It’s a journalists right thanks to the First Amendment to keep the identity of their sources private, to ensure that they are able to continually obtain news from individuals without their sources feeling as though they could be prosecuted for whatever role they played in disseminating their story.  But when should the First Amendment – freedom of the press, take a backseat?

The Department of Justice recently came under fire after the Associated Press announced that their phone lines had been tapped by the government.  Between the months of April and May of 2012 the government seized the phone records of 20 separate telephone lines, including personal cell phones, assigned to the AP and it’s journalists.  It’s unknown just how many journalists used the phone lines during that time, but more than 100 work in the offices where phone conversations were recorded.

The government took the issue of national security above the constitution, suggesting that they had no other alternatives to obtain the information that they were looking for, information that they have yet to state whether they obtained or not.

The follow-up to the uncovered scandal has been less than apologetic as President Obama declared during a news conference that there needs to be a “balance” between national security and freedom of the press.

“Leaks related to national security can put people at risk,” said Obama, “U.S. national security is dependent upon those folks being able to operate with confidence that folks back home have their backs, so they’re not just left out there high and dry.”

He continued to say, “I make no apologies and I don’t think that the American people would expect me as Commander-in-Chief not to be concerned about information that might compromise their missions or might get them killed.”

The AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt, disagreed and sent a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder stating that the government obtained information far beyond anything that could be related to a specific investigation.  He demanded that the phone records be returned and that all copies be destroyed.

“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters,” Pruitt said in an interview with The New York Times.  “These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.”

The Justice Department responded to Pruitt’s letter with their own, offering no explanation for the seizure.

As the government stands behind their decision to disregard the First Amendment and the AP continues to seek answers, it appears as though this debate is at a standstill.  This makes you wonder why freedom of the press was included in the Bill of Rights in the first place only to be ignored.

It can be a daunting task writing pitch after pitch, trying to convince an editor to develop faith in your writing and publish your work; hopefully for pay.  In today’s market, many editors seek out freelancers who already have a dominant presence on the internet through their writing and beyond because they know that other publications trusted in their work and that their writing must be good enough to get them published.

With the economy in such a slump, crafting an online presence can mean the difference between paying rent or crashing on your friends couch for just another week.

Daily newspapers and online forums are closing regularly as the journalism market continues to change and publications have a difficult time keeping up.  Just this week it was announced that media kingpins The New York Post, The Daily News, and The Village Voice would be laying off employees due to financial hardships.  Editors are looking for new ways to bring attention to the content that they publish and seek out writers who are usually already established and can guarantee readership for their work.  It’s a tactic that ensures an audience beyond the publication’s readers.

In order to remain relevant in this competitive atmosphere, freelance writers need to take a creative approach when it comes to constructing their own unique brand.  Writers may be fearful, if not unwilling to expand their attention beyond writing to create an online presence or personal brand with the help of social media.  Old-school freelancers can be unwilling to embrace the changing dynamic of the journalism realm, swearing off social media as a passing trend.  It may be the thought that they chose journalism to write and only write, or unfamiliarity with social media platforms, but the time has come to embrace change.

The market is becoming increasingly competitive as many writers turn to freelance careers in lieu of a nine to five’s because they aren’t able to secure a position while unemployment is still high.   A professional brand is just the answer to ensure a successful future for your craft.

Creating and maintaining professional Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Youtube or Vimeo accounts ensure that your work has a regular forum to reach the masses.  Posting articles, engaging in conversations, and speaking your professional mind shows that you have interest in new journalism and embrace changes when they come.  They also act as a portfolio for editors who are seeking freelancers who are not only great writers, but those who can engage an audience with their thoughts.

It’s important to note that that the success of creating your brand doesn’t only come from starting these profiles, but from maintaining them as well.  It won’t do you any good to have an abandoned profile with not recent activity or engagement as employers will think that you are either too lazy to keep conversations going, or that you are too unorganized to know that you have inactive profiles scattered throughout the internet.

As journalism is establishing its own identity, it’s necessary for you to do the same.  Publications are facing difficult times and need to establish a devoted audience to guarantee a successful future.  It takes time to craft and maintain these profiles, but in the end it will establish your brand as a forward thinking and flexible journalist.

Major news outlets scrambled to gather stories in the hours and days following the horrific Boston Marathon bombing in an attempt to keep their viewers interest.  It became increasingly important for these stations to produce the first stories, beating out their rivals for the passing vindication of a few minutes lead on a story.  But when does accuracy take the back seat?

Nearly all of the major stations failed to provide actual news by stating blatantly wrong information and spending more on-air time justifying why they were wrong, and who they got their wrong information from than reporting actual news.  The conflicting information was everywhere; online, in the newspapers, on Twitter.  You couldn’t get away from it.

It was the AP who first wrongly reported that a law enforcement official declared that a suspect had been identified, only to follow up moments later by stating that the suspect was in custody.  At that time, no suspect had been identified.

CNN quickly followed with John King and Fran Townsend simultaneously reporting conflicting information regarding whether a suspect has either been arrested or had been identified.  After nearly an hour of reporting hearsay, both reporters find out from Tom Fuentes that their sources were in fact wrong and that no suspect had been either arrested or even identified.

“We were wrong,” King later stated in an interview with Washington D.C.’s WTOP, “It’s embarrassing.”

And NBC wasn’t immune to the lack of preparation either.  In a fleeting moment of indecency, a reporter is broadcast on live TV saying, “we don’t know sh-t,” in reference to whether a suspect has been named or arrested, after Brian Williams cut to the New England cable news show.

After the false facts and inaccuracies started hitting the major stations, it spread exponentially as smaller publications started reporting what they heard on the AP, CNN, and NBC.  It was a cringe-worthy viral dissemination of inaccuracy.

Even with these substantial blunders, it was the New York Post that continued to flounder in their coverage.

In the hours after the attacks, the publication declared 12 casualties from the attacks while in fact there were three.  The publication also raised eyebrows when they printed the picture of two young men on the cover, circled in red, with a headline reading, “Bag Men: Feds seek these two pictured at Boston Marathon.”

Neither of the men in the photo were involved in the bombing.  Opinion blogger, Erik Wemple, of The Washington Post even wrote an open letter to the young men who were pictured by the New York Post, asking that they sue the publication for damages.

This circus of coverage should act as a warning for the future when reporters need to hold their sources accountable, yet tread lightly when their information has yet to be corroborated.  It’s alarming that so many respected and seasoned journalists weren’t able to do their job.  Let’s hope that this is a problem that doesn’t repeat itself.

Only a year ago Tumblr launched it’s Storyboard project, an initiative to tell the “tales from behind the dashboard” as they explained it on their website.  With 46 million blogs as of February 2012, the social media site aimed to highlight the backstory of their most interesting users with a new story each day.

Their narratives covered the obscurity of Brooklyn glass blowing, a one-on-one with Stephen Chbosky – the author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and a day in the life of New York City’s pothole repair crew, among many, many others.  The stories were heavily character driven with no specific storyline structure.

But after posting hundreds of videos and stories, the company has inexplicably decided to pull the plug.

“As Tumblr continues to evolve, we’ll always be experimenting with new ways to shine light on our creators,” said CEO David Karp on the official Tumblr blog.  “[But] what we’ve accomplished with Storyboard has run its course for now, and our editorial team will be closing up shop and moving on.”

With no further explanation as to why the project is being cancelled, it doesn’t seem to make sense.  As of March 26, Tumblr officially hosts over 100 million blogs, a more than 50 percent increase in just over a year.  With that much growth you would think that they would want to invest in the projects that garnered so much traffic for the company.

With the recent closure of the project, the editorial team comprised of noted journalists including editorial producer Sky Dylan-Robbins, executive editor former Newsweek/Daily Beast staffer Jess Bennett, editor-in-chief Chris Mohney, and curator-in-chief Christopher Price are left to tweak their resumes in hopes of finding their next gig.

Yesterday, Storyboard officially aired it’s final piece – The Creators of Chicago: Artist Luke Pelletier, which in less than 24 hours has already been ‘liked’ or reblogged over 2,000 times.

The Storyboard project was considered an initiative to drive traffic to the site and push the company, which has historically struggled to generate revenue, to become a leader in the social media field that is heavily dominated by Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Karp is promising that this year the company will be profitable after finally allowing advertisers to pay for placement on their site – a move they have been avoiding until now.   Bloggers will be allowed to pay to have their blogs “stick out,” according to Karp in an interview with Bloomberg.  But it makes you wonder whether cancelling the Storyboard project is the right step towards becoming the leader of social media.

News organizations like California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting are using illustrations to tell serious, in-depth reported pieces.  By mixing artistic renderings in multi-media platforms, these publications are able to bring originality to their stories in a way that other news organizations aren’t.

And this practice isn’t just being used by news outlets.

Former United Nations worker Benjamin Dix spent four years living in Northern Sri Lanka during the civil war that saw the genocide of thousands of civilians in the 2000’s.   After the UN evacuation in 2008, Dix began working on a graphic novel, with the help of illustrator and filmmaker Lindsay Pollock, that combined audio recordings, film clips, and illustrations with photographs taken during his time in the country.  “The Vanni,” is a multi-media graphic novel adapted from the personal testimonies of those who survived the war and it follows them as they seek asylum in England.

During a recent presentation at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, Dix explained that he used illustrations instead of just photography to depict a representative family.  Dix continued to say that by using fictional characters he was able to depict every Tamil family instead of just a specific one.

Pieces like California Watch’s “In Jennifer’s Room,” which brings to light the abuses in the state run institutions for the developmentally disabled in California, use illustrations for different reasons.  Although they are still used to tell a graphically detailed story in a way that conveys the emotion of the piece, illustrations were used as a protective shield for the characters in the story.   This technique allowed the reporters, Carrie Ching and Ryan Gabrielson, to conceal the identities of those in the story by using renderings and a narrator instead of blurred out faces and distorted voices, which is what is generally seen on TV.

These stories were able to transcend beyond the page of a newspaper to give life through narration and illustrations to a piece that may have been text-heavy.  The reporters for “In Jennifer’s Room” didn’t have any photos or audio recordings but knew that the story would be better told through an emotional medium.  They decided to use the narrator and illustrations to convey that emotion.

In order to maintain the integrity and reality of the stories, these journalists – Gabrielson, Ching, and Dix, used a variety of reporting tools including court documents and testimonies to stick to the facts of what happened.  Although the images are one illustrator’s perspective of the events, they adhere to the gathered facts of these individual’s lives.  And by utilizing the talents of illustrators, these publications can differentiate themselves from other news outlets while adding a unique touch to their reporting and storytelling.

Over the past 15 months, Berkshire Hathaway acquired 28 local newspapers under the direction of billionaire CEO Warren Buffett.  The $344 million deal included newspapers from cities with only one major publication.  These single-print towns still rely heavily on their local publications for hyper-local news coverage that generally can’t be found anywhere else.

In his annual shareholder’s letter Buffett announced his reasoning for investing millions in daily prints.  He states that although “circulation, advertising and profits of the newspaper industry overall are certain to decline,” that he believes that “papers delivering comprehensive and reliable information to tightly-bound communities … will remain viable for a long time,” as long as they have a “ sensible Internet strategy.”

Buffett goes on to explain that although the “properties we purchased fell far short of meeting our off-stated size requirements for acquisitions,” that he loves newspapers, and “if their economics make sense,will buy them even when they fall far short of the size threshold we would require for the purchase of, say, a widget company.”

Buffett believes that with a heavier focus on internet presence, that these smaller publications can be economically viable, even profitable.  He uses The Wall Street Journal and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette as examples of newspapers that went to a pay model early and are still retaining their readership.  He also points to his company’s past successful newspaper ventures, including The Buffalo News purchased in 1977, and the Omaha World-Herald in 2011, as reasoning for his multi-million dollar purchase.

“Among newspapers in America’s 50 largest metropolitan areas, our Buffalo and Omaha papers rank near the top in circulation penetration of their home territories.”

Although the News and World-Herald had a revenue loss of 3% this past year, Buffett argues that the six smaller prints that Berkshire Hathaway has owned throughout 2012 had unchanged revenue for the year.

But Buffetts love for dailies isn’t deterring his goal of buying economically sustainable companies.  One paper that the company acquired in a bulk purchase from Media General was “significantly unprofitable under that company’s ownership” and Buffett couldn’t save the paper.  He explained to his shareholders that the company “will not continue the operation of anybusiness doomed to unending losses.”

Back in October, Nicholas Lemann handed in his resignation at Columbia saying in an interview with The Daily Beast that, “it’s just the way life works.”  He continued to explain that his departure was not due to any ill will after navigating the school through a “turbulent decade,” but that it was just his time to move on.  Over the past ten years, Lemann has shifted the school from a print heavy program to a more multi-platform experience for students.

In his tenure, Lemann brought on 20 new staff members and introduced a second more specialized program, according to The New York Times.  Lee C. Bollinger, the university’s president, is expecting Lemann’s successor to be savvy with digital media as the school starts to introduce new media to its programs.

Stephan B. Shepard, the founding dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, also announced earlier this week that he would be stepping down.  “It just feels like the right time,” he said in an interview with The New York Times.  “The school is well established now.  It just feels like the right time to turn it over to somebody else.”

It was back in 2005 when Shepard joined CUNY to help start a journalism school; the first and only public graduate journalism program in the northeast.  The first class graduated in December 2007 and Shepard intends to stay on to watch the seventh commencement of the 2013 class.

Since inception, the CUNY j-school has nearly doubled the size of each class from 57 students the first year to nearly 100 expected to graduate this coming December.  Shepard, who left his job as editor-in-chief at BusinessWeek to start the new program, has worked closely with faculty and staff to make the school a top contender in its field.

Both schools continue to see changes to the curriculum in order to keep up with advances in the industry.  CUNY dropped the requirement for students to choose a track in print, interactive, or broadcast, allowing for a more well rounded education.  Columbia followed suit and implemented a similar change for their 2013-2014 class.

With the announcement of Shepard’s resignation only a few days ago, officials at CUNY expect to start a search for a replacement soon.  Columbia’s search has already begun with the help of Bollinger, but a decision has yet to be made.

The data includes information collected from 544,220 professionals working in the information industry, but does not include those who are self-employed.  In a series of charts and graphs, the BLS covers all areas including employment, number of establishments, average income, projected job growth, and employment by location.

The numbers give insight into an industry that is generally considered to be dwindling, but according to these statistics, that isn’t necessarily the case.  Although the numbers fluctuate depending on the particular field, it seems as though there are plenty of opportunities in a number of fields.  Some of the statistics may be startling – mainly the decline of the print industry, but the BLS expects an increase in job opportunities in all sectors besides reporters and correspondents.

Some numbers show a surprising growth in opportunities.  Photographers are expected to see an influx in available positions with as many as 17,500 jobs to be added by 2020.

Since 2007, the field of internet publishing has seen rapid growth with the number of establishments nearly doubling to just over 9,000.  Technical writers are expected to reap the benefits of this growth with a projected 17.2 percent increase in jobs by the end of the decade.

But it’s not all great news.  The data shows that between 2001 and 2011, there was a 27 percent decrease in employment in the industry overall.  As newspapers fight to remain relevant in an increasingly technical world, some aren’t able to keep up.  The newspaper publishing industry saw a decrease of 40 percent in employment and nearly 11 percent of establishments closed.

Due to the decrease in print jobs, many newspapers have turned to the internet to increase traffic and make their material available to the tech-dependent world.  Turning to the internet also has its advantages as newspapers can expand into realms that were previously impossible.  More and more newspapers are developing videos and podcasts allowing them to reach a broader audience.

The vast decline of the print industry, with nearly 165,000 jobs lost in the last decade, has skewed the numbers since the overall job loss is substantial compared to the other fields. But as print jobs decrease, opportunities for other platforms continue to expand.

Journalism Degree.org is excited to announce the arrival of our new blogger, Sean Flynn. Sean brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to his blogging, with an M.A. in Journalism from The City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism and plenty of writing and reporting experienced culled from a successful freelance career.

We look forward to reading Sean’s posts as he keeps us up-to-date with developments in journalism and mass media. Check out his first post to learn more about the Era of Instant Journalism.

Welcome aboard, Sean!

As events unfold, Twitter users are able to pass along information to their hundreds, sometimes even thousands of followers, making it the perfect platform for news dissemination.  Similarly with Facebook, people have used the site to find others with similar interests to build a network of activists, spreading their story and mission.

It was on Twitter that news first broke of the US Airways plane that crashed into the Hudson River after hitting a flock of geese following take off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport in 2009.   The Egyptian uprising of 2011 originated on Facebook, which led to long time president Hosni Mubarak turning over power to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.  And in 2011, the U.S. raid on Osama bin Laden was first reported on Twitter by an unknowing IT consultant in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

We are on the forefront of a groundbreaking era for the profession and practice of news distribution, and even seasoned reporters are embracing new technologies in their reporting.   Former Middle East correspondent for Time magazine turned Cairo bureau chief for The Washington Post, Abigail Hauslohner, used Twitter to update her followers during the Gaza conflict last November.  While buildings around hers were being bombed, Hauslohner used Twitter because it was her only reporting tool at the time.

Andy Carvin, NPR strategist, might not be using Twitter in life or death moments, but he sees the value in the social media tool for crowd sourcing opportunities.  He uses his followers as sources for information, and expects them to call him out when he has reported wrong information.

“It’s a newsroom,” said Carvin in an interview with Gigaom.com.  “It’s where I’m trying to separate fact from fiction, interacting with people.”

Hauslohner and Carvin aren’t alone when it comes to their dependence on social media for reporting.  In their annual Digital Global Journalism Study, Oriella – a public relations network that works with technology driven brands, found that 55 percent of practicing journalists use social media platforms to source and verify information.

Since it’s inception nearly seven years ago, Twitter users have increased to over 500 million and Facebook recently hit one billion unique users having launched not even nine years ago.  As these social media sites continue to grow, it can only be expected that more journalists will find their way to reporting on the web.