Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Oh, and I meant to add:

Above, where we were talking about the many many supposed saviors of
mainstream journalism -- blogs, VR, video.
The latest wave of investment in a possible lifeline is, of course,
podcasting.

The Daily gets billions of downloads. 
  

    

I agree with Paula that most editors in chief are firmly on the
right side
of the supposed wall — I sometimes call this "a bright line" —
between editorial and the business folks.
  

    
My experience of Times' coverage is that I see the thumb on the
scales much more on headlines and subheads than on the pieces
themselves.

That suggests that there is some editorializing being done beyond
the reporting.
  

    
Today is the last official day of State of the News 2024. 
However, folks are welcome to continue the discussion in this topic.

Please join me in thanking Paula Span and John Schwartz for sharing
their time and insights with us over the past two weeks.
  

    
Thanks, guys. It's always a pleasure to read your posts.
  

    
Slip; yes, by all means, thanks very much to Paula and John for
their insider perspective, and to Emily and crew for shepherding a
very productive and enlightening discussion. 

>the appearance of impropriety is as damning as impropriety itself

The Calpurnia Gambit. But the appearance of propriety, fabricated
with false equivalencies masquerading as objectivity, and
uncritically redacting partisan claims to mimic "balance", is as
pernicious as it is rampant. Of course no EIC is going to do or say
anything that will betray a bias, but the buck does stop with them.
The bias is evident in the work product, however organic it may be.
I wouldn't expect that anyone could achieve that position of trust
without the talent to cultivate a reputation for cautious probity.
But nobody ever got fired for defending capitalism unequivocally as
a matter of company policy. They don't even question it. It's so
ingrained in the culture it's not even seen as partiality. It's the
same with Christianity, patriarchy, and melanin deficiency enjoying
positions of influence and authority, whatever the demographic
profile of the newsroom. It's just the way we've always done things
around here. Of course they reflexively defend capital, without ever
recognizing that it constitutes taking a side.

Media do not influence sentiment with broad, transparent advocacy.
It's the thousand tiny cuts that cause the truth to bleed out.
  

    
Yes thank you so much!

speaking of the NYTimes, saw this on our Library's New Book shelf:

The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, and
the Transformation of Journalism, by Adam Nagourney.

Wondering if you had any thoughts on it, or on other recent works on
the Times or other books on News?
  

    
yes, thanx to all who participated...
  

    
Many thanks , this was one of the more interesting and engaging
Inkwell conversations
  

    

Thanks, everybody! This has been a pleasure. And what an honor to share the
stage with Paula and Emily.

(Betsy, Agam Nagourney's book is terrific. A great look at The Times'
painful transition to the digital realm, with every scandal and corner-
office intrigue along the way. I ate it up.)
  

    
there was a fantastic longform piece in grand street maybe 1991
which was a great dissection of nyt culture...rather doubt this has
been digitized anywhere...
  

    
Thanks Paula, John, and Emily.
  

    

thanks everyone!

> Tiff, I read fashion reporting!

emily, i love fashion reporting & used to be a fashion editor for a tiny
independent paper. but writing a fashion piece -- even recruiting models
and makeup designers and getting the clothes, recruiting photographers as
needed, art directing a shoot -- was far less stressful and time-consuming
than writing a three-paragraph news story for an alternative weekly. that
was my experience.
  

    
Another round of applause for newly-minted <inkwell.vue> cohost
Emily for conceiving and producing this discussion! And thanks to
John and Paula and everyone who participated!
  

    
It's been a thoughtful and satisfying discussion.  Thanks, all and
particular thanks to Emily for hosting and to John for his insights.

Besides the Nagourney book, Marty Baron has a book out that I
haven't read but that is getting respectful attention.
  

    
Thanks again and thank you both for the book recs!
  

    

Thanks, Jon!

I have just started, and am enjoying, a book called, "The Battle of
Ink and Ice: A Sensational Story of News Barons, North Pole
Explorers, and the Making of Modern Media," by Darrell Hartman. 

It is a new history of modern newspaper journalism, but this time
through the lens of how the leading newspapers of the late
19th-early 20th centuries (mostly U.S. and UK so far), and the
moguls who owned and ran them, used polar exploration and explorers
to try and beat each other to readers, revenues and influence.

In the process, it offers something of a fresh take on how these
papers both promoted and harnessed themselves to celebrity culture
to get ahead. 
  

    
This has been a very interesting discussion! Thanks to all
participants and organizers.
  

    


hosts, could we have a recap before freezing this topic? 

like one last post covering:

outside link to this discussion
name of topic, interviewees, hosts/interlocutors

a list of helpful external links to books or websites mentioned in the
conversation?

i'm thinking of how podcasts like Ezra Klein always have this in the "show
notes."

might be helpful for us, if we want to disseminate this conversation over
the interwebz later.
  

    
i was under the impression no inkwell.vue topic was ever frozen?
  

    
Correct, we don't freeze topics when we reach the end of the two
weeks typically set - it's always okay for the topic to continue,
but we ask our guests to make a two week commitment.

The public link for the topic is
<https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/541/John-Schwartz-and-Paula-Sp
an-Sta-page01.html>

Name of the topic is "John Schwartz and Paula Span: State of the
News 2024"

Emily Gertz led the conversation, guests were John Schwartz and
Paula Span.
  

    
ANd you are welcome to keep posting here, although the guests aren't required
to read :^)
  

    
I expect they will read anyway.
  

    

maybe so!
  

    
Possible.