(iverson's) currentbuzz: "Following Facts, instead of stopping short out of Fear"

Robert Niles nails it in his recent OJR piece on how to keep your journalism job. Niles is exactly right when he says that readers want reporters who follow the "...facts where they lead, instead of stopping short out of fear that someone doesn't like that." As one who has a foot in journalism and one firmly outside of the establishment, corporate news business, I know this because I am one of those readers. When my local papers, the Chicago Trib or Sun-Times do an investigative story (on the hidden threat of lead or on hired truck scandals) I want to see the paper to lead me to actions I can take , but I'd like them to put their voices into efforts to do something about the truth, not just point it out. My local papers vary in how well they do that. Sen. Durbin is proposing legislation and cites the Trib's investigative work. One would like to see the Feds give as much attention to city corruption and connections as they do to those of Mr. Rezko, but the Sun-Times tried.

Too many days, it is hard to find anything worth reading in the paper. Do I need the newspaper to endlessly prattle on about the details of TV shows? If I want to talk about my shows, I'll do it online in facebook where I am part of the conversation. Robert notes that at L.A. Times they would google fan groups and link them to entertainment stories and the eyeballs would multiply.

Oh, and the new "feature" where there are precious colum inches used to tell me the reporter X has something to say online -- why don't you give me twitter-length summary, and isn't it time now to re-introduce the "cuecat" barcode reader so I could sit with my laptop and my paper and scan a code in print and have the link show up in my browser. That was a tool ahead of its time...Niles says, "Give readers easy-to-use tools to forward and share your work.

The key lies in abandoning any expectation that an employer will protect you. It is *your* responsibility to create enough value around your individual work that employers will want to pay you and readers will want to read what you have to report. Part of that responsibility requires you to do good, honest, accurate and insightful journalism. But another significant part will require you to go beyond reporting and to promote both your work and your name as a trusted media "brand."

Source: ojr.org

And I'll include Niles' kicker here: "Reward yourself for your hard work in creating value for your readers

by doing everything you can to make sure that everyone knows just who

did that work."