Univ. of Kansas Launches New Online Military-Media Journal

The William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the Univ. of Kansas recently launched the Military-Media Issues electronic journal. As a follow-up and supplement to a McCormick-funded Military and the Media workshop at Fort Leavenworth and a Military and the Media course at the School of Journalism, the website complies information to help bridge the gap between the media and military and to build stronger relationships between these two institutions. The site features stories from the workshop and provides a forum for officers, journalism students and journalists to post news and blog about their experiences.


The site also features an article by Journalism Program director Clark Bell on military-media issues, titled "Building on a tradition of service," which describes McCormick Foundation's commitment to the military and the media.

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

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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“The Military and the Media: Where Do We Go From Here?”

On September 23rd and 24^th, the McCormick Foundation hosted its 10^th annual conference on the state of military-media relations at Cantigny, the home of late foundation benefactor and former Chicago Tribune publisher Robert R. McCormick. 

This year’s conference, entitled “The Military and the Media: Where Do We Go From Here?” drew representatives from print, broadcast and digital media as well as flag-rank military officers in both public affairs and operations from all branches of service.  The discussions covered topics such as the importance of foreign media in communicating the U.S. mission to Arab audiences, the economy’s impact on the coverage of war by traditional news media outlets, and the emergence of new and “social” media (such as blogs) as destination sites for those seeking information.

A report from the conference will be completed and released in early 2010. 

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This Week @ McCormick Journalism: Military and Media Convene, TrueStar Shines

It's been a big week  for the Journalism Program. We announced a series of approvals of grants for more than $3.8 million over two years in the Journalism Program's new grantmaking categories of Content, Audience and Rights. Here's a recap of this week's conferences and news articles about our grantees.
 
Journalism Program Events

• More than 20 members of the military and media gathered at Cantigny this week for a conference on the "Current State of Military-Media Relations: Where Do We Go From Here?" Sessions included panels on Information Practices in Irregular Warfare and the Impact on Military Media Relations and Military Media Relations in an era of declining media power, resources and audiences. Much of the debate centered on the use of new media tools and technologies in the coverage of warfare. Since 1992, the Foundation has hosted a series of conferences (this was the 10th) 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. Stay tuned for the conference report, or view the 2006 conference report. Conference attendees can keep in touch with participants through our Ning site.
  
• Specialized Reporting Institute: The Energy Solutions Conference hosted by Ohio State University concluded this week. Conference presentations and resources will be posted soon on the event's Ning site.
  

Grantees in the News

• TrueStar Magazine was featured in the Chicago Tribune this week. Former Executive Stars Guiding Teens: True Star Magazine's success leads to True Star Radio, offering more opportunities for students. 
  
• TrueStar was also featured on WCIU First Business. View the video clip.
• The University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication was mentioned in an AP article, "Journalism Finding Recruits, If Not Profits," which cited the most recent 2008 Annual Survey on Journalism and Mass Communications. "Only six in 10 graduates from journalism and mass communication schools during the 2007-08 academic year had full-time employment within six to eight months of leaving school, the lowest since the annual survey began 23 years ago. At the same time, those programs granted more degrees than ever, about 55,000."
• The University of Georgia survey was also cited this week in a Chronicle of Higher Education article, "Stop the Presses! Revamped Journalism Courses Attract Hordes of Students: Even as job prospects dim, a focus on new media and entrepreneurship produces record enrollments." 
• Street-Level Youth Media held its annual 2009 benefit at the Red Canary. Anthony Ponce, NBC Chicago reporter, Wendy Turner, managing director of Vocalo, and Ray Noland, graphic artist, were presented with the Power-Up Awards, which recognizes media and digital arts professional serving as positive role models for youth.
  

Other news/opportunities

• Youth Media:YO! Youth Outlook and WireTap magazine is hosting its Eighth Youth Media Blog-a-Thon: Yes We Care! Young People Weigh in on the Health Care Debate. Details on how to participate. 
• Clarion-Ledger reporter Jerry Mitchell wins prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. One of two dozen new MacArthur fellows, Mitchell plans to use the $500,000 grant to work on unsolved civil rights-era crimes and complete a book. Larry K. Whitaker, president and publisher of The Clarion-Ledger, was quoted in the paper, "I speak for the entire Clarion-Ledger family when I say that Jerry's latest honor solidifies his position as one of the nation's top journalists. This is an incredible accomplishment that is a result of Jerry's dogged reporting and his refusal to give up on cases others considered unsolvable. We couldn't be prouder of this outstanding achievement."

Please e-mail us if you have news or announcements to share about your projects. We look forward to hearing from you.

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MF Grantee Hosts Afghan Anchor

The McCormick Foundation recently funded America Abroad Media's fellowship for Afghanistan journalist Sear Zia. In addition to news production training and agricultural research, Zia attended the season opener between the Yankees and Orioles at Camden Yards. During the baseball game, Zia met with Vice President Joe Biden. Zia, who is the primary nightly news anchor on Afghanistan's Tolo TV, reported on the Advancing Afghan Agriculture Alliance , a USAID-funded exchange program between Purdue University and Kabul University. He also visited four family farms in Galena, Ill. One highlight of the March 16-April 26 fellowship was an exclusive 30-minute interview with Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

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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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Journalists in Iraq Rate Themselves

After four years of war in Iraq, the journalists reporting from that country give their coverage a mixed but generally positive assessment. They believe they have done a better job of covering the American military and the insurgency than they have the lives of ordinary Iraqis. And they do not believe the coverage of Iraq over time has been too negative. If anything, many believe the situation over the course of the war has been worse than the American public has perceived, according to a new survey of journalists covering the war from Iraq.

To view the entire Project for Excellence in Journalism survey, conducted Sept. 28 through Nov. 7, click here.

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Cyber Soldier

In September 2006, MTF's Journalism Program gathered military and media leaders to discuss rapidly changing information management during war time. The Internet generation had gone into battle - and controlling messages going to and from the front lines had reached a complexity unlike in any previous time. (The report that came out of that conference is on the foundation's website at http://www.rrmtf.org/publications/militarymedia2006.pdf.)

Chicago magazine's October issue (www.chicagomag.com) has a fascinating interview with blogger Matthew Currier Burden. The Gulf War veteran, a Chicagoan, began a blog (www.Blackfive.net - blackfive being an old military call sign for the executive officer who makes things happen behind the scenes) in 2003 about those fighting the war. When he started the blog, Burden was one of the first to blog about the war. Today there are hundreds. Yet Burden's registers some 4 million unique visitors per year, making it arguably the most prominent military blog (or miliblog) in the blogosphere.

And according to the magazine piece military officials have taken notice: Since April 2005, soldier bloggers in Iraq and Afghanistan must register their Web sites with commanders. The Pentagon also blocks soldiers' access to 13 popular networking, music and photo-sharing sites (including YouTube and MySpace). Burden's book, The Blog of War, reprinting many of the blog's entries - was published by Simon & Schuster in 2006.

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