Getting Personal

I welcome me back, isn't that nice of me?

Three language experts have challenged the attempt to smear President Obama for his alleged overuse of  "I," in his statements about the killing of Osama bin Laden.  If you continue to doubt the racial element in some of the criticism of Obama, take a look at the undertone they hear in those criticisms. If you think birther accusations and claims that Obama didn't earn his way into those top schools, hint, hint, then just skip it because this won't convince you of anything.

But otherwise, see John McIntyre, Fev and Mark Liberman. I love it when facts demolish prejudice.

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Took a very long hiatus because of job demands and while still busy with said job, have managed to squeeze out a little time to come back to this. If there are any remaining readers, well, that would be stunning.

Ideas on the March

John McIntyre opened his blog to Michael Bullwinkle, a student who has put some careful thought into the state of copy editing and those who practice the craft.  He sees, and encourages other to see, opportunities that might become available to copy editors as standard newspaper and magazine jobs disappear.

Here's part of what he wrote:

What I wonder is if perhaps one could take the basic model of these overseas copy-editing establishments and set up a similar little agency of native-speaking editors in the United States. To start, all you would need is a loosely connected group of work-at-home freelancers who had a common website and e-mail and divided up the editing accordingly. Billing could be done based on number of pages edited or specific contracts depending on customers’ needs.

I commend Michael for thinking about it and finding the perfect example in a TED talk, and John for opening his blog to a smart young guest writer.

Beyond that, here's what I think.

Several months ago, I floated a similar idea I was calling an editing combine that would offer its services to newspapers or other publications. Through ACES and other connections, several of us know editors in every time zone and imaginable work schedule. And there's no shortage of unemployed or under-employed highly skilled people available. The combine would take assignments, helping mostly smaller publications, by providing quality editing at a rather low cost because people would be freelancers and not staff. Someone carried the idea to AEJMC for discussion but we heard nothing further. Those who were talking about it had deep reservations about several aspects, though were not put off by the daunting task of organizing such an operation because, after all, we'd launched ACES with little more than sheer determination. Eventually, we parked the idea for further thought and the reality of having to make a living intruded.

But we haven't completey given up, though serious obstacles come to mind:

• Technological issues could be severe. As someone who worked from both a newsroom and home office for many years and dealt with major changes in editing systems on both production and delivery ends, I can tell you that no one format--say, using MS Word--would work for everyone. Trying to make stories appear in the right format could be excruciatingly complex and frustrating and sometimes simply never work.
• A combine/agency assumes that publications, print or online, are interested in quality work. We see evidence running in both directions. As a marketing device, we discussed taking on a web site that clearly needed help and gently prodding them to hire us through repeated editing reviews of their work. Quite a number of sites, both traditional journalism and others, could benefit from this, though they might not be receptive for some time, if ever. But if you see what passes for reporting at some of these sites where story churn is king, you know simultaneously that your services are needed but, appparently, not wanted.
• Our combine editors would work cheap but not as cheap as those in India. If you haven't explored the freelance market, especially those run by services that invite bids from around the world, you're in for a shock. People are offering to work for literally $1 an hour, and that's your competition. You can find work that pays better, certainly but it is often rooted in some connection or a local company with a short-term need. In in the rich days, when newspapers were practically printing money, too many didn't want to spend on finding ways to improve quality, such as staff training. So that means we'd have to pitch primarily on financial grounds. And that means:
• Contributing to further staff cutbacks. If our services were accepted and led to several others losing their jobs, the result would be counterproductive. Do we want to be responsible for costing someone a job with benefits, even if we could offer that individual freelance work? I don't think so. Others may disagree but this would be a deal breaker for me. And I see no way to enforce an agreement with a publisher who initially agreed that no jobs would be lost if he signed with such an agency.

Those are the primary negatives I see to such an editing combine. I don't think that such an organization is out of the question but I'm not sure it would be so different from companies that already exist to offer freelance editing. The major differences would be, I suppose, that it would be populated primarily by journalists, and be available for daily, rather than more long term,  assignments.

There are individual freelance jobs out there and, to repeat myself, I like the idea of engaging a web site and offering services. Too many, however, take the publish-first approach and, in fact, pride themselves in speed over accuracy, quite literally telling writers to skip the editing and legal checks in favor of posting. But perhaps we could focus on the sites that are a bit more thoughtful.

In recent weeks, I've been suggesting to people that should more newspapers continue to fold, and more editors be thrown out of work, that perhaps we could at least apply our values to the web. I simply do not believe that everything we learned to do in our careers will prove to be of no value in the coming years. It appears that we will have to find ways to put them to work, to preserve and use what we know.

To get rather hyperbolic, I find editors facing a kind of Dark Ages. In "How the Irish Saved Civilization," the Irish monks are credited with saving classical works from marauding Germanic tribes, transcribing and preserving the works for later generations. We, too, can put our values and knowledge to work, rather than just fading away, if we figure out the right approach, jettison the mourning for the way things used to be, and step forward with new ideas.  There is, after all, no newspaper copy editor I know whose job hasn't undergone changes thanks to new technology, the arrival of the internet and new publication demands, so it's not as if we haven't experienced change before.

So, congratulations, Michael, for starting the conversation again. Anyone else?

The First Annual or Whatever WORDIES

I've been thinking a lot lately about language blogs, which led to a contest idea. If everyone else can do Top Ten lists and invent ridiculous statistics or contests to rank everyone, why not me? So, for the first time, here are my first completely biased and subjective Wordies.

Category: The language blogger who makes me most happy that he doesn't live close enough to pick apart my work:

Fred Vultee, at Heads Up, the Blog

Fev is a master of spotting flaws in logic, poor word choice and just dumb assumptions in daily journalism. If you're not reading him now, you're overlooking a great resource. Highly recommended to professors or editors responsible for training journalists to avoid or spot and fix flaws.

Do you know how long it took me to realize what Fev's name was? That it was an acronym. Stop. Do not tell me it's not an acronym because "Fev" is not a word. Yes it is. As in, I'm going to Fev you if you don't learn how to write logically.


Category: The language blog most likely to remind me of my failure to major in 18th Century English literature and send me running to the dictionary:
John McIntyre's You Don't Say
There's always his recent instant classic, a slight sneer at references to the origins of a certain indelicate word often described as Anglo-Saxon ("...It has not been discovered anywhere in Old English or, for that matter, Middle English. It appears to have emerged in English sometime in the 15th century, adapted from Low German, Flemish, or Dutch.") Why yes, that's just what I was going to say.

Category: The holy cow discovery: a YouTube video of a Barry Manilow song getting diagrammed.

Mighty Red Pen

Need I say more?

A New Home

John McIntyre's back with his old You Don't Say name in a new location. Let the fun begin!

What's Next

Perhaps you've already heard, but John McIntyre, second president of the American Copy Editors Society and a frequent workshop leader, departed from the Baltimore Sun yesterday. He is, I'm sorry to say, yet another loss from the newspaper industry, which seems hellbent on removing as much talent as possible. What's the endgame? I don't think that there's a real plan.

I used to know editors at virtually every major and many, many midsized and small papers around the country, mostly a result of having worked as a newsroom recruiter. When we were first getting ACES up and running, those contacts with fairly invisible copy editors paid off and then, through ACES, expanded greatly.

I do believe that I now know far more ex-newspaper people than employed ones, which is something we might ordinarily have expected to happen well into retirement but not now in the disaster that the industry is experiencing.

My recommendation to ex-newspaper types is to try TV or other news websites. Online isn't all that different from print, though there are people who try to cloak online work in mystery. Sometimes different standards apply; there's more intertwining of business and editorial than some people would like. But there's a chance to really do good work in a field that needs our help. Just check out some online headlines on many news sites and you'll see where your services are needed. A lot of people are considering a shot at teaching but I can tell you that a.that's hard work that doesn't pay well b.colleges are cutting back, too.

My other recommendation is that ex-newspaper people expand their credentials with some technology training--video, flash, etc. because that's where journalism is headed--telling stories in multiple ways on different platforms.

Rules We Can Live With

John McIntyre writes about blog comments and the need to police them. I couldn't agree more, having been on the receiving end of some of the abuse he mentions but also as a reader of many blogs.

There's something odd that happens when people are commenting anonymously. Some of them turn into lunatics. (UPDATE: ABC has this story about a criminal libel case involving Craigslist.)

An auto writer I know came in for a great deal of abuse a few months ago when he wrote about Steve McQueen and his car in the movie "Bullitt" and mentioned McQueen's co-star. The abusive commenter sent him some of the nastiest, ugliest remarks to the effect that the writer was stupid,ignorant, shouldn't be writing, etc., etc., because McQueen didn't have a co-star. To which the reporter calmly replied by noting that the "co-star" he referred to was the car (which was quite clear to anyone who read the column.) The abuser's reply? "Oh, okay."

And I just this morning removed a comment from another blog unrelated to this one that called someone, by name, a child abuser and gay basher.

So, yes, bring on some controls because this wide-open system is foolish. I don't know how people have the time to seize on postings the minute they go up and post their useless and ugly remarks--though I suspect some political organizations are paying people to watch and post on certain blogs--but they add nothing to the value of the discussion.

And yes, I know about that pesky First Amendment thing. Get your own blog; we don't owe you a platform.

Register That Grammar Book

Matters more urgent kept me from noticing that John McIntyre dared to wade into the Second Amendment debate a few days ago, focusing on the structure of language rather than the gun issue itself. And lived to write about it another day. Take a look.

Update on Steve Young

John McIntyre has an update on Steve Young, who, you may recall, was badly injured in a tragic fire at his home. I urge my three or four daily readers to drop Steve a note at the address John provides.

The Young Family

ACES and John McIntyre
write about the tragic deaths of Abigail Young and Matthew Young. Their father, Steve, is a deputy copy chief at the Baltimore Sun.

Donations can be made to the Young Family Fund and mailed to this address:

The Baltimore Sun
c/o Young Family Fund
501 N. Calvert Street
Baltimore, MD 21278-0001
Attn: Cashier's Office

The Rush to Judgment

Having had my own little experience of reporting something recently when some key detail was still in question, I was particularly intrigued by Doug Fisher's thorough assessment of the Huffington Post's reporting on the Clinton campaign hostage story. (And h/t to John McIntyre for flagging this.)

The web affords us enormous opportunities for reporting, multimedia presentations, alerting people to emergencies and so on. But what shouldn't be lost is the need for reporting, for digging up the facts accurately and not rushing to publish something we don't know.

As disconcerting as it can be, I have become a fan of the idea of posting something and then going back and adding "strikeouts" to correct information and to alert people that something may have been wrong. It gives people a look at the process, which, while not always necessary, can be useful and helps keep us honest.

The Huffington Post's reporting on this story was abysmal--the rush to publish without knowing the facts. There has been a tendency in recent years to simply publish whatever bits of information can be found--if we can find that a killer got a parking ticket 5 years ago, let's publish that! If we think maybe a guy with a mental problem is the hostage taker, let's publish everything his wife and neighbors have to say about him, the facts be damned! I guess we learned nothing from the unfortunate story of the late Richard Jewell. Where were the Huffington editors?

In my case, I wrote about the firing of an editor in Santa Barbara and asked whether he might be the same person I'd worked with in the past. Someone wrote to say no; I used strikeouts and then dug around a lot more to verify that the editor was who I thought he was. Raising questions and letting people know that you're checking on yourself is one thing. To, in effect, accuse someone of committing a crime is quite another, I would think. I don't know the source of Huffington's reports--did the incorrect name come from the mainstream press? I hope not.