Cambridge startup  Latitude News and Public Radio Exchange (PRX) have  launched a  podcast series aimed at bringing global stories with local importance to new audiences.

Latitude was founded earlier this year by veteran BBC producer Maria Balinska to bring “a new  brand of global storytelling connects on an emotional level to audiences who are curious about the world,” Balinka said.  Its  journalists–based in Cambridge and abroad, use  a Website, social media and podcasts to crowdsource stories that connect Americans with the world.

PRX operates public radio’s largest distribution marketplace, offering thousands of audio stories for broadcast and digital use. Signature PRX programs include the Moth Radio Hour, RadioLab, This American Life, KCRW Music Mine and the Public Radio Player.

Under an agreement announced earlier this week,  Latitude will produce 12 podcasts and broadcast segments for PRX showcasing a distinctive editorial style that links Americans to the rest of the world.

The first podcasts launched this week; one looks at why the US faces a shortage of cod and Norway does not; the other examines the role that one US preacher has played in the anti-gay movement in Uganda.

The Latitude News podcasts are hosted by award-winning journalist Daniel Moulthorp.

Moulthorp  is co-founder of The Civic Commons. He is also a former program host of 90.3 WCPN’s Sound of Ideas and co-author, with Dave Eggers and Ninive Calegari, of the best selling book Teachers Have it Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers (The New Press, 2005).

John Barth, Managing Director of PRX, said, “The extension of Latitude News to podcasts and broadcast is a natural step as PRX reaches engaged audiences hungry for more meaningful  international stories.”

“We’re thrilled to work with PRX to illustrate how our new brand of global storytelling connects on an emotional level to audiences who are curious about the world,” Balinska said.

The podcasts and segments are made possible by a grant to PRX by the Open Society Foundations aimed at expanding global storytelling for American audiences.

http://www.prx.org/group_accounts/142068-latitudenews

–Anita M. Harris
Anita Harris is a writer and communications consultant  in Cambridge, MA.

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group–an-award-winning strategic communications firm based  in Kendall Square, Cambridge.

# # #

Newspapers have long kept tabs on the changing world–but have themselves been slow to modernize. To  flourish these days,
when anyone with a computer can be a publisher,  news organizations must develop a “culture of innovation. ”

So said Richard Gingras, the head of News Products at Google,  on May 11, 2012 in a talk at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation.

Gingras, a founder of Salon.com and long-term media technologist , said “I push people to rethink every aspect of what they’re doing”–including their mission, ethical guidelines, how they interact with their audiences, transparency regarding sources,  and even whether reporters divulge their personal political positions. In light of today’s powerful new technologies and human interactions,  “innovation  must be part of an organization’s DNA,”  at the core of newspapers’ culture, and  incorporated into “the role of every member of the team.”

Gingras pointed out that this by no means the first “disruption” time for the media.  With the advent of television,  for example, newspaper advertising declined and in some cities, the number of newspapers went from five to one or two.   This was not great for the newspapers that went out of business and  led to monopolitistic control by the  survivors. But it also led to    “40  golden years of profitability” for those survivors.

Today, the Internet has “disaggregated” the advertising economy., he said.  No longer do consumers look to their local newspapers for car ads, for example: rather, they search the Internet for information and deals.  “In the past, you could have an ad in the New York Times for Tiffany’s near an article on starvation in Darfur… or articles for garden centers in  the Lifestyles section,” Gingras said.   But on the Internet, such “vertical models” for advertising  are not effective.  ” Might news organizations’ Web sites do better as “a stable of focused brands with independent business models?” he asked.

Gingras also suggested that news organizations:

• Optimize news Web sites for multiple entry points,  because individual story pages are, today, more valuable than first or home pages. These individual pages should be updated so that urls remain constant–thus optimizing search engine results.

• Include more “computational journalism”–in which reporters post interactive information tables that would allow readers to answer their own, individualized questions.  For example, in a story on the state of education, provide tables showing student progress in school districts across the city–so that parents could assess statistics on their own children’s schools

•  Leverage the assistance of  “the trusted crowd”  (interact with readers and keep them involved)

•  Make reporters responsible for updating their own stories–with “constant” urls  to encourage multiple visits to their pages

Gingras also said that  in a culture of bulletpoints, updates and posts,  there  is low return on investment for long articles–and advised keeping articles  under 500 words.

So  I’ll quit here–at 494.

A video of the complete talk  is posted at: http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/newsitem.aspx?id=100198

–Anita M. Harris

Anita Harris, a former national journalist and Nieman Fellow,  is president of the Harris Communications Group, a marketing and communications firm located in Cambridge, MA.

In his 3-05-09 post “Probe the Past to Protect the Future,”  Washington DC business-advocate- returned-investigative journalist Andrew Kreig says that the idea that the country should look forward without addressing the wrongs of the recent past is  “nonsense”.

He writes: As always,  justice starts by a review of the evidence. ‘Sunshine is the best disinfectant,’ Supreme Court Justice Louis Bandeis famously said. But pest control is useful too.  Either way, strong measures are required to build public confidence for legitimate initiatives on such complex questions as which companies are “too big to fail,” and which ones should pay the price for their terrible decisions.”

The media are unlikely provide much insight,  he implies.

Their income stream is increasingly dependent on affiliated businesses and not on serving subscribers. The major TV networks,  for instance, make virtually nothing form direct customer billings via cable and satellite, although many in the public naively assume that they’re being served via a “marketplace of ideas.”

In fact, traditional and new media alike depend heavily on the goodwill of government officials, plus advertising. The financial reports of the Washington Post, for instance, show that since 2007, it has been making more than ten times its revenue from its education industry affiliates as from its Post subscriptions,  new media are more entrepreneurial and increasingly broader-based in consumer appeal, many of their roots are in fairly recent federal Internet research and privatization policy–and many of their futures are highly dependent on favorable regulation, merger approval and stimulus spending.

Kreig calls for transparency in the Obama Administration’s decisionmaking process and for vigorous public pressure to ensure that current Congressional investigations into allegations of Bush Administration wrong-doing are not just for show.

I’m not anxious to delve back into the murky recent past and don’t relish the possibility of investigations, indictments, or imprisonments. Bytemperament, like Obama,  I’d rather move forward and let it all go.  But as George Santayana said, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  I do think it’s important to find out why things went so wrong in hopes that we never have to go through times like those–or these–again.

AMH

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group of Cambridge, MA.

Report on the Nieman Foundation’s 70th Anniversary Convocation,  held

November 7-, 2008, in Cambridge, MA

In early November, I attended the Nieman Foundation’s 70th anniversary Convocation, which was  entitled “True Grit, Advancing Journalism’s Covenant in the 21^st Century”. The morning program, moderated by former Nieman Curator Bill Kovach, featured  talks by former Nieman Fellows on “Preserving Nieman Values Through the Years.”

The afternoon program included a keynote by  Len Downie, former executive editor of  The Washington Post,  who spoke on “The Moral and Ethical Obligations of Journalism in a Digital World,” and a panel entitled “Voices from the New World of Journalism”, which was moderated by Geneva Overholser, NF ’86, director of the School of Journalism at USC’s Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California.

The evening program included a talk by Ellen Fitzpatrick, professor of American Intellectual and Political History at the Univrsity of New Hampshire, and a panel discussion on Press and Politics in the New Administration, moderated by Tom Ashbrook, Host of NPR/s On Point.

Here’s the url to a microsite where more information and videos are posted, followed by  my 2 cents worth on the event (well, maybe more, but given the state of journalism, these days, I’ll take what I can get).

Convocation Microsite:

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/Microsites/70thAnniversaryConvocationWeekend/Home.aspx

Video URLS:
Len Downie: http://www.niemanlab.org/2008/11/len-downie-online-standards-should-match-print-standards/

Charlie Sennott: http://www.niemanlab.org/2008/12/charlie-sennott-on-the-state-of-international-repr\orting/

Michael Skoler: http://www.niemanlab.org/2008/12/michael-skoler-on-newsroom-culture/

My 2 cents
The overall meeting was both a discussion and demonstration of the state of journalism–much of it focused on traditional versus new media standards and practices, and the problem of finances.

The most dramatic moments came during an afternoon panel when Josh Benton,  Director of the Nieman Journalism Lab, told the crowd that newspapers aren’t doing enough to empower their readers and that “You have to love your readers.”  Someone from the audience responded,  “But they say such mean things to us!”  Then, a Washington Post  reporter stood up. She seemed near tears when she said, “I already work 12 hours a day. Now I have to do blogs, spend hours answering emails, learn to use a video camera. Then the ombudsman is mad because I haven’t given the readers what they want for the next day’s newspaper.”

Other highlights included:

• An exchange at a Friday evening cocktail party between Margot Adler and Len Downie, who had recently stepped down as executive editor of the Washington Post and voted for the first time ever in the 2008 presidential election. As editor, Downie had declined to vote for fear of biasing–or appearing to bias–the Post’s coverage.  Margot held that everyone is biased in one way or another and that being aware of your biases makes you bend over backward to be fair.  (Having seen too much of Lou Dobbs on CNN, recently, I’m not sure that Margot’s theory applies across the board).
  
• Downie’s Saturday afternoon keynote, in which he described the current state of journalism as a “Darwinian struggle” that some news organizations will not survive. He was sanguine about the future of online journalism–if someone can figure out a way to pay for it. He suggested that nonprofit philanthropy might play an increased role….although that could lead to coverage of certain causes and fields, at the expense of others.  He recommended instituting a blogger’s code of ethics to help promote high-level journalistic standards—and, that, at the very least, bloggers  identify themselves.

• Former Boston Globe reporter Charlie Sennott’s description of the new  “Globalpost.com– an online Web site with content provided by freelancers living all over the world who will receive regular stipends and shares in the company. The site, which he founded with New England Cable News Network founder Phil Balboni,  was expected to launch in early 2009.
  
  
• The chagrin expressed by Nieman Reports editor Melissa Ludke  regarding sites sponsored by news organizations that take no responsibility for the content. As editor, she seemed mystified at being challenged by a journalist-turned-blogger who pulled his story rather than accept her edits—then wrote about the experience on his blog, where he referred to establishment journalists as “thumbsuckers”.  (I thought that was funny but I’m not sure that she did).

Clearly, journalism is undergoing a seismic shift. As Ellen Goodman put it “The only thing that hasn’t changed is the time it takes to really understand an issue.”

At the meeting, I was saddened by the dissension and disillusion of journalists caught in what Margot called  “a dying industry.” But I also felt slightly elated. Having started my journalistic career by founding an alternative newspaper because establishment media wouldn’t hire many women and  didn’t give voice to racial minorities or the poor, I’m excited by the increasing democratization of the marketplace of ideas.

True, I am concerned about the lack of standards on the Web and don’t put much stock in the so-called “wisdom of crowds.”  But business, government, the arts, the sciences and the public need reliable information on which to base decisions. I predict a consolidation–in which national multimedia news organizations will each amass many local outlets—as do the TV networks today—funded by local advertisers or consumers’ online purchases of goods and services unrelated (I hope!)  to the editorial content at hand.