Dangle Me This

If the Huffington Post really wants to become a major journalism site, it should hire some editors who would, among other things, eliminate danglers:

As a co-architect of the federal Cash For Clunkers (CFC) program and advisor to various congressional offices on the issue, it is gratifying to see how quickly it has been adopted by the American people. CFC achieves multiple goals -- it stimulates auto sales while increasing the efficiency of the U.S. fleet.

Set Aside SEO and Train for Accuracy

Arriving home after about a 300-mile roundtrip to a field hockey camp, I found this headline and thought, wow, I missed a good story: The missing soldier has been found. Alas, it was not to be.

A headline should never get ahead of the story: the soldier hasn't been found; Pakistan is helping the United States to look for him.

Pakistan helps U.S. find captured soldier

By Julian E. Barnes
As part of a warming partnership between the two countries, Islamabad has shared intelligence on a soldier captured by Taliban militants.
With a confidence boost provided by a series of operations against militants inside Pakistan, Islamabad has stepped up the intelligence and military cooperation provided to the U.S., and to a lesser degree Afghanistan, in the last six months, according to U.S. officials.

U.S. military drone flights into Pakistan, designed to help collect intelligence against militant targets, have resumed, and the information is being shared and analyzed with the Pakistani military at the Joint Coordination Center at the border Torkham Gate in Afghanistan, American officials said.

Officials differed on the value of the intelligence Pakistan has shared on Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, who was captured by Taliban militants in Afghanistan on June 30. One senior defense official acknowledged that Islamabad had provided intelligence, but cautioned not to overstate its value.

And I do not mean to be snarky, though I am angry when I say this, but really, newspaper editors: Instead of spending a lot of time training working, capable editors in search-engine optimization, how about teaching the web site people who are often not really editors to write accurate, sensible headlines? Or make sure those qualified editors who are now doing double duty for the print edition and web site have the time to do their job well?

Wouldn't the results be better? We've got the training exactly backwards if there is to be any hope at all of retaining the value of journalism as we know it today. Reporting and editing are not like hand grenades, where close is good enough.

And This Trite Usage Is Definitely Not Alone

A small and incomplete collection of the trite "he is not alone" phrase:

"And Calbi is not alone." (Los Angeles Times)

"They Are Not Alone" (Beijing Review)

"Rafsanjani is not alone in believing it is dangerous." (New York Times)

"Yes, Fisher wants Odom back, and he said he's not alone." (Los Angeles Times)

"Rather, of course, is not alone." (Newsbusters)

"If you think the company's decision-making process is capricious and strange, you're not alone." (Philadelphia Inquirer)

"I am certain I am not alone in thinking about these kinds of questions in light of the recent news that the eminent Harvard Black Studies Professor Henry Louis Gates has been arrested..." (DailyKos)

"And I’m not alone." (Niagara Gazette)

"Harris is not alone in the struggle to pay for cancer treatment." (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

"If you don't know what a 'birther' is, you're not alone." (Examiner.com)

"Will is not alone in finding herself on the outside of drag racing." (Press Democrat)

"She said she is not alone in her dissatisfaction with the union and is pursuing legal action." (Warwick Beacon)

"Dartmouth is a local leader in its embrace of foreign-trained physicians, but it is not alone in recruiting doctors with international backgrounds." (Concord Monitor)

"Murdoch is frustrated, and she's not alone." (Minnesota Public Radio)

"Crowley is not alone in her frustration." (Detroit News)

"This week, she discovered that she’s not alone." (Waseca County News)

"Wambach's not alone in her comeback" (Democrat and Chronicle)

"Her kids are not alone." (Detroit Free Press)

"According to WKAR's Jeanie Croope, you're not alone" (Lansing
State Journal)

"George Albright, a former state legislator and Marion County's tax collector, said local residents must understand that they are not alone." (Ocala Star Banner)

"Andre’s mom says when they went to the office to complain, they were not alone." (WXYZ-TV)

"She was not alone." (Greeley Tribune)

"And I am not alone in such irrational fears" (Atlantic Online)

"Terps' Frese not alone in dealing with transfers" (Baltimore Sun)

"Guilford County was not alone Tuesday in improving its scores." (Greensboro News Record)

"I am glad to know I am not alone in this shame-slash-slight-embarrassment." (San Francisco Chronicle)

"If you think there are more and more robberies being committed here, you are not alone." (WVLT-TV)

"He's not alone in grappling head-on with Shakespeare works that present inordinate difficulties for directors and are not typically produced.." (Philadelphia Inquirer)

"Poonam is not alone" (Times of India)

Why Paying Interns Matters

This report about interns and professional mobility focuses on British journalism but has, I think, implications for American journalists as well.
In particular:

General secretary Jeremy Dear said: "This report shows how the use of unpaid internships has undermined the diversity of our profession. It is good to see the government recognising the problem and we are now looking for swift action to ensure the financial barriers to entering journalism are lowered."

For many years, newspapers offered paid internships while magazines did not, with the result that the latter tended to draw well-off kids whose families could afford to support them for the summer. This had an impact on not only racial/ethnic diversity but also class and income. I recall chatting with magazine recruiters at various journalism conventions, some of whom bemoaned the lack of diversity of candidates while sometimes seeming not to see the root cause of that problem.

Newspapers escaped that to a certain extent by paying people. But since many newspapers have stopped paying students, the long-term result could well be damaging to the overall newsroom mix.

And this odd system is spreading, where parents are expected to bear the costs of corporations' failure to develop their own employees.

When Is 2 Unique? NEVER.

Dear Yahoo:

The fact that two people have the same name IMMEDIATELY undercuts the "unique name" claim.

Unique name brings love
Kelly Hildebrandt is in love with Kelly Hildebrandt, and soon they'll be married.

The NBC station that reported the story got the words right.

Gannett Layoffs

Tracking reports of layoffs at Gannett yesterday since I haven't seen a good roundup. Will update.

From Facebook:
Jim Brown Yesterday, the Indianapolis Star lost 37 people. My best wishes to all in finding new opportunities in your lives. Coverage of the Indianapolis area will diminish. We will miss you all.

Daniel Hunt still here, think I'm safe. they pushed out Roddy, shorti and Mary hager too. this is a very black Thursday. (News Journal, Delaware).


Cincinnati Enquirer eliminates 101 positions at print and online news outlets
CINCINNATI (AP) — Enquirer Media in Cincinnati, which includes The Cincinnati Enquirer in print and online and other publications, has eliminated 101 positions.
Publisher Margaret Buchanan said in an open letter to readers Friday that the cutbacks were part of a companywide tightening of the work force by the parent Gannett Co., which publishes USA Today and 85 other daily newspapers.

--
Press-Gazette announces staff cuts
Press-Gazette • July 10, 2009
The elimination of 19 jobs at the Green Bay Press-Gazette and its associated weekly publications was announced Thursday by the newspaper.
Advertisement

The jobs were in departments throughout the operation, from news and production to advertising and clerical support.
--

LSJ Media laying off 26 workers
Most departments affected by cuts; hours also reduced for 2
LSJ Media is in the process of laying off 26 employees.
Most cuts should be completed this week.
The layoffs affected nearly every department at LSJ Media, which publishes the Lansing State Journal, Lansing Community Newspaper weeklies, specialty publications and Web sites.
--

Courier-Journal to lay off 44 more employees
WHAS 11.com
(WHAS11) - More layoffs and early retirements came to the state's largest newspaper Thursday. Several sources at the Courier-Journal tell WHAS11 that 44 employees in many different departments, including a handful in the news division, are being cut.
--

Tennessean follows through on job cuts
Longtime newsroom employees among those notified of termination
[Updated with total number affected and more names]

The Tennessean today has eliminated the jobs of six editorial employees and 25 other staffers. Bob Faricy, vice president of market development for the newspaper, confirmed the numbers late this afternoon.

Newsroom sources say that among the journalists losing their jobs are several who have worked for the paper for more than 15 years.

The cuts follow the announcement last week that up to 35 positions would soon be cut and that 25 currently open positions would go unfilled. The reductions are part of system-wide cost-cutting efforts by parent Gannett Co., the nation's largest newspaper chain.

Attempts to reach a spokesman for the paper have so far been unsuccessful, but it is known that the following newsroom staffers are departing:

* Ricky Rogers, a photographer and photo editor who has been with the paper since 1978.
* Bill Greer, daytime copy chief, who has been a copy editor at The Tennessean for at least 17 years.
* Drew White, who has been in the graphics department since at least the early 1990s.
* Aldrin Brown, college sports editor.
* Kevin Paulk, assistant news editor.
* Janet Shouse, a copy editor who has been at the paper since the 1970s.

Also losing her job was a woman who had worked in the mailroom for 35 years.

--
From Charles Apple: Laid off in Rochester: copy desk chief Jann Nyffeler

Yet another stunningly boneheaded move by someone: Jann Nyffeler is out at the Rochester, N.Y., Democrat & Chronicle. She’s just one of more than 1,200 layoffs made this week by Gannett.

0907jannnyffelermug

Jann posted to her Facebook page Thursday evening:

Jann Nyffeler is unemployed. They got me, guys.

Jann has been in Rochester nine years. Her title recently has been “Lead Conversion Editor,” but it’s still chief of what you’d call the copy desk.

A 1988 graduate of the University of Nebraska, Jann spent eight years as a copy editor at the News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C. She became team leader for the copy desk of the Wichita (Kan.) Eagle in 1996 and then moved to the Dallas Morning News in 1999.

She doesn’t blog often these days, but when she does, she posts here.

--
More at Gannett Blog

But Does Anyone Care, Other Than Us?

AJR examines the quality question. In one section of the story, author Carl Sessions Stepp notes that one paper reports a decline in errors after instituting a checklist of sorts. That could be a factor. But I wonder, too, if it's really about readers simply not caring anymore. If we don't, why should they?

When I first went to work at one paper, I was shocked at how readers who called to complain about something seemed to act as if they owned the paper. It was their paper; they were mad at some error or perceived bias. By the time I left, the clerks were noting fewer, less passionate calls. They seemed to have given up.

I Am Running Out of Patience

People in the newspaper business ought to know better than this:

Restructure the newsroom. Half of the journalists are involved in the “processing” of news – copy editing, writing captions, laying out pages – as opposed to the generation of journalism. Concentrate on journalism that matters. And, “focus on good writing. Tales well told.”

Focus on good journalism. You betcha. And how does that happen? Do all those "processors" just sit around playing with the editing system while all the hardworking journalists are cranking out "journalism that matters." ? With "good writing. Tales well told." ?

No, sorry to say to those deluded by something someone told them. Over the last several years, people running newspapers started eliminating their blue-collar jobs: printers, photo processors, etc., in favor of transferring that work onto the newsroom, in an effort to save money, eliminate jobs, etc. That meant putting a lot of crap work onto the copy desk through pagination systems and so-called editing systems publishers ordered up whose main function was to produce the newspaper with as few steps as possible.

Who could have foreseen that someone would then think copy editors were doing little else other than "processing" copy? In fact, they do perform lots of production work. After all, someone has to. But they also edit. They stop reporters from putting stories that don't make sense, that have misspellings, factual errors, lopsided perspective, etc., into the paper where readers are then subjected to factual errors, misspellings, nonsense, lopsided perspective, etc.

If Your Newspaper Career Doesn't Work Out...

Here's a neat little story about a retired copy editor, who, while still working, created a new career for himself. As someone who drives a teenaged soccer referee around, I know it can be a nice job for a teen or someone looking for extra money. Mine referees little kids for $16 a game, or a one-hour assignment, and with little kids, the parents tend to be less argumentative. Games with older kids pay more. Think about it.

The Loss of Quality

The Washington Post's ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, writes today about an increase in errors, under the headline "Fewer Copy Editors, More Errors". Most copy editors I know would respond:

Of course
What did you expect?
Told you so
No shit, Sherlock
or offer any number of similar sad and weary answers.

You cut your quality-control experts, disparage their professionalism and talent and, wow, what a suprise. Quality suffers.

The issue, though, to me is this: does quality matter anymore?

I think there's a profound change in expectations and standards in the last few years, deeper than Twitter, citizen journalism or blogs, by which we find or report news.

We're all kind of beta testers now, expected to put up far less than perfection. Just as that little gizmo you bought down at the big-box tech store often doesn't initially work the way it should, or requires hours of effort and frustration with non-supportive support lines, so, too, journalism is less than what it could or should be. Your expectations are lowered and the idea that a store selling you electronic toys or a journalism organization telling you what you need to know should try to deliver quality the first time is simply fading away.

Have you ever spent an hour or more on a tech help line, only to have your concerns blown off? Or have a help desk act as if crappy performance is normal and hint that you're being unreasonable for expecting more? So, too with news. So what if the story fails to answer key questions? Has typos or poor grammar? You get the general idea, right?

As consumers, we have learned to settle for less. And I fear no one cares.

That's a bitter pill for copy editors to swallow.

Rules for Thee and Not for Me

There's a particular irony to Poynter having posted this the day after the story broke about The Washington Post's plans for paid "salons" and access to newsroom people.


FTC to Investigate Bloggers Receiving Pay for Posts

The common practice of posting a graphical ad or a link to an online retailer -- and getting commissions for any sales from it -- would be enough to trigger oversight.

Well, hell's bells.

Obviously, if you're on this page, you can see that I, like many others with blogs, run ads, albeit thoroughly unremunerative ones. They are clearly ads.

I don't and would never write a pay-for-post item meant to look like news or commentary, or tout something in an item for money. Those kind of postings should get some scrutiny, in my opinion. If you're representing something as legitimate reporting or commentary, people ought to know that you're not being paid to shade the truth.

But I am at a loss to understand why a clearly identified ad on a blog is somehow suspect and worthy of FTC notice when ads in print are not.

If you've knocked around newspapers, especially smaller ones, long enough, you've probably been drafted at one time or another to write a "story" that was fed into an advertising section.

Duncan Black, AKA Atrios, often mockingly mentions the need for a blogger ethics panel because of what he sees as a double standard that is applied to blogs and not the mainstream media. I don't agree 100 percent of the time with him, but frequently do. And this seems to be another example of rules for one kind of reporting and commentary and not another. What difference, for example, is there between a book review to be found on a blog somewhere and that of a newspaper's website that would warrant an FTC investigation? It's possible the stand-alone blogger violated some disclosure rules, and certainly most newspapers have some rules about not accepting gifts or not writing reviews of books by friends (or enemies) but lapses happen.

(For the record, I write some reviews for a newspaper website for which I am not paid, though I am able to keep the books, which are filling my bookshelves.)

It's actually pretty creepy if the FTC truly intends to do what the story says.

Amusingly enough, this ad popped up on my blogger.com page as I was preparing to post this.

Tales From the Dark Side

John Kelly at The Washington Post reminds us of the myriad ways and reasons newspapermen (and they were nearly all men) got fired in the good old days. And he invites people to tell their tales of firing.

What's the most interesting way you've been fired? Or were you the terminator, not the terminatee? If it's not too painful to talk about, e-mail me the details.

Science Conference

The Council for the Advancement of Science Writing is offering scholarships for its conference in October:

New Horizons Fellowships

CASW offers Traveling Fellowships, of up to $1,200 each, to cover the costs of attending the New Horizons in Science briefing. The fellowships are intended primarily for U.S. journalists from publications and broadcast outlets that do not routinely cover major science meetings or employ a full-time science writer. CASW also assigns a veteran science writer to each fellow to serve as mentor and to help ease his/her way through the program. The application deadline is Aug. 15

.

Weak, Weak, Weak

Too many journalists are giving away the franchise in the rush to publish anything, regardless of merit.
Case in point:

China Dubious That Yao Ming Could Be Out of the Game

I thought we were about to read a story about China itself challenging reports of Yao Ming's injuries and his future.

Instead, we get quotes from two fans, one of whom initially says: "I thought it was fake when I first heard about it. I can't believe he has such bad luck!" and that's it. By the end of the story, says Yao can make a comeback if he has the right attitude.

The other fan says absolutely nothing about doubting the injury. In fact, he suggests that Yao played too much and that led to his injury.


The rest of the short story is devoted to Yao's popularity, discussion of the injury, etc.


This story is from Time magazine but is so lame that it ought to be taken off the web

Wordle captures this posting:

Must Be a Mirage

Editor and Publisher finds the same column published under different bylines, a rather strange practice.

UPDATE: Column Appears in Several Dailies -- With Different Bylines

By Joe Strupp

Published: June 30, 2009 1:20 PM ET updated

NEW YORK A column on planning for retirement has appeared in several newspapers around the country this month -- under different bylines and little change from one to the other.

The column appears to have originated from the Financial Planning Association, according to the Web site of Fisher Financial Strategies, which also posted it and credited FPA. Several other newspaper Web sites have been found posting the column, some crediting FPA and others using only writer bylines.