Alex Howard presents storytelling as a feast

Alex Howard has weighed in on the storytelling discussion that I recounted here yesterday.

He likens tweets to amuse-bouche, blog posts to appetizers (which, he notes, can be light or heavy), long-form narrative to the entree and links to dessert. Dan Conover suggested video or comments as side dishes. I added that an interactive database might be the recipe.

I like food and I like storytelling, so I like the metaphors. They’re not precise; sometimes the video or blog post might be the entree. But metaphors are for understanding, not precision. I hope this helps you understand that Twitter and blogging don’t endanger narrative. They add to our storytelling feast.

Dan Conover, Joel Achenbach and Deborah Potter on storytelling

I recommend three pieces on narrative journalism to your attention.

I addressed the future of storytelling in a recent post, Storytellers are challenged, not limited, by Twitter and other digital tools. That post, if you missed it before, might provide some helpful context for this one.

Joel Achenbach, an outstanding writer for the Washington Post, wrote lovingly about long narrative (focusing on Sports Illustrated überstoryteller Gary Smith) and condescendingly about digital communication:

Five reasons government shouldn’t subsidize journalism

This madness has to stop. Intelligent people have to stop thinking that government funding is the solution to the economic challenges facing newspapers.

I love newspapers. I hope they survive and thrive (again) for the rest of my life and beyond. If that delivery system fails, I hope healthy new business and journalism models emerge and stabilize to continue the important roles that newspapers have played for their communities and the nation: informing us of the news and playing the watchdog role on government and other powerful institutions.

C3 overview for high school journalists

I will be discussing my Complete Community Connection business model Thursday at the Iowa High School Press Association in Iowa City. This is the one-page handout. For more, read the full C3 Blueprint (38 pages as a pdf). Here are the slides for my presentation.

The business models that have supported newspapers (and broadcasting) for decades are breaking down. Some critical elements of the economic crisis facing media:

Twitter tips for high school journalists

I’ll be leading a Twitter workshop Thursday for the Iowa High School Press Association in Iowa City. Here is the one-page handout for that workshop, a shortened, student version of my Twitter tips for journalists. Here are the slides for the presentation to high school students.

Twitter is not as popular among high school students as some other social networks, but it still is an important tool for student journalists. Use among high school students is growing and it will be more important as you and your audience grow older. You can use Twitter to reach audiences not on Twitter:

Follow live digital coverage of APME convention this week

I encourage editors to follow live coverage of the Associated Press Managing Editors convention starting today in St. Louis.

The digital-only coverage of APME09 by University of Missouri students might help you in four ways:

• If you’re attending the convention, it will enhance your understanding of the events and issues.
• If you’re not attending the convention, it will allow you to follow the discussions.
• Either way, it might help you rethink how you cover big events in your community.
• It might help you think differently about what “Web-first” coverage means.

Tweeps offer advice for my Twitter class

For my Getting Started with Twitter course tonight, I asked some of my tweeps today for advice.

“How do you use Twitter for business, work, fun? Your best advice?” I asked on Twitter (of course). The answers came quickly:

Jon Konchar, a Cedar Rapids  business broker, tweeted:

Trying out Twitter for fun and business

I’ll be teaching Getting Started with Twitter this Tuesday and Thursday at Kirkwood Community College. This post is designed to supplement the course. It is an updated, adapted version of earlier tip sheets I have done, most recently the Getting started in Twitter tips I provided in August for my Using Social Media for Business class. Those tips, of course, focused on business uses for Twitter. These will include business and personal uses.

Twitter is a useful and fun communication tool for a variety of business and personal uses: 

• You can follow activities and discussions of people in the community, staying current on issues and events.
• You can connect with colleagues and share ideas with them.
• You can follow the news.

Commentary on Downie and Schudson’s “The Reconstruction of American Journalism”

While I am critical of the Columbia University report, The Reconstruction of American Journalism, I am pleased that it has stirred debate about the future of journalism. Here are the most interesting takes I have seen on the report by Columbia journalism professor Michael Schudson and former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr:

Tom Grubisch ripped into Downie and Schudson in OJR: The Online Journalism Review, calling it the kind of “shallow analysis that typically informs newspaper editorials on big issues.” Be sure to read Robert Niles’ comment. He sees Downie and Schudson as speaking for news industry leaders who “chose to ignore, marginalize or even demonize voices who argued that the news industry must change its procedures, in both editorial and business operations, to compete online.” Now, Niles says, “top news company managers are working their way through the stages of grief.” The Downie/Schudson report, Niles said, represents the stages of anger and bargaining.

Michael Schudson discusses government’s historic role supporting journalism

Michael Schudson accepted my invitation to continue our discussion about The Reconstruction of American Journalism. I  blogged critically Monday about his report with former Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. Schudson responded Thursday and I replied today . I recommend reading the other links, if you haven’t yet, before reading this. Schudson is a journalism professor at Columbia University. This is his most recent email to me: 

I have a different picture of our journalism history than you do. 

Yours is close to the conventional story that American journalists have long told themselves — it just happens not to be true. (Take a look at Paul Starr’s The Creation of the Media or an important work that Starr draws on, Richard John’s Spreading the News.)

I respond to Michael Schudson’s defense of “Reconstructing Journalism” report

This is my response to Michael Schudson’s response to my criticism of his report with former Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., The Reconstruction of American Journalism. I recommend reading the other links, if you haven’t yet, before reading this. Schudson is a journalism professor at Columbia University. While I encourage you to read Schudson’s response from the link above in one read, I have pasted it below. His comments are in italics, mine in regular type.

First, this was no clip job. Unless there’s something that escaped my  attention, every direct quote in our report came from in-person, phone, or in a few cases e-mail interviews done over the past 7 or 8 months — except for two quotes that came from interviews Len Downie conducted a few years ago.

Buttry responds: I apologize. I was too flippant and not specific enough in calling it a clip job, especially in contrast to the reference by Columbia J-School Dean Nicholas Lemann praising “the breadth of their original research.” Originality in journalism and academia is a serious matter and I did not say or mean to imply that this was plagiarism in any respect. But there is a wide area between original research and plagiarism: rehash. And that’s what most of the first section of the Downie/Schudson report was.

Columbia’s Michael Schudson responds to criticism of “Reconstructuring Journalism” report

Thanks to Columbia University journalism professor Michael Schudson, who responded to my Monday post criticizing his report with Leonard Downie Jr., The Reconstruction of American Journalism. I will respond to his comments later but wanted to post this immediately upon receiving it:

A response to your thoughtful post:

First, this was no clip job. Unless there’s something that escaped my  attention, every direct quote in our report came from in-person, phone, or in a few cases e-mail interviews done over the past 7 or 8 months — except for two quotes that came from interviews Len Downie conducted a few years ago.