Old-Fashioned Grade A American Money -- Wikimedia Commons

Since you got past that headline, I presume you’re as stuck as anyone else in the news industry trying to figure out which direction newspapers (and journalists) are going. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I just finished reading AJR Editor Rem Rieder’s latest column about the hunt for media gold, and I’m going to take the bait; I have been devising a plan for some time and now feel that, even if the plan ends up miserably fruitless, there will be ears available that would not have been open to a student like myself just some short time ago.

First off, a disclaimer: I admit I am no expert in economics (micro or macro), nor am I any more knowledgeable of credit card policies and advertising schemes than any other regular newspaper reader, or media consumer in general. That said, as many of us in Carl Stepp’s Journalism History class will remember, many of the greatest innovations in journalism have come from young people –Philo T. Farnsworth had the television more or less figured out by the time he was 21, same goes for Guglielmo Marconi with his radio.

Now, before you editors start typing that “p” word –the one that ends with “ompous”– just hear me out: think of this idea as more of a question to those who have a deeper understanding of the media market. And as one of the most hackneyed clichés in journalism goes, “there is no such thing as a stupid question, except for those that go unasked.”

So, here goes…

One of the first pieces of legislation President Obama signed was for credit-card reform, designed to protect consumers from early and unbearable debt. Also part of the new laws were bans on advertising at colleges and credit cards for minors. If carried out properly, this will allow consumers to start a healthy line of credit AND limit the mass of transactions that are made illegally by identity thieves, etc. (less cards = less cards and money to be stolen).

This is crucial to my plan. Currently, the only requirement for free news at most major online sites is an email address. This means any high-school dropout computer whiz can create a program that generates a massive amount of email “accounts” and sell them or then sign them up as readers for WaPo, NYT… Newspapers and, most importantly, advertisers, do not like this. They obviously do not want their money going to a site that has 30 million “subscribers” but only 5 million actual readers.

Secondly, advertisers have squeezed publishers into admitting they cannot necessarily prove that their ads are ever being viewed, due to the broad reach of RSS feeds and legitimate assertion that an ad could only appear on a viewer’s browser for a fraction of a second.

THIS is where the credit-card companies come into play:

If subscribers are required to provide a working credit-card (or check-card) account, along with the email address, the “inflated subscription” factor becomes void. Little Billy Gates Jr.’s program can’t amass those fake readers that the advertisers are wary of (that is, if the capitalists aren’t behind the problem themselves).

I know what you’re thinking, “Brian, there’s still no way of telling how long ads are being viewed and how effective they are!” And if you’re not thinking that, then you’re probably ready to close the window and head back to facebook.

But wait!

Since online sites would have the credit-card accounts at hand, a “catch and release” scheme could be taken up by news companies, without requiring a charge to consumers. By “catch and release” I mean a news site would require a minimum amount of time consumers spend viewing a story or staying on the site. To put it plainly, the news could still be free, but the viewers would be forced to either stay on a page for a minimum amount of time, or pay a microcharge that would be made directly to their account whenever they click away from the site.

If you think such technology is not available, think again. Yahoo and Google have been keeping watch –and making money– with their complex ad-targeting systems that track user behavior.

Another advertising problem many online sites face is that they see a low “click-through rate” for online banners and pop-ups, meaning the pay-per-click policies garner considerably less revenue from advertisers than actual printed ads. If news companies can manage to cooperatively take up “catch and release” systems, they may be able to jack up their click-through rates by creating a microcharge bypass for people who click on the ad. In practice, a person could still get free news, so long as they stay on the site for long enough, or they click the ad.

As of now, without a means of tightly tracking reader behaviors, news sites have little leverage in proving the ads on their sites are working –but “catch and release” allows them to render considerably more of the clicks as being legitimately human, and thus, more effective than before.

An advantage television has over the Internet right now is that the ads are nearly unavoidable –you can’t close out of them, and they can last for minutes at a time. But ads are becoming more advanced every day, and companies like Unicast have proven some online ads can be just as lucrative as their tubed counterparts. These designs stick video ads, much like those on tv, right where that static online banner or sidebar ad used to be.

To put this last example into perspective, magazines normally run a full-page ad for somewhere between $30 and $50 per 1,000 “impressions,” normal online banners have been known to rake-in little more than 50 cents per 1,000 impressions and those nifty floating ads you see on WaPo can pull anywhere from $3 to $30 for every thousand clicks.

As for the Unicast ads I mentioned, according to Howstuffworks founder Marshall Brain, “Because Unicast ads have branding power and because people click on them, $30 per 1,000 impressions is a common rate paid to Web sites.”

Jackpot?

Well, not so long as advertisers can prove “clicks” aren’t always real-live viewers. Thus, another example of how a credit-related “catch and release” system would provide a guaranteed number of verifiable viewers. I should also clarify that this idea may not have been feasible before the credit laws were passed due to combined risks of unused cards being attached to unreliable subscribers, and a fear of credit catastrophe on the part of the consumers. But revamped protection, and a more reliable way of validating sunscribers could very well be the way to prove a site’s true popularity.

And for the Grand Finale, I ascribe to the ideals of youth and entrepreneurship. With the demographic of print readers growing ever-older, it is inevitable that the Web’s news viewership will grow larger and larger with each generation. If my “catch and release” plan turns out to be feasible and lucrative, it could be a relatively easy way for young people to establish good credit, subscribe and consume quality and competitive journalism and, most importantly, SAVE THE NEWS INDUSTRY.

And if it doesn’t work?

Well, it will more than likely be back to the drawing board, seeing as to how I am no marketing or business genius. My solution is less about introducing this new idea as much as it is  an example for how journalists should be thinking and participating in the effort to save their (you know whats).

Someone may find a simple flaw in the foundation of my blueprint, but hey, at least I’m putting something out there… who knows what buttons you can push in a reader to get them closer to a solution.

Screenshot: ProPublica's Steall Our Stories

With a newsroom of 32 investigative journalists, ProPublica has emerged as a leader in independent nonprofit investigative news since their debut in 2008. But some in the field have questioned the reliability of the organization which claims the be the largest collective media outlet specifically for investigative journalism.

In a 2007 NYT article previewing ProPublica, the questions of funding-sway are raised and recognized by ProPublica itself.  I like the second graf, citing the nonprofit as “…investigative journalists who will give away their work to media outlets.”

Sounds nice, right? The Web site seems to agree with this evaluation, with a link to “Steal Our Stories” plastered on the top of the main page.

But before the site even launched, it was the target of much speculation as to how the journalists would maintain their integrity and stay “objective” in their research and reporting. Slate’s Jack Shafer offered one of the first stabs when he wrote in 2007, “What do the Sandlers want for their millions? Perhaps to return us to the days of the partisan press.”

Shafer was referencing Herbert and Marion Sandler, the founders and financial backbone of ProPublica, who have promised $10 million a year to the organization, making it the most monetarily valuable venue of its kind. Shafer goes on to demand how he would keep the owners in their place, “…the first thing I’d want is proof of a firewall preventing the Sandlers and other funders from picking—or nixing—the targets of its probes.”

That sounds fair.

In the Times article, Herbert Sandler, officially the chairman of the company, made an attempt to sanitize ProPublica’s reputation, “All of my life I’ve been driven crazy whenever I encounter corruption, malfeasance, mendacity, but particularly where those in power take advantage of those who have few resources.”

And as any journalist should, I’m not taking his word for it.

In a June 2008 PBS interview, Paul Steiger, editor-in-chief of ProPublica, came forth with how he plans to establish and uphold his publication’s integrity:

“…when I talked to Herb and Marion Sandler, one of my concerns was precisely this question of independence and nonpartisanship. I mean, I find nothing wrong with partisan-motivated reporting. That’s just not me; that’s not what I want to be involved in. My history has been doing down-the-middle reporting. And so when I talked to Herb and Marion, I said, ‘Are you comfortable with that?’ They said, ‘Absolutely.’ I said, ‘Well, suppose we did an expose of some of the left-leaning organizations that you have supported or that are friendly to what you’ve supported in the past.’ They said, ‘No problem.’ And when we set up our organizational structure, the board of directors, on which I sit and which Herb is the chairman, does not know in advance what we’re going to report on.”

This specific layout of power gives me hope for both ProPublica, and other sites forming similar platforms. And with an editor like Steiger, former managing editor of WSJ, I think the quality of journalism demanded should be near the upper-tier.

ProPublica even shows an ability to unsheathe its claws on occasion. For instance, when Rocky Mountain News columnist Dave Kopel criticized the site’s coverage of hydraulic fracturing (a form of collecting oil), they returned with a rather personal report on Kopel’s shortcomings and laid out, in plain sight, several state documents and flaws in federal studies.

Here’s a bit of their rebuttal:

“These are classic examples of framing a precisely tailored question to elicit a misleading response, much as the tobacco industry used to ask scientists whether smoking could be conclusively identified as a cause of lung cancer.”

Ouch.

Take a look at ProPublica and let me know what you think. From what I’ve seen, they have a site that pleases the eye, quality photos and other multimedia, and are up to date with the numerous platforms and ways of getting stories circulated efficiently.

Hashbrum - Birmingham HYPERLOCALIZED

Humans have relied upon their ingenuity to compact the maximum amount of food, oil, electricity, digital memory and basketball fans into the smallest possible areas since we stepped out of the cave. Now that we face the problem of having too many journalists for too few positions, it’s intuitive to say, “Well, pack ‘em up tight and make ‘em real cheap.”

Newsrooms have yet to fully adjust to internet news, so many freelance and unemployed journalists have turned to smaller venues, where “news” has always been present, but never the staff to cover it all.  In areas around the world, where no paper ever bothered to focus its attention, professional and citizen journalists are beginning to pop up with super-small, super-select internet news sites.

Students at Birmingham City University, England, launched such a site to provide news to an area of Birmingham that has lost coverage as a result of thinned local print budgets. Hashbrum.co.uk will also be a tool for the students to find strengths and weaknesses of hyperlocal news sites, and test whether they would be feasible with a student/professional staff and contributions from citizens.

As of yet, the site has not broken any hard news (front page: local woman wins a Mini Cooper and how to make the perfect latte), and the layout is still pretty basic, but they are doing a decent job of integrating maps, videos and tweets into many of the stories. I really like the large map on the front page, with markers of recent stories around town –it’s interactive and simplistic, and if it was my home town, I might click on every point just to find what’s going on.

The Hashbrum site lays out its role as an alternative news source for locals, and Andrew Brightwell led a post today on that note. “One of Hashbrum’s stated aims is to try to fill some of the gaps in conventional news coverage,” said Brightwell. He is asking people around town about what is missing from local broadcast and print news, to get an idea of what niche the site may make home.

I did some Googling on the topic of hyperlocal news after finding this site, and was sad to discover the skimpiness in coverage of hyperlocal news and how seldom it is found in major news outlets. The most recent NYT stories I found on the topic were from April, on how difficult such sites are to maintain, and an August story (perhaps should have appeared in the obituaries) about WaPo’s decision to shut down hyperlocal experiment LoudonExtra.com.

I also think it’s worthwhile mentioning the “localized” sections now offered by the big news names. WaPo, as many regulars know, recently promoted its revamped Local page, and NYT keeps its Region page chock-full of school headlines and stories on dogs, good and bad.

But how concerned are these companies with actually focusing on such narrow topics, and thus, narrow audiences? The LoudounExtra-fail story highlighted the concerns of the big papers:

“The challenge … is that hiring reporters to cover car thefts, school board meetings and new store openings is expensive. So is hiring salespeople to visit local businesses and sell ad space.”

Touche.

On the other hand though, are the hyperlocal sites devoted to small news. Sites like EveryBlock and Outside.in are taking a whack at pulling together blogs, syndicated stories and actual publications from varying media. Patch, a budding New York-metropolitan hyperlocal site, is even accepting applications to hire local editors –some of my NJ and NY classmates will surely find this appealing.

For these resources to maintain their appeal, I think they will have to continually adapt to new technology –a lesson learned from the papers. EveryBlock seems to be the front-runner so far, with a customizable iPhone app (D.C. has 99 neighborhoods, 8 wards, 171 ZIP codes and 1,410 streets available), but it only covers 15 of the biggest cities in the U.S.

All in all, Hashbrum has a ways to go, but if enough of these hyperlocal sites sprout, I think we’ll see a “survival of the fittest” if you will, and with promise they could get picked up by businesses or accumulate into an entire monster of their own. Let me know what you think…

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

This week, the Guardian, among others, brought into question recent comments by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch on News Corp. plans to incorporate a “pay wall” to all news media online. What caught most attention was Murdoch’s mentioning (see below) of the Daily Telegraph –NOT owned by Murdoch– among those media outlets being “worked on.”

Speculation has escalated as to whether illegal communication between media companies is taking place, and how this could  affect journalistic institutions that are not planning to charge for content.

Anti-trust laws, which vary internationally, generally prohibit mass media corporations from disclosing information on sales strategies, with the intent to keep prices competitive and optimize the benefit for consumers. It is widely believed that media conglomerates have played their part in watering down news, and manipulating news focus especially in the past 20 years of 24-hour news.

If it is true, that News Corp. has been discussing strategies for selling web content with other companies, then the particulars of these conversations MUST be revealed. What is worse than having a poor media is having ALL media teamed up to price-gouge consumers and leave only one company in charge of deciding what news is important.

Murdoch also announced that tentative plans to begin charging for content will probably not make the June 2010 deadline, perhaps a few extra gasps of air for those hoping to axe the plan. A couple of Murdoch’s American publications include the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.

Lawyers have noted that regulators would step in if inappropriate discussions took place between companies.

“Competitors should not be discussing business strategy for charging for online content and should certainly not be discussing pricing,” said Alan Davis, of legal firm Pinset Masons, in an interview with the Guardian.

Roy Greenslade, columnist for the Guardian, expressed concern Thursday as to whether such coordinated pay walls would create news “cartels” and how this might restrict editorial content distributed by the companies:

“Doubtless, there are other matters for the wall-builders to think about too, such as the amount of editorial copy they plan to seal off. Will it mean all news stories or some? How will they agree to handle breaking news? Will all comment and analysis go behind the wall? And all features, or some?”

Greenslade also made a point to spell out all of Murdoch’s comments from the original Telegraph interview:

“No. We are working very, very hard at this but I wouldn’t promise that we’re going to meet that date. I’m not prepared to comment on that all. It’s a work in progress. There’s a huge amount of work going on, not just with our sites, but with other people like your company.”

Now, regardless of our own stances on who should control the media of the near future, I think we can all agree that conglomerates should not be able to privately discuss plans charge.

Scenario: you login to NYT online one morning to find that you must pay a mandatory fee to see any content from now on, swiftly you move to WaPo –same thing– so on and so on… what questions would you have for the news companies in terms of how they came to such prices and how they now choose what stories to headline and what stories to dismiss? If they are teamed up in charging, would they not also be teamed up to all headline the most “profitable” news?

If the choice ultimately comes down to government-supported free news vs. conglomerate charged news, ask yourself this:

Do I want the media to be controlled by people who want to make the most money by any means necessary (like Murdoch) or the people who have at least charmed the public for a legislative seat (the Federal Government)?

The Guardian lays down the history of the web

So, this week I want to share something I found on the Guardian that’s a little off topic, but mutli-platform,  informative and relevant to journalists nonetheless.  Last Friday, the Guardian posted A People’s History of the Internet: from Arpanet in 1969 to today.

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the first connection between two host computers when Bill Duvall, from Stanford, and Charlie Kline, of UCLA, attempted a remote login.  They had to connect by typing each letter of “login” …and they only got to the letter “o” before the system crashed!  Luckily it only took them another hour or so to work out the kinks, or else you might not be reading this today.

Ironically, some progressive thinker thought it would make good science fiction to take a glimpse into the future, with a movie depicting how shopping and bills would be paid on screens much like the monitors you’re reading off now. The Guardian notes, and I LOL’d when I saw it, the 60’s misogynistic gender roles were also part of this man’s idea of the future. “What the wife selects on her console, will be paid for on his counterpart console…”  It’s too bad the flip hair-do and egg chairs didn’t make it past 1982…

By 1971, people had already begun compiling and sharing important files with Project Gutenberg –ironically, the first file shared was also the first replicating computer virus. What was it you might ask?  The one and only Declaration of Independence.  So let me get this straight –we can copy, cut, stitch, paint, stretch and skew our nation’s founding document legally, but we can’t get a free song by great deceased musicians like Hendrix, Bob Marley and Michael Jackson??  >:-&    …yeah emoticon history started in 1982 :-)

“Imagine, if you will, sitting down to your morning coffee,and turning on your home computer to read today’s newspaper.”

All journalists today should cry after they laugh at this video from 1981, highlighting the prototype for what would become the deathly infection we call online journalism today. If only there was a way to go back in time and tell this woman to turn the terror alert level up or break into a swine flu story….anything but publicity for online… just kidding (sort of).

Oh, but how smug she sounds when hacking down the $10 online paper for the 20 cent street edition…

Even the first-ever blog is recognized, though I’d bet this guy would have been a little less crass if he knew he’d become well-known for it (he uses “s***” in the headlines of his first three posts). Justin is still typing away too, only his subject matter is a bit more flattering, and his layout is a little (but not much) more up to date.

Of course, we see Al Gore and Tim Berners-Lee’s contributions (by the way he officially apologized for all the slashes in URLs recently) are noted, as well as the rapid rise of facebook, YouTube and I Can Has Cheez Burger (link there for the depraved).

I highly recommend you take a look at this Guardian link. It helped demystify some of my thoughts about the origin and purpose of the web, and if you’re a slightly paranoid but technologically-dependent loon like myself, you will find the history of this vastly expanding digital universe as neat as I do.

Columbia University (Wikimedia Commons)

This week was a jackpot in terms of acquiring a comprehensive background voice for this topic of news profit models and shrinking papers.  I found a story by former WaPo Chief Editor Leonard Downie Jr. and Columbia University’s Michael Schuson, called “Finding a new model for news reporting” from October 19. By the second graf I was engaged and knew the topic of my next blog post, as the authors write:

“American society must now take some collective responsibility for supporting news reporting — as society has, at much greater expense, for public education, health care, scientific advancement and cultural preservation, through varying combinations of philanthropy, subsidy and government policy. It may not be essential to save or promote any particular news medium, including print newspapers. What is paramount is preserving independent, original, credible reporting, whether or not it is profitable, and regardless of the medium in which it appears.”

“DITTO!!!” was the sound everyone in my apartment building could hear at 8 p.m. Thursday night. Finally, I found someone who combined all of my thoughts and cumulative theories from classes and everyday rhetoric between other J students… But there has to be a catch, right? Downie and Schudson couldn’t have possibly solved the newspaper crisis in two online WaPo pages, could they??

Well, it turns out, no –even they are human.

BUT, as I soon found out, the purpose of the article was to point us to an extensive report in the Columbia Journalism Review called  “The Reconstruction of American Journalism.”

“IGOR, THEY HAVE DONE IT!!!!!”

This was the second exclamation barreled through the ear drums of my neighbors Thursday night. Of course, since many of you reading this probably haven’t heard of the report, the ideas set forth are not likely to be as potent as I’d hoped. Nonetheless, I have found much of it to be worthwhile and in-depth in terms of research and relevant anecdotes.

Readers take note, the report is 17 pages long, and can seem more analytical than prescriptive at times, so come equipped with a Snickers and a caramel macchiato. Honestly, as I’m posting this, I have only brought myself to bear 5 pages of this somewhat gloomy assessment. That said, I will lend you this tasty morsel:

“The questions that this transformation raises are simple enough: What is going to take the place of what is being lost, and can the new array of news media report on our nation and our communities as well as—or better than—journalism has until now? More importantly—and the issue central to this report—what should be done to shape this new landscape, to help assure that the essential elements of independent, original, and credible news reporting are preserved?”

All in all, I think it is worthwhile to publish reports like this. They are the proverbial “pep talks” for journalists with ten plus years of work in their (hopeful) future. I hope to find more optimistic selections as I continue through the report, and will keep you updated on any recent developments, so to say.

Texas Oil Man T. Boone Pickens at UMD - Photo Brian Hooks

Unlike posts of the past, this will focus on an organization that has yet to launch. But, only a few weeks before its world premier, The Texas Tribune has already started to receive some flack from around the professional journalism world. With a mission “to promote civic engagement and discourse on public policy, politics, government, and other matters of statewide concern” how could they go wrong–right?

The Tribune sets out its goals on its rough draft site, citing issues across the board –immigration, education, transportation, health care, water, the environment, criminal justice, energy, poverty– the whole nine yards. It’s understandable how journalists who have been in cohorts with ad-revenue outlets for their entire careers would be skeptical of donation run journalism.

The Tribune’s “selling” point is like a trip down Jour 100 lane:

“Like clean air and clean water—undeniable public goods—journalism in the public interest is too vital to a civilized society, to a functioning democracy, to be left to the vagaries of the free market.”

The Huffington Post ran a blog by John Thornton, one of the key investors of the Tribune, in which he defends non-profit news. Thornton discusses the pitfalls of having advertisers at the reins of a major news outlet that can no longer afford its top 10% of journalists. I should note, the post also seems to be a set up for a two paragraph promo for his brainchild (the Tribune).

John Thornton again in an October posted a response to a critique by Slate’s Jack Shafer, where Thornton says, “the forty years between Kennedy and Clinton were an accident of economic and demographic history … great journalism thrived in a relatively monopolistic industry structure, because there was plenty to go around for editors and shareholders.”

Shafer cites a book from 1999 by James Ledbetter, where Ledbetter mocks National Public Radio’s mission statement created in 1971 as being too idealistic. Ledbetter says the statement sounds as if it were made by “existential psychologists” rather than journalists or businessmen. Shafer goes on to claim that non-profit donors wish to reap “psychic income” as opposed to the monetary capital of their advertising counterparts.  Shafer explains, “they want to feel that their money has done good, or at least caused ‘evil’ some pain.”

I think Shafer should speak to former president of NPR, and Philip Merrill College of Journalism DEAN Kevin Klose, who brought in a cool $200 million to the company after the death of philanthropist–and hamburger lady– Joan Kroc. That’s right, no income for Kroc, psychic or non-psychic. Shafer might also want to take note how Klose helped to DOUBLE listeners of NPR in the ten years that followed Ledbetter’s snarky analysis.

AND I DIGRESS… but all in all, the Tribune has over $3 million in contributions, making it in the same general range of other non-profits (Voice of San Diego, MinnPost, St. Louis Beacon, Washington Independent ) just fitting into diapers. We shall see what direction the Tribune takes in its first steps early November, hopefully I will have good news.

Arianna Huffington - Copyright free - Wikimedia Commons

Arianna Huffington, the famous figurehead for The Huffington Post, announced in April the launching of a new non-profit branch of the news blog giant, called The Huffington Post Investigative Fund.  With a neatly truncated nickname like the HuffFund (yes that’s three f’s in consecutive order), how could they go wrong, right?  In all seriousness, the HuffFund is one of the first large efforts by an online organization to run completely non-profit.  Regardless of whether it succeeds or not, the HuffFund will serve as a prototype for online news blogs and may provide insight into the future of investigative journalism.

The HuffFund specializes in medium length, “outside of the box” investigative journalism. While the big guns like USA Today, WaPo and NYT are equipped with full teams of investigative reporters, the HuffFund operates with only a handful of staff, interns and -most notably- freelance and layed-off reporters. Since it is all online, it utilizes its blog, video, photo and audio –usually two or more forms of media per story.  I really like that the stories are not headlines one would normally see in the big papers (see Anatomy of an Attack Ad and EPA Fails to Inform Public About Weed-Killer in Drinking Water).

I think the HuffFund will excel with stories like the attack ad investigation, because the reporters have the publishing flexibility to orchestrate in-depth stories and 5 minute plus videos that seem more like mini documentaries than news segments.  This story in particular is captivating because it sets a scene for the reader that many have seen recently, ads in protest of health care reform.  By the fourth graf, the reporters are already showcasing their investigative muscle with references to public records and a rundown of the original launchers of political commentator Dick Morris’ new anti-reform campaign “The League of American Voters.”

The only flaw with this story, and other HuffFund stories like it, is that NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE ARE READING THEM.  I say this because the website is still a bit archaic in design, and there are only a few publications outside of HuffPo that are covering the opening of the HuffFund. The website could be a little more user-friendly, but it does have quick photo enlarging qualities and a nice “Related Stories” menu for each story.

With a $1.7 million budget, the HuffFund will be around for at least a year or two, if nothing ever catches on. But with a staff of seasoned journalists and former editors from the Washington Post, 60 Minutes, Newsweek and the Chicago Tribune, the HuffFund should at least have a few swings at breaking some big stories before the well runs dry.

The Czech Republic and Sweden have legislation in place that makes media literacy education mandatory.  As a result, they also have some of the highest percentages of civically active citizens, according to Dr. Paul Mihailidis of the ICMPA.  Mihailidis studied media literacy in Sweden’s secondary education systems and found a direct link between young people’s perceptions of media reliability and their own sense of civic duty.  “In Sweden, the consensus was to produce informed and knowledgeable citizens… they must understand how information works and be aware of its civic implications, esepecially in a media-saturated society,” said Mihailidis in a lecture on media literacy.  He suggested the American educational system would be reintroduced into the forefront of educational standards if media literacy is made into a regular practice.

The road to media awareness hasn’t been easy for the Czechs though; for 20 years, from 1969 to 1989, the Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia) was suppressed by the communist U.S.S.R.  The media, which had blossomed in the “Prague Spring of 1968″ was quickly crippled when the militaries of five Warsaw Pact countries invaded the country and killed dozens of resisting citizens in capital city.  The Czech Republic’s mandatory media literacy education in elementary school is just one example of how the establishment of a reliable media can improve a country’s education and economic system.

The definition of media transparency is the willingness of a news group to publish and discuss information regarding its own practices and publications.  A study conducted by the ICMPA ranked 25 of the most prominent news sources in the world based on particular criteria including accountability, corrections, staff policies and reporting policies.  The British newspaper The Guardian was ranked first overall, followed by The New York Times and a select group of global and nonprofit news companies.  CNN was ranked the fifth-lowest, directly under Fox News and one above the Al Jazeera English.  This illustrates the unfortunate detachment between broadcast news and thoroughly-researched journalism in newspapers and magazines.

Capitalist conglomerations have created the biggest media “illiteracy” problem in history.  A handful of super companies known as the “Big Six” own a vast majority of the media outlets in the United States.  These companies have what some consider to be monopolies on multimedia platforms. University of California Santa Barbara professor and author W. James Potter says in his book Media Literacy, “Critics fear that this trend has already put too much power into the hands of a very few people.”

Salzburg, Austria