The Newseum & me

Cybersecurity experts and the journalists who report on them often struggle to understand each other. That was the point of a recent event jointly sponsored by the Newseum and the Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University. We brought together experts, journalists and students to find points of commonality. The event highlighted some common concerns, which I address in my latest media column…

 

WASHINGTON – They don’t even have the words.

Cybersecurity stories fill the headlines almost daily: The Equifax breach potentially compromised personal data of more than 140 million Americans — nearly half of us. Yahoo finally acknowledged losing email addresses and passwords for every single customer — about 3 billion accounts. We’re still waiting to find out just how much the Russians hacked into the 2016 general election .

We see such headlines so often that many of us have become numb to the potential risk. Worse, reporters covering these stories don’t always know how to describe the real danger — or how to separate legitimate threats from hyperbole. Too often, they lack the vocabulary, context and experience to converse with technical experts and convey meaningful alerts to the public. Instead, the public hears a wall of noise in which relatively minor events get similar billing to those that really threaten our lives. Read more…

This also turned out to be a great time for our students to take a look at the Newseum exhibits. After the event, we toured the museum’s FBI exhibit on cybersecurity, led by the Newseum Institute’s COO Gene Policinski.

This also turned into an opportunity for David Hickton, the former U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania, and me to revisit one of our favorite moments. The Newseum exhibit includes a photo of David and my frontpage story from the Tribune-Review on the day after federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh charged five Chinese military officers with stealing computer secrets.

Post-print news age

It’s time to fully embrace the post-print news age. Newspapers no longer need to be ink-on-paper to be relevant – and in fact, they might be more dynamic in a digital format. This was a revelation to me when I started reading word content (we need a better way of saying this) on my iPad. Doubt it? Just check out the National Geographic app.

Any way, that’s the topic of my latest column. Plus my wife doesn’t mind that we no longer have ink smudges on all the walls of our home.

I love getting ink on my fingers and then leaving smudges on the walls of my house. Sunday mornings are perfect with a pile of newspapers at the breakfast table. And it’s reassuring even to hear plastic-bagged newspapers hitting the driveway in the early morning on a cool night with the windows open.

But if these are the confessions of a print newsman, I must admit that I also love reading the news on my iPad too. News media experts have predicted a shift to digital news delivery for decades. Some thought the paper would come into homes as a daily fax and others imagined flexible digital paper that updates automatically.

For the moment, it has turned out to be mobile-first devices, such as tablets and phones, that have replaced newsprint for growing numbers of readers.

Even so, most people — even a vast majority of young ones — want the news… Read more.

 

Forget newspapers, TV, radio and the Internet

Forget newspapers. And the television. The radio. The Internet. All of it.

That’s how I start out my latest media innovation column. Of course, I don’t mean forget newspapers. I’ll still take the paper as long as someone will deliver it. But in this new rapidly evolving age, the stories matter more than the medium.

It has been a whirlwind opening to the Center for Media Innovation. We have featured top journalists from a variety of publications, both local and national. They included three Pulitzer prize winners. The co-creator of the Serial podcast. And the always emotional voice of the Cleveland Cavaliers. We had a presenter from the oldest newspaper west of the Alleghenies and The Incline, an online publication that launched hours before its editor spoke on campus. Cutting edge!

We have had a ton of positive social and traditional media coverage. Here are a few of the links (with commentary by Point Park’s Lou Corsaro)…

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, fittingly, took a unique route, combining a writeup with videos and social media to mark the occasion. I highly recommend taking in everything here. 

WESA did a writeup online, also noting that the day marked the premiere of The Incline in Pittsburgh. Incline Editor Lexi Belculfine also was part of our afternoon media panel

Anchor Michelle Wright, who took part in the morning media panel, was posting on social media through the day, and mentioned the CMI opening from her WTAE desk before heading over. 

KDKA Radio’s James Garrity, who was very excited about the CMI, offered two different news items for the air: Here and here.  

And we have had tons of social media… 

Thanks for coming in and speaking to us Fred McLeod! #mediapioneers #clevelandcavaliers… https://t.co/ZmaMnuV04L

— Sierra Barnett (@SierraLai95) September 22, 2016

Great to hear real life stories of what it takes to work in the industry @PointParkCMI #mediapioneers #pointparkcmi pic.twitter.com/7mSsrI5Pcw

— Hailie Sandor (@hailie_sandor) September 22, 2016

 

Lights, camera, action at new Point Park facility https://t.co/Pv3eKV6R1y via @PghBizTimes @AndrewConte @PointParkU @PointParkCMI

— Justin Aglio (@JustinAglio) September 24, 2016

 You also can find all of the events on our YouTube page…

 

Presidential race raises questions about objectivity

This presidential news cycle seems to be making history — no matter who you support.

It’s also forcing journalists to rethink the way they cover political races. For a long time, reporters sought objectivity by simply giving candidates equal time. I make the case in my monthly media column that’s no longer the case. Reporters need to be critical thinkers, ask tough questions and sort out reality from fiction.

Let me know in the comments section what you think…

Both sides are not the only side during this deeply vexing presidential election cycle.

Journalism schools have educated students for generations that political objectivity starts with presenting equal information from every candidate. If a journalist quotes a Democrat on a particular topic, the journalist also should find out what the Republican has to say.

But the pursuit of that kind of objectivity has come under fire. Some see blind attempts at objectivity has a cop-out against critical thinking.

By simply giving each side a chance to comment — without considering the veracity of those words – journalists can abdicate their central role of presenting the truth. Read more…

Journalism is changing — and I want to be part of it

I spoke recently with Essential Pittsburgh on Pittsburgh’s NPR station 90.5 WESA-FM about the future of journalism. This is what they took away from our discussion…

Former Pittsburgh Tribune-Review investigative reporter Andrew Conte knows newspapers. The industry is not dying, he said.

As the new director of the Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University, Conte — still a monthly columnist — is using his delight for an evolving craft to help prepare aspiring storytellers.

“Journalism is changing, and I wanted to be a part of helping figure out that change for our broader audience,” Conte told Essential Pittsburgh on Friday. See the whole story and listen to the interview here.

 

Sneak peak: Center for Media Innovation

We hosted a tour of the Center for Media Innovation with several Point Park alumni and members of the local media clubs.

It seems like everyone has a great idea for saving journalism — and I’m loving it. Ever since taking over as director of the new Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University, I have been swamped with proposals for new projects. People are pumped for good journalism and for making sure young people still see a bright future in this profession.

At the same time, walls are going up! I have been in the Center almost daily over the past couple of weeks and it’s great to see the place coming together, moving from the paper designs to actual plasterboard and glass. Every week brings some new development: The news ticker has arrived!

We recently hosted a tour of the Center for several Point Park alumni and leaders of the local media clubs — including Kim Palmiero, president of the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, Tory Parrish, president of the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation, and Stacey Federoff, president of the Women’s Press Club of Pittsburgh.

We are on schedule to open for the fall semester.

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New adventures

I’m pleased to announce that Point Park University has hired me to run its new Center for Media Innovation. This unique facility in the heart of Downtown will train the next generations of journalists, while helping today’s professionals keep up with a rapidly changing industry. I hope too that we will engage with the public in a way that reminds people about the important role of a robust, independent media.

Here I am talking about the Center for Media Innovation at our ground-breaking event in October 2015.

I first came to Point Park in 2005 to create its Point Park News Service, a program that helps students find professional outlets for their best work. Since then, the University and I have grown tremendously. This new Center will help us both to keep moving forward.

For 15 years, the Tribune-Review has been my home and work family. My friend Rob Rossi wrote this moving tribute about my time at the paper. Fortunately, I will continue to have a presence there as well. I will be writing a regular column on media innovation and my byline will continue to appear on stories related to cybersecurity and other enterprise topics.

The Center will officially open in September 2016. Point Park has posted a story on my new position, and the Globe offered its take. The Trib has a nice story too. The Pittsburgh Business Times covered it. And so did WESA-FM, which conducted an interview with me:

“There is a lot of disruption going on, but there’s also a need to remind people of the strong value of what journalists do: holding people accountable, speaking up for those without a voice,” Conte said.