In September 2006, Google News launched News Archive Search “to help users quickly and easily search for events, people and ideas over different periods of time.” Google News, in turn, had been launched in September 2002 “to [use] computers to organize the world’s news in real time.” Then, in September 2008 (September must be some sort of talisman in Sunnyvale), Google announced it was expanding the News Archive Search back in time “to make more old newspapers accessible and searchable online.” “History buffs: take note,” Google triumphantly proclaimed. Well, yes, ... Read More
‘State of Minds’ Puts Research in the Spotlight
April 20, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
One of the pleasant aspects of being the editor of Miller-McCune is regular and often unexpected contact with people and entities that are working to improve the world by introducing some small piece of it to factual reality. Look, for just one instance, at the network of investigative reporting and transparency nonprofits — from ProPublica and the Texas Tribune to the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Public Integrity — that has grown in the last decade or so, and tell me your old daily paper used to do accountability journalism better. Another hopeful part of the media future ... Read More
Lessons From China and India’s Newspaper Boom
April 17, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
In most discussions of global affairs, China and India are the 800-pound (insert large animal of your choice) in the room. With almost half of the world's population, the two nations are developing at an alarming — and inspiring — rate, their newspapers along with them. While much media analysis mourns the decline of print journalism in the U.S., associate professors Nikhil Moro of the University of North Texas and Debashis Aikat of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill looked at the newspaper industry boom in China and India for solutions. Taking their cue from Eric Schmidt, ... Read More
10 Memorable Threads from 2010
December 28, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
The short days in the Northern Hemisphere produce a peculiar journalistic crop, the Top 10 list. At Miller-McCune.com, we’re not immune to the pull of that chestnut, but the wonk rays so prevalent here force a mutation. Instead of a Top 10 list, here’s 10 for 2010, stories that are popular and memorable but without the baggage of perfection as determined in a year-end frenzy of instantaneous deliberation. Of course, some of the best movies never get nominated for Oscars, and so it is here. We’ll make apologies to stalwarts like Jai Ranganathan (of Curiouser & Curiouser fame) or ... Read More
The Third Way to Media Success
October 12, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Media users now sup at a cornucopia of choice. It's a Golden Age of information and a Dark Age of ill-informed opinion, and traditional and startup media alike frantically cast their (Inter)nets to engage audiences for more than a nanosecond. Those of us in "the media-academic complex" have tended to look at readers, viewers and visitors through two lenses that, at their margins, might be labeled "The Muse" and "The Marketplace." The media leaders looking through the Muse lens try to go beyond what people want right now to satisfy them with what they didn't even know they wanted. A Muse ... Read More
Golden Age of Newscasts is Now — on NPR
September 30, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Edward R. Murrow is, deservedly, a revered figure in broadcast news. His on-the-scene coverage of the Nazi bombing of London brought the terrifying realities of World War II to American listeners in a uniquely palpable way. Murrow not only personified the idea of a foreign broadcast correspondent: He essentially invented the role. But how do his reports, and those of his CBS colleagues, hold up today? Iowa State University researcher Raluca Cozma addressed that question by comparing two sets of morning newscasts: One produced by CBS radio in the early 1940s, the other produced by NPR in ... Read More
The Scientist and the Journalist Can Be Friends
September 2, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
"With high certainty” isn’t going to top anyone’s list of favorite three-word phrases, but as Nancy Baron notes in her important new book Escape from the Ivory Tower, it could serve as a useful linguistic bridge between scientists, journalists and policymakers. Researchers, she notes, are hesitant to make definitive statements. Aware that knowledge is gained incrementally and always subject to revision, they tend to hedge their answers even to the most direct questions. This can frustrate both reporters, who are looking for facts, and politicians, who want solid information that can ... Read More
World Press Photos in Focus
August 25, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
The nature of the profession means that even the best images photojournalists produce are generally confined to a small box in a field of newspaper text or, at best, a magazine or Web page. We're used to viewing "artistic" photographs in large scale at a gallery or museum, but the work of the world's press shooters is rarely afforded the same privileged display. That's one of the most compelling reasons to take in the annual World Press Photo Exhibition, now in its 53rd year and coming to New York and Ottawa in August, and Mexico City, Montreal, Stuttgart, Prague, Bogota, Kyoto, Naples, ... Read More
Coverage of Gay Marriage Far From Monolithic
August 4, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Did you read about the latest court ruling on gay marriage? New research suggests what precisely you learned — that is, how the controversial subject was framed and presented — may have varied a lot depending upon which newspaper you turned to for coverage. A study just published in The Social Science Journal compares coverage of gay marriage in The New York Times and Chicago Tribune in 2003 and 2004, and finds some striking differences. “The New York Times was inclined to emphasize the topic of human equality related to the legitimization of gay marriage,” writes the research ... Read More
Apparently Not a Journalistic Terrorist After All
July 27, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Last week, Emily Badger reported on Hollman Morris being denied a student visa to study in the U.S. The Colombian journalist had been granted a yearlong Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, but the State Department rejected his visa application on nebulous grounds. The State Department has reversed its decision and to allow Morris a visa in the end. Morris has been celebrated as a dedicated journalist whose bravery and determination in reporting on the civil war in Colombia had given him contacts among rebel guerrilla fighters (FARC) on terrorist watch lists. The State Department, ... Read More
