DC Bureaus on the rocks

In the last few years, Washington, D.C. bureaus have taken a hit. Tribune newspapers have gone through several rounds of layoffs. Friends of mine who worked at smaller D.C. bureaus saw their staffs getting smaller and smaller...

...and now this.

Cox, which owns the Atlanta Journal-Counsitution and other smaller papers, is getting rid of its Washington Bureau. From what I understand, this was probably in the works for a while. The AJC and the Dayton Daily News will continue to have their own individual bureaus. Hopefully one of them will retain their really nice office two blocks from Union Station.

Washington bureaus are such an important part of American journalism. And they employ some of a paper's best journalists. It's so sad this is happening. Not only because it hurts the quality of local newspapers, but it's tough on people who have families to support.

Also, it's probably becoming more and more difficult to get a PR job in The District.

Resource for political editors

I just wanted to highlight a great site created by the organization I interned for. It's called Politifact, and it evaluates the "truthiness" of what certain candidates say.

This resource is off line for now, but it will start up again in January to fact check the White House and various Washington politicos. You can still access their content indirectly on their site. Check it out. Particularly of note is the "Flip-O-Meter," which evaluates whether candidates changed their minds on certain issues.

Too often, I heard people spewing inaccurate information about the presidential candidates. I usually try to direct them to this great site.

Obama-Rama

The Newseum in Washington, D.C., posts the front of newspapers from all over the world on its Web site. I browsed through some of them, and here's what I decided:

• I love the front page of this paper out of Spain. The picture is so stark and iconic. It sort of reminds me of Obama's Rolling Stone cover, but this image is trying to convey a much different message. Here, Obama is looking up, toward the future. What a beautiful cover.
• The St. Petersburg Times is well known to be a great, high-quality newspaper. They, of course, went with a really nice cover. It's daring and bold.
• This cover, however, I'm not sure how I feel about. I would like to know if this cover is an actually photo or if it is a photo illustration.

What do you think?

A fire escape from ivory towers

I got an interview at a major news organization fairly recently. One of the first questions the recruiter asked after looking at my resume was, "Why are you majoring in journalism? Why didn't you major in something else that interested you?"

That pretty much says it all. Some journalism schools need to figure out a way to stay relevant. There are four ways I think they can do that:

1. Make multimedia a mandatory part of their curricula.
Students are graduating from j-schools across the nation without knowing html. At a time when it seems like the only jobs posted on journalismjobs.com are multimedia producers, that's a sorry statement.

2. Require that students intern somewhere journalistic
Too many students simply don't know that no internships equals no jobs prospects. Providing students with internship opportunities is one of the most important things a journalism school can do. At the same time, schools need to make it easy for students to take off a semester to intern off campus.

3. Nix the electroninc, magazine, news-ed and broadcast journalism specializations
Everyone should be able to write in inverted pyramid, cut audio and post packages online. Period. With all this talk about convergence, why do journalism schools separate their students into stringent tracks right out of the gate?

4. Offer specialties
A j-school student's specialty shouldn't be "magazines" or "broadcast." It should be "health" or "business." Amy Gahran talks about this in the Poynter column E-Media Tidbits. J-schools should force students to choose a practical specialty--a topic that students can report on. Top departments to consider? Business, biology/chemistry, community health and political science. In exchange, journalism schools could offer courses on writing for non-journalism majors.

Law school anyone?

An insane number of people who work for Tribune newspapers in Washington are steps away from losing their jobs. This is really sad.

J-students need not apply

Just curious: Has anyone interviewed with an organization that produces journalism that has specifically said it was hiring? If so, let me know. (You don't have to tell me which one, although I would love it if you would.)

Trib Endorsement

The Chicago Tribune endorsed Barack Obama. Some of you younger readers might think something like what one of my friends said when he heard the news: "Wow, shocker." But it actually is. The Trib has never endorsed a Democrat (for president).