Cameras, Action and Accountability

"The Web is more important in this presidential campaign and the Pennsylvania primary than the newspaper. Think Web first, and then think newspaper, because you're going to do something different for the newspaper. I'm not saying the newspaper's not important, but first think Web, because if you don't think Web first, it's going to be too late to think Web."
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Executive Editor David M. Shribman

Politics and the New Media: Introduction
By Melissa Ludtke, Editor; Don’t Fear Twitter (1 comment)
Using moment-by-moment observations, ‘Twitter entries build a community of readers who find their way to longer articles ….’
By John Dickerson; Only the Reader Sleeps
As political coverage meets the insatiable Web, ‘Reporters and editors have less and less time and more and more responsibilities to file, and to keep filing.’
By Kate Phillips; Adding Radio and Video Web Casts to Political News in Print
‘… am I becoming the first correspondent in my paper’s history who has no time to think?’
By Pekka Mykkänen; It’s an Online World for Young People and Political News (1 comment)
‘My generation doesn't trust what the lone anchor tells us, nor the pundit, nor the panel of experts.’
By Jonathan Seitz; Young Reporters, New Tools, and Political Reporting
At MTV, the 51 members of Street Team ’08 are experimenting with format, content and distribution as they find stories to tell to a youthful audience.
By Liz Nord; Reporting From Kansas for MTV’s Street Team
‘If we want to be successful on the Web, it‘s got to be “guerrilla journalism,” edgy and unpredictable.’
By Alex Parker; Shifting Influence: From Institution to Individual
‘Inheriting the old order was not an option for my generation of journalists.‘
By John Harris; Election Coverage Becomes a Time for ‘Instant Innovation’ (1 comment)
At the Knoxville News Sentinel, bloggers were invited to steer good political coverage to the eyes of the newspaper's online readers.
By Jack Lail; Linking Newspaper Readers to the Best Political Coverage (1 comment)
‘Given the dynamics of the Web … how do news organizations and journalists best serve political news consumers?’
By Scott Karp; For Campaign Coverage, Web Too Often an Afterthought
‘Big news projects on the campaign are still conceived in The Washington Post's newsroom as traditional newspaper stories.’
By Russ Walker; Campaign 2008: It‘s on YouTube
Since the last presidential election, the ‘bubble’ in which the press once operated ‘has become a fishbowl.’
By Albert L. May; The Jigs and Jags of Digital Political Coverage
By Albert L. May; YouTube: The Flattening of Politics (1 comment)
As online video reshapes political coverage, news organizations ignore it ‘at their own peril.’
By Steve Grove; The ‘B’ Word in Traditional News and on the Web
‘Entering “Hillary” and “bitch” we found more than 500 YouTube videos.’
By Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Jacqueline Dunn; Enclave Extremism and Journalism's Brave New World (1 comment)
Some contend that The Daily Me, a self-designed compendium of news and information, leads to increased political polarization.
By Cass R. Sunstein; Political Blogs: Teaching Us Lessons About Community
In the mediascape of blogs, people ‘want the news delivered to them in the context of their attitudes and beliefs.’
By Dan Kennedy; Bloggers Push Past the Old Media's Gatekeepers (1 comment)
From YouTube to The Huffington Post, new media ‘are upending the presidential campaign process and raising questions about journalism's place in it.’
By Tom Fiedler; The Web's Pathway to Accuracy
By Tom Fiedler; Political Journalists — Writing for Online Publications
By Tom Fiedler; New Media Battles Old to Define Internet-Era Politics
‘Because of tradition, inertia and command of the largest, most diverse audiences, the mainstream media still drive the campaign bus with the same old road map.’
By John McQuaid; Covering the Web as a Force in Electoral Politics
‘During the past year and a half … I've been consistently surprised by the volume of calls we get from journalists asking for help understanding this new medium.’
By Micah L. Sifry; Trivial Pursuit: It Happens Too Often in Political Coverage (3 comments)
‘… some of the worst features of campaign reporting emanate from the kinds of psychological defenses that reporters erect to deal with their insecurities.’
By Christopher Hayes; Fast-Paced Journalism's Neglect of Nuance and Context
‘In online reporting, news breaks and context is often added later.’
By Sam Stein; The Spanish-Language Press Delves Into Racial Complexities
‘Most notable was the story line in which Latino voters were described in ways that made them seem monolithic.’
By Elena Shore; Determining If a Politician Is Telling the Truth (1 comment)
‘Through our Truth-O-Meter, we graphically show the relative truth of each claim.’
By Bill Adair

21st Century Muckrakers Investigative Journalism: Covering War: Introduction
By Melissa Ludtke, Editor; Reporting a Scandal When No One Bothers to Listen (3 comments)
‘It was as though until headlines blared from newsstands in the nation's capital, the trees in this forest weren't really falling.’
By Mark Benjamin; Creating an Investigative Narrative
Excerpts of a presentation by Anne Hull and Dana Priest; Investigative Reporting on Iraq: From Beginning to End (1 comment)
McClatchy's Washington bureau continues its watchdog reporting about Iraq, this time revealing dangers in the new embassy construction.
By Warren P. Strobel; Combining Investigative Reporting With an Editorial Voice
‘… it became clear that the editorial board could advocate for changes by presenting the facts in a fresh, in-depth way and by speaking with scientific-based authority.’
By Heidi Evans and Beverly Weintraub; Personal Tragedies Illuminate the Consequences of War
In investigating why some Iraq War veterans become homicidal, The New York Times highlighted a circumstance that no one else was tracking.
By Matthew Purdy; Private Military Contractors: Determining Accountability
‘The reliance on private contractors and a web of subcontractors can come with a staggering price.’
By Joseph Neff; The Neutrality Maze
When there's one side to the story, what does it mean to stay impartial?
By Joshua Kors; Probing the High Suicide Rate Among Soldiers in Iraq (1 comment)
In pushing for the military to release undisclosed data, reporters found soldiers who battled mental illness and took their own lives during the war.
By Matthew Kauffman and Lisa Chedekel; Following the Brain Injury Story: From Iraq to the Home Front (1 comment)
After hearing from Marines in Iraq about head wounds, a USA Today reporter works to get the military to release information about their prevalence.
By Gregg Zoroya; Revealing War on a Human Scale
‘It became heroic, tragic, visceral, incomprehensible, beautiful and grotesque — in a word: human.’
By Robert Lewis; Terrorism and Prisoners: Stories That Should Be Told
‘… stories about how we might balance security and civil liberties began slipping deeper inside major newspapers.’
Transcript of a speech by Tim Golden; Tribunals and War Crimes Trials: Treatment of the Press
Investigative journalists confront intimidating tactics and legal actions against them by international criminal tribunals.
By Thierry Cruvellier
Photojournalism: Visual Testimony About War
An essay in words and photographs by Peter van Agtmael; Iraqis: Making Visible the Scars of Exile (1 comment)
An essay in words and photographs by Lori Grinker
Documentary Film: Using Documentary Film to Deeply Explore Issues (1 comment)
‘It seemed to me solid news reporting could no longer do its job.’
By Ayelet Bechar; Documenting Lebanon After the 2006 War: 'Deserted Riviera'
The filmmakers illuminated 'the complexities and subtleties of Lebanon's politico-religious tapestry … through engaging characters and fast-paced visual units.'
By Iason Athanasiadis; Meeting Resistance on Iraq (1 comment)
On-the-ground reporting with resistance fighters in Baghdad revealed a different narrative than the one portrayed by many in the mainstream news.
By Molly Bingham and Steve Connors; The Visual Challenge of Documenting Secrecy
In filming ‘Secrecy,’ the challenge wasn’t access, but finding the best ways to make what is usually hidden from view visible, personal and approachable.
By Peter Galison and Robb Moss
Nieman Notes: The Last Day of a Great Ride (1 comment)
‘There are far too many goodbye parties in newsrooms like The Boston Globe for employees like me who are taking buyouts …’
By Charles M. Sennott; ‘How Long Can You Look at a Red Leaf?’ (1 comment)
By Derrick Z. Jackson
Curator's Corner: Wartime and the Nieman Foundation
By Bob Giles

What are people saying?: Trivial Pursuit: It Happens Too Often in Political Coverage (3 comments)
By Christopher Hayes; Reporting a Scandal When No One Bothers to Listen (3 comments)
By Mark Benjamin; Don’t Fear Twitter (1 comment)
By John Dickerson; It’s an Online World for Young People and Political News (1 comment)
By Jonathan Seitz; Election Coverage Becomes a Time for ‘Instant Innovation’ (1 comment)
By Jack Lail

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