A Growing Threat to Journalism: Cyber Attacks

Hackers have been at the center of attacks against journalists

By Dalton Barker

Low pay. Long hours. Dwindling numbers of jobs. All are seen as the biggest threats to 21st century journalists. But the transition from print to digital might pose a larger threat than initially realized for some journalists.

Recent attacks, allegedly sanctioned by the Chinese government, against the Washington Post and New York Times has raised concerns not only on the corporate front, but with individual journalists.

According to a recent study by the Committee to Protect Journalists, cyber attacks against journalists have risen because it's less expensive to target individual journalists instead of better protected companies.  From personal computers to online storage devices, journalists are now more at risk from cheaply-hired hackers.

EVENT ALERT: Seeing Double

Updated Feb. 21, 2013

We watch television as we check our laptops, phones and tablets. How can journalists harness this hyper-connected audience? Join ONA Mizzou at 5 p.m. on February 28 to hear Futures Lab director Mike McKean discuss the second screen experience. Room is TBA.

Note: This event has been rescheduled from its original time.

Journalism courses going digital: Can journalism schools really do the same?

By Anna Burkart

Maybe classrooms will be more empty due to online courses
gain popularity, but j-school newsrooms probably won't
be empty anytime soon.

The classrooms are empty with no students to be seen. Everyone is turning in their reporting assignments online and professors are judging students’ reporting abilities without ever meeting them. Could this be journalism schools of the future? The empty classroom image is certainly making its way around sites like Nieman Journalism Lab and PBS Media Shift in the discussion about free online journalism courses.

This past December, the University of Texas’ Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas held it’s first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). It attracted more than 2,000 students from around the world looking for a free “Introduction to Infographics and Data Visualization” course. With online courses growing in popularity, the question becomes: Will online journalism degrees be the norm someday soon?

Is that story journalism or advertising?: Sponsored content's blurry status

By Laura Davison

Journalists have plenty of new things to tackle these days: Facebook Graph, Quora’s new blogging platform and keeping their online presence looking as spiffy as the New Republic’s.

And the never-ending to do list keeps growing: what’s the deal with sponsored content? Or you might have heard it referred to as one of its many other names— content marketing, native advertising or paid content. As Mashable outlines, the jury’s still out on what term the industry will adopt.

No matter the name, the idea is brands, instead of placing display ads online, create multimedia content with the help of the an editorial member of a news organization. This content has the look and feel of the other content on the site, except for some designation marking it as sponsored. News organizations get paid to create this content and advertisers have a more dynamic platform to share their brand.

Financially, it looks like a win for both. The desire for native advertising is being driven by two forces: the need for additional sources of revenue and the way users interact with advertising online has changed greatly in the past decade. Online banner advertising had a click-through rate of 9 percent in 2000, according to Mashable. Last year it was 0.2 percent. Zero point two. When you’re getting paid by the click, that just doesn’t cut it.

A screenshot of the Scientology sponsored post in the Atlantic

It’s no surprise that news organizations have looked to sponsored content, which is more engaging and less advertisement-y, as a potential source of revenue. Big outlets like NBC Digital, Forbes, Buzzfeed and most recently, the Atlantic, are all among organizations experimenting with it.

But some journalists have ethical concerns about content that looks so similar to the journalism also on the site. Earlier this month, the Atlantic ran a sponsored post for the Church of Scientology. Readers were confused and upset by the content, which was a piece praising Scientology’s recent accomplishments. Users were allowed to comment and negative ads were suppressed. It’s since been taken down, but you can still see a pdf of the post. Only a small yellow tab at the beginning of the story noted that it was an advertorial. The Atlantic admitted that, “They screwed up.”

Letters Home: Chris Mycoskie

The following letter was submitted Aug. 20, 2012

Chris Mycoskie, right, is the Southland Conference's
assistant commissioner for television and electronic
media. He attended the University of Missouri in the
late 1990s.

Dear Young Tigers,

I’m honestly surprised that I’ve been asked to participate in this letters home project. First of all, I’m not a graduate of the University of Missouri, much less the Missouri School of Journalism. I’ve been told, though, that I’m an honorary member of the Mizzou Mafia, and I’m proud to call myself a Tiger.

One of the main reasons I chose Missouri was the existence of KOMU. While some
people told me I’d need to wait until my junior year (after being accepted into the
broadcast sequence) to do anything there, I didn’t listen. I drove out to the building
on Highway 63 during my first week on campus and wound up being there nearly
every day after that until I left school.