Journalism, the World and the Future
Discussion of the future of journalism from GMU
Archive for Skills
Just saw the best example of how local issues have an international component.
Fairfax County (Virginia) sent out a tweet today encouraging everyone in the country to fill in and return the 2010 census forms along with a link to see the full message.
One line in the attached notice tells the underlining reason all local communities should encourage full participation in the census
It’s important that everyone fills out their census form because our community gets millions of dollars for schools, roads and other programs based on census data.
But that’s not what grabbed my attention.
Further down in the notice is a list of telephone numbers the Census Bureau operates for different languages.
- English: 1-866-872-6868
- Chinese: 1-866-935-2010
- Korean: 1-866-955-2010
- Spanish: 1-866-928-2010
- Vietnamese: 1-866-945-2010
Now why would the LOCAL county government be so interested in these languages?
Yep, because these are the primary languages of Fairfax County.
And why are these languages so prevalent in the county?
Because people came from Korea, China, Vietnam and Latin America to live in Fairfax.
Any curious journalist would ask: “Why these countries?” or “How many people speak these languages in the county?” or “Why did the people come to Fairfax County from these countries?”
Those three questions obviously lead to a lot more questions and maybe even a handful of stories (features or otherwise) that could better explain the dynamics of the county.
And don’t think Fairfax County is unique.
The Beeb as a great series on its web site called Superpower: Exploring the extraordinary power of the Internet.
Lots of interesting stories about how the Internet can and does affect society.
For example, Jiyar Gol looked at how Iraqis are using the Internet to rebuild their country and heal ethnic and religious wounds. (And by the way, I have not yet seen a similar story from any of the US media outlets.)
Another is on Afghan bloggers.
But the stuff with a really great “geek factor” are the interactive sites.
And for those who need a tutorial on how the Internet works, there is this. The cool part about this link is the counters of how many people are using the Internet that day, how many e-mails have been sent, how many Google searches and how many blog postings occurred.
Looking at the use of the Internet to get news is also interesting.
The chart represents the number and percentage of users accessing those sites based on the Nielson company monitoring system.
For example, 92.9 million people were using Fox Interactive (different from Fox News) at the time I lifted this chart, represent 1.96% of the Internet users. (Fox News drew 18 million or 0.38%.)
CNN drew 44.4 million for 0.94%, BBC had 35 million for 0.74% of online users, and the New York Times and Globo of Brazil each drew 0.49% of Internet users.
BTW, ESPN drew 26.6 million people for 0.56% of those using the Internet.
Anyway, the BBC series shows the influence and power of the Internet. It is an interesting section to visit at the BBC site. And it is too bad that only places like WIRED tend to do these kinds of stories in an ongoing basis in the American media landscape.
From a friend who has been there and done that…
Colleagues:
What a difference a character makes, and the AP is to blame (I just checked). My own daily newspaper, despite my tip-off yesterday, incorrectly spelled the name of the newly inaugurated Chilean president as Sebastian “Pinera.” It is “Piñera.” So newspapers all over the English-speaking will be getting it wrong because the AP international desk in New York won’t take the time to figure out how to use a tilde. I’m sure the AP burerau chief in Santiago knows how to spell it.
So what? So, the “n” and the “ñ” are two separate characters in the Spanish alphabet. I taught my daily newspaper, Baton Rouge’s The Advocate, a few years back how to write the tilde on a Mac so its headlines and text would correctly say El Niño instead of El Nino.
Recipe stories should say jalapeño, not jalapeno.
Failure to use the correct character can have disastrous consequences. A few years back, the staff of the San Francisco Examiner, I believe it was, decided to be cute with the New Year’s Day edition and impress people with their Spanish. So its headline said, “Feliz Ano Nuevo” instead of “Feliz Año Nuevo.”
So what? So, “Feliz Ano Nuevo” means “Happy New Anus.”
That’s all for today, colleagues. Hasta manana. Oops! I mean, hasta mañana.
This week Tribune Co. CEO Randy Michaels, got down and dirty in the editing process.
He issued a memo of 119 words and phrases he no longer wanted used on the company’s radio station, WGN.
It really is hard to argue with him over the use of most of these trite and useless phrases. I wonder, however, why it took the CEO to step in and make the language of the journalists concise and precise. Isn’t that the job of the front-line editor?
My pet peeves on the list:
- Utilize instead of use
- Completely destroyed
- Eye Rack or Eye Ran
- Literally
We can all be better writers and journalists by paying attention to our words and remembering our job is to be precise and concise.
| Flee” meaning “run away” | “Good” or “bad” news | “Laud” meaning “praise” |
| “Seek” meaning “look for” | “Some” meaning “about” | “Two to one margin” . . .“Two to one” is a ratio, not a margin.A margin is measured in points. It’s not a ratio. |
| “Yesterday” in a lead sentence | “Youth” meaning “child” | 5 a.m. in the morning |
| After these commercial messages | After the break | Aftermath |
| All of you | Allegations | Alleged |
| Area residents | As expected | At risk |
| At this point in time | Authorities | Auto accident |
| Bare naked | Behind bars | Behind closed doors |
| Behind the podium (you mean lectern) | Best kept secret | Campaign trail |
| Clash with police | Close proximity | Complete surprise |
| Completely destroyed, completely abolished, completely finished or any other completely redundant use | Death toll | Definitely possible |
| Diva | Down in (location) | Down there |
| Dubbaya when you mean double you | Everybody(when referring to the audience) | Eye Rack or Eye Ran |
| False pretenses | Famed | Fatal death |
| Fled on foot | Folks | Giving 110% |
| Gunman, especially lone gunman | Going forward | Guys |
| Hunnert when you mean hundred | Icon | In a surprise move |
| In the wake of (unless it’s a boating story) | In other news | In harm’s way |
| Informed sources say . . . | Incarcerated | Killing spree |
| Legendary | Literally | Lend a helping hand |
| Lucky to be alive | Manhunt | Marred |
| Mother of all (anything) | Medical hospital | Motorist |
| Mute point. (It’s moot point, but don’t say that either) | Near miss | No brainer |
| Our top story tonight | Officials | Out in (location) |
| Out there | Over in | Pedestrian |
| Perfect storm | Perished | Perpetrator |
| Plagued | Really | Reeling |
| Reportedly | Seek | Senseless murder |
| Shots rang out | Shower activity | Sketchy details |
| Some (meaning about) | Some of you | Sources say . . . |
| Speaking out | Stay tuned | The fact of the matter |
| Those of you | Thus | Time for a break |
| To be fair | Torrential rain | Touch base |
| Under fire | Under siege | Underwent surgery |
| Undisclosed | Undocumented alien | Unrest |
| Untimely death | Up in (location) | Up there |
| Utilize (you mean use) | Vehicle | We’ll be right back |
| Welcome back | We’ll be back | Welcome back everybody |
| Went terribly wrong | We’re back | White stuff |
| World class | You folks |
The L.A. Times has a good review of the Chief Justice John Roberts Stepping Down flurry. And I can’t agree more with the subhead:
The lesson behind the Chief Justice Roberts rumor
An example from a law professor’s lecture becomes a case study on the perils of a wired world.
Bottom line is that some students in a law class in Georgetown immediately sent out notices that Roberts was stepping down when their law prof said it was happening. Thirty minutes later the prof said the statement was false and that is why good lawyers (and journalists) should always verify their information before going public with it.
“It is a good reminder of the value of old-fashioned reporting, whether that comes in print or online — just someone exercising a certain amount of news judgment,” said David Lat, managing editor of the legal blog Above the Law, which first identified Georgetown law professor Peter Tague as the unwitting source of the story.
The way the news flew around the country in just a few minutes makes it clear how events can get out of hand with poor reporting.
