Gazette journalists feel media glare

This will be my column for The Gazette (now appearing on Mondays): Journalists should experience the glare of media attention now and then. We’ve had the tables turned on us the past couple weeks at the Gazette Co. Journalists who are used to asking the tough questions and deciding what news and facts were most [...]

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ASNE and APME should merge

While I’m suggesting a way to save this year’s American Society of Newspaper Editors convention, I’ll go a step further and suggest how to save two organizations of editors: ASNE and the Associated Press Managing Editors should join forces. I don’t know the details of the history of the organizations, but ASNE and APME have [...]

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ASNE should give up on Chicago, not the convention

I was disappointed but not surprised when the American Society of Newspaper Editors decided today to cancel this year’s convention. Few editors or their organizations could afford the time or money to attend the gathering scheduled for Chicago in late April — still on my calendar because I forgot to delete it before leaving work. [...]

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Replay Wednesday’s live chat

Meant to do this Wednesday, but I’ve been busy. Here’s the live chat I had at GazetteOnline Wednesday with Gazette Co. Chuck Peters and new Gazette Editor Lyle Muller about the changes we’ve made here.

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Again, Twitter shows value for reporting

Twitter is not just some cute Internet fad. It is an essential reporting tool and if you don’t use it routinely and smartly in your reporting, you sometimes aren’t going to get all of the story. It’s that simple. Recent flying emergencies prove this beyond question:

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A new title for a new challenge

I can think of few jobs as exciting or as important (to me) as being editor of a newspaper. I was so delighted to get the job as editor of The Gazette that it seems weird to give it up. Voluntarily, even. My wife, Mimi, knows how much I loved being editor. My colleague Mary [...]

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A reluctant farewell to valued colleagues

In the first 37 years of my journalism career, the worst day was July 24, 1992. That was the day I was fired. The publisher of the Minot Daily News called me into her office and told me I was no longer the editor. The proudest day of my journalism career was June 12, 2008. [...]

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Personal news: Big news in small circles

When I started in the newspaper business, “local news” often meant who was sick and who was visiting. My first job as a journalist was at The Evening Sentinel, a daily newspaper of about 4,000 circulation in Shenandoah, Iowa, that went out of publication in the 1990s. I was a sports writer, covering the school [...]

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Setting the record straight

Update: I spoke by telephone and direct message this evening with April Samp, news director at KGAN/KFXA. She doesn’t think she misrepresented herself in her interview request. I will concede that Twitter doesn’t allow many words for a detailed interview request, so maybe it was more a matter of poor communication rather than misrepresentation (but I’m not [...]

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Replay today’s live chat

Live chat with Steve Buttry

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Bad judgment doesn’t taint the platform

Bad judgment is bad judgment. Journalists have said stupid things in print and on television and that didn’t mean those media presented ethical problems for journalist. Journalists have said stupid things to sources in person, in emails and on the telephone and that doesn’t mean journalists should avoid using email, telephones or face-to-face conversations. Journalists will also [...]

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Journalism ethics in social networks

This is a handout I use in Upholding and Updating Ethical Standards, an American Press Institute seminar underwritten by the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation. It doesn’t attempt to provide all the answers, but to ask a lot of questions for journalists and news organizations to consider as they use social networks for valid journalistic [...]

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