Media

Beacon-KWMU merger: Journalism re-imagined

BY JAN SCHAFFER / When the St. Louis Beacon and St. Louis Public Radio cinched their deal to merge their two newsrooms in December, they stepped right into the front lines of how old and new media are re-imagining journalism. The combined news organization (http://news.stlpublicradio.org), which will have a hefty three dozen-plus editorial employees, promises not only to alter the nature of journalism in St. Louis, but it also will chart new pathways for media entrepreneurs around the country exploring ways to make their startups sustainable.

Media

TV station owes viewers apology for story missteps

No other way to put it: St. Louis television station KSDK (Channel 5) really messed up in their attempt to expose school security flaws. On Jan. 16, Channel 5 sent people to five area schools to check on security. One of them was Kirkwood High School. The Channel 5 staffer was able to get in to the school unchallenged. He did, in fact, uncover what appears to be several flaws in the Kirkwood system.

Media

The News on Jan. 10: Christie outweighs other scandals

In every newspaper, on every cable news channel and on news websites, the “bridge scandal” swirling around New Jersey governor and potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie has been getting top billing. His administration, according to a Page 1 story in the New York Times, “ordered revenge closings of traffic lanes at the George Washington Bridge.” That’s bad, all right, especially since it impeded medical emergency vehicles trapped in the ensuing traffic jams and may have contributed to the death of one person.

Media

Prosecutor urges independent audit of Post-Dispatch series

BY WILLIAM H. FREIVOGEL / St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce has called upon St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor Gilbert Bailon to order an “independent audit of the reporting” for the paper’s high-profile “Jailed by Mistake” investigation. She wrote in a Nov. 26 letter to Bailon that her staff had found “substantial factual errors” in the paper’s conclusion that more than 100 people had been mistakenly jailed for more than 2,000 total days.