Press Freedom on the Web--Information with Mobilization?

The Internet is a powerful tool when looking at the concept of press freedoms.

I'm a regular reader of Jim Romenesko's page on the site of the Florida-based Poynter Institute and the news flashes from the Virginia-based Student Press Law Center. With both these organizations based on the opposite end of the country, a communication medium like the Internet allows me to get information from them much faster than through other forms (such as a newsletter).

I will often look at stories dealing with press freedoms from these sites, such as two recent incidents reported on SPLC: Facebook.com attempting to claim copyrights after a front-page story in the University of Miami's student newspaper and administrators at a high school in Washington State pulling an end-around on student editors taking a stand on public forum status by printing a month-late edition of the student paper without their knowledge. I think this is because The Orion's recent (and kinda/sorta successful, but not fully) battle for public forum status really galvanized what was a passing curiosity for me into a full-blown interest.

But, combine these initial attention-grabbing stories with some Google searches on other stories out there on the same incidents, and I can easily get my press right fill for the day.

A question I have, that I would have answered if the Internet at my house wasn't down when I was writing this: Does the ability to have incident of potential student press rights violations increase support for students taking these types of stands from across the country?

Hometown media in international sports

This post comes about because of three factors: 1) I like rugby league, 2) The Internet gives me access to news from the world over, and 3) I attended a seminar on words that cause bias in news stories at the SPJ convention in Las Vegas.

Right now in the sport of rugby league there is an international tournament going on called the Tri-Nations. As the name implies, it is a matchup of the three world powers in the game: Australia (called the Kangaroos), New Zealand (call the Kiwis) and Great Britain (called the Lions).

In case you're curious, the US national doormat--er, I mean team is called the Tomahawks.

In a match between New Zealand and Great Britain on Nov. 13, Great Britain's Paul Deacon was injured on a tackle by New Zealand's Nigel Vagana. Here's what caused this injury to garner such serious attention, this coming from a story on the site of the Australian-based National Rugby League:

The lower part of Deacon's face collapsed when he was caught by Vagana's forearm in Sunday morning's 38-12 British victory, with the injury at one stage described as life threatening after displaced bones burst blood vessels at the back of his throat.

Deacon suffered breathing difficulties due to blood pooling in his throat and was treated in the changing room for two hours by team doctor Chris Brookes before being transferred to hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair fractures to the central plate of his face.

Hope you weren't eating when you read that.

Vagana was put "on report" by the referee, which means he was referred to a judiciary board for a possible suspension. The judiciary decided to suspend Vagana for one game.

So, how was it reported in the New Zealand and British media? Let's look at the words. Here's New Zealand media:

Kiwis stand-off Nigel Vagana has been slapped with a one-week ban following a high tackle in last weekend's Tri Nations rugby league test against Great Britain.

The ban will see Vagana miss the Kiwis test against France on Saturday (NZ time), but he will be available if New Zealand reach the final on November 26.

Now, here's British media:

New Zealand stand-off Nigel Vagana has been handed a one-match ban for the tackle that left Great Britain scrum-half Paul Deacon with horrific facial injuries.

The 30-year-old Cronulla Sharks player was found guilty of a careless high tackle when he appeared in front of a specially-convened disciplinary panel at the Rugby Football League headquarters in Leeds.

Vagana was cited for a high tackle after his swinging arm hit Paul Deacon.

Notice a difference in word choice?

The New Zealand story simply called the play a "high tackle" and later described what Deacon's injuries were.

British media called Deacon's injuries "horrific" and used the term "careless high tackle" (which is an actually more accurate than the New Zealand story, because carless is a term for a type of illegal hit in rugby). It also made note that the juridiciary was "specially-convened." These words convey a lot of emotion that could turn into backlash against Vagana.

I see this as a little big of national favortism. Not that I'm excusing American media from this--I'm sure if an international sporting incident came up with the U.S. involved, there would likely be a bit of favortism in the word choice there, too.

It's just really interesting to note word choice in the press. Especially since the Internet allows you to see word choice from across the globe.

So, why am I in school again?

The question of "what is actually journalism" may never be answered, particuarly with the rise of the blogsphere.

But let me throw another wrinkle in there.

I've mentioned before in at least one of my blogs the variety site Cockeyed. I first read it for the "How Much Is Inside?" series, which operate much like photo album meets boredom meets third-grade science fair. What also added interest is the location of most of the site's activity (Sacramento) and a Butte County mention in "How Much Blood Is Inside a Human?"

Then there's also the "Pranks" series, where such jokes as replacing signs at Java City and McDonalds create laughs.

In short, I like Cockeyed. It's one of the main inspriations for my new site, hamstercult.com.

But, when doing a news search on the site and its operator, Rob Cockerham, he was being noted for a series of pages he put together on those "Work from Home!" signs that you see plastered all over telephone polls and fences and bulletion boards. He traced a bulk of them to the Herbalife company, which touts health products, but critics say is run in a pyramid or Ponzi scheme format, which is a extremly high risk investments that gains returns by getting money from subsequent investors.

It was this story on Cockerham that really caught my eye, because, in reference to his Herbalife pages, there were among the feedbacks comments, this:

Herbalife never used “ephedrine”, but did stop using “ephedra” in its products. Sounds like Rob could use a (at least one)lesson in journalism.

And this:

I think you’re wrong, Dave. Herbalife made a big deal out of its new product: “Ephedrine-Free Green.”

Rob’s journalism looks fine to me.

And this:

I wonder where this Cockerham gets all the money to “slam” people about their home-based businesses. It takes some money to post all over google — I wonder if he is reporting his annual income? It would be nice for someone to write an article about him and his “journalism” — I find it insulting! The website that he has constructed just shows what kind of crap this guy is involved in.

Wow, journalism? Can the same guy known for throwing a screwball into Safeway's Club Card system now all of a sudden, become a journalist?

So, after looking up, down and all around Google, I couldn't find anywhere that Cockerham actually called his actions against Herbalife journalism.

But other people did here. And here.

Just because Cockerham doesn't describe his actions as journalism, does that necessarily mean its not?

In inverse, can you necessarily say that everybody who claims to be a journalists is actually a journalist, and not just a lame-ass, smack-talking piece of crap writer who can only rely on trying to better his own pathetic work by ripping on other publications? (primary example)

There's never been a license to be a journalist (which, don't get me wrong, is a good thing.) But these definitions of journalism are kind of lame.

Here's what I know: I just invested the last four and a half years of my life and a boatload of cash to learn how to be a good journalist. Not just a journalist, but a good one. I wanted to learn the best way to interview, how to write a lead, writing in inverted pyramid and hourglass form. I wanted to discover the secret, almost Jedi-like art of copy editing. (the Yoda of the A.P. Stylebook I'm not.)

Was it all for nothing? Was that time and those thousands of bucks spent for nothing?

Back to the original question: Can Cockerham, while not considering himself a journalist, while not trying to pass himself off as a journalist, be doing good journalism? Can a piece on the policies and actions of Herbalife be considered good journalism when not taking space on the New York Times or USA Today's site, but a site that also features the details of a secret plot that placed fake Atkins menus at TGI Friday's?

Guess it's up to everybody to decide for themselves on that one.

The Orion--CENSORED!

For Week 11:

It's awesome to have stories from The Orion get picked up on Google News. In fact, Google News is one of biggest referrers to The Orion's Web site.

In fact, on many search terms concerning the Matthew Carrington, The Orion will often be shown higher in relevance than a certain local professional daily.

But, I saw something today on Google News that made me wonder what exactly is going on, and how often people are getting the full story on Google.

My column, The Online Lines, runs on the site every Sunday. Today, my column argued in favor of Proposition 73, which would amend the state constitution and require notifying the parent or guardian of a minor wishing to receive an abortion.

When my column shows up on Google News (run a search on "Proposition 73" (with the quotation marks, and look by date) this is how some accompanying text taken from my column reads:

What's your position on Proposition 73, which would require parental notification for minors wanting an abortion? Didn't enjoy it? ...

Not really anything that intresting, except for one thing. The first question and second question shown aren't right next to each other, but are in fact seperated by 60 words. A portion of those words included lyrics of a song yelled at anti-abortion demonstrators that people could likely find offensive. Normally, when leaving a section like that out, it would require using an ellipsis (...)

Here's how the first part of my column actually reads:

What's your position on Proposition 73, which would require parental notification for minors wanting an abortion?

If your answer was no, try to comfortably sing these song lyrics—sung toward pro-life demonstrators at the March for Life in January—to the tune of "Jesus Loves the Little Children:"

Jesus should have been aborted,
Mary wanted a career.
Abortion is a woman's right,
So we won't give up the fight,
Until you Christian assholes go away.

Didn't enjoy it? Maybe you even found it repulsive?

Needless to say, I was really stunned when I saw this. I had no idea Google censors portions of what shows up on their news pages.

This is an interesting jump-off point for a lot of questions: What does Google decide to censor? Who determines what is censored? How often do they censor? Have they ever received a complaint about censoring?

It's really shocking, and I'll probably cross-post to The Orion Blog later, with some editing.

Changes...

I get regular access to The Orion's online readership numbers. I've noticed a real change in our readership for October.

While I won't give exact numbers, in September The Orion had almost 80,000 unique visitors and over 280,000 page views.

For October, the number of visitors will be only around 60 percent of September's numbers, but the page views should be about the same.

This means, while fewer people went to The Orion's Web site, those who did viewed more pages.

I'm torn as to if I should see this as a positive step or not. I'm disappointed about losing all those unique viewers. However, I'm thrilled that the overall viewing of the site hasn't decreased along with that. Keeping the page views up can encourage local online advertising (as long as I keep on the business department about that).

Of course, the business department is also in negotiation to potentially purchase TheOrion.com from its current Canadian owner that doesn't use the domain, so keep fingers crossed and knock on wood about that.

What we can learn from others.

This past Sunday and Monday, I was in Las Vegas, Nev. for the Society of Professional Journalists national convention at Aladdin Hotel & Casino.

The idea of my attending the convention was to accept on behalf of The Orion staff the Mark of Excellence Award for the best all-around weekly newspaper in the country published once a week.

The awards were presented at a luncheon (The "eon" at the end of "lunch" can be translated to mean "super-fancy event that makes my redneck ass feel awkward") on Monday afternoon.

Sitting at my table was yours truly, a grad student from USC, three staffers from the Daily Wildcat at the University of Arizona, and four students from Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.

The students from BSU had won the Mark of Excellence Award for best all-around independent online student publication for Ball Bearings.

This site is, pretty much, amazing. It's what Cat Bytes could be if we had the same amount of time to devote to it.

Ball Bearings uses a real package format with their stories. There's text, photos, video, and interactive components with the stories.

Something that can very frustrating to Chico State students, being in a journalism program that puts so much focus on writing, is to see the writing not necessarily be the centerpiece of a story, particuarly in a Web magazine.

But, as Ball Bearings shows, that's not necessarily bad.

Oh, and we all came to a concensus that there should have been a hamburger/hot dog option for lunch as opposed to poached salmon with asparagus tips, boiled eggs, Russian salad and sturgeon caviar.

Beat the clock

There's a saying on The Orion's mission statement that reads "Get it first, but first get it right." I've been discovering, in the world of online journalism, the first part is specifically true.

I'm a pretty competitive guy, and journalism is a competitive field. The Orion's attitude is that not only should it be competing with the other local publications, we should be breaking stories on campus. Even if other publications print sooner or more often than The Orion does.

A good example of this that happened this week was the story dealing with the shooting in front of Normal Street Bar. A photographer was listening to the scanner at the time that the police call came across. He then started the phone tag, which eventually led to the story being posted online within a few hours of the shooting.

I can't take any credit for this, because I wasn't on this particular phone tree. But, there's still the joy in the fact that, for 16 hours, The Orion Online was the only news source for the shooting, until the Enterprise-Record printed.

Of course, they did get a little revenge by beating out The Orion on reporting a plea bargain in the Chi Tau trial, compliments of having a full-time courtroom reporter.

Online allows a weekly newspaper like The Orion to go toe-to-toe with a daily paper. Online journalism doesn't have to wait for a print run, so in cyberspace, The Orion can essentially be a daily newspaper, even if print only comes out once every seven days.