Journalism

In her 60 Minutes debut as a special correspondent, she talked to 14 Americans about how they feel about the president — the results were decidedly mixed.

With more than 1 million Puerto Ricans living in New York, several stations in the NYC market have sent reporters to cover Hurricane Maria. WPIX, WABC, WCBS, WNYW all had boots on the ground as the storm lashed the island on Wednesday. 

Adam Ragusea decries how CNN let down his Floridian family, who huddled around the network for Hurricane Irma news only to be battered by hyperbole and inaccuracy, especially about the devastation’s extent. “Cable news crews with satellite uplinks were the only eyes on the ground that my family had, and all those eyes ever seemed to look at were scenes of devastation,” he writes. 

AP’s Andy Carvin, Quartz’s John Keefe, The E.W. Scripps Co.’s Rob McCracken and GateHouse Media’s Penny Riordan will look at how social platforms, bots and voice-enabled technologies are building audience engagement and loyalty among cord-cutting millennials at TVNewsCheck’s sixth annual NewsTECH Forum on Dec. 11-12.

The Republican Governors Association has launched an online news site, The Free Telegraph, that positions itself as a media outlet without any notice to readers that it is the product of an official party committee. Bill Barrow writes that the site only disclosed its partisanship after being contacted by the AP last week. 

Margaret Sullivan weighs in on the controversy around ESPN anchor Jemele Hill’s tweets on President Trump, and she has little to laud in the network’s response. She says Hill isn’t a reporter of straight news but an anchor and commentator called upon to share her views. For that matter, Sullivan argues, ESPN isn’t a news network either, and “at a time in America when authoritarian tendencies are rising, shutting down voices such as Jemele Hill’s is worse than inappropriate,” she writes. 

A new Google survey of over 900 journalists in North America and Europe found 42% of journalists use data to tell stories twice or more per week; 51% of all news organizations now have dedicated data journalists; and 33% of journalists use data for political stories. 

Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer left the job amid a wave of journalistic criticism over his dishonesty and unavailability. The recent rehab of his image, notably with an onstage appearance at Sunday’s Emmys, has many of those same journalists in apoplexies of disbelief. To them, Philip Eli advises, “Unless he cures cancer, his celebrity appearances and appointments should be treated as a footnote to his overall story.”

ESPN President John Skipper said in a staff memo Friday that the network “is about sports” and is “not a political organization.” The memo followed anchor Jemele Hill’s tweets denouncing President Trump as a white supremacist and capped off a rough week for ESPN. “In light of recent events, we need to remind ourselves that we are a journalistic organization and that we should not do anything that undermines that position,” Skipper wrote. 

Katy Tur’s new memoir Unbelievable is her insider’s account of the Trump campaign from her unique vantage as one of the president’s favorite targets. Jill Abramson’s review lauds a story “that couldn’t be more timely” as Trump ratchets up his attacks on the media.

Facebook is now in the weather business, automatically putting current conditions along with severe weather alerts the extended forecast into users’ news feeds. How can local TV stations push back against this encroachment into their crucial territory? Sending plenty of push alerts is a start.

NBC News will launch a digital vertical dedicated to coverage of the media business, and Claire Atkinson, late of the New York Post, will lead its reporting efforts. A handful of staffers, new hires and contributors will round out the coverage including Gabriel Sherman and James Rainey. 

Fox News Channel has signed anchor Chris Wallace to a new multi-year contract, ensuring he will stay in his role as anchor of Fox News Sunday.

Bob Longo, news director of Cox Media’s CBS-Fox (WJAX-WFOX) duopoly in Jacksonville, Fla., explains the challenges his station faced, and overcame, while covering the powerful hurricane.

It’s a testament to the power of the Sunday-night newsmagazine that it seeks to absorb one of television’s biggest stars into its fabric instead of the other way around. One of the medium’s best-known celebrity interviewers will do some, but will largely work against type in reporting stories, said Jeff Fager, the show’s executive producer.

Peabody has added four new members to its board of advisors, a group of entertainment and media industry leaders providing support for the program’s current and future initiatives. Launched in […]