It's All Journalism

Wouldn’t you want to meet the person responsible for The A.V. Club, the entertainment and culture sister publication of The Onion?

Stephen Thompson, who now works as a writer and editor for NPR Music, got in on the ground floor at The Onion, a farcical publication that mocks current events and media. He started writing there when he was just 20 years still a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It was the early 1990s and The Onion was a only a couple of years old at that point, but the staff had grand aspirations.

At NPR, Thompson helped launch the popular Tiny Desk Concerts and is also a panelist on the All Songs Considered and Pop Culture Happy Hour podcasts.

Wouldn’t you want to meet the person responsible for The A.V. Club, the entertainment and culture sister publication of The Onion?

Stephen Thompson, who now works as a writer and editor for NPR Music, got in on the ground floor at The Onion, a farcical publication that mocks current events and media. He started writing there when he was just 20 years still a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It was the early 1990s and The Onion was a only a couple of years old at that point, but the staff had grand aspirations.

At NPR, Thompson helped launch the popular Tiny Desk Concerts and is also a panelist on the All Songs Considered and Pop Culture Happy Hour podcasts.

When David Plotz was initially hired at the online magazine Slate in 1996, he had never really been on the Web before. He used email at the time, but this was the early days of public use of the Internet, and he hadn’t visited a website yet.

“Just using the Web was something people did as an everyday matter in 1996,� said Plotz, who started out as a staff writer but is now Slate’s top editor.

Plotz talked to It's All Journalism Producers Michael O'Connell and Julia O'Donoghue about how Slate has changed over the years, including its time behind a paywall and how its editors write those highly clickable headlines.

When David Plotz was initially hired at the online magazine Slate in 1996, he had never really been on the Web before. He used email at the time, but this was the early days of public use of the Internet, and he hadn’t visited a website yet.

“Just using the Web was something people did as an everyday matter in 1996,� said Plotz, who started out as a staff writer but is now Slate’s top editor.

Plotz talked to It's All Journalism Producers Michael O'Connell and Julia O'Donoghue about how Slate has changed over the years, including its time behind a paywall and how its editors write those highly clickable headlines.

When “Sopranos� star James Gandolfini died this past summer, I knew I wanted to hear from one television critic immediately - Emily Nussbaum.

Nussbaum, who writes for The New Yorker, didn’t have as much experience covering Gandolfiniand “The Sopranos� as other television critics, even other writers for The New Yorker, but her insight, as it is with so many shows, was pitch perfect.

In her opening paragraph, she told the readers out that Gandolfini was the first television star to be taken seriously as an actor, not just a performer - a point that made her “This guy changed the television� argument so much clearer than those of other critics. She explained Gandolfini’s strange sex appeal as Tony Soprano, something that most other writers either didn’t notice or found too off-putting to address in their own recollections.

It's All Journalism Producer Julia O'Donoghue talks to Emily Nussbaum about the challenges of being a TV critic.

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When “Sopranos� star James Gandolfini died this past summer, I knew I wanted to hear from one television critic immediately - Emily Nussbaum.

Nussbaum, who writes for The New Yorker, didn’t have as much experience covering Gandolfiniand “The Sopranos� as other television critics, even other writers for The New Yorker, but her insight, as it is with so many shows, was pitch perfect.

In her opening paragraph, she told the readers out that Gandolfini was the first television star to be taken seriously as an actor, not just a performer - a point that made her “This guy changed the television� argument so much clearer than those of other critics. She explained Gandolfini’s strange sex appeal as Tony Soprano, something that most other writers either didn’t notice or found too off-putting to address in their own recollections.

It's All Journalism Producer Julia O'Donoghue talks to Emily Nussbaum about the challenges of being a TV critic.

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Sometimes, people just want to read. They don't want bells and whistles. They don't want multipart graphics or clickable maps that reveal levels of rich, comparative data. They just want words that tell a compelling story.

When you leave the printed page and enter the online environment, for some journalists, the temptation may be too great not to throw in a few extraneous graphic elements to bolster a story.

Last year, The New York Times published "Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek" by John Branch to widespread critical acclaim.

It had drama. It had depth. It was a multimedia story that made sense, that was easy to comprehend why all the different pieces were there.

This year, The Times published "The Jockey", a long profile of Russell Baze, the world's winningest equestrian.

A story about a jockey seems light fare for The Times' full multimedia treatment. But there's a lot here to admire and learn from.

It's All Journalism talks to reporter Barry Bearak, sports editor Jason Stallman and multimedia leader Steve Duenes about what went into creating this project.

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Sometimes, people just want to read. They don't want bells and whistles. They don't want multipart graphics or clickable maps that reveal levels of rich, comparative data. They just want words that tell a compelling story.

When you leave the printed page and enter the online environment, for some journalists, the temptation may be too great not to throw in a few extraneous graphic elements to bolster a story.

Last year, The New York Times published "Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek" by John Branch to widespread critical acclaim.

It had drama. It had depth. It was a multimedia story that made sense, that was easy to comprehend why all the different pieces were there.

This year, The Times published "The Jockey", a long profile of Russell Baze, the world's winningest equestrian.

A story about a jockey seems light fare for The Times' full multimedia treatment. But there's a lot here to admire and learn from.

It's All Journalism talks to reporter Barry Bearak, sports editor Jason Stallman and multimedia leader Steve Duenes about what went into creating this project.

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The rise of digital technology has lowered the entry point of reporting news to where anyone with a cellphone could call themselves a reporter.

What distinguishes a journalist from the observant Twitter user, though, is the set of values by which a journalist pursues his or her craft.

Etched in stone above the entrance to the Dallas Morning News is the phrase: "Build the news upon the rock of truth and righteousness. Conduct it always upon the lines of fairness and integrity. Acknowledge the right of the people to get from the newspaper both sides of every important question."

"It really says something about what you hope your people will produce and what you hope that you'll be able to uncover," said David Duitch, the editor of DallasNews.com, the Dallas Morning News' website. "This newspaper has tackled a lot of tough subjects and it's wonderful to see. It's certainly part of the reason I love being here."

Duitch spoke with It's All Journalism producers Anna Miars and Michael O'Connell about how the website and newspaper cover their community and what makes someone a journalist.

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The rise of digital technology has lowered the entry point of reporting news to where anyone with a cellphone could call themselves a reporter.

What distinguishes a journalist from the observant Twitter user, though, is the set of values by which a journalist pursues his or her craft.

Etched in stone above the entrance to the Dallas Morning News is the phrase: "Build the news upon the rock of truth and righteousness. Conduct it always upon the lines of fairness and integrity. Acknowledge the right of the people to get from the newspaper both sides of every important question."

"It really says something about what you hope your people will produce and what you hope that you'll be able to uncover," said David Duitch, the editor of DallasNews.com, the Dallas Morning News' website. "This newspaper has tackled a lot of tough subjects and it's wonderful to see. It's certainly part of the reason I love being here."

Duitch spoke with It's All Journalism producers Anna Miars and Michael O'Connell about how the website and newspaper cover their community and what makes someone a journalist.

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