edithhopegardenjournal

Journalists and news organizations in the U.S. and elsewhere are increasingly wrestling with how to deal with alternative facts, untruths, and lies spread by political figures, government officials, and their supporters. These are not merely moral issues for journalists, but also will influence the sustainability of news organizations. Neither accurately reporting false statements, nor reporting and challenging them, are adequate responses to continual misuse of the media and deliberate efforts to use the media to mislead the public. This, of courses, raises the thorny question of when to deny media access and coverage to individuals noted for engaging in those acts. How they are handled depends upon their position. Elected officials should be treated differently than their advisors, aides, and supportive commentators and apologists. This occurs because elected officials and party leaders are accountable to the public through the ballot box, whereas others are not. When elected o...

Cable and satellite companies are increasingly finding it difficult to get the growth in customers and revenue they would like. Over the past 4 decades they achieved growth first by introducing services in new markets and by acquiring smaller providers and then, as unserved markets and acquisition opportunities declined, by offering an increasing number of channels, telephone and internet services.   The strategy increased customers and revenue, but inevitably let to a mature market in which only lower growth was possible. In the past decade cable and satellite overcome that maturity and achieved growth by offering a variety of new services and products to consumers--allowing them to access programming at times it is not offered on their channels or systems or in different forms--and syndicating their original programs and finding new income through merchandising and related activities. The development of connected TV and use of video on laptops, tablets, and smartphones has spurre...

Most media companies claim they are creative, believing that merely producing  content makes them inventive and artistic. Most media firms are not particularly creative, however, and we recognize it daily as we are confronted with formulaic and derivative content of limited quality. But some companies are consistently notable for unique and ground-breaking content that meet higher standards. What makes them successful is their ability to manage creativity. The concept of managing creativity may at first seem like an oxymoron. Anyone who has worked with talented writers, designers, directors, actors, or musicians knows that the muse of creativity is capricious and does not present itself on a predictable schedule. This does not mean it is impossible for an enterprise to manage creativity, however. Organizations that consistently produce highly creative content spend a great deal of effort managing the environment and processes in which creativity takes place. They do so to make...

Journalists and others concerned about the status of the news industry in North America and Europe keep arguing that we are getting poorer journalism because of the economic state of the industry. But when you ask them “what makes good journalism?” they find it nearly impossible to articulate the concept. Those trying to articulate the elements good journalism tend to use comforting and immeasurable platitudes and to describe it through attributes based on professional practices: pursuit of truth, fairness, completeness, accuracy, verification, and coherence. These are not a definition of quality, but a listing of contributors to or elements of quality practices. Each attribute alone is not sufficient for good journalism and degree to which each contributes is unclear. In practice, most of us settle on identifying journalistic quality by its absence or by its comparison to poor or average quality journalism. Thus we know it when we don’t see it or we describe by...