Director's Notes: Ups and Downs of Journalism

• Let News Be News. Jeff Jarvis, a digital media guru and MF grantee, believes Google News has taken "editors to school on content presentation in our new world." The BuzzMachine blogger says Google's open-sourced Living Stories is outmoded as the building block of news. The new order of journalism, Jarvis says, needs to reflect the transition from a product to a process. "It needs to gather updates and corrections on a story. It needs to put that story in context and history. It needs to link to other versions of the story from other stories."

• Where is the hope? Where is the transparency? The White House continues to show that President Obama's chest-thumping rhetoric about transparency in government is about as hollow as his vow to throttle the explosion in legislative earmarks. The latest swipe at the press involved the President's recent private meeting with the Dalai Lama. As Poynter Institute ethicist Kelly McBride noted, it's hard for the Obama administration to square its pledges of openness with the efforts to control coverage of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. "Government controlled coverage is not acceptable in societies that promote freedom," said Associate Press Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll. "And that is why we do not distribute government handouts of events that we believe should be open to the press and therefore to the public at large."

• ICFJ Award Opportunity. The International Center for Journalists, a MF grantee, is seeking nominations of professional or citizen journalists whose reporting has made a significant difference. The deadline for Knight International Journalism Fellowships nominations is April 2. The fellowships aim to produce tangible changes that improve the quality and free flow of news in the public interest around the world. Winners will be honored at ICFJ's Nov. 9 awards dinner.

• Quote of the Week: "Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all." -Thomas Carlyle