth media groups in the Chicago area, is dedicated to collaborating and strengthening nonprofit organizations that provide communication programs to young people. These groups provide training to young people in media arts, journalism and production in mediums ranging from print to online to radio and video.

If you'd like some hard copies to distribute to teens you know, contact the Foundation's journalism program.

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Ohio State Hosts Conference on Coverage of Climate Change

A tour of the Byrd Polar Research Center to see up close actual ice cores each containing a piece of the history of the earth’s atmosphere. A talk by global warming pioneer Lonnie Thompson and a thoughtful speech by Sen. John Glenn. A timely session contrasting the proposed policies of the presidential candidates on global warming. Sessions on both reporting – and disseminating news interactively – using new media. These were some of the highlights of the Specialized Reporting Institute hosted by Ohio State University Oct. 12-14 that brought together some 28 journalists from across the country and as far away as Australia.

The OSU conference, a collaboration between the university's Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism, John Glenn School of Public Affairs and Climate, Water and Carbon Program, provided a wealth of information in a short time to attendees. The events also were taped, Blogged, Ninged and Twittered for those unable to attend. Kudos to the Kiplinger Program for producing a model in conference communication dissemination.

To see conference materials and links to extensive coverage: http://mccormickc3.ning.com/

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Innovative Partnering

Two MF grantees recently came together to spread the word about voter education issues to journalists across the country. New America Media (NAM) and the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) partnered for an Oct. 1 conference call focused on state-specific voter identification laws, registration deadlines, election information sources and citizenship requirements, according to AAJA (for more, visit: http://www.aaja.org/features/articles/2008_09_26_01/aajateleconference.pdf). The call featured a Q&A with John Bonifaz, legal director of Voter Action.

This unique professional journalism training opportunity allowed NAM, the oldest and largest group representing ethnic media, to partner with a media membership association to provide specific, timely information for journalists serving ethnic audiences.

The teleconference was promoted an NAM public service campaign aimed at informing ethnic media audiences about what documents they need to bring with them to vote on Nov. 4.

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Ethnic Media Put Experience into Coverage of Emergencies

In a compelling piece of online audio reporting, New America Media’s Odette Keeley explores the role of ethnic media as emergency responders. Vu Than Thuy, CEO and host of Radio Saigon Houston 900 AM KREH had experienced Hurricane Katrina and armed with that experience managed to continue broadcasting during Hurricane Ike. She even resorted to using candlelight when power was down to continue reaching the station’s more than 160,000 listeners in Houston and Galveston. Hiram Soto, a multimedia reporter for the Spanish-language paper Enlace (San Diego) had learned from earlier wild fires both what to expect as well as the importance of relationships with other Spanish-language media in the area. When wild fires hit the area on a Sunday evening last year, by Monday he was recording and posting video and by Tuesday a special edition of Enlace had hit the streets with information on what was going on, what to do, where to go, etc. Listen to this piece at http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=969ec31cf7cfc605cfdefccc8232a3aa.

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!Viva Young Global Journalists!

This morning we had the pleasure of meeting with a group of nine young journalists from all over the world who are taking part in the World Press Institute’s annual fellowship program. The groups includes (click here to see bios on the entire group) reporters from Argentina, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, China, Hungary, India, Lithuania, South Africa and Spain (the Nigerian fellow listed was unable to attend).

In short, meeting these fellows quickly reinforces the importance of journalism and defines the spirit of civic engagement. The Bosnian fellow, Ermin, carries out serious investigative reporting projects (which he says an instructor described as basically reporting on ‘bad people doing bad things’). The Brazilian reporter, Tatiana, says that every story that appears in her paper, Zero Hora of Porto Alegre, now has a special sidebar that provides perspective for young readers. And the Lithuanian reporter, Vykintas, has written extensively about comparative political systems in Eastern Europe (see his web site at http://www.geocities.com/vykintas/index_e.html).

The eight-week fellowship tour includes visits to a jet propulsion laboratory, Obama campaign offices, Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, the L.A. Times, the Newseum, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and four days filing stories from the Republican National Convention. To follow the group blog, click here.

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McCormick Announces $4M in Journalism Initiatives

The McCormick Foundation Board recently approved 22 grants to projects promoting youth journalism, ethnic media and First Amendment issues.

“These grants support our focus on innovation, integration and invigoration of the news media,” said Clark Bell, Journalism Program director. The grants boost training for young journalists, help news executives face strategic challenges, promote the First Amendment and enable journalists to develop specialized reporting skills. The projects include (by category, in alphabetical order):

Journalism Education
Center for Media and Security
$100,000 for general support

Community Media Workshop
$150,000 over 2 years for community and ethnic media training

International Center for Journalists, Inc.
$217,000 over 2 years for training at Spanish-language community radio stations

Investigative Reporters and Editors
$100,000 over 2 years for training for ethnic media reporters

Kansas University Endowment Association
$50,000 for military and media projects

Northwestern University
$1,355,000 over 3 years for the Medill School’s national security training initiative

The Trustees of Indiana University
$75,000 over 2 years for launching a nonprofit and philanthropy reporting program

University of Colorado Foundation
$110,000 over 2 years for launching the Resolving Door community journalism project

University of Southern California/Institute for Justice and Journalism
$120,000 for coverage of urban environmental justice

West Virginia University Foundation, Inc.
$85,000 over 2 years for launching a multimedia training program between journalism schools and community newspapers

Free Speech
American Society of Newspaper Editors Foundation, Inc.
$100,000 for the Liberty Tree Initiative to promote the 1st Amendment on college campuses

Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa, Inc.
$200,000 over 2 years for increasing public appreciation for free press in the Americas

News Leadership
American Press Institute, Inc.
$75,000 for continuing its Transformation Series seminars

National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation
$150,000 over 2 years for broadcast diversity programs

The Poynter Institute for Media Studies
$90,000 for the McCormick Change Leadership Fellows

Research Foundation of City University of New York
$155,000 over 2 years for a New Business Models for News Initiative

Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education
$160,000 over 2 years for the Media Academy, Editing Program and Web operations

Youth Media
Columbia College Chicago
$250,000 over 2 years for the Columbia Links high school journalism training project

Community Television Network
$90,000 over 2 years for its “Hard Cover” journalism training program

Radio and Television News Directors Foundation
$150,000 over 2 years for the High School Teacher Television Camp

We the People Media
$90,000 over 2 years for the Urban Youth International Journalism Program

Roosevelt University
$100,000 over 2 years for the McCormick Foundation High School Media Awards

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Sticks and Stones...

"A Twit"
"Cowardly"
"El Esposo Gordo"
They sound like humorous enough insults from afar. But according to the current issue of National Geographic magazine these insults were considered going too far by governments around the globe. These examples of insult laws, provided by the World Press Freedom Committee, show how stifled speech still is in many countries.

Insulting Turkishness is no longer a crime in Turkey, the magazine says. But insulting a public figure, or the republic's founder Ataturk, is.

The kicker? That breaking these insult laws often comes with a hefty price. Sentences have included $10 million in Paraguay and 74 lashes in Iran.

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AAJA Seeks New E.D.

After almost 10 years heading the Asian American Journalists Association, Executive Director Rene Astudillo announced last year that he is stepping down effective Nov. 28.

Founded in 1981, the AAJA is the nation’s largest nonprofit membership organization for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) journalists. AAJA seeks to increase the employment of AAPI journalists in print, broadcast and new media; assists students in pursuing journalism careers and works to enhance the professional skills of journalists. The AAJA Executive Search Committee, which was appointed by AAJA National President Jeanne Mariani-Belding, is working with an executive search firm –CompassPoint – to help with the search process.

Applications are due Oct. 1, 2008.

To see the job application, click here.

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Young Adults "Voting" For Less Bombardment In Election Coverage

Teens are avoiding online election coverage that provides too much detail and overwhelms them, according to a new study released by the Media Management Center (MMC) at Northwestern University, an MF grantee. Young people care about the 2008 election, but don't "want to spend much time following day-to-day developments," according to the Center.

The full qualitative study, "From 'Too Much' to 'Just Right': Engaging Millenials in Election News on the Web," examined the tastes of 89 diverse Chicago-area adults ages 17-22. The findings are online at: http://www.mediamanagementcenter.org/research/youthelection.pdf.

This in-depth look at news consumption provides some valuable insights for capturing and engaging young people around election news. For one, "news organizations need to develop online election resources that are specifically designed to minimize this 'too much' sensation," according to Mike Smith, MMC executive director. For more tips, check out the full study.

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Ethnic Media Leaders Gather in Chicago

Back in June, the McCormick Foundation hosted a gathering of journalism leaders who are working with the growing ethnic media sector to share strategies, challenges and best practices. They came from all over – Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York and elsewhere - and represented journalism schools, nonprofit ethnic media and media enrichment groups. If you’re interested in learning more about the conference ("McCormick Ethnic Media Conference: Strategies for Growing the Sector") and the discussions, click here to see:

* The agenda, participants and participant bios
* Video from a public panel on the State of Ethnic Media
* An article by Chicago journalist Lloyd Sachs covering the discussion
* A brief description of why the Foundation is supporting initiatives in this area

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A Real World Wide Web...of International Journalists

Journalists and trainers from all across the globe can now connect more fluidly and effectively through the newly re-vamped IJNet.org online portal, run by MF grantee the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ). IJNet has been the most popular portal for training opportunities for journalists worldwide since its inception in 1998, according to ICFJ. More than 18,000 people from 100 countries subscribe to its weekly bulletin.

The site's makeover means it's now Web 2.0 and features social networking tools for journalists to communicate, discussion forums, news on world journalism activities and more. True to its global roots, users can access materials in Arabic, English, Persian, Portuguese and Spanish, according to ICFJ.

Check it out now and create your own profile at: www.IJNet.org

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Ethnic Media on the Trail

A group of ethnic media journalists are covering the Democratic National Convention thanks to the assistance of New America Media (NAM), a McCormick grantee.

NAM organized the network, arranged credentials for the reporters and funded travel costs for the 14-member network. NAM, headed by media guru Sandy Close, is the nation's largest nonprofit dedicated to broadening opportujities for ethnic news organizations. Although the ethic media is said to reach an audience of more than 50 million, typically few ethnic journalists have had the ways and means to attend national political conventions.

The 14 reporters covering the Dems in Denver are:

• Eduardo de Oliveira, New England Ethnic News (Boston, Mass.)
• Randy Stelly, The Real Views (Baton Rouge, La.)
• Erline Andrews, Caribbean Life (New York City, N.Y.)
• Judith Martinez, Atlanta Latino (Atlanta, Ga.)
• Cindy Yurth, The Navajo Times (Navajo, Ariz.)
• Gregg Morris, The Word (Hunter College, N.Y.)
• Jacqueline Fernandez, The Word (Hunter College, N.Y.)
• Kisha Allison, The Word (Hunter College, N.Y.)
• Jonathan Mena, The Word (Hunter College, N.Y.)
• Kaiping Liu, The World Journal (San Francisco, Calif.)
• Zuag Kimberly Chang, Hmong Today (Minneapolis, Minn.)
• Ashahed Muhammad, The Final Call (Chicago, Ill.)
• Roberto Lovato, New America Media (New York City, N. Y.)
• Anthony Advincula, New America Media (New York City, N.Y.)

They're joined by their credentialed ethnic media counterparts organized by the NY Community Media Alliance, another MF grantee in the sector.

For more info on the NAM cohort, visit: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=5f56768fa66560ba45f241e7c661e209.

NAM also received credentials for two of its 10 applicants for the Republican convention next week. Their work will be available online as well.

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Climate Change Reporting Opp - Apply Now!

Are you writing about major droughts or trying to explain the science behind rapidly melting glaciers? Do you want to better understand climate change, its impact on your community and how govermnents plan to respond?

If so, you can join a select group of journalists from across the country for this all-expenses paid Climate Change conference. This cutting-edge environmental conference, one of four Specialized Reporting Institutes that McCormick funds each year, will take place Oct. 12-14 at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.

For more information, go to http://mccormickc3.com/overview/overview.html.

Applications, which are due Sept. 8, are at: http://mccormickc3.com/application/McC3_Application.pdf.

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Kudos to Fernando Diaz of The Chicago Reporter

The Chicago Reporter’s Fernando Diaz has been awarded the 2008 Emerging Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. He will be honored at the NAHJ’s 23rd annual Noche de Triunfos Journalism Awards Gala Sept. 12 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Among the reasons Diaz was selected were his “desire to converge to other media platforms, develop the magazine’s Internet coverage, adapt stories for Spanish-language television and uncover information that the entire community should know,” according to a letter by Iván Román, executive director of the association.

Diaz, 29, has worked at the Reporter – an investigative monthly magazine that identifies, analyzes and reports on the social, economic and political issues facing metropolitan Chicago - since October covering issues of immigration, criminal justice, and government and politics. In just 10 months he has produced projects:
• Documenting the burden families face in staying connected to relatives at faraway Illinois prisons
• The challenges threatening the state’s plan to integrate immigrants
• The success and failures suburban municipalities face in adapting to a growing immigrant population.

Along with his work at the Reporter, Diaz is currently a Fellow with the Institute for Justice and Journalism at the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communication, working on a story about immigrants in the military. This MF-funded program allowed 10 reporters covering immigration and their editors to attend intensive training and site visits to the U.S.-Mexico border, Los Angeles and New York City.

For more on Diaz and his prestigious award, go to http://www.chicagoreporter.com/events/index.php/item/Diaz_Named_%27Emerging_Journalist_of_the_Year%27.

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Tap into the Money

Looking to learn more about how to raise money from individuals? We thought we'd share the beta site for the Challenge Fund for Journalism's new Capacity Building for Journalism Web site at www.CapacityBuildingforJournalism.com. This evolving hub provides free step-by-step resources for getting people to give to nonprofit journalism groups, and includes sections on capital campaigns, donor research, board development and more.

Check it out and start cashing in.

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First Place for the First

The Illinois First Amendment Center, an MF grantee since its origins in 2001, is taking home a highly-coveted First Amendment Award from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). The award recognizes individuals and groups for "extraordinarily strong efforts to preserve and strengthen the First Amendment . " SPJ will also honor former USA Today reporter Toni Locy , who has refused to reveal her sources from stories in a 2002 anthrax case.

IFAC works to educate young people about the need to understand, preserve and protect the First Amendment. What started as a modest effort housed at the Illinois Press Foundation has grown into a booming non-profit organization, providing free curriculum, posters, videos and other materials to thousands of K-12 teachers across the country. It recently began offering its materials in Spanish as well. The Center works closely with newspapers to promote its materials and host an annual conference.

IFAC will pick up the honor at SPJ's annual convention, to be held Sept. 6 in Atlanta. For more, visit: http://www.spj.org/news.asp?REF=819#819

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Senate Takes Pass on Shield Law – For Now

Despite broad bipartisan support from both Congressional houses, Senate leaders decided against taking the Free Flow of Information Act (S. 2035) to the Senate floor yesterday. According to Lucy Dalglish, executive director for Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the goal of this important bill is to “create a qualified federal shield law that restricts the federal government’s ability to subpoena journalists.”

Despite the procedural delay, Dalglish says the Free Flow Act is still alive. In the past nine months, the Senate Judiciary Committee and full House of Representatives have passed the measure. According to RCFP, a revised version of the bill could be brought to the floor in September.

For more, see www.rcfp.org.

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Terrorism v Free Speech & Democracy: A Dialogue On Spain's 'Pais Vasco'

What is the impact of domestic terrorism on the civic life of a country? How does the threat of violence affect free speech and a free press? Where is the line between a legitimate push for independence on the part of a region versus the hijacking of the population by armed separatists? And how have the tactics of domestic armed separatists as well as the response of authorities changed over time –particularly in the post-9/11 era?

These were some of the issues that the Journalism Program’s Mark Hallett explored with Spanish Ambassador to the United States Javier Ruperez July 9th at the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum’s sixth Table of Nations event. Ruperez, a veteran politician, author and member of the Spanish diplomatic corps – as well as a former victim of kidnapping – was willing to share some of his own experience and observations from more than four decades in public life. For an MTFM blog item on this dinner discussion, click here: http://fanningtheflames.blogspot.com/2008/07/table-of-nations-spainpais-vasco.html. To learn more about upcoming Table of Nations dinners and other MTFM events, visit the Museum’s Web site at www.freedommuseum.us.

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It's Arrived!

Four years and thousands of planning hours later, the mother of all journalistic conferences, UNITY, kicks off this week in Chicago.

The quadrennial convening is organized by UNITY: Journalists of Color, a strategic alliance advocating news coverage about people of color and more diverse news media. More than 10,000 journalists are members, drawing from the four national organizations that comprise UNITY: Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and the Native American Journalists Association.

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama is slated to speak, among other dignitaries, including the President of Senegal. For the full schedule, visit: www.2008unity.org. You can catch the McCormick journalism staff at a number of McCormick-funded events and projects, including:

• The student projects ( more than 60 diverse college students are covering"the conference through print, online, broadcast and multimedia)
• A research study measuring the diversity of the Washington Press Corps (in conjunction with Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism)
• A video, produced by the McCormick Fellows, documenting how newsrooms have changed since the 1968 Kerner Commission. It will be shown at Thursday morning's plenary.

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A Few Great Ideas

When J-Lab put out the call for innovative digital news and information projects from women entrepreneurs, they didn't know the onslaught of quality projects they'd receive. Nearly 200 women submitted ideas for microgrants to launch or expand new digital projects as part of the inaugural McCormick-funded New Media Women Entrepreneurs initiative. A few months later, J-Lab has selected three proposals to receive $10,000 grants to launch their projects:

• Echo, a system of public storytelling installations in Atlanta. Led by Lila King and Karyn Lu, movers behind CNN’s user-generated site iReport.com.
• Latina Voices, a news site for and by Latinas. Led by Teresa Puente, a journalism professor at Columbia College Chicago and member of the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board.
• Northwest Navy News, a networking site for Puget Sound’s military community. Led by Elaine Helm Norton, new media editor at The Daily Herald in Everett, Wash., and a former military beat reporter.

The NMWE project is addressing opportunity and innovation, recruitment and retention for women in journalism by spotlighting their ingenuity and entrepreneurial abilities. Pilot projects will show what can be done. Research will tell what more to do. A summit in 2009 will showcase women’s creative ideas.

Learn more at www.newmediawomen.org.

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What Kids Can Really Do

The group What Kids Can Do recently completed an inspired program involving three Chicago high school classes. The McCormick-supported project asked participating teens to identify a profession that interested them. Student then interviewed and photographed professionals in the selected field. The results can be reviewed online at http://www.whatkidscando.org/featurestories/2008/06_practice/index.html.

The Web site includes:
The narrative and photographs that resulted from students’ interviews with adults
An audio slideshow of students reflecting on the importance of practice and hard work
A curriculum overview of WKCD’s process in developing this project

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McCormick Hosts Ethnic Media Leaders

The recent “McCormick Ethnic Media Conference: Strategies for Growing the Sector” brought some 30 leaders from across the nation to Chicago to discuss strategies, obstacles, lessons learned and impact of the work they do. The conference featured a public panel Friday, June 20 on “The State of Ethnic Media: Boom or Bust?” This public discussion was moderated by Community Media Workshop’s Thom Clark and featured Sandy Close of New America Media, Cristina Azocar of the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism at San Francisco State University and Juana Ponce de Leon of New York Community Media Alliance. Here are video excerpts from that lively exchange:

• Thom Clark of CMW introduces the panel and discusses the results of his organization’s research into Chicago’s 200 ethnic news outlets (click here)
• Panelists discuss challenges facing ethnic media
(click here
• Juana Ponce de Leon discusses the vibrancy of the ethnic media in a city where 40% of residents are foreign-born (click here)
• Cristina Azocar discusses the research conducted by SFSU on opportunities and threats to EM nationally (click here)
• Sandy Close on the role and strengths of EM (click here)
• Sandy Close on EM and advertising potential (click here)
• Closing comments on MSM v EM v the death of journalism (click here)

A highlight of this event was a spoken word performance by Esther Ikoro and Adam Gottlieb of Young Chicago Authors (click here)

Photo above by Demetrio Maguigad of Community Media Workshop

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Covering the Virtual World

We agreed to meet with Washington State University's Brett Atwood while he attended this week's New Media Academic Summit in Chicago. At the end of the chat, Atwood was informed that McCormick Foundation's Journalism Program would fund his proposed Specialized Reporting Institute on covering virtual spaces. The conference is tentatively planned for October on WSU's campus in Pullman, where Atwood teaches new media at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. For more information about this intensive practical training on covering the virtual world of 3D web spaces, contact batwood@wsu.edu.

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Semi-Pro Journalism

The always insightful Jay Rosen offers his thoughts about the rise of semi-pro journalism, which were inspired by a Personal Democracy Forum panel. The NYU professor says today's press freedom landscape is shared territory with professional and amateur zones. The result is a cluster of open systems, closed systems and trauma in the press.

Rosen oversees Beatblogging.org, a McCormick Foundation-funded project that explores how journalists can use online social networks to improve beat reporting.

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Digital Diversity Wins Honors

Bringing together a diverse set of community news voices online in a visually-appealing, organized way ain't easy. Or cheap.

But the Twin Cities Media Alliance, a McCormick-funded nonprofit in Minnesota, shows you can bring together the work of more than 50 community ethnic media news outlets, dozens of citizen journalists and others, along with some great multimedia and blogs, to serve a local audience. It recently won the 2008 Page One (first place) award for Best Independent Web Site from the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). The judges cited the great design of the Web site, along with "local content that is relevant...sleek and colorful design."

You can check it out yourself at: www.tcdailyplanet.net.

The site was re-designed in 2008 with local designers with the help of McCormick funding. Given the profusion of hyperlocal and citizen journalism Web sites, perhaps the Daily Planet will influence others seeking to make their sites more interactive and useful to their audience.

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Walking the Walk

The McCormick Fellows aren't just paying lip service to the multimedia landscape, they're putting themselves behind the lens.

The group of nearly 90 high-powered minority media executives recently launched their first foray into online video. You can catch their responses to the question: "Where are we today when it comes to diversity in the newsroom?" at http://www.mtfellows.org/video.asp

Expect more on this topic from the group at UNITY this year, where it premiers its own documentary about the media's diversity progress since the 20th anniversary of the Kerner Commission. The commission, which released a final report in 1968, was created upon the order of President Johnson to investigate the causes of 1967 race riots. It claimed the media didn't present an accurate portrayal of the riots and conditions leading up to them.

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'Reznetters' Net National Award, Internships

Eleven staff members of reznetnews.org have snagged summer internships this summer at eight organizations, including The Boston Globe, Denver Post and three bureaus of The Associated Press.

All are grads of the American Indian Journalism Institute, an intensive three-week program for college students sponsored by the Freedom Forum. AIJI is held each June at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion.

Reznet reporter Sunnie Redhouse was recently was named as one of the nation’s 100 best student journalists by UWire, a news and career service for college students. Redhouse, a Navajo who graduated this month from the University of New Mexico and is a 2005 AIJI grad, will report at The Salt Lake Tribune.

“It’s validation of what we’re trying to do, both in terms of reznet and AIJI,” said Denny McAuliffe, who teaches reporting at AIJI and is the project director and creator of Reznet. The six-year-old Web site, a grantee of the McCormick Foundation, is a project of the University of Montana School of Journalism in Missoula.

For more information, click here: www.reznetnews.org.

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Telling the Iraq Story

Americans say they are well informed about the war in Iraq, yet many question the media's performance in covering the conflict.

A new McCormick Foundation-funded online poll of nearly 9,000 respondents, conducted by The Poynter Institute and Zogby International said that while three-quarters of those surveyed thought they were well-informed about the war in Iraq through media coverage, only 18 percent rated the coverage as either good or excellent. (For more, visit: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=143774)

The stories respondents would most like to see covered include:

• Information about the Iraqi government 68%
• Pieces on the Iraqi people 68%
• Coverage of returning soldiers 58%

The survey was commissioned as part for a McCormick Foundation Specialized Reporting Institute on Covering War at Home. The three-day training for 18 working reporters on how to cover the impact of the Iraq war in American communities is currently being held at Poynter's headquarters in St. Petersburg, Fla.

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We've Changed Our Name!

Dear Partners and Friends,

The McCormick Tribune Foundation's board of directors yesterday approved a name change. We now are the McCormick Foundation.

You can visit the link below that provides a press release with more information that clarifies the Foundation’s long-standing position as an independent organization committed to serve children, communities and country. The new name also aligns us more closely with the legacy of our founder, Robert R. McCormick.

We are confident that this change will better position the Foundation for long-term growth and flexibility. The Journalism Program -- and our partnerships with each of you -- will not be affected by this name change. We will continue to invest in organizations that encourage a free, vigorous and diverse news media though leadership development, journalism education and training, youth media and free speech initiatives.

We look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,

Clark Bell
Director, Journalism Program

http://www.mccormickfoundation.org/news/2008/pr051508.aspx

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Don’t Worry, I’ll Save Democracy!

(This item was originally posted on Tactical Philanthropy/www.tacticalphilanthropy.com)

USC Annenberg Dean Ernest James Wilson III drew chuckles last week with his take on the state of the media as part of the a Media and Philanthropy mini-summit held at the Newseum during the annual meeting of the Council on Foundations. The headline: Traditional media is dying/changing, and democracy is at great risk.

Nothing new there, but through the hundreds of cocktail receptions and dinners he’s obligated to attend, Wilson identified the common syllogisms of journalists pleading their importance to democracy.

According to Wilson,
If you’re a member of TRADITIONAL MEDIA you argue:
1. Newspapers are vital to democracy
2. Newspapers are dying, therefore:
3. Democracy in the U.S. is at great risk.

If you’re part of DIGITAL MEDIA:
1. New media is opening new channels of communication and networking for all
2. Democracy is all about the interchange of ideas, therefore:
3. Democracy is being enhanced by digital media.

If you work in PUBLIC BROADCASTING:
1. The non-commercial media space is essential for democracy
2. Public broadcasting is slow to adapt to digital media, which has resulted in a shrinking audience, therefore:
3. Democracy is at risk.

If you are with COMMERCIAL MEDIA:
1. Commercial media are desperately trying to leverage their assets and cut costs
2. Democracy is good in principal, but the government has moved away from regulation, therefore:
3. Commercial media pays little attention to democracy.

Levity aside, Wilson raises a good point that more cross-sector collaboration on the challenges facing media is vital. No one sector will "save media" - and self-importance won’t help their case either. I’ve seen the silo-ing firsthand through my work as a journalism program officer, meeting with a variety of organizations claiming to have "solutions" to the changing media landscape.
Wilson’s call for increased cross-media dialogue is useful for funders considering investing in media and groups working in the sector.

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Are Newspaper Ads Going, Going, Gone or Just Going?

Interesting discussion on Jeff Jarvis' blog at www.buzzmachine.com. Are newspaper ads vaporizing altogether or are just moving elsewhere to reach customers? According to Jarvis, "...Papers in top markets are down tens upon tens of millions of dollars each in classified revenue that has disappeared."

This conversation comes a week after the nation’s newspapers reported a collective 3.5% drop in daily circulation. Some of the more savvy newspapers have overhauled their sales strategies in hopes of finding profitable digital niche. However, Jarvis has doubts on how successful these efforts will turn out.

"If papers are smart, they can use online and its laser targeting to serve a new population of hyperlocal advertisers that never could afford high-priced papers before. But as I can tell you from first-hand experience, papers are not built for high-volume, low-cost advertising like this. So those advertisers will go to Google and local blogs."

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American University Joins J-Schools Exploring Ethnic Media

American University's School of Communications is beginning to develop a relationship with the growing DC-area ethnic media community. This project is an outgrowth of Angie Chuang's class "Race, Ethnic and Community Reporting," which partnered with New American Media to identify more than 70 area news outlets working in a dozen languages. The School is now helping to nurture a relationship between ethnic media and the area's public schools.

For more on this growing initiative - as well as Chuang's description of some of the advantages and disadvantages of reporting on your own ethnic community, click here: http://veracity.univpubs.american.edu/today/vol/11/29/042908_chuang.html

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New America Media's Web Site Features J-School Ethnic Media Projects

The New America Media (NAM) Web site now links to a variety of projects at journalism schools that involve the ethnic media outlets in their regions.

With assistance from NAM (and financial backing from MTF & others), a growing number of J-Schools are exploring, researching and engaging the ethnic media in their own backyards and finding that this work reaps huge dividends in return. It helps the schools attract more diverse students, redefine and energize their role within their own universities and become more relevant in their communities. Schools are:

* Studying this growing sector’s diversity, scope and audience;
* Convening ethnic reporters to provide training in investigative reporting, online story telling and issues such as public health; and
* Creating advisory boards and networks of ethnic journalists to explore commonalities and challenges and to explore partnerships.

See more, plus an interactive map of the projects, at: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_alt_category.html?category_id=535

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