Just an update...

In a previous post, I discussed the suicide of Megan Meier who killed herself after an ex-friend's mother, under the pretenses of "Josh," posted and sent cruel messages over MySpace.



Today, according to CNN, there will not be criminal charges filed against the person behind the fake MySpace page not because there is no fault involved, but because there is no way to prove any wrongdoing, as well as no charge to fit the crime.

A Missouri prosecutor said Monday no charges would be sought in the
case of a teen who hanged herself last year after chatting on MySpace, although
he said adults should have prevented the tragedy.
[...]
"There is no way that anybody could know that talking to someone or saying
that you're mean to your friends on the Internet would create a substantial
risk," Banas said. "It certainly created a potential risk and, unfortunately for
the Meiers, that potential became reality. But under the law we just couldn't
show that."
But Banas said that conclusion doesn't mean no one is to blame.
"Regardless of what we can charge or what we can't charge, there is no question
the adults should have said something to stop this," he said.
[...]
Missouri's harassment statute says nothing about the Internet, and the
stalking statute requires repeated conversations, so neither would apply in this
case, Banas said.
The purpose of the neighbor who arranged for the "Josh"
character "was never to cause her emotional harassment that we can prove," Banas
said. Any case would be based on "what we can prove and what a jury would
believe."

Tragic. Hopefully this has drawn enough attention to Internet crimes that we will soon have laws offering even a little bit of protection against this sort of an incident.

Shield laws don't always protect

Santa Barbara Independent's staff reporter is found in contempt of court after refusing to turn over pictures he took following the death of a 15-year-old. A 14-year-old is on trial for his murder.

Even though California has shield laws designed to protect the media from this same scenario, this does not meet the four criteria necessary for absolute protection.

The judge ruling in the case stated the following:

"Any one of these photographs might cause the defense to rethink the way they
were preparing (their case),” he said, such as who they might call to the stand
or who they might impeach.

True enough, I suppose. However, he'll have to fight the attorney for the Independent.

The Independent's attorney, Michael Cooney, said this case was important not
only for the Indy, but for all media organizations. He said if Wellman is
forced
to hand over the photos, it could open the door to more serious
subpoenas in the
future asking for reporters’ or photographers’ testimony
regarding what they may
have seen or who they might have talked to. “We’re
on a slippery slope,” he
said.

Judge Hill said he understood the media's interests, but cited the 1990
Delaney case which concluded that in some circumstances, the defendant’s
federal
Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial preempts state shield law.

[...]

Wellman commented that he was "relieved to hear that Judge Hill understood
that this could set a precedent for us to hand over all our photographs for any
investigation. If you hand over unpublished photos you stop being part of the
media and you start being an arm of the government. If I went onto a scene," he
explained, "and I said, 'This is off the record,' or 'I'm not going to show your
face,' or 'I'm not going to disclose the location,' it's going to be hard to
sell that to someone if they feel I'm going to turn over photos every time I get
subpoenaed."

Well stated Attorney Wellman. Well stated.

Keep watching this case - it could be more important than it seems.

Facebook's privacy violated

Facebook users throughout the world are crying out, feeling their privacy is being violated by Facebook's new advertising methods.

Even though there are changes being made to Beacon, "there is still, though, no global opt-out of the controversial marketing system in which the social network is seeking to link behavior and advertising more tightly," according to an article by Kara Swisher.

Her article also talks about how, ironically and coincidentally, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s personal information somehow ended up on 02138 magazine's Website. We're talking his Social Security number, girlfriend's full name and parents' address, along with "Zuckerberg’s testimony in a court case over whether he stole the idea for Facebook, a personal online journal and also financial documents from 2005 for Facebook."

To nobody's surprise, Facebook instantly "unleash[ed ...] a massive legal fury." The site has since taken down the documents.

However, according to Richard Bradley, executive editor of the magazine, this is exactly what the new Facebook ad movement is doing.

“We believe that we have a legal right to post them online and that you have a
legal right to read them. Meantime, spread the word that a company which plans
to collect and sell personal information about 50 million people doesn’t want
one magazine to do the same about Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg.”

Interesting. Very interesting.

As a Facebook user whose information is now probably floating somewhere on the World Wide Web due to the new money-makin' genius of Zuckerberg, I want to know his info. too.

From a media standpoint, it's only fair.

The new advertising practices Facebook is using are invading the privacy of its users. Publishing purchases and the like is not ok. Tracking cookies is somewhat acceptable - every other website uses cookies to understand its consumers and there is a way to protect yourself if you don't want them. It is possible to disable from Internet properties. You can't disable Facebook's new marketing tool; users are left victimized with their private lives exposed to the world.

Not ok.

Comics need editing too

"Hagar the Horrible" offends fundamentalists (in a headline writing assignment story.)

"Get Fuzzy" offends the Chicago mob (see previous post.)

The comics page needs to be edited for taste; that's easy to see.

However, an article in the Wall Street Journal suggests that, while editing the cartoons, editors should leave in some riskier ones.

"Look at your comics pages like a stock portfolio," advised Ms. Grimley, an assistant managing editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "Diversify. You need to have some risky comics," for instance the slightly subversive observational strip "F Minus," and "some safe purchases like the old favorites." Such "safe purchases" would include blue chips like "Blondie," "Beetle Bailey," "Dennis the Menace" and "Hagar the Horrible."

The author acknowledges that changing the lineup in the paper will undoubtedly ruffle some feathers, as any change does, but that it's all for the good of the comic industry.

But much to the chagrin of young artists and writers eager to make their mark, a fair amount of the comic-page real estate is taken up by what they view as old, tired artists and writers -- in some instances, long departed ones. Charles Schulz, for example, died in 2000, but his progeny Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and Snoopy continue to cavort through the funny pages, their antics billed as "Classic Peanuts." Detractors might say stale Peanuts.

I think that the younger artists and writers will be coming up with some good material, funny material - to me.

However, I feel that the classic funnies appeal more to the actual audience of newspapers. These appeal to the older Americans that read the paper every morning over coffee. These appeal to the newspaper's strongest readership.

Do newspapers change the comic pages and start drawing in the younger crowd and upset their faithful readers or do they forgo this opportunity and continue to cater to the people they know will read?

MySpace murder

13-year-old Megan Meier in St. Charles, Mo. hung herself Monday, Oct. 16.

Her story and suicide, under different circumstances, would have just became another tragic statistic. However, because of the reasons behind her death and the story told by one reporter, her death is rocking the media industry.

Two local adults, parents of a former friend of Megan, posed on MySpace as a teenage boy who first befriended Megan and then turned on her. She was so shamed by the adults' false postings--which she thought were made by the boy--that she killed herself. Despite telling the story at great length and in great detail, the local paper declined to identify the offenders "out of consideration for their teenage daughter." - David Crook's Letter to Romenesko

In a story as tragic, and horrific, as the one presented here, the question begs to be answered -- who deserves to remain anonymous. The adults who sent Meiers these terrible messages, posted the cruel bullietins, are not having charges filed against them, mainly due to the fact that there is no charge to fit the crime. Nevertheless, their names have been left out.

Do they really deserve to remain anonymous? Gelf magazine caught up with the reporter who wrote the original story to ask him why.

His answers were short.

Steve Pokin: ... My focus was on the story that appeared in my newspaper. I told that story the best way I could. As part of that—in consultation with my editors—we decided not to name the people behind it.

GM: Were there any other reasons you didn't name names besides your intent to protect the woman's daughter?

SP: That was the main reason.

GM: Were there any others?

SP: I don’t want to go into the other reasons

I want to know. What were the other reasons? I feel that the people behind the fictitious MySpace account are adults. They knew how cruel they were being. They are the reason this little girl is dead.

How did the reporter and his editors decide to leave these people's names out of the story?

And Brian called me "snarky."

Floris, Va.: Lois: As someone who used to cover this sort of event, what is
your view of Hank Steuver's irreverent account of the White House dinner last
night? Any blowback from 1600 Pennsylvania yet? To me, it's just the kind of
snarky reportage we need for these stuffy -- and ultimately non -- events that
are manufactured and controlled by the party in power.

washingtonpost.com: All Fraternite for Sarkozy At a Cozy White House Fete (Post, Nov. 7)

Lois Romano: As irreverent social coverage goes, I think Hank was quite
restrained. Those events can be deadly -- and the media has no access. So
anything a reporter can do to breathe life into the coverage can only help the
reader. I don't think we'll be hearing from the White House on this one. The
have a lot more important fights to fight.

There you have it. There is an important part snarkiness can play within the journalism world.

Do anything to help the reader.

Story originally found on the Washington Post's Post Politics Hour.

Keep the copy editors!

As many journalism companies consider consolidating copy editors (or even doing away with them all together), Andy Bechtel, assistant professor at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication, pushes for the localization of them.

Bechtel, a former copy editor for The News and Observer, was part of his paper's localization of copy editors - and felt it was one of his best experiences.

• I was able to work side by side
with reporters whose prior interaction with copy editors consisted of phone
calls from the Raleigh newsroom. I handled all of the stories that came out of
the bureau, writing the headlines and rewriting them as needed between
editions.

• I became the face of copy editing to reporters and the
assigning editor. They congratulated me on a job well done, and on occasion,
questioned why I edited a story a certain way or wrote a headline the way I did.
They called me with a late update or correction to the stories rather than
trying to track down an anonymous editor in Raleigh.

• I became an
expert in local copy, knowing the names and places that popped up in stories
such as the country road that had a funny name.

• I was a fill-in
assignment editor in the evenings, letting the Raleigh office know of breaking
stories. This came in handy, for example, when a school board member abruptly
resigned in a resume-padding scandal. I was able to notify editors in Raleigh in
time to get the story on the front page for the edition that went to Chapel Hill
readers.

This is a prime example of the importance of copy editors, especially as papers become more localized in an effort to survive. This is also a prime example of how copy editors are fighting to survive; they are working overtime to prove their worth.

Bechtel definately accomplishes that here.

Oprah on YouTube!?!

Oprah on YouTube?!? That's right, ladies and gents. The talkshow guru has given the go-ahead to put an "Oprah cam" on YouTube, according to Information Week.

This is really exciting news for the Oprah lovers out there. Now they can access backstage highlights and behind-the-scenes video. In addition, selected episodes will air on YouTube and (gasp) Oprah herself will become a guest editor. This is all known as the Oprah channel. (Get excited!)

On a promo segment for the Oprah channel, Oprah said the channel will
feature video she has shot herself for YouTube as well as coverage of what
happens on her show during commercial breaks.

"We are excited to be working with YouTube to provide another platform
for people online to communicate with us and share in
some of the one-of-a-kind experiences that occur behind-the-scenes at 'The Oprah
Winfrey Show,'" Tim Bennett, president of Harpo Productions, said in a
statement.

For all you Oprah lovers out there, you can now enjoy her on a whole new level: online.

Facebook Pandemic

Stop the press! New headlining story: Facebook becomes a pandemic!

Well, maybe not.

This isn't referencing Facebook's widespread popularity; instead it is introducing Facebook's new advertising plan, according to Eric Eldon, writer for Venture Beat.

In a project code-named Pandemic, Facebook will remove the somewhat popular
“sponsored groups” that advertisers can buy on the site. Instead, it will
introduce pages that advertisers can buy, and which can include interactive
games or other applications of the advertisers’ choosing.

Pending the outcome of an internal debate within Facebook, these pages may
include a number of vertical categories, such as movies, music, restaurants,
travel, nonprofits, and others.

That's right everybody - Facebook may be joining the ranks of the cookie-tracking 2.0 Websites.

Facebook has already developed applications for these categories, that we
understand to compete directly with many successful third party applications on
Facebook already in these categories. Instead of using Flixster to rate movies
or iLike to play music games, you may soon find yourself playing Facebook’s
version of these applications — then finding yourself getting directed to
relevant advertisers’ pages.

Actions users take on these pages will appear within friends’ news
feeds — if the advertiser that purchases the page is willing to pay an extra
fee. These pages will also have their own URLs, such as
www.facebook.com/venturebeat, and will be searchable on the web.

Facebook, which started as a community-based Website specifically targeted toward college students, has undergone a lot of changes recently (i.e. the homepage and applications); many of which are criticitized for the way they have changed Facebook's original use.

Seriously Facebook, stop the madness! I realize this is a profitable move, but how many users will you lose from this?

I predict none (for now). It will definately be interesting to see just how much change the community of Facebook users will accept.

HA! Watch your headlines...

Headlines need to be correct. Just because you've thoroughly edited the story itself doesn't mean you can go hog-wild and let the headline slide, as the following story shows.

The headline read "25 percent of S.C. teachers accused of sex offenses."
What it should have said “25 percent of disciplined S.C. teachers accused of sex offenses.”

"Unfortunately, the word “disciplined” was left out, completely changing the meaning of the headline."

No kidding.

Knight Ridder's (ex)plans for copy editors...and why they sucked.

Before their downfall, Knight Ridder planned to consolidate their copy editors. This plan caused a lot of controversy within the company and media world; it caused enough controversy that David Sullivan, an editor responsible for copy editing at one of KR's largest newspapers, wrote to Romenesko stating:

...Discussions of the plan concerned locating copy editing "hubs" in three cities. While I have no idea why those were selected, I would have to think it was because 1) the work needed to reach across time zones, and 2) one needed to draw talented people, but the company wanted to avoid the cost-of-living (and thus wage) disparities of places like Miami and San Jose, or the union contracts...

While I'm sure that economy and "efficiency," particularly in KR's later, desperate days, were the buzzwords, part of the genesis was the belief of some leaders of KR's news division that the selection of national and international news in some of their smaller papers could be quixotic, depending upon who was assigned to do wire that night. There had been an earlier project to provide a common nat-forn lead page to all the smaller papers.

My understanding was that there would be some copy editors kept at the larger papers, at least, who would handle local copy. The major initial thrust had to do with 33 papers, or whatever number KR owned that week, re-editing the same AP story on, oh, fires on Southern California. There was a recognition that asking someone in Fort Worth to know what a "row office" is in Philadelphia was asking too much, at least initially. Of course, the Internet era has led to increased emphasis on local copy, which would have affected the plan.

Sullivan then noted why this idea sucked.

1. Every paper has a different headline font and caption style. Some papers use subheads. Every paper has a different style for AP credits. Was KR going to have one centralized style for all its papers? If not, then everything has to be rewritten from paper to paper, which is not going to save much work.

2. The Inquirer has its own stylebook and does not always follow AP style. Was this going to be thrown out?

3. How were each plant's bewildering systems of lifts, replates, and makeovers going to be handled? Again, an asterisk in Philadelphia means a diamond somewhere else means...

These are not all gigantic issues in themselves, but throw them all into a pot and it becomes a big pot. It was a bad idea, but if it was going to happen regardless of its being a bad idea, then you had to deal seriously with the operational problems. Every paper has different ad stacks. Every paper has different protocols for handling the dieds page. Every paper uses a different style for graphics. The only real way to achieve efficiencies in production is to produce a largely standardized product from market to market. Most editors wish to retain final control over how their paper looks. If all that was happening was ending up with 95 percent of the same number of copy editors in three locations, because everyone was redoing everything to meet 33 different styles, what was the point? And then there were always issues like, well, in Fort Wayne we own an afternoon paper, and in Philadelphia we own a tabloid...

As a possible future copy editor, I concur.

2.0 rally for "Another Modest Proposal"

After resigning from her position, Caitlyn VanOrden, former managing editor of East Coweta High's newspaper, formed a Facebook site and is organizing a First Amendment Rally.

All this in response to an incident regarding "Another Modest Proposal." Another "Modest Proposal" you ask? Didn't we get enough of Jonathon Swift's crude and cruel ideals the first time around? Not exactly...

Senior Justin Jones burlesqued Swift's 18th-century essay "A Modest
Proposal" in the September issue of Smoke Signals, East Coweta High's student
newspaper....
Titling his piece "Another modest proposal," Justin suggested that the euthanasia of low-IQ students could alleviate the world's woes. His essay and a critique of an East Coweta Princess beauty pageant by the paper's managing editor Caitlyn VanOrden spurred a classic example of administrative overkill.

(Here it comes...)

Principal Derek Pitts impounded 500 undistributed copies of Smoke Signals and
told the staff that he wanted more positive and uplifting stories.

According to the article by Maureen Downey, on the editorial board for The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, this is an obstruction of First Amendment rights due to the Principal's lack of reason and educational use in his actions.

A "positive" school newspaper devoted to winning football scores is not only boring, but it doesn't teach teenage journalists critical thinking skills. It doesn't take courage to report that the high school band bought new uniforms. It does to challenge the status quo, and that's what good school newspapers should do.

Does this really deserve a 2.0 rally though? I realize that it looks like a huge challenge to First Amendment rights for high school students, but just how appropriate was a story like this for a high school paper?

The editor should have edited for taste, recognizing the potential backlash a story such as this would create.

When to say he's gay.

With the recent controversy involving Senator Larry Craig, a new question faces writers, editors and publishers.

When To Say He's Gay by Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at Poynter, addresses this concern.

She lists five legitimate reasons for outing someone in the news.

"Hypocrisy: It is fair game if a certain politician has consistently voted on public policy issues that appear to undermine the rights or the political agenda of gay and lesbian citizens and if there is evidence that he is gay himself. I actually support a higher threshold. Merely voting a certain way on issues doesn't quite cut it. The only time the hypocrisy argument really works is when an individual has railed against gays and lesbians as a campaign platform. We don't call women who vote against public policy that would be beneficial to other women hypocrites.

Honesty: If a guy says he's not gay and it turns out that he is, he's a liar and voters deserve to know. Here again, I believe a higher threshold is in order. Has he deceived a spouse? Has he actively created a false impression?



Infidelity: We don't care if he's gay. We care if he is having affairs and breaking his marriage vows. Then focus on the infidelity, not the sexual orientation. We've cared about philandering ever since the days of Gary Hart.



Criminal behavior:This is the clearest justification. If a politician is engaged in or charged with behavior that is deemed to be against the law, then we usually care. But go one step further and explain why such behavior is criminal, especially when it involves tapping ones foot in a men's room.



The impact the rumors/story have on the voters and politics: We don't care whether he's gay. We report on the effect the story has on the political scene. This is a cop-out, a great way to back into a salacious story without taking responsibility for the information at the heart of the story."

The point of these five points? Make sure it's newsworthy before diving into and dishing out somebody's sex life.

As McBride said, "find a journalistic purpose for the space and time and energy [a story like this] consumes."

Ever wondered...

Ever wondered about the secrets and the lives of journalists in Washington? I know I have.

Journalists' Secret Lives, an article in The Washingtonian Online, by Patrick W. Gavin and Jonathan E. Kaplan turn the tables on the Washington reporters, asking them to share their secrets and advice.

It's a great read about the lives of the journalists covering Washington:

Where they meet sources;
What they read in the morning;
What shoes they wear on the job;
Confessions and obsessions;
Hobbies and interests;
Who plays poker with who;
Where their second home is.


Romenesko describes the article as follows:

More than you need to know about the lives of DC journalists

In case you care: NPR's Andrea Seabrook hasn't worn heels since the day before President Reagan's funeral; Time's Karen Tumulty is a fan of "E! True Hollywood Story"; NPR's Cokie Roberts needlepoints mainly to create gifts for her children and grandchildren; and Washington Times reporter Stephen Dinan has 23 ties featuring Donald Duck.

Get excited and dive into the world and the lives of the Washington reporters.

Embarrassing inaccuracies...expected?

"Q. What did you think of your New Yorker profile?

A.I think, as most profiles go, two-thirds was accurate. There were so many inaccuracies, including the date of my divorce from my wife, which drove her crazy because she tried to correct it and I tried to correct it twice. It was a little embarrassing to her because it indicated she was divorced after she was remarried. That was symptomatic to a lot of issues. I thought there were a lot of good things in it, but it was written like an arithmetic program: It’s one plus two plus three plus four plus five plus six plus nine plus seven minus two. What it failed to capture in my judgment was my real passion for the work that I do."

This interview of Mort Zuckerman by The New York Observer shows just how important editing is.

Talk about some major inaccuracies...

There were three things about his statment that really bother me:

The first is that both Zuckerman and his ex-wife attempted to correct the information. No go.

The second is how incredibly boring the story sounds. I sure don't want to pick up a profile about a person whose work interests me only to find it to read like a math problem. No way.

The third, and most troubling to me, is that the first words out of his mouth are "I think, as most profiles go, two-thirds was accurate." As most profiles go?!?!? He expects it to be inaccurate. He expects a full third of the story to be inaccurate. That's a lot of inaccuracies.

Isn't it our job to make sure that these stories are accurate? Was somebody not doing their job or did nobody care? It's ok - profiles are always a little inaccurate. No. Not ok.

Extreme backpack journalism...ABC News

Talk about extreme backpack journalists...

ABC News is in the process of setting up mini-bureaus in Seoul; Rio de Janeiro; Dubai; New Delhi and Mumbai, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Nairobi, Kenya.


Instead of being fully staffed, you will only find one person working there: a reporter-producer with the latest in hand-held digital technology with their focus on getting the story.


According to the article by Paul J. Gough of The Hollywood Reporter,

"Each of the seven reporters will work from home and travel around their region carrying a small DV camera and editing-enabled laptop. They'll report, write, shoot and edit their pieces, though they also will have support from others at ABC News. Most of the work will be uploaded via broadband to New York, though they will carry a portable satellite dish for the field where broadband isn't available."

In the process of becoming more digital and more global - this seems to be the next step.

"ABC News is in the middle of a transformation into a more digital company -- and one that can expand its reporting. Westin said that with the digital bureaus, it's free to report from more locations, including places where it wouldn't be able to afford to open a full-time bureau.


'It's a source of stories that we wouldn't normally hear from, and it gives us eyes and ears on the ground,' he said."

This is a dream job for some. Probably not for me, but it might be for you.

"Hughes said she heard about the deployment and itched to become a part of it. She acknowledges that she's not as well trained as a 20-year camera veteran but doesn't think it's a drawback.


'We're not going to be in a studio, we're not going to have people do our makeup,' Hughes said. 'The challenge for us on-camera is making sure that we find a great story and report it -- reporting it in a way that people are going to watch.'"

A News and Information Company

"We can't just be a newspaper anymore. We need to be a news and information company. Online will become the new mass medium, and print will be aimed at settled adults."

Whoa. New concept? Not so much. The above statement from Julia Wallace, editor of Atlanta's Journal-Constitution shows that her paper, along with many others around the world, are being forced to re-think the way their company works.

As Jennifer Carroll, Gannett's vice president for new- media content says, "This is not about moving the furniture around. It is about completely rethinking the way we are going to do journalism."

An article in the American Journalism Review by Carl Sessions Stepp called "Transforming the Architecture" describes what newspapers are doing within their offices to make them more adaptable to this online movement. (Note: the Des Moines Register is mentioned!)

Atlanta's Journal-Constitution is a prime example of this. No traditional desks, no conventional editors, no late-afternoon budget meeting - it's all a thing of the past.

Instead, there are four departments. News and Information, Enterprise, Digital and Print work together to put the paper and the website together. There are constantly informal meetings being held within the departments.

While there are some people with negative feelings about the changes, many others see it as a way of survival. Says the Journal-Constitution's transportation reporter Ariel Hart, who now doubles on the public transit beat:

"This is the key. This is the nexus of everything for me. Thank God we are moving forward. We could be sitting around watching this place be whittled down to nothingness and wondering when we would cease to exist. We have not done that. We have a vision."

I can only hope that we all, as reporters, find ourselves working for a company with a vision.

Editing...cartoons?

Did you laugh when you read Darby Conley's "Get Fuzzy" cartoon? I did. It's one of my favorite cartoons. It's funny, right?



Not everyone thought so. In its normal slot in the Chicago Tribune's funnies section last Friday, Sept, 14, in place of the cartoon shown above, was a nice little note stating that it wasn't running because it "did not meet the Tribune's standards for taste." This apparently stems from the cartoon's mocking representation of mobsters. The Chicago mob? I still don't understand.

I'm not the only one. An article opinion article by the Tribune's public editor, Timothy J. McNulty, addresses this specific censorship.

Jeff Nowak of South Holland, Ill., wrote to the paper and said "that the
only offense is a vague testicular injury joke" and so perhaps the newspaper
should remove its TV listings for "America's Funniest Home Videos" because that
appears to be the theme for such shows.

I didn't find the comic so offensive. I suspect I wouldn't even have
thought twice about it, like most readers, until it was taken out.

On the very same day, Nowak noticed, the "Doonesbury" comic played off the
arrest of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho in a Minneapolis airport men's room and
compared it with the treatment of U.S. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, whose
phone number appeared in the records of a Washington madam. "There's an
important lesson here, son," says the character Duke. "Stick to call girls." The
son replies, "And always pay cash."Isn't talk about prostitution offensive to
some readers?

So why did the editors of the section featuring the comics decide to nix this specific cartoon, on account of it's crude taste? Can you really edit cartoons like you would a story? Apparently you need to...

Editors make daily decisions about everything that goes in the paper,
stories, photos and, yes, comic strips. They never try to be gratuitously
offensive. But, as reader Nowak acknowledged about comics, "The problem here is
that you can't really determine which ones will be offensive to whom."

His solution would be to not "censor" any comics. Sorry, but that would be
abdicating responsibility. Personally, I don't always agree, nor does any other
editor I know, with all the decisions that are made, but ultimately someone
needs to decide.

Someone does need to decide. I was just unaware that this kind of editing happens within the comics section.

Guess you learn something new everyday.

Original story found at Romenesko.

Just a rumor...

The latest rumor on Fidel Castro is that he is dead, for the third week in a row. No one can confirm this and it's the third time in three weeks that it's been rumored. So why is it still buzzing around news rooms?

What if it is true? Who is going to be the first to break the story? It's a huge story.

The race is on. Beat the other guy to the punch.

But, maybe it is just a rumor. No one wants to take the blame for starting that story, if it is just a rumor. But then again, what if it's not.

The traditional panic in the news room has now begun. Verifying every lead and every source they have, credible or not, they work rapidly.

In the past, breaking a story like this could make a newspaper, a television station, or a radio station. They just had to beat the others to the punch.

An article from Poynter Online, Not Dead Yet: Reporting Castro Rumor, by Mallary Jean Tenore and Steve Myers, tackles this issue. I found a specific portion in this piece very interesting.

"Persistent rumors of Fidel Castro's death are testing newsrooms with a familiar quandary: At what point do you report on rumors?

The tradition, of course, is that you don't. Journalists check rumors with official and unofficial sources and only report verifiable information.

Rumors about Castro's death have presented newsrooms with challenges about how to respond. This photo was taken during a March, 1985 interview at his presidential palace in Havana.

But what if bloggers are telling people the Cuban leader is dead?"

What if bloggers are telling people Castro has finally kicked the bucket? (See the Perez Hilton blog) How does a paper present the information then?

The question now becomes how to address it. As a professional journalist, isn't it your job to report the truth? Yes, yes it is. So should you report, without confirmation, that it is indeed rumored that Castro had died?

I feel that Terry Spencer, Florida news editor for the AP, said it best.

"We have to take these rumors seriously, but we also have to take them
with a grain of salt because so far, every one of them has been wrong. But some
day, one of them will be right."

How do you take a rumor seriously, but at the same time, with a grain of salt?

The general consensus from the Poynter article seems to show that where a rumor creates a real response, it needs to be treated as news. The story also warns to be very careful with making certain people understand that it is not verified and is just a rumor.

News is now, but should it be?

When the Pittsford varsity lacrosse player, Jeff Milano, collapsed while warming up for a game on Wednesday, April 11, 2007, his family was immediately placed in a difficult and hard situation. This got even more difficult when he passed away later that day.

Now, we all have experienced grief and what it means to lose someone close to you, someone you loved. That's indisputable.

What most of us haven't experienced is a swarm of media when something tragic, such as this, happens. I know I haven't. When my grandfather suddenly died in January, as a family, we dealt and grieved privately, granted it was no big news story. Without reporters. Without interruption.

I can only imagine that it would be difficult, even frustrating, trying to deal with a death so sudden and tragic while the media and reporters are crawling over each other trying to get to you so they can get the story. Jeff's mother certainly thought so.

Her guest essay, posted by Democrat and Chronicle, exposes a side of journalism that portrays us in a heinous-unfeeling-monsters kind of light. And, from what I read, I don't really blame her.

The world as we knew it had been destroyed... Breathing was difficult; thinking was impossible. We were barely able to stand on two feet.

Interspersed throughout these horrific times was media behavior that was deplorable....

Early Thursday morning less than 15 hours after learning of my son's death, the phone rang in his hospital room. I picked it up to hear a TV reporter on the other end of the line. I almost ripped the phone out of the wall....

These hours were simply hellish. There was no way to escape the horror, shock and intense pain we felt immediately following Jeff's death. But the media's actions during this same time period were indecent, disrespectful and inhumane.

She notes later in the article that The Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics does indeed state that we, as journalists, need to:

"Minimize harm ... show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage.... Use special sensitivity when dealing with children. ... Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews ... of those affected by tragedy or grief. Recognize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials. ... Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone's privacy."

And she continues to make the claim that the media, throughout the duration of the tragedy, failed to do just that. Those reporters, she says, invaded and disregarded her privacy when she needed it most.

However, a comment to her essay, posted by Brad, aka "chilledbongo," argues that those journalists were required to blatantly disregard her privacy for the sake of the news story.

Dear Ms. Milano:

I sympathize with your emotional mother's reaction to having been approached for interviews by the news media so soon after your son's tragic death. However, I must take issue with your reasoning that this was wrong.

Let me ask you: When the planes hit the twin towers in NYC on 9-11, would you have preferred that the news media wait several months to let you know about it so as not to offend the families of the 3,000 people who died?

If the president were to be assassinated tomorrow, would you think it best not have this reported for several weeks so as not to offend his family?

I could go on and on. The point is, news is now. When your son died, it was news then, not weeks later. It's shocking to find oneself in the middle. But that is how things work. It cannot and will not and should not ever be changed.

Brad

News is now? I understand that. I understand that nobody wants to read an article 3 weeks from today on a story that occurred yesterday. I sure wouldn't. But that's most definitely not the question raised here.

It's really a simple question of ethics. Did those reporters cross the line in order to get a story? Did Ms. Milano deserve her privacy to deal with her son's death privately? Were there other ways for those reporters to get the story, other than calling Jeff's hospital room?

I feel that the answer to all of these questions is quite simple: Yes.

"News is now" is NOT an adequate excuse to completely disregard the feelings and grief Jeff's family and friends must have been experiencing. There are certainly much nicer, kinder ways to get that story out there for the public And yes Brad, "chilledbongo," whoever you are, even in a timely matter.

Original link found at Romenesko.

New Blogg'n

Well, new blog site for a new class. Like others at Simpson College, I'm already blogg'n for a media class taught by Dr. Steffen - and classes don't even start until tomorrow.

Way to get a head start on our education, Brian.

Throughout the next semester please find here some (hopefully) interesting and insightful blogs discussing, surprise surprise, media and journalism.