Headline mishap

I know this blog is probably already graded and done, but just at the off chance that anyone still happens to look at it, I wanted to post this. I thought it was hilarious.

This is a headline on ChicagoTribune.com right now:

Widow's suit ties tainted Crestwood water to fatal illness

What do you think it means?

Because it refers to a law suit. Not a neck tie.

JOUR 420

What have I learned in News-Editing?

Honestly... I'm not sure I've learned anything new, but rather I've learned why I do things the way I do them.

As per the discussion today in J420 lecture, I think the class should be restructed, and Jean presented what I thought was a pretty solid structure.

Like I said... I'm not sure I learned anything new, but if this were a 200-level class that I took my sophomore year, I would have. And the things I do as a journalist would have made a lot more sense to me if I knew early why I was doing them. Then maybe I could have focused more on my writing and reporting if I knew what I was doing, rather than just blindly doing it.

That last paragraph was a little convoluted and maybe needed some editing itself, but the moral of the story is that I think restructuring the course is a fantastic idea.

The Daily Illini

You know a lot of journ professors rag on The Daily Illini.

I'll admit... it could be far, far better. But (good) journalism takes time... time that college students do not have.

I can guarantee that The Daily Illini would scoop the News-Gazette on a regular basis if we had staff in the newsroom around the clock. But most of the time, we only staff the newsroom between 4 p.m. and 11 p.m.... hardly enough time to put together a newspaper let alone report stories and keep in touch with sources.

If there's anyone who think journalism is not a full-time job, you are sorely mistaken. Journalism is more about what you do when you're away from your computer. Who are you keeping in touch with? What kind of stories are you working on... are you just keeping your eye out for stories?

College students have enough to worry about with the journalism they need to do for their classes let alone a full-time job outside of that.

So, yes, The Daily Illini could be a lot better. I agree. A LOT better. But I think it does a fair job with the resources it has.

Journalwqqirefn;ds[padsujkism

More on jobs...

More and more of the job listings I see are asking for "versatile" journalists. That means they are looking for people who can write, report, shoot and edit photos and video, design, edit copy and other various newsroom tasks. Basically, they are looking for utility players.

But I have to ask... are we spreading ourselves too thin? The more you ask someone to do, the less focused they will be on doing on particular task. Throughout my college career, I've been trying to learn how to do everything that I MIGHT need to do one day, instead of focusing solely on, for example, writing or shooting video.

Had I focused all of my efforts on either one, I'd be a lot better at whatever it was I focused on.

And journalism is a profession that demands perfection. In every aspect. So is asking journalists to report, write, shoot, edit and juggle fire asking too much?

It works within the evolving business model of journalism, but ultimately, I believe it's weakening the content.

Journalism vs. toilet paper

This is why:

Pay starts at $24,000 with the opportunity to earn $30,000 annually after one year of employment.

That paragraph was part of a job listing I was looking at today.

It's depressing, but a reality all recent journalism grads face: they all desperately hope the cost of living wherever they work is low.

I know it's been said before, but we're definitely not in this for the money. Of course there are a few exceptions: the Katie Courics and Anderson Coopers of the world. But that's a long shot. But let's take a look at the economic side of it and try to figure out why we'll never be millionaires.

It's because people don't want to pay for information. Although there is a degree of entertainment in most forms of journalism (some forms of journalism being purely a form of entertainment), we are, for the most part, in the information business.

And to the people who are consuming that information, it has become for them a portion of their everyday lives - just like food, water and toilet paper.

One of my professors made an interesting analogy the other day. Suppose you put 100 pounds of toilet paper next to 100 pounds of assorted newspapers. Which one do you think costs more? The toilet paper, of course.

The kicker: the toilet paper is pretty much just raw material. The newspapers took thousands of hours to produce, and is the result of the heavy toiling of dedicated journalists. But you've actually decreased the value of that paper (the raw material) by printing a newspaper on it.

That's a hard one to swallow. But it does give us a little comfort that journalists are necessary for the smooth functioning of the world. Sure we don't get paid much to do it. And sure, we take heavy criticism even for award-winning stories. But taking away journalism would be like taking away toilet paper: they take it for granted now, but people wouldn't know what to do without it.

Editing friends

I've found that I'm not the only one that has a stake in my progress as a student of journalism... my roommates and close friends have found a certain value in it, too.

As finals approach, it's inevitable that they will bring to me their rough drafts to edit. And the more I learn in this editing class, the rougher those drafts seem to be. My friends find it frustrating that I find what they think are irrelevant errors in every new draft they bring to me.

But they keep bringing it back.

A few months ago, I was editing the paper of my friend who's majoring in business. It was really bad. And while I was editing his paper and making comments aloud like I always do (so the writer understands why something is wrong), my roommates were also sitting in the room overhearing the edit.

They said my comments were harsh. I said it was legitimate criticism.

I feel like, as journalists, we set ourselves up for criticism. We're used to it, not only because we know it's inevitable, but also because we know someone else knows something that we don't. Maybe they don't even have the best writing skills, but they'll see something we didn't. Or they'll have a question we didn't think of.

All my friends get frustrated when they bring a paper to me. But they keep bringing it back because they know I'll see something they didn't. And that's the beauty of editing.

Research papers... ugh...

So I just edited the research paper of one of my classmates, and I realized that editing a research paper is much like editing a news story. You still need the context, you still need credible sources, and you still need hard facts to legitimize the main idea.

But, with this, I found myself asking for analysis. It was kind of tough. The paper I edited was really well-written and had some great facts. But it allowed the readers to make their own assumptions. That seems like a negative aspect to a research paper... a great aspect for a news story though.

I think it's tough for journalism students to write research papers for that very fact. We've been trained to leave all opinion behind us and let the facts tell the story. You can't really do that with a research paper, or else it starts to become weak.

So what's my point? I guess I'm saying it was a challenge of my editing skills to edit a research paper. If it weren't to late, I might start taking some English classes in case the journalism thing falls through and I become a researcher. I don't think that would ever happen.

And if our lab instructor reads this, maybe she won't deduct as many points if our arguments are weak...

Oh hi, photos

Just as a note on this post... I originally included in this post the photos that I am discussing, but had to take them down. So here's the post sans-photos...

A photo of a man committing suicide.

Your immediate thought is probably something like, what kind of illegal lengths would you have to go through to get that photo? Then your thoughts go to wondering how gruesome it is.

Rarely, if ever, do someone's thoughts go to whether it should be printed in a newspaper... until it is printed in a newspaper. Out of the four provided photos, the photo I've posted is the photo I would have run had I been an editor at the time. Why?

Honestly, while I'm considering this photo, I'm not worried about invading Dwyer's rights. He called a press conference, and willingly allowed photographers to take pictures of him killing himself. As horrid as that sounds, Dwyer knew what he was doing, and knew there would be photos. He obviously isn't concerned about what's in the paper.

My concern, however, is for the reader. Often, anyone can pick up a newspaper and start reading it. Everyone from the most hardened individual with ice water in his veins down to the squeemish 7-year-old. You don't want to offend any of your readers if it's not absolutely necessary, and it doesn't promote further discussion of a topic. The only thing that would come out of running the photo of Dywer with his gun in his mouth or of him an instant after pulling the trigger is the shock value. That's not worth offending your reader.

Would I publish the below photo?

Absolutely. Although it's a very sad photo, it's not violating and individual's right to privacy, especially since there's no dead human being in this photo. Most importantly, it's not offending any reader. Again, it's a very sad photo and maybe something you'd rather not see, but definitely not offensive. It shows emotion.


How about this one?



No I would not. One reason on this one. No. 1, and most importantly, some readers may find it offensive. Although the graphic content of this photo isn't as graphic as Dwyer killing himself, it's still very questionable. It's a tragic event, yes, but we shouldn't offend readers by showing the face of a dead boy.


If there were a version of this photo without the dead child's face in it, I probably would run it. In that case, it would be much like the dog photo: something you'd rather not see, but still very much filled with emotion, and most importantly, a story.


This one?



No. Again, I have a porblem with publishing the faces of dead people. Covered faces or cropped body parts are fine, as far as I'm concerned. But no faces.


Plus, this photo doesn't really tell me anything. I don't know how this woman died by looking at the photo. It's a warehouse filled with machines. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe she fell. This photo isn't sufficient to tell me that story. It's not worth the offensive nature.


This one?


Oh my god, yes. Run this photo immediately. The boy turned out to be fine. We have a big face shot, but that doesn't bother me in this case because he's not dead. It tells a story.


Yes, maybe it's nauseating to some readers, but I don't think it's offensive. And, I need to say it again: It tells a story. And a pretty cools story in my opinion. It's worth the nausea.


And finally... this one?

Absolutely not. Yes, it tells a story. But even with the victim's face blurred out, I feel it's a violation of her rights. Obviously, she didn't ask for this to happen. The fact that a photographer was above her was bad luck, and she shouldn't have to be subjected to that. I wouldn't print this photo for the same reason newspapers don't put victim's names in print.

Plus, it's offensive to the reader. No reader would want to see this.

There could be an argument to run this photo if instances like this were a problem at Mardi Gras this particular year. Then it tells a story and promotes further discussion. But if that's not the case, don't run the photo.

Leprechaun in Mobile?

I'll update this more later, but I just wanted to get this up now. Watch the clip, and think about your initial reactions. Feel free to post them as a comment. I'll explain more later.

...

Annnnd now I have more time.

I'm honestly a little confused about whether this "news story" is real. It appears on the news program for an NBC affiliate (although I'm not sure where), so I'd like to think it's an accurate report.

So assuming it's true, it still seems ridiculous. The most ridiculous part, I feel, is how this black community is portrayed. Every negative stereotype of black individuals that still exists in this country is projected in this report.

The whole reason why this news story became part of the news program, I imagine, is because of its comic factor. Of course no one watching the report believes that there is actually a leprechaun in this neighborhood, and the reporter doesn't try to convince anyone that there is (although if they had footage of the leprechaun, that would be real news). The basis of this news story is that there is an entire community that believes they've seen a leprechaun.

Maybe the community is in on this joke. I find it hard to believe that an entire community actually believes that they are seeing a leprechaun. But the reporter never makes an effort to say that the whole situation is a big joke. Using only the information provided to us in the report, we are led to believe that this community actually believes that they are seeing a leprechaun.

And furthermore, the negative stereotypes portrayed in this report seem to be accentuated for effect. The more ridiculous the interviewees seem, the more hilarious the report is. While that statement is true, it is not the proper way to think about news. A story, if it's being reported for its inherent hilarity, should not need embellishment to make it newsworthy.

This is a poor, poor attempt at a quirky news story by this station's reporter and its editors. A community is negatively portrayed, a story is embellished and the line between reality and a collective joke is never clearly drawn.

This story needs some work, if it's even a story at all.

Hamster kidnapper

So here's an epic fail, courtesy YouTube.

I was just thinking earlier today that with increasing technology, there's decreasing room for error. I have to imagine that this error was the result of a producer double-clicking the wrong picture to embed in the video feed.

A costly error, though.

This goes for a lot of things. You type an extra word into a print story, and it makes the story an extra line longer in the design program. All of a sudden, you see the page the next day, and the story seems like it doesn't end, because the design program chopped off that extra line. Oops.

Just be careful about the technical things.

Just to keep you interested...

Found this on CollegeHumor.com, a Web site that is 100 percent inappropriate for discussion in J420, but I thought it was funny.

See here's one of those editorial decisions I might second-guess. Why is the allowance of alcohol sales in the county bigger news than the first black president of the United States?

But then again, I don't live in Erath County.

After doing a little more research, I found that Erath County was one of 35 dry counties in Texas. The election results PDF was still posted on the county's home page, and John McCain won the popular vote by nearly 60 percent. So basically, a pretty conservative part of town.

The last time the county had tried to repeal prohibition was 26 years prior, and it lost by a wide margin.

I could only find one online story about the campaign to allow the sale of alcohol in the county, but it was very debated petition at the time.

So I guess this was pretty big news at the time, but I also have to assume that this is a conservative newspaper unwilling to play up Obama's victory... I mean, look at the graphic above the nameplate.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt though... maybe through their eyes and the eyes of their readers, the sales of alcohol was the bigger news on Nov. 5, 2008.

So what's the point?

So following up on that last post I made...

I realized that naming this blog was the first editorial decision I made as far as this blog is concerned. And, keeping with the theme of this blog (which I'll explain later), I'm second-guessing myself.

I originally titled it "We'll see about that..." because that was the first thing I blurted out when a classmate suggested a blog name to me. I thought it was just non-descriptive enough to avoid any silent judgement from the rest of my classmates.

But then when I came back tonight to make my post in accordance with the J420 syllabus, I realized I'm an idiot. A title should reflect what the blog is about, not to avoid silent judgement. But there are other factors that go in to that decision, too. For one, it should include Google-able words, if you ever want anyone to see it. I think I did a pretty good job there.

It should also tell people what the point of the blog is... you get it, right?

So please look at the name of your blog... think real hard about it. It might be the most important editorial decision you make as far as your own blog is concerned. Isn't second-guessing fun? You'll be doing it a lot this semester if you're a J420 student.

The theme of this blog will be calling into question editorial decisions from around the country. The way I envision it, some will be humorous, and others pathetic. All of them, however, will be debatable. As much as we journalists like to believe we're objective all the time, we make subjective decisions without even thinking about them. Hundreds every day.

So... let the second guessing begin.

Naming your blog

So I'm noticing a lot of my classmates are having trouble naming the blogs they are required to create for JOUR 420 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The girl sitting next to me named hers "Thinking too much." I think she hit the nail on the head.

Some people have it down to a few simple steps if you're curious.

Naming a blog effectively with a few simple steps? We'll see about that...