Monday 25 January 2010

vote in JICC poll and comment






. . . 


[updated] 12.02 29 January 2010


JICC is now on the Communications Initiative site, on the DevNet portal.
Journalism In Crisis Coalition | Development Networks


JICC has been accepted and set up the second global group on the web4dev site, leading up to their annual conference in South America later this year.



Journalism In Crisis Coalition | web4dev

 


JICC has also set up a third poll, this time on My Poll Creator. This poll replaces two earlier polls on the DevNet portal, and also on Survey Monkey. We are now on 4th poll !


H8HE7R52Q422


. . .

Saturday 23 January 2010

draft petition to UNESCO


JICC
world journalism in crisis coalition




The following is a DRAFT petition for presentation to world lead agency on communications, UNESCO. Hyperlinks to come. Comments, criticism, feedback and suggestions very welcome


. . .


Petition to UNESCO Secretary General regards
world journalism in crisis


We, undersigned,

Assert world journalism in crisis.

State there is ample evidence betraying a lack of independent journalism within mainstream media, including a lack of critical analysis afore invasion of Iraq, and global economic crisis.

Recall contemporary apologies from mainstream media, for failure to fully report causes for war on Iraq, and global economic crisis.

Alert journalists to alarm at huge job loss among journalists since global economic crisis began three years ago.

Express deep concern at at least 100,000 journalists and other news room workers sacked from mainstream media over the last three decades.

Back establishment of this informal alliance to monitor the world crisis in journalism, and, advocate for effective solutions.

Support the idea that responses to global crisis should result in more independent investigative journalism,
not less.

Seek rapid response to world journalism in crisis, through industry unity, professional solidarity and multi-sectoral cooperation, both public and private.

Question a preponderance of public, and private, spending on so-called “communications” workers, also known as public relations.

Challenge a lack of strong and independent journalism, and how that lack results in massive societal disruption and armed conflict.

Warn against rampant worldwide corruption, including negligence of journalism.

Reject any idea of inevitability around economic crisis and the ‘need’ to further ‘restructure’ journalism.

Applaud 61 years under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, especially Article 19 ensuring basic right to receive and impart information.

Encourage journalists to better organise lobby and advocacy efforts in response to world journalism in crisis, including the need for colleagues to work on their behalf.

Envision reclaiming a central role for public and state broadcasters by innovating ethics-based web2 training for community and citizen journalism, effectively bridging digital divides.

Safegaurd against corruption in journalism by adopting TTT, Total Transparency Tools, involving immediate public release of all JICC digital correspondence and any finances.

Embrace vision from the Pacific Islands Forum, calling for a “confident, well-informed and professional” news media, as formal precedent for responding to world journalism in crisis, along with other regional and international bodies, like UNESCO.

Refer to the associated Forum report as evidencing need for news media to be well-resourced, to achieve such an aim.

Ask that UNESCO, as a world body dedicated to news media advancement, seek to formally further these issues at all levels within UN systems and across world society.

Suggest, urgently, three main courses of action in response to world journalism in crisis:

¨       Draw attention to world journalism in crisis.

¨       Advocate retention and rebuilding of journalism.

¨       Support calls for rapid scaling up of funding.


Sign this petition in support of the above concerns, questions and suggestions.

. . .

Thursday 21 January 2010

Solutions and Africa too

. . .

How to Solve the Crisis of Journalism in One or Two or Three Not ...
They assess why journalism is in crisis, why the conventional analysis and solutions are failing, and how enlightened and massive state subsidies are the ...
Reuters AlertNet - Africa's press freedom in "crisis" - report
ADDIS ABABA, Jan 21 (Reuters) - African journalism is in crisis with 13 journalists murdered and 32 jailed in 2009 and the African Union is doing nothing to ...
JICC - NetworkedBlogs.com
World Journalism In Crisis is not a debate. It's a reality. ... microScope even though journalism in general is in crisis, science journalism is still ...
The Nation Institute
How to Solve the Crisis of Journalism in One or Two or Three Not-So-Easy Steps ... They assess why journalism is in crisis, why the conventional analysis ...
Radio 4 Today: 'Crisis in the economics of media industry ...
Radio 4 Today follows up on the New York Times plans to charge for online news content. In this segment Tim Luckhurst, professor of journalism at the ...


Wednesday 20 January 2010

calls in US for journalism bailout

. . .


Banks got a bailout, so did airlines, car manufacturers and thousands of others over the last two years.


Now some journalists say it's time journalism was seen as a public good deserving of public funding.

Black and Hispanic Broadcasters, Congressmen Seek Bailout

. . .



Tuesday 19 January 2010

update | journalism in crisis

. . .

microScope
even though journalism in general is in crisis, science journalism is still extremely important. But the future of science jour- ...
Deadline approaching for innovative online journalism prize
Journalism in Crisis 09: Media in crisis faces five recurrent problems, says professor. Problems in modern-day journalism not necessarily remedied by the ...

. . .

Friday 8 January 2010


. . .

NEWS

Wikileaks, the heir presumptive for all anonymous, open-sourced leaking springs a leak.

Usual story - cash.

Like the rest of world journalism in crisis, Wikileaks withers while the "communications" AKA public relations sector enjoys double digit growth: us$4.27 billion in the US alone.

. . .

Thursday 7 January 2010

poll causes of journalism in crisis

jicc | Opinion | Close Date: None
Popularity Index 0 | Rating      Vote now

censored background to 34 years of corruption

. . .


Need big business background on forces that drive journalism in crisis? Critics of corporate corruption point to annual lists like that of Project Censored:


Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010


Others who like to stay more on topic can go with the best and worst of the global news media for 2009.


. . .

behind the scenes

. . .

Lots of writing.

Behind the scenes means lots of research, and lots of writing. In any language. Meantime, some quick JICC jots on immediate needs.

jargon:  difference between journalism in crisis and crisis in journalism.
wants:  a journalism chronology a la francais ?
needs:  volunteers. translators.

Links to follow.

. . .













Wednesday 6 January 2010

positions




3 positions responding to journalism in crisis



  1. journalism is a public good
  2. public funding is a key factor for journalism futures
  3. good journalism is key to world futures






. . .

Tuesday 5 January 2010

history of world journalism in crisis from 1886 Paris

. . .

On 19th January 1886, Charles Ange Laisant, publisher of Le Petit Parisien wrote a letter to a colleague, complaining about news media.

“Journalism is terribly crowded,” he wrote, to Fernand Pelloutier.

“The struggle for life is terrible, especially in Paris. I know many men of talent who do not even have enough to live. On the other hand, I do admit that there are some lucky idiots.”

Journalists are feeling less and less lucky, more idiotic, as journalism continues a slow motion train wreck through debris from the world economic crisis.

Most failed to report causes for the crisis until it was too late.
Strangely, there are some within the media who nay-say any crisis in journalism, commentators like Jeff Jarvis a notable example.

"The fall of journalism is, indeed, journalists' fault. It is our fault that we did not see the change coming soon enough and ready our craft for the transition. It is our fault that we did not see and exploit—hell, we resisted—all the opportunities new media and new relationships with the public presented. It is our fault that we did not give adequate stewardship to journalism and left the business to the business people. It is our fault that we lost readers and squandered trust. It is our fault that we sat back and expected to be supported in the manner to which we had become accustomed by some unknown princely patron. Responsibility and blame are indeed ours."


Jarvis missed the operative part of the phrase "world economic crisis" - the word spelt "world" - and somehow seems to believe that, alone in the world, journalists have managed to escape the crisis that affected billions of others - only to stuff it all up themselves.

A short history of journalism in crisis shows the warning signs were there early, starting with science journalists lamenting a lack of talent.

Like Laisant’s letter - one of the first recorded instance of using the word journalism - the Jarvis comments show how tough journalism can be.

Warnings of journalism in crisis have been around, almost as long as the term has been used. Termed the “first journalist” in English speaking parts of the world, Daniel Dafoe wrote Robinson Crusoe and followed that up by starting the one of the world’s first periodicals. It was quickly shut down by an annoyed English king.

However, no time in history has seen a journalism crisis like this one. Job losses in the last two to three years have been extraordinary. Tens of thousands of news media workers have been cast adrift from the journalism family, a few 'lucky' ones getting a job in “communications” and other public relations positions. Just over 30,000 job losses from newspapers are in the US alone, with 312 recorded for 2010 already.

Few figures are kept outside the US.

International Federation of Journalists, for example, refers to 600,000 members, but that figure has remained static for some years. International Labour Organisation offers all kinds of statistics, but nothing that assesses size of journalistic ranks.

Also extraordinary: the depth of media silence greeting debate around journalism in crisis. Prompted by academic events to debate the issue, news media have stayed away in droves.

Or, remarkably for one paper, The Guardian, a column declaring not enough being done about journalism in crisis, while another said it was a lot of fuss about nothing - both columns written by the same man.

Laisant - original French below - would recognise the symptoms of journalism in crisis, if not it's global scale.

. . .

"Mais le journalisme est terriblement encombré. La lutte pour la vie y est terrible, surtout à Paris; je connais des hommes de beaucoup de talent qui n'y trouve même pas de quoi vivre. Par contre, j'avoue que des crétins y font fortune."


Lettre Charles-Ange Laisant à Fernand Pelloutier du 19 janvier 1886; cité par Maurice Foulon dans « Fernand Pelloutier, Le livre du centenaire » -1967


. . .

30 second overview to journalism in crisis

. . .


This is a 30 second overview to journalism in crisis.


Globally, a record number of newspaper workers are being laid off, more than 30,000 in the US over the last two years alone.

JICC starts out as an informal volunteer effort to focus attention on journalism in crisis, and stands for urgent awareness to be paid to more than 30 years of so-called "restructuring" in news media.


more:

British journalism is in crisis, but we are doing too little to save it
Challenging the Secret Government: Post-Watergate
Looking back: 2009 newspaper layoffs

. . .

 

Monday 4 January 2010

about us

. . .

JICC starts out as an informal volunteer effort to focus attention on journalism in crisis.

Not yet registered, JICC builds a coalition of journalists and journalism resources including citizen journalists and all supporters of ethical, independent news.

First task: building numbers through social networks.

. . .

Saturday 2 January 2010

journalism in crisis coalition founding editorial




The Journalism In Crisis Coalition seeks first to gather names to answer concerns like those raised by academics and authors, such as Nick Davies Flat Earth News, above.



...




Journalism in crisis is the crisis of world crises. 


Voters form basis for democracy. They are not getting enough neutral news to make informed decisions. 


Justice is perverted, world democracy denied.


decades of decline


Journalist numbers have been decimated since Watergate in the 1970s. 


Tens of thousands have lost their job, their profession. 


In the US alone, parent news organisations declined from 85 in 1985 to just five by 2005, institutional investors accelerating journalistic decline by attaching exponential growth expectations, unrealistic in any field as the 2007 global economic meltdown attests, to a public good.


dick spammers


Journalism has blundered beyond doomsday crisis and into the let-them-eat-cake world of nay-sayers like Jeff Jarvis, lauded as a leading commentator on the wildly unsuccessful world journalism in crisis effort from Coventry University, a special site set up and quickly awash with dick spammers.


Apparently, there is more money in advertising sex than reporting truths.


Most focused so far is a report from the Free Press founders, centred around their January 2010 book, The Death and Life of American journalism. This follows on from the equally critical expose of UK press in 2009 by Nick Davies in Flat Earth News


journalism in crisis coalition


Starting here, JICC, the Journalism In Crisis Coalition is an attempt to spark interest in responding to world journalism in crisis and finding solutions, not just debating it.


Starting places are social networks like this blog and Facebook.


First priority: building numbers.


second priority


Anyone online who feels concerned at societal impact of world journalism in crisis can take 30 seconds to tick a fan box. Or comment on this blog. Names and numbers will be used as evidence to support funding applications as a second priority for news media advocacy by sites like this.


Funding applications will take the form of inviting Expressions of Interest in TTT, Total Transparency Tools, registering to charity trust at the bottom of the world, in Aotearoa, New Zealand.


Once formally registered, JICC, the Journalism In Crisis Coalition will form the world's first organisation to build audience around this frontline issue. 


crisis networking 


Others will no doubt follow. So far, however, few take the crisis seriously. Only universities have thus far dared to raise the issue, with mainstream media ignoring the debate completely. Only one newspaper in the world has discussed the issue, as a dismissive op-ed column in The Guardian. 


Existing journalism groups are also quiet. 


IFJ, the International Federation of Journalists has a strangely static membership of 600,000 journalists, and has yet to refer to world journalism in crisis. Across the Atlantic, the 25-year-old Paris-based Reporters sans frontières is equally clueless to a growing storm of academic doubt about the state of the world press. Even the usually raucous Aussies steer clear of the phrase in their 2009 State of Press Freedom report, referring five times to the "financial crisis", not once applying the same word to journalism.


enough is enough ...


New Zealand has not had any kind of annual press report since the national journalists association disappeared without trace in 1987.


An attempt in 2007 to revive annual conventions has not survived the initial effort.


Such is the sorry-as state of world journalism, so far past crisis it lacks the resources to report on its own backyard.


solutions focus


First steps first: gathering numbers through Facebook.


Members or "fans" will be able to suggest and vote on future directions for JICC.

Journalism in crisis anywhere is, by definition, a worldwide concern.

. . .

an avaiki trust (unregistered) TTT initiative