Beat specialization fades as editorial staffs shrink

In these days when editorial staffs are being trimmed, specialization in a particular area often is getting shelved, notes Grumpy Editor.

An education reporter, for example, can be dispatched to cover a major fire in town.  Going on scene for other events also is happening more to those who normally cover court, science, music and health beats.  (However, sports reporters seem to be immune to multi-tasking.)

Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, is attempting to put the focus back on education coverage.  The Institute has hosted more than 60 seminars for 1,900 journalists in the last decade, says director Richard Lee Colvin.

A Hechinger survey of 275 education reporters finds:

·   91 percent of respondents say they believe covering education requires specialized knowledge.
·   41 percent say they need more specialized training and knowledge to become better education reporters, but 39 percent say their news outlets provide no training.
·  50 percent say their outlets view education coverage as high priority.
·   71 percent say their paper places education stories on the front page at least once a week.
·   47 percent say that, in addition to covering education, they are also general assignment reporters.

Interestingly, coverage by education reporters tapers off with newspapers showing higher circulation.

·   53 percent of responding education reporters are on papers with circulations under 100,000.
·   45 percent for papers with circulations of 100,000-500,000.
·   3 percent for papers with circulations greater than 500,000.

Grumpy Editor’s end-of-week leftover notes

Stock market recoups:  The ‘R’ (for recession) word faded from business pages Thursday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average spurted past the 13000 mark for the first time since Jan. 3, adding 189.87 points to reach 13010…Pamela bounces in:  Grabbing more attention than most guests and President George W. Bush in attendance at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Saturday night was buxom actress Pamela Anderson.  Her entrance was greeted by screeching fans behind ropes, Hollywood movie premiere style, while a brigade of Washington D.C. photographers, eager to shoot something besides politicians, were clicking shutters galore.  Then she set off another photo session when attending an after party hosted by Bloomberg…A repeated reminder:  Network radio news writers need to pinpoint action.  Making Golden State on-the-road listeners uneasy, on-the-hour ABC News on Sunday (and into Monday) included a single-liner, “In Southern California, a wildfire has consumed 350 acres, forcing 1,000 people from homes.”  It takes one second to indicate the location --- Sierra Madre.  With three more seconds, “about 15 miles northeast of Los Angeles” could have been added.  Broadcast news folks should be aware that Southern California is not the name of a city.  The region spans about 370 miles wide and about 210 miles deep, to the Mexican border…Patriotic gesture remembered:  Radio talk show host Tammy Bruce noted one of the top 100 moments in baseball history 32 years ago with the posting on her Web site four minutes’ worth of footage showing former Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Rick Monday snatching a U.S. flag from being set afire by two protesters who managed to get onto the field at Dodger Stadium…Another gesture wins an award:  A photo of former media mogul Conrad Black giving the finger to reporters last July as he arrived at the federal courthouse in Chicago was named best spot news photo by News Photographers Association of Canada in the second annual National Pictures of the Year competition.  Black is now serving time in Florida.