Staying on top of your game

Oh boy. No one wants to think that the role they spent their entire career perfecting is just no longer needed. And even if it actually is needed, it's superfluous when reflected in the Bible of budget.



That appears to be the way the copy desk is going. Having lots of skills is being ground into the heads of new graduates. They show up to internships with slow-to-embrace-the-new papers and can't believe they are asked to do so little, when they know how to do so much. At least that's the way I felt after graduating and getting into my reporting internship.

But copy editing. Seriously? Joe Grimm, who writes a daily column for Poynter Institute focused today's submission on skills copy editors should have to stay relevant. I can tell you, my frustration is immense with the level of copy editing that happens some afternoons, so I can't imagine a newsroom without a skilled team of copy editors behind the scenes, saving the day.

Media General made a few headlines when it announced last week it would combine copy editing and page design at three eastern newspapers. This is nothing new, or surprising. We do that here. But one may argue that our copy editing suffers. No one has time to spend looking up every single thing in a story, so easily avoidable mistakes, (such as where a person whose name is all over the Internet, really works) become a regular part of our product.

Grimm suggests copy editors brush up their web skills as they are going to need those a lot more than an AP Stylebook before too long. One such suggestion is to learn search engine optimization. Google has a page devoted to dos and don'ts here.


An old friend of mine started doing this work, and the script he's using is directly from this warning page from Google. Basically, it is making your page easy for search engine bots to locate. For those trying to take advantage, the promise is they can get you on the first page of hits on Google.

I think the concept Grimm is referring to is being aware of the ways in which bots find and catalog items on your Web page. Driving up Internet traffic appears to be the way many newspapers are looking to approach the next stage in profitability and information dissemination. For this, I think our paper needs to establish a more defined way to add tags to stories on the Web site. I noticed it's all over the place and appears that copy editors are simply adding whatever tags occur to them instead of adhering to some sort of formula.



Think I'll inform myself on this topic. I'll let you know what I find out.

Ugh, can you believe this guy

One thing that old-school journalists seem to have stuck in their heads is this idea that the news is a lofty, high-minded organization that tells readers what they should think about. Take this fuddy-duddy, and 35-year veteran of the business:
His name is Mark Whicker. He's a sports columnist for the Orange County Register. And he doesn't get why so many people were offended by his most recent attempt at journalism. And he doesn't actually care.

Whicker has been getting flack ever since the OCR published a column in which he informs a woman kidnapped, raped and held prisoner for 18 years of all the unimportant sports-related happenings she missed out on while she was squirreled away in the backyard of a sex offender.

Then Whicker writes an unapologetic apology in which he expresses his failure to understand what was so offensive about making light of the woman's horrific experience as a segue into a column about nothing.

He apologizes not for the content of the column, but for its disconnecting effect with long-time readers of the OCR. Clearly this expresses the fact that he does not get why his column was the most distasteful thing anybody's read in a long time.

Whicker goes on to tell Poynter Institute reporter Mallory Jean Tenore that the only reason so many people were disgusted was because of the Internet. Well, welcome to the world we write in Mr. Whicker. Lots of people have access to your disappointing work and they will tell everyone they know if its bad enough. It's the way of the modern world.

What I don't understand about Whicker's responses is how obvious it is that he still doesn't get it. What's so wrong with using a real person's personal tragedy as a jumping off point for a column about the last 18 years in sports?

Looking from an ethical standpoint, let's begin with the simplest question: How many are harmed and how many are helped? The content potentially harmed the woman and her family while the content helped Whicker gain notoriety. Should journalists publish something for personal gain? Uh, no.

What benefit was there in crafting his column around this woman's awful experience? You know, I'm having a hard time with this one.

Those two questions right there should have stopped this man from writing the column in the first place. But he's so out of touch he can't even see what the problem is. Young journalists all over the U.S. are looking at this guy to be fired or voluntarily resign, his words were so offensive and his "regret" so insincere.

Move over buddy, it's time to make room for someone who remembers their ethics classes. I say Mr. Whicker should revisit the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics. I think minimizing harm and being accountable are especially worth review.

Being the information resource

The Oregonian has launched new features to its Web site. One thing I stumbled across was its police scanner. Yep, the Oregonian now offers its Web users access to streaming police scanner as well as codes to decipher what the emergency responders are saying.

This is just another innovation from the Oregonian site that provides public information in many ways. You can go there for Oregon and Washington's Department of Transportation traffic cams (and see just how bad it is out there before deciding to use the freeway.)

They've hooked up with Portland's favorite weatherman, Todd Sweeny to do a daily video forecast. They've teamed with Twitter so you can get updates on the go on your PDA or cell phone.

They are offering 24/7 coverage of Portland and its surrounding communities. Pretty much all their content and a whole lot more is available through the Web site.

And so it begins

In this article from the The Daily Telegram, a Wisconsin paper, reveals it will publish daily news, photos and video on its Web site and reduce it's print edition to two days each week. It intends to remain a paid subscription print edition. Hmm...

Let's start with putting some of the article here since one is required to sign up for a membership (it's free, but a hassle) to see the story:

Following a growing trend in the newspaper industry, The Daily Telegram will refocus its emphasis toward Internet publishing, company executives said today.

The Telegram’s Web page, www.superiortelegram.com, will become the primary source of day-to-day breaking news, said Publisher Ken Browall. It will feature printed news and photos of events as they happen seven days a week, along with audio and video clips.

Online news coverage will be supplemented by a twice-weekly printed version of The Telegram that provides exclusive Superior and Douglas County news and sports features plus a wide variety of community news and columns not offered by other Twin Ports media, Browall said. The twice-weekly Telegram will remain a paid circulation newspaper.

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Internet publishing has grown in popularity as traditional print advertisers have gradually moved to the newer medium. Meanwhile, print advertising revenue has declined nationwide, and newprint costs have grown. This year, the revenue stream has been particularly weak as the struggling economy, poor credit conditions and slow hiring has hurt traditionally strong classified advertising customers in the automobile, real estate and help wanted sectors.

Okay, here's my brilliant idea. Instead of reducing the number of times per week a print edition is produced, newspapers should instead make people buy the print edition in stands and make sure Web content is available to subscribers, first thing, everyday.

For the old fashioned people who wish to receive print papers at their homes, newspapers could charge them a special rate, more than the online edition but less than if you bought it in the stands.

Here is why I think this will work: Newsprint is expensive and limiting. The Internet is cheap and limitless. With more innovative placement of advertising, newspapers can sell ads online, save money on ink and newsprint, still produce the product people are used to getting, still get subscription numbers to use when selling ads, offer similar penetration, attract younger audiences, incorporate more styles of storytelling, and still satisfy the older generation who can't imagine getting their newspaper online. If newspapers are almost exclusively sold in boxes, the paper still has the chance to attract new readers and distribute news to those who aren't regular readers.

Of course, this means that the Web site has to offer cell phone compatible Web sites in addition to the full sites. These sites are much simpler though, and should be easier, not harder, to create.

Citizen journalism

It's hard not to associate yourself with television "journalism" when you work for print media.