Carr noticeably delves into the topic at hand, highlighting some of the caveats associated with this specific type of business venture. It appears that the article is well-geared towards our class, as a significant portion of our curriculum has focused on the untimely (and equally unpleasant) upheaval in the respective industry. I attribute our understanding of the topics at hand, the subject of the article and the underlying issue, to our class interactions. Those that have not been as well informed may find Carr’s article on emerging niche media to be equally niche-directed.

Carr’s subtle bias is evident elsewhere in his coverage, particularly in his casual neglect to remotely chastize the publication’s decision to not even mention the heinously tragic occurrence. At times, the article feels reminiscent of a fan letter, perhaps even a call to arms. He is undoubtedly familiar with the changing face of journalism, and likely holds his own beliefs regarding its sustainable future. Perhaps an article exemplifying new practices to test the waters?

I don’t know that David Carr includes enough background in the story, but he does have a lot of quotes. Even so, the article is not well rounded, because it only describes the Texas Tribune, rather than bringing up other examples of similar start-ups.

Leaving out the first paragraph about Fort Hood, I think that this article is almost a type of press release for a web site. Carr could have included other people’s opinions, other than the ones that worked in the Texas Tribune. Yes, there is a bias in Carr’s reporting in this piece.

However on August 28, 2005 a far more devastating act would occur in New Orleans which from now until forever will stay woven in its history. On that day the city of New Orleans was hit by Hurricane Katrina. At the time Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans it was considered a category 4 Hurricane.

What makes the events of that day more dreadful are the days that followed when the American government ignored the situation and acted like the city of New Orleans was a third world country.

On August 26, 2006 director Spike Lee’s film “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” premiered on HBO. The documentary showcased what happened during and after the impact of Hurricane Katrina. The film features interviews by journalist Soledad O’Brian, Kayne West, Reverend Al Sharpton, and the Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin.

The film shows the lives of many people who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. People who had lost everything they ever owned… gone. Not only were they victimized by the hurricane, but they were also victimized by their own government TWICE. The first time occurred when President Bush and his administration seemed to completely ignore the crisis occurring in New Orleans. When the Bush administration finally decided to take action that is when the people became victimized once more. When the people of New Orleans were beginning to be reorganized they stopped being known as the people of New Orleans to “refugees”. This point is showcased well within the film. When they were being called “refugees” many of the people showcased in the filmed described how they felt that they had lost their American citizenship and became runaways from a foreign country. They were losing their American identities.

Even though this terrible event happened to them many people in the documentary who were in New Orleans said that they plan to stay there until their deaths, and many people who were relocated after Hurricane Katrina said they planed to return because they were born there and their family roots were there. Being from New Orleans will be with them forever and that is the way they want it to stay.

Spike Lee’s film not only showed the destruction left by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, but it also showed the strength of its people.

Carr sort of captures both sides of the problem, both for and against the type of reporting that the Texas Tribune uses. Even though he uses a lot of quotes from the side that favors the Tribune’s style, he still mentions that nobody he spoke to would say anything on the record about the “gaps in reporting.” However, he could have asked other questions dealing with the negative aspects of the style. He also doesn’t mention this until the end of his article, after he has painted the Tribune’s style as a revolutionary form of journalism in which so many people put in hard work and effort. For this, there is a bias in the story as well as unfair coverage. Carr does not capture the different sides of the problem as well as he could have, making it hard for the reader to provide background for this story.

The coverage of this trend doesn’t seem to be too fair since Carr’s main focus is the Texas Tribune and he fails to offer any other media outlets that may be partaking in a similar form of news coverage. There is not enough context to the story since he uses only the Texas Tribune as his example, and gets his quotes only from those who support this new niche.

There is bias reporting in this story because the article seems to work in favor of the way the Texas Tribune is handling their coverage. Perhaps a quote from someone who hoped to read about the Fort Hood Massacre in this newspaper or who disagrees with its narrow focus would be ideal, instead of Carr saying that reporters who do not support it declined to say anything on record.

Carr shows bias in his coverage in that his article is formulated around quotes spoken by individuals who are clearly favorable towards this trend. While this may not have been intentional, it clearly seems to me that it is biased in that way.

After reading the article, I was confused about why Carr did not include more examples, other than the Tribune, if it is indeed a trend in journalism. Nonetheless, I felt that the article, aside from this flaw, provided enough background information regarding the Tribune.

Drawing on what recently transpired at Fort Hood, Carr provides the reader with an accessible context for the situation at hand.  However, this story as a backdrop sheds niche media in a negative light.  Carr writes:  “And as a niche site with a very narrow focus, it can’t afford to change its spots just because a national event erupts 90 minutes away.” 

“Can’t afford”?  What about “has no need”?  Niche media need not and should not “change its spots.”  That would make the same point in more positive terms.  But Carr does not take this stance.

Later, Carr writes, “The Tribune has yet to find a voice that makes state politics seem more like, say, the Oscars, but these are early days.”  This is clearly a statement of opinion.  Might not some seek political news presented as politics?  The niche audience demanding this niche media probably is not the crowd that needs politics to be portrayed like the Oscars.

The main problem I found with Carr’s article was that he analyzed the niche media in terms of mass media.  He could not grant niche media an independant life, an identity of its own.  This translated into a seeming pervading bias against the way niche media like The Texas Tribune operate, but I would say it was less a matter of bias, and more an indication a certain incomprehension of what niche media truly is.

The success of any news publication in their reporting and dissemination of news is contingent on their reliability, depth and breadth of coverage. So, it follows that when a newspaper is forced to cut its staff it is probably also sacrificing some of its “reporting horsepower,” to borrow Carr’s term.

Enter The Texas Tribune, The Gotham Gazette, and the growing force of highly focused boutique media companies using the internet as a medium to get the news out. To many, these sites are the forerunners of the future of journalism. To some, they are seen at best as unreliable and too narrowly focused and at worst as completely skewed and so specific as to be irrelevant.

But the real strength of these online upstarts actually lies in their narrowness of focus. It is unrealistic to expect a small organization to be able to cover a wide range of stories on an international scale in an accurate and cost effective manner, and niche publications understand this. By stringently filtering stories, even if they are of national interest and can easily be reported by the organization (as was the case for The Texas Tribune and the Fort Hood shootings in Carr’s article) the publications gain the advantage of being able to report the stories they do cover with real depth, something many of the larger media outlets have been doing less and less.

This kind of ultra-specific journalism inherently does not have a wide audience. People from Oregon or Italy will probably not be weekly visitors of The Texas Tribune or The Gotham Gazette. But this should not be the measure of the value of these publications. Producing only citizen journalism and “good-for-you, brussel sprouts journalism” is far from a lucrative business strategy, but much closer to the basic theory of what journalism’s function is than what can be seen in some of the larger, more generalized news outlets.

Journalism was not built to be a business, but a system of keeping an eye on things in a more reliable and accurate way than individual citizens are capable of. It is meant to present an unbiased truth to readers, and in doing so to hold accountable all those it reports upon. And when news outlets are cutting coverage, showing bias, and possibly becoming as dependent on their advertisers as they are on their readers, niche media may very well be more of a grassroots return to real journalism than a trend.

David Carr seems to agree. Although he could have done more to cover both the concurrent struggles of large media outlets (which he may have kept low-key because the piece was, after all, written for the New York Times), and other niche media organizations, he does a good job of covering the Tribune and placing it in the context of the larger shifts in the industry. His bias is most obvious in his choice of quotes and interviewees– none who oppose or are critical of the web based niche media movement are present in the story beyond general mention (and are certainly not quoted). Though I agree with Carr’s position, I do think his article could have been made more powerful by mentioning or quoting specific opponents or critics of the movement, rather than glossing over their opinions.