An expanded version of Professor Dahlby’s Reporting the World class enjoyed the wisdom of former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller on Thursday, October 6, 2011 at the University of Texas journalism school. Over 100 people gathered to hear Keller answer audience questions for over an hour.

After emphasizing that he was the former executive editor of the Times (i.e. not able to get anyone a job) and acknowledging that he was a late convert to journalism schools - not having gone to one himself - Mr. Keller took questions for the remainder of his time.

When asked whether he thought the media had been too focused on terrorism and had therefore missed the Arab Spring or covered it late, he said he thought the media had actually done a pretty good job of covering recent events in the Middle East, and he reminded the audience that the media is not good at seeing the future. He did acknowledge that with the elimination of so many foreign bureaus, media organizations are more often surprised when events emerge and more slow to react to react to them. They are also less prepared or positioned to cover these events because they are less familiar with cultural and political conditions that provide necessary context. 

A big believer in the civic role of journalism, he is concerned that this change hurts our foreign policy.

Asked about how stories are selected for the front page, he said that this process has changed with the advent of the New York Times webpage. Since the webpage is updated constantly, the hard copy front page tends to have the latest version of a given story, or a version that has more analysis, more background etc. He also said that contrary to popular belief, he has found that people will still read long stories and will read them on the web, but it might be that writers have to get to the point more quickly on the web.

He said that ledes should have a Who, What, When, Where, Why and "I" for Idea.

Asked if the Times was late to focus on Occupy Wall Street, he provided the perspective that on any given day, there are 50 demonstrations going on in New York City.  Protests have to demonstrate some staying power and momentum before the paper will cover them. Up until it was being reported, the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations did not stand out.

Asked about his reading habits, he said that when he was the executive editor, he read constantly to survey the competition. Now he reads sources that help him with specific writing projects.

Asked about the future of journalism, he said there will be survivors who have learned to adapt (like the NYT) and start ups.

He encouraged students that if they practiced basic disciplines and skills, they "would have a life" in journalism. These include:

- Going out into the real world to find information, not just relying on the Internet
- Truth testing
- Finding patterns
- Making your information and conclusions clear to readers
- Suppressing your own biases

Overall - the most important thing about being a good journalist is finding reliable sources. You don't have to be an expert, but you need to find reliable experts and learn how to collaborate.

A member of the audience, and well-known New York Times environmental journalist Andrew Revkin, spoke briefly about his environmental reporting, how he had seen the importance of multi-media reporting, for example, in trips to the Arctic where recordings of the sounds of ice cracking and dramatic photographs were key to his reporting.

Asked about the role of social media, Mr. Keller said it is a great tool which helps us get information from hard to access places, and is a great way to disseminate information.

He feels strongly that aggregation of information collected by others is good for background but not a substitute for "boots on the ground" reporting. It's OK to reference the work of others, but excerpting big portions of articles published elsewhere is basically stealing it.

He made the distinction between news as a discrete topic (old school) and news as a journey (more contemporary view of news). An example of the latter type is the topic pages the NYT has added.

When asked about pressure imposed by advertisers he said that it is entirely possible for reporters to be insulated from those who finance the paper.  

He has never known of a case at the NYT where advertisers succeeded in influencing coverage.

He acknowledged that the criticisms that have been lodged against the NYT for their one-sided coverage in the run up to the war in Iraq have been fair.  In terms of the stories they published that they later realized were "bad stories" he said he ultimately dealt with it by publishing a "mea culpa" meant to accept responsibility and apologize, but he should have done it sooner.

Asked why the bad stories were published to begin with, he pointed to acceptance of journalists of the "conventional wisdom" and competitiveness amongst reporters to get the big story on the front page.

Check out Bill Keller's twitter: @nytkeller

Article written by Margaret Nicklas, a first-year professional track master's student in the journalism school.