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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (19614)	12/12/2003 1:52:50 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793563

USC ANNENBERG ONLINE JOURNALISM REVIEW MEDIA Best Coverage of the U.S. Elections We take a look at the top mainstream news sites' coverage of the 2004 campaigns for their interactive features, clean design and personality. Mark Glaser Posted: 2003-12-11 It's just shy of 11 months before the 2004 U.S. presidential election, but already there have been countless Democratic debates, and candidates have raised tens of millions of dollars. Two campaigns -- Howard Dean and Wesley Clark -- in particular have reaped huge Internet buzz, and bucks. With candidates jumping into the media feeding frenzy so early, many Americans may be having trouble making sense of it all. While a Bush sound bite here or a Dean profile there might give them a tiny taste of who the players are, the Net provides a bigger palette for information and interaction than the print or broadcast media. Already, the top news sites have set aside resources and space to cover the election. The challenge? To keep these sections brimming with fresh material, and utilizing clean designs that won't confuse readers. The days of multimedia for the sake of multimedia are over, and sites that can deliver useful, timely information in text, video or graphical formats that are relevant will always win out. Bill Clinton's signature election phrase was "It's the economy, stupid." For election coverage online, "It's the reader, stupid." Designs or features meant to wow colleagues -- but which leave readers scratching their noggins -- should be sent back to the creative scrap heap. With that in mind, today's column will look at the top mainstream U.S. news sites, while future roundups will cover international, independent and advocacy sites as well as Weblogs. Got a favorite site or feature? E-mail me at glaze@sprintmail.com for future inclusion. Best Embedded Reports on Candidates: MSNBC.com I never liked the term "embedded reporter" for the official spots given to journalists during the war in Iraq. But I can't come up with a better term, so I guess I'll have to live with the political "embeds" who cover each Democratic candidate and try not to picture MSNBC's Tom Llamas embedded onto the Rev. Al Sharpton. MSNBC.com has gone the distance with the embed concept, with each embedded MSNBC TV reporter running a Weblog for happenings with each of the nine Democratic candidates. The main embed page gives you a quick view into the past seven days of each candidate, with video or blurbs of what's going on. Clicking on the blurbs takes you to that particular Weblog posting -- usually a paragraph or two of insight from the campaign trail. ABCNews.com tried to mimic MSNBC.com with its "Field Notes" on each candidate. That effort has fallen short, with a clumsy navigation and only one old note from the Bush/Cheney campaign (can't blame them for trying...). Plus, candidate Dennis Kucinich says ABCNews pulled its embeds from his campaign, as well as from those of Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun. Best Morning Roundup, Attention-Deficit-Disorder Edition: CNN.com's "Morning Grind" ABC's "The Note" started it all by giving political junkies all the dirt first thing in the morning. Now the field has filled up with competitors, with NBC/MSNBC, CBS and CNN adding more words per screen than any wonk could ever dig through. The online-only report includes intelligence culled from ABC's political team, as well as important stories from around the Web. While "The Note" and NBC's "First Read" are bloated with details, CNN's "Morning Grind" is a site for sore eyes, sensibly partitioned into a readable "Day Ahead" feature, "Hot Topics" from outside news sources, a quick rundown on what's on CNN TV, and the daily schedule for each candidate -- including Bush. The only knock on CNN's effort is that there's no daily e-mail newsletter, and it's hard to find. Otherwise, they've done the genre proud. CBSNews.com's Washington Wrap also deserves credit for a slim fast-induced roundup, and its e-mail notification does the best job of selling the stories. Best Morning Roundup, Policy Wonk Edition: ABCNews.com's "The Note" Now, for people who don't mind reading a daily column that recently hit a whopping 4,900 words (and that was just the news summary!), then ABCNews.com's stalwart "The Note" is still the one. You get an hour-by-hour schedule up top, trademark cheeky commentary mixed with links all over the Web, and a combined candidate and primary calendar that stretches on for months. Basically, everything but the kitchen sink. NBC's "First Read" isn't bad either (found on MSNBC.com), and recently clocked in at 3,500 words. There's something slightly annoying about the Weblog format for it. Otherwise, both "First Read" and "The Note" are heaven on earth for policy wonks or wannabes. Best Use of People Power: WSJ.com's "New Hampshire Diary" We've heard the candidates. We've heard the pundits. We've heard from just about everyone but the actual voters. So bully for the Wall Street Journal Online for creating the "New Hampshire Diary," a little interactive box/blog thing that will follow the thoughts of four New Hampshire voters in the countdown to that state's first-in-the-nation primary. You get their thoughts on the recent debate, and can see who they'd vote for today, along with candidates they haven't ruled out. The Journal says in the intro that "this isn't a survey to predict a winner, but it should provide insight into how voters make decisions." So far it's a nice alternative to the landfills of punditry and hogwash, though as a pop-up box feature, you can't link to it. The best way to check it out is to follow the first link under "Campaign Journal" on WSJ.com's Politics & Policy page. One Page That Does It All: Washingtonpost.com's Elections 2004 My complaints are simple for special election pages: too busy (MSNBC.com) or too lite (ABCNews.com) -- and too many clicks to get what I want. Leave it to the Washington Post's site to give me something that's just right. A simple graphical entree into entire sections on each candidate. A list of transcripts from all the major debates. A primary calendar that's clickable right on the page -- no messy pop-ups or links away. Same for U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races. Each candidate gets a special page of stories, an in-depth profile, a live online chat transcript, and you can get a weekly e-mail newsletter for updates. This page is the perfect gateway to probably the deepest pool of information on any of the main U.S. news sites. Now why can't I find a link to it on the site's home page? (OK, it's way down under Politics, but it deserves bigger play.) One Page That (Almost) Does It All: CNN.com's "Presidential Primary Preview" CNN offers an even more compelling, clean graphical front end to its Democratic primary information. There's a "Primary Explainer," great graphs on money spent and raised, interactive charts with candidates' stands on the issues, and a timeline of events and election calendar. My only gripe is that unlike the washingtonpost.com page, the CNN page forces you to click through various interactive graphics, some of dubious quality (the ponderous Quick Vote feature). Still, the icons are nicely done, simple for the average Joe or Jane, and you don't have to scroll down to eternity to take in the whole scene. Most Personality for an Online Column: USNews.com's "Washington Whispers" U.S. News and World Report's "Washington Whispers" column by Paul Bedard offers up something online that the others lack: gossip. Though Bedard looks at more than just the presidential race, he's had some interesting items lately, including one on the First Lady raising as much money -- $5.5 million -- as the vice president. In fact, his online "Whispers" have more inside dirt on the Bush campaign than many of the other online columns, which are focused so heavily on the Democratic derby. Best Interactive Graphic with Meat: CBSNews.com's "Campaign 2004" CBSNews.com might be late to the game, but they have been quick to utilize one of the medium's classic features: the interactive graphic. They seem almost cliched by now, but CBSNews.com uses the form to give bite-sized views of the candidates, along with much more depth on money issues and history. The big bonus is the "Briefing Book," which links to PDF files with much deeper info on candidates' stands on issues, key dates, and battleground states. This is the background data that CBS News producers and correspondents use, according to the intro, and the Net is the perfect medium to give viewers and readers that source material. To get to these interactives, you must go to the Politics page and go under the News Tools section. Best Interactive Presentation, Documentary-Style: NYTimes.com's "Challenging Bush" Funny that the interactive election guide that's the most cinematic is from a newspaper. NYTimes.com does a classy job delivering slide shows in documentary style for each candidate (only five are posted so far), telling their life story with archival photographs and narration from a Times reporter. There's also a timeline of events for each candidate and links to interactives for the other candidates. The mini-documentaries make a great understated counterpoint to the reams of content the Times provides in text stories online. To find them, go to the Campaigns page, and scroll down to the Lieberman interactive feature box. Best of the Rest Al Hunt's Campaign Journal Longtime pundit gets to wax wise in this online-only column for WSJ.com. Slate's Campaign 2004 Field Guide Buzzwords, agenda, worldview, flip-flops and gaffes by candidates. In dire need of updating. NYTimes.com's Politics Navigator An exhaustive guide to political Web sites including parties, polls, candidates and the government. CNN.com's Campus Vibe Thoughts on the election from various student reporters around U.S. university campuses. WSJ.com's Run for the Money Nice interactive graphic on money raised by each candidate, with great charts. ojr.org

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (19614)	12/12/2003 2:12:30 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793563

Doesn't take the "LA Times" long to start "badmouthing" the "NY Times" new ombudsman. Maybe they are afraid of the same treatment. REGARDING MEDIA TIM RUTTEN Shouldering responsibility Tim Rutten December 10, 2003 The latest installment in the scandal triggered by Jayson Blair's now-notorious deceit clicked into place this week, as the New York Times published the first column by a new "public editor," who will serve as "the readers' representative." Blair, you will recall, was the serial plagiarist and fabricator whose intellectual crime spree convulsed the Times earlier this year, ultimately forcing the resignation of executive editor Howell Raines and managing editor Gerald Boyd. Among the reforms promised in the wake of those melancholy events was the creation of a public editor, which is another way of saying ombudsman. Ombudsmen are the flavor of the month in American journalism. On any given Sunday, they now can be found in newspapers across the country scolding, explaining, pointing fingers and soothing ruffled sensibilities. Some do a better job than others; all are in the service of a deeply mistaken notion — that editors can outsource responsibility. Not all change is reform, and in this case the Times has merely surrendered to fashion. The idea of installing an ombudsman there was first raised in the 1960s and rejected by then-editor A.M. Rosenthal with the firm support of his publisher, Arthur Sulzberger. In place of the ombudsman, Rosenthal introduced a rigorous corrections policy supplemented by more expansive editor's notes, a combination now standard in the industry. More recently the paper's executive editor, Joseph Lelyveld — who came out of retirement to serve as a caretaker after Raines' resignation — sensibly argued that fairness, accuracy and consideration of the readers' interests were the responsibility of every reporter and editor on the paper. To locate those obligations on a single set of shoulders in some way lifts them from everyone else's. It was a sound argument then and it still is. Some of the ombudsman's more obvious conceptual defects clearly were on display in public editor Daniel Okrent's first column, which appeared Sunday. Okrent is a veteran magazine reporter and editor, who also has written books and worked in publishing. His tenure runs until the end of May 2005, and until then his appraisals of the Times' performance will appear unedited at least twice monthly. That's unfortunate. For example, after a lengthy preamble concerning his selection, the perils of his assignment and his professional experience, Okrent wrote: "By upbringing and habit, I'm a registered Democrat, but notably to the right of my fellow Democrats on Manhattan's Upper West Side. When you turn to the paper's designated opinion pages tomorrow, draw a line from the Times' editorials on the left side to William Safire's column over on the right; you could place me just about at the halfway point. But on some issues I veer from the noncommittal middle. I'm an absolutist on free trade and free speech, and a supporter of gay rights and abortion rights who thinks that the late Cardinal John O'Connor was a great man. I believe it's unbecoming for the well off to whine about high taxes, and inconsistent for those who advocate human rights to oppose all American military action." Why does any of this matter? It doesn't, unless you believe that, unlike everybody else in America, Okrent holds some views more strongly than others and that, novelty of novelties, some of his affections are internally contradictory. It does matter, however, if you think the Times' real problems have to do with issues of political bias rather than the gritty — and far less sexy — matters of accurate reportage and sufficiently tough-minded editing, the absence of which seemed to be at the heart of the Blair affair. The bias issue, on the other hand, is at the very heart of the talk-show mentality that has come to dominate our discussions of the press and its place in society. It's appealing not only because it involves opinion rather than hard-won facts, but also because it suits our currently polarized politics and the culture of narcissism that dictates so much of our social thinking. According to the latter view, since internal objectivity and dispassion is impossible, so too is public and professional impartiality. It is this mindset that obliges every discussion of journalism these days to begin with some sort of confessional disclosure. Confession of this sort may be good for the soul, as in the confessional, or for the psyche, as on the therapist's couch. There is no evidence that it's good for journalism — other than the Fox News variety, which holds that it isn't the existence of bias itself that's objectionable, but the expression of bias other than one's own. Matt Welch, an editor of the libertarian-inflected Reason magazine and a columnist for Canada's National Post, is a longtime critic of the ombudsman concept. He calls it a "Band-Aid, as opposed to a real fix in terms of newsroom culture and practices." Welch found Okrent's debut "disarmingly open and honest" and a "strategically brilliant way of disarming the bias issue." The problem, said Welch "is that I don't regard the Times as a fundamentally biased newspaper. The proof of its willingness to make needed change is not to have a smart, funny guy write an occasional column, but to have editors and reporters who admit their mistakes and who go out and ask people what they think of the paper's work. That's hard, but important." Within the Times, reaction to the public editor's first column seemed to range from watchful to perplexed or critical. As one editor, who asked not to be identified, put it, "Using the editorials and Safire as his jumping off point is beside the point, since they're supposed to have opinions. Starting there just makes his mission all the more murky. Is he concerned with accuracy, which was the center of the Blair scandal, or bias, which is something else entirely?" Conversations with a range of Times staffers, none of whom wanted to be named, revealed two schools of thought: One, depressed and exhausted by the paper's year of crisis, generally feels that, since Okrent's tenure is limited, no harm can be done. Another feels that a threshold has been irremediably crossed. "This is being presented as if the Times and its readers are adversaries," a member of the latter group said. "Up to now, we thought the readers were a part of our family. We loved them and we thought they loved us. It was true bond and now it's as if we've abandoned it." latimes.com