NOTE: Please reply to both of these articles. You do not have to connect them in your analysis, but I would like to see comments on both subjects.

More Journalists Switching Platforms to Work Online
By Regina McCombs
Poynter Institute
Nov. 17, 2008

When I left television news 11 years ago to do multimedia at a Web site based at a newspaper, I didn't know anyone else who had made such a change.

In October, Brett Akagi, the director of photography at one of the best TV photojournalism shops in the country, took the job I recently left at StarTribune.com. These days, he's not alone in switching between mother ships. More and more journalists are finding opportunities just by crossing the street.

On the Web, news organizations are directly competing in ways they never quite did when they were simply newspapers and television stations. As newsrooms grow their Web sites, they are discovering gaps in skills within their own staffs and searching for ways to fill those gaps.

Recently, they've started looking where they have rarely looked before -- at the competing TV stations and newspapers in town. Newspapers are finding video skills at television stations, and stations are finding interactive thinking at newspapers.

"TV and newspapers are going to be a lot alike in how they produce content, so why not move people from place to place?" Akagi asked.

The lure of another platform

Journalists with certain skills suddenly have options they haven't had, and they are taking chances on jobs in a new medium as a way to grow their careers and maintain passion for their work.

Akagi was lured away from TV by the chance to learn Web skills and share his video skills with new people.

"Since I've been here at KARE over 10 years, I've grown so much as a journalist and as a manager," he said. "For me, it's time to push in a different direction where there's going to be continued and future growth, which is the digital side of journalism."

Others are moving in the other direction, from newspaper sites to television sites. John Cutter, former deputy online editor at orlandosentinel.com, took the job as digital media manager at WESH.com in August because "I was interested in being the manager of a Web site day-to-day, the senior manager who dealt with other people in the building."

After trying to piece together live online video solutions at a newspaper, Cutter was attracted to having equipment already in place at a television station -- "having access to live trucks (and a helicopter, he joked) instead of trying to use a sling box that only worked some of the time."

Some of Akagi's friends suggested that leaving the Gannett-owned station was crazy, especially given the Star Tribune's financial problems. But he thinks he will have better long-term prospects by moving online.

That's why Pete Soby left KETV in Omaha, Neb., 10 months ago to become the first video photographer at the Omaha World-Herald. "I definitely saw growth in the Internet," he said, "and I thought newspapers would be in the best position to serve that audience."

Scott Utterback also switched from TV to a newspaper-based Web site, moving from WAVE-TV in Louisville, Ky., to The Courier-Journal just over a year ago. For him, it was a way to broaden his skills.

"I was a television news photographer for 17 years before I realized I was playing for the wrong team," Utterback said. "I still shoot video almost every day, but I do it online. I am not sure what the future holds anymore, but I do know I trust the newspapers to forge a better future for the Internet than my former brothers. The greatest thing about my transition, however, is I am now learning the greatest craft of all time: still photography."

Keith Jenkins and John Poole each left different divisions of The Washington Post to head another direction entirely -- to National Public Radio. Jenkins took a buyout from the Post in May, where he was multimedia director, and assumed the same role at NPR. Poole left washingtonpost.com a year ago to be NPR's first video producer.

"I had been looking at NPR, storytelling-wise, for a long time," Poole said, "and kind of thought in the back of my mind that if NPR ever figured out how to do video, wouldn't that be fantastic?" For him, combining NPR's top-of-the line storytellers with news photography "felt like the Holy Grail."

Poole said one of the big differences at NPR is that his colleagues will turn off the pictures and just listen to the audio, which he never would have considered doing before. "I think it's been really good," he said, "in filling in that second half of the equation for me."

Unlike the others, Jenkins has made the switch before. He worked at washingtonpost.com and AOL before the Post Magazine.

"I really wanted to work on a Web site, rather than working on the side of the legacy media," he said. "Looking around at organizations, a lot were tied to newspapers, and that wasn't appealing. A lot of newspapers are looking at the Web sites to save them, and that doesn't make for a good environment -- it makes for a desperate environment."

Most of these journalists don't think of these moves as transitions between newspapers, TV and radio. Instead, Cutter said, "It's going from being a digital journalist to a digital journalist."

The appeal

Tom Dolan, president of the recruiting firm Dolan Media Management, recruited Cutter to WESH.com from orlandosentinel.com. Dolan said he's been scoping out people who work at newspaper Web sites as he tries to fill similar positions at television sites.

"Some skills can be taught and quickly mastered, but the Web is a culture unto itself. What we're talking about is immersing yourself in the Web culture," Dolan said. "It's more interactive and immersive, which is very different from TV, which has traditionally been a one-way street."

For instance, one can't underestimate the value in understanding interactivity, he said. "Time on the page is an important metric, and user interactivity is good for time on the page, and that's good for advertising. The early adopters on the newspaper side seem to understand this much more quickly than the TV side, although TV people are coming around to it."

Newspaper Web sites have also been quicker to adapt multimedia storytelling in ways that Dolan calls "building out the story," with interactive maps, databases and time lines. "We think some of these advanced Web editors," he said, "will help TV with that kind of content."

Meanwhile, newspaper sites are discovering that it can take awhile to develop video skills. "If you want to get good at video quickly," Dolan said, "you can hire a TV video person until your print staff gets caught up."

Cutter said it was obvious during his job interviews at WESH.com that the people there liked his background. “I had managed a staff and increased their participation in breaking news and in user participation, and they want to do that here.”

As journalism organizations change (and with that, the jobs within those organizations), how we think about what we do is changing as well. The photographers in the group, not unexpectedly, see visuals as increasingly important for everyone in the industry. But they also see the importance of a broad range of skills. Soby, for instance, said he knows he must work on his writing because the paper sometimes needs a story to refer to the online video, and he's often the only representative of the World-Herald at a news event.

"Journalists have to have a wider range of skills, period. Those skills need to include writing and audio skills, but visual skills as well," Jenkins said. "There will always be the need for professional photographers and professional videographers, but there needs to be a greater level of visual literacy among all journalists because that's the world we live in now, thanks to the Web."

It may be that this is actually the bright spot in the industry today: that those willing to expand their knowledge have many more places to find work.

"Why not add a copy editor to a TV newsroom? That would be awesome," Akagi said. "Why not add a TV reporter, a producer, to a newspaper newsroom? You'd be stupid not to think about using people from television. And for TV stations ... if we want to do better interactive graphics and better copy, why not hire people from the newspaper?"

It made sense to me 11 years ago, and it makes even more sense today.

---

Bloggers and Other Online Publishers Face Increasing Legal Threats
By David Ardia
Poynter Institute
Sept. 22, 2008

There is a widely held belief that the Internet is a legal no man's land, where people are free to publish what they wish without fear of censure or repercussions. While this may have been true back when the Internet was populated largely by techies swapping information on obscure Usenet groups, it is no longer true today. Perhaps it's a product of the maturing of the medium that lawyers are starting to take notice. Perhaps it's because some bloggers and Web site operators, albeit a small number, are making money from their online publishing activities. Whatever the reason, there has been a steady –- and dramatic –- increase in the number of lawsuits filed against online publishers.

In the last 10 years, we have seen the number of civil lawsuits filed against bloggers and other online publishers increase from 4 in 1997 to 89 in 2007 (See Figure 1). We aren't just talking about the CNN's and New York Times' of the world. At the Citizen Media Law Project, which I direct, we have cataloged more than 280 such lawsuits filed in 43 states and the District of Columbia, ranging from copyright infringement claims against celebrity-gossip bloggers to defamation claims against operators of hyper-local journalism sites.

While only a few of these lawsuits have resulted in liability, seven cases in our database resulted in verdicts or settlements in the six-figure range (See Figure 2). For example, the largest judgment to date involved a $11.3 million defamation verdict against a woman who criticized an organization she hired to help remove her son from a boarding school in Costa Rica, referring to the head of the organization as a "crook," "con artist" and "fraud." Scheff v. Bock (Sept. 19, 2006 Florida Circuit Court).

In fact, every time someone publishes anything online, whether it's a news article, blog post, podcast, video or even a user comment, they open themselves up to potential legal liability. This shouldn't come as a surprise because the Internet, after all, is available to anyone who wishes to connect to the network, and even the smallest blog or most esoteric discussion forum has the potential to reach hundreds of millions of people throughout the world.

Often the legal risks are small, but not always. Whether you are seasoned journalist or just someone who occasionally posts online, you will benefit from a basic understanding of media law. Let's start with a few of the more obvious risks.

First, if you publish information that harms the reputation of another person, group or organization, you may be liable for "defamation" or "false light." Defamation is the term for a legal claim involving injury to reputation caused by false statements of fact. False light, which is similar to defamation, generally involves untrue factual implications. The crux of both of these claims is falsity; statements of opinion and truthful statements and implications that harm another's reputation will not create liability, although the latter may open you up to other forms of liability if the information you publish is of a personal or highly private nature.

Second, if you publish private or personal information about someone without permission, you potentially expose yourself to legal liability even if your portrayal is factually accurate. For example, in most states you can be sued for publishing private facts about another person, even if those facts are true. The term "private facts" refers to information about someone's personal life that has not previously been revealed to the public, that is not of legitimate public concern, and the publication of which would be offensive to a reasonable person. This would include such things as writing about a person's medical condition, sexual activities or financial troubles.

If you use someone else's name, likeness or other personal attributes without permission for an exploitative purpose you could also face liability for what is called "misappropriation" or violation of the "right of publicity." Usually, people run into trouble in this area when they use someone's name or photograph in a commercial setting, such as in advertising or other promotional activities. But, some states also prohibit use of another person's identity for the user's own personal benefit, whether or not the purpose is strictly commercial.

Third, if you allow reader comments, host guest bloggers on your site, operate an online forum, or if you repost information received from RSS feeds, section 230 of the Communications Decency Act will likely shield you from liability for problematic statements made by your users, guests and other third-parties. You will not lose this immunity even if you edit the content, whether for accuracy or civility, and you are entitled to immunity so long as your edits do not substantially alter the meaning of the original statements. Keep in mind that this important federal law will only protect you if a third-party –- not you or your employee or someone acting under your direction –- posts something on your blog or Web site. It will not shield you from liability for your own statements.

Finally, if you publish or use the creative work of others without permission, you may expose yourself to legal liability under copyright law. It is a widely held misconception that works on the Internet are not covered by copyright and thus can be used freely. This is not true. Copyright law applies to online material just as it does to offline material. Fortunately, an important legal doctrine called "fair use" may make it legally permissible for you to use a copyrighted work without permission for purposes such as commentary, criticism, parody, news reporting, and scholarship. Whether or not a use is lawful usually depends upon how different or "transformative" the use is from the original.


David Ardia is a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the director of the Citizen Media Law Project, which provides legal assistance, training and resources for individuals and organizations involved in online and citizen media. Prior to coming to Harvard, he was assistant counsel at The Washington Post and before that he practiced law at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., where he handled a range of intellectual property and media litigation.