Breaking news -- making sure you do it together

There's nothing like having a caption like this atop your 6-hour-old story.

Does anyone down on Shop Road talk to each other?

Win a VIP look at 'Meet the Press'

Mea culpa - I've been meaning to post this but have been swamped with teaching. So with just 15 hours left to enter, let me clue you in to kind of a neat promotion: Win a backstage pass to "Meet the Press" a week before the election.

Normally, I don't shill for these things, but this one's being put on by Omaze, a startup that's raising money for causes by offering "experiences" like this.

(Full disclosure: It was brought to my attention by Rachel Kraus, who's been kind enough to speak to my class on social media and nonprofits and I owe her one - but I wouldn't be mentioning this if it were not MTP and linked to a decent cause.)

The beneficiary of the "Meet the Press" gig is the Young Storytellers Foundation.


Here are the details from Kraus:

•  You and a friend get flown roundtrip to Washington D.C. and put up in a hotel.
•  VIP access for you and your friend to "Meet the Press."
•  Sit on stage in one of 10 seats usually reserved for friends and family.
•  Meet David Gregory.

Taping takes place Oct. 28, a week before the election.

It's $10 for one ticket and less per ticket if you buy more. I don't know what your odds are - obviously it varies by how many entries are in, but  the site doesn't say (note to Omaze - a meter showing at least how many entries or how much has been raised would be a good addition.)

As with all these things, caveat emptor. But I think it's at least worth checking out.

Another Dewey vs. Truman moment - Augusta, Ga.

This is the sort of thing guaranteed to ruin your day -- count the votes from only one county in a multicounty congressional race, as I'm told one Augusta, Ga., TV station did, and end up calling it for the wrong person:

WJBF later got it right on the Web.

SC Primaries - split decision for the Republicans

The S.C. Supreme Court has turned aside the challenge by several counties that said they should not be responsible for paying for the Jan. 21 presidential primary. The primary must be held and the counties and State Election Commission will do so, no questions asked, the court ruled today.

But there was also a slapshot at the GOP, which had intended to put these four "advisory" questions on the ballot:

1. In order to stop the uncontrolled growth of our national debt and prevent excessive borrowing by the Federal Government, which threatens our economy and national security, should the United States Constitution be amended to require a balanced federal budget without raising taxes?
Yes
No

2. In order to promote economic growth and to decrease America’s dependence on foreign energy sources that threaten our national security, should the United States energy policy include increased domestic energy production through access to more on-shore and off-shore oil and natural gas?
Yes
No

3. In order to protect South Carolina jobs and defend against federal government intrusions, should the United States Congress pass the Protecting Jobs from Government Interference Act, which would prohibit the National Labor Relations Board from ordering any company to close, relocate, or transfer employees?
Yes
No

4. In order to address the matter of Corporate Personhood, the enfranchised People of the Sovereign State of South Carolina shall decree that:
Corporations are people
Only people are people

Not so fast, the justices said in their 3-2 decision:

Nothing in the statutes upon which this declaratory judgment is rendered and no provision of South Carolina law would allow the ballot for a publically funded Presidential Preference Primary to include anything other than the names of candidates for a qualifying political party's nominee for President of the United States. Accordingly, the State Election Commission and the County Election Commissions are hereby directed that they may not print such ballots or conduct such primaries for any matter other than the nomination of party candidates for President of the United States. No advisory questions may be included on any such primary ballots. Additionally, no other advisory elections, straw polls, or the like on any question may be conducted at the various Presidential Preference Primary polling places or within 200 feet of the entrance to such polling places.

 So score one for a bit of sanity.

These questions were not much more than a publicity grab. Any results would have little validity as a barometer of anything.

Maybe the strong language will keep this silliness under control in the future. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Words got connotations, too

There is, as the oft-cribbed Mark Twain phrase says, a lot of difference between the right word and the almost-right word.

That is never more true than in the silly season - i.e., the weeks before Election Day.

So why do we forget that?

(Disclaimer: What I am about to say should not be interpreted as favoring one candidate or another. We're talking language, not politics, here.)

In an AP story by Seanna Adcox* on the S.C. governor's race between Democrat Vincent Sheheen and Republican Nikki Haley is this graf:

Haley wants to eliminate those [corporate income] taxes, while Sheheen called that a bad idea in a state that already has one of the nation's lowest corporate tax rates. Though Sheheen said he would aggressively use incentives to bring companies to the state, Haley took a more apprehensive approach, saying it would depend on factors such as a company's long-term plans in the state.

The problem is the word "apprehensive." Words have connotations, and the connotation of apprehensive is not just cautious, but anxious, almost fearful. I'm betting that wasn't how Haley reacted as she spoke to a room full of business people. I know the writer was trying to draw a negative parallel with "aggressive, but "cautious" would be the more neutral word, and for that matter, why is it needed at all?

Though Sheheen said he would aggressively use incentives to bring companies to the state, Haley took a more apprehensive approach, saying said it would depend on factors such as a company's long-term plans in the state.

By using the questionable word, the writer risks deprecating her work among the partisans and among those who have a discerning eye and ear.

This is why we have editors, to make sure writers don't color outside the lines, and in the silly season editors' tone detectors should be on the same power as their B.S. detectors - ultra-high.

*Follow that link while you can - The State has a habit of deep-sixing such links rather quickly.

The get out the vote "Pod Squad"

Newspapers say they are looking to get younger people to come to their Web sites or read their paper.

Well, to mix metaphors, they might take a page out of the book being written by S.C. Educational TV. SCETV has created Ready to Vote, a site aimed especially at high school students. But it isn't just the usual text and lesson-plan stuff. This one is very big on multimedia, with two important points:

• High school students are being encouraged to create their own election videos and send them in. This is very smart -- go to the medium they are growing up in. How many newspapers are recruiting high school students to submit videos -- or for that matter just submit articles to go in the paper and on the Web site?
• SCETV has created a "Pod Squad" of college journalism students to prime the pump, but also to visit high schools and take the message -- and the training with them. Check out this from the teachers' page:
  

Your school can have a lesson taught by Ready to Vote's very own POD SQUAD!!!

Anytime through the school year that you would like the Pod Squad to come and speak to your classes about journalism, politics and the two combined just email Amanda Alpert at aalpert@scetv.org.

The lessons include a Presidential candidate montage video, PowerPoint lesson, a quiz with PRIZES and a question and answer portion. The Pod Squad will also endorse having students participate in having their very own work posted on the Ready to Vote website.

Does your paper have a "Pod Squad" to take the message -- whatever message it is you want to send about this buisness and the world in general -- to your schools? Have you considered working with any area colleges to help? What are you doing to encourage students to contribute work? (And I mean beyond the shopworn "teen reporters" concept -- that smacks of the same cliquishness that pervades the halls of your local high school; you've got to be willing to open submissions to everyone and judge each on its merits.)

Finally, take a look at the media page. I think its format is also something to think about. I like the media matrix effect instead of just having one video window with a lot of text stuff around it. (Note: Some weirdness here: The matrix comes up in old Netscape 7.x, but in Firefox 2.x, a couple of the video squares are missing. How weird is that ... It all works in IE)

Thoughts anyone?

'Outing' a blogger

Down in St. Augustine, things are hopping over the newspaper's attempt to uncover the identity of a blogger critical of local politicians, specifically County Commissioner Ben Rich.

The blogger is filing under the name Lee Padgett. (The blog, from what I can tell, appears to have been restarted and scrubbed clean of previous posts, although there now is a big disclaimer at the top: I am a citizen. I am not a politician. I do not solicit or accept political contributions and I do not support the campaigns of candidates for political office. My comments are my own.)

Anyhow, the local paper, the Record, seems to have felt that Padgett was a pseudonym and that he was fronting for a larger group seeking to oust Rich. So it set about trying to out Padgett by asking people to identify him from video surveillance footage. The footage comes from the paper's own cameras in its ad department where "Padgett" showed up to buy an ad against Rich.

Let the fireworks begin:
-- Blogger Rogers Cadenhead unloaded on the paper -- as did many of his commenters -- for trying to out Padgett. I've been reading the Record for a decade. I can't recall a single time where it conducted an effort to catch a rapist, robber or murderer anywhere near the scope of this manhunt for a blogger.
-- Paul McNamara at Network World responded, saying the paper was doing the right thing. The Record, believing Padgett to be part of an organized political group out to unseat Rich, not merely a lonely pamphleteer voicing his displeasure with a public official, decided that making public Padgett's identity was the right to do. They were correct. While there may be a long-held and cherished right to publish anonymously in this country, it isn't any more absolute than other First Amendment rights and should never be confused with a right to remain anonymous. After all, there was never anything stopping the lonely pamphleteer's neighbors from saying, "Hey, that looks a lot like farmer Ben's handwriting."

I love a good food fight. In all seriousness, though, this gets at the heart of what is going to be a continuing debate -- I suspect for some time -- over speech, political speech, anonymity and pseudonymity on the Internet. Already there have been several attempts to propose ethics codes for bloggers. In a very general sense, they advocate the do no harm approach. But they all promise to largely be shells because there will always be a certain segment of bloggers who say But I am here TO DO harm -- harm to the current system that I see as corrupt, inept or otherwise in need of change.

And why shouldn't they be allowed to do that harm? (OK, treason, maybe not. But to avoid dealing with emotionally charged straw men, let's keep away from the edges for this discussion.) So in that sense, Cadenhead has it right.

However, I think McNamara also has it right in this case. The guy bought an ad. It's news. Had someone gone around the city blanketing it with anti-candidate fliers, that's also news, and the newspaper has the right to try to find out who it is and who is behind it. That is as long a cherished tradition in America as is anonymous speech. The problem really is, of course, that in at least some segment of the population the paper is seen not as a representative of the people, but as a tool of the establishment. That's a larger problem that all of journalism faces and on which books can and have been written.

The Record blew it, however, by posting video surveillance footage and asking people to out the guy. But shouldn't the paper have the right to use whatever tools are available? Well, no. I think there are still some bounds of propriety. If I go into a newspaper office to buy an ad, yes, these days I expect a video camera, but to protect the person taking the ad if I happen to pull a gun or do some other dastardly thing. We are becoming a video world, but I think there remains great uneasiness over turning our lives into one big "The Truman Show."

Using traditional shoe leather reporting allows not only for the gathering of information, but for its studied consideration. In other words, editing. Do we really have a situation of a front man? If so, then maybe, as Warner Wolf says, "let's go to the video." I fear we may be getting into an era of being a little video trigger happy, however. That we CAN do it doesn't mean we SHOULD do it. (The Record's editor, Peter Ellis, says as much in an e-mail exchange with McNamara.)

This is one more new ethical issue newsrooms need to come to grips with in the new-media era. So far, I don't see them doing it very well.

The ultimate bottom-line comment, however, comes from a response on Cadenhead's blog: Politics in the age of blogs is going to be a lot more complex.

Uh-huh. You can add journalism to that, too.

Quick thoughts: Centralcasting, crowdsourcing and silencing gangs

Centralcasting, Telemundo style

With some of the discussion we've had here lately about changes likely coming to copy desks, universal desks, etc., it's worth noting our broadcast bretheren are struggling with some of the same issues. The latest reminder is the word that Telemundo is centralizing much of its newscast production at a studio near Fort Worth. Meg James brings the details in an L.A. Times story:

As part of a companywide, $750-million restructuring by parent NBC Universal, Telemundo TV stations in markets including San Jose, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas and Houston will no longer produce their own newscasts.

Instead, beginning early next year, local news for seven Telemundo stations will originate near Fort Worth. There, anchors and editors will produce three live regionalized newscasts using feeds from reporters and camera operators in the field.

Expect to see more of this. TV studios and newsrooms are expensive operations. The more you can keep them running, the better the margins. NBC's also doing it by bringing MSNBC in-house at Rockefeller Center.

Tvtechnology.com has a good archive article on "centralcasting," including the human toll involved when Sinclair centralized its news. And from that article, a thought:

"Until now, centralcasting has been an unqualified failure because most broadcasters went in with the primary motivation to save money. To be successful, centralcasting has to result in a better local on-air product, not just a cheaper one," said Steven L'Heureux, president of Denver-based automation provider Encoda Systems.

Another article, this one originally from American Journalism Review in 1993, touches on the centralcasting experiment tried here in Columbia. That station (WOLO) gave it up about a year ago and now has a small downtown studio and staff. The newscasts from Charlotte were so bad they were painful to watch. On the other hand, the move might have kept that news operation from going dark.

Election Day Crowdsourcing

Gannett followed its announcement of a week ago that it was blowing up its newsrooms, with a new emphasis on "crowdsourcing," with some examples in action on Election Day. I especially like the Cincinnati Enquirer's site for reporting voting problems. Nice Google map mashup, too, to make it easier to interpret. Other big-G papers had similar things, some linked to Gannett's national round-up site.

Yet, as I look at Cincinnati's offering, for instance, I find something missing. I find myself staring at all the blog posts and the neat map and muttering "what does it mean"? And that's the downside of this newfound enthusiasm for crowdsourcing (using the wisdom and expertise of a mass of people outside the newsroom to help ferret out information). The word is drowdsourcing, and we should't forget that. It's not "crowdjournalism," and that's why we have journalists -- to take disparate posts like those on the election-problem site and provide broader meaning and context.

Where is the story that tells me whether all these posts represented a real problem in Cincinnati and surrounding areas, or whether they were a random set of relatively insignificant things (not insignificant to those who had trouble voting, but still ...)? Ask an epidemeologist about the dangers that lurk in drawing conclusions from what appear to be clusters. (Clustering can apply to time as well as geography, and of course the concentrated nature of Election Day would tend to promote that.) And if a story was done, my apologies, but why is it not linked from this page?

While we are all agog about crowdsourcing, let's not lose sight of the journalism that's still needed.

Ganging up on Gangs

One of our local TV stations, a Gannett outfit, is trumpeting the fact that it no longer will "knowingly" show gang symbols or colors or gang members themselves. The station says it doesn't want to glorify gang members and wants to be "part of the solution."

Pardon me. If children are in the room hold their ears. This is a ^&#$%^*&(%*& STUPID MOVE that smacks of trying to grab brownie points rather than do journalism. Sure, gang members may be slimeballs, but you don't cut yourself off from any source in a story that is of central interest to a wide swath of your community. Of course you don't glorify them, but there will be journalistic moments when you simply can't tell a full, accurate story without them. They are a voice -- now silenced on your station, for good or evil. What is the next voice you're willing to ignore when the guv'ment suggests it might not be prudent? Got a mirror ...

Election night shows newsrooms still have long way to go

So it is 1:30 a.m. as I write this and two key statewide elections in South Carolina are too close to call. The lieutenant governor's race has the Republican leading by 5,605 votes, and the Democrat leads the educatation superintendent's race by 504 votes. Both are out of more than 1 million cast.

Three counties have precincts still out: Greenville, Charleston and Sumter. It's nice to know some things never change. It's the usual pro-GOP upstate (Greenville) against the Dems in the two others.

But some things need to change. So let's look at how the major papers in those counties have handled what should be updates on their Web sites explaining exactly what is going on. Here's Sumter:

That's nice. voters are still heading to the polls. At 1 a.m.!

Click on the election results line and you'll get actual vote totals. But will you get any kind of explanation about what is going on in what is a key county in two key races?

I can't find it.


Let's next turn to Greenville, where five precincts remained out.

That screen grab is a little small, so let me help. Under that picture it says "Just 6,000 votes separate them." Only off by a factor of 10 or so at this hour. (And a little dissonant with the story underneath that says the margin is 300 votes.)

At least there is a story, if you look for it, explaining what's up in the Upstate -- the five-year batteries on five voting machines in four precincts conked out after two years. Local technicians didn't have whatever was needed, so a technician was coming in from Charleston and should arrive by 2 a.m. Wednesday (just about as I am writing this).

Of course, through the magic of this Gannett paper's constantly updating Web site, this all was gone within 10 minutes, replaced with a story about how the Fresh Market might locate in town. (Guess undecided elections that only mean whether the GOP controls the entire mechanism of state government for the first time in modern times become old news fast.) Fortunately, there was a "more coverage" election button up top that did take me to a shell page -- but not to any updated stories. And the explanation story was even lower on that page.

Let's move to the coast and Charleston, the key counterpoint to the GOP-heavy Greenville. It had almost 10 precincts out.


Again, a little small, so let me help. Just a list of stories with a button pointing you to results "updated 11 p.m." Second from the bottom in this screen grab is the education superintendent story with this breaking lead:

Democrat Jim Rex held a slim lead over Republican Karen Floyd in the race for state superintendent of education, early results showed. Rex appeared to be reaping at least some reward Tuesday night for his unwavering support of the public school system.

Rex, who has campaigned on an anti-voucher platform, ran ahead of Floyd and four third-party candidates at 10 p.m., but counties such as Spartanburg and Greenville had not yet reported results.

Now, remember, I am writing this at 1 a.m. And were there any details of how close this lead was or why it was taking forever to get key precincts counted in this paper's home county? No, this was pure condom journalism -- throw some noncommittal words up on the site that can't get you into that much trouble and let it sit.

As for those results "updated 11 p.m."? Hardly. I just clicked on them, and they have barely half of the precincts reporting. Those figures were in by 10 p.m.

But then again, did the AP have anything explaining what was going on? Not that I could find on any sites around the state. So I checked the raw wire feed. Here's the 2nd LD-Writethru filed at 1:19 a.m.:

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina Republicans closed in on their hopes of securing a sweep of statewide offices Tuesday night, even with two races still too close to call.

Republicans came into the elections with seven of the nine statewide offices. They gained a seat when Thomas Ravenel ousted Treasurer Grady Patterson, the only statewide Democratic incumbent on the ballot.

The race for the only other office occupied by Democrats was too close to call early Wednesday morning. Democratic education superintendent candidate Jim Rex had a slight lead over Republican Karen Floyd.

And although an official call on the race had not yet been made, Republican Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer thanked his supporters for their help during his campaign against Democratic challenger Robert Barber.

"It's been a tough, tough year," Bauer said, making reference to surviving a small plane crash in May and two opponents in the GOP primary. "I can't say enough about God getting me through this process."

The races for lieutenant governor and education superintendent will likely trigger automatic recounts, said Lachlan McIntosh, a spokesman for Barber.

The other six Republican incumbents won easily.

Bauer wanted a second term to primarily to preside over the Senate during session and oversee the state Office on Aging, which was transferred to the lieutenant governor in 2004 after Bauer asked for more responsibilities.

Barber, a former legislator and Lowcountry restaurant owner, had said he wanted to help improve the state's economy and improve public education _ issues he says are linked. He likely won't concede until all the votes are counted, McIntosh said.

(The rest deals with other races)

Finally, The (Columbia) State, which has always prided itself on being the political paper of record. It did have constantly updated results displayed prominently. But as for those close races, more condom journalism as we now move past 2 a.m.:

Early returns Tuesday put Democrat Jim Rex, a former college professor and administrator, in position to be South Carolina’s next superintendent of education.

Rex led Republican Karen Floyd and four third-party candidates in Tuesday’s election, but large numbers of votes in Greenville County were slow to be tallied. Rex appeared to beat Floyd in her home county, Spartanburg.

Well, actually Floyd won her home county. The Greenville votes still aren't all tallied (three precincts are still out), and one Sumter precinct remains out. As I have written this, the Democrat's lead in the education race has expanded to 1,579. The Republican still leads the lieutenant governor's race, but now just by 1,862.

And newspapers have chalked up another vote in explanation of why people increasingly look to other places for their information.

Was this information elsewhere to be found? No, not necessarily. I checked a bunch of other sources, and Greenville was as good as it got. But that's the wrong question. The point is that if newsrooms are going to distinguish themselves and attract the eyeballs they need to survive, they have to do things differently -- things like understanding the issues and questions and answering them as they develop, not put early-cycle condom journalism stories up on their sites and leave them there.
-----
(Wednesday morning update: The education race has now tightened to just about 200 votes, Democrat ahead, with one precinct still out -- in Greenville. Even given Greenville's heavily Republican nature, I think the Democrat may win by about 50 votes (third party candidates, such as Libertarian, will tend to suck away some votes that normally would go to the Republican). The Greenville News, to its credit, has updated its story on voting machine problems to now explain the one precinct has about 400 votes to count by hand -- although no explanation why it is by hand and the others were machine. And the story is out front. It also is prominently displaying an updated race story.)

Further update: Kudos to the Herald-Journal in Spartanburg -- a long Frisbee toss east of Greenville. It kept its site updated through the night and has used a blog right on the home page ("Zowee, why didn't I think of that?" I can see editors saying now as they slap their heads) to quickly publish. Example below taken around 1 a.m. with an updated educuation superintendent story:

But of more importance is that the site, Go Upstate, has quickly moved to put other highly useful graphics up for people, including a visual reprsentaton of where the votes were for each candidate. That's using your head -- and the Web: