Legendary Journalist Chuck Stone Dies at 89

Won't Utter Shooter's Name, but Will Say It Sounds Latino

"Last night on her Fox News program, star anchor Megyn Kelly kicked things off with a lesson in journalism ethics:" Erik Wemple reported Thursday for the Washington Post.

"Breaking tonight. Fort Hood, Texas on lockdown. A suspected shooter is reported dead. This is ‘The Kelly File’ and I’m Megyn Kelly. We’re expecting the first news conference from Fort Hood to begin any moment, Fox News confirming four people are dead, including the shooter. Fourteen people are wounded. Authorities are identifying the shooter. If you are interested, you can get his name on other shows like the one that preceded this one and online, but we have decided not to name these mass killers as a policy here on 'The Kelly File.' Too often it is infamy they seek and we decline to help.

"Some points here:

" . . . If you don't publish the name, what other details do you withhold? Kelly and her producers apparently considered newsworthy the 'nationality' of the shooter: 'The nationality of the shooter appears — it sounds Hispanic, Latino, but you can look up his name online if you care to know more.''Hispanic' and 'Latino,' of course, are not nationalities, but Kelly was on live television doing breaking news. The point is that if you provide certain details about the shooter's background and not others — and you can't even use the person's name — how to present a scannable news story? . . ."

• Lewis W. Diuguid, Kansas City Star: Mass shooting at Fort Hood points to need for tougher gun laws
  
  
• Mary Sanchez, Kansas City Star: Suicide and veterans; a new battlefield

Women-to-Men Ratio Higher for Journalists of Color

"The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2014" [PDF] from the Women's Media Center reported Thursday that the overall tally of female staffers continued to hover at 36 percent and that "men were quoted 3.4 times more often than women, though the rate was not as high when women wrote the story."

It also showed that, based on data from the American Society of News Editors, women of color represented a higher proportion of those of the same race or ethnicity than was true for white women.

"In the 2013 report:

• "Women of Asian descent represented 52 percent of all Asian newsroom employees, down from a high of 55 percent in 2004, 2005 and 2006.
  
  
• "Black women represented 47 percent of all black newsroom employees, down from a high of 50 percent in 2010.
  
  
• "Hispanic women represented 40 percent of all Hispanic newsroom employees, down from a peak of 42 percent in 2007.
  
  
• "Native American women accounted for 38 percent of all Native American newsroom employees, down from a peak of 51 percent in 2000.
  
  
• Multi-racial women accounted for 47 percent of all multi-racial newsroom employees. That figure was 53 percent in the 2012 report, the first to include multi-racial people. . . ."
  
  

• Jordan Chariton, TVNewser: Hillary Clinton Sees Media Double Standard Toward Women
  
  
• Jessica Grose, Slate: The Publication That Comes Closest to Gender Parity Among Writers Often Doesn't Pay
  
  
• Alexandra Sifferlin, Time: The Media Is (Still) Dominated By Men

12 Schools Awarded Grants to Collaborate With Communities

"A dozen U.S. universities each won a $35,000 micro-grant to seed collaborative news experiments in living labs — their communities," the Online News Association announced on Friday.

Among them:

• "CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, 'Hack the Mold': CUNY will experiment with both in-person and on-line engagement with tenants when reporting on a low-income community's experiences with mold in New York City public housing. Partner: The New York Daily News." This project is led by Sandeep Junnarkar, former president of the South Asian Journalists Association.


• "Florida International University: Can data feeds, 'crowd hydrology' and student-led journalism — with strong support from public television — increase community engagement about sea level rise in South Florida? Partners: Code for Miami, Hacks/Hackers, WPBT2, South Florida Water Management District."


• "Georgia Collaborative, 'Georgia News Lab': An ambitious collaborative, including Georgia State University, Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University, University of Georgia and two major local news outlets, will try to increase newsroom diversity by training digitally savvy investigative reporters. Media partners: Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WSBTV.


• "San Francisco State University: 'Newspoints': Can a mobile- and web-based organizing tool improve reporting and get student journalists into the field sooner? Partners: El Tecolote, Accion Latina, Stamen Design.
  
  
• "University of New Mexico, 'New Mexico News Port': Can a student-powered lab and publishing platform that curates content from a collaborative hub increase news in New Mexico? Partners: Radio station KUNM, television station KNME and The Daily Lobo.
  
  

Among the honorable mentions were Howard University, "The News Oasis,"Ingrid Sturgis, assistant professor/new media; and USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, "Augmenting City Hall,"Robert Hernandez, assistant professor of professional practice.

"The competitive Challenge Fund for Innovation in Journalism Education was created to encourage universities to experiment with new ways of providing news and information," the announcement said.

It quoted Irving Washington, ONA operations director, who administered the selection process. "We zeroed in on ideas and teams that we hope inspire innovation, collaboration and real-world impact in academia and media. The potential for true community engagement in the winning projects was every bit as important as the tools and technology used to achieve it."