I think one of my favorite parts of having people come speak for us is getting to hear what they were going to be before they decided on becoming a journalist.
Tom Rosenstiel apparently lived in the ghetto, had a fro, and was all set to be a musician, when Mike McCurry (future Clinton White House Press Secretary) recruited him to work for the school paper, at which point he "caught the bug" (as so many of these speakers tend to do), and decided to pursue journalism instead.
He eventually went on to be the media critic at the LA Times, a job that people told him would ruin his career. I guess the staff of the paper grows to hate you when you're constantly criticizing them - can't imagine why.
During said 10 year stint, Mr. Rosenstiel decided to mix things up a bit - and instead of debating the current state of the media for pages and pages, he decided to go out and actually get some hard data that would reflect the condition of the news. He was very focused on statistics. In fact, I'm a little bit unsure of where he stores away all of his data. I guess if you do enough speeches you sort of memorize the facts (though I'm not sure this theory works, as the statistics he told us change fairly often.)
Nonetheless, it was really cool to hear all these hard facts backing up the claims he was making. I guess I see the point now in adding some statistical data to your story - definitely beefs it up a bit.
After his time at the LA Times,he went on to be Director for the Project for Excellence in Journalism (something I've heard referenced incessantly here - so it's obviously a pretty big deal in DC journalist world, at least). And THEN (drum roll please) he wrote our beloved class text, "The Elements of Journalism" - which, yes, I have completed in full, thank you very very much.
One of Mr. Rosenstiel's main points was that journalists are no longer "gatekeepers", 'cause there's so much info out there (internet, etc), that they don't decide what we get anymore. He also reiterated something his book stated many times - it is the means and method that should be objective when writing a story, not the ends.
He was also very into having a scientific method for completing journalistic work - something I could have guessed from his love of data.
Another interesting point he had was that people no longer turn specifically to a news organization to get their news, but instead search for a topic, and as a result wind up reading something put out by a news organization. 2/3 of people end up at the New York Times website after a search like Google, as opposed to directly seeking the site out. We don't turn to the newspaper, we actively look for the news, - it's "shifted from a lean back to a lean forward experience"
He also mentioned the love of my life, NPR, saying that its audience has doubled when everyone else's is experiencing problems because (1), we have more drive time, (2), other radio news has decreased, and (3), it provides explanatory journalism - something we've come to like more than straight reporting (for better or for worse...worse, if you agree with the majority of our speakers).
Finally - and I promise this is the last thing, he told us that newspapers have not lost their audience, only their ad revenue. (online newspapers draw a ton of readers). Craigslist sucked the power of the classifieds, there is no longer scarcity so advertisers don't rely on papers, they have their own websites so don't need ads, and they're not following the papers online (here he noted how people hate pop up ads, a revolutionary concept, I assure you, for I don't know about you, but I adore when a giant sparkly iPod suddenly obscures the entire page I'm reading and my computer starts screaming "YOU'VE BEEN CHOSEN TO RECEIVE A FREE IPOD" - especially when I'm in the library and have forgotten to put my volume on mute) ... ahh, precious moments.
WOW. That was much too long of a post - and yet I have even more information I want to write, even if I know that .1% of people made it to this point.
Mr. Rosenstiel had so many cool points and facts and little tidbits of info that I didn't know - so, even if it was the ugliest, rainiest, most freezing day ever, it was still worth walking the arduous 1/2 block to Dunblane to see him.
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