Quill Blog
February 8th, 2021 • Featured, Quill Blog, Toolbox, Quill Archives, Digital Media Toolbox
SPJ Journalist’s Toolbox Tools of the Month: Transcription favorites
Reporters hate transcribing notes and they often ask me during newsroom training what tools work best. They want speed and accuracy with the transcriptions, and they want it free (or very cheap). I’ve listed many tools on the Toolbox’s Transcription Tools page, but here are my three favorites for speed, use and cost: Otter.ai:
February 5th, 2021 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives
Righting the wrongs of copyright violation
There they are. Your words. Published by someone without your permission. Long the bane of writers, publishers and photographers; the practice has become especially common on the Internet. But if you want to collect damages, traditionally you would have to sue in federal court, a time-consuming and expensive route that can wind up not being worth the effort.
February 1st, 2021 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives, News Biz Quiz
New/improved News Biz Quiz: Press secs, Larry King, more
Welcome to the newly reformatted and expanded News Biz Quiz. Starting with this month, it will appear monthly. To play, simply answer the following questions dealing with the last few weeks of news about the news. Total your score and compare that to either your journalistic colleagues or the scoring key right there in the blue box.
February 1st, 2021 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives, People and Places
2020 Fellow Interview: Marty Baron
Note: This story was published in Quill in 2020, prior to Marty Baron’s retirement announcement. It’s been a bumpy year so far, but Marty Baron makes sure to wear a helmet for the ride. Baron, a regular cyclist, is executive editor of The Washington Post and plans to edit the publication at least through the 2020 election.
January 22nd, 2021 • Featured, Quill Blog, Toolbox, Quill Archives, Digital Media Toolbox
SPJ Journalist’s Toolbox Tool of the Month: Google Dataset Search
Editor’s note: This is the first of what will be monthly posts about how to use digital and data tools on Journalist’s Toolbox. Check back each month for new tools, tips and tricks. Google launched its Dataset Search tool in November 2018 to help researchers locate data that is freely available for use.
January 15th, 2021 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives, Journalist on Call
Groups say frontline journalists at-risk, seek vaccination priority
UPDATE: The CDC’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan lists the media as essential workers to be given the vaccine in Phase 1c. This places them after people aged 65 years or older and other essential workers including healthcare workers, first responders, grocery store workers, public transit workers and teachers.
December 15th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives, Freedom of the Prez, From the President, Membership
From the President: Doubling down on SPJ
It was 229 years ago, on Dec. 15, 1791, that this nation adopted the 45 words of the First Amendment. And that set the foundation for everything our free press has done since. On that same date, in 1971, my parents welcomed me into the world and named me after Henry David Thoreau — and set the foundation for everything I’ve done since.
December 14th, 2020 • Quill Blog, Quill Archives
News Biz Quiz: The Doctor is in … unless Joseph Epstein has his way
Dear Joseph Epstein — kiddo — you may want to jump to question 5. For the rest, start at the beginning and see how you do with this edition of the News Biz Quiz. Both the House and Senate have passed a defense spending bill which refuses to delete Section 230 of what 1996 legislation (full name or Act acceptable), which protects against lawsuits stemming from user comments on internet sites? Time Magazine named tech entrepreneur Eric Yuan its Businessperson of the Year.
November 25th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives
“Bad Education,” “The Photograph,” “Most Wanted” and more journalism movies
Need ideas for what to watch over the holiday breaks? Here are a batch of recent films we’ve added to our almost-exhaustive, ranked list of 110+ Journalism Movies. To see where these are ranked and to view the entire list, click here.
November 17th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives
Caution boosted credibility in election coverage
Lost in the Trump-fueled chaos of the presidential election is a glimmer of light cast on the news media for doing an exceptional job covering it. In recent years, news organizations have been trying harder to prove to news consumers they can be trusted by providing information about reporters who covered a story, uploading more documents to back up their reporting and explaining controversial news decisions, among other efforts.
November 10th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives, Diversity
From a Brooklyn apartment to the Kennedy Center, BIPOC critics lab challenges norms
There’s no question that the arts criticism world is primarily a white world, with few BIPOC (Black, Indiginous and people of color) voices in the mix. Frustrated by that fact, Jose Solís, co-founder and co-host of the Token Theatre Friends podcast, decided to take matters into his own hands by creating the BIPOC Critics Lab, meeting for 10 weeks via Zoom with eight future critics from around the country.
November 9th, 2020 • Quill Blog, Quill Archives
News Biz Quiz: Election edition
The election may have an outcome, but we still have questions…in this week’s News Biz Quiz. 1. Arrange these news networks by the order in which they (FINALLY!) called the 2020 presidential election on Saturday, Nov. 7: NBC CBS ABC CNN Fox News 2.
November 5th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives, People and Places
2020 Fellow Interview: Les Zaitz
No one would have faulted veteran investigative reporter Les Zaitz if, after retiring from The Oregonian in 2016, he’d kicked back at his east Oregon ranch with his wife and watched the world go by. What did a man who’d covered the Mount St.
November 2nd, 2020 • Quill Blog, Quill Archives, News Biz Quiz
News Biz Quiz for 11/2: Election inaccuracies, disinformation and a legendary sports scribe
“BREAKING: Dewey Defeats Truman!” Or maybe not. It regularly takes a while — sometimes days, even — to get full results from an election. So we shouldn’t call the outcome and risk disenfranchising voters until we’re sure. In the meantime, while we all patiently wait, try this week’s News Biz Quiz.
October 29th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives, People and Places
2020 SPJ Fellow Tribute: Gwen Ifill
Gwen Ifill was a trailblazer and journalism icon with near-universal respect from peers for how she conducted her craft. She began her career in newspapers and moved to television networks, serving as moderator and managing editor of PBS’s “Washington Week” and co-anchor and managing editor of “PBS NewsHour” at the time of her death in 2016.
October 26th, 2020 • Quill Blog, Quill Archives, News Biz Quiz
News Biz Quiz for 10/28: New meaning to ‘media exposure’
In this week’s News Biz Quiz, we learn what the term “media exposure” is NOT supposed to mean, and there’s no joy in Mudville as sports networks lose carriers. 1. Okay, let’s dispense with this straightaway: What legal analyst was suspended from his job at The New Yorker and placed on leave by CNN after (accidentally, he says) exposing himself on a Zoom call with colleagues?
October 23rd, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives, People and Places
2020 Fellow interview: Jorge Ramos
A breaking news event that occurred in the United States 39 years ago started longtime Univision anchor Jorge Ramos on his journalism career path. To help pay for college, the Mexico City native was working at a Mexico radio station. When then-U.S.
October 22nd, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives
Before you write about that “haunted” house …
Editor’s Note: ‘Tis the season…for otherwise credible publications to publish unsubstantiated reports of haunted houses and other paranormal activity. To discuss why this is a problem, Quill reached out to Dr. Rob Pyatt, who led the “Weird Science: What Journalists Get Wrong About Scientific Studies…and How to Get It Right” program at the SPJ2020.
October 13th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Bookshelf
Q&A: Leonard Downie Jr. on 44 years with The Washington Post, his memoir and more
During his 44 years at The Washington Post, 17 of them as executive editor, Leonard Downie Jr. found himself at the nexus of historic events ranging from Watergate to 9/11 to the Clinton impeachment. Now, as the Weil Family Professor of Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, he finally has the time to put it all down in his just-released personal memoir, “All About the Story: News, Power, Politics and The Washington Post.”
October 8th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives, Bookshelf
Bookshelf: A career journalist travels the U.S. to define “Genus Americanus”
Mark Twain once said that “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” It is those who never wander past their front door, who have the hardest time making sense of a world in constant evolution, where the status quo is a symbol of stagnation, rather than progress.
October 5th, 2020 • Quill Blog, News Biz Quiz
News Biz Quiz for 10/5: Anything but a slow news week
There have been no shortage of national news stories this week. But we’ve got some questions about the news behind the news. Good luck. During its current session (which begins this week), the U.S. Supreme Court will review proposed changes to media ownership rules which have been stuck down by lower courts, but could lead to even greater consolidation if SCOTUS lets them stand.
September 28th, 2020 • Quill Blog, News Biz Quiz
News Biz Quiz for 9/28: A merger, a debate and more.
This week’s events in the media world have been far from trivial. But how much did you pick up on the details. Test yourself with these questions, culled from the headlines and beyond. D.C. District Court Judge Carl Nichols has temporarily halted the Trump Administration from banning what social media app from U.S.
September 23rd, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Bookshelf
Bookshelf: “Community-Centered Journalism” raises issues of trust and objectivity
Andrea Wenzel comes not to bury journalism. She comes, as she says in her book “Community-Centered Journalism: Engaging People, Exploring Solutions, and Building Trust,” to both burn it down and repair it. An assistant professor at Temple University, Wenzel certainly is critical of the way journalism traditionally has been practiced.
September 21st, 2020 • Quill Blog, News Biz Quiz
News Biz Quiz for 9/21: What did Trump call “the most beautiful thing”?
The news doesn’t slow down and neither does the News Biz Quiz. Here are this week’s questions: 1. In a campaign speech on September 18, President Trump called it “the most beautiful thing” that what MSNBC host (and former host of CNN’s “Your Money”) was hit in the knee with a rubber bullet while covering a May protest in Minneapolis over George Floyd’s killing by police?
September 15th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives, Bookshelf
Bookshelf: Brian Stelter’s “Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth”
In order to understand Donald Trump, Brian Stelter argues in his new book, you have to understand Fox News. Stelter, CNN chief media correspondent and anchor of “Reliable Sources,” put that view between covers in “Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth,” for which he interviewed 140 current Fox staffers and 180 former employees.
September 10th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives
SPJ2020: Virtual D.C. tours for a virtual conference
SPJ’s Washington, D.C. Pro chapter was really looking forward to showing off the city during this year’s national conference. But since you all can’t join us in person, we can at least offer a few virtual highlights to give you a taste of D.C.
September 9th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives, Freelancing
California freelancers battle AB5 and the PROAct
Assembly Bill 5, or AB5, ripped through the careers of California freelance journalists much like wildfires churn through the Golden State, turning trees and bushes into plumes of ash. I am one of the lucky ones, whose freelance career has been damaged, but not completely destroyed – yet.
September 4th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives, From the President
From the President: Putting SPJ Fellows at the forefront
Throughout its 111 years of history, SPJ has created innumerable cherished traditions. Among them is the Fellows of the Society program, launched in 1948. In those 72 years the Society has named 214 fellows. Last year, at our annual fall convention, we honored Maria Ressa of Rappler, and retired Associated Press staffers Terry Anderson and Nick Ut, plus Jamal Khashoggi of The Washington Post posthumously.
September 1st, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog
As theaters reopen, film reviewers face critical decisions
As movie theaters start reopening in North America, the place deemed a sanctuary by audiences has become a potential hotbed for infections. Cinema chains and independents have developed new cleaning methods and plans for social distancing, but filmgoers can choose to stay home and wait for films to arrive on-demand or to appear on streaming platforms.
August 28th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives
Pulling up anchors: Hiring broadcast talent in COVID-19 times
The pandemic forced lots of changes to the collection and presentation of TV news. Sources, instead of pontificating to a visiting reporter, now chime in from their home offices via Zoom. And anchors, instead of literally rubbing elbows with their peers on the studio set, are just as likely to broadcast from home as well.
August 13th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives
Future of in-flight magazines remains up in the air
For decades, well-thumbed copies of inflight magazines were as much a fixture on commercial airliners as peanuts and absurdly tiny pillows. They typically nestled in seat-back pockets next to the barf bags, offering a few minutes of distraction to one of the most captive of captive audiences—fliers sealed inside a pressurized tube cruising at 40,000 feet.
August 11th, 2020 • Featured, Quill Blog, Quill Archives, Bookshelf
Bookshelf: Investigative journalist Jean Guerrero’s “Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda”
Investigative journalist Jean Guerrero has spent years covering immigration in the United States. When the Trump administration implemented a family separation policy in 2018, she found parents who had committed no crimes or threats were still being separated. She wanted to know why.
