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The article examines research conducted at the University of Missouri journalism school on the use of electronic paper devices (EPDs) as a substitute for the traditional printed newspaper. Students were asked to evaluate the EPDs as a means of reading newspaper stories compared to using microcomputers to access the newspaper's Web site. The EPDs were rated highly for ease of use by the students, who found them comparable or even preferable to microcomputers with which they were more familiar. The study group also showed relatively little interest in color images and video presented on the EPDs, a finding that runs counter to the belief of many in newspaper management that such features are essential.

This article discusses the continued decline of available jobs for cartoonists in the U.S. Frequent reorganizations are not unusual in the news industry but, unlike reporters, photographers and editors, editorial cartoon jobs are increasingly left unfilled or are eliminated entirely after a cartoonist leaves a paper. Media consolidation, newspapers folding, tightening budgets--all have contributed to the erosion of viable outlets. Bottom-line mentality and a concern for slipping circulation can drive publishers and editors to fear controversy of any sort. many editors would rather not risk irritating readers to begin with and quickly fold when uproar somehow manages to land on their desk. Far worse, at least to some cartoonists, is the editor who insists on watering down the commentary in order to be equal and balanced, altering content to such a degree the point of the cartoon is lost. Given the job market, it is the rare cartoonist indeed who resigns on principle. More often they are pushed out. One bright spot over the years has been family-owned papers that, whatever their circulation, often had a local cartoonist on staff as a matter of civic pride. Yet even among independent papers with a long tradition of editorial cartooning, the squeeze is on. Whether or not they can find a full-time job, most cartoonists still continue to draw. I he majority of people getting published today have cobbled together a career of sorts, freelancing, doing cartoons on the side, or working for a newspaper or magazine in other capacities with the opportunity to get in an occasional cartoon. Even if they have been cut loose by a paper, many scrape by with freelance work while continuing to provide material for their syndicate. A few have never worked for a newspaper, instead building up a full-time job through syndication.

This article features the latimes.com, the redesigned Web site of Los Angeles Times newspaper. Perhaps the most significant turning point in this new venture came this summer 2005, when editors who had spent their careers on the print side were asked to venture into the digital world of journalism and think about how to attract more readers. Even after an earlier, much-publicized redesign, latimes.com looked like the paper did. The front-page stories of the newspaper, mostly foreign and national news became lead stories on the homepage of the latimes.com. Web visitors could find little on the site that was not lifted directly from the paper's pages. Latimes.com, which is fifth among U.S. newspaper sites in the number of visitors it draws, generates revenues that run into the tens of millions of dollars and draws 5.5 million unique viewers a month.

This article presents the views of publishers about the state of cartooning at U.S. newspapers. Gary Sherlock, publisher and president of The Journal News, said that without a doubt, having an editorial cartoonist of the quality of Matt Davies on their editorial staff has been a significant competitive advantage in the marketplace. Each day they compete with the much larger New York City dailies. And having his work in their paper provides their readers with a real different reason for buying the newspaper. His work is just that much better than the competition. Davies' willingness to go out into the community and talk about his work has been an unexpected benefit to The Journal News. Tim Kelly, publisher of the Lexington Herald Leader, said clearly, the greatest value of having an editorial cartoonist on the staff of a paper their size is the added dimension Joel Pett gives them in terms of local commentary. They all know that they can purchase the work of the best cartoonists in the country on national and world topics for a fraction of the cost of a staff cartoonist. But they and their readers cannot get the local angle anyplace else. That is why it is essential that local cartoonists draw locally. Not all the time, but a considerable percentage of the time.

Asserts that narrative writing is returning to newspapers. Signs of the increasing interest in narrative writing; Basic issues on narrative writing; Steps in the process of bringing a narrative article to a paper.

This article focuses on the author's involvement in solving a problem facing a local newspaper in Ropczycka, Poland. The first issue of Ziemia Ropczycka was published in April 1990, and immediately the paper was in trouble with the mayor because of a story involving the village's medical clinic. Its director had retired and a contest was held to choose his successor. The contest committee selected a popular doctor, but the regional government rejected the nomination without explanation. Ziemia demanded a reason and asked whether it was because the doctor did not belong to the Solidarity Party. Mayor Stanislaw Hulek, who was a member of Solidarity, asked Ziemia to lay off the story, but the paper continued to demand an explanation. In the standoff between the mayor and the newspaper, it appeared that someone telephoned the American Embassy for advice, and I, supposedly an expert on press freedom, was dispatched to try to help resolve the situation. In a meeting with members of Ziemia's advisory council, I proposed that they seek a meeting with the mayor, since it was he who first suggested the need for a newspaper. Perhaps he could be persuaded of Ziemia's good will and potential for improving the quality of life for all citizens. But the mayor would not meet with us. Remembering some of my own experiences with mayors and business leaders in Battle Creek, Michigan, and New Brunswick, New Jersey, I could only advise Zbigniew Dobrowolski, the newspaper's editor, to keep trying. It would not be an easy trip, but press freedom in Ropczycka seemed off to a good start.

This article offers insights on the status of the media market in various countries. In Mexico, even Reforma, the popular among the newspapers in the country, is no match for The New York Times newspaper. However, the publishing is trying, and so are Mexican journalists on many papers and magazines, despite a weak economy, persistent poverty, shifting standards, implicit and explicit journalistic corruption, and an audience that often seems mugged by television soaps and unable or unwilling to read. In Tokyo, a problem facing news agencies is not on circulation, rather on its stultification. In this country, the political and journalistic poverty is a poverty of the imagination. In China, there was a lack of real jobs in Chinese journalism. In others, particularly in Western Europe, editors and producers have some of the same worries, but hardly the angst. Journalism in Europe, particularly in England, Germany and France, still retains much of the verve and excitement of the Great Game. American journalists are sometimes viewed as taking themselves just seriously in places where sell papers remains the object of the game. In Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, journalists are trying to develop standards for reporting in societies where, for more than 50 years, no real reporting existed at all. In those places, young men and women with an inclination towards journalism often have found themselves shunted into government-ministry jobs or to obscure niches in academia.

This article examines the reasons for the lost jobs of editorial cartoonists. The first reason is money. Papers are losing readers and advertising revenue is tougher to come by. The second reason is fear. A good editorial cartoon probably annoys, and might even anger, at least half the audience on any day. Third is laziness. Good cartooning, like all aspects of journalism, takes work. Finding a cartoonist is work. Working with a cartoonist is work. Arguing with a cartoonist about their approach is work. Taking the telephone calls that go along with having a cartoonist is work. Another is ignorance. Thanks in no small part to the editors at Newsweek, an entire generation of journalists has grown into their careers blissfully unaware that editorial cartoons are not just jokes about the news, but visual columns, strong opinion pieces. When relegated to sideshow status, cartoons become basic filler, not the type of stuff you pay someone a full-time salary to produce. Next is the one-paper town. In the old days it was fine to be opinionated and one-sided. But today a lot of editors are uneasy about bludgeoning their readers with the inherently unbalanced work of cartoonists. And last is the might of the right. Although dozens of conservative cartoonists work at papers today, most of the big-circulation names are liberals. In today's political climate, there is a lot of pressure to be fair and balanced, and some of this pressure comes from the publisher's office. None of these explanations for the demise stand up to reason. Yes, papers are losing readers, primarily to television, an easy-to-absorb visual media where opinions fly fast and furious. And while it might make short-term sense to let a cartoonist go, in the long run a newspaper cuts its own throat by making the paper less interesting by robbing it of personality. Sacking the cartoonist also deprives a paper of local cartoons, which can get a community talking about the pages.

This article presents a narrative of the author's experience with newspaper job interviews. The only job I have ever wanted was to draw political cartoons for a living and that is what I do. I am that rare creature, the editorial cartoonist who can make a full-time living solely from syndication. Nonetheless, I do not have what I really want: a job at a newspaper, where I would work with editors and journalists on cartoons on the state and local issues that resonate strongly with readers. My cartoons are fairly well known since they are published in more than a hundred papers. As a result, I have been interviewed three times for positions at major U.S. newspapers. Those close hiring calls serve as parables for the state of the industry. In 1995, the Patriot-News flew me to the Pennsylvania capital to meet for lunch with the paper's features editor, editor in chief, and publisher. I left the meeting feeling positive about my chances. The features editor informed me that rather than hire an editorial cartoonist they have decided to go with a sports-writer. The Patriot-News already had 6 sportswriters on staff. But such are the mysterious priorities of editors and publishers. Around the same time an opening occurred at the Asbury Park Press. The executive editor worked his way down a list of boilerplate questions, everything went satisfactorily until he asked if the paper will see protesters yelling about a cartoon that I drew. I said it is not my intention to offend readers but if an idea is worth expressing, I do not think I should self-censor because of that possibility. I knew I had blown what should have been a simple no. But taking a job under impossible conditions would invariably get me fired. I still dream and wait for the telephone to ring with the news that a paper wants to talk to me and, maybe this time, actually hire me.

The article examines the implications for newspapers in the increased demand by readers that news stories have an immediate relevance to the reader's individual life. Television news broadcasting has emphasized its connection with the individual viewer as a marketing tool for decades, but newspapers still think of their audience as an undifferentiated mass. The changes needed to meet the demand for individually focused news stories are not enormous, but cut against traditional newspaper practices, meaning they require a complete organizational shift at every level of a paper's operation to be successfully initiated. INSET: Cutting Staff Results in Less Local Coverage.

The article focuses on the need to maintain a local focus in investigative reporting. A series of articles by "The Seattle Times" newspaper of Seattle, Washington is used an example. The articles presented an in-depth analysis of sealed court cases in the Seattle region. A laborious investigation showed an inordinate number of such cases, many of which had been sealed in direct violation of law governing public records. Expensive litigation was needed to force the sealed cases to be made public. A number of those cases involved malfeasance by public officials. Investigative reporting requires considerable resources but in terms of labor and money. Using those resources in the paper's community allows it to have more leverage and pursue the issue in-depth. Other newspapers in other cities have run similar series on sealed court records. It is likely the newspapers had more effect in exposing and ending the abuses of that practive by acting separately in their own market rather than attempting to provide a "national" overview of the issue.

This article focuses on several components of a transparent newsroom. In Open News Meetings, The Spokesman-Review's daily news meetings are open to all news staff and to the public. Visitors make appointments with the editor's executive assistant. This brings newsroom staff together with readers who have an interest in contributing to daily news decisions. Moreover, in Part-Time Ombudsman, the paper contracts with a local college professor for op-ed columns once or twice a month. Ombudsman reports to the editorial page editor. The contract arrangement provides periodic, independent review of Spokesman-Review journalism and gives readers a place to take complaints for independent review and response. Much of his work never appears in print as he facilitates communication between disgruntled readers and staff.

The article focuses on the yearlong energy crisis experienced by the state of California. During the crisis, reporters faced especially daunting challenges in moving information across this moat. A slowly evolving system of monopoly utility regulation, with carefully documented costs and profits, had been replaced by a complex network of markets in which electricity and risk were traded like pork bellies. When utilities operated as government-sanctioned monopolies, being a vigilant reporter mainly required looking over the shoulder of regulators whose job it was to make sure that utilities kept the lights on and costs dozen. The challenge was to extract readable stories from the regulators' quasi-judicial proceedings, in which agendas read like invoices from auto parts dealers and policy choices were buried inside of alternate rulings. Many newspapers, including the Contra Costa Times, normally give only limited coverage to the electricity industry. When the energy crisis hit, the newspaper's team responded by assigning three reporters-- one from the environment bureau, one from the state government bureau and one from the business section. In 1998, California launched its aggressive move to competition. At first, things went smoothly. Then, in the late spring of 2000, a sudden jump in wholesale power costs jolted electricity customers in the San Diego area. By the fall of 2000, the power shortages that hit San Diego were spreading throughout the state. As the state's electricity system crumbled, it was easy for reporters to find victims and tell their stories. The story was portrayed as a modern-day war between states. Soon this story line was strengthened when it surfaced that owners were shutting down power plants to create shortages and trading was raising prices. Covering these dimensions of the story taxed the resources and abilities of daily papers' newsroom staff, just at a time when economic slowdowns were driving down newspaper revenue.

The author ponders on the demise of journalism and the significance of the newsroom of the newspaper "The Republican" in Springfield, Massachusetts. He asserts that the market for clear and sharp writing about current events is unlikely to disappear. He claims that editorial leaders at majority of daily papers in the U.S. failed to keep up with the pace of technological change. He adds that solid reporting and realistic storytelling are thriving despite varied methods used to deliver journalistic work.

This article presents insights on the conflict that may occur between an editor and an advertising director regarding editing newspapers. Issues that may lead to arguments between an editor and an advertising director include the attention that should be given to an advertising client and spaces in the paper to be used for advertising or news. Arguments and conflicts may occur since advertising directors wants to please advertisers, while editors want to meet the needs of readers. Editors may avoid arguing against advertising directors. In this way, editors may protect their jobs and share profits with the management.

The article focuses on how actor Arnold Schwarzenegger campaign capitalized on his celebrity to make ordinary journalism so marginally relevant to the outcome of the 2003 governor recall elections in California. Any doubts about the definition of the political media of Schwarzenegger should have been dispelled not only by his use of a late night television show to make his announcement but by his first major news conference. The last gasp of the old political media in the campaign was a lengthy article in the "Los Angeles Times" newspaper that alleged a pattern of sexual harassment by Schwarzenegger directed women in and around his movie productions. The question, is whether the media frenzy will continue after Schwarzenegger takes office. But as the Schwarzenegger governorship begins, those in the political media will also have a shot. The reporters who covered the recall campaign for most of the larger California papers tended to be pure political reporters who specialize in campaigns. But once Scwarzenegger takes office, he will face the Capitol's resident press corps, some of whose members have been tracking legislation and administrative policy for decades.

The section introduces a series of articles on news reporting and journalism including how news organizations look for ways to unlock the mysteries of how to connect with reluctant consumers. "Voices" periodical has built reputation on showing teens as they really are, not how someone wants them to be or thinks they should be. Among the myths on young adult newspaper readership is that publishers used to cling to the notion that people acquired the newspaper habit as the got older. Publishers can connect with Pennsylvania State University students by hiring a young staff to publish "Blue," a weekly youth-oriented wraparound section and figuring out how to market the product. To compete with the Internet and have a chance at attracting young people, newspapers must offer a combination of goods such as authentic and edgy news coverage, more international news and stories with more young voices. There is an extensive research done by Gannett Company Inc. and points to approaches some Gannett papers have taken to attract young readers. It was evident that if students were going to write for a newspaper, they had to learn and read one.

This article reports on Media Nation, a daily newspaper about the news media covering the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts in August 2004. The newspaper resulted from a partnership between the Nieman Foundation, the University of Massachusetts-Boston (UMass Boston) Center on Media and Society, and The Boston Globe. Media Nation, was published on four sequential days as a part of the Globe's special convention coverage. The paper broke news on the plight of many international reporters who found themselves without expected workspace when U.S. President George W. Bush's administration failed to fund an international press center for the first time in 20 years. It examined how Arab-language news organizations were covering the convention and the growing influence on political reporting of Hispanic and African-American media organizations. The Kovach Library and computer room at Lippmann House were transformed into a newsroom for those doing research, producing graphics, and editing the content. Seasoned news professionals directed and oversaw a staff of 20 college students from Harvard and UMass Boston. Other news professionals working on the project included broadcast veteran and founding editor of Stateline.org Ed Fouhy, Nieman Foundation senior web editor, Melinda Grenier, and former Wall Street Journal graphics editor, Karl Hartig. Nieman Fellow Doug Marlette provided a daily political cartoon.

Dianne Solis has rejoined The Dallas Morning News as the newspaper's lead immigration reporter. Solis worked for the paper for more than two decades before being laid off in a [...]

GRADUATION WAS APPROACHING, and Northwestern University journalism student Stephanie Choporis faced a tough job market where her choices were few. She could have sought out a spot at a major [...]

IN WE ARE, NEW Hampshire, a small town about 45 minutes from the state's southern border with Massachusetts, the local newspaper is largely a one-man show. Michael Sullivan is de [...]

Cansu Camlibel is the new editor in chief of the independent online newspaper Duvar English in Istanbul, a role she assumed in October. Previously, she was a D.C. correspondent for [...]

In a Vietnamese enclave, community publications feel pressure from Knight Ridder. A sign in the desolate parking lot identifies Calitoday. It is a three-year-old daily San Jose Vietnamese newspaper with [...]