Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Journalism heroes, teamwork and behind-the-scenes role models The "journalism heroes" discussion is still going at various blogs... An e-mail conversation earlier today with Bryan about his fine "new journalism heroes" list from last January got me thinking about "heroic teams" as models for 21st century journalism. Great writers, community-conscious bloggers and one-man-band journalists are mentioned on most of these "new" lists, but I haven't seen much about group contributions, such as NoLa.com's coverage of Hurricane Katrina -- definitely a model for journalism students to consider. Are there other cases where you might say, "The whole is bigger than the sum of its blogs"? The group that has produced so many new ideas at LJWorld.com, another possible example, has been well represented by lists mentioning Rob Curley and Adrian Holovaty. But how about the producer-reporter Web-and-TV teams from Frontline or NPR? Or the investigative projects at http://publicintegrity.org? In fact, even when we praise great writers from the golden days of newspapers and magazines, a lot of role models go unsung... It dawned on me that the only city editor I remember being mentioned in the intro news writing texbook I use is... Lou Grant. I'll have to double check... or make it a quiz question. Another category of role models I point out in class: Journalists who you may not have read, but you saw the movie... Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down) Susan Orlean (Adaptation/The Orchid Thief), Blue Crush) Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm) Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally, and many more... ok, journalism is rarely romantic comedy... but journalism is where her writing started. I'm still waiting for Sleepless in the Newsroom) There must be plenty more, but they'll have to wait... 8:24:17 PM    comment []

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