We have some tragic news, Mizzou J-Schoolers. Our editor-in-chief Kelly Cohen is being forced to resign from this publication, thanks to the Missouri School of Journalism’s antiquated ideas about conflict of interest policies.
Forcing Cohen off the JSB editorial board is not our decision. We have always encouraged J-School Buzz editors and contributors to work in a variety of mediums and gain as much experience as possible in all of Mizzou’s newsrooms. Yes, even The Maneater. That is not the J-School Missourian‘s policy, it seems.
Cohen is currently on the Missourian‘s staff, so she is not allowed to work for a competing publication that is not directly affiliated with the Missouri School of Journalism. I will let the Missourian‘s Executive Editor for Innovation Tom Warhover explain the Missourian‘s conflict of interest policy, in an email he sent to Cohen:
I’m sorry, Kelly, but J-School Buzz falls smack dab in conflict with the policy, particularly:
“Work for other local media by Missourian paid staff or students in staff classes (reporting, copy editing, design, photography, photo editing, graphics, etc.) is prohibited. Local media include daily and weekly newspapers and related websites in our circulation area, campus newspapers and competing broadcast outlets.”
As a blog that also advocates, it could also run afoul of prohibitions against participating in groups that seek to influence public policy. It’s not a faculty-sponsored/involved publication a la KOMU etc, so it doesn’t fall under the exceptions listed in the policy.
I don’t like to say no. But this one so clearly falls in the conflicts policy.
Now, we don’t want anyone at Mizzou to think we are disparaging Warhover. He is just enforcing a bad J-School policy in a J-School-operated newsroom that has long been in place (Full disclosure: I worked with Warhover two years ago on a project called Team Junit that was developing a totally new, bad-ass content management system for the Missourian that, as far as I know, still hasn’t been implemented).
J-School Buzz has always sought to improve Missouri’s journalism school, while occasionally having fun at its expense and publishing some traffic-whoring posts along the way.
We like to focus on certain “causes” we think will make the University of Missouri’s journalism education more relevant and useful. That’s why we have spent so much time discussing the J-School’s lackluster social media efforts and ineffective Career Services office.
JSB will be reporting and writing and ranting about the Mizzou J-School’s antiquated conflict of interest policies quite a bit this year. It is clearly a disservice to Mizzou journalism students to not let them gain more valuable journalism experience from more newsrooms.
Cohen would have learned a few things as JSB’s editor-in-chief that she will never learn at the Missourian. She won’t learn much there about analytics, what content generates traffic and buzz, the difference between stories an audience “wants” and “needs,” how to run a popular news blog, how to respond to critical commenters and tweeters you know personally, how to keep a site running when it gets a rush of unexpected traffic, and so on. We can talk about how all the sequences are becoming converged, or whatever, but JSBers learn a unique skill set no other Mizzou newsroom can offer.
However, our new editor-in-chief will learn these things. The editorial board is shrinking from five to four, much like an Agatha Christie novel. Ali Colwell will seize the JSB reins as our new editor-in-chief, moving up from her current role as social media editor. That SM Editor vacancy will be filled by Photo Editor Shannon Elliott, a position we are eliminating entirely. Cody Heyveld’s role will shift to Graphics Editor. And I will still be around as publisher.
On top of that, we have just appointed Jackie Trahan as our new Copy Editor and we are looking forward to having an extra helping hand in the editing process.
We are not adding anyone to our editorial board right now, but if you are interested in becoming a JSB Contributor, shoot us an email: Tips@JSchoolBuzz.com
Hopefully, JSB can now go back to reporting the news instead of writing about ourselves, because while we love transparency and ego-stroking, there are bigger stories out there.
Update: Here is Cohen’s response to this post, which she originally posted below in the comments section:
Hi, guys. It’s Kelly Cohen (I’m not sure if I’m logged in via wordpress, twitter or FB so I just want to clarify in case it says anonymous!) … I just wanted to say something about this post.
I really didn’t want this to cause any trouble. I understood that I needed to resign and did right away. I was upset to leave as EiC but I understood why. I wasn’t going to fight my anyone on this simply because it would have been pointless to. I’m not going to go against those who I report to.
Another thing, that email that was sent to me from Tom was supposed to stay private; Sorry Teeg, but I’m really really upset you decided to share that with just about everyone without even asking me. I posted it in the private JSB editors thread on FB simply to let everyone on the editorial board know why it was that I couldn’t continue on as EiC. Tom said it better than I could have! I had NO intention of it becoming public and didn’t realize that I had to worry about that. Once again, I am sorry to Tom for letting that email get out as I thought I was basically posting it in privacy.
I don’t want this to cause a huge amount of trouble. I work for the Missourian and I have since August 2011. I will be a part of Missourian staff until December 2012 when I graduate and I have NO PROBLEM with any unintended consequences that might cause. I have allegiance to the Missourian, my classes, my professors and most important, the J-School and whatever rules come along with that. I seriously don’t want this issue to alienate anyone connected to me.
Once again, I’m sorry if anyone is getting into quarrels about this issue. What’s done is done!
If anyone wants to talk to me privately, please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email to my gmail account – kmc9rb.
Thanks!!!!!!
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But Tom’s right. The Missourian can’t have her writing stuff for the Missourian that she could potentially critique and criticize on JSB. Although there may be problems with certain conflict of interest policies within the journalism school, this is definitely the biggest conflict, as your function is to criticize institutions within the journalism school. I wouldn’t let you work for both either.
Hmm, good point. I hadn’t thought of her criticizing the Missourian in a JSB post. If that situation ever came up, where JSB was publishing something critical about the Missourian, she could have had someone else write it. Lord knows JSB is always biting the hand that feeds it.
What I object to most of all is the idea that no one working in any newsroom is allowed to edit this site. Most junior or senior J-Schoolers are involved in one newsroom, so how could we have experienced and knowledgeable people write about the J-School if everyone is a freshman or sophomore?
But more broadly, even if JSB weren’t directly criticizing J-School newsrooms, you are not allowed to work for ANY unaffiliated newsroom while working at the Missourian.
It just seems weird that in a profession where the skillset required to succeed is broader than ever, that we are restricted to one newsroom at a time. You can’t learn everything in one newsroom, and your time in the J-School is short. Working in more than one newsroom at once would help J-Schoolers learn the very most in the least amount of time. For a job that actually costs you a boatload of money, the Missourian asks a lot.
It’s fine to say that Kelly could just have someone else write a critical piece on the Missourian, but as an editor she’s still a part of it going up on the site.
You need to check your facts about what’s going on at the Missourian these days, Teeg. We talk about audience and analytics every day, and not just in my class and on my community outreach team. Those are topics at every morning news meeting, in a lot of beat meetings, all the time. http://www.rjionline.org/blog/research-real-life-new-community-outreach-team-builds-rji-engagement-work
What about Brian Stelter and David Carr covering the media, including the New York Times, for the New York Times? As long as the coverage is balanced, I don’t see the conflict. By the way, in 1991, I was a j-school student at Mizzou and served as a teaching assistant over a feature section for The Missourian as well as a city desk TA, and I also worked at The Columbia Daily Tribune as a weekend and enterprise reporter. I had to sit out of a few story budget meetings at The Missourian, but both media outlets knew of my other responsibilities and both trusted me. I learned a ton at both The Missourian and The Tribune. And, the Trib gig helped me pay the bills.
That’s a great point about those media reporters. The news about the NYT in the last couple years has certainly not been entirely positive.
Part of my problem here is that the Missourian asks an awful lot of you for a job that actually costs you money. I’m glad they let you work for the Tribune at the same job to make a little extra money. The J-School isn’t always the best about looking out for students’ money, that’s for sure.
Thanks for commenting!
David, one thing I want to clarify is that the Missourian may ask a lot, but the tuition I spent on my 3-credit-hour courses working on the Missourian were the best educational dollars I ever spent. I learned so much more as a Missourian reporter (and also as a TA, for which I received a stipend) than I would have in 4 years or more at a private liberal arts college without Mizzou’s practical j-school focus.
Columbia is such an interesting town because it is definitely more media-saturated than any town of comparable size in the country. That’s part of what makes it such a great training ground for tomorrow’s journalists….and the people who live in Columbia certainly benefit.
I always felt that students got as much out of their Missourian-focused courses as they put into them; I killed myself for those classes and I walked away so much better equipped than my cohorts from other j-schools to enter real-world journalism. I am grateful every day that the Missourian editors and professors expected so much (and gave so much of themselves in return).
I crammed for my poli sci multiple choice exams at midnight after I wrote exciting front-page stories about murder investigations or donned a bullet-proof vest to find out the origin of shots fired that were reported over the newsroom police scanners. Now that’s an education.
With that said, I hope that the Missourian revisits its policies on an ongoing basis as the world of the media covering the media continues to evolve (the move Page One should be required viewing for every journalism student and journalist); as the definition of what media are changes (not sure I would consider all blogs to be media); and as the legality of specific situations is tested (for example, a court determined recently that high school student blogs critical of the administration that were produced on the students’ own time couldn’t be censored by the schools).
As a former Missourian editor, I’d like to take exception with a few of the so-called facts Mr. Teegham presents here:
“She won’t learn much there about analytics,”
– Absolutely untrue. As Joy mentions, this was part of the daily budget meetings when I was there last year (I left in July). Even when I was the print editor, analytics were part of the daily routine, and not just because we ran a top 10 of our most popular web stories each day in print. We’d track analytics on the print team to see what the most popular news of the day was, and then make our news decisions accordingly as far as what went out front, what went inside and what would be too stale for the next day’s print.
“what content generates traffic and buzz”
– Also untrue. What generated traffic and buzz was a huge part of every current events discussion in the newsroom — not just budget meetings, but also beat meetings, classroom discussions, individual or small group conversations, etc. etc.
“the difference between stories an audience ‘wants’ and ‘needs,’”
– Talking abou the difference between what an audience wants and needs is a major part of deciding homepage layouts, landing page layouts, print layouts, etc. etc. Sorry, Mr. Teegham, but this statement is just ridiculous.
“how to run a popular news blog”
– The Missourian has launched so many blogs over the past few years, I can’t even begin to count how many there have been. Some have done really well and continue to thrive today. Some were short-lived. But to imply that we weren’t teaching students how to blog is actually really insulting.
“how to respond to critical commenters and tweeters you know personally”
– Again, something that gets discussed all the time.
“how to keep a site running when it gets a rush of unexpected traffic”
– This happened so many times to ColumbiaMissourian.com, it’s not even funny. For instance, when one of Katherine Reed’s reporters got the drop on a very important development in the Ryan Ferguson case a few years back, traffic overwhelmed the server and we went down. So we moved the story to the Watchword blog. And Twitter. We found a way to keep our hands on our scoop, all while frantically trying to get ColumbiaMissourian.com to come back online.
Mr. Teegham, I understand that JSB was your brainchild, and it’s something that you’re very proud of. And you should be. But don’t try to undermine the educational mission of the Missourian just to cement JSB’s place within the hierarchy of the J School. If you want to cement JSB’s legacy, do it through good reporting and thoughtful analysis.
Hey, Jake. Thanks for taking the time to respond with really specific criticisms. Let me respond with some of my own thoughts.
It sounds like Joy has done a lot to get analytics into the conversation at budget meetings, but the point is that knowledge is not seeping through to many staffers. Maybe I spoke to the wrong people, but the Missourian folks I spoke to still don’t know the difference from a unique visitor to a pageview to a hit. That is basically my litmus test for analytics knowledge, and a lot of Missourian reporters still don’t have it.
Buzz is literally in our name. A big part of our decision to publish is whether it will get traffic and start conversations. That does not seem to be the case for the Missourian. I have heard plenty of people say that’s one of the reasons JSB sucks, but we let the audience have a big role in dictating what content we publish. I could tell you what posts we have published over the last year have gotten the most traffic and why, and what elements are common in popular posts. The new editors will soon have those skills, but I am not sure I have met a Missourian staffer who could tell me that for stories published.
I guess I base the “want vs. need” thing on the fact that so few pieces of content published on the site qualify as something I really, desperately want to know. It’s a lot of stuff I need to know to be an informed Columbia citizen, but nothing that I feel is a break from the day. Again, JSB’s focus on stuff our audience wants to know is a major criticism of this site, but we feel our audience should have fun on our website, as well as become informed.
When I say “run” a popular news blog, I mean be in charge. I should have been more clear. As EiC, she would have had final control over what content was published, and she would never have to report to anyone. She would never have to get approval or permission. She would be the top dog, and that includes all sorts of responsibilities you can never imagine before you take the job, or fully articulate.
How many staff reporters were involved in the attempt to keep the website online? That seems like a job for Rob Weir and the IT geniuses. JSBers have to personally fix the site when it goes down, working with Cloudflare and our host to get things working again.
I pointed out on Twitter yours is just the sort of awesome comment JSB needs more of, so I really appreciate you taking the time to articulate your thoughts.
Thanks.
PS. My name is Teeghman, not Teegham. Everyone misspells it though, no worries.
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Let me pile on, David, but in a way that might help further the discussion.
Another inaccuracy: You say I am “just enforcing a bad J-School policy that has long been in place.”
The Missourian’s policies are not those of the J-School at large, David.
The conflicts policy is not old, or at least not parts of it, because there was an update a couple of years ago after extensive input from students as well as faculty and Missourian readers.
By way of background:
The policies were most recently vetted 2009-2010. A team of graduate students did research around conflicts policies and made proposals for changes to me. Next semester, Professor Schneller ran them by several classes/groups of students. I asked readers for input as well through Dear Reader columns in the Missourian.
The first one is here:
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2010/04/16/dear-reader-help-misourian-update-its-conflicts-interest-policy/
A follow ran two weeks later: http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2010/04/24/dear-reader-im-still-conflicted-over-ethics-policy/
(Curiously to me was that, as a group, the students tended to be more conservative/traditional than either readers or faculty.)
One of the things missing from your blog post, David, is the actual policy. You can find a copy here:
http://advancedreportingfall11.wordpress.com/syllabus/political-conflicts-policy/ It’s also on the syllabi of all the staff courses for Missourian and Vox, so far as I know.
As I said, some of the personal conflicts portion was written long in the past; recollection is dangerous, but I seem to remember reading the verbiage when I was a student in the ’80s. The first draft of the business portion was written early in this century. Social media was added two years ago.
I know you don’t agree with the policy, David, and I don’t expect to change your mind. I hope this gives you a few facts at hand, and some context behind them.
Tom Warhover
Executive Editor
Columbia Missourian
chair, print and digital news faculty
Missouri School of Journalism
BJ ’85
Hey, Tom. Thanks for your comment.
You’re right, the “J-School policy” line is just sloppy writing that muddies the issue. I changed it in the post so that it is more clear. Better late than never, but it should have been changed sooner.
I added your link to the Missourian’s conflict of interest policy in the post. I would have done that in the original post (I love links), but I didn’t know it was available online. Thanks!
It’s interesting you noticed J-School students seem to be more traditional in their views of journalism than many professors and practicing journalists. JSB has always gotten the harshest criticism by way of students who say we break some sacred tenet of respectable journalism, while professors seem to be more flexible. I think that’s because the folks with experience have practiced journalism well the traditional way, and so are willing to experiment. J-School students are still learning the ideal way to practice journalism, and so aren’t prone to experimentation. The example I think of in this regard in Picasso, an enormously talented painter who perfected the traditional skills before he went off to do stuff like this: http://www.themasterpiececards.com/Portals/40667/images/picasso%20las%20meninas%20105-resized-600.jpg
You’re right to say that the critique and added context doesn’t change my mind. You probably remember even back in my Team Junit days I was railing against long-held journalistic principles like objectivity and conflict of interest policies.
I followed your Dear Reader columns on this subject very closely, and I actually think we had a (brief) conversation about the need for a wide dialogue about changes made to these policies. It’s awesome that so many people were involved in the process. Clearly, I still think there are changes to be made. I just appreciate the chance to have the conversation again, since the J-School keeps changing for the better.
And there’s no need to apologize for “piling on.” If I am going to shout something at the top of my lungs on the Internet, I should probably have the facts and proper wording to back it up. Thanks again for taking the time to respond.
Teeg
PS. How’s Junit?
Hi, guys. It’s Kelly Cohen (I’m not sure if I’m logged in via wordpress, twitter or FB so I just want to clarify in case it says anonymous!) … I just wanted to say something about this post.
I really didn’t want this to cause any trouble. I understood that I needed to resign and did right away. I was upset to leave as EiC but I understood why. I wasn’t going to fight my anyone on this simply because it would have been pointless to. I’m not going to go against those who I report to.
Another thing, that email that was sent to me from Tom was supposed to stay private; Sorry Teeg, but I’m really really upset you decided to share that with just about everyone without even asking me. I posted it in the private JSB editors thread on FB simply to let everyone on the editorial board know why it was that I couldn’t continue on as EiC. Tom said it better than I could have! I had NO intention of it becoming public and didn’t realize that I had to worry about that. Once again, I am sorry to Tom for letting that email get out as I thought I was basically posting it in privacy.
I don’t want this to cause a huge amount of trouble. I work for the Missourian and I have since August 2011. I will be a part of Missourian staff until December 2012 when I graduate and I have NO PROBLEM with any unintended consequences that might cause. I have allegiance to the Missourian, my classes, my professors and most important, the J-School and whatever rules come along with that. I seriously don’t want this issue to alienate anyone connected to me.
Once again, I’m sorry if anyone is getting into quarrels about this issue. What’s done is done!
If anyone wants to talk to me privately, please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email to my gmail account – kmc9rb.
Thanks!!!!!!
Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think of the email as private since it was posted on Facebook, but that was incredibly dumb of me to not ask your permission. Seriously bad move on my part. God, that’s dumb and insensitive, even by my standards. Sorry.
David, I really think you should put quotes/excerpts from Kelly Cohen’s response comment here up in the story copy above, close to where you put excerpts of the email that was supposed to remain private. As I’m sure you know, Google and other search engines scan these pages and if someone were to happen upon this travesty of a story, I think Cohen should be represented fairly in it. A reader might not scroll all the way down to her comment.
PLEASE!!!
~KELLY COHEN
Good idea. I updated the post with her comment, in full.
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Why is Teeghman still writing for this thing? I thought he graduated…
I stopped doing anything with JSB after I graduated, but then JSB became terrible last semester, so I returned to get JSB back on the right track. It won’t be permanent, no worries.
But David, shouldn’t you be off somewhere failing to be the next Brian Williams, instead of posting dumb comments on a “gossip blog”?
I thought JSB was wonderful last semester. A breath of fresh air, really.
I’ll be off somewhere doing real journalism just as soon as I graduate — in the interim, I have time to kill.
You didn’t read JSB last semester. No one did and the site stats proves it. Please step off your self-righteous pedestal.
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Ali Colwell is an ignorant freshman who can’t write worth a damn, way to go guys. Seriously, she is AWFUL. Way to go JSB, since nobody here takes you seriously anyway.
I’m so flattered that you follow my writing! Thank you!
You seem to be the expert on ignorance, Anna Smith.
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