Staff Writers Research Articles

The Labor Angle: Reflections on the History of the Working-Class and Radical Press

The Labor Angle: Reflections on the History of the Working-Class and Radical Press

The First Baby Born After Polygenic Embryo Screening

The First Baby Born After Polygenic Embryo Screening

Showrunners’ Scripts are More Cognitively Complex

The term “showrunner” is used in the US entertainment industry to describe the person who is the chief executive and creative officer of a television TV series. The position is very prestigious, often very financially rewarding, and thus highly sought-after. While there are many paths to the role-and even instances of almost overnight success-the vast majority of current showrunners worked their way up over several years from staff writing positions to production-related roles, often across several different series in the process. Conventional wisdom about how to climb the ladder from writer to showrunner strongly emphasizes the importance of both writing and of originality. While there is research linking objective characteristics of pilot episode scripts to success of the subsequent series, we are aware of no studies that consider whether and how scripts written by showrunners differ from those written by staff writers. Towards that end, in this study we compare the scripts written by showrunners with those written by their staff writers for two highly-acclaimed dramatic series from the last decade-The Good Wife (2009) and The Mentalist (2008). Specifically, we test for differences in the “cognitive complexity” of the two groups of scripts. As expected, we find that, on average, scripts written by showrunners exhibited higher cognitive complexity than those written by staff writers. We also found that scripts by writing team members who later became showrunners for original new series had higher cognitive complexity than those written by staff writers who have yet to attain to this role.

Author byline (Culture Coverage)

This variable describes the employment basis that the writers of the articles represent. It distinguishes between staff writers, representing in-house newsroom production, and freelancer-based writers, representing outsourced production. It also examines the shares of non-signed and news agency material, as well as material produced by the audience, whenever it is placed on culture pages. These are the major production instances for cultural coverage. Tracing their development across time delivers information on the strategic and economic shifts, reflected in the use of non-specialized writers (journalists from other departments and outsourced production). Field of application/theoretical foundation As debates on the state of cultural journalism and the anatomy of cultural coverage are often centered around the volume of reviews, this variable delivers more detailed information about the production structures of the articles. Commissioning freelancers is specifically characteristic of cultural coverage; in cultural journalism, external authors are used more than in any other form of journalism. Through the variable, it can be examined to which extent the freelancer networks are being used for cultural coverage. Another prevalent question for cultural coverage is the extent of news agency material, or “churnalism” (Kristensen, 2018), which strengthens the ties of cultural coverage to cultural industry and, as an indication of less critical distance, is regarded as non-preferable. References/combination with other methods of data collection In coding the variable, the author name indicated in the byline is recorded. The variable typically needs background research for determining individual authors’ employment contracts, which may also vary from time to time. For distinguishing between specialized staff journalists, general staff journalists, and freelancer journalists, the researcher may utilize newsroom superiors as informants, as well as the authors themselves. When cross-tabulated with other variables, the variable provides useful information on how freelancer production has developed in time with regard to cultural forms, genres, and gender. Sample operationalization The author byline is operationalized as follows: Event type Description Specialized staff journalist Cultural journalist: salary-based staff journalist in the culture department General staff journalist Other journalist: salary-based staff journalist in a department other than culture Freelancer journalist Outsourced production: writer separately commissioned for the text Newsroom signature Byline referring to the newspaper in question, leaving the writer anonymous News agency Name of the news agency (AFP, AP, Reuters, etc.) Member of audience A reader, non-journalist Not recognizable Producer of the text unknown, not signed Example study Jaakkola (2015) Information abour Jaakkola, 2015 Author: Maarit Jaakkola Research question/research interest: Representation of the author bylines according to the work contract of the journalists on culture pages of daily newspapers across time, to expose the production structure Object of analysis: Articles/text items on culture pages of five major daily newspapers in Finland 1978–2008 (Aamulehti, Helsingin Sanomat, Kaleva, Savon Sanomat, Turun Sanomat) Timeframe of analysis: 1978–2008, consecutive sample of weeks 7 and 42 in five year intervals (1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008) Info about variable Variable name/definition: Author Unit of analysis: Article Values: 1 = specialized staff journalist, 2= general staff journalist, 3 = freelancer journalist, 4 = newsroom signature, 5 = news agency, 6 = member of the audience, 7 = not recognizable Scale: nominal Intercoder reliability: Cohen's kappa > 0.76 (two coders)

A104 PREVALENCE OF GHOST-AUTHORSHIP IN INDUSTRY-SPONSORED CLINICAL TRIALS

Abstract Background Ghost-authorship involves the exclusion of individuals who have made substantial contributions to the article from the author byline. Previous studies have found that ghost-authorship is highly prevalent in industry-sponsored clinical trials. Its prevalence, however, has yet to be investigated in trials of biologics in the management of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Aims To determine the prevalence of ghost-authorship in IBD biologic industry-sponsored clinical randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Methods Biologic medications indicated for ulcerative colitis (UC) or for Crohn’s disease (CD) were identified using the Food and Drug Agency (FDA) database. We identified the clinical trials on clinicaltrials.gov corresponding to the data presented at the time of FDA approval. Specifically, we included the first publication for each trial to report study results for our analysis. Two authors independently identified the presence of ghost-authorship, which we defined as the exclusion on the author byline of the included RCT publication of any individuals who assisted in the writing of the trial manuscript and/or performed the data analyses. Results We identified a total of 28 relevant RCTs on biologic medications (10 for UC and 18 for CD), which were matched to 20 publications. We found ghost-authorship in 70% of publications (n=14); 40% (n=8) involved manuscript and protocol writing assistance from sponsor staff; 35% (n=7) involved medical writers from external companies; 15% (n=3) involved both sponsor staff and medical writers assisting in manuscript writing; and 20% (n=4) involved individuals performing data analysis or interpretation. Conclusions We found that ghost-authorship in industry-sponsored IBD biologic clinical trials has a moderately high prevalence, with the most common being manuscript or protocol writing assistance. A lack of transparency regarding sponsor-affiliated and/or external contributors may negatively affect the trust placed in medical research. One limitation is that data was only extracted from publications. Further evidence on ghost-authorship may be found in study protocols and registrations, which will be investigated in the future. Funding Agencies None

Walking the Newsroom: Towards a Sensory Experience of Journalism

We invite you to join us on a walk through the newsroom of a regional newspaper, Dagblad van het Noorden. We trace how the journalists perceive, articulate, engage, embrace, challenge, are receptive to, and give form to the ‘atmospheres’ of their workspace. The concept of atmospheres is central in how we have looked at the newsroom. On this walk, we explore the spatial, socio-cultural, rhythmic, tonal, and somatic characteristics of the recently redesigned newsroom, using video, sound, text, and drawing. Employing artistic methods, we want to let you experience this newsroom together with us – giving you insight into the journalists’ lived experience of their profession as fundamentally interwoven with the idiosyncrasies of their workspace. Our host on the walk is online news editor Alfred Meester. Alfred walked us, Saskia and Sander, through the newsroom, which we visited as part of the project Exploring Journalism’s Limits (funded by the Dutch Research Council, NWO, project number: 314-99-205). Also joining us on this day is Ricky Booms, a visual artist invited to reflect on the space alongside us. Along the way, we encounter visual editors, interns, freelancers, editorial staff writers, and learn about the kinds of spaces that resonate with them. The walk takes approximately 45 minutes.

Gorbachev: Don’t Give up Hope for World without Nuclear Weapons

ABSTRACT In this interview carried out by two staff writers of the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev recalls how he engaged in dialogues with the United States in the final years of the Cold War. But the “peace dividend” brought by the initiatives of Gorbachev and his US counterpart has been largely eclipsed by renewed arms race between the United States and Russia. Gorbachev, in his sober understanding of the horror of nuclear war and the Chernobyl disaster, makes a strong case for a world without nuclear weapons, and calls for a moral world.

Black Anaesthetics: The New Yorker and Andrea Lee’s Russian Journal

Abstract This essay demonstrates the oft-dismissed centrality of critical race thought to posthumanist studies by excavating the neglected writings of the New Yorker magazine’s earliest black staff writers. Within this early post–Civil Rights archive of “The Talk of the Town” columns and a Russian travelogue, this essay uncovers conditions of possibility for the emergence of racially anomalous strains of contemporary black narrative that have long discomfited canon-makers. Analyzing how the implicitly white persona of “The Talk of the Town” functioned as an avatar of the liberal humanist subject, I show how Andrea Lee, Charlayne Hunter, and Jamaica Kincaid undermined or appropriated this figure of Man. Their experiments with racial legibility in their unsigned columns would give rise to what I term black anaesthetics: narrative practices that disable the reader’s capacity to make meaning of race even as they disclose traces of racialized blackness. Working thus both in and out of touch with racial reality, black anaesthetic texts such as Lee’s Russian Journal (1981), Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” (1983), and Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” (1984) suspend processes of racialization vital to the production of Man’s human Others. In doing so, they invite us to rethink the descent of what has come to be called posthumanism.

Counting Clicks: Quantification and Variation in Web Journalism in the United States and France

Sociological studies often emphasize the role of metrics in broader processes of convergence and homogenization. Yet numbers can take on different meanings depending on their contexts. This article focuses on the case of journalism, a field transformed by quantification in the form of “clicks.” Drawing on ethnographic material gathered at two news websites—one in New York, the other in Paris—it documents important differences in the uses and meanings assigned to audience metrics in the United States and France. At the U.S. website, editors make significant decisions based on metrics, but staff journalists are relatively unconcerned by them. At the French website, however, editors are conflicted about metrics, but staff writers fixate on them. To understand these differences, this article analyzes how the trajectories of the U.S. and French journalistic fields affect newsroom dynamics. It shows how cultural differences can be reproduced at a time of technological convergence.

Learning and Becoming Writers: Meaning, Identity, and Epistemology in a Newsroom Community of Practice

ABSTRACTThis article analyzes a yearlong ethnography of the Southside Free Press, a non-school-affiliated community-based organization that served diverse adolescent staff writers who prepared articles for a monthly newspaper publication. The study employed a perspective of learning as legitimate peripheral participation with/in a newsroom community of practice. Specifically, using Rogoff’s three planes of analysis—apprenticeship, guided participation, and participatory appropriation—demonstrates that the process of becoming staff writers affected their learning and development. Thus, their ongoing participation provided opportunities to come to enact and embody the available meanings, identities, and epistemologies around becoming a staff writer and citizenship.

Women in ethnic news media

The representation of women in so-called mainstream media has been well studied; however, less is known about this representation in ethnic media, especially in North America where the ethnic media sector is constantly growing. Ethnic media’s unique news sourcing strategy – that is, a mix of news locally produced by local staff writers, news outsourced from local mainstream media, and news internationally imported from the country of origin – suggests that the underrepresentation of women in mainstream media can spill over to and be reproduced in ethnic media. A content analysis of Korean news media in Vancouver and Los Angeles finds an interesting interplay between the transnational effect and the local effect. That is, while a pervasive influence of mainstream media from the country of origin is evident (transnational effect), strong female leadership in the local community and the active roles of these leaders as news sources and actors contribute positively to overall representation of women (local effect).

What are the consequences of the newly implemented 24+Advanced Learning Loans on retention of adult Access to Higher Education students?

This article discusses the previous literature on student retention in the post-compulsory education sector and the ‘24+Advanced Learning Loan’. Adult students participating in an Access to Higher Education course are at particularly high risk of non-completion. Literature indicates that whilst stakeholders may require factual statistics regarding education, the reasons for student withdrawal are often multiple and complex, hence this research was conducted via a mixed-methods approach. This study took place at a large inner-city college of further education in Staffordshire, England. A full population sample of the college’s existing data was analysed, tutors participated in short, informal, unstructured one-to-one interviews, the author produced fieldnotes relating to retention and 12 adult students from the Access to Higher Education Diploma in Health self-selected to participate in short semi-structured interviews about student retention. Data showed that students aged 24 years and over were already less likely to withdraw from their course prior to the introduction of the 24+Advanced Learning Loan, and that the introduction of the loan had little impact on this data. Interview transcripts and fieldnotes indicated mixed opinions amongst students regarding the 24+Loan, that the application process had been overly complex and that the introduction of loans had produced an increased divide between older and younger students. Recommendations for students, college staff, managers and policy writers are discussed in light of the findings of this study.

Abstraction and the Amateur: De-disciplining T. E. Hulme

In 1913 and 1914, T. E. Hulme wrote a series of reviews of abstract art gallery shows for A. R. Orage's The New Age journal. Reading them, however, will not give you a feel for the artworks that hung in the Chenil Gallery or the Alpine Club. Hulme's reviews dwell instead on the reviewing game itself. An article about one man's pictures is not a thing should ever do naturally, Hulme protests in a review of David Bomberg's abstract draw- ings and paintings in July of 1914, Only the expert art critic can prolong the gesture of admiration artificially by cliche—that, of course, is his metier. wish could do it myself. 1 In a review of work by the Grafton Group in January of 1914, Hulme writes, I find it more interesting to escape from this show for a minute to consider instead how certain Post-Impressionist or Cubist appearances have acquired cachet among other reviewers (Hulme, 124). A review of Jacob Epstein's sculpture from De- cember 1913 begins with an apology for responding to Epstein's critics rather than discussing the work itself: All through this article write about Mr Epstein's work in a way which recognize to be wrong (Hulme, 114). Hulme's fellow critics at the The New Age, like his readers, regarded his meta-reviews as laughable. Parodies soon appeared. Written by staff writers and readers alike, these suggest that Hulme talks about reviewing because he lacks the discernment, style, and focus to write an actual review. One reads, Dear me! have nearly finished my appreciation, and am nowhere near five and a quarter columns. cannot do it sir! 2 Another implies that Hulme is reduced to tracing the outlines of the reviewing world because like all philistines he substitutes quantification for

Creating a Series Pilot—Newcomers Welcome

ONE OF THE MOST E XCITING RECENT TRENDS in the field of screenwriting has to do with television series development, and this trend is largely the result of three seemingly unrelated things: homegrown Web videos, the Writers Guild strike of 2007, and the current economic recession.In the world of television programming, it used to be a waste of a new screenwriter's time to develop ideas for an original fiction series. True, almost any writer could land pitch meet- ings with actual development executives at networks, studios, or production companies, but what was the point? After coffee and a gathering of somewhat creative minds, the executive would invariably respond by passing on the neophyte's project. The quality of the pitch was not a factor. In a business that yields a success rate of one or two hit shows for every thousand pitched,1 few television executives would consider risking their job by backing unproven talent. They would still take the pitch meetings-as part of demonstrating productiv- ity to their superiors and sometimes just to be courteous-and they would even spring for the coffee, but that was as far as the new writer got. (Sorry, we're moving in a different creative direction; I love it, but my boss just doesn't get it; If you can get [top box-office star of the day] to play the lead, we're in!)True, writing a pilot script was not always a waste of time. Some television producers like to use fully original work to gauge a person's talent when doling out episode assignments or hiring staff writers. But those producers are few, and many still want to see a traditional spec script (e.g., a typical episode of an exist- ing series) before offering up a job. Bottom line-the rules of the television-development game were such that new writers were better off just writing spec episode samples if they wanted to get a foot in the door.But then the world of television programming began to undergo important changes, and sud- denly doors started to open for unproven talent.Newcomers WelcomeIn 2005, three ex-PayPal employees launched an Internet site called YouTube, a central view- ing site for homegrown videos posted on the Internet, and millions of people started tuning in to watch. It did not matter that often the production quality of these videos was poor and the content inconsistent, because much of the material was fresh and relatable and very entertaining. Plus, the offerings were pleasing examples of this newish thing called digital media, in an era when all things digital and Web-related were becoming the rage.Commercial television networks took notice, impressed-or more likely, stunned-to realize that many of these videos drew a huge audi- ence despite having been produced by ama- teurs, and at a fraction of the cost of a typical television episode. Executives and producers tuned in to the new medium, revised their as- sumptions about what constitutes watchable video, and began experimenting with the devel- opment of series projects spawned by the Web. (Ironically, this has often resulted in fresh Web ideas being forced into ill-fitting, traditional, prime-time television molds, as happened with failed series Quarterlife [2007; Gorman] and Shit My Dad Says [2010-11; Hale.])Then in 2007, in what might seem like an unrelated event, the Writers Guild of America went on strike for fourteen weeks, partly to lobby for fair compensation related to the creation of digital content. The networks and studios had anticipated the move and had prepared for the worst by earlier stockpiling scripts and reducing development goals (Gentile). As the strike pro- gressed with little promise of a quick resolution, the companies responded by cutting develop- ment budgets even further and canceling a num- ber of production and talent overhead deals, as allowed by the force majeure provisions that are standard in such agreements (Grossman).At the same time, the recession hit the US economy, including the segment involved in making television shows, causing the networks to slash expenses even further. …

Steven Mufson, Brian Vastag, and The Washington Post Graphics Staff Receive 2012 David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism–News: Citation

Steven Mufson and Brian Vastag, staff writers for The Washington Post, and The Washington Post Graphics Staff received the David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism–News at the AGU Fall Meeting Honors Ceremony, held on 5 December 2012 in San Francisco, Calif. Mufson and Vastag were honored for the article “For Virginia's fault zone, an event of rare magnitude,” published 23 August 2011 (online initially). The article covers the unusual 5.8 magnitude earthquake that shook up the Washington, D. C., region on that day, providing broad and insightful scientific perspective on the event immediately after it occurred . The Post Graphics Staff created an eye‐catching, colorful, and informative illustration that accompanied and enhanced the article. The Perlman award is for work published with a deadline pressure of 1 week or less.

Tales of quakes and consequences garner 2012 AGU journalism awards

When a court last month convicted seismologists of wrongdoing for how they characterized earthquake risk in the weeks preceding a deadly 2009 temblor in the city of L'Aquila, Italy, the verdict shocked scientists around the world. More than a year before that judgment came down, freelance reporter Stephen S. Hall had explored the legal case and its implications for scientists and for society in an article published in the 15 September 2011 issue of Nature. Because of the deep and compelling way in which Hall reported on the case, AGU in July chose Hall as the 2012 winner of the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism ‐ Features. Remarkable coverage of an earthquake also stood out for judges of the other of this year's AGU journalism honors: the 2012 David Perlman Award for Excellence in Journalism ‐ News. Also in July, AGU selected a team at The Washington Post, including two staff writers, Brian Vastag and Steven Mufson, and the Post's graphics staff, to receive the Perlman Award for their superb reporting on the unusual 5.8 magnitude earthquake that shook the Washington, D. C., region in August 2011.

Hybridität Journalistischer Kommunikationsarbeit: Dienstleister Im Mediengeschäft Und Das Entstehen Von Mehrfachbeschäftigungen

The aim of the paper is to analyse journalistic activity within the employment system in Germany. The research was done for dependent and independent employed journalists. Regarding the gender imbalance no remarkably differences were found between freelance journalists and staff writers. However, journalistic work shows considerable variations concerning the income and its distribution. Some journalists have an exceptionally high income whereas the income situation of others has to be considered as precarious. Therefore it is not surprising that between ten and twenty per cent of journalists have a second or even third job. Furthermore, the results show that there is no typical pattern of a journalistic occupation and its forms of employment, where the journalistic existence is split into free-lancing on the one side and staff writers on the other side. There is a diversity of forms, entities, thereby arranging ways in which creators of media appear.

“Harlem, New York! Harlem, Detroit! Harlem, Birmingham!”: Liberator Magazine and the Chronicling of Translocal Activism

THE LIBERATOR MAGAZINE (not to be confused with the well-known abolitionist newpaper published by William Lloyd Garrison) was on the cutting edge of radical print culture in the 1960s. It was formed in direct response to the assassination of Congolese prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, in 1961. Though a relatively small organ, it attracted important writers and readers from a broad political landscape stretching from anti-colonial struggles in Africa and Asia, to militant Civil Rights struggle in the US This radical black nationalist magazine lasted from 1961 to 1971, and the years between 1963 and 1967 were a period of significant growth for the publication. It can be said that these were Liberator’s peak years. Dan Watts’s generous editorial policy allowed the journal to attract a new cadre of staff writers such as Askia Toure and Larry Neal to bolster the magazine’s circulation of black radical perspectives, which supplemented the writings of Harold Cruse, Carlos Russell, Selma Sparks and others. This essay argues 1) that the Liberator served as a critical space of translocal political activity, and 2) that its language/political rhetoric functioned dialogically, that is: the way Liberator communicated was as important as the ideological positions it expressed. Its translocality was demonstrated through formal and informal distribution networks connecting local struggles in New York to those in Birmingham, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Accra, Ghana, expanding the circles of activism it grew out of and establishing new connections of its own. In this way, Liberator’s translocalism facilitated its transnationalism. In addition to the numerous articles of political, social and aesthetic commentary by activists and artists published during its tenyear life, Liberator also frequently opened its pages to readers and subscribers from around the countr y, expanding political debate beyond core activists and writers on its editorial staff. In this way, the magazine’s format and its welcoming publishing policy gave voice to and participated in the building of community networks of criticism and activism. The magazine allowed a consistent level of fluid, on-going communication. Readers were introduced to newsworthy events as well as cutting edge political and cultural analysis. Liberator was one of several important publications alongside Freedomways, Correspondence, and Negro Digest/Black World disseminating radical black thought in a political context dominated by American liberalism. Drawing on published and unpublished sources and interviews this essay offers the Liberator magazine as a critical example in the shaping of a radical print culture in the 1960s. Rather than focus explicitly on the magazine’s contents, I am concerned here with how the periodical served and reflected the interests of a translocal political community in multiple political and social contexts. Indeed, how the Liberator communicated was as important as what they communicated. In this sense, I think of the physical space of the urban communities in which this publication was circulated as interwoven with its strategic use of language, which shaped Liberator’s radicalism in important ways.

Constrained authors: Bylines and authorship in news reporting

The proliferation of bylines characterized the news as an imperfect, all too human account of reality, opening the way towards journalistic stardom, altering power relations within the news industry and shifting news organizations from a position behind the news to one behind the people who gather and compose it. Focusing on The New York Times as the chief case study and The Times of London as a supplementary one, findings show that the bylining process extended throughout the 20th century at a far slower pace than indicated in previous research. Bylining was a four-stage process: 1) initial avoidance of bylining, thereby fostering an anonymous, authoritative voice; 2) bylines promoting organizational goals only; 3) bylines accorded to a select few staff writers, leading to inconsistency in attribution policy; and 4) papers lose control over selective crediting due to journalists’ pressure for public acclaim. Using a multidisciplinary approach combining legal theory with the sociology and history of journalism, the article concludes that news reporters are constrained authors whose limitations are set chiefly by organizational, legal and commercial forces. These limitations not only delayed and slowed down their attribution but also continue to characterize their authorship to this day.

A review for a traditional Chinese medical journal Shou Shi Yi Bao

Shou Shi Yi Bao was a journal of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) during the period from 1935 to 1937, and was originated by Chen Huan-yun, a TCM physician in Suzhou. It is mainly to transmit the knowledge of TCM and to promote the epidemic prevention capacity of local public. The editorial characteristics and historical value of the journal were explored in initial background, staff writers, editorial policies, contents and the Editor Chen's medical ideas. Shou Shi Yi Bao was supported by many famous TCM physicians, although the journal was originated from the civil society. It was an academic TCM journal with perfect practicability for orientating to the public and highlighting the academic spirit. Chen Huan-yun was a resolute defender of TCM, and had many opinions on clinical practice and lots of scientific suggestions on TCM development. Shou Shi Yi Bao reflected the main characteristics of TCM journals in 1930s. The journal was one of the important documents to study the TCM history during the period of the Republic of China in Jiangsu Province, and it also set a stage for the struggle between TCM and Western medicine at that time. The documentary information of the journal has literature and history values in reflecting the historical process of TCM self-improvement. The success of the journal was due to not only the broken-up sectarian bias and cooperation of the TCM practitioners but also the preponderant geographic and cultural circumstances of Suzhou as well as Chen Huan-yun's profound knowledge in traditional Chinese culture and medicine.