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."