I read a short blog post by Lewis Dvorkin of Forbes about how they are developing a comprehensive digital content-management system for the magazine. I was struck by the following passage, which concisely describes the “new journalism” that is becoming the way of the news-publishing world:

With all that, I find myself transfixed by the emerging talents of a new breed of digital journalist, reporter, writer, blogger — or whatever label you choose to attach to knowledgeable content creators in the internet era.

A single journalist can now use the ways of the Web to research, report and investigate. That same journalist can produce or find relevant photos for their stories — and video and audio, too. In real time, the journalist can mine and extract the information they need from the world’s communication and data streams. That same journalist, at their desktop or with a cell phone or iPad in hand, can then produce and program it all for publication and broadcast, then distribute and market it across the web, then join and moderate a rewarding conversation.

This new kind of journalism is continuous and never ending, because the individual content creator has truly become part of a community. News consumers benefit as full participants in a transparent process that offers more information and context. With all due respect to the talented journalists who came before, it’s not solely about reporting and writing any more. Today, you need to do it all.

Sounds pretty cool, except there is one thing missing — the PR guy feeding the journalist story ideas and news about his client.

That should scare the hell out of me, but it doesn’t. Why? Because the “new journalist” still needs the content that we the flacks have. She needs our photos, access to our experts and reliable, easily accessible information about our clients. We just have to get content to her in a new and different way.

That’s where our challenge lies — not in getting the “new journalists” to know and trust us, but to make sure they know how and where to access the content that is critical to their accomplishing their job and to us accomplishing ours.

Like some TV Frankenstein, Ken Jautz gave us Nancy Grace, Glenn Beck and created the Joy Behar Show. Now he holds the reins of CNN, and it doesn’t look good for the beleaguered news network. Ken Stein was ousted after six years at CNN where he fought to maintain the network’s news integrity, according to The Wrap.

Grace, Beck and Jautz

Jautz plucked Beck from obscurity on talk radio and plunked him down as the lead-in to Grace’s show. The rest is evil-creator history. Sounds a lot like CNN has in store what Joutz did for, er, to HLN:

According to a network insider, Jautz has repeatedly told people in the newsroom that he isn’t into long-form reporting or in-depth investigations. “I do not believe that ‘facts-only’ programming will work [in primetime],” Jautz told TheWrap in an interview on Friday. “Viewers, if they’re looking for just the news, they can get that anywhere now. The news that happened that day, they probably know already. They want context, perspective and opinion.”

Scott Safon, CNN’s chief marketing officer, who is taking over for Jautz at HLN, kind of let the cat out of the bag regarding plans for CNN:

According to one person at the meeting, Safon said Friday that CNN has a seven-month plan in place to explore what viewers want to see. He said he does not think their answer will be “more opinion,” he said. Instead, he thinks they’ll want “authenticity.” Safon and Robin Garfield, SVP of CNN research, have charted a course of “getting inside viewers heads.”

“They don’t want us to be Fox or MSNBC,” Safon said. The answer won’t be right or left, he told the staff. “It will be more authenticity, and more passion.”

I’m sorry, the only kind of passion I want mixed in with my news is when Walter Cronkite tears up when announcing the assassination of John F. Kennedy. While CNN is far from perfect, it is currently the closest thing we have to an all-news all-the-time network that can deal with breaking stories and wars, and still do some long-form journalism without a lot of opinion or “passion” mixed in. We need that.

A recent survey by Sacred Heart University uncovered a deep distrust of the news media and apparent dissatisfaction with the media’s failure to keep up with the times.

Just 24.3 percent of respondents said they believe all or most news media reporting. This was up from 19.6 percent in 2007, but lower than the 27.4 percent recorded in 2003.

Just over half of all respondents, 54 percent, said they believe “some” news media reporting, down slightly from 55.3 percent in 2007. The percentage of those who believe little or no news reporting dropped to 20.4 percent in 2009 from 23.9 percent in 2007.

Researchers speculated that much of the impetus behind this distrust stemmed from the fact that many Americans distrust large corporations and see the news media — most owned by huge conglomerates — as merely the tools of their corporate masters. And that suspicion is reflected in respondents’ perceptions about the media’s impartiality.

In the study, 86.6 percent (87.6 percent in 2007 and 70.3 percent in 2003) strongly and somewhat agreed that the news media manifest political and public-policy positions and seek to influence public opinion.

Researchers suggest that the belief that news organizations pursue political and social agendas is a result of the recent rise in partisan news media. When asked which national television news organization they trusted most for accurate reporting, Fox News was named by 30 percent of all respondents, up from 19.5 percent in 2003 and 27 percent in 2007.

The news organizations ranked as most trusted for accurate reporting included Fox News (30 percent), CNN (19.5 percent), NBC News (7.5 percent) and ABC News (7.5 percent). The least-trusted organizations were Fox News (26.2 percent), followed by NBC News (9.9 percent), MSNBC (9.4 percent), CNN (8.5 percent), CBS News (5.3 percent) and ABC News (3.7 percent).

I have to quote directly from the study results because, well, they’re pretty unbelievable:

Researchers asked respondents for their perceptions of political leanings of various news sources. The Daily Show/Colbert Report was viewed, by a six-to-one margin, as mostly or somewhat liberal over mostly or somewhat conservative. By nearly five-to-one margins, respondents see “news media journalists and broadcasters,” the New York Times and MSNBC as mostly or somewhat liberal over those that see them as mostly or somewhat conservative.

Fox News is viewed as mostly or somewhat conservative over mostly or somewhat liberal by a four-to-one margin. And, by approximately three-to-one margins, CNN and USA Today are viewed as mostly or somewhat liberal over mostly or somewhat conservative. The Wall Street Journal is viewed as more conservative by a two-to-one margin while National Public Radio is viewed as more liberal by the same margin.

Of course, one must wonder about the validity of the study if 15 percent of the respondents thought The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert were “somewhat conservative” and 25 percent thought Fox News is “somewhat liberal.” Where did they find these people?

In response to a press release we issued for a client this week, we received this e-mail message in response:

Please remove me from your email lists since we are no longer publishing travel information. Thanks.

Carol Parker
The Tampa Tribune

This came on the heels of the news last week that the last full-time newspaper travel editor in the state of Florida — Jane Wooldridge of the Miami Herald — had been appointed business editor of the paper. The news story noted that the Herald would announce when it named someone to “oversee” the travel section. Translation: there’s not going to be a full-time travel editor at the Miami Herald.

Wooldridge had done about as much as any travel editor could have to make herself indispensable to the paper. She wrote at least one article every week, she branded the section and she even spearheaded the creation of an annual travel trade show in Miami.

But the fact is that newspapers realize there’s plenty of wire service and syndicated travel content out there that can be had for less than the cost of maintaining a travel editor and actually paying for her to travel — despite the fact that the travel section remains one of the newspaper industry’s advertising bright spots.

By turning to freelancers, wire services and syndicates, newspapers avoid the sticky wicket of the ethical quandary of accepting complimentary travel, which, heaven forbid, could pollute any resulting story with smarmy public relations influence. That this tacit quid pro quo effect does not really exist is beside the point. For years newspaper travel editors have responded to our trip pitches with the lordly “We don’t accept free travel” or “We don’t take press junkets.”

Now that many of these same ex-travel editors have been bought out and find themselves among the masses of freelancers, their ethical qualms seem to quickly evaporate. As have the newspapers’ since now they have an extra layer of ethical protection between themselves and the writer, the wire service or syndicate. That tag “Special to the Herald” under a writer’s name does wonders to insulate the paper from any potential conflict of interest, regardless of whether the writer paid his own way or got a free ride from the travel supplier.

In the article announcing Wooldridge’s ascension to the business editorship, the Herald noted that in these harsh economic times having a seasoned editor of the business section was essential, and Wooldridge’s 26 years at the Herald certainly qualify her as seasoned. Whether it makes sense to not have a travel editor at a major newspaper in a major travel destination and feeder market remains to be seen.

The weblog Jossip, a gossipy, crass site that strives to be the vaunted Gawker, ran a post that perpetuates some of the worst clichés about the public relation profession. The writer’s assertion is that since newspapers are laying off reporters or shuttering their doors, promising J-school students are eschewing the lofty calling of journalism for the bright lights and dirty money of the PR profession.

Penned by what could only be a recent — and almost certainly unemployed — J-school graduate named Drew, the piece plays many of the old saws about the practice of PR:

The problem, of course, is that PR represents all that is despised by the press: duplicity, glad-handing and vague comments about their clients that shield that nugget of truth every journalist works to find.

It’s difficult to quote more of the post because it is peppered with pointless vulgarities. Obviously, the kid has never really been a reporter because he would know better than to paint —or in this case slime — us all with the same brush. And as a former reporter and editor, I know what the truth is like on both sides of the editorial desk.

At this agency, we don’t do “spin,” and we’ve managed to build a good reputation and rapport with the journalists with whom we work. We do that by having an instinct for what’s news and what’s fluff, for never lying to a journalist and by understanding what journalists need to do their jobs.

Andy Newman says that our first job is to serve the media; our second task is to serve our clients. Now that might sound bass-ackward, as my mother would say, but it makes perfect sense. If you can gain the trust and even — grudging, perhaps — respect of the media by being an effective and responsive communicator, that will go far toward enabling you to communicate effectively for your clients.

Of course, we don’t bother with immature, potty-mouthed weblogs like Jossip who rely on f-bombs and poopy words for snarky effect — our clients don’t need them and neither do we.

In a Business Week column, media reporter Jon Fine notes that the Associated Press and some unnamed publishers — we assume of newspapers — have been having informal talks about how to make their online content less available so people will pay for it. Fine offers a possible version of how this could happen:

Out of all the imperfect scenarios available, the least imperfect version looks to me like this: A bunch of news organizations get together, create a site walled off from the prying Web-crawlers of Google (and the momentary affections of the casual Web surfer), charge subscription fees and split these fees and any ad revenue.

It could work, I suppose, I mean the Wall Street Journal gets online subscribers to pay, but then, that’s the Journal, not the Newark Star-Ledger or even the Miami Herald (which, by the way gets noticeably lighter every day when I fetch it from the driveway), for that matter.

“Can I imagine content going behind a pay wall?” asks Tom Curley, the CEO of the Associated Press. “Absolutely. And, yes, we are in conversations about that.” These conversations with other content players are informal, he admits. And a gazillion issues arise. One is that the Associated Press has a licensing agreement with Google, the particulars of which Curley would not detail, that won’t expire until December. (A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.) It’s also unclear how this would work for a newspaper or a TV operation that does not want to wholly destroy existing traffic.

As they say where I come from, it’s a puzzlement. The quandry is that online consumers of news and information are used to getting whatever they want — no matter how bad the quality — for free, all the time, and as much as they want. And how do you protect your content from being snagged by a blogger and posted on another Web site under the fair-use doctrine?

Perhaps, as the price of exclusive content goes up, the value of PR information will increase …

Fine notes that some smaller papers in smaller markets have been relatively successful in getting online subscribers to pay something — but that something is nowhere near as hefty as the former ad revenue stream.

But while the big-shot publishers discuss how much to charge for their locked-down content, I’m left wondering how this will affect the public relations practice. We’re already seeing a contraction of media outlets — there’s just one full-time travel editor left at a newspaper in the state of Florida — so if the AP goes behind a wall, will it even deign to take my press release? Or will I have to enter into an exclusive agreement that my release won’t be made available on, say, PR Newswire so that AP and its partners can assign a value to it?

Or does the scenario present a possible opportunity for the savvy PR practitioner? Already, we are seeing media relations lose the “media” part as the information we disseminate bypasses traditional media and lodges in the Yahoos of the world and all of the other sites that are programmed to respond to keyword searches and automatically snag and post information of interest to their readers.

Perhaps, just perhaps, as the price of exclusive content goes up, the value of the information I and my colleagues disseminate will increase in the eyes of consumers.

Editor & Publisher published an exclusive story Monday about a number of Northeast newspapers that met in Manhattan to discuss creating a content-sharing consortium where they would freely share photography and stories. This is just another sign of the sorry state of the newspaper business, but it also points to the AP’s declining role as the sole purveyor of news and photos to newspapers.

Late last summer, several large newspapers informed the AP they would be ending their memberships — two years down the road, of course, to comply with AP’s rigid membership rules. Many cite AP’s rigidity and lack of responsiveness to individual newspapers’ needs.

A “Northeast Consortium” of newspapers, which will include New York’s Daily News and — at least at the present time — is said to include Newsday, The Buffalo News, the Times-Union of Albany, N.Y., and the Star Ledger of Newark, N.J., among others, is weeks away from announcing a content-sharing arrangement that will include both stories and photos.

The Daily News refused comment to E&P.

One executive who spoke on condition of anonymity and who attended the “summit” of New York-area papers, held in Manhattan within the past two weeks, cited cost savings, more timely exchange of content, and what that executive called “a new spirit of cooperation” as the primary motivations for such an undertaking. This source referred to the “Draconian terms” of the AP, which last Thursday responded to newspapers’ concerns by announcing further rate cuts and restructuring.

For its part, AP is responding to the loss of members and criticisms fairly aggressively:

Last Thursday, AP stated that by the middle of 2009, it will complete a review of its pricing and governance structure, re-examining all current policies and rules — such as the two-year notice now required for leaving the news cooperative — and will consider other potential changes, including the creation of different classes of membership and services.

The AP’s board of directors voted last Thursday at its quarterly meeting in New York to provide all member newspapers complete access to all AP text content, at no extra cost. In addition, it voted to approve a moratorium on the rate increases that a minority of newspapers were expected to see in 2009 under the current AP pricing structure.

To AP’s credit, it also has approved assessment reductions totaling $30 million for its members. Will that be enough? Only time will tell, but in the current economic atmosphere, pressure on newspapers — and, by extension on the Associated Press — will only grow. E&P’s report ended on the note that a couple of Midwestern newspapers that had caught wind of the Manhattan summit had made inquiries regarding possible membership in the consortium.

Several such groups, notably in Ohio, already exist, and if their model proves successful, it is doubtful that the AP will be able to sweeten the pot sufficiently to maintain its position of prominence in the news-gathering business.

When I made the big leap from magazine editor to public relations executive lo, those many years ago, it was with a great sense of relief that I would never again have to produce a daily newspaper. The publication I worked for was a business and management monthly aimed at owners and managers of travel agencies.

One thing I learned early on is that travel agents like to go places and hold meetings. One thing our publisher learned early on was that advertisers would pay to be in small publications produced and published at the site of a meeting. As a result, I worked on dailies in such far-flung places as Cairo, Egypt; Nassau, Bahamas; Memphis, Tenn.; Miami, Fla., and New York City. I thought that I had left all that behind when I evolved from hack to flack.

Unfortunately, due to some particularly egregious sin in a past life, I apparently am destined to be a part-time newspaper editor in perpetuity.

For the past 14 years I have been editor of “Seatrade Today,” the daily newspaper we publish on site during the Seatrade Cruise Shipping Convention, the cruise industry’s largest and most significant annual gathering. For three months leading up to the event, I am inundated by PR types, marketing directors and ad men seeking to place stories in the paper.

Of course, given the international nature of the convention, much of the copy submitted is in some only partially Anglicized dialect in which the finer points of semantic meaning are bludgeoned to a pulp by an incomplete grasp of the basics of English grammar. Then there are the telephone conversations with anonymous pitch persons with impenetrable accents. And don’t even get me started on the amazing diversity of photo formats that have as much in common with “high resolution” as a cat and a hammer.

So, from a staff of one (me) we grow to a staff of two when Andy Newman starts laying out pages (Andy likes to give himself a new title every year, and in 2008 elevated himself to “executive editor,” while I remain, humbly, “editor.”), to finally a staff of four during the actual convention.

Over the years, “Seatrade Today” has grown from a two-color, 8.5-inch by 11-inch, four-pager to a 16-page, four-color, tabloid-size daily. Despite technological advances, publishing the paper remains a challenge, but one that so far we have been able to meet every day for every year.

We have developed a couple of mottos for our publication: “All the News that Fits,” which refers to the fact that no matter what, there will always be a disappointed PR person who promised what we did not deliver, and “If You Have Food or Booze You Have News,” which refers to our quid pro quo practice of providing editorial coverage in exchange for libations and/or comestibles delivered to the newsroom.

Working on “Seatrade Today” does not engender feelings of nostalgia for the bygone days of publishing. On the contrary, the only positive emotion I associate with the daily is the sense of relief I feel when we pack up our computers and return to the office at the end of the convention.

Anybody who does it will tell you, blogging is time consuming. We’re managing a blog for a client (Eurodam News Blog) and cranking up this one on our Web site, and sometimes coming up with compelling, pertinent content is difficult.

But it must be ever so much harder for the bloggers covering the presidential campaign. We’re just less than a year away from the elections, and generating something interesting and different in a race in both parties where, aside from poll numbers, hairstyles and accents, there’s not a whole lot of new or different going on.

Gary Trudeau captured that sentiment perfectly in his Doonesbury cartoon strip last Sunday, shown below.

“I wasn’t picking on anyone or any blog in particular,” replied Trudeau, when contacted by Editor & Publisher. “I was just commenting on how many journalists seem to be pulling double-duty now — and wondering what the impact is on quality.”

Hmm, posting a blog post about a cartoon about a blogger who has nothing to post … too self-referential?

The American Journalism Review has an interesting article exploring the origin of the “-30-” symbol that journalists used to use to mark the end of a story. I still run across it occasionally when a freelancer of a certain age sends me a manuscript. It appears that no one definitively knows where the symbol came from, but that hasn’t stopped generations of speculation:

So where did the term originate? Some say the mark began during a time when stories were submitted via telegraph, with “-30-” denoting “the end” in Morse code. Another theory suggests that the first telegraphed news story had 30 words. Others claim the “-30-” comes from a time when stories were written in longhand — X marked the end of a sentence, XX the end of a paragraph and XXX meant the end of a story. The Roman numerals XXX translate to 30.

But these are hardly the only explanations, theories and guesses for the rise of “-30-”. It is rumored that a letter to an East India company ended with “80,” a figure meaning “farewell” in Bengali. The symbol supposedly was misread, changed to 30 and took root. Some say the mark comes from the fact that press offices closed at 3 o’clock. And there’s the theory that 30 was the code for a telegraph operator who stayed at his post during a breaking news story until his death 30 hours later — versions of that story even include that the unfortunate operator hit two keys on his machine when he collapsed. Which ones? That’s right, 3 and 0.

Read the whole article here.