Media

Civil war at the New York Times: Newsroom attacks editorial page!

It promised to be a lulu of a story: “The Tyranny and Lethargy of the Times Editorial Page,” in the New York Observer on Feb. 4 by the paper’s editor, Ken Kurson. The subhead hinted at the juiciness of it all: “Reporters in ‘semi-open revolt’ against Andrew Rosenthal.” Rosenthal, the New York Times’ editorial page editor, gets skewered by more than two dozen current and former Times staffers, as do his assistants who write the paper’s editorials, the columnists on the op-ed page, and the “Sunday Review” he’s in charge of. The attack, from all but two named sources among the Times staffers interviewed, proceeded on four fronts.

Media

Reporters get ethics, law wrong in vacated murder sentence

When Ryan Ferguson was released from prison Nov. 12 where he had been serving time for the murder of a newspaper sports editor, television journalists from across the country swooped down on Columbia, Mo., home of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. The big story provided a teaching moment for one professor, concerned about accuracy, media ethics and the appearance of objectivity. A lesson was to be learned, too, about convergence, and how an event can be transformed or amplified by the various forms of media buzzing around it.

Media

Hoping a new media sensitivity might emerge from the Newtown tragedy

Soon after tragedy struck a sleepy New England town more than one year ago, residents of Newtown, Ct., vowed the place they called home would be an epicenter for change. There needed to be changes in gun laws, some cried out. Others advocated for a national movement to increase school security. A need for better mental health counseling became a topic of conversation in homes and coffee shops among the town’s 26,000 residents. More subtle and in the undertones, there also were pleas for Newtown to be the epicenter of change in how stories of mass shootings and grief are covered.

Media

Jamie Dimon’s $20 million payday: Good business or bad joke?

JPMorgan Chase announced Jan. 24 that Jamie Dimon, the company’s chairman and chief executive officer, will earn $20 million for 2013, amounting to 74 percent more than he earned the year before. This was done even though the investment bank paid out more than $ 20 billion in regulatory fines last year and laid off 4,000 employees. The story in the New York Times posted on the day of the announcement called 2013 a year of “bruising legal setbacks” for JPMorgan and concluded with a quote from Boston University professor of law Cornelius Hurley: “It doesn’t reconcile for JPMorgan to be paying out billions in fines while its CEO’s compensation is nearly doubled. You usually get fired for that, not rewarded.”