eChaser: December 2009 / p2

SPJ national update: The White House, media representatives and key senators reached a compromise on legislation to protect reporters from being forced to disclose their sources in federal court. Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a member of the media team involved in the negotiations, called the bill “a compromise we can live with, and it seems to be a compromise the White House can live with.” Here’s the text of the bill. More here and here and here and here. ... Newspaper circulation may be worse than it looks. ... Newspapers aren’t doing as badly as you think. ... New study points to healthy newspaper readership.

SPJ national update II: If Harry Cabluck’s not safe, no one at the AP is. ... USA Today tests free e-editions at colleges. ... No puff piece here. The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws. Fourteen states allow marijuana for medical purposes; Texas does not. More here and here. And when the Denver alt paper Westword posted an ad for a reviewer of the state’s marijuana dispensaries, it quickly received more than 120 applicants, many offering to work for free. More here. ... Worried about pointless tweets, Australia’s Griffith University made Twitter education part of the mandatory journalism course load. Reasoned a senior lecturer: “Some students’ tweets are not as in-depth as you might like.” More here. ... Why journalists are uneasy talking about Twitter as journalism.

SPJ national update III: YouTube launches citizen journalism channel. ... ”Canada is becoming a safe haven for the world’s exiled journalists.” ... Cook County prosecutors said Nov. 10 that Northwestern University j-students paid two witnesses in order to make their case that an innocent man was wrongly convicted of murder. The students’ professor, David Protess, said the state’s court filing “is so filled with factual errors that if my students had done this kind of reporting and investigating, I would give them an F.” Anthony McKinney is serving a life sentence for the 1978 murder of a security guard, but the students have presented evidence, including interviews with witnesses, suggesting that several other men committed the crime. More here and here and here. ... The major business press underplayed s story that the FDIC’s troubled-banks list soared to more than 550 in the third quarter. The FDIC now considers 7 percent of all banks in the U.S. “troubled,” and the number’s growing — up 33 percent from the second quarter. More here.

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PEOPLE & PLACES

Tonie Auer is the reporter for the Fort Worth-Dallas issue of Bisnow.com. Send commercial real estate news to her at tonie@bisnow.com. ...

SPJ member and tireless community entrepreneur Tammy Jones is looking for a few good angels. For a dozen years her site singlerose.com (“The Premier Online Resource for Single Moms”) has matched donors with single mothers and their children who could use a little help. More than 100 families are in the program this year, and some, she says, are in serious need. All Your Heart Ministries in Kennedale got the spirit last month and held a toy run benefiting Single Rose (and the Kennedale Fire Department Angel Tree). Want to help? Here’s how. ...

GCG Marketing received a top honor at the 2009 Medical Marketing & Media Awards for an awareness campaign for the Children’s Neuroblastoma Cancer Foundation. Earlier this year, the campaign, punctuated with photos by Fort Worth’s Geno Loro Jr., received a Manny award from Med Ad News and a district ADDY from the American Advertising Federation. Medical Marketing & Media magazine recognized GCG as one of the nation’s best 75 health care marketing agencies. ...