Tony Biasotti, Columbia Journalism Review

Tony Biasotti

Columbia Journalism Review

Ventura, CA, United States

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Recent:
  • Unknown
Past:
  • Columbia Journalism Review

Past articles by Tony:

In California, a long struggle against ‘online-only’

At this point, the “online-only” qualifier in the phrase “online-only local news organization” is unnecessary. The oldest such outlets have been around 15 years or more; by 2019, around 10 percent of local news was produced by sites without a print or broadcast arm, according to a study of more than 100 areas by the […] → Read More

Katie Hill, the media, and the limits of revenge-porn laws

On November 3, Katie Hill, a Democratic congressional representative from California, resigned after her intimate photos were published by RedState, a conservative political site, and the Daily Mail, a British tabloid. The two media outlets had recently published articles about a polyamorous relationship between Hill, her now estranged husband, and a female staffer on Hill’s […] → Read More

California’s new 35-story limit for freelancers

California Assembly Bill 5, in its original language, seemed as though it could end freelance journalism in the state. The bill, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law September 18, codifies and expands on a 2018 California Supreme Court decision that made it harder for companies to classify workers as freelancers rather than employees. As […] → Read More

Defunded Rutgers paper may get second chance (thanks to 2000 SCOTUS ruling)

This year, the Daily Targum at Rutgers University marked its 150th anniversary. It won’t be the last, but it might be close to the last—the future of one of the nation’s oldest student newspapers is in doubt, due to the failure in May of a referendum to renew the student fee that makes up about […] → Read More

The threat and the irony of the San Francisco stringer raid

Bryan Carmody, a freelance journalist in San Francisco, often works the night shift, shooting videos of car crashes, police chases, structure fires, and other breaking news events, and selling them in the morning to the Bay Area’s local television stations. So he was asleep at 8:20am on Friday when police officers started banging on his […] → Read More

The real costs of Devin Nunes’s defamation lawsuit

Congressman Devin Nunes’s latest lawsuit against people he thinks are making him look bad—this one, filed April 8, seeks $150 million in damages from The McClatchy Company and anti-Trump Republican strategist Liz Mair—appears unlikely to succeed and, in the eyes of media-law experts, is virtually free of merit. That makes it a lot like the […] → Read More

Calif. newsrooms team up to handle police misconduct records dump

“Too many police misconduct and use-of-force investigations becoming public” isn’t the worst problem for a newsroom to have. But, in California, hundreds of those investigative files have been released since a new law took effect January 1, and thousands more are likely to become public in the near future. To deal with this deluge, 33 […] → Read More

In California, the fight over a secret list of criminal cops

On January 8, a list of 12,000 names arrived in the inboxes of Robert Lewis and Jason Paladino, reporters with the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. The reporters had filed public records requests with the state’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training in 2018 for the […] → Read More

‘As scary as it is, that’s our job’: Prepping journalists for California’s next wildfire

Lizzie Johnson, a reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle, drove into Paradise, California, early in the afternoon of November 8. The Camp Fire had spread to the area a few hours earlier. At the southwest edge of town, where the main road to Paradise turns into a four-lane road, she encountered a police officer manning […] → Read More

Reporters shouldn’t profile mass shooters, say experts

On Monday, the day after a professional video gamer shot 13 people at a Madden football tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, The Washington Post published a profile of the gunman. The piece, which included a photo of him and video footage of him playing Madden NFL and giving interviews, recounted his triumph at a 2017 tournament […] → Read More

The ‘really dangerous’ precedent for reclaiming public records

“NO TAKE-BACKS” is a common rule on the elementary school playground. It is not the rule when it comes to public records in the state of California, where public agencies can and do try to claw back documents after they’ve released them, and where one school district recently asked a court to award it $450,000 from […] → Read More

Fresno Bee endures outrage to tell important stories about sex education

PRINT JOURNALISTS NEVER seem entirely comfortable writing about sex. Nor do they seem comfortable writing about teenagers, at least without adopting the point of view of their parents. This year, the Fresno Bee waded into the confluence of these two fraught streams with a months-long, seven-part series on teen pregnancy and sex education. The series, “Too Young?”, […] → Read More

Fast-growing startup aims to ‘replace the sports page’

Alex Mather has what he calls, with a touch of understatement, “pretty big goals” for his subscription-based sports news startup, The Athletic. “The best case is that we can really catch on,” he says, “and we can replace the sports page in every single city on the continent.” Mather and his cofounder, Adam Hansmann, took […] → Read More

Turnaround at San Francisco Chronicle shows way for legacy newspapers

The hiring freeze started right after Jill Tucker was hired by the San Francisco Chronicle in 2006. The paper was losing tens of millions of dollars a year and shedding staff through buyouts and attrition. Layoffs started a couple of years later. “I was the least senior reporter here for four or five years,” says […] → Read More

Viral Golden State Warriors story shows media needs to play better defense

If there’s one thing we’ve learned about the Golden State Warriors this season, it’s that they’re extremely good at basketball. If there’s a second thing, it might be that they don’t like Donald Trump. Head coach Steve Kerr thinks Trump is “a bully” and “a blowhard” who “couldn’t be more ill-suited to be president.” Star […] → Read More

‘I thought I’d give it a shot’: Two sportswriters find success crowdfunding

It’s a heady time for publishers of subscription-supported news. The New York Times added more than half a million paying online readers in 2016, and its digital subscription revenue was up 17 percent from the year before. The Washington Post says it doubled its digital subscription revenue in 2016, and The Wall Street Journal also […] → Read More

Q&A;: How Shea Serrano went from middle school science teacher to NYT bestselling author

On the morning of February 22, Shea Serrano, a staff writer at The Ringer, picked a fight with Donald Trump on Twitter. He didn’t do it for retweets or clicks or to amuse his friends. He wanted to win. Serrano’s publisher, Abrams Books, had recently released Why I March, a book of photos from the […] → Read More

Q&A;: How Shea Serrano went from middle school science teacher to NYT bestselling author

On the morning of February 22, Shea Serrano, a staff writer at The Ringer, picked a fight with Donald Trump on Twitter. He didn’t do it for retweets or clicks or to amuse his friends. He wanted to win. Serrano’s publisher, Abrams Books, had recently released Why I March, a book of photos from the […] → Read More

Media escapes with scratches in undercover-video fight with Planned Parenthood

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill last week that increases penalties for certain violations of the state’s laws against recording private conversations, over the objections of media and civil liberties groups. It’s a win for Planned Parenthood,... → Read More

How the fight over undercover videos is pitting Planned Parenthood against the mainstream media

For the past year, Planned Parenthood and its supporters have been locked in a bitter legal and political battle with the anti-abortion activists and self-proclaimed citizen journalists who produced and released hidden-camera recordings of meetings with the group’s... → Read More