Journalists and Facebook

Ben Parr at Mashable reports on a panel discussion at Columbia University on journalism and Facebook. Long audio report but worth your time.




There's also Mashable's "The Journalist's Guide to Facebook" and "The Journalist's Guide to Twitter."

Get That Punctuation. Right

It's always good to know some readers are paying attention to the finer points. This reader of China Daily complains, correctly, about the incorrect punctuation in quotes.

WashPost and Social Media Rules

This issue is getting stickier by the day. If you insist that everything the paper is doing should go online everywhere, then you have to expect that people won't see limits. But if you run a news operation where opinionators are confused with reporters (I'm thinking mostly TV at the moment) then how can you tell journalists to restrain themselves? Newspapers continue to try to make celebrities out of their reporters, or some of them, at least. Do you then say they have no independent thoughts? It's a tough one. I used to be very, very rigid and determined that we needed to always maintain our objectivity but I'm not sure it's as manageable as I used to think.


WP releases new social networking guidelines

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Mocking the AP

The fun folks at Daily Kos are having a blast mocking The Associated Press for a truly hamfisted and one-sided lede.
Here's the lede in question:

The Democratic-led Congress' determination to do something about health care this year has slowed legislation affecting the safety of almost every traveler in America.

Associated Press Wins Major Award

My top choice is probably the one about God and the seven days but feel free to pick your fave.

The Name's the Game

The disappearance and murder of Yale student Annie Le was certainly big news here in the New York metropolitan area--she was from Long Island, went to school in Connecticut, etc. All the elements that make a crime seem even more tragic were present--found dead on what would have been her wedding day, leading the list. But I have been struck by the great deal of attention the LA Times web site seems to be paying to this story. In particular, this headline grabbed my attention this morning, because it makes me wonder about the use of names in headlines and whether the choice of how to identify people is so driven by search-engine optimization needs as to invalidate previous rules.

Here's what the LA Times headline says:
Raymond Clark arrested in Annie Le case

Is Raymond Clark a household name? For that matter, is Annie Le? Do we not care anymore about that? Is "lab tech" a better identifier? Any thoughts?


And speaking of SEO issues, Nieman Labs has an interesting look at SEO results.

Basics Come First

Well, yes, it would be nice if journalism students knew something about grammar and spelling, wouldn't it?

From the Daily Tar Heel:

Spelling test causes distress among some
Journalism school may offer course
September 16, 2009
Trevor Kapp
For about 40 years, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication’s spelling and grammar test has caused doubt, discomfort and distress for hundreds of journalism students.

The exam, which consists of 100 questions and is a requirement to graduate the school, was offered last week for the first time this year.

The journalism faculty will discuss Friday whether to require a one-credit hour spelling and grammar course before students begin taking other journalism classes.

Students would be able to take News Writing the same semester as the spelling and grammar course.

Michael Moore on Newspapers

UPDATE: From the NY Times:
Capitalism's Little Tramp, a review of the movie.

Say what you will about Michael Moore, he has a point. When newspapers became content providers and cost centers, things started going down hill.
Utterly aside from the many, and often deserved, criticisms from bloggers across the political spectrum, newspapers are ultimately failing as business models.

Getting Hired at Forbes.com

Shaun Gallagher writes about getting hired as a copy editor at Forbes.com

How I Got a Job at Forbes.Com
Posted by rahel | September 13th
.I had no background in business journalism when I was hired as a copy editor at Forbes.com in 2006 after working for several years as the managing editor of a regional magazine.

In fact, I even failed the one-question business proficiency test I was given during the interview — “What’s the difference between a stock and a
bond?”

(After the interview, I rushed home to look up the answer. Just in case you ever encounter this question in an interview here’s the gist: Stocks are for ownin’ and bonds are for loanin’.)

So, even though the interview didn’t go as well as I’d hoped … how did I get hired?

I totally aced the very long take-home copy test, and the editors were impressed enough by that, so they decided to give me a shot.

Foreman and the Journalism Ethics Issue

Gene Foreman, friend to copy editors everywhere, writes about journalism ethics.

Journalism's tough public-relations problem

Gene Foreman is former managing editor of The Inquirer, and author of "The Ethical Journalist: Making Responsible Decisions in the Pursuit of News" (Wiley-Blackwell)

When nonjournalist acquaintances learned the subject of the college textbook I've been working on the last two years, a lot of them reached for the same arcane word to express their reaction.

My textbook subject is journalism ethics.

The reaction: That's an oxymoron.

As in an absurd contradiction of terms, like jumbo shrimp or exact estimate.

Having devoted a lifetime to working in journalism, I always find it disappointing to hear the profession's moral principles dismissed so derisively. But neither is it a surprise. Widespread hostility toward the news media, which has only intensified in the last quarter-century, is regularly documented in one public-opinion survey after another.

Too Much

I've been engaged in a discussion this morning with friend and former colleague Jordan Rau about the need for, and content of, Sept.11 anniversary stories. I'm of the mind that we need to have them, though they should focus less on trite, cheap emotionalism.

Someone else weighed in and said that mourning should private. I seriously disagree with that since there couldn't have been a more public death for so many, and the attack was aimed at all of us as a country. There's a reason for Memorial Day, even though it's turned into a three-day weekend beach-and-barbecue event for so many, though not all. There's nothing private at all about Sept.11. Shortly after the attacks, I started seeing references from people in the West to "the attacks on the East Coast" and thought that was an oddly parochial view. I still think so. As long as I live, I will think of that day, the lives lost and the awful effects on our political culture and its militarizing effects. (Take a look at how some police units look like soldiers some time.)

As I drive around Long Island, with many streets and parks named for dead firefighters, police officers and office workers, I know that memory will live on in both our public and private lives.

That said, the day brings us to another kind of story floating around Facebook, and that is the question of children and how they get to school, more often eschewing walking for buses. At some point, and not in a way that we mention it, dismiss it and move on, we in the media have to figure out and take responsibility for our own fear-mongering. It isn't enough to mention that parents' fears are exaggerated, given the numbers, and then go right back to leading the broadcast or the newspaper with the latest tidbit of information that little Michelle is still missing. (My apologies to all little Michelles who ARE still missing.) We spread fear. We alter reality. We need to stop, just as the endless number of crime dramas, prison "documentaries," and other nonsense that floods the airwaves every night exaggerates the crime rate. Several years ago, a then-thriving newspaper I worked for did a 13-part series about the area partially titled "The Fear and the Facts." Distilled, the series could be summed up this way: It ain't nearly as bad as you think.

So why do people overestimate the chances that they or their children will become crime victims? Who is responsible for that? We are. It doesn't even seem driven by the pursuit of a good story. It's just become reactive and easy to do.

Really, Let's Think a Little More

Napalm girl's new mission
In the 1970s, her photo was credited with helping to end the Vietnam War. » What Kim Phuc is doing now?

Oh, my. So sensitivity is just not a factor anymore? Napalm Girl?

Death on Display

I find the issue of whether to use the  photo of the mortally wounded Marine a tough one, though come down on the side of publishing it. It is no doubt painful for his parents and many others who loved him to see him dying, bloody on the field of battle.

But this is what is going on, in full view of others on the battlefield, thus hardly a secret. The romance, the endless labeling since Sept. 11 of all soldiers (and cops and firefighters) as heroes and warriors, the refusal to question what is happening to soldiers, not to mention our military and political policies, requires us to do hurtful things some times.

We have a fair amount of military service in my family; the latest is my "little" nephew, Jeff (he's 6 foot 5, I think),  who's headed over there soon to fly Army helicopters.  I would never, ever, want his mother--my sister-- or anyone else to see him in a photo like this. But really what we all want is to not see any of our sons and daughters, or fathers and mothers, or nieces and nephews, have any reason to wind up in these photos.

It's hard to read the personal, individual stories told at Daily Kos I Got The News Today and not weep and wonder how the families cope. And where the country goes from here.

 But in the haze of unending and ridiculously tacky celebrity news, faked controversies and genearl artifice, it's easy to forget what real news is. News is ugly because it is reality and presenting a pristine view of what goes on does no one any good.

Why Real Journalism Matters

Oh, my, what an outrage.  A woman tells a guy a line from the old Seinfeld show; he uses it and wham, he gets fired. Outrage! Political correctness run amok. Except that's not the story at all. 

Take a look.