Category Archives: HonorTagProfessional

Slow Down, You Move to Fast, You’ve Got to Make the Credibility Last

All parents say that their kids grow up too fast. This isn’t true, of course. Parents live too fast, which is why one day your daughter is riding in the car seat and the next day she’s asking you for the keys. I was going to resolve to slow down in 2006, which if youContinue reading “Slow Down, You Move to Fast, You’ve Got to Make the Credibility Last”

Making “Journalist Citizens” – Journalists, Institutions Should Heed Gillmor’s Call for Fostering Citizen Media

Dan Gillmor, one of citizen journalism’s “founding fathers,” is again breaking new ground by starting a nonprofit Center for Citizen Media. He says the Center’s goals “are to study, encourage and help enable the emergent grassroots media sphere, with a major focus on citizen journalism,” as well as to “foster a truly informed citizenry.” TheseContinue reading “Making “Journalist Citizens” – Journalists, Institutions Should Heed Gillmor’s Call for Fostering Citizen Media”

“Journalism Hope” Launches With a Message For Us All

A while back I published the Journalist’s Creed, written in 1907 by Walter Williams, the first dean of the Missouri School of Journalism. It begins with the sentence “I believe in the profession of journalism.” I do, and always have, just as I believe in the profession of public relations when it is practiced withContinue reading ““Journalism Hope” Launches With a Message For Us All”

Washington Post Reporter Terry Neal Goes Back From the Future

With impending doom hanging over print newsrooms like the boulder preparing once again to chase Sisyphus down the hill, reporters should be praying for online salvation, right?  Not so at the Washington Post (registration required), where online “Talking Points” columnist Terry Neal is leaving his web-only world to become the paper’s Maryland local government andContinue reading “Washington Post Reporter Terry Neal Goes Back From the Future”

2006: Year of The Vanishing Blogger

The First Age of blogging – the age of novelty – is coming to an end. It was fun, wasn’t it? The bloggers who blogged about blogging, the apoplectic glee over the beta releases of innocuous software tools, the autoerotic joy of being an “A-lister.” The professional communicators who urged their peers to start blogging,Continue reading “2006: Year of The Vanishing Blogger”

ABC News’ Vargas and Woodruff Pairing is Worth Watching, Online and Off

I couldn’t be happier for Elizabeth Vargas, who along with Bob Woodruff will anchor ABC’s World News Tonight. And it’s not just because she is a fellow Missouri School of Journalism alum, though it is nice to show the New York media elite that there are other worthy journalism schools besides the one in uptownContinue reading “ABC News’ Vargas and Woodruff Pairing is Worth Watching, Online and Off”

1,000 Ghosts: Voices from Death Row Still Echo

Early this morning North Carolina executed Kenneth Lee Boyd, making him the 1,000th person to die since capital punishment resumed in 1977 after a brief moratorium. In a couple weeks, California Death Row inmate Tookie Williams is slated to become number 1,001. I wrote a book about the death penalty years ago, and while theContinue reading “1,000 Ghosts: Voices from Death Row Still Echo”

Journalism Next: The Three (or Four) Branches of the New News Media

The online world – for all its vastness, connectivity and influence – is insulated. That’s not a problem for most people, considering that the online world often makes more sense. But unlike your typical EverQuest player, I have to live in the real world, too. I was in the real world over the weekend –Continue reading “Journalism Next: The Three (or Four) Branches of the New News Media”

The Journalist’s Creed Then and Now – From Williams to Woodward

Thousands of journalists inspired by Watergate and the investigative reporting of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein learned their craft at the University of Missouri. They also learned the Journalist’s Creed, written in 1908 by Dean Walter Williams and which today still stands as a manifesto for journalistic principle and purpose. It reads: I believe inContinue reading “The Journalist’s Creed Then and Now – From Williams to Woodward”

Don’t Look For Riches in Citizen Journalism – Let Citizen Journalism Enrich You

I’m excited about citizen journalism, and most people who live in the little online echo chamber we call the blogosphere are excited about this people-powered evolution of news, too. Get out in the real world, however, and the reaction is guarded. Not as poorly guarded as, say, your typical Iowa or Texas prison facility, butContinue reading “Don’t Look For Riches in Citizen Journalism – Let Citizen Journalism Enrich You”