Journalism in the 21st Century

In late November 2009, more than 1,000 e-mails between scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the U.K.’s University of East Anglia were stolen and made public by an anonymous hacker. Climate skeptics claimed the e-mails proved global warming was not real, completely made up by scientists. At the time, I had been freelancing for a very prestigious scientific magazine, Engineering & Technology in Stevenage, UK, formerly IEE Review. I had written a number of environmental stories, including on electronic waste recycling and auto emissions and standards. I was not, however, a household name. I was living in a one-bedroom apartment in West Haven, Connecticut with my cat, just going about my business, making probably $16,000 a year. So when I received an e-mail from a new editor at Fox News, I was flattered. Flattered and horrified. What had I done to attract such attention? The person told me they had read some of my articles and were impressed. Would I be interested in coming dow...

Today has not been a red letter day. First, seeing that I was in need of a job I decided to apply to waitress locally. Yet I soon got a call and they asked if I could do office work. Then when I showed up to do office work, the rotund proprietor asked behind his messy desk: "How much can you lift?" Earlier, he had asked what I had been doing in England ("studying") and then asked if I had made any money writing or if it was (then he laughed) just, you know, a hobby. I left that interview thankful that at least I had a real job interview on Thursday, for a reporting position in New York. I had walked by the Nissan dealership and spoken to the young salesperson. "I won't buy a car til I get a job. This is my third interview so I feel I will probably get it." Then I got on to the computer just now and had received an e-mail from HR: "Sorry, Laurie, but Hector (not his real name) has decided to hire internally. We will retain your resume. Keep checkin...

As a journalist for several decades, I've prided myself in always reporting the truth. Then I heard Carl Bernstein explain that a good journalist tells "the best version" of the truth. I decided to edit my response to that question, so much so that when a young journalist asked me about my approach to this profession, I mimicked Bernstein. Then I read her paper, elegantly written and beautifully conceived. When I saw what I had said - I was not misquoted - I thought that "the best version" just isn't good enough. If you're not a journalist, let me explain what goes on in news rooms and what news itself is. News is not a synopsis about the day your child brought home a B+ in Math, your family ate Hamburger Helper, the laundry had to be redone because the washer's acting funky, and Aunt Margaret dropped by unexpectedly. No - the news is that your genius child, aged 5, has advanced to high school math, invented a new social media app that has brought hi...

Marissa Gamache will be starting her senior year of college this autumn, spending part of it studying in Ireland at Maynooth University before graduating from Bethel University in Minnesota. She is completing a double major in journalism and international relations, and this summer, is interning as a reporter on the government team at Transport Topics in Arlington, Va. where I am a business reporter. I wanted to discuss with Marissa how her generation of reporters sees journalism these days, where it's going, and how she fights the allure of getting all her news from Facebook . Marissa, when you think of previous generations of journalists, what words come to mind? I think of the 6 p.m. nightly news and my parents. Are they journalists? No. I think of old journalism, Watergate, Edward R. Murrow, and Bob Costas. Thank you. So, how do you feel your generation is changing the way journalism is done? I think we're on a minute-to-minute basis. I think we are expecting...

Whether you are 25 or 55, as I am, transitioning from pajamas to pin-stripe suits can be a daunting experience. Once day you're eating PB&Js and working from 10 to 4 or 11 to 10 and the next you're expected to be in a cubicle by 9 and play nice with strangers. Having recently taken a staff reporting position - after 10 years of freelancing - I can attest that there are growing pains. I take responsibility for my independent skin, one that got tougher as I aged, and so learning to be in a team is sometimes tricky. Mom put it this way: "You're like Luzie (her elder cat); you don't like people to get too close." Now, Luzie and I happen to have a lovely, warm relationship. She'd wait in the doorway of "her" room alongside Mom during the four months I spent at Mom's in South Texas. She'd "meeew!" and I'd "meew!" and know just how to pet her before she bit me. So yeah, perhaps that's me, at least on days when I...

I'll admit that I've been fascinated by the progeny of Prince William and the Duchess, Kate Middleton, but now that he's born and we know the name, enough. In Syria, an estimated 6,000 children had died as of June, according to the UK's Guardian newspaper. Who knows the real number or how dramatically that number has grown; and the figure obviously swells when one adds their parents and other adults. I realize that since the world is full of heartache, it's uplifting to focus on the future King (unless he abdicates), but neither should we ignore the pressing humanitarian issues plaguing the world today. Ditto the impact of climate change on the very children we are trying to protect. And while the so-called royal baby doesn't deserve the hype, most certainly Anthony Weiner et al (somebody Leather) doesn't either. As journalists, let's focus on what matters. It was painful to see Wolf Blitzer interview Miss Leather on his CNN program last night. ...

Scandal week . If this past week has brought anything to light for the media, it's that everyone but Fox News understated the Benghazi situation. This reporter, all along, was pushing for transparency and strongly suspected that President Obama and Secretary Clinton were covering up the truth. Suspecting is not the same as stating, conclusively, but it's the role of the press to follow curiosity as the clues unravel. Instead, what the so-called "liberal" press did, mostly, was accuse Fox News, the Republicans and those crazy Conservatives of a witch hunt. Yet in hindsight, even the fair and balanced Grey Lady needs to be squirming this week. Clearly, Obama wanted to be re-elected. What happened beyond that regarding the watered-down talking points indicates that his agenda was furthered before Susan Rice spoke on camera. Coincidence? Further, regarding the AP scrutiny from the Department of Justice, there is no reasonable explanation for the latter to snoop ...

I wasn't the biggest Obama supporter, but I came round. By the time he was elected, I'd joined the pandemonium, against the protestations of my one Republican friend: "He's up to something. I don't trust him." I told her I wasn't quite sure if I did either, but I had to support his (wildly) liberal agenda. However, ever since Benghazi or wait, maybe about the time all my friends started getting laid off, I began to question him again. Don't get me wrong: the alternative (Mitch Romney, as Letterman calls him) would have been national suicide. OK, that's dramatic. But so many scandals, so much subterfuge, so much telling the American public he had nothing to do with it. What will it be this week? Hillary on the Hill asking, "What difference does it make?" was some convincing emotion. She had to have known darn well what difference it makes/made. Shame on this president for all of these news items: Recession, Corexit in the Gulf of M...

Last Thurs., Apr. 18 I was still watching CNN, horrified by the bombings on Boylston and now obsessed with the faces just shared by the FBI. I played those videos over and over again, as we all did. Then, I heard the re was a shooting and possibly an officer killed at MIT. Someone had the presence of mind to say that the Boston PD, Fire and EMS were on a live audio feed. I posted the following over the next hour: Laurie Wiegler ‏ @ WriterWeegs 18 Apr Boston Police, Fire and EMS Live Audio Feed http://www. broadcastify.com/listen/feed/62 54/web   … via @ Broadcastify Laurie Wiegler ‏ @ WriterWeegs 18 Apr MIT campus police officer ...

I woke up this morning -- yes, I am 141, which apparently I accomplished through mosturizer and my new vegan lifestyle -- to find that my boyfriend (a spry 92) had broken his Kindlette. For those of you still reading this in the 21st century, that's Kindle gone all Jetsons on ya, so small that I can only see it when my fake eyeballs are lasered up with biojuice. Sometimes it's hard to pick the right pair in the dark, but I do my best. Anyway, the news story we read today is about Britney Spears III inheriting a fortune from her best friend, Lindsay Lohan XI, and then blowing it all on, well, blow. I wasn't too happy when coke made a comeback, but at least it woke up the 200-year-olds at my mom's convalescent home. I seem to recall vaguely that the US, all but California that is (which seceded from the Union in 2071, and shame on you for forgetting that), was going to war with Canada. I know you 21st century readers won't believe that, but gosh darn it's t...

1. I resolve to never make mean faces when I read e-mail rejections from editors, or if I do, I resolve to not record them and send them as attachments; 2. I resolve to rely more on my brain and less on Spellcheck, unless of course I'm really tired; 3. I resolve to be nicer to PRs who interrupt my busy day with pitches that are 17 paragraphs long and are addressed to "Laura Weigler" (Never was, never WILL BE Laura, and it's i before e, thank you very much); 4. I resolve to be nice when checks are late. No, no I don't. I resolve to hunt down editors who don't pay on time, publish their names on my blog, and kidnap their puppies! 5. I resolve to encourage my fellow journalists in the same way I want them to encourage me: constant praise, heaps of praise, gushing to the point of idolatry; 6. I resolve to stop screaming when I read the way a 23-year-old editor has just ruined my copy; 7. I resolve to stop bragging when one of my edito...

Reading the other day that AARP-the Magazine boasts over 22 million subscribers I felt a tingle -- how thrilling, I thought, to have a story appearing in its October issue. While this is my second small piece for them, I am aware that exposure on a national level is invaluable for a journalist. I've also been published in dozens, or close to 100 other publications, and these days it's tough to remember them all. I remember a time when waiting for a magazine article to come out was like waiting for Christmas and no one could ruin the surprise. That all changed with the Internet, though, and it's certainly likely I could be out-scooped. This is true not only for the AARP profile but for any stories I write, including environmental pieces for tce today or the new Green Guide published by the Hartford Business Journal. Even a citizen journalist or heck, Facebook friend, could publish an article that uses the same sources. While it's fine to say there are no accidents, i...

After feeling like a schmo for telling a PR off last night, I realized it was time to write this credo for my flack friends everywhere. Note, I didn't so much tell them off as point out the obvious; but apparently, Simon Cowell-as-Laurie-Wiegler isn't sitting too well with innkeepers in Northern California right now (I imagine it wasn't a real publicist who sent the pitch, or she would have known better.) So here's what you need to know in order to keep the journos well fed and on your side: 1. Address us by name. This is so obvious that I can't believe I have to mention it. The above offender cut and pasted her pitch to me. I thought it was SPAM at first. 2. Get to the point in the first sentence or at least the first graf. 3. Stop at graf two. If you can't sell me in two grafs, I'm not interested. Remember, I am pouring through dozens of pitches like yours. I don't have time to read novels. 4. Please, please keep the links and cute images to a minimum...

Anderson Cooper was "roughed up by thugs" this week - as he posted on Twitter - and many now wonder if this is the new normal for journos. By new normal I mean, any self-respecting scribe will earn his stripes traveling halfway across the world and not flinch if sent into rock-throwing range of a crazed Muslim brother or frantic eighty-year-old democracy-hungry doctor. Maybe I'm a wimp, but I'll take my journalism work the way I would take any job: without putting my life in danger. I didn't become a cop or firewoman or President of the United States. I am a journalist. I am not required to put my life on the line in order to get to the story. To see CNN and the New York Times and Fox News and whomever else jockeying for stories and standing space on the square over there in Cairo...well, it's just a little unsettling. More than a little. There have always been war correspondents. And war photographers. These are noble professions -- but they stand apart from ...

I read this week that the New York Times could possibly trim up to 100 staffers if employees don't take enough buy-outs. I am hardly angry at the Times' management. They are doing what they have to do, and from what I've read, none of the executives there want to resort to layoffs. Why not charge readers for the online edition? Yes, I would hate it - but not as much as I'd hate losing the quality of reporting I get from the Times. We are living in a frighteningly ignorant society, one in which the blog-du-jour (this one included!) is being gobbled up in the name of "news." Young people today are in danger of confusing the difference between a Pulitzer Prize-level type report such as is currently running by David Rohde in the Times (detailing his account being held by the Taliban) and the run-of-the-mill posting on Huffington. Now, I have nothing against the Huffington Report - it's valuable. And many of the writers who post there are fine scribes. Yet comp...

My advice: ** Business degree is ok, but if one decides to be some other kind of journalist, it won't necessarily help ** Best is a journalism degree from a prestigious school (NYU, Columbia, if that's possible) ** Get clips asap - even for free at the beginning, in areas that one wants to write on; try NOT to write for free, but a couple clips are ok ** Get an internship under one's belt right away ** Don't step on anyone's toes; burn any bridges - ever. This is a business full of huge egos. Make sure you're prepared to kiss a lot of behinds! ** Have a financial cushion; a second trick if you will (sales, financial analyst, etc.) to help you through the down times ** Learn a second language. At a recent networking event in Manhattan, one recruiter from a top wire service was desperate for someone who spoke Russian! ** Network but don't be a fool; it's important to help others but not at the expense of your own livelihood. Others may disagree, b...