Guest Blog: War Reporting and Embedded Journalists: Whatever Fits by Izzy Woods

War Reporting and Embedded Journalists: Whatever
Fits by Izzy Woods

The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have dragged out over the last ten years, and even now are still going on. When the military action began the media coverage was universal, and unless you never watched TV or read newspapers, you would have had something about the war pushed in your face.

But now, even though troops are still fighting in Afghanistan, the media coverage is sparse. Negative public opinion of the conflicts may have something to do with this, as with is being ‘old news’ nowadays. But the way these conflicts have been reported is different to previous conflicts.

The battles fought at the beginning of the 21^st century were reported by embedded journalists, reporters that became part of a military unit.

Front line journalism

"Embedding" involved journalists being integrated into combat units, which meant they ate, slept, and traveled with soldiers, experiencing battles first hand and witnessing the combat their unit participated in. There was no room for journalists to bring a new writing chair or comforts they enjoyed in the office back home.

While this arrangement offered the journalist on the front line a greater degree of protection, there are claims that it gave the military too much control over what was being reported. This was often the opinion of "unilateral" journalists, which were able to write about the war in all its aspects.

Nevertheless, embedded journalists were in a position to see the military in action first hand and with the advanced technology available which ensured all the action could be recorded, compiled, and broadcasted at incredible speed. They were able to connect live feeds from the battlefield to newsrooms around the world with the help of satellites, and often reported directly from the frontline.

With the help of technology, journalists were able ensure vast amounts of information and images to be broadcasted. Consequently, reports were often unedited and the quality of reports dropped as deadlines had to be met while more events were constantly unfolding.

New technology allowed instant contact from the battlefield to viewers back home, and ensured numerous reports and video links to be broadcasted, but this also created security problems. There were instances of journalists revealing crucial details of military plans, like the case committed by Geraldo Rivera, who put an entire unit of the American 101^st Airborne Division in danger. He drew a map of Iraq in the sand and showing where his unit was in comparison to Baghdad, and even where they were heading next.

Symbiosis or parasitism?

The dependency the embedded journalist had on the military was mainly for information and support, which ultimately left the commanders in control as they could decide on what the journalists saw, and what they would not see. There have been claims that the embedded journalist gave a sanitized picture of events, which is likely to be a result of the forced constraints of being embedded. The effect the military had on the embedded journalist was to almost make war seem acceptable, and there were instances when information passed on to reporters by the forces was unfounded, presumably to ensure "good" news about the war. There is evidence that journalists would prepare delicate reports for their various units out of loyalty to their attachment. This was a result of the dependency the journalists had on their unit, and the fact that during combat the soldiers were their protection.

Being restricted by the unit they were assigned to, combined with new technology, deadlines, and competition, journalists wrote reports that were mainly factual. The Project for Excellence in Journalism conducted a content analysis of embedded reports on television and found that reports were primarily factual and combat focused. Its seems clear that embedded journalists were given little chance to report other aspects of the war, like the people who fall victim to it or the towns and villages that became areas of conflict.

The journalists that were stuck with troops had very little chance of separate movement, and although they were able to communicate effectively with other reporters and information services, they weren’t given the opportunity to see the war from any other perspective. This lack of overall observance would have dampened the journalist’s understanding of the conflict and how it affected the civilian population.

Wikileaks has released files that show how the military and soldiers acted during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, and any reports of this nature would never have seen the light of day if written by an embedded journalist.

So You Want to Be a Journalist

R.I.P. Daniel Schorr - A Journalist's Journalist

He embodied the journalism I fell in love with, the journalism that sadly, I feel, hardly exists anymore.

Source: USA Today

Veteran journalist Daniel Schorr, who broke stories from the Cold War era to Watergate for CBS News before a second career as as news analyst for National Public Radio, died Friday at the age of 93.
Schorr died at Washington's Georgetown University Hospital. No cause of death was given.

For more than 60 years, Schorr lived and breathed the news, starting in 1948 as a stringer for The Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times in Europe.

He joined CBS in 1953 as its Washington-based diplomatic correspondent working with legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow as one of "Murrow's Boys."

The often combative Schorr spent more than two decades at CBS News until he was forced to resign in 1976 after refusing to reveal the source of secret documents, which he made public, regarding illegal FBI and CIA activities. The network later asked him to return. Instead, he lectured at colleges and later joined Ted Turner at CNN.

Tips from the Legendary Journalist Bob Woodward on Investigative Journalism

Surviving Journalism

Surviving Journalism
By Coolwateroverstone

Tips for Surviving a Job as a News Reporter

Assemble the reporter’s kit: at least three pens; a fresh notepad; digital recorder; camera; fresh batteries; business cards with your phone numbers, email, and fax; a cell phone as well as the charger; a few dollars in cash for making document copies or unexpected expenses. Keep it all in a briefcase or bag you can snatch up in a hurry, knowing you have everything you need.

Begin by carefully documenting every scrap of information you gather. Be able to go back and find the same information a second time if necessary. Check the spelling of every name, title, age, address, or background. Never assume anything. Spell Smith and Jones? Try Smyth and Joanz. Or Smythe and Jonze. Be sure to ask.

Observe. Report factually and fairly. If further action happens due to the report and the subsequent public awareness it generates, then report what else happens.

If you have no idea what you're walking into, show up early. Just show up and watch, listen, learn. Pay close attention. You have a reason to be there, right? If all else fails, ask a person to educate you on his/her passionate beliefs. Then ask, “Who disagrees with your viewpoint?” It will be all you can do to get out of the room. If your interview subject cannot talk freely at that moment, get a phone number or email address and follow up as soon as possible (which will give you more time to think about what you need to learn from him/her/them).

Be truthful. Be truthful. Be truthful.
Never lie to a source. If it's off the record, it stays off the record.
Never lie to a reader or to your editor. Break trust once and you never get it back.
Play fair. Always play fair.

Double- or triple-source everything you can. Never take one person's word for it. At the very least, this will give you more than one person’s viewpoint of an issue and help balance your reporting -- and keep you from being used as a political mouthpiece, even by the garden club.

Do the job with honor. Show them you are not like “all those other media types.” It takes time, but teach your sources—one at a time—how deeply they can trust you. Treat them well; cultivate them as you would a valued friend in any relationship. Never bribe or threaten. Thank them for their help every time. When you go back for more information, thank them for the last time they helped you.

Ask sources to give you leads for other sources who may know more.

If you burn a source, you cannot go back. Furthermore, the burned source will tell everyone s/he can that you are not to be trusted. Your reliability and trustworthiness are your stock in trade. Practice it every single minute, with everyone. No shortcuts. No half-ways. Tell only the truth you can prove.

Use the most simple, direct, clear, factual language you can find. Let public figures speak through their quotes. Do not tell readers the mayor lied. Let the mayor say her piece, then show someone else proving the mayor wrong. You are the observer. You are the tape recorder, the camera. Let the readers watch the action and hear the dialogue. Hold up the mirror. Do not yank at the petals of the flower; let it bloom naturally before everyone's eyes.

Make no effort to show everyone how smart you are. Instead, let the reader feel smart for figuring it all out from the way you present the scene, the dialogue, the action. Let them discover it as the event unfolds, fact by fact.

Then later, when the wheels fall off and everyone begins bellowing, because they finally understand what’s going on, stand on the rock of documented facts. When outraged people storm into the office to complain, pull out what you wrote. Show them you didn't say it, the mayor said it, or the secondary source said it.

Let the subjects tell their own stories. Give them enough rope and they'll do the hanging all by themselves.

Coolwateroverstone is the pseudonym for a woman newspaper writer/columnist working in rural Virginia. She has won both state and national awards for her coverage of crime, business, and economic news, and for column writing on serious and humorous subjects.

The Spotlight Interview: Bill Minutaglio, Author of "Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life"

10 questions with two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee Bill Minutaglio, the author of the recently-released book, "Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life”

First, Mr. Minutaglio provided this exclusive preface for us:

Molly Ivins was, for a while, the most powerful woman in journalism—and she was one of the toughest, most tragic, women in America.

She had enormous power and influence: Presidents, senators and royalty called her.

She appeared in over 300 newspapers, had huge national bestselling books, and appeared on 60 Minutes, Letterman and Leno. She had millions of followers.

She punched men out in Texas—and once knocked George W. Bush's most important political partner to his knees in a bar in Austin. She rode motorcycles—and could drink any man under the table. She eventually became a profoundly high-functioning alcoholic - in and out of rehab, causing a ruckus around major political figures (like Nancy Pelosi), and managing through it all to write for every major magazine and news outlet imaginable. Her work was compared to Mark Twain, Rabelais and Mencken.

She broke open the doors for Maureen Dowd, Arianna Huffington, Gail Collins and almost any other woman who wanted to have an opinion column in America. She suffered death threats and bomb scares. She raised millions of dollars for civil liberties and other causes across America. She personally supported hundreds of people over the life of her career—she gave away, in the end, millions of her own dollars, to strangers, friends, the homeless. She was unfathomably generous.

And, her entire life was defined by her relationship with her father—who was the autocratic, racist, head of Tenneco, one of the most powerful energy corporations in the world. She grew up in unbridled affluence, she grew up as friends with George W. Bush, she attended the finest private schools in America and studied in France—and she rejected all of it to become of the most fiercely liberal voices in American history. She lived with one of the most radical activists in America, she was engaged to be married to a wealthy man who wanted to start a "master race”—and Hollywood producers continually talked to her about making a movie of her life.
There really was never a figure like Molly Ivins. And there will probably never be another. She was like Amelia Earhart meets Annie Oakley.

Her story was one that needed to be told—it was so intensely narrative (which explains, I believe, why those producers, screenwriters and directors wanted to make that movie based on her life). She fought sexism at every turn in her life. She lived large, fought hard and told the top editor of The New York Times to fuck off. And just when she seemed ready to beat back her raging, drunken nightmares, she was hit with cancer. She battled three wicked bouts of cancer.

And through it all, she laughed her ass off, spoke truth to power, gave away even more money -- and never stopped working. Her friends—Maya Angelou, Dan Rather, Willie Nelson, Ann Richards, Bill Clinton—marveled at her stamina. And when she died there were enormous memorial services around the country, including ones in New York City and Texas.

For a narrative story teller, Ivins's story was inevitable. There were so many breathtaking twists and turns in her life. I knew her a bit and knew some of her story. But not all of it. It simply became richer, more intense, as I researched it.

With one of her former researchers, we worked on the book for 18 months. We did research across America. We delved into her personal archives, her diaries (including scalding, intense ones where she talks about her fight with alcohol, her lovers, her fights with the most powerful people in American publishing and politics), her personal letters. She was the most profound self-chronicler imaginable, and we had access to hundreds of thousands of documents, papers, letters, touching on almost every aspect of her and her family's personal history.

I learned that, when you weigh Molly Ivins in historic context, her story is a grand, outsized American saga. She was often "the only woman in the room"—and she fought like holy hell to be heard, to be respected, to change things for the good of America. She was a trailblazer and a firebrand. Again, to say she lived large is really an understatement.

Mike: Do you remember the day you decided to write a book about Molly Ivins?

Minutaglio: With Molly Ivins having millions of readers, a huge national following, and the kind of rocketing life that made some movie producers want to make a film about her, I assumed someone was going to write a biography. She was larger than life. She lived hard. Her former aide-researcher in Texas began telling me these fascinating stories about her life and that's when we decided to collaborate.

Mike: How well did you know Molly personally?

Minutaglio: I knew her as a colleague in the media. We both covered George W. Bush. I worked down the hallway from her when I was in daily journalism in Texas. We were in the Austin bureaus of competing Texas newspapers. I would see her at Bush's press conferences, meetings. After I wrote my biography of Bush for Random House, I got to know her a bit more—we were both interviewed on the Charlie Rose TV show.

Mike: Do you have a memorable firsthand experience with her?

Minutaglio: We had lunch a decade ago in a raucous Mexican restaurant in Austin. Loud, crazy scene. She had called me up and demanded I meet her. I remember her leaning over the table, staring hard at me and talking about her life. She said that fame could wash over you. That you had to keep from drowning. That it was a wild ride. And then she laughed - which she did a lot - and laughed very loudly. She was always throwing her head back and laughing really hard.

Mike: Did she ever say anything about writing or journalism that's a keeper for you?

Minutaglio: I was staggered to hear how, so early in her life, she was an apostle for subjectivity in journalism. She had come to that idea when she was in her early 20s. She thought a lot of "objectivity" in journalism was phony and useless. She also, probably obviously, believed that it was perfectly fine to poke big fun at the people in power -- as long as you did it with a smile, and didn't do it with acid-tipped daggers. She always maintained that satire was good, but that you never wanted to cross the line into mean-spirited vitriol.

Mike: How long did it take you to write the book?

Minutaglio: It took 18 months. We had access to her personal papers, diaries, notebooks. Her family and best friends were very helpful.

Mike: What's the most surprising/shocking thing you found out about her?

Minutaglio: Molly Ivins was far different than the person millions of her readers assumed her to be. She had an enormous battle with alcohol, one that stretched for decades. It led to some very intense moments in her life—ones where she put herself in great danger, personally and professionally. When she was young, she wrote a note to herself—saying she would commit suicide if she didn't become famous one day.

She also was incredibly unafraid to occasionally step back and literally punch someone in the face: She hit a man so hard in Dallas that his teeth sprayed out on a city street. She hit a man so hard in the Austin area that she knocked him out and he fell into a cactus patch. She knocked George W. Bush's alcoholic political mentor to the ground after he tried to stop her from leaving a drinking session at a bar.

The men in her life were extraordinary: She was engaged to be married to a very affluent man whose father was a high-ranking US diplomat who was doing work for the CIA—and then her fiancé died in a horrific motorcycle crash. Her father was one of the most powerful men in American industry -- he was president of Tenneco—and he committed suicide. She grew up with George W. Bush. She lived with a man who, for a while, was one of the leading activists in America. She gave away, in the end, probably millions of dollars. She had a close relationship with the man who basically paved the way for Bush to become president. She was consulted by presidents, senators and other powerful political figures. She was best friends with Ann Richards—and faced rumors that she and Richards had an intimate relationship. And, of course, Ivins endured three wicked bouts of cancer—and numerous death threats.

And, finally, she decided she hated working at The New York Times—and deliberately provoked the powerful editor Abe Rosenthal by trying to inject some, ahem, "colorful innuendoes" into her stories. It let to her basically telling him, and the Times, to take a hike.

Mike: How did you work the writing with your co-author?

Minutaglio: I wrote the book and he was the lead researcher.

Mike: Do you remember how you felt the day Molly died?

Minutaglio: That it was the end of an era. That there would never be another one like her –so colorful, so singular in American journalism. She had become a national, and maybe international, celebrity.

Mike: What did you like about her writing? What made her so powerful?

Minutaglio: She was, without question, one of the most influential women in the history of American print journalism. She had such an enormous, loyal following. She was often "the only woman in the room" in this ballsy, bad-ass, tough Texas environment—of hard-drinking, devilish (maybe demonic) Texas kingmakers and smashmouth politicos. She stayed up later than all of them, drank them under the table, and was able to get stories and insights that no one else would get. She was unrelenting, had an iron constitution, and she had completely decided to devote her writing (and her many TV appearances -- including her short-lived gig as a commentator on "60 Minutes") to addressing social justice and civil liberties.

Mike: What did you admire about her as a person?

Minutaglio: When you consider the historic context, what she achieved was just extraordinary. Her father was domineering, and her parents had charted out a path for her in a gilded, wealthy world of high society. She rejected all of that -- though she studied at Smith, studied in France, was fluent in French, knew how to sail yachts -- and devoted herself to writing and reporting. And she did it, again, by being "the only woman in the room" in these macho, crazed, moments in Texas.

She was also massively prolific. She wrote thousands of articles, was syndicated in close to 400 newspapers, had several national best sellers—and wrote for most of the major magazines. She gave speeches around the country. She was a workaholic.

Through all of her travails with alcohol, relationships and cancer, she remained fiercely generous. She literally gave away almost all of her money. She gave jobs to friends. She pulled people up, dusted them off, and gave them her time, friendship, work, places to live.

Divorced from how you feel about her politically, she was an exceedingly generous person. She never married, never had children, endured death threats and whispers about her sexuality—and yet always seemed to find time to help what she would call her “extended family”....the many, many people she rescued, fostered, promoted.

You can order Bill Minutaglio’s book on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Molly-Ivins-Rebel-Bill-Minutaglio/dp/1586487175. And for more info on the book or Mr. Minutaglio, please visit http://www.mollyivinsbook.com and http://www.billminutaglio.com.

Alan Weisman on What's Ailing Journalism

H.L. Mencken Speaks: Only Known Recording! Parts 5-8

Bill Minutaglio's Book on Molly Ivins Hits Bookstores!

Please make sure to go to your local bookstore and check out Bill Minutaglio's definitive biography about "one of the most provocative, courageous, and influential journalists in American history," "Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life."

It can also be ordered on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Molly-Ivins-Rebel-Bill-Minutaglio/dp/1586487175
Click here

As a matter of full disclosure, let me say that Bill is one of my best friends and has been for decades, a truly kind and generous man. He's also, without question, one of country's best journalists, as well as an utterly dazzling writer. I only wish I could put words together the way Bill does. He makes every sentence sing!

Bill sent me this about the book:

Molly Ivins was, for a while, the most powerful woman in journalism—and she was one of the toughest, most tragic, women in America.
She had enormous power and influence: Presidents, senators and royalty called her. She appeared in over 300 newspapers, had huge national bestselling books, was on 60 Minutes, Letterman and Leno. She had millions of followers. She punched men out in Texas—and once knocked George W. Bush's most important political partner to his knees in a bar in Austin. She rode motorcycles—and could drink any man under the table. She eventually became a profoundly high-functioning alcoholic - in and out of rehab, causing a ruckus around major political figures (like Nancy Pelosi), and managing through it all to write for every major magazine and news outlet imaginable. Her work was compared to Mark Twain, Rabelais and Mencken.
She broke open the doors for Maureen Dowd, Arianna Huffington, Gail Collins and almost any other woman who wanted to have an opinion column in America. She suffered death threats and bomb scares. She raised millions of dollars for civil liberties and other causes across America. She personally supported hundreds of people over the life of her career—she gave away, in the end, millions of her own dollars, to strangers, friends, the homeless. She was unfathomably generous.
And, her entire life was defined by her relationship with her father -- who was the autocratic, racist, head of Tenneco, one of the most powerful energy corporations in the world. She grew up in unbridled affluence, she grew up as friends with George W Bush, she attended the finest private schools in America and studied in France -- and she rejected all of it to become of the most fiercely liberal voices in American history. She lived with one of the most radical activists in America, she was engaged to be married to a wealthy man who wanted to start a "master race”—and Hollywood producers continually talked to her about making a movie of her life.
There really was never a figure like Molly Ivins. And there will probably never be. She was like Amelia Earhart meets Annie Oakley.
Her story was one that needed to be told—it was so intensely narrative (which explains, I believe, why those producers, screenwriters and directors were wanting to make that movie based on her life). She fought sexism at every turn in her life. She lived large, fought hard and told the top editor of The New York Times to fuck off. And just when she seemed ready to beat back her raging, drunken nightmares, she was hit with cancer. She battled three wicked bouts of cancer.
And through it all, she laughed her ass off, spoke truth to power, gave away even more money -- and never stopped working. Her friends—Maya Angelou, Dan Rather, Willie Nelson, Ann Richards, Bill Clinton—marveled at her stamina. And when she died there were enormous memorial services around the country, including ones in New York City and Texas.
For a narrative story teller, Ivins's story was inevitable. There were so many breathtaking twists and turns in her life. I knew her a bit and knew some of her story. But not all of it. It simply became richer, more intense, as I researched it.
With one of her former researchers, we worked on the book for 18 months. We did research across America. We delved into her personal archives, her diaries (including scalding, intense ones where she talks about her fight with alcohol, her lovers, her fights with the most powerful people in American publishing and politics), her personal letters. She was the most profound self-chronicler imaginable, and we had access to hundreds of thousands of documents, papers, letters, touching on almost every aspect of her and her family's personal history.
I learned that, when you weigh Molly Ivins in historic context, her story is a grand, outsized American saga. She was often "the only woman in the room"—and she fought like holy hell to be heard, to be respected, to change things for the good of America. She was a trailblazer and a firebrand. Again, to say she lived large is really an understatement.

Calvin Trillin Remembers Profitable Journalism

Rodes Fishburne: The Writer's World

Rodes Fishburne, a journalist, playwright and novelist, ruminates on the role of writers, what they read and how they create.

David Remnick, Editor of The New Yorker, on Blogging vs. Journalism

William Safire: "It Was My Kitchen..."

Gay Talese: How the Tape Recorder Killed Journalism

William Safire Dies at 79

William Safire, speechwriter, NY columnist, dies
By DEEPTI HAJELA
The Associated Press

NEW YORK — William Safire, the conservative columnist and word warrior who feared no politician or corner of the English language, died Sunday at age 79.

The Pulitzer Prize winner died at a hospice in Rockville, Md. His assistant Rosemary Shields said he had been diagnosed with cancer, but she declined to say when he was diagnosed or what type of cancer he had.

Safire spent more than 30 years writing on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. In his "On Language" column in The New York Times Magazine and more than a dozen books, Safire traced the origins of words and everyday phrases such as "straw man," "under the bus" and "the proof is in the pudding."

New York Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said in a statement: "For decades, Bill's columns on The Times's Op-Ed Page and in our Sunday Magazine delighted our readers with his insightful political commentary, his thoughtful analysis of our national discourse and, of course, his wonderful sermons on the use and abuse of language. Bill will be greatly missed."

Michael Oreskes, senior managing editor of The Associated Press, who served as a correspondent and Washington bureau chief of the Times during Safire's years as a columnist, said the conservative writer was a mentor and friend to a generation of Washington journalists of all political persuasions.

"He believed in the values of journalism — of ferreting out the truth and holding leaders to account, Republicans and Democrats," Oreskes said. "Above all, he loved to encourage his colleagues to break a good story and raise hell."

Safire penned more than 3,000 columns, aggressively defending civil liberties and Israel while tangling with political figures. Bill Clinton famously wanted to punch the curmudgeonly columnist in the nose after Safire called his wife "a congenital liar."

Shields said: "Not only was he brilliant in language and assessing the nuances of politics, he was a kind and funny boss who gave lots of credit to others."

As a speechwriter in the Nixon White House, Safire penned Vice President Spiro Agnew's famous phrase, "nattering nabobs of negativism," a tongue-in-cheek alliteration that Safire claimed was directed not at the press but at Vietnam defeatists.

Safire also wrote several novels and served as chairman of the Dana Foundation, a philanthropy that supports brain science, immunology and arts education.

Along with George Will and William F. Buckley Jr., Safire's smooth prose helped make conservatism respectable in the 1970s, paving the way for the Reagan Revolution.

Safire was a pioneer of opinionated reporting. His columns were often filled with sources from Washington and the Middle East, making them must-reads for Beltway insiders.

Author Eric Alterman, in his 1999 book "Sound and Fury: The Making of the Punditocracy," called Safire an institution unto himself.

"Few insiders doubt that William Safire is the most influential and respected pundit alive," Alterman wrote.

Safire's scathing columns on the Carter White House budget director Bert Lance's financial affairs won him the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1978; in 1995 Safire was named to the Pulitzer board.

Critics said Safire made loose accusations trumpeting various "scandals" by the Clintons that were never borne out by the facts.

"Like a pioneering blogger, Safire years ago started grabbing bits of information and wrapping them in the tightest partisan, what-if spin possible," Eric Boehlert wrote in the Web site Salon in 2004. "When the accusation unraveled, he'd simply ignore the thud of his charges hitting the floor."

From 2001 to 2003, Safire also published several columns pressing the case that Saddam Hussein was linked to the Sept. 11 attacks, calling it an "undisputed fact" that hijacker Mohamed Atta met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Prague in April 2001. The 9/11 commission said that meeting never happened.

Safire's pun-filled "On Language" column exploring the foibles and abuses of the English language was far less controversial, winning him more admirers across the political spectrum.

Safire lived in the Washington suburb of Chevy Chase, Md., with his wife, Helene, a British-born jewelry designer; they had a son and a daughter.

Safire, born Dec. 17, 1929, to a Jewish family in New York City, was the youngest of three boys. He attended Syracuse University but dropped out after two years to work as a legman for a Republican political strategist and publicist Tex McCrary, who had a column in the New York Herald Tribune.

Safire started writing speeches for Nixon in 1965 and followed him to the White House. He left shortly before the Watergate break-in erupted into a full-fledged scandal.

Associated Press writer Derek Rose contributed to this story.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Future of Journalism: Bill Minutaglio

Bill Minutaglio
Clinical Professor, University of Texas at Austin
Award-Winning Journalist and Author
http://www.billminutaglio.com
Click here

I asked Mr. Minutaglio:

What do you tell young, aspiring journalists about the future of the business? Can you still be encouraging? What advice do you give them? And how can they best get a job in these tough economic times?

His response:

Mike, I'm in this unique vantage point situation for your questions, in that I am a full-time member of the journalism faculty at one of America's largest universities -- one that draws people from around the nation, the world. And I work with aspiring, young journalists every day. So I hear their concerns, ambitions. I have students that range in age from 18-30 -- graduate students, undergrads.

One thing is clear: There is no shortage of young people who want to report and write great stories. They know the technology has changed, is changing. They know it better than anyone else, because they are changing it themselves -- they are inventing the paradigms.

They also are fully aware that there are fewer and fewer guarantees of full-time jobs, 401ks, even year-long contracts with magazines. They know all of that: And yet they continue to commit to studying journalism. And they continue to have a huge thirst for knowledge, for growth, for studying the still basic, eternal, elements of journalism: They want to know how to interview people, talk with people, investigate stories, drill down on stories, change hearts and minds. The young people getting into journalism today are, in many ways, far more courageous than anyone who got into journalism in the 1970s and the 1980s.

People who are in their 50s today went into journalism back in the '70s and '80s, knowing full well that there were plenty of jobs, publications, opportunities. They entered the work force secure in the knowledge that there would always be another newspaper, another magazine, they could work for. Think about it now: Students are still lining up to study journalism, to commit to journalism, knowing full well that things are vastly different today.

If that doesn't give you hope in some way, then you are a dead soul indeed. Young people are moving into journalism with a wonderful idealism and level of commitment. Are they naive? No -- they are hopeful. Their primary concern remains protecting journalism's eternal ideals -- shining the light on the truth.

Are they worried about jobs? Yes, of course they are. But they seem to recognize that they can and will be far more nimble than the generations that came before them: They have to be and they know it.

What I hear repeatedly from journalism students -- mine range in age from 18-30, including graduate students -- is that they are going to master all the multimedia skills they can and then be prepared for any opportunity that fits their interest and circumstance.

As for advice, I tell young students that they can be served by acquiring more knowledge -- but not general platitudes. They need specific tools. To stand a better chance of getting employed, it's beyond obvious that you have to be able to master - or do well -- a variety of multimedia tasks. And not just social networking.

These days, almost every newspaper and magazine is asking that its staffers bring multimedia skills to the table - yes, the social networking, but also the visuals, the audio, the packaging, the web design, Flash, etc. That holistic, multimedia knowledge is now being offered by almost every good university journalism program. If you can afford it, if you have time, one very practical step is to find a year-to-two year graduate level journalism program and immerse yourself in all that it offers.

The technology is changing so fast that it is not a bad idea to take time out and spend a year or two, if you can, in a quality graduate program that will not only yield you a master's degree -- but will expose you to the latest, cutting edge knowledge surrounding multimedia. You will emerge with skills that are cross-platform, that put you in a position to really be a jack-of-all-trades, that will help you take control of your own career -- you can offer yourself to a journalism entity as someone who comfortably wears many different hats.

It turns out, by the way, that major universities also happen to be enormously fruitful networks for jobs - employers, editors, routinely contact universities hoping that there are some bright students who can help those "old school" editors make the transition to the newer technologies, and who can speak to the next generation of readers.

My sense is that so many editors are so afraid of the future that they look toward some large institutions of higher learning and assume that the researchers there, the educators there, are studying the trends - and that the students from those programs might be well-versed in the latest trends. We have, as an example, several young journalists who pulled out of their budding magazine or newspaper careers to go back to graduate school -- so they can steep themselves in "the new thing." Or be around full-time journalism researchers who are trying to perfect or predict "the new thing." Universities, good ones, also routinely hold conferences that bring together great journalism minds -- people who share that cutting-edge knowledge and who also provide wonderful networking opportunities for students, for young journalists. Again, not everyone has time or money to "go back" to school -- but, in a sense, everyone is "going back to school" these days, whether you are formally enrolled somewhere or not.

We are all learning something new each day -- the social networking, the multimedia, etc. My argument is that some young people should consider, if they have the time and money, enrolling somewhere where they can be exposed to a full buffet of new paradigms, new ways of doing journalism, new ways of making yourself an attractive candidate for editors, publishers, producers, etc.

Gay Talese's Elegant Style

Future of Journalism: Lesley Jane Seymour

Lesley Jane Seymour
Editor-in-Chief of More
Former Editor-in-Chief of Marie Claire, Redbook, YM

I asked Ms. Seymour:

What do you tell young, aspiring journalists about the future of the business? Can you still be encouraging? What advice do you give them?

Her response:

As a life-long journalist who also teaches journalism at the grad school at NYU, I have to tell you that journalism will never die. It is an integral part of our democracy in the US and an important part of helping the world develop properly. Without the eye of the public exposing crimes, wrongs, cheating, evil, etc. we can be too easily duped and swayed and our governments hijacked. Just look at Iran: the first thing you do to solidify an illegitimate regime is sweep the journalists off the street. What is going away is print. Don't confuse the two. And we may need to separate sensationalism from journalism: they are not the same thing just as the New York Post is not the Washington Post.

The Washington Post: The Future of Journalism

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