Stanton’s local strategy: data and citizen participation

Russ Stanton is one of my favorite people. Imagine the stereotype of a reserved, slightly stuffy big-city editor and that's not Russ.The editor of the Los Angeles Times for the last 20 months, Stanton is uncommonly down to earth and available. But the main reason I like him is his public honesty. Stanton's default response is to tell the truth — something that doesn't come easily to most executives struggling to keep their enterprise alive. Asked earlier this year how many news staffers could be sustained if the Times went Web only, Stanton could have been forgiven for taking a……

Essay and a Woman’s Nation

I have just returned from the Los Angeles launch of A Woman's Nation –an ambitious project and a unique report on the status of American women which includes an essay I co authored with Stacy Smith, Ph.D. and Amy Granados entitled Sexy Socialization: Today's Media and the Next Generation of Women" . The Womens' Nation initiative is produced by California First Lady Maria Shriver with partners including the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the CCLP and the multifaceted report –including a comprehensive national poll–is known as, The Shriver Report…….

CCLP co-sponsors first national summit on arts journalism

"If a concert happens and no one writes about it, did it really happen?" asked Doug McLennan, co-director of the National Summit on Arts Journalism (NSAJ), a gathering co-sponsored by the Center on Communication Leadership & Policy (CCLP) at the USC Annenberg School for Communication. With over half of the nation's arts journalists unemployed, the summit explored the future of arts journalism by presenting ten innovative projects and two conversations about the evolving art and reinventing business of arts journalism. "Our aim here is not to tell you what's next for arts journalism, but to raise questions, highlight issues and……

Women in Communication Leadership

Step by Step. That's how we are launching a Center within a Center. Our focus is squarely on Women and Communication Leadership and creating a Center within CCLP for training and research. It is surely something needed as more and more women (and men) in the Communications Industry find themselves out of a job or forced to reinvent their skill set in this challenging and complicated economic time. Our goal is a robust training institute for women in Communication Leadership. But, first we needed a baseline look at the industry…….

The Etiquette of American Politics

South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson has been admonished for yelling “You lie” during President Obama’s health care speech, an outburst that startled many Americans and which others connected to this summer’s rowdy town hall behavior. However, in the United Kingdom the political process is routinely more raucous. Is American the land of polite politics… and is that changing? “There are differences in style between U.S. and U.K. political discourse,” says USC Annenberg communication professor and CCLP faculty fellow Tom Hollihan (pictured), author of Uncivil Wars: Political Campaigns in a Media Age…….

The United States of Optimism: Americans have always seen a remarkably sunny future for themselves and their country

The late 1830s and early '40s were a bad time in Missouri and most everyplace else in the U.S. People were broke and in debt after a boom in land speculation along the routes of new canals and railroads. In the bust that followed–what became known as the Panic of 1837–banks failed or cut off credit. One Missourian, a 36-year-old storekeeper and self-educated lawyer with a sick wife (a malaria epidemic had swept the Midwest) announced on a day in 1843 that he wanted to start over in the Oregon Territory: "I am done with this country," he said. "Winters……

Brokaw’s legacy: The Greatest Generation

Tom Brokaw anchored NBC's "Nightly News" for 21 years. He traveled the world, covered 9/11, interviewed heads of state and followed Ronald Reagan's political career from beginning to end. His legacy, he said Wednesday, will probably involve none of that. Brokaw told an audience at the Los Angeles Public Library that his "single greatest contribution" will probably be his bestselling book, "The Greatest Generation." He talked about how on the flight to Los Angeles, two flight attendants gave him handwritten notes telling him how much the book had meant to him, how it had made them see their fathers in……

LA Times editor

Journalists, accountants and bankruptcy experts found accord Thursday on the No. 1 issue facing Tribune Company as it begins its Chapter 11 bankruptcy adventure: It isn't owner Sam Zell. It isn't the company's huge indebtedness. The question, said Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton, is "whether this is a viable business." In one way, Stanton told a gathering at USC's Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, the answer is already clear. "I think big-city newspapers, the way we have known them, are not long for this world, as they're now configured."……