Some media stories of note for Friday, May 17, 2013:

Margaret Talbot, writing for The New Yorker online, examines the recent spate of incidents involving the Obama Administration and the press. She argues that they have damaged the credibility of the government and threatened the freedom of the press. An effect, she fears, is the chilling of sources of information who fear their anonymity cannot be protected. The result of that will be fewer stories that explore significant secretive information and a reduction in civil liberties.

BBC reports on a new British study of 35,000 young people that suggests they now prefer to read on a screen than on paper. They engage in social networking and one-third prefer to read fiction on a screen. The National Literary Trust report, based on interviews with those eight to 16 years old, concluded that 52 per cent preferred a screen, while only 32 per cent preferred a print experience.

The controversy this week involving Bloomberg reporters monitoring the online activity of their clients on Bloomberg terminals has raised a series of ethical issues. The Associated Press has a look at what experts feel is a shifting landscape in which more access to technology and user activity will permit greater access to consumer information once considered private --- and where privacy is not as respected as it once was.

James Breiner, writing for Poynter, looks at recent developments in journalism education to teach students how to be entrepreneurial. With more opportunities to build businesses, and less likelihood of one-company careers, journalism schools are finding it valuable to impart business start-up and operational skills in their journalists to teach them how to create and manage their own companies. 

In recent days the benefactor Knight Foundation has written an open letter to U.S. university presidents to encourage their journalism schools to adopt a "teaching hospital" model that incorporates mid-career professionals in the academic instruction roster.

The concept is not a new one, and it is used in several places, but Knight suggests it remains of significant potential for schools with an emphasis on scholars and an absence of practicing journalists. (Disclosure: I am the executive in residence and an adjunct professor at University of British Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism.)

"At its root, this model requires top professionals in residence at universities," the letter says. "It also focuses on applied research, as scholars help practitioners invent viable forms of digital news that communities need to function in a democratic frame."

The foundation adds: "We believe journalism and communications schools must be willing to recreate themselves if they are to succeed in playing their vital roles as news creators and innovators."

The foundation acknowledges some schools are doing this but several remain trapped in traditions that do not permit journalists with limited academic credentials into the faculties. The danger it sees is a sector slipping further behind digital change to the industry it identifies as crucial to democracy.