See this chart? This chart shows the gender gap between women and men with bylines and on-camera appearances. Women make up 36.1 percent according to Women’s Media Center.

Well, this comes as shock to me because my journalism classes appear to have a pretty even mix between men and women, some even have more women that men.

Does this give us reason to believe that these numbers will change as the next few journalism classes graduate and enter the field?  I can only hope so because I can’t speak for the demographics of other schools.

One number from the report really stood out to me: 31 percent. That’s the percentage of female-written articles per issue at The New York Times.

Before I continue, I should mention that I absolutely love The New York Times and its reporting. I aspire to be a journalist of that caliber one day.

But ouch. Will this newspaper, which essentially the Bible in so many of my classes,  give me and my female classmates the chance to show what we’ve got? Just throwing this out there: some of us are getting pretty good at what we do.

I think we will have chance. While numbers don’t lie, those numbers are not permanent and they are not ignored.

How do I know this? Just look at The Times itself. It’s executive editor Jill Abramson (the first woman to hold that position, mind you) told Women’s Media Center that more female staffers are needed pledged to make it a real thing. She said they are not short on female applications.

“During my tenure, half of the news masthead of the Times—traditionally the high-est ranking editors—are women. That’s a significant milestone,” Abramson told the Women’s Media Center.

We are continuously having to prove ourselves but, above all else, good work should not be overshadowed by gender. If we can do the work well, if not better than others, being a woman should not matter.

Of course I’m not happy that significant changes to the gender demographics of media are not changing very quickly, but we can’t deny that they are changing and starting to get more attention. I’m going to take it as a challenge to work hard and let that work speak for itself.

Vox.com, first introduced as Project X, is a brand new media website for explanatory journalism. It is the brainchild of Ezra Klein, the startup’s editor-in-chief and former blogger and columnist for The Washington Post. Its goal, as stated online “isn’t just telling you what just happened, or how we feel about what just happened, it’s making sure you understand what just happened.” In this era of the transition of journalism to digital forms and online news startups, the major question for Vox.com is whether it has the potential for success.

Vox.com has a niche, which will help it stand out amongst competitors and show that it can produce original content. Its mission in being a “general interest news site for the 21^st century” will be conducted by explaining the issues that are in the news and evaluating how well reporters understand their beats and communicate them to their audience. In addition to its explanatory pieces, the site will include its own reporting. Its reporting will act as a “primary tool” for understanding and staying on top of issues covered.

At first, one might think of all the explanatory pieces as uninteresting or dragged out; however, Vox.com has an answer to this concern. The stories about subjects that are not appealing to readers but are important, otherwise known as “vegetable” or “spinach” stories, drive the site. Its view is that there is no topic that can’t be made important to the audience, and if it is not, that is a failure on the part of the writers. The site states, “Vegetables can be cooked poorly. But they can also be roasted to perfection with a drizzle of olive oil and hint of sea salt.” This highlights the confidence Vox.com has in its ability to make its content interesting, a key point that could help persuade and maintain initial investors in the startup.

How exactly will Vox.com attempt to achieve its goal? The startup is prepared to experiment in how it delivers its content. It expects to produce feature articles, traditional news pieces, question and answers, frequently asked questions, videos, visualizations, and faux-conversations. Vox.com will try out different formats, story-telling devices, and different technologies. For instance, it has anticipates gaining a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google Plus, and YouTube. So far, its Instagram account features charts, maps, and graphs on subjects such as world superpowers, climate change, food insecurity, and jobs, reflecting Ezra Klein’s posts on Wonk Blog that often featured graphs. This willingness to adapt is an appeal to its potential audience.

Vox.com strongly encourages feedback from its audience to offer tips, suggestions and advice. This will be taken into account in determining which platforms and styles for providing content work best. Plus, adaptability is a characteristic that investors will move likely favor because it shows that the site can be versatile in order to have staying power. It shows that Vox.com is dedicated to its future success, rather than remaining in the past. It’s new, so it does not have to worry about maintaining traditions.

Despite its own ambitious prospects, Vox.com has already been met with some critiques. Conservatives have labeled it as left-wing propaganda. Should such criticism be taken seriously? Not yet. Vox.com is new, and although it has content out on YouTube and social media outlets, it only has a few pieces on the site so far. The site diverts visitors to social media and says, “More soon.” Any judgment made about it should be made when it is working in full-force and has its full staff.

It should be noted that on one polarized issue covered so far, the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act, no language stood out that favored any side of the political spectrum. It used clear, simple language in a short, colorful video to explain a topic that has been the center of so much debate since the law was passed, which I sincerely think would help others understand it.

Vox.com is clearly taking advantage of the digital age and online journalism. Along with using multiple platforms, it has carried a digital mentality from the start. Ezra Klein, Matthew Yglesias, and Melissa Bell, leaders of the startup, went to Vox Media to put the idea in motion. Vox Media is a technology-driven media company, which, according to Melissa Bell, will allow the site to have the ability to move fast. This could be another point that appeals to startup investors.

The focus on digital platform takes away constraints on the amount of information published seen in print, said Ezra Klein. Print publications have to control word count and page space to save money and room for advertisements. A web page can essentially use as much space as it needs. Vox Media is the parent of other niche-based online outlets such as SB Nation for sports and The Verge for technology news and culture. In total it owns and publishes six brands in distinct categories, including design and real estate, gaming, dining and nightlife, and fashion. For this, Vox Media appears to be a company that understands the necessity of having an exclusive specialty to attract particular readers, to the advantage of Vox.com.

Ultimately, Vox.com has a fighting chance as a news startup. It is in its own category and will have its own style of delivering the news when it is fully up-and-running. Its intended functions include ways that will appeal to both investors and its potential audience. From what it has shown so far, it does make news topics clearer without any misleading jargon.

Digital First Media’s Project Thunderdome had the plan to “deliver high-qualty, non-local content” to all of the company’s newsrooms, but after two years it’s been canceled partly to cut costs and party because “local is where it’s buttered”, Digital First’s chief executive John Paton told The New York Times. 

The fall back to a focus on local news is a 180 from the original plan, which will cause more than 50 people to lose their jobs. Digital First’s owner is the hedge fund Alden Global Capital.

This makes me wonder about how news projects judge their success. How do they know when it’s time to call it quits?

I ask this because Steve Buttry, soon-to-be former digital transformation editor at Project Thunderdome told The New York Times that while he knew it was a high risk going into the project, it was hard to tell whether it’s strategy was working “because they didn’t let it play out.”

Instead of canceling the project, should they have tried to change their strategy or at least saw the original one through? I don’t think two years is a very long time for something like this to take off. There are so many media and journalism outlets popping up, and they are all so new that it will be a while before we can determine whether they’ll stay.

It’s because it is not up to some of these experiments whether they should try to stick around; it’s up to whoever is funding them.

The Times article mentioned that there is a growing belief that being owned by wealthy individuals like Jeff Bezos is better than private equity firms or hedge funds, and I think I’m starting to see why.

The individual owners can do what they what with their money. If they want to see if if something succeed they can keep trying and put more money into it.

Private firms or hedge funds are likely to be only concerned with the business. It there’s no profit right away, they’re going to back out. They can’t waste time and money on a chance for too long. Money is their business, not news.

So the answer to my first question is, of course, money. I just can’t help but wonder if the demise of news experiments by their investors has us missing out on some great outlets, but I guess we’ll never really have the chance to find out.

Pew Research Center released its State of the Media, part of which noted the migration of “high-profile” journalists to digital outlets and a number of digital startups. This is happening while print publications are downsizing and television news is working to produce more content.

The biggest point I took away from this is that a number of jobs in digital news is growing. How can I not? My life is online, my generation is online, and it is inevitable that our jobs in journalism will involve being online in some way.

How do I know this? Pew found that over the past few years digital outlets such as BuzzFeed and Vice Media increased their staff. Meanwhile, there are entirely new jobs in startups like Vox.com and the new FiveThirtyEight blog.

Pew also noted that while there are a number of legacy reporters from publications like The New York Times, editors are increasingly looking for younger journalists with “better digital instincts and skills.”

What does this mean for young journalists?

My classmates and I are constantly being shown that we that we have a place in this digital transition. We can be confidant that many opportunities are ours. We grew up online, so it really is our “Golden Age”.” Digital is second nature to us.

We not only know how to navigate the digital world, we know how to communicate in it and connect to the young audiences.

I can’t help but comment on one news outlet that I think understands the digital age and has the capacity to appeal to younger new consumers: Vice News.

Yes, they have a show on HBO, but they are present on multiple digital outlets as well. I discovered Vice on YouTube, where it gets significant views on its videos. Vice also has a website and it has an app that show its written pieces as well. I’ve heard fellow students mention they’d like to work for this kind of outlet, and it seems to be more and more likely that they will.

At South by Southwest in Austin over the weekend, author of Journalism Next Mark Briggs talked about the new forms of journalism. I watched parts of his talk and found some points to be a great explanation about where journalism is  headed.

He pointed out that the death of print is not the death of journalism, it’s just one form of journalism that is being replaced. I completely agree. Journalists are now adapting to online forms of journalism.

One of the forms that Briggs talked about is entrepreneurial journalism, which I think really highlights the changing business. He described how some online journalism outlets are being back by venture capitalists, meaning that those people want they’re money back. Briggs said that this shows the fact that this new form has a “promising economic future”.

I agree. It means that people realize that journalism on the Web is the new main outlet for journalism, that it’s not going away and therefore it is profitable.

Briggs also mentioned how social media is definitely not a fad. People share links to stories on social media.

One thing he mentioned about Twitter was enlightening to me. He talked about how Brian Stelter formerly of The New York Times used Twitter as a “radical form of transparency,” meaning that he invited people to poke holes in his stories (You can bet I quickly added Stelter to my growing list of journalists that I follow).

To me, this shows that while there are new forms of journalism, the traditional journalism ideals and practices live on and are even maximized by them. Social media provides an even more direct way to be transparent and accountable for stories shared online. Our names our not only attached to the story, they are attached to anything we post online, so we better make sure that what we post is verified.

After Newsweek halted its print edition in 2012, it seemed that it could not make a comeback, but now IBT Media is bringing it back from an almost certain death.

Although 70,000 copies will be printed at $7.99, the web is where Newsweek should stay focused, as it’s where the competition is thriving and more and more news is found and consumed, while it has been the downfall for others that did not adapt. It seems that IBT is on top of that, with its plan to sell the print copies as a sort of novelty item, while web content will be accessed at a smaller price.

The Internet is where Newsweek will remain after its online traffic tripled. Plus, it allows the opportunity to have more advertisers than print edition as online advertisings tends to cost less.

The magazine will be using an online paywall through a Slovakia-based company. This will help Newsweek gain profit and at this point it only makes sense to have a paywall. Many popular news sites have paywalls and are still running, generating revenue and proving that there is no need to be hesitant to expect readers to pay for online content anymore. Paywalls are becoming the norm.

Despite it’s message on Twitter, #LONGLIVEPRINT, a bit ironic, Newsweek’s online presence does not stop at its website. It is making use of social media like Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook. It joined forces with The Daily Beast to spread its news.

I think as long as Newsweek maintains its online growth, it will have staying power; however, it needs to work on its mobile presence. Newsweek has an app for iPad, and appears to have bad reviews in general. It needs to create an app that reaches multiple devices (Android, iPad, iPhone, iPod etc.) and is user friendly.

February 27th, 2014:        “Piers Morgan Live” was canceled by CNN this week and when I saw the headline I thought, “It’s about time.” I think this situation provides a few counterarguments to ideas discussed in class that I would normally agree with, but they help explain why the show ended up being bad for CNN’s business.

We talked about how Americans want to be entertained rather than informed and that points of view have always been around in the media (though I’m not quick to call Piers Morgan journalist). I have no doubt that as an interviewer, Morgan attempted to entertain us with his arguments and controversial points of view on his show. Normally, I’d say that conflict is entertaining, and it’s often a news driver, but Morgan used it in the wrong way and his opinions backfired. How? He made the mistake of creating conflict between himself and the viewers. He talked to us in a pedantic way about our country’s touchy issues like gun control. I agree with what David Carr wrote about the situation. No one likes to be lectured, especially by an outsider, and it wouldn’t surprise me if most his of dwindling audience thought, “Why is this British man telling us Americans how to run to our country?” as I couldn’t help but do. There was a petition on whitehouse.gov to deport Morgan and it reached over 100,000 signatures (about a fifth the number of viewers some nights during the show, not exactly the best for a primetime spot)!

It just shows that even the big media conglomerates are not guaranteed an audience just because they have control of TV spots. CNN has to worry about its audience and revenue as much as a newspaper. Viewers bring revenue just like readers do, but if there’s no one to watch or read the advertisements, a new business plan has to be made, and I find that’s what CNN is working on by canceling “Piers Moran Live.”

When Rob Urban visited our JRN 301 class, we asked what Bloomberg looks for in job applicants. He mentioned that having credibility on social media is sometimes considered. I think it makes sense to want employees that have “social media clout.”

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter act as an outlet for journalists to post their stories for their followers. Not only that, but articles can be shared and re-tweeted, increasing the number of attention a story gets. If a story is clicked on, it leads the reader to a publication’s full site or suggestions for more related stories from that outlet.

This would be difficult to do without having a pretty solid base of followers in the first place, and solely posting articles does not help gain followers. Some the most successful Twitter accounts I see often include a mix of opinion, insight, article posts, and even jokes. They have a social media personality to keep followers interested.

Social media power comes with a price though; everyone is watching. It’s important to maintain that online personality, while being careful not to offend and turn people away. It could cost your job, like former editor at CNN Octavia Nasr who was fired for tweeting about her respect for Hezbollah leader Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah after his death. Hezbollah is known for denouncing the U.S. and supporting suicide bombings against Israel.

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I read a column on these two new question-and-answer apps: Jelly and Need. The idea for both is for peoplea to gather information with answers from those in their social networks. When I researched Jelly a little more, I couldn’t help but wonder if journalists could use such an app. I mean, they can send out a question and get a wide range of answers, which is pretty appealing to me as a student journalist, especially for those times when I need to wander the campus to get student reactions. It wouldn’t be such a crazy idea; I’ve seen plenty of journalists post questions on Twitter and news organizations like CNN ask questions for discussion on Facebook. The unique thing about those two apps is that they are solely question-and-answer, so a journalist’s questions might not be buried among other random posts as it might be on Twitter and Facebook. With Jelly, users can take a picture of something, circle it and ask: What is this? Another feature of Jelly is that if someone directly in your network doesn’t know an answer, they might connect to someone who does. Need is a little different in that it allows users to “follow” questions and “bookmark” answers. Journalists aren’t scared of social media, and they shouldn’t be. Some have really found how to make the most of it. I’m thinking of how Andy Carvin was able to cover the Arab Spring largely using Twitter while he was at NPR (I read his book, Distant Witness).