Like football and chess players, journalists need to know when to block

When I criticize journalists during a class or in this space, I generally refrain from saying they should kill themselves.

But that’s not off limits for some media attackers who explode their bile freely and anonymously onto the platforms of social media.

JESS MADDOX’S TWITTER POST FROM TWO YEARS AGO

Taylor Lorenz, an internet culture reporter for the New York Times, was the target of such a sentiment recently, and she decided to call it out on Twitter, saying repeated vicious personal attacks and physical threats had “destroyed my life.” For which she received more attacks, including from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, who claimed on his talk show that Lorenz was trying to play the victim to deflect from valid criticism of her journalism. Each news organization publicly defended its employee.

Lorenz works in combustible circumstances. Online harassment is particularly bad for female journalists, and worse still for females of color and those who cover male-dominated beats such as technology and sports (bad language alert on link). Because if you’re vile enough to publicly wish harm to journalists, engaging in misogyny just seems natural.

The animus directed toward Lorenz – not just by Carlson but by Silicon Valley executives and venture capitalists – isn’t a large number of random individuals happening to reach the same opinion about her. It comes from targeted campaigns fomented online or on cable TV. Neither she nor any journalist should have to endure hate of this magnitude.

When beaten down by such a torrent, and stressed by the anxiety, it’s only natural that a reporter would get defensive. But that becomes a problem when reporters seek to blunt performance-related criticism that, regardless whether valid or not, is at least fair game. Reasonable people have indeed raised such criticism about some of Lorenz’ work.

Among them is my department colleague, Dr. Jess Maddox, an assistant professor whose research specialties include digital culture and social media. On Twitter, Maddox publicly took issue with some of Lorenz’ reporting methods and writing style. Lorenz blocked her, meaning Maddox couldn’t see any of Lorenz’ tweets. Two years later, she’s still blocked.

Maddox condemns the venom directed at the Times reporter, and says if she were in that spot, “I’d be liberal with the block feature, too.” But Maddox draws a distinction between job criticism and harassment. “Writing anything for the masses involves having some thick skin and an ability to be receptive to constructive criticism. (But) as soon as that criticism descends into personal attacks on one’s character, identity, privacy, or involves any threats of physical harm, we are no longer in the realm of constructive criticism.”

When outside that realm, Maddox offers action options for journalists:

• Calibrate social media settings to show comments only from people you know.

• Forward threatening emails to company security or law enforcement.

• Put public pressure on “Big Tech” and social media platforms to take action against “the toxic harassment that runs rampant on their sites.”

• And use the block button liberally if necessary.

That’s good advice. I believe blocking is also justified to help stop people who repeatedly post false and harmful claims on journalists’ social media accounts. But none of this is an invitation to do what Lorenz did to Maddox or what another New York Times reporter, Kenneth Vogel, did on Twitter in 2019, prompting much discussion in journalism circles. He blocked Michael McFaul, a Stanford University professor and former U.S. ambassador to Russia. Not exactly a troll.

McFaul, who had criticized the Times for interviewing the 78-year-old mother of a story subject, called Vogel’s action (which Vogel soon reversed) “unethical.” And he’s right. Ethical journalism means welcoming communication from the public even if – or especially if – it’s negative. It also means not acting like a hypocrite, because if you’re going to dish out the criticism, then you better be able to take it.

No haven on campus: Sad to see college newspapers disappearing

Auburn university’s plainsman has ceased its print editions. the university of alabama’s crimson white suspended its REGULAR editions for the pandemic, with their futures up for discussion.

I no longer ask my classes “When was the last time you read a newspaper?” It’s roughly equivalent to asking “How many of you came to class today in a stagecoach?”

Generation Z gets its news online. That’s one big reason that a growing number of college campus news outlets have reduced the frequency of their print editions, or have abandoned them.

The Auburn Plainsman announced Thursday that its weekly print publications are done. Editor Jack West correctly noted the irony: Most of his readers will read the announcement online.

What’s happening among campus newspapers reflects what’s happening among professional newspapers. Except college publications can’t try to save themselves with paid subscriptions because they place their editions around campus for free reading. The pandemic has severely limited the number of students walking on campus, not to mention the ability to sell advertising, but the larger forces working against print products have been conspiring since before COVID-19.

Meanwhile, UA’s Crimson White publishes a newspaper on Mondays and Thursdays, but suspended those editions during the pandemic. It published four days a week as recently as 2015.

The number of print copies picked up from racks has been steadily declining, according to my colleague Dr. Chris Roberts, who is also chairman of UA’s Media Planning Board. He recalls filling in for another teacher a few years ago in a classroom with a CW rack right outside the door. It was a publication day, yet not one student took a copy. Even more alarming: It was a journalism class.

CW editor-in-chief Rebecca Griesbach, whose staff is planning a special print edition in April focusing on the pandemic and the 10-year tornado anniversary, hopes regular print editions will resume. She believes it’s a morale boost when college journalists see their names in print. “There’s just something special about making something tangible like that.”

But because more people read the CW online, she wouldn’t oppose a complete shift to digital delivery. The CW already has a website, pages on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, an email newsletter, podcasts on Apple Music and Spotify, and it publishes on the digital platform Yumpu.

UA Director of Student Media Jessie Patterson Jones said future print frequency will be up for discussion this summer, but “I’m not sure we’ll be able to continue regular print editions.” She hopes advertising will rebound after the pandemic, but printing is “a very costly endeavor.”

the plainsman’s announcement

Ceasing all print operations would be a “very hard day” for her if it happens. She’s a former CW editor who helped produce four newspapers a week.

In 2016, Poynter Institute interviewed editors and advisers at a half-dozen campus papers that had reduced print frequency to focus on digital delivery. They reported multiple benefits. Student journalists found larger and more interactive audiences, learned to report news with more immediacy, and produced better quality work because they weren’t sweating having to fill pages.

Further, college journalists skilled in digital platforms and tools are more ready to nail jobs in the real world.

None of which is to say losing print on campus has no unfortunate consequences.  Roberts notes that print “requires a diligence that we don't always see with digital content. The permanence of it matters as it is being produced, and it matters for our history. The design requires students to make decisions about what they think is important, and it helps readers understand what is important.”

I see an additional reason to hope school newspapers survive, though honestly, I believe they eventually won’t. The best campus newspapers, including the CW and The Plainsman, have always used their reporting and commentary to hold their universities accountable and to challenge the entrenched ways of administrations. And they can get admirably irritating as they do it. No, you don’t need a print product to accomplish that. But I’ve always appreciated the stacks of newspapers around a campus. Amid the prim image and the hallowed status quo of the typical institution of higher education, they represent some welcomed visible subversiveness.

Warning: If you get chills reading this, keep it to yourself

Got a great job for you. It’s in journalism. Never mind that if you take it you can’t publicly support a political candidate, donate to a political campaign, make money on the side without your boss’ approval, date someone you met on the job, or accept a small token of thanks from a subject grateful for your hard work. 

Here’s something else that many news organizations say you can’t do in your personal life: Express a political opinion on social media.

This was brought to light again when The New York Times fired a freelance editor who tweeted “I have chills” as she watched Joe Biden’s plane land at Joint Base Andrews on the way to his inauguration. Right-wing critics on social media jumped on the tweet as proof of The Times’ political bias. The firing ignited its own backlash that The Times had caved in to an online mob.

The defenders of the editor, including many Times colleagues and other journalists, couldn’t agree on a single counterargument. Some said the tweet violated The Times’ social media policy against public expression of political opinions but deserved only a warning. Some said it wasn’t actually a political opinion. And some argued The Times (and journalism outlets in general) shouldn’t have dumb rules like that. For its part, The Times issued a vague statement that the editor wasn’t fired for only that tweet. 

Journalists don’t claim to have no opinions. After some of the news stories of the past few years, how robotic must a person be to not have any opinions. The question is whether a journalist with an opinion can produce truthful, fair and trustworthy news stories. That question has an answer: It’s yes. Happens every day. Those newsroom policies actually address a different concern: Whether expressing political or social commentary affects the public’s perception of the integrity of an outlet’s work. It’s like a falling tree in a forest: If a credible story gets published but no one takes it that way, is it really credible?

It’s a reasonable concern. But newsroom social media boundaries regularly become points of contention for several reasons.

First, managers can partly blame themselves because they’re constantly pressing reporters to engage the audience on social media and to develop their “personal branding.” Second, reporters, especially those of color, might not feel as much need for full personal expression on social media if their outlets had not been so tepid and artificially even-handed in their coverage of vexing moral issues such as racial injustice and government authoritarianism. The enduring failure of most newsrooms to demographically diversify their news decision chains has compounded the problem.

Third, internal management actions to enforce social media practices inevitably become public, as individual employees or unions have become more willing to air dirty laundry and try to bring public ridicule. Maybe except for the White House, no one leaks more than journalists. Fourth, social media controversies arise so often in journalism because newsroom managers have a hard time deciding what is and isn’t an unacceptable statement of opinion. No, it isn’t easy, but sometimes they get really touchy.

Did the “chills” tweet make you question the neutrality of that journalist’s work products? Would you have discounted anything written by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Alexis Johnson about the Black Lives Matter movement because she tweeted a comparison between property damage from a George Floyd protest and debris left by a Kenny Chesney concert? (Management banned her from BLM coverage because it decided the tweet showed bias.)

After several social media posts that led to discipline of reporters, The Washington Post did an internal survey of newsroom staff as part of a revamp of its social media guidelines last year. Among the survey’s findings: Staff thought white, male reporters could get away with posts that others couldn’t; and certain reporters were afraid to share “identity and personal experience” on social media because “some aspects of personal identity are viewed as inherently political or controversial in our society, such as race and gender.”

Maybe the easiest solution is to let journalists opinionate unbridled on social media and judge them strictly by their news stories. After all, a known viewpoint is less of a con of the audience than a hidden viewpoint. But in today’s climate of political division and manufactured doubts about the news media, that approach hands a hammer to the critics to bash a news outlet over the head. Eventually, even the reasonable audience begins to wonder how much trust to give to a byline.

The traditional ethical value of presented objectivity – on all platforms – still carries weight. I also believe that most any personal opinion that a journalist holds on politics or society can be brought to light in the form of a fact-based news story. Still, I think it would be good if the newsroom bosses out there could lighten up a little.

No easy way to make Fox News change its bad behavior

No one is more responsible for the devastation to life and property at the U.S. Capitol than the criminals themselves, but retributions are under way against parts of the media environment that allowed it and even encouraged it.

Under public pressure, and perhaps stunned by events, major social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have temporarily or permanently suspended selected accounts, including the president’s, deemed to potentially incite violence. Amazon, Apple and Google essentially shut down Parler, a social media platform popular with conspiracy theorists. 

It’s not as clear what to do about traditional news media, such as Fox News, that also stirred unfounded anger with repeated lies by opinion hosts, commentators and guests about the validity of the presidential election. Wednesday’s perpetrators drew their motivation to act largely from social media, but the politicians egging them on were looking for air time on Fox News and pandering to that audience. Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan called the pro-Trump media’s role in Wednesday’s events, led by Fox News, “disgraceful.” “They own this,” she wrote.

Public shaming is warranted but ineffective. So is the idea to just stop watching, because the people outraged by Fox News weren’t watching it anyway. And even though Fox News’ opinion shows have misled their audience in a dangerous way on multiple subjects – the severity of COVID-19, the benefits of hydroxychloroquine – ratings make it clear those viewers aren’t going anywhere, maybe except for a temporarily dalliance with One America News Network or Newsmax. 

One possibility for trying to force change upon irresponsible media isn’t new: Consumer boycotts of the companies that advertise on offending shows. The idea is to affect the bottom line of corporate sponsors enough that they’ll bail out on the program in question. Fox News has prompted a long list of such actions in its history, usually the result of a hateful comment by a show host rather than a protest of bad journalism over time. Often, sponsors have fled immediately, aware of reputational injury from continued association.

Fox is sensitive about the dynamics here. The Daily Beast reported Saturday that Fox News ad reps have a pitch to reassure companies that advertising with the channel isn’t so bad because the “negative chatter” among consumers dies out quickly. But the pitch damns itself with faint praise: It says Fox advertisers don’t suffer the “real brand damage” that Boeing did from its plane crashes. Yeah, that’s a good standard.

Attempted boycotts often draw criticism themselves as attempts to squash free speech. That’s not so. They’re another form of free speech and fair game on the battlefield of ideas (formerly known as the marketplace of ideas). 

The big hitch is, they’re often not effective. If an advertiser simply switches from one Fox show to another, the network doesn’t suffer. Protesters have to boycott everyone that buys network time, and good luck living your life without buying anything from, say, Procter & Gamble. Also, Fox News can insulate itself from downturns in advertising dollars because most of its revenue actually comes from fees paid by cable and satellite TV distributors. That’s why some Fox critics prefer to pressure pay-TV providers to remove Fox News from their programming bundles.

If not by boycott, a measure of accountability for Fox News may await in a courtroom. Last month, a demand letter (a possible precursor to litigation) from the voting software company Smartmatic spooked Fox News into airing a “fact checking” segment that backpedaled from false election fraud claims made on multiple Fox shows. A similar company subjected to similar treatment, Dominion Voting Systems, has sent pre-litigation letters to Fox, Newsmax and OAN.

Still, legal action is not a great way to bring change because it’s slow, expensive and valid for only particular circumstances. And Fox News has a really enlightening defense that helped it win a defamation case against host Tucker Carlson in September: No reasonable person would take a Fox opinion show seriously. (Sure, then how come a Fox News poll in December said 68% of Republicans believe Trump won?)

I haven’t even mentioned the radical notion that, in view of events, maybe Fox News and its cable brethren should find a conscience. Not just to quit fomenting angry grievance but to quit misrepresenting facts in general. I’m not optimistic, though. Even after last week’s destruction, Carlson, for one, pronounced to his viewers: “It is not your fault; it’s their fault.” Inherent in that: “It’s not Fox’ fault, either.”

These networks remain unconcerned about the consequences of their actions, immorally comforted by dollars and ratings points.

Thank you, but no need to call me 'Blogger Arenberg'

A Monday Facebook post by WVTM-13 news anchor Rick Karle that admonished sports reporters for not respectfully referring to Nick Saban as “Coach Saban” during public press conferences went viral on social media and other platforms.  Tellingly, the sports journalists who responded mostly defended their use of “Nick” while fans mostly applauded Karle.  Yet another disconnect between how sports journalists see their jobs and how fans see sports journalists.

Karle is a former TV sportscaster and I’ve heard him talk about journalism to UA students. He laid a lot of wisdom on them. But I don’t share the same view on this.

Sports writers in general still suffer from the (sometimes valid) perception that they get cowered into soft journalism by fear of lost access or reluctance to challenge popular and powerful figures. Even in small ways such as name references, it’s unwise to project an image of deference. Deference can start to look like reverence. 

How to refer to a coach in public is not a recent question. In an appearance on the Paul Finebaum radio show in (I think) 2008, I had to explain to an offended caller why my UA beat writer at the time, Ian Rapoport, referred to Saban as “Nick.” As best I can remember, all my Birmingham News reporters preferred the first-name approach with their coaches. 

It’s possible to go too far the other way, though. Another former TV sportscaster, Mike Raita, wrote in his autobiography “The Show Goes On” that Dennis Franchione told him to quit calling the coach “Dennis.” A lot of reporters called him “Fran.” Nicknames seem a little too chummy-chummy.

“Coach” is a job description. It’s not a title.  “Coach” is good if you play for one, not so much if you report on one.

And to those who say it doesn’t matter, well, I will certainly acknowledge this: Deference in publicly addressing a coach is a lot less harmful than deference in choosing what kinds of stories to write.

“It’s the most proper, most classy and most respectful thing to do when in news conference settings.”

— Rick Karle, arguing that reporters at news conferences should refer to Nick Saban and other coaches as "Coach"

How the news media can vaccinate against misinformation

The looming public distribution of COVID-19 vaccines offers great optimism for ending the pandemic. But doing so requires a substantial majority of the population to acquire immunity either by contracting and recovering from the disease or by getting a vaccine.

Good luck with that, everyone. We live in a society where we can’t even agree that the coronavirus is real, much less that we all ought to wear masks and get vaccinated.

Making matters worse are the approximately 39 percent of Americans who say they probably or definitely will not seek a COVID vaccine, according to a Pew Research survey in November. If that number holds or goes up, that could be an obstacle to achieving the desired herd immunity that protects everyone.

The skeptics’ reasons range from understandable – whether a vaccine developed in such an accelerated time frame is safe and effective – to myths and conspiracy theories: You can get a disease from its vaccine. Vaccines cause autism. Bill Gates put microchips in the ones we’re getting now. That list will get longer. Mistrust is especially high among African-Americans, many of whom haven’t forgotten infamous cases of medical research that actually weren’t that long ago.

The success of COVID vaccinations will hinge greatly on effective public messaging by health officials and government leaders. The news media will play a crucial role, as well. Here are some recommended best practices that mainstream national and local news media should follow if we’re going to whip this thing. (I offer no hope for the right-wing news outlets that are busy covering Lalaland.)

• Pursue first hand accounts of the suffering of COVID-19 patients. This is still too much of a hidden story. A little fright could go a long way. Hospitals must worry about privacy, but news media negotiating access for visuals is key.

• Explain the concept of herd immunity and the required threshold. And don’t stop.

• Report on influential people locally and nationally getting vaccinated. These are behavior leaders who can range from ex-presidents and celebrities to mayors and neighborhood preachers. In the case of elected officials, they cannot claim privacy as to whether they’ve inoculated or not.

• Lean on doctors and other medical experts as interview sources. Local media should know that local experts carry more clout than those from faraway institutions. Always check source credentials, in particular their field of specialty (the Scott Atlas rule).

• Limit comments by vaccine recipients to what they know first hand, such as side effects. But no medical self diagnosis, because patients are often clueless. If they say the vaccine gave them COVID, they’re wrong. Keep it in the notebook.

• Explain, every time, that side effects of varying kinds are likely. They don’t mean something has gone haywire.

• Debunk misinformation and disinformation (misinformation with deliberate intent).  I acknowledge the alternative of the news media ignoring falsehoods, because publicity of any kind could backfire into more, not less, appeal among people who are predisposed. But my department colleague, Dr. Jiyoung Lee, an expert in health misinformation, points out that disinformation has avenues for rapid spreading, such as social media, so the news media needs to “actively monitor and respond to it.” They must debunk effectively, though. The knockdown should begin in the same sentence that introduces the misinformation. A story that evenly balances wrong statements with corrective facts is a failure. That’s false equivalency and it’s dangerous. Lee also points out the need to state why a claim is false, using specific evidence.

• In opinion pieces aimed at changing the views and actions of vaccine resisters, go heavy on facts, express understanding of their concerns, and spare the belittling attacks, because that only makes them more stubborn. “Negative framing may stigmatize them,” Lee said. Aim to collectively motivate, not to “incite shame or anger.” Good advice. But withholding judgment on individuals who stand in the way of ending the coronavirus pandemic may be the hardest commandment of all.

MISINFORMATION ABOVE, MISINFORMATION TO THE LEFT. you can see the efforts to debunk it. this is going to be a constant battle.

Six takeaways from the semester of Zoom

AL.com sports writer Michael Casagrande lays some wisdom on my Sports Writing and Reporting students. In a “hybrid” class such as this, students are assigned on a rotating basis to attend in person or by Zoom.

With the end of in-person instruction on Friday, we have answers to some fraught pre-semester questions about educating college students in the middle of a pandemic. Or at least I have drawn some conclusions, starting with: It’s not as preposterous as it once seemed. And the apprehension I wrote about in August is not so severe anymore.

Here are my top takeaways after 14 weeks of this most bizarre of semesters. Others on UA’s campus might disagree, of course. But some reflection is warranted because here and at other universities, we have to do this all over again in January.

1) The classrooms are safe

Students and faculty wear masks. In classrooms, UA allows only the number of students who can socially distance. Others join by Zoom. Really large classes have gone completely to remote learning. Students (at least to my knowledge) stay away if they’re ill or if they know they’ve been in close contact with someone with the coronavirus. UA’s positive tests are not coming from classrooms.

2) Masks ruin everything

It’s well understood in education that in-person learning works best. But those studies didn’t include wearing a damn muzzle as a test variable. Putting on a mask is vital these days, of course, but lectures and discussions really suffer without facial expressions. Teaching is half performance art, you know. Also, students aren’t known for projection and enunciation when they speak. Sometimes I have absolutely no clue what a masked student said. Considering the improvements in remote teaching techniques, it just might be educationally better to put everyone on Zoom and lose the masks.

3) Some parents are wrong about their kids

UA and other universities, especially those still charging full tuition as UA is, have tried to ensure a certain (even if minority) percentage of in-person education. That hasn’t stopped some parents from complaining that too many classes have moved to online. Certainly some students feel disappointed and perhaps educationally disadvantaged. But in “hybrid” courses that allow a choice between classroom attendance and videoconferencing, many students choose to stay home. Every time. The kids don’t want to go to class as much as some of their parents think they should.

4) Students don’t cheat

Not a revelation. The average weekly quiz score for the first seven weeks of my course with more than 200 students went down (about half a percentage point) from the spring semester with students in classrooms to this semester with students mostly on Zoom. The only anti-cheating measure this semester is the very non-foolproof requirement (uh oh, that was an ill-advised confession) that students must remain on camera during the test. A rare few likely have used unapproved references outside of camera view. But I do not understand the professors around the country who use oppressive surveillance software that monitors students’ head and eye movements during online tests. Nice way to put a torch to your nurturing and collaborative learning environment.

5) UA didn’t get all of it right

Early on the university assumed the best about its students – that they’d obey rules and refrain from the usual large social activities. Results were Hindenburg-like. The early-semester coronavirus case count drew national attention. UA ramped up public warnings of discipline, including suspensions, for students who violated restrictions, and in fact followed through. Many universities that opened their campuses were criticized for naivete about the predictable behavior of college students. Fair point. Students deserve blame, too (some of them, anyway). They were easy targets of news media and social media. I’d only point out that their incautious actions don’t make them any different from half the adults in the country.

6) College football season was a mistake

More than 80 Division I football games have been postponed or cancelled due to COVID-19, and many others went on with reduced rosters. Sources of exposure are everywhere, of course, but it’s implausible that college athletic departments have managed to create the only kind of large gathering that is safe, especially considering vulnerabilities such as virus detection time lag and spectators who ignore rules. If everyone’s protective protocols were foolproof, Florida State wouldn’t have cancelled its game against Clemson three hours before kickoff Saturday. And a half-dozen Temple players wouldn’t have been removed from the locker room shortly before that kickoff.

Many of the unplayed games so far this season stemmed from too many players in precautionary quarantine. Still, add up the athletes around the country who contracted COVID, plus the coaches and support personnel who did, plus the spectators who did. They weren’t all asymptomatic. And early research indicates that even after recovering from COVID, some number will suffer extended health consequences. Of course, you can’t add up the number of athletes. Many universities, including UA, don’t publicly report it. Because heck if they want you to know how badly their decision backfired.

The Athletic continues to shake up traditional sports media

Update Nov. 9, 2024: The New York Times announced that The Athletic made its first-ever quarterly profit, at $2.6 million.

Update July 21, 2023: A lot has happened since I posted this. The New York Times bought The Athletic for $550 million in 2022, and it’s continuing to lose money. This month, NYT closed its own sports department, replacing it with stories from The Athletic and receiving criticism that this was a union-busting move. NYT also started moving away from The Athletic’s original mission of team by team coverage across the nation in favor of more nationally focused content. This included laying off 20 team- or city-focused journalists, including some good ones. One of them publicly ripped The Athletic for its obsession with metrics (subscriptions created) over quality content.

Original post: Occasionally I like to highlight interesting and useful research into journalism, because usually it gets lost in dense academic journals that no one ever reads. At least not voluntarily.

The beat reporter for a professional sports team that I follow tweeted this week that he signed “a multi-year extension” with The Athletic, a four-year-old website that specializes in long enterprise stories about college and pro sports teams. In light of the decline of many sports news organizations – Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Bleacher Report and almost every newspaper sports department under the sun – The Athletic is showing a whole lot of confidence in itself.

The past decade has beaten up on local and regional sports departments, with layoffs, travel reductions, diminished access to sources and the rise of team PR sites. Then along came The Athletic in 2016 with its millions of dollars in investment money and the co-founder’s pledge to “let them continuously bleed until we are the last ones standing.”

Since then, the subscription-based sports website has sent major reverberations through the sports journalism world by hiring away top reporters, converting some readers, and causing many existing sports departments to debate whether to compete with The Athletic or surrender and differentiate their content.

The Athletic has a network of team-focused sites in more than 50 markets with pro and college teams, including the University of Alabama (Auburn University is sporadically covered at the moment). The company says it has surpassed 1 million subscribers and expects to begin making a profit in 2021. Its impact, therefore, is worth understanding.

That’s what four researchers in UA’s College of Communication have helped to do in their article “Poaching the News Producers: The Athletic’s Effect on Sports in Hometown Newspapers,” which was published online ($) recently by Journalism Studies. My professor colleagues Dr. Andrew C. Billings and Dr. Sean Sadri, along with doctoral students Nicholas R. Buzzelli (first author) and Patrick Gentile, interviewed 22 sports editors and producers in U.S. markets where The Athletic has established a site.

The Athletic has lured established beat reporters from newspapers by offering higher salaries (sometimes double) and greater editorial freedom, according to the interviews. (Its primary UA reporter is Aaron Suttles, who worked for many years for the Tuscaloosa News.) Local sports editors had mostly weak counterarguments (“weak” is my word) for their reporters to stay put, with the exception of pointing out that The Athletic’s long-term survival isn’t assured. I sensed some sour feelings. One editor said The Athletic hires “Twitter celebrities, as opposed to actually good journalists.”

The Athletic focuses on in-depth stories, not a team’s daily happenings, so sports editors split on whether it represents direct competition. Most believe they differentiate themselves by offering day-to-day coverage in volume. A few, though, said they have put greater priority on long-form storytelling to better contend.

With the popularity of sports, isn’t there room for everyone? Perhaps not, at least not in markets where local outlets also sell subscriptions. Other research shows that most news consumers do not wish to pay for their news, and among those who are willing to do so, the most typical number of paid subscriptions is only one. As the UA article says, it’s a zero-sum game.

I have seen one other effect of The Athletic, based purely on anecdotal evidence. I follow several pro sports teams in cities where a long-time newspaper beat writer jumped to The Athletic. In each case, the writer’s coverage got more aggressive and appropriately critical. That’s a good thing. It reflects, I think, a superior editorial culture at The Athletic compared to some local newsrooms. It may also reflect institutional constraints that can temper the journalism of hometown outlets.     

Despite The Athletic’s remarkable success in producing high-quality work, adding subscribers, raising investment money and expanding to new cities, there’s no guarantee a purely subscription business model can sustain this large and expensive operation long term. In a setback that the company attributed strictly to the coronavirus shutdown, The Athletic laid off 8 percent of its staff and cut salaries across the board in June. Looking down the road, many of the editors interviewed by the UA researchers “wonder if its model is sustainable for fans who prefer quantity over quality.”

But the researchers note that, having come this far, The Athletic has given everyone hope that subscriptions can become a new, sustainable strategy to pay for good sports journalism. “Perhaps The Athletic’s most profound impact on sports media has been normalizing the paywall.”

Amen to that. But I also hope The Athletic demonstrates to everyone the journalistic and commercial value of innovative, in-depth stories about sports. If competing newsrooms choose to surrender that kind of coverage to The Athletic and instead focus on endless churning of routine stuff, that would be a shame.

When a news website is not really a news website

For some reason, the South Birmingham Times thinks Colorado’s governor deserves a bigger headline than Alabama’s.

Apparently I shouldn’t be wondering about the agenda of my city’s newly elected mayor or what improvements I can find at the renovated public library down the street. Apparently I should be thinking instead about the awful “C” rating given to Democratic Colorado governor Jared Polis by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C., for poor fiscal management.

 Because that was the top story when I visited the news website of the South Birmingham Times on Thursday (and on Friday!)

 The site is one of nearly 1,300 pretend local news sites launched by a company called Metric Media in the past several years. That’s about twice as many as the nation’s largest newspaper chain.

 Alabama has 20 of them, according to The New York Times, with seemingly legitimate and neutral names such as the Tuscaloosa Leader, the Jefferson Reporter and the Decatur Times. But the actual mission of Metric Media sites is to support Republican political candidates and right-wing causes. (For the whole list, NYT subscribers can click here.)

 As both the New York Times and another recent article in the Wall Street Journal point out, supposed news sites with ideological bents have sprung up on behalf of candidates and viewpoints on both ends of the political spectrum. The problem, no matter the political leaning, is that readers potentially believe they’re getting legitimate news when they’re actually getting skewed news or flat-out propaganda.

The sites in Alabama are pretty easy to recognize as garbage. The template About Us page says Metric Media was established “to fill the void in community news after years of decline in local reporting by legacy media.” It’s correct about the decline and the void. It continues: “This site is one of hundreds nationwide to inform citizens about news in their local communities.” That’s a canard.

I looked at the homepages of three of the Alabama sites. I found one local story. Below the big Jared Polis headline, the South Birmingham Times had a story about a jury convicting a Vestavia Hills man of a crime. The story came from a press release. Seven months ago.

The Decatur Times’ lead story also came from a press release. A woman from Laredo, Texas, was sentenced for cocaine distribution. Eight months ago. In the U.S. Southern District of Alabama.

Want to write a letter to either newsroom? They have the same address. It’s in Delaware.

The unacknowledged but recognizable Republican slant showed on both sites in the story reporting that the top marginal tax rate in Alabama – a statistic much higher than the actual tax rate – could reach 54% under Joe Biden’s tax plan, according to the Tax Foundation. No mention of Donald Trump’s plan. My speculation is that if Alabama were a contested election state rather than a virtual Republican lock, Metric Media would be feeding more content to its Alabama sites.

Check out the headlines on the right side of the homepage. Does the Decatur Times’ webmaster (probably not a human) think the website serves Decatur, Illinois?

The New York Times further reported that political groups and public relations firms can pay for Metric Media (mostly freelance writers) to create a desired story, including specified interview questions. No legitimate news organization allows this, of course, and such a practice magnifies the audience deception.

It’s possible to cite cases of hidden bias in journalism, obviously, from corporate level steering of editorial decisions to unspoken agendas of individual journalists. But it’s especially nefarious when non-journalism tries to present itself as journalism. Which happens all the time. Because communicators engaged in persuasion or propaganda know their messages become more effective if the audience accords them the credibility of vetted, impartial news.

That’s why, for instance, native advertising is made to look like the surrounding news content, save for a teeny tiny label identifying it as advertising. That’s why innumerable TV commercials are staged as a news broadcast or a press conference. That’s why the US military wrote and paid Iraqi newspapers in 2005 to publish propaganda supporting the US mission in Iraq in the form of news articles.

It is not easy to identify websites with undisclosed political motives. (It’s easier if a site is just making stuff up but even then a lot of people fall for it.) Some recommended steps for spotting bias:

• Look at headlines. Are all the negative ones about people and causes on one side of the political divide? Is the language inflammatory?

• Look at individual stories. Do they present both sides of an issue or controversy?

• Read stories on the same subject published by other, reputable news outlets. Do you get a different picture?

• Read the About Us page. You may (or may not) find honesty there. Pay special attention to ownership and funding sources, if they’re mentioned.

• Google the names of bylined writers. What’s their background and for what publications have they written previously?

• Check out a watchdog website that rates the bias of news sites, such as NewsGuard, Media Bias Fact Check, Ad Fontes Media’s bias chart or the Global Disinformation Index.

(For even more advice, click here.)

We face a monumental election and a pandemic, two hot-button issues that have prompted no-holds-barred tactics to win public opinion, including the appropriation of the powerful mantle of journalism for political persuasion. And that’s civically dangerous, because persuasion works best when people don’t realize that’s what it is.

Crimson White journalists experience the other side of the questions

National media have paid much attention to how colleges have handled the pandemic. It’s a newsworthy topic, of course, though I suspect some of the attention comes from the appeal of presumed narratives such as “Irresponsible College Kids Break Rules” and “Colleges Endanger Lives to Play Football.”

CW photo editor Hannah Saad on CNN

The best way to report the subject is to send journalists to campuses for several days. Alas, too expensive and time consuming for many news organizations. So, the next-best option is to talk to smart current students who are witnessing and even reporting on events. That’s why several staff members of the University of Alabama’s independent campus news outlet, the Crimson White, have appeared on various national and even international news programs lately. Very cool.

CW photo editor Hannah Saad (full disclosure: former student of mine) appeared on CNN Newsroom with Anderson Cooper and talked by phone to The Paul Finebaum Show. Media began contacting her after she tweeted photos of large or unmasked gatherings on and off campus during UA Bid Day.

CW news editor Reid Bolling (full disclosure: former student of mine) also appeared on CNN, once pre-recorded with John King and once live with Brooke Baldwin. CNN took an interest after seeing a CW story she wrote about students being moved out of their dorms to make way for students with COVID-19.

 Kaddyja Jallow, a CW culture writer, was interviewed on BBC Radio, which spotted the “UA ‘24” in her Twitter bio.

“Doing media” isn’t as easy as it seems, and it’s always eye-opening for journalists when they become the interviewee instead of the interviewer.

The CW journalists told me they knew the planned general topics, but not the specific questions they’d be asked, which is customary journalistic practice. They were mostly satisfied with their answers, they said. Hannah said she got good advice from my department colleague, Dr. Chris Roberts: Just say what you know; don’t predict future events. That’s good advice for lots of pundits in the media these days. 

Hannah said she wished she had given a more thorough answer to a good question asked by Finebaum, who is an adept interviewer: Would her reporting on care-free behavior end up adversely affecting students? Live formats don’t give much time to think, though.

 Hannah also witnessed the national media’s tendency toward unnuanced views of local issues. Coverage from national outlets focused on the lines of scofflaws outside Tuscaloosa bars, but Hannah thought the more interesting angle was the decision to have a Bid Day and how that helped to create the images that reached the nation.

CW news editor reid bolling on cnn (we like the shirt, reid)

 It’s easy to get nervous, of course, when millions of people are watching or listening. Reid, talking on her laptop in her kitchen, and Hannah, talking from the CW newsroom, couldn’t see their CNN hosts, which they both said made the experience easier. Kaddyja, talking to BBC Radio on a FaceTime audio call from her dorm room at 8 a.m., didn’t understand something the host said to her. Thinking she had muted herself, she asked her roommate for help. But she wasn’t muted. BBC edited that part out. 

 Reid has only one regret. She realized later that she wore the same shirt for both of her CNN appearances. “I promise I have more than one nice shirt!” she said.

 So these were educational experiences for these college journalists in ways both small and large. And when they’re national journalists, they’ll bring a little extra understanding when it’s their turn to interview a college journalist about who-knows-what hot issue on college campuses at that moment.