Virtualjournalist has moved to Mediascaper

Please update your feeds, bookmarks and blogroll: I’ve moved all of my posts to my new domain: http://mediascaper.wordpress.com. Mediascaper is my Twitter ID, and I’ve long preferred it to “Virtualjournalist,” so last night I finally made the change.

How the St. Petersburg Times can use beat-blogging for gay issues

If  the St. Petersburg Times wants to start a constructive conversation about St. Petersburg’s relationship with the gay community, they’ve been presented with as good an opportunity as any:

Thus far, Cristina Silva’s story about the clash between St. Pete Pride and the city has generated well over 100 comments.

That’s the kind of reader interest the Times needs to take advantage of — and strike while the iron’s hot.

The issue: Pride organizers want to hang rainbow banners from light posts in the city’s gay-friendly business district throughout the month of June, to coincide with Pride Month.

According to Silva’s story, the city has rebuffed their initial proposal, citing a policy that states “all banners must carry a written message.” Pride organizers see that rejection as a violation of their constitutional rights.

Considering that this story has clearly touched a nerve, the Times would do well by itself — and the community — by dedicating a blog to the issue, one where reporters give continuous updates while also providing a forum for interaction with readers.

Off the top of my head, I can think a few questions prompted by Silva’s article and the reader comments that beg to be answered:

Marco Rubio vs. Charlie Crist

In Slate, Christopher Beam looks at what the 2010 Senate-seat showdown between Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist would mean for the GOP:

Yes, he’s more conservative than Charlie Crist. He’s pro-life, anti-stimulus, and anti-gay marriage. But he favors reaching out to independents as much as anyone. And as a Hispanic, he represents the GOP’s best hope to avoid losing an entire demographic the way it lost African-Americans.

In other words, the Crist-Rubio matchup is not a perfect test for whether the Republican Party should moderate. The lines are not clearly drawn. Sure, one is center-right and one is conservative. But the conservative belongs to a largely moderate/liberal demographic and has carved out a niche for himself as the ideas guy—two qualities that soil an otherwise pure litmus test.

Some say Rubio will hurt Republicans by bruising Crist. (Crist is still far ahead in the polls and won the coveted endorsement of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.) But that’s in the short term. In the long run, the GOP needs Rubio, both as a charismatic young conservative and as one of the party’s rising Hispanics. Putting his face out there will pay dividends in the future, even if it damages Crist now. Republicans might even hear a new idea or two.

Newsweek’s new look called “cluttered”

From Michael Kinsley, writing in the New Republic:

The new Newsweek, judging from the first issue (which [Editor Jon] Meacham calls “a model of the form”), bizarrely resembles the old Newsweek more than the new Newsweek Meacham describes. It is cluttered with departments and headlines and labels and tiny features, all of which imply some hierarchy or order in the editors’ minds, but only add to the chaos in the readers’. Its longer pieces follow all the stale conventions of newsmagazine prose.

Laid-off journalists have a home

For the unemployed journalist thrown out on his or her keester, Jim Gold, a former senior editor for the Arizona Republic, and his wife Sue have created Jilted Journalists.

It’s nothing much to look at design-wise, and the content is rather thin so far. But it has a cheeky tone, and at least endeavors to offer some helpful advice for those recently reacquainted with the ranks of the unemployed. A couple of highlights:

Behind Talking Points Memo’s website redesign

Thinking about  giving your news site a fresh coat of paint? Before you do, prepare to read in humbled awe Alexander Shaw’s incredibly detailed and valuable look at how he redesigned the front page of the Talking Points Memo website.

Cheney: Vader unmasked

Bit by prevaricated bit, reporters for McClatchy, Columbia Journalism Review and Slate pick apart former Vice President Dick Cheney’s speech before the American Enterprise Institute:

First up, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel’s piece for McClatchy, in which they remove the shaky supports from Cheney’s defense of U.S. interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists:

[Cheney] quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a “deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country.”

In a statement April 21, however, Blair said the information “was valuable in some instances” but that “there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.” …

Cheney said that President Barack Obama’s decision to release the four top-secret Bush administration memos on the interrogation techniques was “flatly contrary” to U.S. national security, and would help al Qaida train terrorists in how to resist U.S. interrogations.

However, Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said in his statement that he recommended the release of the memos, “strongly supported” Obama’s decision to prohibit using the controversial methods and that “we do not need these techniques to keep America safe.

Writing for Columbia Journalism Review, Charles Kaiser aims squarely at the contradictions between Cheney’s professed beliefs and his actions:

Portland to the New York Times: Thanks but no thanks

Because love is a two-way street, Oregonian columnist Anna Griffin gently but firmly tells The New York Times that its courtship of Portland will only end in heartbreak:

Here’s the problem: You’re making us something we’re not. Most of us don’t have time for a weekend at the Ace Hotel, or the wardrobe for First Thursday. Sure, we talk about racial tensions, but we haven’t conquered them. We still aren’t sure what to do with either our mayor or our major-league ambitions. …

…Besides, frankly, we’re just not that into you. Sure, we love curling up with you on Sunday mornings, sipping our Stumptown and taking a glimpse into a world where people talk about “frenemies,” “man dates,” and where their parents’ parents went to college. But, at heart, we’re simpler folks. You’ll eventually grow bored of our easy commutes and healthy living. One of these days, we’re going to wake up to discover you’ve dumped us for Detroit or Houston.

SEO tips for online news

Another post to save to your bookmarks: Knight Digital Media Center has an article about the Top 10 search engine optimization tips for online news startups.

Creative Loafing’s Ben Eason talks to Editor & Publisher

Ben Eason, Creative Loafing’s CEO, gets some prime real estate in Editor & Publisher’s Special Report on newspaper bankruptcy.

The most interesting part of the article is Eason’s revelation that he expects CL to emerge from bankruptcy over the summer, at which time “everyone will know the company’s real worth”:

“As time goes on, people are more realistic in what the company can produce going forward. We have an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to suggest to the creditors, to the judge, to everybody involved what we believe the company will look like going forward and then we have the opportunity to suggest what the capital structure is going to be. We are forced to value the company, not as we would like it to be, or what it was, but what it is today.”