Discuss the Newspaper Division’s Name
Ed.: HOW TO JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Register, login, then click the blog’s title to get back here. Read to the bottom to Speak Your Mind on Bill’s original message, or click a blue “Reply” tag to respond to a specific comment. The discussion will be open until September. The same topic on the division’s e-mail list is archived here. Additional notes from Bill appear in the Summer 2010 LeadTime. Links to the 2008 e-mail discussion appear at the end of the comment list.
by Bill Cassidy, division chair
I thought of beginning with some pithy little saying that would accurately describe the issue I want to address in this column. I could have written something like “It’s the elephant in the room,” or “We’ve been down this road before,” or maybe even some reference to “stirring up a hornet’s nest.” Well, it seems I’ve gone and done just that. But, here’s the bottom line: I strongly believe that we need to revisit the issue of changing our division’s name and bring the conversation to some kind of conclusion.
Indeed, we have been down this road before. In her Summer 2008 column, former division head Susan Keith stated “I believe we need a name that better embraces the full range of what our scholars study and what our industry does.” From there a spirited discussion about a possible name change ensued on the division’s listserv…
Anyone interested in revisiting the exchanges can do so. Our division Webmaster Bob Stepno has smartly placed a link to the discussion on the division’s homepage and it can be accessed directly at
http://aejmc.net/pipermail/news-list_aejmc.net/2008-July/thread.html#start
During this time the division membership was also surveyed to see if the discussion should be continued. While those responding only constituted a fraction of the division membership (N=49), former division head Jack Rosenberry said in his Fall 2008 column that 58 percent of respondents believed the discussion was worthy of continuation.
Comments from the respondents were wide-ranging and the survey results, combined with the listserv discussion prompted division leadership to conclude that while there didn’t appear to be strong support for a name change, the issue needed to remain on the agenda.
Now it’s nearly two years later and there are additional reasons to reboot the discussion—including some that are practical, rather than philosophical. I outlined a couple of these in my previous column. It’s possible that our name has a negative impact on membership. While membership numbers haven’t changed much in the past couple of years, there is an overall decline in the last several and it certainly seems that we don’t attract as many younger members as some other divisions. More than a few members have told me their graduate students are uninterested in both submitting to and joining the division because they feel it lacks relevance in the 21st century. Admittedly, this information is anecdotal. But, it certainly adds to the importance of a discussion about a potential name change. Related to membership is the issue of money. Declining numbers means less money for the division and we have already reached the point of having to be very judicious with our funds.
Another concern that came up in the previous discussion was the impact a name change would have on other divisions and our relations with those divisions, most notably the Radio-Television Journalism Division (RTVJ). This issue becomes increasingly relevant if any name change we consider includes the words “news,” and/or “journalism.” To that end I have been in contact with Gary Hanson, the head of RTVJ to invite their membership to contribute to our discussion. Gary has informed me that RTVJ is also considering a name change. Perhaps our divisions can explore the pros and cons together. At the time of deadline for this column, Gary and I have made arrangements to further discuss the subject.
In the hopes of spurring even more conversation, I would like for the discussion to take place on the division’s excellent new blog at http://aejmc.net/news/. This column will be posted on the blog and any interested parties can utilize the blog’s “comment” feature to participate.
I have purposely made the focus here one of getting the conversation started, as opposed to stating my personal preferences. In part this is because, while I do think our name needs to be changed in some form, I’m not quite certain what that name should be exactly. But, I highly encourage those participating in the discussion to also provide suggestions for a name.
For now, there is no timeline for bringing the issue to a conclusion. Division leadership will analyze the discussion and proceed from there.
I will finish with the following in the hope it can provide a starting point for the conversation. In examining the papers accepted by the division at the national convention in the past two years, more than one-third (36 percent) addressed newspaper Web sites. This information can be looked at in two different and very distinct ways. It can be argued that because such a significant number of papers address newer media, the division’s name should reflect that. But, on the other hand, the results might also suggest that newer media scholars are finding and utilizing the division in solid numbers and a name change is unnecessary.
Let the conversation begin (again)!
It’s not really about the name. It’s more about the mindset. A mindset focused on newspapers is a mindset focused on the past. I wrote about this a bit after attending my first AEJMC conference last year:
http://umassjournalismprofs.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/a-wake-up-call-for-aejmc/
The focus for this division, whatever the name, needs to be on the journalism. The delivery form has/is changing and there are many forward-thinking issues to tackle. The content and the many new ethical issues that have arisen with “new media” matter and need to be at the center, not somewhere out on the margins. That should be the focus of the “Newspaper-related-issues-but-not-really-focused-on-the-dying-print-newspaper-model division.”
As of Aug. 1, Bill C is in transit to Denver and will have limited e-mail access to manage submissions to the mailing list, but this blog version of the discussion will remain open through the Denver convention.
About two dozen members have added to the discussion via the division’s e-mail list.
However, I’ve noticed I’m missing about half of the messages in Gmail, and I can rarely tell who is replying to whom.
For anyone else who suspects they might be missing part of the conversation, here’s a direct link to the mailing list Web archive:
http://aejmc.net/pipermail/news-list_aejmc.net/2010-July/
http://aejmc.net/pipermail/news-list_aejmc.net/2010-August/
C’mon, Guys! We really have to move beyond “The Medium is the Message.” Content drives who we are as a group. If we are different from RTV or online in our content approach, let’s find a word for that.
We are about news journalism. Is RTV considering any changes? We do overlap with other divisions (media ethics, for example), but in the end we are about news journalism. News or News journalism or just Journalism Division would work, I think.
I’m in a small department, and like many of you I now have to learn and teach just about everything. But the focus of my courses is news. Reporting, presentation and distribution of newsworthy information for all media.
Ann Auman
Hawaii
(moved from previous location by admin.)
Important discussion.
Newspapers are not dead, but many are dying. (One editor told me in January that he figured that over the next 1 to 3 years, many more dailies will die because they cannot resolve their revenue problems/business model).
What newspaper journalists and online journalists and radio/TV journalists have in common now is that they’re multimedia journalists. For me, NPR is a very good model. So, I teach multimedia journalism– no longer “print” journalism. I stress values of objectivity, timeliness and accuracy — but each platform in which journalism appears has its issues. Is it possible to get those clinging to separate lifeboats, particularly newspapers and television, to cooperate under a new banner? We can’t go back to a 1970s heyday when I did, and loved, newspaper journalism. Our purpose is more than studying newspapers; we’re about journalism — not a platform: 21st century journalism is multi-platform.
Carol Dykers
Salem College
(Originally sent to Bob via e-mail)
Bill:
Whatever the decision, I think it’s healthy to have the discussion, if only to reinforce keeping the name if that’s what the membership thinks best.
It might be time to do a Survey Monkey survey to get a better picture of what the division member think than we would just by having a general discussion that may not reflect the true feelings of the division’s membership.
furthermore, I think we need to look at the question strategically. We need to ask what the division’s focus truly is, and then let the name reflect who we are.
Thus, if newsPAPERS are the focus, I think we keep the name of the division. The newspaper will continue in some form, and it certainly provides the historical, political and social roots of other media, media practices, free speech and other institutions and issues.
However is NEWS qua NEWS is the point, especially in the modern context, it’s worth considering changing the name. News has morphed and changed and it’s defined much less than newspapers than it once was. Moreover, while I expect newspapers to survive, also expect them to consider to shrink and morph into a niche market. That would make us more akin to the magazine division. And that’s OK by me.
Anyway, I think we need to really discuss your question in the context of who we are and what we do. I favor changing it the the News Division myself, if only a political move to avoid looking like we represent decline, but I would prefer to answer the question of our focus, first.
jack
–
John B. (Jack) Zibluk, Ph.D.
Professor
Arkansas State University
Department of Journalism
P.O. Box 1930
State University, AR 72467
(H) 870-931-1284
(W) 870-972-3255
(cell) 870-219-3328
Thanks, Jack. I guess one question is whether the Newspaper Division has a significant number of members whose interest isn’t just “news” but other aspects of the newspaper industry — its history, business practices, institutions, personalities, etc. Meanwhile, as Bill Reader notes below, other divisions are also concerned with news reporting and related topics.
On the e-mail list there has been some discussion of a leadership meeting with the “Radio-TV Journalism” division and others who have news reporting as an interest, which makes sense to me — as does your suggestion of doing a quantifiable membership survey in addition to this more qualitative discussion.
Regards,
Bob Stepno
(Note: Jack’s message above was sent to me by e-mail, and I have posted it on his behalf.)
I concur with Jack on a number of things. The decision is this:
1) Do we want to claim all things NEWS
OR
2) Do we want to be focused on the realm of newspapers, who certainly will survive this revolution, but perhaps in a form different from what we are used to.
Either course is fraught with implications and perhaps conflict with other divisions. E.g., if we claim to be all things NEWS, we need to decide what our relationship with RTVJ Division is going to be (this was raised before).
On the other hand, if we go with newspapers, and if the current economic trends hold, we might find ourselves in the same camp with elements of Civic and Community Journalism.
In either case, we can actually do a survey here, if that’s what you want. We simply add a nice utility to the blog.
If the Newspaper Division were a stand-alone organization, a name change would be necessary. But as part of AEJMC, we have no need for that.
Newspapers are, right now and today, a large and important part of the media landscape, and worthy of distinct attention from within the AEJMC membership. Until newspapers cease to exist entirely – and with them their continuing demand for our students and alumni for jobs, as well as their role in society as dominant sources of local news and in-depth/investigative reporting – there should be a ‘Newspaper’ division of AEJMC.
Right now, the Newspaper Division provides a very important community of scholars with diverse research interests — cultural/critical, public opinion, news work, ethics, law, economics, history, and so on – within a common area of focus – newspapers, print and/or online, as opposed to magazines, radio, television, and various online-only formats.
If the division shrinks over time, or fragments as the industry fragments, or eventually disappears along with ‘newspapers,’ so be it.
The struggles/demise of some metro dailies in the U.S. is not a good yardstick. The community press in America is still quite strong and 97 percent or so of the total newspapers published in the U.S., and newspapers in other countries also continue to be a large part of their media sectors (seven of the 10 largest circulation newspapers in the world are in Japan; two are in China; one is in Germany; and only two of the top 35 are U.S. newspapers, USAToday and the WSJ). A medium that has a combined circulation of 100 million or so in the U.S. and hundreds of millions more worldwide deserves its own interest group within AEJMC.
Finally, other divisions and interest groups also focus on “news media,” and potentially starting a turf war with them within AEJMC is neither necessary nor wise.
One more try on the “statement of purpose” theme I mentioned last month (and in 2008). I just noticed that the list-of-divisions page at AEJMC.org describes the Newspaper Division as follows:
Since there are separate divisions or interest groups for all of those sub-topics, except “the newspaper industry,” it’s no wonder we’re having a bit of an identity crisis!
Doug Fisher at USC weighs in at http://commonsensej.blogspot.com/2010/03/marching-to-drumbeat-dow-jones-news.html with good points – and essentially a challenge for us to do something.
Some high profile name changes in 2009 may argue on behalf of a change. ASNE is now the American Society of News Editors. RTNDA is now RTDNA – Radio Television Digital News Association. When ONA started it was original the Online Newspaper Association. No longer.
In the original discussion (linked above) some pretty respected scholars with deep history in our division argued for a change.
Agreed about precedents… http://snd.org among them. (But it still gives separate Newspaper Design award, just as we could continue to sponsor “Newspaper Research Journal” even if its focus of attention was deemed narrower than that of the division.) NAA is still “Newspaper,” but not much else is…
Randy & Bill and other readers: Since you’ve been to more AEJMC and division meetings than I have, is there a Newspaper Division “mission statement” that should be part of the website and this discussion? Hard to write a subtitle in 12 words or less without seeing a 25, 50 or 100-word version.
(This note is also a demo of a reply-to-a-reply in this blog comment system.)
That elephant in the room looks a lot like a big dead tree…
The 2008 discussion Bill mentioned above can be skimmed from different points where the conversation “restarted” under new headings. Here’s Susan Keith’s opener. You can sort the 2008 archive by thread or author. (I was for, “Keep name, add a Web-friendly 21st century statement-of-purpose”; I still am.) In fact, perhaps some enthusiastic new members would like to post summaries of main positions, e.g., “change name to ‘News Media’” or “add ‘online’ to name.”