9/11 memorial in style

The Associated Press has published a style guide of 9/11 terms. The full list is here, courtesy of Nieman Journalism Lab.

Here's an example:

Flight 93
Acceptable in first reference for United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed near Shanksville, Pa. Include airline name and context of crash in subsequent references. Flight 93 memorial is acceptable in all references for the Flight 93 National Memorial at the crash site.

"Frontline" prepares to move online

"Frontline" has hired a veteran newspaperman to help prepare the show for the post-broadcast world. As radio and television move online, there will be a convergence with text. Perhaps this is where the writers, marginalized by shrinking print products, get their second life. Huffington Post

My influence is profound

Washington Post staff writer Ezra Klein asked readers of his Wonkbook blog to come up with a name for his daily list of five headlines published every morning. I suggested "Five in the morning," a recommendation that proves my creativity is limited to plagiarizing myself* and adding one. From Klein:

Housekeeping: “High Five” and “Fab Five” were definitely the most popular suggestions to replace “Top Stories.” I also liked “Starting Five” and “Gang of Five.” But the winner, from Gary Scott, managed to flatter the odd hours Dylan, Michelle and I keep to bring Wonkbook out. So, introducing:

Five in the morning

*I haven't yet decided whether to retire my occasional "four in the morning/afternoon" list. I probably should, and take the opportunity to "innovate" on my own blog.

Oh, and since I'm self-promoting - today is my first day as supervising producer at KCRW. Here's the note Warren Olney sent to staff:

Gary Scott has been promoted to the new job of Supervising Producer for "To the Point" and "Which Way, LA?"  He'll be in charge of editorial issues and centralized planning, including development of our New Media activities and their integration with what we do on the air. His duties will also extend to KCRW's other news operations on "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered."  Karen Radziner will continue to be our Managing Producer. 

The "other news operations" he refers to are the local news reports that run in the breaks of Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

Los Angeles Times rides the public document wave

The Los Angeles Times has launched an online public documents clearinghouse that offers readers a chance to learn more about what government documents are available under the California Public Records Act and how to obtain them. Readers are also asked to share records they've gotten from public agencies.

The project follows the Times reporting on the City of Bell salary scandal, which made use extensive use of such public records as executive employment contracts.

The Times, in my experience, has sought out public records in a public way. When I worked at the little Claremont Courier, the Times stepped in to sue for some public records denied to our paper. This obviously gave the Times reporters a crack at a story they might otherwise have missed, but the lawyers for the Times (Karlene Goller, Alonzo Wickers III, etc.) were extremely helpful and kept me, and by extension our readers, abreast of the case.

My hope is the Times expands the project to include the several nonprofits that do the heavy lifting when it comes to lobbying for more sunshine (CalAware, California First Amendment Coalition, CNPA, etc.) as well as other publications (at least nonprofits). Of course, the paper doesn't need to tell everyone what documents it's use for active stories, but once the stories are published, they can join the cloud-sourcing pile.

Ninth Circuit strikes down Stolen Valor Act

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down the 2005 Stolen Valor Act in reviewing a case brought against Xavier Alvarez for lying about winning the Medal of Honor during his made-up tour of Vietnam.

The law, which made it a felony, to claim an un-earned military medal, was used by prosecutors to charge Alvarez for statements he made in 2007 as a member of the Claremont-based Three Valleys Municipal Water District board of directors. Alvarez faced jail time and fines for violating the law.

The court ruled the law to be unconstitutional. From the LA Times:

"If false factual statements are unprotected, then the government can prosecute not only the man who tells tall tales of winning the congressional Medal of Honor, but also the JDater who falsely claims he's Jewish or the dentist who assures you it won't hurt a bit," Kozinski wrote in defense of the 1st Amendment.

"Phrases such as 'I'm working late tonight, hunny,' 'I got stuck in traffic' and 'I didn't inhale' could all be made into crimes," Kozinski argued. "Without the robust protections of the 1st Amendment, the white lies, exaggerations and deceptions that are an integral part of human intercourse would become targets of censorship."

I'd argued back in 2008 that the prosecution was a waste of time.

Bloomberg hires for Daily News reporter for Capitol beat

James Nash, who worked for the LA Daily News before heading to the Columbus Dispatch to cover the Ohio statehouse, will be the Capitol reporter in Sacramento for Bloomberg News. Nash has also done stints at the LA Business Journal and the Press-Enterprise in Riverside.

Los Angeles controlling

As a consequence of the changes made in the Tribune Co. bankruptcy case, the Washington bureau of the Los Angeles Times will once again be controlled by the Los Angeles Times, LA Observed reports. When Sam Zell took over the paper, the huge Times bureau merged with the smaller Chicago Tribune's bureau, and much of the editorial control was handed to the Chicago bosses. In the two years since, many of the Times' most experienced reporters abandoned ship, leaving a much smaller bureau in DC to serve the Tribune chain.

A new City Hall watchdog

The City Maven, run by former City News Service reporter Alice Walton, is up and running. The website promises to keep a watchful on Los Angeles City Hall.

MediaNews Group to hire

LA Observed got the memo that MediaNews Group plans to hire two state reporters, one covering the Capitol and the other covering Silicon Valley. This is good news for all papers in the chain - and an opportunity for reporters toiling at regional political beats to finally have a chance at climbing the ladder and putting their experience to good use. These are positions I wish existed when I worked for the chain (MediaNews would probably set my resume on fire at this point).

FiveThirtyEight hearts the NYT

Nate Silver's successful and indispensable FiveThirtyEight blog has bred with the New York Times. Their offspring is here.

Ambinder, Madhani to National Journal

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder and Aamer Madhani of USA Today have been hired to lead the National Journal's White House coverage. Madhani is scheduled to join the National Journal next month and Ambinder will join after the November elections.

This is part of a massive talent hunt by the National Journal, which recently named Ron Brownstein as the editorial director of the National Journal Group.

Some of the other recent hires at the Journal include, "the Wall Street Journal's Yochi Dreazen, Sue Davis and Fawn Johnson; Politico's Josh Kraushaar and Coral Davenport; and Campaigns and Elections' Jeremy Jacobs.

Riverside newspaper sues to open pension records

The Press-Enterprise of Riverside has sued the San Bernardino County retirement system to force the release of records for all former employees earning pensions of more than $90,000 a year.

From the story:

The action filed by The Press-Enterprise asks a judge to order the San Bernardino County Employees' Retirement Association to disclose the payments

The association initially "denied in whole" a California Public Records Act request from the newspaper for the "names, monthly payment, annual payment, job title, government agency and department" of all individuals receiving at least $90,000 in annual retirement benefits from the association.

The retirement association denied an initial request to turn over the records. The executive director cited privacy concerns, saying, "We are dedicated to preserving the confidence and trust of our members."

To newspaper contends that the records are public documents under state law. Attorney Alonzo Wickers, who represents the Press-Enterprise, had this to say: "Given the extraordinary public interest in this information and given the incredible burden pensions are placing on local governments in California, such as in Bell, there is really just a tremendous interest in access to this public information."

If you like Long Island and journalism...

The days of cutting are over at Newsday (for now). The Long Island newspaper plans to add 2,600 pages of news each year and will hire an additional 34 reporters to help write the stories. The paper's editor in chief is "very excited." Here's the story.

If you'd prefer something snarkier, Gawker is hiring a booker.

Francke advice about Bell

In the last few decades, First Amendment attorney and government-watchdog Terry Francke has done more to make small-town newspaper reporters better journalists than just about anyone else I can think of. He has generously offered his expertise to anyone who has his number, me included, and that has enabled reporters digging at the edges of local corruption to get inside scandals using tools like the public records to pressure obstinate city officials.

It comes as no surprise, then, that Francke sees the Bell corruption scandal as a direct result of the disappearance of small-town newspapers. Here he is in the Voice of OC:

...the Bell spectacle is what happens to communities without their own old-fashioned diligent news coverage by veteran newspaper reporters, or at least smart reporters led by veteran newspaper editors. The result need not be on paper, but it must be done with the community memory and professional savvy almost unique to newspaper-trained journalists with experience watching small-town politics.

 Francke argues that laws such as the Brown Act, which requires city agencies to discuss their business in public, do little to protect against the excesses of a Bell city council unless someone trained in its workings is on hand to act as a watchdog:

...the long absence of a community newspaper covering the city closely left Bell not a perfect storm but a perfect swamp. The Brown Act, cultivated over more than a half century by the newspaper industry, virtually assumes that newspaper reporters will be on hand to use it in scrutinizing government behavior. But even reporters require a bit of periodic training to help them decode agendas and read between the lines of official meeting bureaucratese that the Brown Act is just vague enough to permit as barriers to ordinary citizens.

What's needed by Bell -- or any newspaperless town that wants to avoid becoming another Bell -- is steady, consistent coverage by competent observers with journalistic talents and instincts (whatever their publication medium or platform) and some rules better than what the Brown Act now provides.

While Francke would like to see some reforms in open-meeting laws to boost transparency, he thinks it's unlikely they'd get by the government lobbies in Sacramento. The best solution, he says, is for Bell residents to turn their anger into organization:

The nice thing about small towns like Bell is that getting enough signatures to put such a reform on the ballot is a smaller task as well. If even half the people who have been storming Bell council meetings in recent days to protest the revealed abuses were to organize into a sunshine ordinance drafting and circulation committee, they could literally write (and pass) their own ticket to a transparent city hall.

*Update: City and state officials are gathering in Sacramento to talk about ways to make the pay of city officials more transparent. At this point, it feels more like a distraction from the stalled budget debate than a real effort at reform.

Court calls bulls#*t on FCC expletive rule

A federal appeals court has thrown out a Federal Communications Commission rule that allowed the government to levy huge fines on broadcasters when even a single expletive was uttered on a live show. The court said the 2004 policy was unconstitutionally vague.

 From the AP:

"By prohibiting all 'patently offensive' references to sex, sexual organs and excretion without giving adequate guidance as to what 'patently offensive' means, the FCC effectively chills speech, because broadcasters have no way of knowing what the FCC will find offensive," the appeals court wrote.

"To place any discussion of these vast topics at the broadcaster's peril has the effect of promoting wide self-censorship of valuable material which should be completely protected under the First Amendment," it added.

The FCC policy was put in place after a January 2003 NBC broadcast of the Golden Globes awards show, in which U2 lead singer Bono uttered the phrase "f------ brilliant." The FCC said the F-word in any context "inherently has a sexual connotation" and can lead to enforcement.

The new journalism? Or just good journalism?

In defending Michael Hastings and Rolling Stone against complaints from media "hacks," of which National Review's Rich Lowry is the only one named, Barrett Brown of Vanity Fair offers an interesting, and wrong, analysis of what the Hastings piece shows about the future of journalism.

Brown writes:

Yes, Rich; the most impact-laden story of the year, the one in which General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and his aides talked trash about President Barack Obama and members of his administration, appeared in Rolling Stone, not National Review. And it was written by a perfect specimen of the new breed of journalist-commentator that will hopefully come to replace the old breed sooner rather than later, and which has already collectively surpassed the old guard by every measure that counts—for instance, not being forever wrong about matters of life and death.

First off, National Review is chock-o-block full of new-breed "journalist-commentator"s and that's precisely why it would never have done the McChrystal story - N.O. likes the military too much. Second, despite the occasional opining in Hastings's profile, the greatest impact of the article comes from the unadorned quotes, when he lets the subjects in the story speak without a filter - the reader gets the comments in their raw form, and that's why they matter so much. Indeed, that's what the "old guard" media is supposed to be doing, according to its own standards. It often fails because it wants to maintain access or has to agree to ridiculous rules under military embed rules.

The point is, Hastings did not do a modern-day Hunter S. Thompson job on McChrystal, nor did his opinions about the war effort lead President Barack Obama to relieve McChrystal of command. It was the fact that McChrystal and his top aides expressed such open contempt for civilian authority in front of Hastings - had Hastings decided to be a commentator instead of a journalist, a participant or columnist instead of a faithful witness, the story likely would have flopped. He got access, he got close to his subjects, he listened and he reported. Just because the story appears in Rolling Stone and contains some cuss words, or because Rich Lowry said something silly, or because Hastings called the Marja offensive "doomed," shouldn't overshadow what really matters about the story.

(h/t fishbowlLA)

Know your audience

The Boston Globe stops being so high and mighty and finally listens to what it's readers want.

To be young and struggling

National Journal and Atlantic writer Ron Brownstein will be on the UCLA campus Tuesday, along with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, to talk about economic challenges facing the so-called Millenial generation (people born between 1981 and 2002). Brownstein summarizes here a recent poll that explores the ways young people are experiencing the economic meltdown and how it is shaping their views.

The program runs from 9 to noon and will be held in the California room at the UCLA Faculty Center, 480 E. Charles Young Dr. To RSVP, visit thenexteconomy.eventbrite.com.

A new L.A. magazine

Former LA Weekly editors Laurie Ochoa and Joe Donnelly plan to deliver the first edition of their quarterly literary journal Slake in early July. LAO

Has it come to this? Yes.

Grist's Jennifer Prediger (a former colleague at the Claremont Courier) donned a fox mask and asked for donations to keep the nonprofit website's environmental journalists on the payroll. Cutesy or not, direct appeals will have to become more the norm than the exception if important - but often neglected - forms of journalism are to continue to thrive.

Here's the video: