Observer » Jacques Steinberg

Times’ Jacques Steinberg Leaves Media Desk for Education Beat

John Koblin — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:01:58 -0400

The New York Times' Jacques Steinberg is leaving the TV beat for the paper's national desk, where he'll cover education. He'll be doing digital stuff, and will run a blog called The Choice.

The paper's TV beat is strong enough to sustain the loss—wunderkind Brian Stelter can easily take up his duties along with the paper's longtime TV maven, Bill Carter—and the paper's education beat can really use the help.

Last October, at The Times' state of the newsroom get-together, Throw Stuff at Bill, Mr. Keller admitted, "When we went through that excruciating exercise to figure out how to lose 100 jobs in the newsroom, we decided we could come down a little bit on the education department." It rankled one staffer, who wondered why the education department had been essentially wiped away, but Mr. Keller reminded her that it's still a priority for two desks—national and Metro.

Since he'll be doing a primarily digital gig now, his announcement memo is written by national editor Suzanne Daley and digital editor Jon Landman.

Here it is:

For almost 20 years, Jacques Steinberg has brought his innate curiosity and limitless enthusiasm to a variety of beats -- from Westchester County, to education, to newspapers. In his six years covering television, he has had encounters with luminaries like Dan Rather, Don Imus and the entire cast of "The View." He wrote about "Mad Men" before anyone knew how hot it would become.

Now, Jacques is taking on a new challenge. He is joining the National Desk’s education team and will be the anchor of a blog about college admissions called The Choice.

As a former education reporter and the author of a book about the admissions process at Wesleyan University called "The Gatekeepers,"

Jacques is uniquely qualified to lead this enterprise. He hopes to create a site that prospective college students and their parents will turn to regularly for information and advice about applying to college and finding the money to pay for it.

He’ll be getting a lot of help from others who cover higher education, including Tamar Lewin of the National Desk, Lisa Foderaro of the Metro Desk, and Jane Karr, editor of Education Life.

The Choice officially launches on Monday (March 30), to capture the moment when high school seniors are receiving their acceptance letters and struggling to decide which school to go to.

And Jacques is asking for your help. If you’re at any stage of this process -- starting a college savings fund; mapping out a summer college tour for your high school junior; dealing with the prospect of your triplets leaving the nest -- please let him know at [redacted]. We’re hoping some staff members could be coaxed into telling parts of their stories to a wider audience.

Suzanne Daley and Jonathan Landman

Everything's Coming Up Fowler: Mayhill's Big Weekend

Matt Haber — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:54:36 -0400

Who was the big media star of the weekend? The Huffington Post's citizen journalist extraordinaire Mayhill Fowler, of course! After her rope line "interview" with Bill Clinton made headlines, Ms. Fowler has found herself at the center of a journalistic ethics-new-new-new media kerfuffle.

Here's a snapshot of Ms. Fowler's big weekend (as compiled with the help of the redoubtable Jim Romenesko):

Saturday: The Los Angeles Times' James Rainey profiled Ms. Fowler calling her a "61-year-old self-described 'failed writer' and amateur Web journalist helped create two of the most unexpected moments in the 2008 election." (Media Mob previously noted this piece here.)

Sunday: The New York Times' Jacques Steinberg wrote an "Ideas and Trends" column for the Week in Review in which he quotes Newsweek's Jonathan Alter say Ms. Fowler's antics "makes it very difficult for the rest of us to do our jobs... If you don’t have trust, you don’t get good stories. If someone comes along and uses deception to shatter that trust, she has hurt the very cause of a free flow of public information that she claims she wants to assist." Mr. Steinberg also quotes producer-turned-blogger Jan Hamsher saying, “It’s hurting America that journalists consider their first loyalty to be to their subjects, and not to the people they’re reporting for." (Old Media vs. New, round 400: This time it's personal!)

The Independent calls Ms. Fowler "a poster girl for this new era of political journalism" and notes her "soft, musing style that has won her numerous followers... she blurred a line that many in traditional US journalism have been ferociously trying to hold, against all the odds – namely the line between objective reporter and a partisan."

Today: The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz weighs in with his column: "Fowler is part of a new breed -- citizen journalist, liberal advocate, agent provocateur."

Tomorrow: Book deal? Daily Show with Jon Stewart interview? MSNBC show? Tune in and see.

Times Asks if Howie Kurtz Was Unethical

John Koblin — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:58:24 -0400

Jacques Steinberg at The Times poses a question: Did Howie Kurtz do anything wrong when he brought a client of his wife's onto his show? Kurtz's wife, Sheri Annis, did PR work for Kimberly Dozier's memoir, Breathing the Fire, which was the centerpiece of an interview Dozier had with Kurtz on his CNN show, Reliable Sources. Kurtz made a brief disclosure at the end of the show, but even so, is it kosher?

Steinberg finds some Poynter hand-wringers to say no, though even their criticism is sort of tepid:

"CNN has a lot of great journalists there," said Thomas Huang, an ethics and diversity fellow at the Poynter Institute. "Why have Howard Kurtz do it, given his indirect relationship with Kim Dozier through his wife?"

Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at Poynter, said, "The interview would have had more credibility if somebody else had done it."

That's pretty mild finger-wagging. Kurtz and CNN explained that they discussed it before the show aired, and agreed if a disclosure was made, all was fine. So he did. It's a bit stinky, yes, but there's a reason it, as the Times headline states, "raises ethichal questions" and does no more than that.

Rosie Txts Jacques: “2day there is no deal” With MSNBC

Tom McGeveran — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:52:03 -0400

Jacques Steinberg had a nice bit of news in an otherwise unrewarding piece on cable network MSNBC the other day: Rosie O'Donnell was close to a deal to host a show on the network.

Then, last night at 7:06 p.m., O'Donnell posted the following to her blog:

msnbc
one hour
live
following keith olbermann

we were close to a deal
almost done
i let it slip in miami
causing panic on the studio end

well
what can u do

2day there is no deal
poof
my career as a pundit is over
b4 it began

just as well
i figure
everything happens for a reason
bashert - as we say

and on we go

Regular readers of her blog might know whether the comedian writes in blank verse or txt msg. But the big news organizations quickly had to pick up the thread of the story. Broadcasting & Cable followed Rosie with the news three and a half hours later, using only the blog entry to back the story that the deal was dead;
Jacques Steinberg quickly picked up the thread, and a half an hour later attributed the news to an NBC executive:

The NBC executive, who would only describe the negotiations on condition of anonymity, said a principal hurdle had been the length of a potential contract. To preserve her options, Ms. O’Donnell would only commit to a year, just as she had last year on “The View,” the executive said. But the network wanted a commitment of at least two years, so that it could take better advantage of the higher rates it anticipated charging advertisers on her program.

A publicist for Ms. O’Donnell, Cindi Berger, did not respond to telephone and e-mail messages sent late last night.