OK, admit it. You’ve never even thought of parodying the Associated Press Stylebook. But these guys (one from Texas) did, and the result is often hilarious. Written in the same tone as the “real” stylebook, this Twitter feed provides a great newsroom break. And it shows again the power of the Net—three weeks ago it didn’t exist, and now it has 40,000 followers. And that’s more than the AP Stylebook has.
Month: November 2009
Yes, news media can safely publish information about student-athletes without violating the law.
However, publishers may run into some legal difficulties based on the sources of their information.
The First Amendment, with very few exceptions, protects the publication of truthful information. Even when somebody engages in an unlawful act, such as illegally recording a private cell phone conversation, the publisher is not going to get in trouble for broadcasting or printing this information — as long as the publisher had no part in the illegal activity. This was the case in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on this very situation, Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514 (2001).
As long as the information published is newsworthy and isn’t an outrageous and highly offensive violation of a person’s privacy — which are more typically personal medical or sexual matters — then the publisher won’t open itself up for civil litigation on privacy grounds, either.
That said, the source of this information could run into some legal problems. The Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA, also known as the “Buckley Amendment”) protects the privacy of student educational records. Schools that receive federal funds can lose funding if they violate the provisions of FERPA, and the U.S. Department of Education can investigate unlawful release of student records.
Records of school-related drug tests would certainly be protected by FERPA, and any school official releasing these could be in violation of the law. A publisher receiving this information can legally publish it, of course. But that publisher may very well be called upon to identify the source of that information under federal subpoena. With no federal reporter shield law in place yet, publishers would have little choice but to reveal the identity of the source or face contempt of court sanctions.
The best way to deal with this would be to get sources on record that are not linked to the school administration — the players themselves, teammates, parents, or anyone else with specific knowledge of the reasons for their dismissal from the football team.
Community journalists, as announced at our latest workshop you’re being invited by the Schieffer School of Journalism to participate in an exciting two-day event at the School featuring one of the country’s top journalism minds. See the invitation below and this page on TCU’s website for more information:
Colleagues, students and media professionals:
You are cordially invited by the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism to a unique two days of discussions on media innovation and ethics in media led by Steve Buttry.
As many of you know, Steve is a faculty member of the American Press Institute and creator of the Complete Community Connection in his role as C3 coach of Gazette Communications, a family-owned multi-media enterprise based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Steve is an alumnus of TCU.
“Innovations and Ethics” will be November 18 and 19 at the Brown-Lupton University Union.
The programs are sponsored by the Schieffer School of Journalism and the American Press Institute.
There is no registration charge, but space is limited to 50 persons for each of the two sessions on Complete Community Connection and 40 persons for each of the four sessions on media ethics.
“The Complete Communication Connection” will be presented twice on November 18. Both four-hour sessions are the same so you sign up for one or the other.
“Upholding and Updating Ethics” on November 19 includes four 90-minute seminars on different subjects. You can choose to attend all four or any combination of one, two or three of them.
See the attached agendas for more program details. A registration form is also attached.
We look forward to seeing many of you November 18-19 in the Brown-Lupton University Union on the TCU campus.
Sincerely,
John Lumpkin
Director, Schieffer School of Journalism
Andrew Chavez associate director of the Texas Center for Community Journalism argues for an advertising-supported business model online for community newspapers during the Keys to Growing Online Advertising Revenue workshop at Texas Christian University on October 29, 2009.
A new National Newspaper Association survey has yielded some results that will be useful for advertising salespeople who are selling the value of a community newspaper ad buy. Here are the stats you will want to pass along to your salespeople:
– On average, readers share their paper with 2.36 additional readers.
– Nearly 40 percent keep their community newspaper more than a week.
– Three-quarters of readers read local news “often to very often” in their community newspaper.
– Among those going online for local news, 63 percent found it on the local newspaper’s website, compared to 17 percent for sites such as Yahoo, MSN or Google, and 12 percent from the website of a local television station.
– 60 percent read local education news “somewhat to very often” in their newspaper, while 65 percent never read local education news online.
– And finally, something to brighten the day of everyone in your ad department: 47 percent say there are days they read the newspaper as much for the ads as for the news.
And in other survey news, community newspapers experienced a slight decline in circulation volume in the second quarter of this year compared to the first quarter, down about 2 percent as a group, according to the latest audit data from Circulation Verification Council.
The CVC survey said 45 percent of community newspaper publishers reported that circulation increased, with the heaviest declines in the Southeast.