News junkie to lead Daily

Christine Stanley
Editor in Chief

November 23, 2005

The NT student publications committee named Zachary Austrew, Dallas senior, editor in chief of the spring 2006 Daily on Tuesday. He will take charge of the paper Dec. 3.

Austrew, a photojournalism major, has worked for the Daily in several capacities since 2002, first as a Daily reporter during the fall 2004 semester, then as special sections editor for the summer 2004 Daily.

He assisted in front page design and served as managing editor of the summer 2005 Daily and is currently the Daily’s design editor.

The former art major said he became a news junkie after the Sept. 11 attacks, and his love for journalism has grown since.

“The culture is addictive,” Austrew said.

“I really like being able to communicate and educate, because that’s what I was craving everyday.”

He said he got his feet wet by writing a news story on NT’s record number of tenure denials in 2004.

“It was hard as hell,” Austrew said.

“A paper isn’t radio or TV. We can’t tell a story in 30 seconds. It puts extra pressure on you.”

But he came back for more and has climbed the ranks at NT’s Aerie’s yearbook too. He started as a part-time photographer in the spring of 2002, then moved up to head photographer the next semester.

He took over as Aerie photo editor in fall 2003 and stayed in that position for two years.

Austrew said his biggest challenge will be leading the Daily’s staff next spring.

“It’s a big operation,” he said.

“One of my philosophies is that I set the table for the people who are working for me to succeed. I want to find all of our very best reporters, editors and photographers and help them rise, much like yeast, to the top of their fields.”

He said he’s also looking forward to communicating with the campus.

“On campus, it’s (the Daily) the most important communication device,” Austrew said. “The Daily has a very long, well established history, and it’s an honor to carry the torch.”

Austrew is known by the Daily staff and many of his professors to have an incredible zeal for news.

“I am pretty intense about the news,” he said, in between sips of his Red Bull.

Michael Walter, St. Charles, Mo., senior, was Austrew’s editor in chief during the summer 2005 semester.

“Without Zach on staff, I don’t know how I would have managed being editor in chief,” Walter said.

“I’m not a very religious person, but if I was, I’d believe he was sent by an angel to make my life better.”

Austrew will begin hiring staff for next spring’s Daily during finals week.

“I look forward to presenting highly localized news to the students on campus,” he said.

“I want to celebrate this campus and its diverse students.”

Second assignment surprises

Maybe it was my thinking behind choosing Maxim, maybe it was just staunch hatred for the publications "big boy dummy" approach but my finding were actually a pleasant surprise. Did it answer my questions? Hell no, only inspired more. But to state it simply: there was more sexualized visuals within editorial content than advertorial. Shocking!!

Normally, advertising is loaded with sexualized imagary, Maxim was no different.

Both editorial and advitorial content had high levels of sexualized females, both 75% respectably. The number of total women was the big kicker: editorial = 143 total women, 107 sexualized; advitorial = 56 total women, 42 sexualized.

Thats nearly a third less women, sexualized or not.

Apparantly Maxim has turned the "sex sells" argument on its ass, because sex literally drives the editorial content more than anything else.

Shameful, psuedo-porno!

ZA

The coming of the 'Compact'

NYT going tab? It maybe scary, but is best? Maybe. Maybe not.

So the story goes, it is on the way. Most newspaper analysts like Mario Garcia think the broadsheet (regular, "tall" newspaper) is going to be replaced with tabloid (half the size, NT Daily summer edition or Quick.) I personally like the tabloid, but some questions persist.
Will this increase the under-visuals of minorities. Since the tabloid fits into a magazine feel, and most take advantage of a single, stark image; will there be only more white males like the current media likes to use?
Also, how can a tab remain broad in scope while keeping an "impact image" on the front page?
Things are changing in newsprint, I'm not afraid of this. What does scare me is the easiness of relying on the norm of the past and not implementing standards and procedures that attack racism and sexism on "new" front pages.

Check this article by Garcia at Poynter here

Good luck Doc!

Dr. Lambiese, kick that sucker where it hurts! Like in the imaginary balls or something. Seriously, good luck with the treatments and Godspeed.
ZA

Someone, anyone!! Do you hear me??

I have to force myself to blog every week mainly because I am getting no feedback what-so-ever. That annoys me. Mainly because I prefer a conversation to a monologue.

So if anyone reads this please shoot some feedback my way. That will inspire me a great deal!

:-) ZA

Sewing circles, blogs and the high price of technology

First, let me say that blogs cannot be highlighted, passed from my hand to yours, and stacked in my room for my cat to play with. Oh how i love paper, and the ease of type in print compared to type on screen. And I also find it hillarious that the blogger.com spellchecker found "blog" and "blogger" to be spelled wrong.

Is blogging news worthy?
My problem with blogging and this new world order in media is this: credibility! I know I'm not always credible, and that means the same for everyone blogging. What are the laws of liability on the internet? Are ther any? Do blogs have to, want to, need to run corrections?
I don't think so.
To me a blog cannot be used as a credible news source. Blogs seem to be more like big sewing circle webs, that only help create something out of nothing a mojority of the time.

So, trying to be responsible in this reporting or my opinion, here is a credible person backing up my idea. First with source info: I found this at the Columbia Journalism Review website. http://www.cjrdaily.org/archives/001851.asp

Michael Bürgi has been the editor of MediaWeek, the business trade publication, since 2004. He joined the magazine in 1993 to report on the cable industry and later became news editor, managing editor and then executive editor. He has overseen all day-to-day editorial operations since 2003. Prior to Mediaweek, Bürgi reported for Multichannel News and Inside Media.

Liz Cox Barrett: I'm curious to hear what the editor of a media trade publication thinks about blogs, how they've influenced the media business (or not) and their potential to make money (or not). Do you read any blogs? Are there any that you'd point to as particularly influential and/or likely to turn a profit?

Michael Bürgi: I'm going to start off sounding like a complete curmudgeon. First, let me say I'm a Luddite, I'm not a tremendous user of the Web for enjoyment or for recreational purposes. I use the Web for information and, really, for my job. So I'm not a tremendous fan of blogs, I've got to be honest.

What I'd say blogs really are -- if it's not a completely inappropriate comment -- a kind of a circle jerk for the world of journalists. ... We're all writing for each other. As a result I've never enjoyed that or had fun participating in that kind of milieu. I'm not a big fan of blogs but I also don't know that blogs have a big business future. They'll be around, they'll be part of the wonderful world of the Internet for decades until the next cool way of sharing information comes around, but I don't think there is much of a business there because I'm not sure how many advertisers feel the need to reach journalists (we're only one step above lawyers and used car salesmen). I'm not sure advertisers are clamoring to get their ads in front of us.

I've got to be honest, I don't read blogs. I do notice Gawker sometimes but I've got to admit I'm mainly looking just to see if they've picked up any of my stories. It's a little bit of a vanity contest, whether or not Gawker or Romenesko or MediaBistro picked up one of our stories. I don't tend to go to blogs to find stuff out or get a kick out of seeing what's out there. I read newspapers and newsweeklies and watch TV news for most of my information.

I do find fascinating this new subculture of, I guess it's being called "citizen journalism," which is really taking root and blogs are an early extension of that. It fascinates me to think how this will ever turn into a business or will it ever need to become a business. ... I'm not a big participant but I'm definitely an interested observer ...

A question for the media "all-knowings"

What would the best avenue to systemically change news coverage of minorities?
Agreeing with the article we just read in class, how could the environment of the newsroom change in order to represent the surrounding news. Like most editors I keep a very watchful eye on what is and is not news. More than not, my personal lenses are race and gender blind, but I still feel them inaccurate.
How can this be avoided?
First, the cultural spectrum in the newsroom most be of a broad nature: men and women from divergent and expansive backgrounds. Second, I believe a "beat" that specifies woman and minorities would also be beneficial. Third, a pristinely clear understanding of the audience of the paper.

Experimental ideas
An opinion of mine is that mass-media, on all levels is slowly stepping backwards. The national papers will slowly lose traction to the local, or market specific ones. This, hopefully, will again ignite excitement into informational products, be it paper or screen based. The audiences seem to hunger for what is close to their small world. 24 hour cable cannot compete with that kin of logistic.

The language we in the media never use

My rant on Katrina coverage, partically in newsprint

The debate that is unraveling across monitors, pages and television screens around America has been a long time coming. So rarely do we in print like to push these issues to the front, if it is given space at all. Why, because a fire storm almost always ensues.
The media, all outlets, tend to put blinders on and worry about the now. The big story today, the feature next week, the audience we seem to be growing further and further apart from.
I hope it is not a newsroom cultural item.
I find that environment most intoxicating with knowledge, discourse and deviating opinions. Sure people's opinions clash, but that is the point. In that environment one cannot shy away from some hard truths.
But how do report racism that doesn't involve hate as much as fear? Or poverty that is so ingrained into society that money is no answer?
Hard questions that not only involve hugely difficult solutions that will take hours, or books to explain, but involves multiple deeply difficult questions first.
I have no answers, and I would hope no 50 people would.
That is why the newsromm just keeps on keeping on. Blinders intact, it deals with class and race in manageable chunks that can be attributed to facts, not ideals. Maybe my generation will be able keep a head up for these slow growing stories that are always below the surface. And align that photographs and copy.
A panhandler asks for cash, but does anybody truly understand the way that person lives. Maybe a life such as that can only be experienced, not looked upon with empathy.
It is horrid that the situation has raised the eyebrows of editors and readers. Race and class have not had headline space like this in my time. But as we speak the events are being pigeon-holed: race or class? Black or white? Have or have not?
Just like politics: the more complex the issue, the more the message gets muddled. Maybe its a bit of every single issue rolled into to one. There is no peace in that answer though, and that is tough question for a civil society to ask itself. And you know what? That is damn hard to put into a "lead" and a "nut-graph", find sources that will talk on record and call a photo for.
Still, it needs to be asked. I just hope the media doesn't answer it for me, it's not there job..

ZA