Get Published!

Earlier, I linked to Adam Weinstein's "Stop the Press Releases!"

I was reminded of Weinstein's worries yesterday when uploading the pages for one of this week's niche publications for the paper. It included an upbeat little story about a local college freshman who has put her studies on hold to pursue her modeling career (she'll be on the runways in L.A.'s upcoming fashion week). The story, submitted through the paper's "Get Published!" function online, was written by her mother. As with any story in our niche pubs, this was at least cursorily copy edited, and all the facts seem to check out. But none of those facts -- to me or to Weinstein -- seems quite as important as the single most salient fact about this short profile: It was written by the subject's mother.

That raises at least two serious problems. First there's the obvious journalistic problem here of a "reporter" who clearly ought to have been disqualified from covering this particular subject. Second, there's the somewhat monstrous notion that any parent ought even to attempt to assess their own child with the detached, indifferent perspective that journalism requires.

On the latter point, I was pleased to see that our hometown mom failed miserably. The profile is anything but detached and indifferent -- it exudes the unconditional love of a proud mother. That's reassuring when it comes to the dynamics of this particular family, but it's far from reassuring when it comes to the dynamics of the kind of "citizen journalism" newspapers are fumbling to embrace.

That was Weinstein's point. "As newspapers recruit 'citizen journalists' to fill their pages," he wrote, "flacks and hacks find an opening." He points to other examples of newspapers publishing profiles written by family members and, far more disturbingly, of corporate profiles written by PR professionals hired by the corporations in question.

The Web 2.0-types say that Weinstein just doesn't get it. His worries about this kind of collaborative "crowdsourcing," they say, just stem from his instinctive defense of the old "fortress-newsroom" mentality.

Whatever. The bottom line is that newspapers have figured out that it's much less expensive to be a "content provider" online if you don't also have to be the content creator. The hype about collaboration with readers shouldn't obscure the bottom line: Instead of acting like a restaurant, they're trying to become more like a pot-luck church dinner. They don't want to have to buy and prepare all of that food, but they still want to stick you with the bill when you're done eating. That makes good business sense for the restaurateur, but no sense for the customers.

The seeds for this sort of thing were planted long ago as cost-cutting and down-sizing at newspapers led to the embrace of what used to be regarded as lazy shortcuts. Rewriting some corporation's or nonprofit's press release as a single-source article is already a widely accepted practice in most newsrooms. This practice has, again, come to be the main source of police reporting. Take the e-mail or fax from the PIO (the "public information officer" of the local police agency) and rewrite it as a "report." Need a quote to flesh out the story? Call the PIO. The byline on this report will be the cop-beat reporters, but that person didn't necessarily do any of the actual reporting. The reporter for the story was really the PIO -- the government official. The person named in the byline simply performed what used to be called "rewrite," back in the day when newspapers still had rewrite desks.

A mischief-making hacker piggybacking on a PIO's e-mail account could get all manner of absurdities into print in almost any newspaper in the country. We wouldn't have the resources or the procedures in place to do the kind of double-checking that could stop them. Nor would we have the inclination.

So since we're already accustomed to adding our bylines to "reports" written by PIOs or by the press officers of local corporations and nonprofits, it's only a short step to the kind of flack and hack "citizen journalism" that Weinstein decries.

Newspapers' heedless, reckless and thoughtless rush to embrace this kind of "collaborative" journalism raises a few opportunities.

First there's this opportunity to be innocent as doves: You can get almost anything in print, with little alteration and almost no qualification. Got a local nonprofit that needs some press? Take a photo and write up a short story and your local paper, grateful for the content, may publish it -- almost verbatim -- on its Web site or in its niche publications or even in the paper itself. Running a food drive? Collecting clothes or blankets for the homeless? Holding a fundraiser? Here's your chance. Use it well.

Then there's also this opportunity to be wise as serpents (or at least as wise-assed as serpents): Got an imaginary nonprofit holding an imaginary event? Curious how many fictional characters you can squeeze into a single semi-plausible local "event" (Central High School senior John Connor was awarded a $2,000 scholarship by the SkyNet Corporation ...)? Have a favorite non-existent local hero you'd like to see profiled? Write it up, photoshop a picture, and submit it through your local paper's equivalent of "Get Published!" The paper will likely still be grateful for the content and may still publish it -- almost verbatim -- on its Web site or in its niche publications or even in the paper itself.

This should be a Golden Age for pranksters, gadflies, clowns and da-da artists everywhere. The doors are wide open.

Such pranksterism needs no higher purpose to justify itself -- ars gratia artis -- but in this case it would also serve a greater good. If the clowns and merry mischief-makers can get enough beautiful absurdities published it might -- might -- begin to force newspapers to re-establish some of the old safeguards and procedures. And who knows? Maybe the skepticism they'll be forced to adopt toward "citizen journalism" will carry over toward their reading of official pronouncements from government officials as well. If it's not already too late.

Comments

[Zyzzyva]

First post?

Tee hee. SkyNet.

[Ygor]

This sounds like a call for monkey-wrench citizen journalism! I'm in.

[Carl]

I think that the press release re-writes are a much bigger threat than press releases themselves. I have no problem with a small-ish paper re-printing a press release to fill space—as long as it is clearly labeled as such. "Let the readers decide" and all that. Be upfront about what you're publishing! As it is, the tech and science sections of even major papers are basically just a series of press releases. This wouldn't be a bad thing if readers knew what they were reading. "Oh! Apple is announcing the new i-thingie. I wonder if it's any good?" But when they read the article and say, "Hey, the new i-thingie sounds pretty good from this article," then it poses a serious danger to the public understanding.

[Carl]

…For instance, how many opinion essays have you read by Ida Mae Smalltown about how her mother brought her up in the olden days to do things just so but now what with the technology and all, things are just so a body can hardly keep up?

Plenty.

And it's not a threat to the integrity of your understanding of the world. You know that Ida Mae is talking about her mother and probably won't be an unbiased source about life in those days. It's fine. It's even fine for a paper to publish a story by a mother about how her daughter is going to be a model.

It's not fine to pass it off as "objective" or a story "by the newspaper."

That's the whole point of the intertrons. Sure, it's full of crap. But when you read Little Green Footballs, you know you're reading right wing garbage, and when you read DailyKos, you know you're reading liberal claptrap. You know what you're reading. There's no pretense of "we report, you decide." They're upfront about it.

And that makes the difference!!

[Cat]

I've always thought it would be fun to pick a random person and celebrate them somehow. Start a cult to worship a name picked out of a phone book; put someone's face on a line of clothing, with half the proceeds going to them and the other half to charity...

Maybe something like a celebrity gossip column featuring...people who aren't usually featured in celebrity gossip columns:

"Tweed was the order of the day at the book launch, with Professor Brayton Polka sporting a snazzy turquoise bow tie from Sears, while Ph.D. candidate Melissa St. Amour showed off her new nose ring. Dr. Doug Freake arrived in the company of Dr. Kathryn Anderson, whose new book on shipwrecks in literature is a hit with the po-co-lit-crit crowd. What's next for the duo, who made waves when they invited a Conrad specialist to the 2006 colloquium? There's rumours that the two may be collaborating on a study of the boundaries of the self in nautical fiction. In the crowd I was lucky to spot undergrads Sylvie Jackson, fresh out of her Caribbean Lit lecture, and Blake Belasco, who flashed this reporter one of his trademark grins as he said, 'I'm just here 'cause I saw the cheese tray.'"

[Mark]

Your penultimate sentence is why I stopped reading American newspapers in any form.

[Randy Owens]

Cat: I've always thought it would be fun to pick a random person and celebrate them somehow. Start a cult to worship a name picked out of a phone book;...

Milk & Cheese would say, "B. Putnam! He is the one!"

(Might be a bit obscure.)

[LL]

I work for an ad agency and believe me when I tell you that clients would LOVE IT if newspapers would continue and expand the whole "citizen journalist" thing. They would especially love to get online, so they can embed (or whatever it's called) links to their own websites. Ad agencies are already advising clients to use "stealth" or "grassroots" or "viral" efforts to sell to the younger generations who supposedly don't like traditional, hard-sell advertising.

As a reader, I have several reactions to the girl putting her studies "on hold" to be a model story:
1) Wow, what a super-awesome and not at all predictable story about a girl putting off boring old college to pursue a glamorous dream job... a story about a girl putting off a modeling career to enlist in the Army and go to Afghanistan would be interesting, the one Fred describes sounds like an episode of Gossip Girl or One Tree Hill.
2) Her mommy wrote it? Isn't that the kind of thing you put in a Christmas newsletter? Why should the rest of us give a shit about this? It's barely worth a mention on the family blog, much less an actual newspaper website.

If this is what passes for "citizen journalism," then newspapers are in more trouble than I thought.

[LL]

Just to make it clear, I have no problem with "fluff" stories. They don't all have to be a multi-page, copy-heavy treatment of state government corruption, but they do have to have info I find interesting or useful in some way. Story about which frozen dinners have the most fat and sodium? Maybe not "news," but at least information that could be useful to me. A story that's basically, "My daughter is a model, yay!!"? Not news or information. Doesn't belong in a newspaper or on a news website.

[spiiderweb]

I'm with "Posted by: Carl | Mar 05, 2008 at 11:26 PM."

The important thing is to factually and honestly identify the source of the article and any affiliations, relationships, associations. I can decide about bias.

Robert Novak bothers me much more than this mother.

[chris y]

Got a local nonprofit that needs some press? Take a photo and write up a short story and your local paper, grateful for the content, may publish it -- almost verbatim -- .

But I used to do this 35 years ago in Unamerica: article from campaign newsletter, photo of fit looking student sympathiser, and bingo - free publicity to 20,000 homes. Has it only just started happening in America?

[JR]

Wow. You have basically described my job.

I'm online editor at a smallish newspaper in the Midwest. Once a week, I am given a page to fill dedicated to exactly this sort of swill. And I am given a couple hours to come up with the copy and photos to fill that page. I literally am required to skim through the press releases, submitted poems, online comments sections, e-mailed photos and family-written profiles to come up with enough to fill that gaping hole in the paper. I consider it a good week when I can find something that is at least written in the first person. It is a relentless schedule. Every Thursday, I wade into the cesspool looking for shiny things, while a relentless clock ticks away in the background.

And that is really the rub. I don't have more time, nor would my bosses allocate more time, for me to factcheck every one of these pieces. Or any of these pieces, for that matter. And since I have that blank page staring back at me, I am genuinely relieved to be able to insert that terrible poem. Or that diary about your backpacking trip to Nepal. And if you send a photo? Ohmigod, you are my most favorite person in the world. Because that big, white page must be filled. And if you don't send your crap in, what in the world will I fill it with?

I am desperately hoping that when I get to work today, I will find that the state police have finished the third press release in their never-ending, gawd-awful boring series on the umpty-tenth anniversary of their proud service. Because they send a reliable 25" of copy and a three column photo that can eat up 50-60" of the 110 inches I need to fill every week.

And then my mind boggles as other copy editors and editors studiously rework the text I have already reworked, just so they can clean up grammar or insert AP style. There is the gentle, self-satisfied chiding about whether "couple" is a single or a plural noun or studious head-scratching over how Mr. Anonymous should have phrased that last comment in his brilliant screed. But no one is at all interested in basic fact-checking. We don't have time and we don't have the desire. If you put the wrong date on when little Bessie actually went to the state basket weaving championship and took fourth place? We won't notice. But every one of your typos might get fixed and commas reshuffled.

I'm fast approaching middle-aged, but my bosses are even older. And it still amazes and tickles them that people can use these e-mail and Internet doohickeys to actually submit words and pictures to this stodgy old newspaper.

And God forbid you submit something and it doesn't get in this week. Because that is the worst crime, making someone actually wait a little while to insert their one-sided, no-sourced column about their own personal charity. Passing this stuff through unsourced and unchecked won't get me yelled at. Not pushing it into the meat grinder fast enough is what will get me a stern talking to.

For several weeks I have been sitting on a column, written by a reader who is disgruntled that a certain local celebrity won't help out her favorite charities, yet he was nice to her and thought she was kind of hot at an event she happened to attend with him. It is completely one-sided, mean-spirited and contains wild assumptions about another person's frame of mind and values. I just am hoping that she doesn't decide to call my boss and ask why it hasn't run yet. Because I will have to rearrange commas, spellcheck, hold my nose and shove it into the grinder.

So here I am, a not-so-proud participant in journalism's speedy race to the bottom. In defense of my own sanity and feelings of self-worth, I have taken a certain gleeful pride in pushing through the absolutely worst poems and self-pitying blather I can find. If I can't stop or even stem the flow, at least I can push it to such an absurd level that maybe our readers will get the hint.

[Keith]

Milk & Cheese would say, "B. Putnam! He is the one!"

(Might be a bit obscure.)

Merv Griffin!

[Nina]

@Cat: Awesome!

I should start writing stuff like that about department parties and submit it to the local paper out here. After all, why shouldn't everyone else be subjected to our sordid little dramas?

[Jon]

Back when I used to write press releases for the small, private college whose public relations office I worked for (or more accurately, whose public relations office I was), it was pretty much par for the course to see said releases run verbatim - though sometimes pared down for space - in the local paper. However, there was seldom, if ever, a byline attached to them.
I know that from my perspective - and my boss's perspective - this was fine for what it was, but what I was really hoping to do by sending out the release was to get the paper (or local TV station) to actually send someone to cover the event/new program I was shilling.
(Accomplishing this usually required some follow-up contact with the paper or TV station, which was the part of PR I really sucked at, to convince them to do some actual reporting. That the Education reporter at the local paper during my earliest days on the job, was someone who'd applied for, and, of course, hadn't gotten, my job made this sort of an uphill battle, though the newly-minted news department of the local TV station was much more eager for content, and I had a better relationship with their reporters. A new Education reporter, who had no bitter feelings towards me, eventually took over, making it much easier to get real coverage.)
For most of the press releases that ran verbatim, bias wasn't really an issue, as they were typically little more than announcements stating that this is happening on this date at this time in this place.
In terms of combating bias, I think that simply running a disclaimer is the simplest and most effective method. At the very least, not attaching a byline does go a little ways towards indicating that the piece was written by someone other than the newspaper staff.

[Cowboy Diva]

JR,
your insight explains SO VERY MUCH about my local (weekly) paper and the dreck they publish.
...except, I might add, for the incessant typos. It would be nice if the stuff they print was obnoxious on just one level.

[Froborr]

We had a lot of trouble with people submitting rewritten press releases at my college newspaper, but fortunately we were too young and idealistic and stupid to *not* compare the stories to the press releases and outright reject anything that was too similar. Helped that it was an honor code school and we could use that to intimidate the reporters.

We also published the police blotter as a public service, right under the weather, but we made it very clear that it was the police blotter, not our reporting, and any actual stories we did on campus crimes used more sources than the PIO. And when we found out the police blotter and annual police statistics were being carefully edited to reduce the appearance of violent crime (including, disgustingly, covering up *every single rape* over the previous several years) we did a huge amount of investigative reporting, printed a series of exposes, and then sent all our findings to the Department of Education so they could do their own investigation.

It was near the end of college, when I slowly began to realize that "real-world" didn't work that why, that I abandoned the entire field in disgust and went into technical writing instead. I'm sure my student-newspaper experience is not unique. I understand that commercialism runs rampant in the newsroom, and that's why American journalism is in such a crappy state. What I don't understand is how kids like the ones I worked with grow up into people who'll allow commercialism to run rampant.

[LL]

RE JR | Mar 06, 2008 at 05:18 AM
"So here I am, a not-so-proud participant in journalism's speedy race to the bottom. In defense of my own sanity and feelings of self-worth, I have taken a certain gleeful pride in pushing through the absolutely worst poems and self-pitying blather I can find. If I can't stop or even stem the flow, at least I can push it to such an absurd level that maybe our readers will get the hint."

Things like this sentiment are why I feel less and less bad with every passing year that I'm not using the journalism degree I got (ie, to work in journalism instead of advertising). Ad agencies are whores, but at least they're open about it. They don't pretend to be objective, they are upfront about the fact that they're for sale and are pushing the client's POV. Unlike, it seems, most news orgs (both broadcast and print) who persist in the notion that they are "news" disseminators and can be trusted to give us the straight scoop, just the facts, they report and we decide. There's nothing wrong with fluff, as long as it doesn't push aside actual news. But it does, apparently. The lack of fact-checking (actually, the lack of concern for fact-checking) is particularly troubling to me. But not surprising. Sad. I am almost ashamed of my journalism degree now.

Thanks, media gatekeepers.

[Rev Dave]

RE Cat: I've always thought it would be fun to pick a random person and celebrate them somehow

I immediately thought of:
"His name is Robert Paulson! His name is Robert Paulson!" Because only in death do members of Project Mayhem have a name.

Certainly the tone here is pitch perfect re the disturbing nature of press release/PR sales pitch as news. Forgive me if this is a stretch, but I wonder if there are parallels from the newspaper-to-PR shills relationship and the doctors-to-drug company relationship?

Anyway, I'm all for "monkey wrench citizen journalism" but I think out here in the Chicago suburbs it would have little effect. Not because there are no local papers - every stinkin' town has one - but because I don't think anyone reads them. 8-10 years ago the town in work in used to provide it free to all residents but once they starting charging for subscriptions, well, I don't know of anyone who gets it anymore. Although someone must because it is still around... so maybe I'm full of it and just universalizing my own experience.

[Geds]

but I think out here in the Chicago suburbs it would have little effect. Not because there are no local papers - every stinkin' town has one - but because I don't think anyone reads them. 8-10 years ago the town in work in used to provide it free to all residents but once they starting charging for subscriptions, well, I don't know of anyone who gets it anymore.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that. When the Glen Ellyn News started charging 35 cents a copy I thought, "Who would ever buy that? It's the same prices as the Chicago Sun-Times."

Of course, that was just before the Daily Southtown became the official most reputable paper in the Chicagoland area. Also, Sam Zell sucks and the Trib is only going to get worse...

[madjoey]

Rev Dave, the locals do read the local paper, especially if it's free. My wife and I own a flower shop in our little downtown area, and last summer we became causes celebre because we moved into a prime corner location and six short months later were evicted. The hack who wrote the articles did a shite job of getting all the points of view, let alone the facts, because she was more interested in the sensational aspects of the story than in "the truth". The public was left mostly with uncertainty, and that hasn't helped our business. As my wife says: "Why is it that Elva [coffee shop owner down the street] is recognized by the community for her generosity and community involvement, while I'm known as the flake who couldn't pay her rent on time?"
(We do take some small consolation in the fact that the business that took over that prime location has been delayed for months in opening, mainly because of a building inspector strike. Take that, Ronald Reagan!)

[josh]

Then there's also this opportunity to be wise as serpents (or at least as wise-assed as serpents)...This should be a Golden Age for pranksters, gadflies, clowns and da-da artists everywhere. The doors are wide open.

Ooohh, this could be a lot of fun.

[patb]

This reminded me of the people who "hacked" the local news weather related closings: http://www.securityfocus.com/news/8191

But seriously, I am in my late 30's and I want to know: who reads newspapers? I mean what is the value proposition? A bunch of paper that clutters your house until you stuff it in the trash because you're not sure if it goes in the blue garbage bags or in a paper sack for recycling and is always left on your lawn for three days.... (Breath)

I've checked out the local paper in the (almost) major metro city I live in. Here's the rundown:

50% AP NEWS WIRE
10% editorial (20% "from the editorial staff" and 80% from some NY City Paper's columnists.)
25% department store ads - for fur coats and $300 shoes.
10% AP Sports
2% Local interest (filler) and Local sports (high school and some wanker that complains that depsite their losing records all of our local pro teams should be in the playoffs or whatever they call that in baseball.)
3% Classified ad - Ever heard of craigslist? ebay? monster? Idiots.

Oh I forgot .02% a selection of the unfunniest drawings made by 3rd graders. What do they call them oh yes "comics."

So for Journalist, I expect there are 100 or so in the country that are concerned about the quality of their craft, fact checking and preserving the "authority" of their publishers. But the rest is crap. My guess is that 85% of the journalists in this country go to school board meetings and try to get a copy of the agenda and quotes from the better dressed board members. That last 5% of journalists? Writing (paid) obits to make the rest of us slugs feel better about our sad existence.

[Fraser]

Patb, the fact you can't see why anyone would read the newspaper doesn't say anything about anyone else's reactions.
School sports, for instance, are intensely interesting to lots of people--not me personally, but lots of kids, parents, sports nuts, at least in our community, want to see who's won or lost what.
Good point about press releases, Fred. I'm not so bothered by the mum--I've seen plenty of local columnists, in my paper and others, devote columns to their family (I skip over that stuff, but not everyone does);.

[Froborr]

Frankly, the best news source I've found of late (except for local news; as near as I can tell, there are no good sources for local news) is the Wii's News Channel.

And that's just terrible.

[practicallyevil]

da-da artists

You rang?

I'm thinking something along the lines of:

An Old School Get Together in a New School

For those of you looking for something for something to do with your Wednesday mid-afternoons, (and who isn't?) why not check out, "The Arts in Everything Jamboree and Harvest Festival"? Hosted in the Quinsigamond Community College Harrington Learning Center (-12 West Boylston Street, Worchester), function room, directly across from the curved counter. Starting at 2:00 pm, and running all the way until 4:30, punch will be served in the first several minutes, but supplies are limited for safety reasons. The Jamboree/Harvest festival will feature several prominent Muslim Stand up comics, a push up contest, and a Cornucopia workshop. Free admission to those who bring a picture of a distressed bus driver, and door prizes will be awarded when you go home. The Event is organized by Professors George Fitch and Mary Newman, who refused to be identified for this piece. So come on down won't you?

I'm online editor at a smallish newspaper in the Midwest.

Wait, you are an online editor for a paper that doesn't fact check and is desperate for content, and we are a community of literary tom fools willing to tear apart the laziness in american journalism? My friends, we have our collective feet in the door. We could put out boat loads of content, e-mail it to JR, and have a whole bunch of small town readers perplexed by our antics. I dare say we might even have the makings of a literary movement.

[practicallyevil]

Also if anybody can get any of these into a paper...

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/think-ive-invented.php

[hapax]

seriously, I am in my late 30's and I want to know: who reads newspapers?

I read the local newspaper, with special focus on the editorials, L2E's, and local news sections, because it is an excellent way to understand the ortgeist of the particular community. Since a large part of my job involves spending tax dollars to respond to and anticipate local interests, I couldn't do without it.

Also it raises my blood pressure nicely.

dare say we might even have the makings of a literary movement.

And that's what it is, the Slacktivist CommentsThread Anti-Massacree Movement, and all you have to do to join in is to submit a fake press release the next time it comes around on the gee-tar...

[MikhailBorg]

I could sing it for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud... or tired.

[Fraser]

I find reading the local letter pages interesting as a measure of when the rightwing pundits' latest bullshit has filtered down to the public--this week we got the first Obama Is Like A Nazi letter, for instance.

[Rum Sodomy & the Lash]

Am I the only one who found JR's post to be a little unsettling.

[lonespark]

Where's my flamewar?

[practicallyevil]

Where's my flamewar?

You're ugly.

Don't say I never did anything for you.

[Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little]

"Who reads newspapers?"

We do.

"We" being the 250 or more volunteers at Audio Information Network of Colorado*, formerly known as Radio Reading Service of the Rockies. We read newspapers from all over the state so that our listeners, some 1500+ blind, visually impaired, and print-handicapped** Colorado residents can know what's in their local papers and thereby what's going on in their communities. Because for many people, the local newspaper is the main way they stay connected to their communities. Take that away, and you isolate a person.

So we read newspapers. Because they want to and can't on their own.

Which makes it even more important not to give up for lost quality print journalism. Even if we turn our cynical noses up, thousands of people are still getting their views of the world from a source that's going all hackery. I suppose one could just deride those people as stupidly naive for trusting their local newspapers, but thinking oneself superior through cynicism is a poor substitute for actually trying to make the world a better place or at least halt its downward slide.

One can hope that if it gets much worse, people will rise up in protest and make it better. But better that it not get much worse.

*(Hey look! A link! Wherein it is revealed that I'm not only a volunteer, I'm the staff web designer and database manager too!)

**("print-handicapped" means for some reason or another they cannot process the written word. It could be something that makes reading difficult or impossible, such as dyslexia, illiteracy, or English as a second language. Or it could be something that makes handling the newspaper or turning its pages untenable, such as arthritis or upper body paralysis.)

[JR]

Re: Practically evil...

Clearly, if you create fake local people in your fake releases, I would certainly be bound to throw them on that page once a week. Tell me about your thrilling adventures in the jungles of Antarctica or the perplexing problems you are having with kamikaze squirrels wearing Rising Sun headbands in your neighborhood and I will get it in the paper. Send me a photo that was not obviously Photoshop and I will be your friend for life.

Here's what I came up with today for the page -- a pro local charity column written by the public relations person for that same local charity. A poem about a fondly remembered playground. A group of comments submitted online in response to an editorial. And a big hole for the copy editor with a request to find a reader-submitted photo to plug in. We have HUNDREDS just waiting to go in the paper.

Seriously, no joke, as deadline neared several months ago, I found myself making a phone call asking "Can you send me a larger version of your photo of the squirrel eating from the bird feeder? We need something that can run 3-columns wide..." Not exactly the direction I thought my career would go after 13 years in the business.

Admittedly, our paper's tactic has been to funnel all the reader-generated "content" to this one page, once a week. So it is not like every page is full of this material. But despite doing this for 2-3 years now (time flies when you are gouging your eyes out) we have yet to have anything submitted that is anything close to "journalism," i.e. actual original reporting, interviewing or revealing of information of interest or use to the average reader.

Which isn't to say that we are much better on the actual news side. Someone finishes a story at 6 p.m., it is on the page at 10 p.m., at the press by midnight and on your doorstep by 5 p.m. In the hours between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. there isn't much time for actual fact-checking, such as phone calls or such, just a cursory look in our digital archives if something looks fishy, spell checking, grammar checking, AP style checking and throwing it on the page.

We would be completely vulnerable to a Jayson Blair. So, we just hope that we hire good people who value their job and integrity more than the chance to strike a blow for artistic freedom.

And as far as Sodomy Rum feeling unsettled, the first thing to go at every paper I have worked at has been copy editors. In a rush to save money and "improve efficiency" the editorial departments ditched copy editors and combined those jobs with the folks actually laying out the pages. Now, we clearly favor new hires with page-design skills over those with wordsmith or fact-checking abilities. Who is more likely to catch your error when you misspell the City Council president's name? The crusty 30-year community resident who knows everybody in town or the 22-year old hotshot who wants every photo to be a cutout and likes to experiment with different sizes of leading and kerning?

[practicallyevil]

the 22-year old hotshot who wants every photo to be a cutout and likes to experiment with different sizes of leading and kerning?

Whaa?? It's always 20% more than the font size in a newspaper, always. Also, you have to consider that the photographer might have taken the corners of the picture into account when he took the picture. I mean if it's a stock photo of a politician, or town hall then sure cut it out, but not for all the photographs, thats just stupid. Does this guy leave widows and orphans, I'm guessing a lot of hyphenation, center justifies sometimes for the whole article, am I getting warm?

What kind of town we talking about? Just some general information about what kind of people live their, and a few examples of stories these guys write.

[Ryan]

Now, we clearly favor new hires with page-design skills over those with wordsmith or fact-checking abilities.

Ah, you mean the plural of "hire". Too many people abbreviate "high resolution" to "hires". Not even "highres" or "hi res" or "hi-res", but "hires", so it looks exactly the same as "hires". Stop confusing me, you meanie people!

Does this guy leave widows and orphans, I'm guessing a lot of hyphenation, center justifies sometimes for the whole article, am I getting warm?

I can't parse this sentence

[practicallyevil]

I can't parse this sentence

Sorry, I'm a graphic design major. In printing widows and orphans are words left entirely on their own line in a printed work like a newspaper, they are ugly and a cardinal sin of layout. It's also a mistake to let a word run long and get hyphenated into the next line, just do a soft return and bring the entire word down to the next line, easier to read. Finally you should never center justify anything except wedding invitations, it's tacky.

[Andrius]

This really isn't anything new. I got this one in to the top boardsports industry website back in 2000. This was to settle the argument that they would post anything as long as the first paragraph sounded like a proper press release. Also to clarify the punchline, "softgoods" is the term for apparel in the sports industries, and we did not have any overseas offices let alone a US office.

http://www.transworldsnowboarding.com/article.jsp?ID=1000024972&typeID=102

Slide Project Acquires New Softgoods Supplier
By: Press Release
Oct 31, 2000

The Slide Project, a multimedia production company and producers of Slider Video Magazine, have announced that after going through anextensive search process it has acquired a new soft goods supplier.
"We were very concerned about the quality of these products and the issue was one that was very close to all of us." said Chief Purchaser Andrius Simutis.

The Slide Project has now invested heavily in the changeover and is pleased to announce that Charmin will now be the exclusive toiletpaper supplier to the Slide Project for all of it's offices both in the United States and overseas.

"We're very excited both in the quality and softness of these new products, and the labor savings in using Charmin's "double roll" technology will help us greatly in continuing our increased profitability." said Zack Boger Director of All Things Fluffy.

[hapax]

Andrius, I would NEVER have printed that release.

Apostrophe abomination alert in paragraph 2!

[Rum Sodomy & the Lash]

Who is more likely to catch your error when you misspell the City Council president's name? The crusty 30-year community resident who knows everybody in town or the 22-year old hotshot who wants every photo to be a cutout and likes to experiment with different sizes of leading and kerning?

Probably the crusty guy, unless he's the one who's pulling the strings and arranging for the permanent debauchment of your local newspaper.

[Rum Sodomy & the Lash]

I wish I knew which newspaper you worked for so I could see if I could concoct a plausible but untrue story and get it into the paper. Although judging by Fred's post, it seems likely that I could pull off a prank like that at almost every newspaper around.

[JR]

I completely agree with Fred. I can't imagine any paper is immune to this. I mean, if the New York Times can get taken (and have editors argue with, and dismiss, the people who point out that they were taken) then it can happen anywhere. It really is part of a system wide failure and not to make this political, but it shows how obviously false Republican talking points get pushed onto the front page without the slightest critical questioning by "editors."

Really, it is the EXACT same process.

1) Publish "news" without investigating the source, or frequently even attributing the source.
2) Mindlessly trust in your own people's ability and desire to accurately report the news.
3) Obsess over the minutiae of editing while abdicating the big picture.
4) In a desire to fill pages and to "get the scoop" print whatever comes across your desk. It is better to appear relevant than to be correct.
5) Lower quality control standards and practices in an effort to save money.
6) Put in place policies that reward and respect the complainers in your community more than the employees you have hired.

The reason Bush can get away with saying that Iraq threw out the UN investigators without the NYT or Washington Post fact-checking him is the same reason that little Jordyn's mom can get her overwrought, one-sided profile of Jordyn in my paper.

Obviously, just my opinion, as I don't work at either paper.

[Randy Owens]

My, my, how could we have come this far in the thread and still overlooked the desperate need...

...for another blogger ethics panel?

hapax: Ortgeist. I like it! Is that your own invention, or something you picked up elsewhere?

[spencer]

But when you read Little Green Footballs, you know you're reading right wing garbage, and when you read DailyKos, you know you're reading liberal claptrap.

I understand the general point you're trying to make here, but I have to say that I am really sick and tired of seeing this comparison.

LGF is an unabashed hate site. It takes virtually no effort (other than the effort required to initially wade into that sewer) to find a comment thread loaded with racist and extermination-ist comments. DailyKos, on the other hand, while obnoxious and well-nigh unreadable (even for this liberal), is not a hate site. Racist and threatening comments are routinely marked for deletion by the site's readership.

The idea that the "extreme" of each wing of the political spectrum is as bad as the other is not only inaccurate, it's actually dangerous in that it has the effect of normalizing far right-wing hate thought.

Sorry if this has already been covered by earlier commenters.

(Disclaimer: Please note that I do not believe that all, or even most, conservatives are bigots, racists or haters.)

[hapax]

Ortgeist. I like it! Is that your own invention, or something you picked up elsewhere?

Err. Well, the mis-spelling would have to be my own invention*, since that should be "ortsgeist."

Other than that, I've seen it a lot in German, but I don't think English picked it up. What would be the appropriate English equivalent? "Sense of place"?

*Isn't there some sort of law that anytime you post on the internet nit-picking somebody else's spelling or grammar, you will inevitably commit a ghastly typo of your own?

[Richard Hershberger]

I still read my local newspaper. It isn't actually good, but it is better than many I have seen. I'd estimate that about one day in three there is some actual local news, reported with something that somewhat resembles journalism. The rest is the usual filler, AP feed, and the like. The local opinion columns and letters are worth glancing it: not to assist me in forming opinions (God, no!) but to see what is going on out there. If I see a string of letters giving similar, odd arguments about some local issue, I can infer that someone is organizing a letter campaign. This is in itself useful information. The actual information density of the paper is pretty low, but so are my expectations.

It also carries Dilbert and Doonesbury. I could get them online, but I'm old enough to prefer my comics in print.

[yogi-one]

You've described why the public has lost faith in the press.

It's all pretty much at the level of the blogosphere now, but newspapers are not upfront about it, nor are news networks like CNN, MSNBC, and FOX objective. If they fact check at all, it is simply to prevent being sued, not to get an unbiased story.

I stopped watching all those channels, and I don't subscribe to my metro newspaper. I get the headlines from it online, and the NYT, but honestly I don't even bother reading those much anymore.

Watching the news has now become the same as watching junk TV. CNN informs me less than QVC - at least QVC shows what's actually on the market. CNN doesn't even do that.

As for niche newspapers - save the friggin' trees.

The whole assumption is that a gullible, ignorant, and completely indiscriminating public will buy up and believe anything in print.

Not in my case. And I didn't read any papers or watch any news shows today either. Just so you know.

[not someone else]

This is really making me want to write up random essays on Things I Find Interesting This Week and find several papers nowhere near where I live to send them to under a pseudonym.

I mean, really, even from a random internet idiot who claims to be a concerned citizen, "Things That Happened In 1492 Unrelated To Columbus" or "Elementary Finno-Ugric Linguistics: 15 Easy Ways To Sound Impressively Boring To Your Friends" is better than most of what it sounds like these people get.

...Anyone want to help me begin on this?

[Cowboy Diva]

Not someone else,
Its been done. Start here.
::snickering::