July 23, 2001– Newsletter #140

Greetings, Weekend Silicon Warriors,

I was away this past weekend and returned to find over
350 emails in my “jburns@htmlgoodies.com” box. Over
50 were a new virus being sent around with the message
in the body:

Hi! How are you?
I send you this file in order to have your advice

The attachments were “ace.doc.pif,” “Readme.doc.zlg,”
and “progtest.zip.bat”

The virus is named “Sircam” and this one is a pain. If
you open the file, it fills your hard drive’s unused space
with a text file. Virus companies think it came from
Russia.

Watch those attachments. Open nothing.

Did you hear…

Finally! Good news on the Internet tech front. Yahoo’s
second quarter earnings have surpassed Wall Street
expectations. The shares are up over a buck. Third
quarter earnings are expected to be break-even. If they
surpass that expectation, look for the stock to go up
again. Maybe I should look into Yahoo with the extra
couple of bucks I’m getting back from the government.

Microsoft expects to also beat earnings predictions, but a
dark cloud still hangs overhead. The company will soon
report a $2.6 billion investment loss. The bulk of the
losses came from cable and telecommunication buys.

In a ruling sure to scare up some legal trouble, U.S.
District Judge Sidney H. Stein ruled that Random House
did not have the ability to stop Rosetta Books from
releasing eight titles on Random House’s backlist. The
judge basically said that e-books came out after the
original contracts and thus nothing was in them covering
the new technology.

Now onto today’s topic…

A couple of years ago I was invited to attend a meeting of
university professors in New York City. It was just
communications professors and only 75 were asked to
attend. It was a pretty big deal.

One of the conference’s afternoon trips was to the studios
of a major cable news network (name omitted on
purpose). We toured the studio and then were brought
into a small lecture-style room where the head of the
news operation addressed us and then took questions.

One of the professors asked what the news director
looked for in a new hire. We were all communication
professors so we were sitting back expecting to have our
egos puffed up when he answered, “I don’t like to hire
communication majors”.

I promise to you that those were his first words. I’m
assuming he knew we were all communication professors
so I’m guessing he tailored his words for us.

Nice fit.

His logic was that the communication graduates he saw
were too concerned with the presentation of the business
and less concerned with the actual news and research
side. The graduates he saw were more talking heads than
journalists. This news director was less interested in
someone who could read the NASDAQ numbers than in
someone who actually knows what the NASDAQ
represents.

I’ve remembered that in teaching my own classes. I
always teach the basic tenets journalism in a journalism
class, but stillthe delivery method always gets in the
way. It has to.

Wired.com relayed a story regarding the question of
whether to teach Web-based journalism or not. The two
sides are fighting over basically what the news director
above exemplified. Those who believe in journalism for
journalism’s sake argue that the concept of journalism is
a topic unto itself. Eric Meyer, a professor at the
University of Illinois School of Journalism, states that,
these days, there’s too much emphasis on the production
aspect. He states, “We didn’t used to teach typing”.

Of course there’s another viewpoint.

George Rorick, at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies
claims that the presentation is part of the story. It helps
deliver the message and in today’s marketplace, Web-
based journalism is a necessity.

Someone is going to immediately jump and proclaim that
the solution is easy. Just teach two courses. One will be
basic journalism and the other will be the production side
of it.

I guess there is some logic to that but let’s keep in mind
that there are only so many teaching hours available and
simply adding a class to a curriculum is rough, let alone
getting it accepted as part of the required classes.
Besides, I don’t believe we need go that far.

Journalism is more than the quest for the story and
adherence to correct writing styles. There is certainly a
production aspect. To deny that is simply ignoring that
we all watch the evening news. I lean to the idea that
production is part of the process. I teach broadcast
journalism which is an entirely different animal than print
journalism. The writing style is different and the
formatting is different. That alone proves to me that the
production side of things must be involved.

Writing news for the Web is yet again a completely
different animal from both broadcast and print news
writing. The interactive element of a Web page throws
yet another piece into the puzzle. I believe that
interactive element must be taught right along with the
tenets of journalism rather than apart from them.

Still, the question remains, “Is Web journalism true
journalism?” When you get right down to it, I think that
is the real concern.

The answer, in my mind, is a resounding, “yes” and it
should be taught as such. However, just because I believe
the performance aspect should be part of a journalism
class doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten the cable network’s
news director.

The performance aspect is still nowhere near as important
as the student being taught the basics of journalism. I’m
talking about the legwork. I’m talking about the research.
I’m talking fact checking. I’m talking about remaining
disinterested in the story’s outcome. I’m talking about
getting both sides. I’m talking about basic, fundamental,
journalism. I’m talking about the stuff that makes
students groan when assigned.

Performance and delivery are the icing on the journalism
cake. That’s what I believe. It’s helping to create a
rounded and prepared student. Journalism takes place in
a market and that market is the delivery to the public.

I believe that the concepts of journalism and the flash of
the Web can be taught within the same class and still
create a student who understands the basics of the craft.
However, I also believe that one must be taught before
the other. The two may co-exist only if the journalism
portion comes first. I actually intend to use Web
programming as a reward in my broadcast journalism
class.

If everyone in the class turns in all of their stories on
time, I’ll teach you to make some basic Web pages during
the final two weeks of class. If you miss too many
deadlines, we’ll just keep writing.

What a deal.

Teaching is tough because as the class drags on, you have
to come up with more and more methods of keeping the
students interested. The students will adore making Web
pages and it would be very easy for me to use that
throughout the semester and focus on that aspect to the
demise of the tenets of journalism. It may get me a better
student evaluation, but it doesn’t make a student the best
person to hire.

These same arguments popped up when radio news came
into being, when television news came into being, when
cable news networks came into being, and they’ll come
up again when whatever-is-next comes into being.

Journalism will always have a technical and a
performance side. To teach one without the other, I feel,
is not telling the whole story.

And I believe that one of the basics of journalism is to
telling the whole story.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That’s that. Thanks for reading. I do like writing
knowing you’ll be reading.

Joe Burns, Ph.D.

And Remember: A geodesic dome is the only man-made
structure that actually becomes stronger as it increases in
size.