Celebrating Freedom

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. –The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

Somehow I missed the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week at the end of September. That unfortunate slippage of my middle-aging memory means that I need to slap a big old red letter F on my patriotism for that week.

For those who are not in the know, the ALA annually releases a list of the most contested titles on library shelves throughout the nation. I typically try to celebrate freedom of speech by choosing and reading a "banned" book from the list that week. This time, I missed it.

Oh, well. I suppose as long as we have a First Amendment I can look forward to a future Banned Books Week. And I must say that I am always amused and amazed by the strange alliances that surface whenever someone’s First Amendment rights are threatened. The most recent example, of course, is Jon Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg, and Joy Behar jumping into the fray over Hank Williams Jr.’s ouster from Monday Night Football as a result of his criticism of the president.

On a less controversial but still First Amendment-related note, I am happy to not have missed the Southern Festival of Books, an annual Humanities Tennessee event that will take place in Nashville’s Legislative Plaza this weekend. There’s more than one way to celebrate the freedom of the written word.

A Leap for Pizza

Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy. –Stephen King (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft)

I recently took my family out to dinner at a local pizza establishment that I hadn’t visited in many years. After we sat down, I drew in a breath and took a moment to familiarize myself with the environment.

On the front wall of the establishment, mounted high above the entrance, was the requisite widescreen television, just as requisitely tuned to what looked like ESPN. On the wall to my left were show posters from some entertainment establishment in New Orleans I’d never heard of. Along the rear wall were the cashier’s stand, the kitchen, and the restrooms.

Then there was the wall to my right.

I scanned it last, beginning with the corner connected to the entrance wall and ending…well, I never really ended that scan because I was stopped in my tracks by that vague sense of familiarity one sees sometimes in the faces of apparent strangers in a crowd. You know, those faces your eyes keep wandering back to despite your best efforts to steer them otherwise because there’s something familiar about them. You think you might know them from somewhere, or they remind you of someone you do know.

It wasn’t a face I saw that hit the pause button on my surroundings scanner. It was a font; letters on a framed newspaper masthead hanging on the wall. I couldn’t see for certain because of the distance, but it looked like a framed copy of an article from a newspaper I worked for way back in the mid-1990s.

I’m shy, so I sent my wife and step-daughter to investigate. "I think that might be my article on the wall over there," I whispered to them.

A couple of minutes later, my step-daughter ran excitedly back to me from the other side of the restaurant, the eyes of every other patron there on her, and loudly proclaimed that "it is your article!"

Fourteen years prior to that evening’s dinner, almost to the day, I had written a feature about this particular pizza establishment for the Business section of the local paper. It was simply a day in the life of a young reporter back then; a single story among dozens that I wrote in my time there. I hadn’t really thought about it since.

It warmed my heart, though, seeing that piece of my history so many years later, hanging on the wall of an establishment I hadn’t visited in ages. I felt like I’d found a small time portal, a wormhole, or some other means of traveling back to a time in my life that was filled with the day-to-day uncertainty of a news beat and the fast-food lifestyle of a man in his 20s.

At home later that night, I could not help but crack open the tomes and tomes of three-ring binders I used to store clips of my work from those days. I was reminded of the character of Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap, one of my all-time favorite television series.

In the show, Sam can leap into the lives of other people in other times, as long as the date and lives he leaps into existed within the frame of his own lifetime. Similarly, I found myself leaping into the lives of different people and places on a daily basis in the years that I wrote for that publication. And I was a little surprised after my dinner at the pizza establishment to find myself somewhat nostalgic for those days.

But I am a different person now, an older man with different ideas, opinions, energy, and a different lifestyle. In Quantum Leap, Dr. Beckett’s primary objective, his singular longing, is to find a way to stop traveling in time, to leap home.

I’ve already done that. These days I have a beautiful wife, a wonderful step-daughter, a cantankerous dog, and a vegetable garden outside a house on a hill.

I wouldn’t trade it.

Let ‘Em Go

Lyons: "Instead of giving newspapers bailouts, we should be hastening their demise"Newsweek.com
"The weak papers need to die," writes Daniel Lyons. "The strong newspapers need to go into bankruptcy and restructure their businesses with smaller staffs and lower cost structures. Yes, it will be painful. But journalists will find jobs — and they’ll be working in a better, faster medium."
[Poynter Romenesko]

Does Journalism’s Future Come at the Cost of Accountability?

Shirky: The transition to a new news model won’t be seamlessShorenstein Center
"We are headed into a long trough of decline in accountability journalism because the old models are breaking faster than the new models will be put in their place," Clay Shirky said Tuesday at Harvard. || More on the media futurist’s talk from Dan Kennedy and Ethan Zuckerman.

 [Poynter Romenesko]

Lawmakers Further Define ‘Journalist’

An update from Nieman Journalism Lab on how government defines a "journalist:"

Shield law: Definition of “journalist” gets professionalized

On Thursday, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) offered an amendment to the Senate version that hews toward the professional definition in the House. Under the amendment, which was adopted by the Senate Judiciary Committee, a journalist is defined as someone who:

(iii) obtains the information sought while working as a salaried employee of, or independent contractor for, an entity—
(I) that disseminates information by print, broadcast, cable, satellite, mechanical, photographic, electronic, or other means; and
(II) that—
(aa) publishes a newspaper, book, magazine, or other periodical;
(bb) operates a radio or television broadcast station, network, cable system, or satellite carrier, or a channel or programming service for any such station, network, system, or carrier;
(cc) operates a programming service; or
(dd) operates a news agency or wire service;

As I observed last week, the shield law obviously needs a definition that limits its scope, but the professional definition, which now seems inevitable, would exclude student journalists as well as bloggers with a day job.

[Nieman Journalism Lab]

Congressional Hearing on Newspaper Financial Woes Set for Thursday

Congressional hearing on newspapers set for ThursdayEditor & Publisher
The hearing will "examine contraction in the newspaper industry, the economic impact of the changing media landscape, as well as the future of the industry at large," says an announcement. Pew Research Center’s Tom Rosenstiel will be one of the witnesses. 
[Poynter Romenesko]

From the E&P article: 

"The witnesses will review alternative funding options for newspapers in our new and ever-changing electronic age. Since the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the federal government has acknowledged that the press is an institution which is afforded special protections by name. In this spirit, I think that the government can help foster solutions for this industry in ways which protect the independence of newspapers and enables their objective reporting to thrive in a new economic and media climate."

All of which prompts the question: how involved can government truly be in its watchdog’s welfare without harming the watchdog’s objective watchfulness?

In Spite of Industry Predictions, It Ain’t Over

Has newspaper advertising reached rock bottom? Probably not.

During the last few months, as newspaper stock prices rebounded somewhat from  their lowest points, and as newspaper execs suggested, in conjunction with second quarter results, that having made all the cuts they did, they would be in good shape “once advertising rebounds,” I found myself nevertheless thinking the same thoughts as the crystal ball-gazers consulted by the New York Times who said that the bottom, for newspaper advertising revenue, had not yet been reached. [Nieman Journalism Lab]

Obama Expresses Concern About the Non-objective Direction of Journalism

The potential problem, of course, with "bills that would help newspapers" is that it creates the appearance, if not the reality, of government-owned media.

Obama’s "happy to look at" bills that would help newspapersToledo Blade
The president told Dave Murray that "I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding." He added: "What I hope is that people start understanding if you’re getting your newspaper over the Internet, that’s not free and there’s got to be a way to find a business model that supports that."
[Poynter Romenesko]