The Press: It's the only business protected by the Constitution of the United States
- N. Hickey Columbia Journalism Review
What's black and white and 'crud' all over? - Art S. Revolutionary.
This issue Musea (or NEWSea) suggests a better newspaper than what we've got in most towns. First, we examine what our 'paper of the future' will look like, then we spell out what we will NOT do, and why our paper, will NOT be the same-ol same-ol; and finally we sign a pledge for human decency in our journalism coverage, and pass it on to major media outlets to see if they will sign the pledge too. So find an easy chair, and a cup of coffee or tea, get comfortable, and read on!
(Note: some of these ideas are based on, built on, or reprinted from, Musea #73 our Nov. '98 'Newspaper' Issue).
NEWSLAND (first the basics)
Look! Something new in town. A new newspaper on the newsstand. It's called... NEWSLAND. I like that title! (It may or may not be printed on newsprint - maybe nicer paper would be nicer). It's about 20 pages long. It's not quite as large as a regular paper and nowhere near as bulky and unruly. There is not a drop of ads anywhere - so that's 20 pages of hard news and good reading. And because it doesn't depend on advertisers for any of its revenue, it doesn't have to slant the news toward big biz to get those ads. It's notably easy to fold and carry with you. It comes out twice a week instead of daily - Monday and Friday. It knows when to say when, and what is enough information without overload. It's just about the perfect size for one good long reading session or two smaller ones over 3 days. It's available at Dallas convenience stores, on the net (where it is updated hourly and there is room for a massive amount of letters to the editor), or through franchises - anyone anywhere can reprint it, add their local news and personal flavor to it in the appropriate pages, and sell it in their town.
The staff openly states that Newsland's job is to go after people in power when they abuse that power: Government officials, Big Business leaders, Church leaders, Large Organizations (labor groups, advocacy groups), and the rich. Newsland also says that its more interested in the issues affecting 99% of good people in the world, than salivating over the anti social misfit behavior of the other 1%. We will not be a police gazette, or a press agency for the famous. Newsland will openly support fair journalism worldwide and help promote media watchdogs like FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Journalism). This paper's beliefs and policies will NOT be buried in slanted news or slanted pix, but instead be openly printed in the op-ed pages, and those op-ed pages will, as they used to be once upon a time, take a real stand on issues. Newsland will have perspective. That means that issues affecting millions will get more coverage than a celebrity scandal affecting a handful. And what scandal is reported, will be gathered in a column that just might be CALLED "Scandal, Rumor, and Fluff" news, so as to differentiate it from Hard news, real news.
The reporting style will be less long-winded, and more succinct. Writers will use shorter more precise sentences so that the reader can more quickly get the gist of the story. There will be NO rush to judgment. And with the paper coming out only twice a week, there will be more attention played to accuracy than speed of breaking news. And on the other hand, IF and WHEN important news has only 1 or 2 sources, or the sources are weak, the article will print that fact to alert the reader and allow him take that news with a grain of salt. Wherever possible we will let more and more people become part of the media. One of the goals will be to make this media, your media. In the end it is the newspaper reader we have to please. And being accurate and relevant to all readers will best do that. Also there will be a determined effort to attract readers of all ages instead of those that are ad darlings - those readers in certain age groups or income groups that tend to buy the most, advertised products and services. And finally at least once a month we will do a major investigative report - that's a papers job.
NEWSLAND (the pages)
Now let's take a look at the paper page by page.
COVER: It's the first thing a reader sees and its got to grab you - not with gimmicks, inflated bad pictures, and garish graphics smothering the page, but instead with the overall news and information for that issue. It is that issues overture. It will contain a summary of major world and national events, a calendar of world cultural, national, and/or religious events, major world sports scores, weather, and a few photographs. Eye candy is ok (that was my first lesson in putting out this zine Musea!) if it is relevant, the photographs are well done, and there's hard news to back it up.
Page 2: Here we begin the world news section (p. 2-6). Each page will cover a region of the world that shares either a language, culture, or religion. Page two covers the English speaking countries outside the US: Britain, Canada, Australia, etc. It's a full page of hard news and where there's room, features concerning these countries.
Page 3: This page is news and features covering the countries of Europe: France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, Russia, etc.
Page 4: This page is news and features covering the countries of Asia: China, Japan, India, Southeast Asia, Pacific Ocean countries, etc.
Page 5: This page is news and features covering the Spanish speaking countries of Spain, Mexico, Central America, South America, etc., plus Portugal, and Brazil.
Page 6: This page is news and features covering the countries of Africa and the Middle East: South Africa, Egypt, etc.
Page 7: Here begins the National news (p. 7-9). It's split into three geographical areas. Page 7 is news and features covering the Northeast, and Great Lakes states: Maine down to D.C, and across to Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri.
Page 8: This page is news and features covering the southern United States, including Texas.
Page 9: This page is news and features covering the rest of the states west of the Mississippi River, including Alaska and Hawaii.
Page 10: This page is local Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex news, and is split into sections for each major neighborhood.
Page 11: Here begins the category news (p.11-16). This page covers news and features of the world of sports, with a lot less analysis and a lot more news.
Page 12: This page covers news and features connected to Science and technology, pure and applied.
Page 13: This page covers news and features connected to the world of business AND labor. It will not only include news of big biz, but farming, mom and pop stores, and workers too.
Page 14: This page covers news and features connected to all the arts and cultural events of the world - including fields such as cooking, fashion, architecture, gardening etc.
Page 15: This page covers news and features connected to the Federal Government. State, county, and local news is covered in their respective geographical sections. One full page to get in depth coverage of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the Federal Government. It'll cover it in depth - bills, laws, judicial decisions, executive orders, the works.
Page 16: Here begins the people news (p. 16-18) This page in the Monday issue is devoted to news and features for men. In the Friday issue it is devoted to news and features for women.
Page 17: This page in the Monday issue is always devoted to news and features for Kids. It might include FUN comics, games, puzzles, fiction, poems, essays, features, kid's artworks, anything that would interest (but not sell to) young children. It would be a page kids could share with their parents. In the Friday issue it is split into two columns. One devoted to teens (13-19) that runs twice a month on the first and 3rd week, and one devoted to seniors (60+) that runs twice a month on the 2nd and fourth week.
Page 18: This page is devoted to college and knowledge. It is both news and issues devoted to college students; and, college courses worth of information. There's so much information that this page of the paper, if studied and learned over years, should equal a liberal arts college education - free college for all readers!
Page 19-20 (back page). Here begins the op-ed pages. They include OPINIONS, OPINIONS, OPINIONS. First some tough editorials that take solid stands on issues. A "Soapbox" section with lots of other viewpoints (not just 2 with one for, and the other against), media criticism (this must be there), political cartoons, 8 different Newsland columnists each month (one for each issue), sections on original thinking and original thought - unusual or forward thinking ideas, advocacy opinions, guest viewpoints, contact info, letters and letter's policy, how to become a part of the media, etc. Also because we have two pages here - one page can be a major full-page investigative feature story on a major issue, or a feature that affects all the world, not just a single region, such as a wide spread epidemic, or global poverty, or the environment etc. Or it can be used to celebrate a major world holiday - a national event like the Olympics, or a religious holiday like Christmas or the New Year.
That finishes up the paper. But there are some pages that AREN"T in the paper. Upon request, any reader can receive a detailed copy of the paper's intent - what it stands for and against, its ethical code of behavior, bios of the section editors and columnists, and a complete financial statement showing where the money comes from and where it goes. All this info builds trust with the readers, and trust makes or breaks a newspaper.
That's are newspaper. Now ask yourself, would this interest you? Would it be worth 50 cents or even $1? Would you have fun reading a paper again? Who knows it just might be the blueprint for the paper of the future! But we aren't done yet.
NEWSLAND (what it WON"T have).
Instead of attacking other papers, I'd like to state, in this section, what this paper would NOT do. You should be able to see a major difference between us and others!
1. We won't have ads, or ad pressure to cater to advertisers. Nor will we have the expense of getting ads or printing them.
2. We won't have photos of death, and carnage. See 'Human Decency Pledge'.
3. We won't waste endless space on sensational stories that affect only a handful of people. Ex. "The Runaway Bride".
4. We won't use photos as propaganda. We won't pose certain groups or people in the best light, while others in the worst possible light.
5. We won't have 'what if' stories, or 'poised to', or 'possible outcome', or future telling of any kind. Leave that to mystics. The worst example is the amount of space wasted the year before the presidential election.
6. We won't limit coverage to either this side or the other, as if all issues were black and white. Instead we'll have numerous viewpoints from many sides.
7. We won't refrain from tough questions and tough follow up questions.
8. We won't print Hollywood press releases, or product press releases, as articles.
9. We won't do stories that are 'catalogue stories' that suggest a lot of things to buy - example: summer reading, or Christmas present selections.
10. We won't print polls that are misleading and use stats to lie or misrepresent trends.
11. We certainly won't have ads on the front page.
12. We won't stereotype artists as divas and temperamental soap stars. Most are hard working craftsmen.
13. We won't perpetuate the myth of the liberal media. Reporters may have a liberal bias, but management seldom does, and ad driven media is almost exclusively pro advertisers (big business.)
14. We won't refrain from updates and follow through stories.
15 We won't treat patriotism as holiday window dressing, or as the exclusive behavior of one group of Americans.
16. We won't neglect informing kids of the misinformation, and abuses in advertising. And we won't refrain from naming names.
17. We won't avoid anti ad stories such as opposition to junk mail, spam, phone sales, etc.
18. We won't treat indie news sources as invisible. Instead we'll try to use as many media sources as possible for better news coverage.
19. We won't treat sales as job 1. Instead we'll attempt to make integrity and trust the most important goal.
20. We won't try to make excessive profit by squeezing those who work for us out of fair compensation, or charging an unfair price for our paper to our customers.
21. We won't perpetuate the silly argument, that workers salaries are the only way to cut expenses, or the other often used nonsense, that all excess costs must be passed on to customers.
22. We won't antagonize younger readers. Because papers have to cater to advertisers for 80% of their revenue, they have to support big business that buys the ads - thus alienating young readers who see many abuses in big business. We won't have that catch-22 problem.
23. We won't down play labor stories. We won't give one-sided coverage to hiking minimum wage and other issues of workers.
24. We won't accept corporate letters as valid responses to questions. Unless they respond to follow up questions.
25. We won't do scare stories - stories, often for ratings or more paper sales that unnaturally scare readers: killer bees, gators, sharks (the real story is how many sharks are killed by men!), and weird and offbeat diseases that are extremely rare.
26. We won't have want ads, or solicit ads for any reason.
27. We won't be soft on drug companies, or any other companies where a handful of companies dominate their markets.
28. We won't have cross promotion where a paper promotes a TV station or vice versa, and both are owned by the same parent company.
29. We won't boycott local arts.
30. We won't limit our local coverage to 'society arts', those arts that usually only cater to the rich, and seldom do any art that isn't classic and safe: ballet, symphony, etc.
31. We won't be a slave to Hollywood art.
32. We won't ban arts that 'don't advertise much', such as theater, dance, poetry.
33. We won't require our journalists to look like models.
34. We won't ban discussion of exorbitant prices in the arts, entertainment, or anywhere else. We won't ban consumer protection issues.
35. We won't treat the web as good when its selling something and bad when its not.
36. We won't rate arts by dollars made.
37. We will have tough coverage of the media.
38. We will not ban international news.
39. We will not limit religious news to scandals.
40. We will not ban coverage of zines, or other indie arts.
41. We will not be afraid to do tough editorials.
42. We will not ban the opinions of 3rd parties.
43. We will not emphasize rich white people news.
44. We will probably not print daily stock reports.
45. We will not have endless film coverage.
46. We will not have high society news.
47. We will not have jingoistic news.
48. We will not favor leaf blowers (that one's for me! LOL)
49. We will not refrain from investigative reporting, instead it will be an important selling point to our paper.
50. We will not refrain from background info and any other info that better explains the news article.
51. We will not refrain from stressing perspective, and making sure the reader understands how important a story is in the overall scheme of things.
52. We will not refrain from discussing 'freedom of the press' issues, or what we think is good journalism ethics etc.
53. We won't overly rely on wire reports.
54. We won't have moronic columnists.
55. We won't give equal credence to pseudo science.
56. We won't print bad illustrations and lousy photos.
57. We won't be secretive. We will openly answer critics.
58. We won't use a sizable percent of the paper to promote other parts of the paper
59. We won't refrain from having an outside source choose our letters to the editor, to be more fair.
60. We won't treat readers as consumer.
61. We won't refrain from news in science, history, and other subjects that will widen the readers' horizons.
62 We won't have the bulk caused by ads - specially the usual Sunday monster that many papers have.
63. We won't have puffed up headlines, pictures and graphics. They'll be smaller than most papers.
64. We won't have stories continued on other pages.
65. We won't treat corporations as godlike and independent advocates as goofy, offbeat gadflies.
66. We won't ban news on protest groups or advocacy groups.
67. We won't limit our coverage of other countries to their most exotic behavior, which is too often the case. Most Dutch do NOT wear wooden shoes though some may on rare occasions.
68. We won't print travel stories that are ads for hotels and cruises.
69. We won't limit our stories to rich people news like flights, college ed. costs, Internet, and other rich people concerns - as opposed to enough good food, basic education, good jobs, and good health care for most others.
70. We won't have 90% of our international news be the Arab/Israeli conflict (and its always just the conflict, not the good of either side) - that's grossly absurd and an unfathomable distortion. That emperor has no clothes!
71. We won't have all our health coverage on drugs and surgery, while banning any news on prevention and options to those costly treatments.72. We won't make our science stories incomprehensible and unreadable gibberish. Nor will we talk down to science readers.
73. We won't limit what our paper will do. It may just offer a free college degree!
74. We won't deny our readers some fun, and we'll encourage them to get involved with the paper.
75. We won't print stupid, dumb, boring, comics. Nor will we limit our comics to any set of artists. Instead we'll offer a new variety every issue with some old favorites, and some new.
76. We won't limit our government coverage to day-to-day scandal. That allows the government to call the shots on what papers cover.
77. We won't refrain from big issues that affect the world.
78. We won't refrain from covering other papers.
79. We won't limit our letters to the editors coverage to only certain issues.
80. We won't refrain from coverage of the police. Instead there will be support for good cops and opposition to bad cops.
81. We won't write in a way that is hard to understand or is padded to fill space, or is excessively obtuse.
82. We won't rush to judgment - just to get a scoop.
83. We won't do the very same 5 stories as all the rest.
84. We won't focus on human interest stories that turn reporting into emotional responses rather than factual reporting.
85. We won't have news geared only for men.
86. We won't push conflict and opposition stories instead of cooperation and support stories.
87. We won't push race stories that are in reality poor versus rich stories.
88. We won't favor big business over democracy.
89. We won't be afraid to name names in the government bureaucracy, and we won't accept 'no comment' from officials in our open democracy.
90. We won't be provincial.
91. We won't ignore those outside of 18-54 (target of advertisers, such as kids, teens, and seniors.
That's good enough for a start! We'll end the list... for now.
HUMAN DECENCY PLEDGE.
Musea (and Newsland of the future) both gladly sign the following Human Decency pledge. We also have sent it to a sampling of major local and national media outlets (including ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Dallas Morning News, Fox (News Corp) New York Times, USA Today (Gannet) National Public Radio, and "On the Media" (PBS radio show), We will report to you, if they respond and what they say in response.
HUMAN DECENCY PLEDGE:
"As a member of the media, we pledge that we will strive for reporting that takes into account basic human decency. We will, whenever possible, not show pictures and/or footage of wounded and bleeding people, pictures and/or footage of people being murdered, or killed in accidents, pictures and/or footage of the corpses of people at the scene of violence or accident, pictures and/or footage of men, women or children crying due to the injury or death of others. Signed ___________________ "
Till next time... and this note - the next issue of Musea will be a special issue, "100 Pieces of the Moon" containing 100 poems, stories, drawings about the Moon. This chapbook, due to its size, will not be sent to subscribers except through requests, and there may be a fee. There will also be only a few copies distributed to those sites that regularly carry Musea for free. Reserve your limited edition copy now (wrapped in green cheese?)