Grumpy Editor

Al Jazeera English tops U.S. news outlets with award

Friday quiz time.  What do Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and professors at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism have in common, asks Grumpy Editor.

All cite Al Jazeera English for fine news coverage.

With the university, Al Jazeera English will be the recipient of the Columbia Journalism Award, the highest honor bestowed by Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, topping ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN and all other large and small networks home and abroad, including BBC.

Times change.  A decade ago the U.S. government considered Al Jazeera an anti-American propaganda transmitter.

Selected by the journalism school’s faculty, the award is given annually during Columbia’s commencement ceremony to recognize an individual or organization for “singular journalism in the public interest.” 

The teaching body voted for Al Jazeera English for, as its public relations person mentions, “the overall depth and quality of its peerless coverage of the ongoing protests in the Middle East.” 

Dean Nicholas Lemann says, “Al Jazeera English has performed a great service in bringing the English-speaking world in-depth coverage of the turmoil in the Middle East."

This marks only the second time the prestigious award is being given to an organization. First news outlet to receive the Columbia Journalism Award was the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on PBS in 1993.

Al Jazeera English, an offshoot of Al Jazeera, based in Doha, Qatar, was launched in 2006.

Despite the five-years to 2011, Al Jazeera English still isn’t widely seen in the U.S., available only on scattered cable systems in Washington, D.C., Vermont and Ohio.

Secretary of State Clinton two months ago acted like its PR person in declaring "viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because...you feel like you're getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news that is not providing information to us, let alone foreigners."

 

Stories focus on class size as school budgets tighten up

School districts around the country are being squeezed as budgets shrink, triggering newspapers to run sympathetic stories on the problem, notes Grumpy Editor. 

An example of  “crowded classrooms” was spotlighted this week as the Las Vegas Review-Journal ran the first in a series that will span three weeks, focusing on the Clark County School District, the nation’s fifth largest. 

The series kicked off with the headline CROWDED CLASSROOMS in capital letters across the front page, above the fold.  Subhead read:  “As budgets shrink, class sizes grow.” 

It all sounded pretty dire, a reader pointed out, until reaching an inside page where, tucked away in the second paragraph, was "Officials expect to raise the average class size in grades 6-12 from 32 students to 34."

No mention was made that in belt-tightening times, two more students shouldn’t create a hardship.  Also, figuring two or four absences per class bring the total to about unchanged or below average class size. 

The story did not indicate total enrollment (latest figure: 312,761 in 2009). 

With Las Vegas ranked as the U.S. home foreclosure capital, school attendance likely has decreased from one and two years ago as parents during the recession were forced to relocate to other states in search of jobs.

Also forgotten:  In good times, when money was no object and hefty property tax funds were rolling in, the school district went on an expansion spree, complete with planting of expensive mature palm trees in school parking lots.