OJR: The Online Journalism Review

Benjamin Davis

Pennington Borough, New Jersey

Launch team at MSNBC.com, plus ABC News, CBS News, Fox News and National Public Radio in Washington. Knowledgeable in Web, and software relating to content distribution. Professor in New Media News. Numerous major journalism awards attest to execution, thoroughness, originality and creativity.

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These articles are the work of their author, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of nor an assignment by OJR.

Style point: Have you ever met a 'white' person or a 'black' person?

July 2, 2010
I am developing the new syllabus for my fall journalism course at Rutgers and I will be re-enforcing the need for telling the truth in journalism. No longer will my students refer to a “black” person or a “white” person. They will have to use their creative vocabularies to come up with a different way to describe people when writing news stories.

I have never met a “black” person and I certainly have never met a “white” person. This truth has been a part of my teaching for eight-years, but beginning in the fall students will not write stories using those terms.

To make my point, I ask a “white” student if he or she has “black” friends. If they do, I promise I will give them $100 for an introduction. With the same promise I ask a “black” student if he or she has “white” friends. Every time the answers are enthusiastically affirmative to having “black” and “white” friends. They salivate looking forward to the cash as any college student would. You should see them preparing to text their friends on their cell phones. More...

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The need for a 'digital media pyramid'

February 16, 2010
[Editor's note: A reminder: Friday, Feb. 19, 2010 is the deadline to apply for the 2010 News Entrepreneur Boot Camp. Please consider applying if you're looking for better training on how to make your online news publishing efforts an income-producing business.]

The advent of the Internet and digital age of communications has brought forth the expected decline of newspapers at a faster pace than many business journalism experts predicted. A major part of the decline results from publishers not adjusting their products and news gathering techniques fast enough to changing technologies. Publishers competed in a digitally dominated world using analog-based technologies, business models and journalism techniques.

One news gathering technique still being taught to practicing and aspiring journalists is the more than a century-old use of the Inverted Pyramid, which guides the construction of writing predominately print news stories. The Inverted Pyramid is analog. A new paradigm known as the "Digital Media Pyramid" has found a place among some young writers and journalists.

The basic premise of the Inverted Pyramid remains sound, but the device desperately needs to be adjusted for the fast-moving digital world. The Inverted Pyramid has had its detractors throughout the years, many of whom assumed that it would be forgotten as a once-vital part of news gathering. But what the Inverted Pyramid provided that was hard to replace in the deadline world of news was the ability to quickly present facts, first to the editor and then to the consuming public. More...

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