10 Reasons Santa is Like Your Professor

This has nothing to do with journalism but rather with perspectives of professors. Thanks to my bud in Hong Kong Nury Vittachi for this.

10 Reasons Santa is Like Your Professor

1) He has shaggy hair.

2) He has a beard.

3) He wears unfashionable clothes which make him look ridiculous.

4) He is fat.

5) You are expected to write to him, but he never writes back.

6) You can give him a list of things you want, but you have almost no chance of getting anything on it.

7) He lives in his own world, which seems entirely unconnected to real life.

8) He does around one day of actual work every year.

9) He is surrounded by practical people who do stuff that needs to be done on his behalf.

10) He seems to be several centuries out of date.

Looking for that local angle: Macy's and Rwanda

CBS News did a great story about how baskets woven by women in Rwanda are being sold in Macy's. The sales are allowing these women to rebuild their lives and their country after the brutal genocide of 10 years ago.

Discussion of local story ideas from the CBS story is at Journalism, Journalists and the World. (Sorry, just had to plug my blog.)

Story Idea: Want a globalization link? Look at the plug

Living overseas for the past 25 years has made me look carefully to be sure an item I buy in the States will work in another country. And vice-versa.

The cosmetic issue is the plug size and shape. They come in a wide variety but adapters are available for all.

The real issue is the voltage.

The U.S. system is 110-120 volts. Europe and many other countries use 220-240 volts. Plugging a U.S. item into a European power line can fry the device.

That is why converters were invented. And I have a large collection of converters from my 30 years of travel.

But in the last few years just about every electrical device I have purchased has been 100-240 volts. That means all I have to do is worry about is making sure the plug fits. And adapters are cheaper than converters.
How does all this relate to globalization?

Manufacturers are no longer building electrical products for JUST the U.S. or European or Asian markets. They are making their products easily available to the rest of the world.

A laptop purchases at Best Buy in Fairfax, Va., with a plug adapter can draw power from the grid in China, France or Brazil with ease.

Trust me, even 5 years ago that was not such an easy thing to assume.

And many manufacturers are now including adapter plugs with the unit. So no need to go out and buy one.

So if journalists are looking for a link between their individual lives and the rest of the world, look no further than the power ratings on the back of your computer and look at the plug.

Story ideas could include:

• What is safer, 110 or 220 volts?
• Why does the US use 110 volts?
• How this 100-240 volt availability makes travel and business easier.

And your idea?

More data on a trend we already know about

One point sticks out in this reprot form the Census Bureau: "Those who were least likely to own a computer in 2005 were the elderly, those in poverty and those without a high school diploma."

This is an important point to understand as more government entities move to providing services online. So please tell me, how do these groups participate in the government?

Homes With Cell Phones Nearly Double in First Half of Decade

The number of households with cell phones increased from 36 percent to 71 percent between 1998 and 2005, according to new data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. This corresponded with a decrease in households with telephone landlines, particularly households headed by young adults.

These figures are part of an in-depth look at the living standards of U.S. households using extended measures of well-being. The data were collected in 2005 as part of the ongoing Survey of Income and Program Participation. The survey is unique because it allows the user to track select quality of life measures over time using a variety of demographic characteristics.

"While income is generally regarded as the best single measure of one's living standard, it doesn't give us the whole picture," said Tiffany Julian, an analyst in the Census Bureau's Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division. "This survey is unique in that it includes additional measures of well-being that give us a broader look at household living conditions."

Householders who were 29 or younger went from 35 percent with cell phones in 1998 to 81 percent in 2005. Over the same period, this same group saw a decrease in ownership of landline phones from 93 percent to 71 percent.

Landline phone ownership fell from 96 percent to 91 percent overall from 1998 to 2005. In 2005, 98 percent of householders who were 65 and over had a landline telephone.

The number of households with a personal computer increased from 42 percent to 67 percent between 1998 and 2005. Those who were least likely to own a computer in 2005 were the elderly, those in poverty and those without a high school diploma.

Among the indicators in this survey that measure quality of life are possession of appliances and electronic goods, housing conditions, neighborhood conditions, public services and the ability to meet basic needs, such as paying bills, avoiding foreclosure and having sufficient food.

Some of the household characteristics in this survey include race, Hispanic origin, age, income, poverty status and type (e.g., family, nonfamily, married, nonmarried, etc.).

To determine who is in poverty, the Census Bureau uses a set of income thresholds that vary by family size and composition.

Other statistics:

• In 2005, 92 percent of householders felt their neighborhoods were safe; 96 percent were satisfied with public services such as fire and police protection.
• Eighty-six percent of households reported being able to keep up-to-date on overall essential expenses.
• Households that paid either rent or a mortgage were generally up to date on their payments -- 94 percent.
• Ninety percent of households responded that they were able to pay their utility bills.
• Households in poverty were more likely to have trouble paying bills; 35 percent had unmet bills.
• Among all households, 96 percent reported having a microwave oven.
• Ninety-five percent of households said they had no roof or ceiling leaks; 97 percent reported no broken windows.

Threatened in Iran, coverage continues from Toronto

Students might be interested to know what they are getting into if they go into overseas reporting.

Thanks to Jim Romenesko at the Poynter Institute for a great story about the professional and personal anguish reporters trying to cover Iran have had to go through.

Canada is becoming a safe haven for the world's exiled journalists

Find a story in international data

Transparency International just came out with the 2009 Corruption Index.

Now where, might you ask is there a story for student journalists in that?

Let's start with just the international community at a college campus. What are the reactions of the students from Country X about the ranking their home country got? What is their own perception of corruption in their country AND in the USA? What do they think should be done about the problem of corruption? What do they think are the main effects of corruption on their countries?

From there, start talking to professors from other lands. Professors who are studying the most corrupt countries on the list. Get them to talk about the hows and whys of the problem.

Boom! A local campus story with an international angle.

Now step outside the campus and talk to the local immigrant communities. Ask them the same questions you asked the foreign students.

Boom! Another local story with an international angle.

Go to New corruption index out for more discussion on this issue and a batch of links.

Racism and progress

One big issue in the world is racism and how to fight it.

I was amazed at the racism in the Dominican Republic. And I have known for some time the feelings of racial superiority by the Chinese. I saw how Shanghainese treated African exchange students. (Very humiliating.)

For Americans who have not had the overseas experience, this story (China's black pop idol exposes her nation's racism) and others like it could provide a good measure about racism and discrimination in our own country. We could look at how and why changes have occurred in the States. (After all it never hurts to challenge opinions and conventional wisdom.)

Another place to look for story ideas

For a long time I have loved the Census Bureau as a source for background info and ideas for stories. With the holidays coming up, there are plenty of stories possible from the data the Census Bureau has.

Here is a link to some basic information.

How a Denver station covered "Balloon Boy"

Al Tompkins at Poynter interviewed the news director at KUSA-TV, the station that broke the story about the 6-year old who supposedly climbed into the basket of a balloon just outside Denver.

From this interview it looks as if it took some real convincing to get the station to believe the "lost boy" in a balloon story was real.

KUSA-TV News Exec Explains Station's Balloon Boy Coverage

Money makes the world go 'round

Story ideas pop up in the strangest places.

Transparency International looked at 180 countries and came out with its latest report on corruption in the world.

Go to my blog to see a few choice comments and to get all the links to look over the 500 page document.

So how does this fit in with students and student journalists in the United States?

To begin with, the U.S. is no angel. We came in below Canada (#9) at #18. And seven other countries are less likely top pay bribes than the U.S.

But reporters could look at the cost of corruption and corrupt practices. The could look at:

• What rules and regulations are in place to prevent corruption in the bidding process to do business with the university.
• What local laws are on the books to prevent corruption in city, county and state purchases.
• Have there been any cases of corruption or questionable dealings in university or local government contracting.

A lot of this will require use of the freedom of information act. Good exercise for the students.

BTW, Chile (#23) was praised for enacting whistle-blower and freedom of information laws. The TI said these laws are a big help in fighting corruption.

How successful has the use of whistle blower or FOI laws been in finding corrupt practices?

Good hunting!

Getting data where you can

I just posted a story idea blog item on the DC SPJ web site. It's all about using the Census Bureau data to build good stories.

http://www.spjdc.org/node/13507

You might want to consider inviting a person from the Census Bureau to explain to your students how to really mine the Bureau's databases.

Deadline: A history

Publisher, scolding the editorial staff for the paper being late one day:

“Do you know where deadline comes from? It comes from prison. If the guards saw you cross the deadline, you were shot.”

Herdict: What is and isn't accessible

A while back Tom Crampton wrote about a website that tests accessibility of other web sites. The site, Herdict harnesses the reporting power of the entire Internet to see what sites are being blocked in what countries.

To no ones' surprise, I am sure, China and Iran lead the way.

For example, in the past week FACEBOOK received eight inaccessible reports. Five were from China.

YouTube had 15 inaccessible reports. Here China led with three of the reports, followed by Indonesia and the United States (2 each), Egypt, France, Israel, India, Morocco, Malaysia, Portugal and Tuvalu with one each.

Granted some of those reports may have been because of network glitches. But the overall pattern is that China leads the way with the most sites made inaccessible to Internet users.

If you are a traveler, you should think seriously about joining the Herdict herd. I regularly send in reports from Brazil (a very open place).

The more we know about how and where information is being denied, the more we can report on it. Download the browser add-in here.

The Mindset list is ready!

I love this list.

The Mindset List is a collection of the way the incoming freshman class of college sees things.

For example for the class of 2013:

• They have never used a card catalog to find a book.
• Tattoos have always been very chic and highly visible.
• Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream has always been a flavor choice.
• They have never had to “shake down” an oral thermometer.
• Condoms have always been advertised on television.
• They have always been able to read books on an electronic screen.
• “Womyn” and “waitperson” have always been in the dictionary.
• There has always been blue Jell-O.

For those of us who had to teach these students, it offers an insight into how they think and how they perceive the world.

Just think about how many times j-profs ask their students, "Who reads a newspaper every day?" Usually 90% of the hands go up.

Then when the question is changed to, "How many read a paper newspaper everyday? That is one that is not online?" Almost all the hands remain down.

Times and perceptions change. This list has always helped me better understand those changes.

BTW, the list goes back to the class of 2002. So you can look at how your 4th year students see things as easily as the 1st year students.

Story idea: Just how prepared are college campuses

This month is National Preparedness Month.

The whole is idea is to be ready for anything. And I wonder, as I looked over the NPM web page, "How well prepared are college campuses?"

I don't know.

Do you? Do your students?

Just think about how panicky the Washington area gets with just a few snowflakes. And the traditional run on milk and toilet paper. (I never understood why those two items. But every time a big snow presses down on DC, people stock up on milk and toilet paper.)

Searching for the story

A couple of years ago a student filed a story about the growing trend of hookah use. The story came from the assigned theme: "The World and your backdoor."

Of course I knew about Alice in Wonderland and Jefferson Airplane ("And a hookah smoking caterpillar..."). And -- as a child of the 60s -- the American version: The bong.

I discovered from my student's article there was a growing hookah scene in the DC area. This meant more than a bunch of kids getting together on a street corner or in a backyard smoking shisha in a hookah (as my sons did). There were hookah bars and a whole social network that went with it.

It was a well done story and I suggested she try to sell it to a local magazine. She never followed through on it.

THis week I received a copy of Fortune Small Business. One of the major stories was all about the hookah movement and how a few guys figured out how to make money in it.

The article looks at the building of the business as well as the growing trend among young people to go to hookah bars.

Maybe your students might want to look into this phenom in the GMU/Fairfax community.

Booming hooka biz links China, Iran, Egypt -- and Texas

Don’t Depend on Spell Check

Reuters carried a story today about how employers look at resumes: Here is my job resumay

Spelling errors on a resume can kill a chance for a job.

"The resume is an applicant's first chance to impress the hiring manager," said Kathryn Bolt, president of Accountemps' Canadian operations. "Mistakes on one's application materials may prompt employers to assume there also will be mistakes made on the job."

This reminded me of a small piece I wrote for one of my journalism classes when I saw that my students were not fully looking over their work for spelling errors. I told them one of the best ways to find mistakes is to take the time to read their article out loud.

"The ear," I said, "can catch an error the eye might miss."

Plus, I added, don't trust spell check alone. Correctly spelled words in the wrong place are just as bad as misspelled words. The Reuters' piece offers the following:

Common mistakes include: "Dear Sir or Madman", "I'm attacking my resume for you to review", "Following is a grief overview of my skills" and "Have a keen eye for derail."

And I offer my own contribution:

When ewe right, ewe should remember two double Czech you’re spelling. Spell check will knot catch awl miss takes.

As eye sit hear in my office reeding articles, eye one dear how many thymes I have scene speeling errors that should have been avoided.

Spell check a loan does knot prevent mistakes.

Sum times using the grammar Czech helps too identify some miss takes.

Butt knot awl of them.

There is nothing like reeding a story out loud. When ewe reed sum thing and here it, ewe can often sea wear the mistakes our.

Fighting trite writing everywhere

Good journalists try to avoid cliches. (Dare I say, like the plague?)

One of the good things about being a good journalist is that the solid writing skills developed in this business can translate into other areas.

Here is a good piece on resume writing -- 10 boring phrases you should cut from your resume -- from TechRepublic.

I especially like the graf: "Cliched forms of speech are crutches for the uncreative. And the frequency of their usage make them absolutely meaningless."

Good journalists -- good writers -- are not uncreative. So why should your resume not show you at your best?

Find the right internship

CNet has a great article about web sites that help students find the right internship.

Go here.

Different CUltures - Different ways to questions

I looked at the transcript of an interview session Pres. Obama had with Arab news organizations while in Egypt.

Take a look at how many of the reporters prefaced their questions:

• Q Well, thank you for your speech. I'm sure that the Palestinians are overwhelmed by some of the things that you have said regarding the Palestinian issue, specifically about the settlements.
  
• Q (As translated.) I think your speech was wonderful and more -- above and beyond everybody was expecting. And you have talked about the Middle East and the future of this region. You also spoke about the commitment of the United States towards achieving progress towards special issues. I also believe there are some difficulties. I might want to be much more precise.

• Q First of all, Mr. President, I want to congratulate you for a great speech.

  THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

  Q I believe that everybody in the region listened to it, including in my country.

Now to be clear, not ALL the reporters did this. And before anyone criticize the way the reporters from the area do their jobs, but it does show differences in how news is gathered and perceived in other countries.

Chinese plainsclothesmen block CNN

Getting facts right and dangers to journalism

Getting the story right means getting the facts right.

On his Wed. radio show Rush Limbaugh challenged Pres. Obama to a debate on his show. Among other things he wanted to discuss was: "let's talk about sending $900 million to Hamas."

WTF?

Yes, there is $900 million planned for Gaza. But let's go to the facts:

Reuters, Feb. 23: The money will be channeled through U.N. and other bodies and will not be distributed via the militant group Hamas (U.S. plans $900 million pledge for Gaza-official)

And please note that the word "official" in the headline does not refer to a Gaza official but to a State Dept. official who said the money was coming.

Limbaugh has always had a distant relationship with the truth when it got in the way of making a point. The problem is that how many of his followers will bother to check the facts? Already a handful of conservative blogs have cited this information as "fact."

For journalists, the problem also arises that too many people view what Limbaugh and other commentators do as journalism. They see no difference between the commentaries of Limbaugh and the news reporting of a street reporter.

And that lack of understanding the difference between commentary and reporting is perhaps the greatest threat to journalism.

Story Idea: More Hispanics on campuses

From the Census Bureau

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2009

e-mail: pio@census.gov

Hispanics Become More Prevalent on College Campuses

Hispanic students comprised 12 percent of full-time college students (both undergraduate and graduate students) in 2007, up from 10 percent in 2006, according to U.S. Census Bureau tables released today. Hispanics comprise 15 percent of the nation's total population.

School Enrollment in the United States: 2007 contains eight detailed tables based on statistics collected in the October School Enrollment Supplement to the Current Population Survey. The national-level data are shown by characteristics such as age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, family income, type of college, employment status and vocational course enrollment.

Women continue their majority status, comprising 55 percent of undergraduates and 60 percent of graduate students.

Other highlights:

• In 2007, 53 percent of Hispanic 4-year-olds were enrolled in nursery school, up from 43 percent in 1997 and 21 percent in 1987.
• In 2007, 27 percent of the population 3 or older were enrolled in classes -- from nursery school to graduate studies.
• More than half (59 percent) of all 4-year-olds and 39 percent of 3-year-olds were enrolled in nursery school.
• Students in grades one through 12 made up 64 percent of people 3 and older enrolled in school.
• Students 35 or older comprised 15 percent of people enrolled in college. They made up 7 percent of the full-time college students and 36 percent of those attending part time.

Editors note: The information can be accessed at http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/school.html.

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Pew Report: Newspapers Face Challenge

From the "DUH!" Files:

The Pew Trust completed its 2008 news media consumption survey. And surprise surprise, readership is down.

• 39% said they read a newspapers yesterday in the 2008 report. That compares to 43% in 2006.
• In 2008 14% said they read an online newspaper, in 2006 that rate was 9%.

"The balance between online and print readership changed substantially between 2006 and 2008. In 2008, online readers comprised more than a third of all newspaper readers; two years earlier, fewer than a quarter of newspaper readers viewed them on the Web. This is being driven by a substantial shift in how younger generations read newspapers."

Read the summary here
Read the full report here.

Fair Use or Rip Off

The New York Times had a good story Sunday on blog sites reprinting large portions of copyrighted material. Copyright Holders Challenge Sites That Excerpt.

This could be a good article for students to read to understand more about what stealing copyright material is all about.

Taking a graf or two as the lead in to a blog posting followed by a link to the whole story seems to still be in bounds of the "fair use" doctrine.

Maybe we, as j-profs and models for future journalists, should be talking more about this.

How to use data and make a story come alive

Earlier I commented on a story from Newsday about how a reporter took Census data on foreign born in the United States, put a human face to the data, and did a great story. (2007 census data compares immigrant groups on LI)

The New York Times did a story using the same basic information (Government Offers Look at Nation’s Immigrants) but does not do what Olivia Winslow did in her Newsday story.

Winslow went to the Census Bureau web site and got the information about Long Island.
The Times did nothing to localize the data

Winslow sought out a local immigrant (foreign born) to get her story as part of the larger Census story.
The New York Times only quoted some one from Brookings.

The bottom line is that the New York Times ran a story of statistics and sociology. Newsday ran a statistical story with a human face.

At the same time Newsday helped explain to its readers more about the immigrant communities in their neighborhoods. There is no sense of explanation in the Times article.

Okay, let's say The Times was writing for a national audience and Newsday for Long Island readers. A fair cop.

But, it is still The NEW YORK Times. Why was there no look at the numbers in the New York area? Or how about a look at other areas around the country.

In about 3 minutes I compared the foreign born and total populations of Illinois, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Virginia. I could take another 10 minutes and delve deep into the education, income and housing data for these states as well.

Maybe a national paper could do something like that and then tell us what it all means.

Because this is being posted first on the George Mason University j-prof group, let's look at Virginia.

In seven minutes I found the following items for the Old Dominion:

• General population (GP): 7.7 million
• Foreign born (FB): 794,000
• School enrollment at the graduate college level - GP: 28.7%; FB: 51%
• Less than high school diploma: GP: 14%; FB: 20%
• High school diploma or equivalent: GP: 27%; FB: 22%
• Bachelor's level of college achieved - GP: 20%; FB: 23%
• Commute to work on public transportation - GP: 4%; FB: 7%
• Speaks English less than well - GP: 5%; FB: 43%
• Median household income - GP: $59,000; FB: $66,000
• At poverty level - GP: 7.1%; FB: 7.8%
• Owner occupied home - GP: 69%; FB: 63%
• Rental - GP: 30%; FB: 37%
• Rent less than 30% of income - GP: 57%; FB: 51%
• Rent at or greater than 30% of income - GP:43; FB: 49%

And with another 5 minutes of work all this information can be obtained for Fairfax County.

So what does all this mean?

Quickly we can see that a higher percentage of foreign born use public transportation and pay more of their income to rent than the general population.

Are there political, economic and social issues to be addressed from this data?

You betcha!

For example, New York has a state-wide population of 19 million. The foreign born population is 4.2 million. A little more research

And just so you know, another 7 minutes and I had all that same data on New York.

So with 15 minutes of research I could easily draw comparisons between the general populations and foreign born in New York and Virginia.

Context becomes the big issue.

Why are foreign born doing better in Virginia than New York? Maybe it is who is moving into those areas.

Last year the largest single growing group of foreign born in Fairfax county were Indians. The largest single minority group (non-white) in Fairfax County are Asians, with Koreans as the largest nationality within that group.

And for Mason, what does this all mean?

Do the state, county and school all have to do something differently because of these numbers?

I don't know but I would like to know.

Story idea: How Newsday used census data

Excellent story by Olivia Winslow in today's Newsday on immigrant populations in the States. (2007 census data compares immigrant groups on LI)

Ms. Winslow used the just released Census Bureau data on immigrant groups as the basis for her story. She then went out and found someone to give a face to the data.

Proving once again -- and I don't know how many times I have made this point -- the Census Bureau has loads of great data that an enterprising reporter can use to develop a great story.

Winslow took the national data and then looked at the local data.

The nice thing is that the Census Bureau makes this kind of comparison -- national to local -- very easy. (Census Bureau Media Tool Kit.)

Also please notice, in the following press release from the Census Bureau Feb. 19 that the Bureau already compares the statistics of the foreign born with the native born.

Context!

And notice that nowhere in the press release, nor anywhere in the Census data, will you find any reference to a person's legal status in the United States. The Census Bureau does not get into that issue. As they will point out over and over, they are not a law enforcement agency. Their job is to gather data.

My only complaint about the Winslow article is that she could have included the links to the raw data in her online story. But I will bet that is the fault of the online editor and not the reporter.

Now tell me, how difficult would this story be to do in the DC area, especially with the large foreign-born populations we have? Too bad it has been done yet!


CENSUS BUREAU NEWS:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, THURSDAY, FEB. 19, 2009
Shelly Lowe
Public Information Office
e-mail: pio@census.gov

Census Bureau Data Show Characteristics of the U.S. Foreign-Born Population

According to a new analysis of data about the U.S. foreign-born population from the 2007 American Community Survey (ACS), a higher percentage of people born in India have a bachelors degree or higher (74 percent) than people born in any other foreign country. Egypt and Nigeria had rates above 60 percent.

Based on 2007 ACS data, these figures come from new detailedcharacteristic profiles on the foreign-born population people who were not U.S. citizens at birth available by country of birth.


Meanwhile, among the nations foreign-born, Somalis and Kenyans living in the United States are the most likely to be newcomers, and Somalis are among the youngest and poorest.

These new selected population profiles highlight the diversity among the many different foreign-born groups in the United States, said Elizabeth Grieco, chief of the Census Bureaus Immigration Statistics Staff. This diversity is due in part to the way the various communities were established, whether it be through labor migration, family reunification or refugee flows.

The new data reveal the diversity among the 38.1 million foreign-born living in theUnited States in 2007, not only by where they were born, but also by where they live now.

For example, about 80 percent of the nations population born in China are high school graduates. In the New York metropolitan area, about two-thirds of those born in China are high school graduates, while in the metro area of San Jose, Calif., the figure rises to 93 percent.

Other findings available for foreign-born populations of 65,000 or more in areas with a total population of 500,000 or more include the following:

Country of Birth
Mexico tops the country of birth list with more than 11.7 million people. The next highest countries by birth include China (1.9 million), the Philippines (1.7 million), India (1.5 million), El Salvador and Vietnam (both at 1.1 million), and Korea (1 million). Cuba, Canada and the Dominican Republic round out the top 10 countries of birth.

Educational Attainment
Foreign-born from several African nations are among the likeliest to have graduated from high school, specifically from countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and South Africa.

About 96 percent or more of theforeign-born age 25 and over from these nations are high school graduates.

Overall, about 85 percent of the total U.S. population, 68 percent of the U.S. foreign-born and 88 percent of the native-born are high school graduates.

About 27 percent of the foreign-born and about 28 percent of natives have bachelors degrees.

Household Income
Among the foreign-born, those from India, Australia, South Africa and the Philippines have the highest median household incomes. The median household income for U.S. residents born in India is $91,195. The foreign-born from Somalia and the Dominican Republic had some of the lowest median household incomes.

Median household income is $50,740 for the total population, $46,881 for the foreign-born population and $51,249 for the native population.

Age
Europe is the source of some of the oldest foreign-born. U.S. residents born in Hungary (64 years) and Italy (63.1) share the distinction, statistically, of having the oldest median ages. The foreign-born from Greece, Germany and Ireland also have median ages of about 60.

U.S. residents born in Somalia have the youngest median age (26.8).

Nationally, the median age for the total U.S. population is 36.7. The total foreign-born population has a median age of 40.2 and the total native population has a median age of 35.8.

Year of Entry

The foreign-born from Somalia and Kenya are the most likely to have entered the United States in 2000 or later. Nearly 60 percent are in this category.

Overall, about 28 percent of the nations foreign-born entered in 2000 or later, 29 percent between 1990 and 1999, and 43 percent entered the United States before 1990.

Employment and Occupations

Approximately 81 percent of the foreign-born age 16 and over from Nigeria and Kenya are in the labor force. Nationally, about 65 percent of the U.S. population in this age group are in the labor force, compared with about 67 percent of the foreign-born population and 64 percent of natives.

U.S. residents born in India have the highest percentage of civilian-employed people working in management, professional and related occupations (69 percent). These occupations employ about 36 percent of the native civilian-employed U.S. population and 27 percent of the foreign-born.

The foreign-born from Liberia and Haiti have the highest percentage of civilian-employed people working in service occupations (at 40 percent and 39 percent respectively, the differences are not statistically significant). About 16 percent of natives and 23 percent of the foreign-born civilian-employed populations are working in service occupations.

The foreign-born from Jordan (40 percent) and Bangladesh (36 percent) are among the most likely to work in sales and office occupations (the differences between the two are not statistically significant). Among natives, 27 percent work in sales and office occupations, compared with 18 percent among the foreign-born population.

English Language Ability
About 97 percent of the foreign-born population from Mexico and the Dominican Republic age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home. Those born in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Armenia, Honduras, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Ecuador also have high rates of speaking a language other than English.

People born in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador age 5 and over are most likely to speak English less than very well. More than 70 percent of the foreign-born population from these countries identified themselves in that category.

On average, 52 percent of the foreign-born population, 2 percent of the native population and 9 percent of the total U.S. population speak English less than very well.

Among people for whom poverty status is determined, about 51 percent of residents born in Somalia are living in poverty. About a quarter of the population born in Iraq, the Dominican Republic, Jordan and Mexico are also living in poverty.

On the low end of the poverty spectrum for the countries of birth, U.S. residents born in the Netherlands and Ireland each have a poverty rate of about 5 percent.

About 13 percent of both natives and the total U.S. population are living in poverty, while about 16 percent of the foreign-born are.

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The 2007 ACS estimates are based on a nationwide sample of about 250,000 addresses per month. In addition, approximately 20,000 group quarters across the United States were sampled, comprising approximately 200,000 residents. Geographic areas for which one-year data are available are based on total populations of 65,000 or more.

As part of the Census Bureaus re-engineered 2010 Census, the data collected by the ACS helps federal officials determine where to distribute more than $300 billion to state and local governments each year. Responses to the survey are strictly confidential and protected by law.

As is the case with all surveys, statistics from sample surveys are subject to sampling and nonsampling error. All comparisons made in the reports have been tested and found to be statistically significant at the 90 percent confidence level, unless otherwise noted. Please consult the data tables for specific margins of error. For more information go to http://www.census.gov/acs/www/UseData/index.htm
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Editor's note: News releases, reports and data tables are available on the Census Bureaus homepage.
Go to http://www.census.gov and click on Releases.

NewsVision Conference March 30 at Newseum

Registration has opened for the first NewsVision conference. The day-long symposium will look at how the news business is changing.

Organized by the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, the conference is sponsored by The Newspaper Guild-CWA and the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, in partnership with the Online News Association. The March 30, 2009 event will be held at the Knight Conference Center at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

$75 registration fee covers access to the panel discussions and lunch and snacks by Wolfgang Puck.
Register by March 6 and save 10 bucks.

Social Networking: Hazards and Opportunities -- WAMU/Kojo

Last Tuesday (2/17) WAMU had a good discussion on the Kojo Nnambi Show about the ups and downs of journalists using social networks such as Facebook.

Guests included Amada Lenhart, Senior Research Specialist, Pew Internet and American Life Project; (friend of the SPJ) Alicia Shepard, NPR Ombudsman; Nancy Flynn, Executive Director, The ePolicy Institute, and Saqib Ali, member, Maryland House of Delegates.

Click here to hear the segment.
 

Fewer US bureaus in DC - More foreign bureaus.

The New Washington Press Corps, a special report from Project for Excellence in Journalism has an interesting article about how US media outlets are reducing their presence in Washington but foreign news media are increasing.

Maybe the foreign press understand something about covering another country -- or even this on -- that the American media are missing.

Mexican Journalist Gutiérrez Released by U.S. Immigration Pending Hearing

Good news from the border.

Emilio Guitierrez Soto was released from a U.S.immigration jail pending an immigration hearing.

Guitierrez, a journalist in northern Mexico, requested asylum in the United States after he was threatened not only by the drug cartels that seem to be running that part of the country but also by the Mexican army, which was sent in to clean out the cartels.

As a journalism professor, we must never forget to explain to our students how important it is to have a free press. And that many people in our profession are threatened and killed because all they do is report the news.

Overseas Press Club of America statement

Fairfax Co. Tweets -- Easier to follow

The McClean Connection ran a story yesterday (2/11) about how Fairfax co. now uses Twitter to get news out quickly: Fairfax County is All Atwitter.

Interesting use by a government to get info out quickly.

I wonder, how many of the 31 followers are journalists covering the Fairfax beat?

Update:
Guess I should have looked at the followers at the Fairfax site.

The Connection has it backwards. The county is following 31 people -- all media types. The county has 134 followers. And from the looks of the list, the followers range from other governments to media to average citizens.

Standing out from the crowd: Looking at corporation HQs in area

Saw a news item that Hilton is moving its corporate headquarters to Fairfax County.

First, I hope it does not mean Paris will be visiting often to get her allowance.

More importantly, what can we see from this move?

1. At at time of economic trouble, this move means a new corporate taxpayer 
2. It means more taxpayers moving into the area.
3. It also represents another international company operating in Fairfax County.

It is this last point that I want to talk about.

Hilton, like other international hotel companies has a staff drawn from around the world. New hotel managers are cycled in and out of corporate headquarters for training. New corporate managers are moved in and out depending on the global needs of the company.

This cycling of people from around the world in and out of the headquarters is not unique to Hilton nor to the hotel industry.

I would bet Fairfax County -- and the greater DC metro area -- get loads of temporary international visitors passing through the other international corporate headquarters.

I wonder how well local journalists understand how much these international corporate activities affect the local area.

• Are there changes in restaurants?
• How about grocery stores?
• Dry goods? (For example, where does a traditional Indian woman buy a good sari in the DC area?)

Maybe student journalists should be looking at these local issues. And maybe they should be looking at how international headquarters of major corporations affect their school.

• What kind of relationship does the university have with the large companies? If they don't have one, why not?
• Does the presence of international corporations affect the composition of the student body?
• Do the incentives offered by the state and local governments to get these international companies to locate in the area affect funds available for education (higher and otherwise)?

To be honest, I don't see a lot of mainstream media reports on these issues. Maybe student journalists looking to stand out from the crowd of other graduating student journalists entering an ever-tightening market could look at these stories and see what others don't.

And I will bet -- in fact I am sure -- there are quite a few other story ideas based on what I presented that I have not figured out.

Murder your darlings: The best way to write

"I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English--it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them--then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice."

--Mark Twain (1835-1910), who knew his words (Letter to D. W. Bowser, 3/20/1880)

Using Digg to promote a publication chain?

Many thanks for Jim Romensko at Poynter for bringing up a discussion on how Village Voice Media may be using DIGG to improve its place on the Internet.

Here is Jim's column.

Here is the original article Romensko links to: How Village Voice Media Uses Digg to Game Their Traffic Numbers.

An interesting read and analysis on how one can use DIGG to drive attention to a site.

Explaining things so people can understand what is going on

Too many times, especially when dealing with technology, some of the writers in television and newspapers forget that not everyone is a 20-year old geek.

The following is as much about making sure the message is understood as it is about trying to learn a new technology.

That troublesome idea of fact checking...

NPR Ombudsman Alicia C. Shepard has a great piece on some issues that can arise from using social network sites for stories and NOT doing enough fact checking before going to air/print.

What about Chuck and his sister?

Census: Foreign-Born Exceed the Native-Born in Advanced Degrees

The following reports was released by the Census Bureau Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009. It got me thinking about what the situation was in the universities in the Washington area.

Foreign-Born Exceed the Native-Born in Advanced Degrees

A larger percentage of foreign-born than native-born residents had a master's degree or higher in 2007, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Nationally, 11 percent of foreign-born -- people from another country now living in the United States -- and 10 percent of U.S.-born residents had an advanced degree.

These statistics come from Educational Attainment in the United States: 2007 a report that describes the degree or level of school completed by adults 25 and older.

In the West, the percentage of foreign-born who had completed at least a bachelor's degree or higher was less than the percentage of the native-born (24 percent compared with 31 percent). Among the foreign-born, those living in the Northeast had the highest percentage of bachelor's degrees or more (32 percent), which was the same as their native-born counterparts. The foreign-born in the South (26 percent) and Midwest (31 percent) were more likely than native-born residents to have at least a college degree (25 percent and 26 percent, respectively).

Across all regions, a smaller percentage of foreign-born than native-born adults had completed at least a high school education.

This is the first Census Bureau report on educational attainment to use data from both the Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey. Combining these two data sets not only provides a state-by state comparison of educational attainment, it allows an examination of historical trends.

Other highlights from the report include:

-- 84 percent of adults 25 and older had completed high school, while 27 percent had obtained at least a bachelor's degree in 2007.

-- A larger proportion of women (85 percent) than men (84 percent) had completed high school, but a larger proportion of men had earned a bachelor's degree (28 percent compared with 27 percent).

-- The percentage of high school graduates was highest in the Midwest (87 percent), and the percentage of college graduates was highest in the Northeast (32 percent).

-- Men earned more than women at each level of educational attainment. The percentage of female-to-male earnings among year-round, full-time workers 25 and older was 77 percent.

-- Workers with a bachelor's degree on average earned about$20,000 more a year ($46,805) than workers with a high school diploma ($26,894). Compared with non-Hispanic whites and Asians, black and Hispanic workers earned less at all attainment levels.

__________________________________________________________________

Editor’s note: The report can be accessed at < http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p20-560.pdf>.

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The data in this report are from the 2007 American Community Survey (ACS) and the Current Population Survey (CPS) from 2008 and earlier. Statistics from surveys are subject to sampling and nonsampling error. For more information on the source of the data and accuracy of the estimates, including standard errors and confidence intervals, see Appendix G at < http://www.census.gov/apsd/techdoc/cps/cpsmar08.pdf> [PDF].

Note: See <www.census.gov/acs/www/Downloads/ACS/accuracy2007.pdf> for further information on the accuracy of the 2007 American Community Survey data.

Ethics and editing

Al Tompkins at the Poynter Institute has a great lede article on the ethics of editing and what the BBC did with Pres. Obama's inagural address.

BBC's Edit of Obama's Inauguration Speech Raises Important Ethical Questions

The BBC's Newsnight show recently opened with what seemed like a single soundbite from President Barack Obama's inauguration speech. As it turns out, though, the BBC used three different parts of the inauguration speech and edited them together to create the soundbite. In listening to the audio, it's not clear that it had been edited.

Rest of blog filing.

After looking over the article and the BBC story in question, what do you think?

A wired or tired White House?

Wired magazine has an interesting article that looks at the "high" tech in the White House.

Gadget Lab

One interesting thing is that the White House still uses Windows XP!

Changes in application of Freedom of Information Act

One of Pres. Obama's first acts as president was to order federal agencies to approach requests under the Freedom of Information Act "with a clear presumption" in the face of doubt, openess prevails."

Memo on FOIA

Obama also issued an executive order changing the Bush Administration policies on the Presidential Records Act.

And issued a memo establishing a policy on transparency.

Electronic Frontier Foundation report on open government.

Story idea/angle: Drop in web browsing for Obama inauguration

MerchantCircle, host for small business web sites say a dramatic drop in web activity right around noon Jan. 20. Then activity returned to normal.

CNet's Rafe Needleman looks at the situation.



And did you wonder how busy the social networks -- Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. --- were?

Here is another CNET report: Inauguration Day By the Numbers.

200th Anniversaries

This has nothing to do with journalism but some good stories might come out of this.

What a year.

This is the 200th Anniversary of a poet who changed literature, a scientist who changed how we look at life and a politician who saved the Union.

The poet: Edgar Allen Poe, Born: January 19, 1809
The Scientist: Charles Darwin, Born February 12, 1809
The Politician: Abraham Lincoln, Born February 12, 1809

Google Notebook replacements

The use of online notebooks has been a great help in making sure everyone in your group/class gets the same information at the same time. Google Notebook was good but now it seems the Mountain View gang is ending it.

Josh Lowensohn at C-Net looks at some alternatives.

Worthy Replacements
Josh Lowensohn

With Thursday's news that Google is discontinuing development on its Notebook service, it may leave a few people looking for a viable replacement. The good news is that there are a handful of really solid products that do the same thing, and in some cases--do it better. Here's a list of seven of our favorites, in no particular order.

Rest of story