changing people's minds, one story at a time.

for anyone who stumbles upon this blog, you'll have no idea that i'm working on my journalism master's project. and if you've read some of the writing on this site, you might be wondering what they're teaching me in the program. that's beside the point.

the point is that the big minds of academia (read: me) are having an impact on the real world out there. and don't worry, i got evidence.

this past friday i spoke to mike needs, the ombudsman for the akron beacon journal, about his feelings toward creating bio pages for reporters that listed all sorts of background info, such as organizational affiliations, educational background, community involvements etc.

and to my surprise he said yes. at that point i had spoken to nine ombudsman, and none thought this was a good idea. since then, i've interviewed seven more. so far, he still the only one who advocates taking this step (karen hunter, the ombudsman for the hartford courant, was ambivalent).

two days later, needs wrote about the very topic in his weekly column that appears on sundays. here's the article. i'm the stanford student.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/columnists/mike_needs/14738618.htm

it even made it onto romenesko.

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=102368

one small correction to needs' article though: a newspaper, the greensboro news record, is planning on taking this step. and for the record, i agree with needs, which might suprise you given my reaction in the article. but i'm aware that it could backfire too. so what i'd like to see is some midsize newspapers like the akron paper plunge forward and see what the results are.

i'm guessing that the conspiracy theorists and media bashers out there wouldn't change one bit -- they might get even louder if that's possible (michelle malkin is already pretty loud). but a few skeptics would change their minds for the better, and the ones who are grateful for the work that reporters do, myself included, would grow closer. i'm also certain that it would help journalists figure out where their biases and conflicts of interests lie.