Strib to hold back some content

Nancy Barnes, editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune announced this week that the paper will begin holding back some content from the Web.

It will be the depth stories and similar items that the paper has invested significant resources in. As she put it: What types of stories will we hold back? Investigative projects, deeply reported nonbreaking news stories, beautifully written feature stories -- whatever content we think print readers might value most.

On one hand, I want to applaud the paper for at least experimenting. It's the only way we are going to get the experience needed to see what works and what doesn't. Normally, data from such experiments is considered proprietary and kept under wraps, but given the state of journalism and the thrashing about for business models, I hope Barnes will consider making the results public. I think it's vital the industry have such data.

Some early questions come to mind:

• As one person commented: If it is really worthwhile, won't someone figure out a way to get it online anyway? This is not insignificant. For instance, if the Strib has that great investigative project fronted Monday morning, chances are drivetime radio is going to rewrite it; the TVs will have it on their morning shows, etc. Blogs will - no, may, since there won't be links -- comment on it. Will this drive traffic to "the paper" or satiate most people's information needs?
• Barnes says the Strib has also asked the AP to not pick up these stories. That's going to put the AP in an interesting situation. What will it do if other members request the story (as they used to do in Ohio, with their laundry list of stories they wanted picked up from the Plain Dealer)? Will the AP still honor the request if the local TV rewrites the essence of the story and posts it online?
  
• What happens if people hear about the story and go to the Web expecting to see it -- and it's not there (Barnes writes: The best of our deep, exclusive content will be available online later in the week, unless we have a compelling reason to post it sooner.) Will the pick up a paper and maybe decide they need a subscription (winning situation, but I think, doubtful), wait to see it later (neutral), or become po'd and learn that they probably can do without it and not come back (losing proposition)?
  
• I think as much insight is to be gained from the comments to Barnes' post.
  
• One writes: If you want more subscribers give us a reason to subscribe. My wife and I have been a long-time subscribers but we have been talking for a couple of years about stopping our subscription. It's going to happen soon. We get most of our news online; my college aged kids get all their news online . ... Give us a Kindle for a two-year subscription contract, which price-wise is about a wash. I get a Kindle with the Star Tribune delivered on it; you save the printing and delivering costs of the paper. Sounds like a win-win to me.
• Another: So will more of us buy a paper if there is 'paper only' news? I doubt it. How will we know?
• But one, "excopyed," called it one of the smartest moves the Strib has made lately.

Clearly, we still are shooting too much in the dark with a lot of our bleating about journalism business models. So this is one of those things to be watched closely. If Barned shares the data, it could tell us a lot.

Want more efficient MP3s - use iTunes

All MP3 encoders are not created equal.

For my money, iTunes has the most efficient encoder. You should consider using it when creating MP3s for the Web.

Here's an example. Both MP3s listed below were created from the AIF file. But while "haight.mp3" was exported from Sound Studio at 9.5 MB, "haigh.mp3" was converted in iTunes and is 6.3 MB, a third smaller.


I've had similar results for Audacity and its LAME encoder.

So my advice: Consider taking the extra step to export the file as a WAV or AIF from your editing program and import it into iTunes for encoding. Of course, you should do some comparison tests yourself to see how much, if any, improvement there is. But so far I have yet to run a test where iTunes didn't produce smaller files.

Numeracy check

Here's a bit of numerical illiteracy that never fails to annoy me and especially seems to infect TV anchors: WIS anchor Dawndy Mercer Plank, dutifully reciting the latest unemployment figures, notes that Allendale County, one of the state's smallest and most rural, continues to have "the highest number of people" out of work at 23.4 percent.

Uh, no.

It's worth repeating - again - that a percentage is a rate, not a number. And while it can be translated to a number, that depends on the size of the underlying base. So a smaller percentage on a larger base can produce a larger number than a larger percentage on a small base - i.e., Allendale.

Plank et al. just need to engage brain before opening mouth -- especially in a state already struggling to educate its population.

Conover's predictions

Let me add my belated voice to those suggesting you read Dan Conover's long post of last week 2020 vision: What's next for news.

While much of the rest of the world is flailing about as things deteriorate now, Dan, whom I have long respected, takes a structured, well-reasoned and argued look at where things may be going, from the semantic Web to semistructured databases to credibility based on "predictive accuracy."

Go stretch your brain. Read it.

AP Sports Editors Schlolarship

After a little delay, the APSE is back out with info that it will be continuing its scholarship program this year. Details:

The Associated Press Sports Editors is sponsoring four $1,500 scholarships
for collegiate sports journalists.

APSE, a national organization of sports editors, is awarding the scholarships to help motivate talented students to pursue a career in sports journalism. Collegiate sports journalists entering their sophomore, junior or senior years are eligible for the scholarship which will awarded based on the students' journalistic work, their academic record, financial need, and geography. The scholarships will be awarded to students from four different regions of the United States. The winners will be chosen by the APSE scholarship committee, which is chaired by Joe Sullivan, sports editor of the Boston Globe, and includes editors from all sections of the United
States.

Please have them include the following information in their letter of
application:

- Personal: Name, address, age, phone number.

- Academic: A copy of the student's collegiate grades.

- Financial: A brief rundown of the student's financial situation, with
regards to how he/she plans to pay for tuition and copies of any pertinent
records including the copies of the FAFSA form EFC and family’s income tax
return.

- Letters of recommendation: One or more from teachers/employers.

- Five examples of sports journalism (usually stories but could also be
sections the student has edited).

- Finalists may be contacted for an interview .

Mail information to:

APSE Scholarship
c/o Joe Sullivan, Sports Editor
Boston Globe
135 Morrissey Blvd.
Boston, MA 02205-2845

Deadline for applications is June 1. For more information contact Joe
Sullivan at the Boston Globe 617-929-2845, jtsullivan@globe.com

10 papers that will survive? Or more of the same old?

Silicon Valley Insider has a slideshow on 10 papers that it and its "source" -- who is described as bullish and investing in the newspaper industry -- say will survive the current shakeout.

From the Twin Cities to the wilds of Texas, there are some commonalities:

• The papers are non-union or are in right-to-work states
• They largely are in noncompetitive markets or in markets that can be made less competitive (for instance, the suggestion is to buy both the Minneaplis Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press and combine them).

As the Insider writes:

Our guy is convinced that underneath the mess, there are plenty of local newspapers that, after cutting newsroom bloat and R&D costs, would be plenty profitable. He says these local newspapers just need to stop "spending on trying to find their way out" and "instead run their current good business."

What does our source think of newspapers on the Web? Not much. He says local papers should have a Web site run by two people that links to international and national news and keeps all local content behind a pay wall or off the Internet entirely.

Lessee. Cut R&D. Yep, that heavy R&D spending the industry has been known for over the years. You know, the one that's produced all this amazing software and true knowledge, not just shibboleths, about how we present and select news based on what we "know" people want.

And put it back behind a pay wall.

Sounds more like this investor just wants to milk the cash cow -- oh yeah, that's what got us into this mess, wasn't it?

There's such a thing as tending to your knitting and another where tending to your knitting while the world changes around you becomes absurd.

I have my boxed set of "Back to the Future" around here somewhere. Might as well go watch it. It's about as useful.

Prevents exercise and avoiding smoking, too?

This sentence today from an AP dispatch:

Lean meat as part of a balanced diet can prevent chronic disease, along with exercise and avoiding smoking, said Shalene McNeill, dietitian for the beef group.

Would be a lot clearer if "along with" was replaced with "as can."

VirtuaL journalism summit

Washington State U. looks to have a kick-butt "virtual journalism" summit coming up April 6.

From the home page:

This day-long free event examines the growing popularity and influence of virtual worlds, where there are many real stories unfolding within the “metaverse” and its newly-created 3D spaces. (English translation: Let's look at all the news-related stuff taking place in sites like Second Life and Club Penguin. It's not just pumping a newsfeed into these virtual worlds, but actually reportingon what is happening in those worlds.)

Key technology executives and newsmakers will be on hand to offer insight, tips, and tools for media production in the virtual world.

Presenters include:

• Helen Thomas, former White House bureau chief
• Bob Scheiffer, CBS News' chief Washington correspondent
• Philip Rosedale, founder, Second Life
• Lane Merrifield, executive vice president, Walt Disney Internet Group
• Lila King, senior producer, CNN Interactive Storytelling
• Erica Driver, co-founder, ThinkBalm
• Wagner James Au, virtual world journalist
• Bernhard Drax, virtual world journalist

AP Stylebook Update - Datelines

One other major update recently was a vastly expanded list of international cities that in datelines and in copy no longer require the country name to follow. The list is below, with the new entries in bold (I've thrown in the domestic list as well, which did not change, so you have a handy all-in-one reference):

Domestic
ATLANTA
BALTIMORE, BOSTON
CHICAGO, CINCINNATI, CLEVELAND
DALLAS, DENVER, DETROIT
HONOLULU, HOUSTON
INDIANAPOLIS
LAS VEGAS, LOS ANGELES
MIAMI, MILWAUKEE, MINNEAPOLIS
NEW ORLEANS, NEW YORK
OKLAHOMA CITY
PHILADELPHIA, PHOENIX, PITTSBURGH
ST. LOUIS, SALT LAKE CITY, SAN ANTONIO, SAN DIEGO, SAN FRANCISCO, SEATTLE
WASHINGTON

International
AMSTERDAM
BAGHDAD, BANGKOK, BEIJING, BEIRUT, BERLIN, BOGOTA, BRUSSELS
CAIRO, COPENHAGEN
DJIBOUTI, DUBLIN
FRANKFURT
GENEVA, GIBRALTAR, GUATEMALA CITY
HAMBURG, HAVANA, HELSINKI, HONG KONG
ISLAMABAD, ISTANBUL
JERUSALEM, JOHANNESBURG
KABUL, KUWAIT CITY
LONDON, LUXEMBOURG
MACAU, MEXICO CITY, MILAN, MADRID, MONACO, MONTREAL, MOSCOW,   MUNICH
NEW DELHI
OSLO, OTTAWA
PANAMA CITY, PARIS, PRAGUE
QUEBEC CITY
RIO DE JANEIRO, ROME
SAN MARINO, SAO PAULO, SHANGHAI, SINGAPORE, STOCKHOLM, SYDNEY
TOKYO, TORONTO
VATICAN CITY, VIENNA
ZURICH

(If you had an early list, Vancouver also was on it until someone thought better of it and said, oops, there's that pesky Vancouver, Wash., too.)

AP Style Update - Muslim/Arab entries

Catching up on some AP stylebook updates, in February, AP released a whole slew of new entries dealing with topics from the Muslim and Arab worlds. I'm not going to list all of them (doesn't seem sporting if you really should be paying for the stylebook), but some major ones. Chief among these is the reminder that it's Somali, not Somalian, when talking about the country and its people.

----

Al-Aqsa The mosque completed in the 8th century atop the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, in the old city of Jerusalem; Arabs also use Al-Aqsa to refer to the whole area, which houses the Dome of the Rock mosque, too. To Jews the area is known as the Temple Mount, the site of the ancient Jewish temples.

hajj The pilgrimage to Mecca required of every Muslim who can afford it. The person making the hajj is a hajji.

Hamas The Palestinian Islamic political party, which has an armed wing of the same name. The word is an acronym for the Arabic words for Islamic Resistance Movement.

Hezbollah The Lebanese Shiite Muslim political party, which has an armed wing of the same name. The word means party of God in Arabic.

hijab The headscarf worn by Muslim women.

intifada An Arabic term for the Palestinian uprising against Israel.

kaffiyeh The men's headdress in Arab countries.

niqab The veil worn by the most conservative Muslim women, in which, at most, only the eyes show.

Somali A person from Somalia, or an adjective for something linked to Somalia. Do not use Somalian.

Temple Mount The walled, elevated area in Jerusalem's Old City that was the site of the ancient Jewish temples. It now houses the centuries-old Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosques and is known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary. Muslims believe Prophet Muhammad made his night journey to heaven from the site.

Wahhabi Follower of a strict Muslim sect that adheres closely to the Quran; it's most powerful in Saudi Arabia.

AP Style Update - CEO in all uses

AP has updated its stylebook so that CEO may now be used in all cases for chief executive officer. This includes on first reference as a title before a name.

The rest of the guidance is the same:
Use chief financial officer and chief operating officer on first reference, and CFO and COO thereafter. Always spell out lesser-known "C-level" positions like chief administrative officer or chief risk officer.

Elisberg - news for twits

I have a Twitter account. I use it occasionally, but, frankly, a) have too many other things to do to keep up and b) as here, find most of what I want to say takes more than 140 characters.

So while I tell other journalists that, yes, they should have an account and monitor the beast, there's a secret part of me that agrees with Robert J. Elisberg when he says:

When I'm watching the news, I don't care what the viewers have to say.

If I wanted to hear what others have to say when I'm watching the news, I'd call up my friend Myles Berkowitz and listen to him yell at his TV screen.

And before anyone gets up in arms thinking that's elitist - if I sent my own 140-character Twitter comment into a news show, no one should care about my "Tweet" either.

This is the news. It actually matters. If you are concerned about losing your job, you know it matters. If your home mortgage is on the edge, you know it matters. If you know someone fighting in Iraq, if you don't have health insurance, you know it matters.

When I watch a situation comedy, I don't want it interrupted every few minutes with "Great joke! - CarpetBlogger186" scrolling by. I expect no less from a newscast.

Most stories important enough to get on a national broadcast have many layers and require thoughtful analysis. When you limit opinion to 28 words, you get opinions that are worth only 28 words. Worse, it's 28 instant words, spit out so they R able 2 B the first submitted. Finely-tuned wisdom is the first casualty. ...

Having Twits in the middle of a newscast is like walking through a restaurant and overhearing snatches of conversations from total strangers. You rarely pay attention. At best, after sitting down you say, "You won't believe the stupid thing I just heard."

Yet put those same anonymous snatches on TV during a newscast, and suddenly people think it has deep meaning. Sorry, it still doesn't. It's a pointless distraction.

When I turn on a newscast...I want to hear news.

The great media menace - Scottsdale edition

Apparently the great media menace has reared its ugly head in Scottsdale, Ariz. -- at least according to some members of the governing board of the local community college system.

You can read the note below and show your support, if you wish, in any way you deem appropriate.

But I do think a good underlying point is raised here -- we are coming to grips, hook or crook, with the reality that we are a multiracial society. In the case of the Cole cartoon, I can see the offense that could be taken. I don't think any was intended, but the drawing clearly could be interpreted as having monkey-like characteristics.

Before you start writing nasty comments and e-mails about the danger of "PC," I'm not suggesting we turn everything into milquetoast. But attention must be paid to the details -- and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

-----

*Subject: *College press rights threatened

Hello friends. I hope this email finds you well. I apologize in advance for the long note. Just wanted to give you the facts on what we are facing.

*We could use any support you can bring to bear to protect press freedoms for college journalists.
*
A cartoon that ran in our Scottsdale Chronicle Feb. 11 edition shows Obama climbing a small mountain to the presidency then facing a much larger one of expectations. It is called "The Ascent" by John Cole: http://community.thetimes-tribune.com/blogs/johncole/archive/2009/01/21/the-ascent.aspx. It was drawn in honor of the inauguration and ran in his paper, the Scranton Times-Tribune, without a complaint, we have been told. We pay a small fee to Cagle Cartoons to use their syndicated cartoonists after the cartoons run in their original newspapers. It wasn't until the NY Post cartoon came out a week after the Cole cartoon ran in our campus paper that we received an email complaint. The complainant then attached the NY Post cartoon (now referred to as the Chimp cartoon) to an email sent to all African-American faculty and staff districtwide, the local NAACP members, the local media and many members of other African-American Valley organizations inferring that we ran the NY Post cartoon. Because most of those who received the emails weren't on our campus and we don't carry the cartoons online due to copyright issues, It caused a lot of anger but no one contacted us directly so that we could straighten it out. Some people contacted the Governing Board to complain even though they had not seen the cartoon we really ran.

We aren't making excuses for the Cole cartoon. Once people are told that the cartoon we ran makes Obama look like a monkey, then they see it and we understood how some could be offended, especially in light of the NY Post cartoon. Because of the NY Post cartoon, most media are now rethinking how to handle editorial cartoons about Obama, including the Chronicle. We have had great dialogs about the difficult topic of race portrayals in all of society on our campus because of this and have been trying to move forward --- until last night.

Our newspaper appeared on the MCCCD Governing Board agenda for last night (March 10) and two editors and I went. We were led to believe that it was probably just going to be a summation of action taken to dialog with those offended. Instead, all but one of the board members (Don Campbell) decided that all student newspapers in the district needed to allow the board to control content in the future. They didn't feel like the Chronicle had any kind of guidance and wondered if the other district student newspapers operate the same way. The board has trouble understanding the difference between "guidance/adviser" and "control." We were not allowed to speak during all of this. When the Chronicle was discussed, board member Debra Pearson went on a diatribe of how terrible today's media is and how they (the governing board) need to take control of all of the campus newspapers because we are all just a bunch of tabloid journalists. Board member Randolph Lumm kept talking about how there was no oversight for the college newspaper. The worst was when they asked Pete Kushibab, district counsel, if they had a right to take control of the newspaper content and he said they did but that most colleges in the nation choose not to do so. Pete didn't explain why and the board didn't ask. The board told all of the presidents that they are to report back to them on how much oversight and control they have over their campus newspapers. There wasn't a date set, but I suspect it will be on the next agenda, Tuesday, March 24.

So, if the newspaper control discussion ends up on the agenda for March 24, we are calling out all of the students, faculty, staff and media interested in standing up for the First Amendment to show up so that people are flowing out the doors of the building. This new governing board (two just took office this year) doesn't understand its limits. It was an incredibly frustrating night, but we have much support from our own administration and faculty. Dr. Jan Gehler, SCC's new president, has been a very strong defender of the newspaper. It's amazing what one person with a districtwide email system and the wrong cartoon can do to damage the press. We'd appreciate your support.

You can access the Governing Board agenda at http://www.maricopa.edu/gvbd/agenda.php. I'll also sent out a note when I hear.

If you would like to contact me, please feel free to do so through this email address, not my work email. I'd be glad to answer further questions. Our spring break is next week, unlike most of yours, so I won't be in the office.

Take care, Julie

Julie Knapp
SCC Chronicle Adviser, Scottsdale Community College Journalism Director
stpress@cox.net

State of News Media 2009

Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism released its 2009 State of the News Media report on Sunday (if printed it would be 700 pages long).

The center's take is that journalism isn't dying and newspapers are going to be around for a while too. But the sharp drop in revenues (23% in two years for newspapers and 7% last year - an election year! -- and possibly 11% this year for local TV) and employment (a quarter of all newsroom jobs that existed in 2001 could be gone by the end of this year), along with readers' migration online make it rough going and a race to find a way to pay for it all.

Here's the rest of the news release.

Twitter tools and Diigo buys Furl

Smashing Magazine has a list of "99 essential Twitter tools and applications." Definitely worth bookmarking for looking at now and later.

Discovered it through Diigo -- the social bookmarking service has taken over Furl.net. While Diigo and Furl say that importing Furl's bookmarks is as simple as one click, I've not gotten any of the Furl material in my Diigo queue yet.

I'd suggest that if you have a Furl account you sign on and download a zip archive.

News flash: TVs decide to follow common man (and woman)

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's cynical of me.

Still, I don't know whether to let out a whoop of joy or just shake my head when it's necessary to announce that TV news operations are "turning to Main Street" and really trying to connect with the hoi polloi.

Reuters tells us breathlessly that the networks are going on the road, camping at people's kitchen tables, etc., while Broadcsasting & Cable touts how local stations are, golly gee, just out there trying to help out and spread a little good news with the bad.

What next? Slogans like "We're there for you"? Perish the thought.

What, me worry? (if the local paper folds)

Here's the grabby lede from the latest Pew survey:

As many newspapers struggle to stay economically viable, fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community "a lot." Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available.

Read more here.

Chilling words for the AP

Josehua Benton at the Nieman Journalism Lab blog has an update on the news-sharing experiment between eight of Ohio's largest newspapers. It's an extended interview with Ron Royhab, executive editor of the Toledo Blade, and Royhab has some chilling words for the AP:

And so we are at a point where we believe we don’t need the Associated Press Ohio Wire, because it’s covered.

Royhab's conversation with Benton also provides a bit more insight into how to execs at AP, to which the Blade pays $550,000 a year, po'd the top editors at the Ohio Eight.

And they were very hostile toward us. Matter of fact, Tom Brettingen, who is the senior vice president, said, “You know, the newspaper industry only pays 30 percent of the income of the Associated Press, and other 70 percent subsidise your 30 percent. And they dismissed all of our concerns out of hand.

Not exactly the most surprising news, but revealing nonetheless.

Paul Colford, AP's PR director, responds with the standard script -- that AP does not sell the state wires to online or commercial source, that most of what it is selling to online is produced by AP reporters nationally and internationally, etc.

But the reality is still that the state wires have been AP's cash cow, and they are hurting. In South Carolina, for instance, the AP office - no longer a bureau - is unstaffed many more hours, including much of the weekend, and because of my former AP life, I've gotten an earful on that from editors I talk with around the state. And the output of staff-generated copy is thinning.

The Ohio experiment isn't perfect. This comment is on the Nieman post:

It’s a good idea, though disappointing that the Ohio 8 have not allowed smaller papers into the group.

But as the writer notes, his 9,000-circulation daily dropped AP about three weeks ago and have not received a single call about it…we are obtaining agate from PA Sportsticker.

Stupid layoffs

Yeah, I know, no layoffs are good. But today's layoffs at The State, including nine newsroom workers, included editorial page editor Brad Warthen.

File this under "stupid."

Warthen, love him or hate him -- and many people did both -- "got" the Web. He wasn't necessarily one of the first - the paper's toe-dipping online kept that from happening -- but once there he went at it hard, aggressively and with some innovation (incorporating video, etc.).

You sort of knew this was coming, however. The State, as have many papers, has severely trimmed its editorial section, some days running, in essence, just letters to the editor.

Among others reportedly cut: editorial cartoonist Robert Ariail (again, no surprise, but just as sad; it was a bit of a point of pride to live in a town with a paper with a cartoonist of his caliber) and metro editor Christi Shayne (though her husband, Andy, stays on for now running the business pages).

Other names surfacing:
Reporter Robin Nalepa
Reporter/arts critic: Jeffrey Day
Online editor: Tonyia McGirt
Assistant sports editor Mark Lawrence

South Carolina has long been referred to as "too small to be a state, to large to be an insane asylum." We all knew this was coming, but the sad part is that between these cuts and others around the state, the inmates are now much more likely to be able to run the asylum.

'Copy Editors Lament'

Christopher Ave, political editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, may be my new hero - he has written and recorded a musical elegy to copy editors.

Copy Editor's Lament (The Layoff Song) is a catchy, bittersweet comment on the craft and the skill that you simply must listen to. A sample:

Copy Editor's Lament (The Layoff Song)
By Christopher Ave

I'm a human safety net
I double-check the facts and vet
assertions before they are set in type.

I can provide punctuation
appropriate for publication
make the capitalization right.

I was there to fix your grammar
when you thought it wouldn't matter
cut all your extraneous blather down.

AP stylebook is my bible
helped me stop the suit for libel
but nothing ensures my survival now.

And I don't know what I'll do
after I am through
killing my last adjective ...

Listen to the MP3 (or the WAV file that Ave has also provided). I suggest ACES get Ave's permission to make it the theme at the upcoming Minneapolis meeting.

By the way, it is not lost on me that in many ways this song also politely but firmly lampoons some of the silliness that is part of copy editing, too -- the inflexibility, the shibboleths, the slavish clinging to style even when it clearly gets in the way. Still, while the times may be bittersweet, my friends, as long as we can sing about it, it can't be all bad.

Why we need subs

From the other side of the pond, comes this rejoinder to Roy Greenslade's recent suggestion that most if not all sub-editors (copyeditors), should be ditched or, at least, outsourced.

(I don't take Greenslade quite as severely as some, since I don't necessarily hear him saying do away with all subs, but suggesting the job, while it can be trimmed in some cases, should be outsourced or centralized in others. And I can't totally disagree given current reality -- too many copydesks have been structured in the U.S. to become copy processors, not copy editors. At that level, yes, they probably can be centralized. That, of course, is a larger debate, which David Sullivan captured nicely in his recent comment on Greenslade's.)

But back to the matter at hand, which is Tim Luckhurst writing in Times Higher Education in response to Greenslade: Students armed with sub-editing tools are given skills for life. An excerpt:

Roy Greenslade, former editor of the Daily Mirror, does not fit easily into this category. However, in a recent speech he argued that most subs could be dispensed with. I hope he will not repeat that opinion to his journalism students at City University London. They might believe him and that would be appalling.

Nothing in a newspaper or on a website should be published without someone checking it for grammatical, factual or legal errors. Editors pretend that they read every syllable published, but I know from harsh experience that such Stakhanovite effort is not possible for every article on every page of every edition. The finest correspondents make mistakes. To err is human and, at least in this respect, journalists are members of the human race, despite what popular opinion contends.

Professor Greenslade went on to suggest that journalists are now so highly educated that they should sub their own stories. "I write my own blog every day," he said. "I produce copy that goes straight on screen - why can't anyone else do that?" His is an egregious prejudice in a leader committed to excellence in the professional education of journalists.

Excellent subs are not disposable relics of a bygone era. They are the keyhole surgeons of journalism; fast, precise and adept at ensuring that prevention averts the need for expensive or embarrassing cures. At best they write attention-grabbing headlines and turn convoluted codswallop into plain, comprehensible English.

A good sub should be treasured, rewarded and respected.

Crucially, subbing skills should be praised and taught at each and every university that makes any claim to educate journalists. Young people whose English has been corrupted by text speak and the retreat from grammar and language teaching in schools need it urgently. Even among my brilliant cohort of journalism undergraduates, there are a few who, despite impressive academic qualifications, make basic errors that must be expunged. Nothing teaches grammar better than lessons in sub-editing and if people who teach journalists will not uphold standards in the use of English, we cannot reasonably expect others to do it.

Why might good copy editing be needed? Here are three four examples from my local paper of where it and the rest of the editing process broke down:

• A story just before the last election that told us local school boards were going to vote on nearly a "trillion" dollars in bond issues. (Make it nearly a billion.)
• A recent story on the governor's dismissal of several members of a state agency board. Nowhere in the story was there an attempt to reach the board members or the agency director (who also was attacked by the governor and subsequently resigned).
• A story in yesterday's paper about a new high school softball coach who was an assistant on the same team last year. It tells us who he worked under as coach last year, but never tells us what became of that other coach. It raises a question for the reader without answering it.
• There is this sentence in a story -- a sentence that because of a poor verb tense says exactly the opposite of what was intended: Not allowing officers to take their patrol cars home will save the department money on fuel, but will remove parked police cars from neighborhoods -- which Carter says helps residents feel more safe. ("Helps" as a singular properly refers back to a singular - remove or the removal. Use "help" as the plural and you refer back to the cars, which is what the writer intended. Had the sentence used the word "parking" somehow, then "helps" would be OK, but the grammar as it is now requires the reader to impute to the larger concept of parking the cars. Sure, you say, it will be understood. But, I would say, why not get it right and make sure it is understood?)
  

None of these is the "meddling" writers (and Greenslade, in essence) complain about. They get to the basics of journalism - getting it complete, fair and understandable.

Ah ha, you say. But that those got through a copy desk is proof we can do without them because they aren't catching it anyhow. Well, if anything, I'd suggest is is more proof of how desks have been emasculated so that they no longer can do the job required. I'd also suggest turning the argument around: If the reporter wrote it that way and the assigning editor let it through, maybe they should be eliminated, too. Obviously, they weren't doing their jobs to start.

Sadness at the Statehouse

After you've read the Baltimore cops piece mentioned in my previous post, read Marc Fisher's lament about the state of Statehouse coverage. And throw in Howard Kurtz's look at the sagging newspaper industry overall. There's a fair amount to quibble with in both pieces (though Fisher's quoting my old AP colleague and friend Bob Lewis isn't one of them). For instance, I don't completely buy Fisher's thesis that bloggers and other alternatives can't competently cover state government. Andy Brack's Statehouse Report here in South Carolina shows that it can be done. (That's along with host of bloggers who opine on the state political scene and do break stories. South Carolina may be a tad unusual, however, as one of the few states where state-level politics is also the state sport.)

But the larger issue is, however, that even as the feds have been pushing power back to the states for the past two decades, newspapers have been cutting coverage. To say editors and execs don't get it is too simplistic. I'm not sure exactly why, but as a longtime Statehouse reporter or editor in four states (Indiana - where I generally covered it from afar, Ohio, Rhode Island and South Carolina), let me take a stab at it. First, jut consider this graf from Fisher's story and let it hang there for a while. We'll get back to it:

In one hour in the Virginia House the other day, I watched debates on raising the cost of vanity license plates (the No's won), letting employers pay workers with debit cards rather than paychecks (Yeses won), and making it a felony to hang a noose on someone's property (approved). Hardly earth-shattering issues, but each has an impact on people's lives. Yet none got any press; a couple of years ago, they would have.

Here's what I've observed over the years:

1. Most editors, either those I worked for directly or the ones I dealt with at AP, define the Statehouse beat as a political one. In fact, the Statehouse reporter often was also the chief political reporter. For efficiency's sake, it probably can't be avoided. But it tends to conflate things and cast every story as political.
2. Which too often leads to the narrow view that most of the news comes from the Statehouse and probably has a political twinge. And political news, usually except in even-numbered years, tends to get buried under the theory that readers really aren't "focused" on such things. Again, the reporters on the ground know better, but we're talking about the editors back at home base.
3. That, in turn, tends to lead to a view that it's the pols who are important. Again, anyone with state capital experience knows that's far from the truth. But the result is that too often reporters are sent with the mission to cover "the local delegation." Noble idea, but if your men and women are relative newcomers or in the minority, they're going to have about as much say in things as a slow talker at an auctioneers convention. But I've actually had editors tell me they wouldn't run stories because their local members weren't involved or weren't quoted.
4. The corollary is that there is much less news when the pols aren't in town (in other words, in non-legislative months). Again, any veteran reporter of the Statehouse will tell you that's far from true. Some of the best stories come when you can get unhinged from the chambers and get into the agencies. But we reinforce this pattern by ramping up legislative staffing and then cutting it - a natural thing, but one that unintentionally reinforces the idea that only certain times of the year are rally important (and during those other times, Statehouse reporters often are called on to put on their "political reporter" hats and travel away from the capital).
5. Part of the problem is that Statehouse reporters too often fall into or have to gingerly step around the "process" coverage trap. There are still editors who think most of it should be meeting/committee coverage. As Lewis notes, they are moving away from that, but that legacy is a heck of an albatross.
   
6. Truth is, though, that with one vote, one bureaucratic decision, someone at the state level can more profoundly affect your readers' live than can anyone in Washington or even at your own City Hall.
   
1. Most of what Washington does is "big picture" stuff that may have long-range consequences but most of that is going to be funneled back through the states anyhow.
2. For most of what City Hall can do, the power must be granted by the state anyhow. For instance, the city might decide how much your property taxes go up next year, but whether they can go up at all is in most places a state function.
3. The state licenses the doctor you see, the person who cuts your hair and fertilizes your lawn; it probably regulates where that trash that you put out yesterday gets dumped and makes sure - or not, when the system breaks down - your house isn't built atop a toxic waste dump. It makes sure the gas pump you are using is accurate, sets curriculum standards and chooses books for your children's education, decides whether you can go to that hospital near you for that heart operation, or have to go across town -- or even across the state. I could go on. For pages.

The point is that just as good reporters know the courts/cops beat is a goldmine for short (or long) narratives -- you know, those kinds of stories the Readership Institute and others have stressed for years -- so too is the state capital beat a mother lode of "news you can use" stories that can speak to people if told the right way, not just ground out.

Let's get back to that graf from Kurtz's story:
In one hour in the Virginia House the other day, I watched debates on raising the cost of vanity license plates (the No's won), letting employers pay workers with debit cards rather than paychecks (Yeses won), and making it a felony to hang a noose on someone's property (approved). Hardly earth-shattering issues, but each has an impact on people's lives. Yet none got any press; a couple of years ago, they would have.

Let's see. Vanity plates? Mildly interesting for the relatively few thousand who have them.
Hanging a noose? Again, probably carries a bit more interest with some segments of your audience (and have you thought about the increased risk to your teenager, you know, the kind of thing teenagers tend to do as a prank). But overall, mild to medium.

But what about this debit card-for-paycheck issue? What will your readers/users say if all of a sudden their employer told them their upcoming checks would be a debt card? Why didn't you tell me? I'm thinking this might be a better story, well told, than the latest eight-incher (or, god help us, the longer versions I've seen in some places) from the local (fill in your own blank - sewer, zoning, etc.) board. Yes, those are important, too, but seldom do they have the impact on your entire city that one edict from the Statehouse does.

Sure, there's the AP, but it's not equipped to flood the place with eyeballs as would be the case if individual publications had their own person or shared someone.

Does this mean you have to rush someone to the Statehouse and pay all those expenses, etc.?st No. Find a blogger whose work you respect and who covers the Statehouse. Or, if an alternative service like Statehouse Report exists, support it. Neither will break the bank.

Just don't abandon readers by abandoning the Capitol.

Baltimore's mean streets

A sad commentary by David Simon in the Washington Post about the sate of police coverage in Baltimore.

Sad because I expect the same scenario to be played out in a lot more cities. Here in South Carolina's capital, for instance, it's not unusual to find that some significant court cases are not uncovered for days, sometime weeks.

New Convergence Newsletter - Dec-Feb

A new Convergence Newsletter is out. (In my other life I'm exec ed.)

I think it has several important pieces this month, including a look by Susan Keith and Leslie Jean-Thornton at how convergence has changed into "Webvergence" for many newsrooms. (Remember that long-ago "vision" of Media General in Tampa of converged TV and newspaper newsrooms? What were we thinking?)

John Coakley also has intriguing proposition -- stop just doing studies of journalists and start doing studies for them, taking into account their points of view.

There's more -- and it's free, both on the Web and in a monthly e-mail subscription. See past issues here.

Our blog allows you get an RSS feed and to comment on each issue.

I encourage you to subscribe. More important, I encourage you to contribute -- not money, but articles. The newsletter spans that valley between academic and professional publications. Among our upcoming issues: Convergence and communities, international developments, and convergence in the classroom.

Contact me if you have any thoughts or questions.

--Doug

This was the week that was

I've been toiling on a post about last week and the news biz for several days, trying to do it between a mound of grading and other commitments, such as getting out a new Convergence Newsletter.

Between the closing of the Rocky, the cancellation of the ASNE conference, various bankruptcies, and the announcement that the NY Times was -- finally -- embarking on some citizen journalism projects, this will go down as one of those watershed weeks in the news biz.

But then Mark Potts came along and wrote the post I was working on, so read his.

(Pardon the infrequency of posting here lately, but with three lab classes, including senior semester, and the newsletter, the workload at times can be crushing and life is a triage suite.)

Also of note, Howard Owens after leaving Gatehouse says he's going to go it alone running The Batavian. All the best to him on that; if anyone can pull it off, he probably can.