Online headlines: Sometimes you must think about the long tail

Online headlines live forever.

It's worth remembering that when you see a hed like this days and weeks after a person's death:

The news of the moment might be that this famous order caller at The Beacon restaurant will "lie in repose," though one might suggest the headline is pretty dull for such a well-known character (and is "in repose" really conversational)?

But two days from now, when people are still coming to your site for this news, or five, 10 or 30 days later, you can look silly with this head.

Do it if you must for the moment - but then update it later.

(There is a later story about Stroble's funeral, but the problem I see is that this earlier story is the "base" story - the big take-out on his life that is likely to be the main one people come back to down the road.)

Copy editing: Has the job really changed?

I was a bit confused by the pronouncement by a Gatehouse VP in a recent story announcing that Gatehouse was following the rest of the traditional "print" and wire service universe in setting up editing hubs in Rockford, Ill., and Framingham, Mass.

Declared David Arkin, vice president of content and audience: "The role of the copy editor today is to move copy as they get it."

Maybe I missed all those languid days by the copy desk pool, with the slot lazily sipping pina coladas while the rim rats worked on their tans. I never did get the good schedules.

What exactly does Arkin think a copy desk does or ever did?

And that might be the problem here -- a continuing view that somehow copy editors and the copy desk are a pain in the neck, out to sabotage, well, sabotage what exactly?

Sabotage the ability of pesky lawyers and plaintiffs to sue the paper for those oh-so-minor mistakes? (Hey, no problem. We can correct them online - yeah, after they've been spidered and are already in the search engine universe?)

Sabotage the ability to get a 10-second beat on a story by asking a simple question: How, exactly, do we know this? (How'd that work out in the Joe Paterno death story, eh?)

My local paper recently ran an entire story on how much candidates spent during the GOP primary here, not once citing any source for the information. (An accompanying graphic says the source is "Smart Media" - quick quiz: do you, dear reader, know what that is? Is it this ... or this, which has GOP ties? Frankly, I don't pay for the paper so I can end up doing the research.) Earlier, it crowed how the drop in the state's month-to-month unemployment rate was dramatic, without ever mentioning what the previous month's rate was.

Sabotage the ability to keep some credibility (and maybe circulation or page views) by getting the facts right and not misspelling a person's name so he or she - and all his or her relatives - badmouth your operation?

I understand fully that editors' jobs have changed in the digital era. That's why I'm training students to quick file and quick edit (not always with their full enjoyment and appreciation - grin).

But statements like Arkin's make me think that many managers and executives remain clueless about what editors do - and do even more of more quickly and more professionally - in the digital age.

Color me confused.

Bleacher Report U - a great resource

Yep, it's brutal. It's pointed.

And Bleacher Report's new training site, Bleacher Report U, and its other editing resources really should be part of your tool box if you are teaching journalism in a digital age.

Bleacher Report U is designed to help train all those "content contributors" on which it relies for cheap/free labor. (There, I said it.)

The sports site makes no bones about it - it's out to get eyeballs and clicks. Which, of course, includes the inevitable clickwhore slide shows.

But if you aren't exposing your students to this brutal reality of 21st century journalism, you're shortchanging them. You have to sign up for the training, but just copying the module descriptions and goals into a Word doc and handing it out ought to be enough for a good conversation starter.

More valuable, however, are the other writing and editing resources available outside of the B/R-U structure. I'd encourage you to look at a few of these and check out the internal links that will open up even more (some have been around for a couple of years and I am just finding them):

• The art of the headline - Ryan Alberti's plain-spoken guide. 
• If you find the copy-editing cheat sheet, you will also find an invaluable link to a Google doc that shows "before" and "after" versions of headlines. Lots of grist there.
• There is a full editing case study centered on one article and its revisions. Lots of good stuff (a few minor things I don't agree with, but darn few).
• The B/R blog entry on prose style with this good opening sentence: On the Internet, form IS content. HOW you write changes the very substance of WHAT you write, because it changes the way readers process and understand your work. 

There are lots of sites out there with plenty of helpful tips on Internet writing, SEO, etc., but this is one of the best at integrating it all and not pulling punches.

One thing I especially like is how it reinforces the idea that copy has to be "centered" not only rhetorically but "spatially":

Rhetorical centeredness speaks for itself. A piece should have a coherent overall structure, with an attention-grabbing introduction and a point-making conclusion. Tangents are okay in small doses, but your job as an editor is to keep a piece progressing at a steady pace. This is delicate work, obviously. The only way to master the craft is to practice it.

As for “spatial” centeredness: It’s important to maintain visual and structural balance in the text. Most pointedly, this means (a) breaking long paragraphs into shorter ones and (b) creating single-sentence “anchor” paragraphs where appropriate. 

Yeah, nothing really new here,  but nicely put and emphasized. This is something that needs to be emphasized much more in print, too. I've always called it "visual grammar." It's one of the reasons that even when we went to computers, editors often printed off longer stories - they could "see" where there might be problems.

Newsrooms in general could learn a lot from this stuff. Read it closely, and, whether you agree, disagree or detest some of the dog-eat-dog tone, for me it highlights many of the reasons traditional newsrooms still struggle online. If they adopted some of these ideas for "print" as well, not only would those pages be friendlier, but shoveling the print version online might work better too.

I recall listening in on a state press association teleconference a while back as editors and publishers debated what training to offer. At one point, it was suggested I do a seminar on online writing.

Fine, I said. "How many of you are rewriting your copy for online?"

Dead silence.

OK, I said after about 10 seconds, "You don't need an online writing course."

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(Thanks to the Community Journalism Interest Group blog for the pointer.)

Do online readers notice editing?

Fred Vultee presented a session today at the American Copy Editors Society conference in Phoenix delving into some of his research into this question.

The answer: Yes -- and no.

Readers notice details and grammar. But in a sort of counter-intuitive finding, he says online readers are  more likely than other readers to find stories we journos might consider well-edited to be badly organized, while stuff just thrown up is more likely to be considered better organized.

Go figure. Nick Jungman has a complete rundown of the session on his blog.

Buttry: Time to weigh the value of clean copy

Steve Buttry, former copy editor, trainer for the American Press Institute, editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, and now director of community engagement for TBD.com, weighs in on balancing the value of clean copy to today's digital realities.

To summarize (but you should read his entire post because a summary never adequately picks up the nunances) and my thoughts (in italics):

• "But as someone working on journalism innovation, I know that costs and value propositions are a critical factor in financial success and even survival." Yes, and much of this falls at the feet of copy editors. I still haven't seen them make an effective cost/value argument in the language executives use: Dollars and cents. In some quarters, I still sense a sense of fantasy - a fantasy that somehow there will be a massive lawsuit somewhere that will make "the industry" stand up and notice. Not going to happen.
• "My first newspaper had no copy desk and it was nowhere near as good as the Register, but it was good enough. ...I knew the city editor was just going to give my copy a quick glance, so I had to take responsibility for the quality of my copy, and I made it pretty good." "Good enough" still scares me as a standard because I don't know what it means. "Perfection" also scares me because it is a) not attainable and b) as a result tends to lead to paralysis. But striving for a level of perfection seems to be a useful glide slope if we are wise enough to know when the slope is too steep. But Buttry's ultimate point here that we MUST inculcate in all staff that editing is now everyone's responsibility is well-taken.
• "We have no copy editors at TBD (and got criticized for that after a famous correction). While the newsroom staffing was Editor Erik Wemple’s decision, I fully support it. You can’t do everything, and a digital operation can correct after publication with less damage than a print publication (very few people saw the original error that we were correcting; it was the correction that went viral)." Too facile. That original error is likely to be cached somewhere, and even with "very few" (please define - hundreds, a few thousand?), the network effects power means it still can get into the digital bloodstream. Errors have long tails just as much as corrected copy does. Yes, I agree we have to rethink - the digital environment is more plastic than print. But there are some realities that the "we can correct it quickly and few will notice" camp also conveniently overlooks. To TBD's credit, the correction is prominently displayed, something you are less likely to find elsewhere. 
• "Erik gave everyone a writing test in the interview, so we could see their raw copy. You do need to screen for copy quality. If copy editing resources can’t be what they used to be, then maybe you can no longer afford that staff member who’s a good reporter but a mediocre (or even bad) writer. Or even a good writer but a lousy speller. (Or you need to demand that they get better and start compensating for the weaknesses they know they have.)" Amen. Unfortunately, in most newsrooms it's not the case, with reporting and content creation valued far more than the integrated writing/editing skills. Dan Conover even has made a case that journalism's future lies more in a data-intensive model that should value reporting at least equally if not more than writing/editing. As he puts it: "A print journalist is supposed to do both things well, but truth be told, if you can't tell a good story in a compelling way, your print-reporting career is toast. Weak reporter? We'll coach-you-up. Fundamentally clueless as a writer? Consider another line of work. ... Journalism is a profession for storytellers, and our newsroom culture celebrates romantic myths that are generally hostile to structure."
• "Quality has always been a relative matter, with publications deciding how much they could afford to spend in pursuit of unattainable perfection. I hope the value equation continues to support copy editors at most operations, but that’s a decision individual editors, publishers and group presidents will have to make with their budgets, their value equations and their communities." See my above comments about perfection and groups like ACES yet to make the value proposition.
• "Here’s a practical question: Has the chain consolidated editing functions? That’s not as good a solution, in terms of quality, as having copy editors at each location. But if an organization doesn’t have or can’t afford quality editing at each location, consolidation might provide better, more efficient editing and design." If you define editing as "production," this makes absolute sense, and that's where copy editors failed to see their blindside. They assumed they were all about "quality," a squishy, largely unmeasurable term. Their bosses saw them as "production," a very measurable cost. If editing/copy editing is to find a new equilibrium in the digital age, editors are going to have to rethink how to reframe the quality argument.
• "Another thing to consider is whether an organization is spending too much time editing wire copy. I know local copy editors add value when they edit wire copy, having done it myself. I also know that wire copy has already been edited by professional copy editors. The local editing can and should be cut back or nearly eliminated. Or certainly wire editing could be consolidated among affiliated newspapers." I was a wire-service correspondent and later editor. Trust me, consolidate the editing, but don't abandon it.
• The truth is that grammar and editing skills are declining in the population and among journalists. Newspapers are in a difficult spot. Readers are older and learned grammar in a different era when it got greater emphasis (though you’d be amazed how many arrogant, critical letters I received from readers, taking us to task for our errors but containing errors of their own). But many staff members are young people who grew up txting “lol, omg” and the like." Newspapers have always been in a difficult spot - how much to follow and how much to lead. That's why you had editors. I'm unclear what Steve is trying to say here - abandon ship because grammar and editing skills are declining overall - or take a more measured approach and try to lead more? What is the role of media in all this? I tend to favor a leadership role because what I hear from others in the business community outside of media is a great wail about declining language skills. So it would seem there is some value proposition in this. If you have any doubt that business does and will influence things, consider the language/writing changes in the SAT. (And here's a quiz question - find at least one language error in that article I linked to - hint, look for the apostrophe misused to make a plural.)
• "Anyway, I think in today’s value analysis, clean copy (especially AP style) isn’t as valuable as it used to be (or has been surpassed in value by some other factors). As an editor, I did occasionally field calls from people complaining about grammar and spelling, but never about AP style." Why do these things always come down to the straw man of AP style? I agree with Buttry - people who obsess about AP style need to get a life (click on the "style-AP" tag below to see some of my suggestions for removing some of AP's inanities). On the other hand, many publications, not just newspapers, still use it as a unifying element (you want to talk about inefficiency, especially with consolidated editing, try dealing with multiple styles - local variations are bad enough). So for now, in j-school, we probably are still obligated to teach some style (just as we have to teach APA, MLA and Chicago, if those writers are doing academic papers - style is just a fact of publication), but teach it in a balanced, enlightened way, not one that turns people into style enforcers.

My bottom line here: Buttry's post is valuable for again highlighting the modern realities and issues surrounding editing and the need to develop its value proposition and not just bemoan "quality." But it's too facile in some areas, as much of this discussion tends to be. I can't make the ACES meeting in Phoenix this year (I have to be at the AEJMC Southeast Colloquium the same weekend), but I'd use Buttry's as the centerpiece around which to start a serious conversation about where editing goes. So far, most of what I've seen are editors hanging on for dear life, along for the ride, not trying to really take charge of what they can about their futures.

And editing educators should have the same conversation - continually.

(Disclaimer - I have no editor on this post, so there probably are some errors. I'm happy to correct them if you point them out.)
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Update: One might also consider this article from across the pond by Allan Prosser commenting on some of the editing cutbacks and rearrangements there. Not only does he manage to get in "Gadarene," he has this wonderful quote from his boss when he asked for a pay raise for handling the especially difficult copy from a star reporter: “His job is to provide the words, but your function is to provide the music. Now piss off.”

Groundhog Day - WaPo style

An alert Ralph Hanson sends around a message today that the Washington Post apparently is having a "Groundhog Day" moment with its stories from the opening of the Iraq war way back in, oh, 2003.

For a while, the WaPo had a prominent link to its March 2003 story announcing the invasion. The link is gone, but the story's still there with today's date. Their content management system normally does not auto-advance the date, so this had to be someone hitting the wrong switch.

Oh well, sit back and relive history. Think we can change it this time?

(Pix below courtesy of Hanson.)

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Wichita copy editors integral part of online process

At the Wichita Eagle, the assigning editors get bypassed when something is headed directly for the Web, and a copy editor handles it instead.

"One breakthrough was in the realization that reverse publishing eliminated the need for redundant copy editing. In other words, if an article was already edited for the Web, considerably less time needed to be spent editing it for print," says Michael Roehrman, deputy editor, production.

Read more about it at the Knight Digital Media Center.

It's the Internet - update it dang it

This is the sort of thing that still remains all too common on some newspaper online sites.

The (Columbia) State (an already crappy McClatchy legacy site), has this on its Metro page this morning. Take a look under the politics column on the right. Clinton shut down the campaign June 8. Click on the story and it tells you it was posted June 8. Now, notice the date in the upper right (Tuesday, June 24, if you can't see it.)





Unattended shovelware is so 1990s. It's 2008. Assign the people needed to keep your site fresh and clean. It's your future.