The editor-in-charge-of-corrections weighed in Sunday on his recent decision to create a controversy where none previously existed.
A Genesee County school district sent out a mailer warning parents that a suspected sexual offender, who the school did not name, was living in the district near a school. Parents were apparently happy for the information.
That's when the editor-in-charge-of-corrections decided to ramp up a controversy by first, naming and picturing the accused sex offender in the newspaper, and then seeking someone, anyone, who would call the school's letter a violation of the alleged sex offender's privacy.
Locally, apparently, they could find no one to weigh in with that opinion, so they went to New York and Human Rights Watch who criticized the district for the letter.
This technique is popular among editors devoid of real news sense. It's the "I'll hold your coat" style of journalism. A reporter tells one source that another person/organization has done something offensive to it/them. That prompts a reaction from the uninvolved individual, who then weighs in with a salvo of theirs against the "other" side. Back and forth it goes as two people/organizations who previously had no issues with each other fight it out in public, while the newspaper "holds their coats." It's a cheap technique, one not worthy a good newspaper.
There are plenty of ongoing fights that don't need fabricating that can be covered, but when the news cupboard is bare, this one can be used in a pinch. Then after all the dust dies down some vacuum headed editor can then opine in public about how important it was that they started the fight to begin with.
I had my own such issue, just a year ago, over a proposed rabbit farm in Lapeer County. Not just any rabbit farm, but one which produces pathogen-free rabbits for use in university medical schools for high end research. These animals are used in critical cancer research and must be 100 percent free of any disease, virus or pathogens of any kind.
Potential neighbors of the facility raised an issue of truck noise and odors, but no one was concerned about any animal rights issues. That's when the editor-in-charge-of-corrections stepped in and decided that I should call People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and let them weigh in, even though no such issue existed.
I refused. That created a big issue for the editor-in-charge-of-corrections (let's shorten that to eicoc) who demanded that I be made to make the call. Still I refused. So it was going to fall to a less experienced intern to do the dirty work and so I contacted the editor-in-charge-of-the-editor-in-charge-of-corrections (eicoteicoc) who found his cajones for once and stopped the effort to ramp up a controversy where none existed.
Newspapers, particularly the Flint Journal, ramp up controversies all the time. They do so for a variety of reasons, many of them are good reasons and sales of newspapers is one of them. (We'll get back to that in a minute).
Trust me on this, if for some reason the school district knew about a suspected sex offender - and then didn't inform the public - the eicoc would have been the first to have a reporter jump on them with both feet for NOT doing so. The eicoc is a bully, he is a bully in the newsroom and a bully in the community, one he doesn't even live in. The eicoc lives far outside the Journal's subscription area and has for ten or more years.
That's really interesting because the eicoc has assigned and required stories about the residency of many local officials and employees. He's singularly obsessed with how much every public employee makes, but try and get that, or any other information, about how much he or anyone else makes at the newspaper.
With the loss of many veteran reporters, those who couldn't be bullied, look for more such stories in the future.
Now let's talk just a minute about the eicoc's bold statement that he has never heard anyone assign a story based on selling newspapers.
I'm sure the eicoc was present at a number of meetings where the eicoteicoc spoke last year about how the American Idol Lakisha Jones stories were designed to sell newspapers and bring a lot of younger readers to the Flint Journal. Heck there was a virtual orgy of articles (see http://freefromeditors.blogspot.com/2008/01/top-10-story-list-joke.html).
Heck just in the last week, the Flint Journal has spent countless inches promoting "Semi-Pro" an awful movie (people who have seen it have warned me away from wasting my money) and for what other reason than to sell newspapers to the fools who believed they were going to appear in it as extras.
I was in the business for 30 years, I never apologized for the fact the point of the business was to sell newspapers. Heck, GM certainly doesn't apologize for selling cars, do they? But to say boldly as the eicoc did Sunday that he has "never" heard that is very startling.
Maybe a correction is in order? But as the eicoc says, anything that "stirs" discussion is good.
Showing posts with label editors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label editors. Show all posts
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
I've been thinking.....
Yep, I've had a lot of time to think and that's always a dangerous thing.
While I watch the demise of the business that I have (had) such a great passion for it came to me that the solution was never in getting rid of the most experienced talented members of the profession. I know, well, duuuuuh!
Hang with me a moment.
The real problem with top newspaper management is they lack, dare I say completely, any vision for what is really required in salvaging not just the business, but the mission of community journalism.
After all, when the newspapers are all gone, who will do the investigative reporting, such as is currently going on in Detroit. The short answer is, no one. With no watchdog, those who sneer at the daily news media will be begging for the return of real journalism.
Wouldn't the better model for saving newspapers - either in print or online - have been in keeping the most talented reporters and editors and finding a way of transferring what people love, enjoy and need from the print version and transfer it to online editions.
Part of that problem is that some of the current editors (as I've posted her previously) don't really care about the news that most people really want to read. They turn up their noses at breaking police and fire news in favor of long, boring features. I've gone over this ad nausem so I'll not do it again here.
Now the business is faced with transferring its model from print to online, but without many of the folks who had a complete understanding and sources to actually make the transfer without losing the core aspects of the business.
Short sighted people saw only high salaries and benefits as the obstacle to saving the business. Wrong! Businesses rarely cut the way to success. Newspapers often tell businesses it is more important to part with advertising dollars in the bad times than when times are good. Guess they were giving that advice with fingers crossed.
Lost are the relationships built up over decades of reporting with key players in government and business. Those are relationships that will not be easily or quickly bridged with young, inexperienced reporters fresh out of college. This is in no way a slam at them it is just the reality that learning the reporting business is a long, not short, curve experience.
So now editors, who were barely competent to produce a printed newspaper, are playing the equivalent of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey as they stumble in the dark trying to figure out how to make money on the Internet.
Heck, they were already playing the "donkey" game with the printed version of the paper and doing a miserable job of it. Now they are trying to transfer that to a medium they know little or nothing about.
Before it's too late, some newspaper needs to take a chance, keep its most talented people, and work to make the online newspapers a place that folks are eager to visit and that advertisers will recognize the benefits of spending money on while preserving the printed version for the legions of folks that still love that form of news.
During one brainstorming session at the Journal, some of us argued that the printed version could be supplemented on the Internet by giving readers a place to go to read the volumes of documents that often go into making investigative stories. Example: In stories about restaurant inspections, there is no room in the print version for complete copies and files that went into drafting the story.
Online, however, all the background documentation could be offered for readers who want to look further than a 30-inch story. We were patted on the head, told it was a good idea, but still no such move to provide that kind of service to readers. It would work for a variety of investigative stories.
Instead, the current management will continue to spin around, stumble and put the donkey's tail right square in its forehead.
Sad, very sad.
While I watch the demise of the business that I have (had) such a great passion for it came to me that the solution was never in getting rid of the most experienced talented members of the profession. I know, well, duuuuuh!
Hang with me a moment.
The real problem with top newspaper management is they lack, dare I say completely, any vision for what is really required in salvaging not just the business, but the mission of community journalism.
After all, when the newspapers are all gone, who will do the investigative reporting, such as is currently going on in Detroit. The short answer is, no one. With no watchdog, those who sneer at the daily news media will be begging for the return of real journalism.
Wouldn't the better model for saving newspapers - either in print or online - have been in keeping the most talented reporters and editors and finding a way of transferring what people love, enjoy and need from the print version and transfer it to online editions.
Part of that problem is that some of the current editors (as I've posted her previously) don't really care about the news that most people really want to read. They turn up their noses at breaking police and fire news in favor of long, boring features. I've gone over this ad nausem so I'll not do it again here.
Now the business is faced with transferring its model from print to online, but without many of the folks who had a complete understanding and sources to actually make the transfer without losing the core aspects of the business.
Short sighted people saw only high salaries and benefits as the obstacle to saving the business. Wrong! Businesses rarely cut the way to success. Newspapers often tell businesses it is more important to part with advertising dollars in the bad times than when times are good. Guess they were giving that advice with fingers crossed.
Lost are the relationships built up over decades of reporting with key players in government and business. Those are relationships that will not be easily or quickly bridged with young, inexperienced reporters fresh out of college. This is in no way a slam at them it is just the reality that learning the reporting business is a long, not short, curve experience.
So now editors, who were barely competent to produce a printed newspaper, are playing the equivalent of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey as they stumble in the dark trying to figure out how to make money on the Internet.
Heck, they were already playing the "donkey" game with the printed version of the paper and doing a miserable job of it. Now they are trying to transfer that to a medium they know little or nothing about.
Before it's too late, some newspaper needs to take a chance, keep its most talented people, and work to make the online newspapers a place that folks are eager to visit and that advertisers will recognize the benefits of spending money on while preserving the printed version for the legions of folks that still love that form of news.
During one brainstorming session at the Journal, some of us argued that the printed version could be supplemented on the Internet by giving readers a place to go to read the volumes of documents that often go into making investigative stories. Example: In stories about restaurant inspections, there is no room in the print version for complete copies and files that went into drafting the story.
Online, however, all the background documentation could be offered for readers who want to look further than a 30-inch story. We were patted on the head, told it was a good idea, but still no such move to provide that kind of service to readers. It would work for a variety of investigative stories.
Instead, the current management will continue to spin around, stumble and put the donkey's tail right square in its forehead.
Sad, very sad.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Goodbye Cookie!
Today, the Flint Journal says good-bye to its feature editor Cookie, a longtime friend and one of those excellent editors I told you about previously.
Cookie, like many of us, was induced into early retirement by a generous buyout offer and the prospect of continuing to work for editors who, how can I say this politely, have no clue about how to run a newspaper.
With clowns to the left of her and jokers to the right, Cookie was stuck in the middle where she skillfully produced a wonderful features section and managed a diverse group of reporters to the best advantage of the newspaper.
Although readers may not have been aware of her efforts, those of us who worked with her and knew her know that her loss, even though likely welcomed by the boys who run the paper, will be seriously felt.
Good luck Cookie!
Cookie, like many of us, was induced into early retirement by a generous buyout offer and the prospect of continuing to work for editors who, how can I say this politely, have no clue about how to run a newspaper.
With clowns to the left of her and jokers to the right, Cookie was stuck in the middle where she skillfully produced a wonderful features section and managed a diverse group of reporters to the best advantage of the newspaper.
Although readers may not have been aware of her efforts, those of us who worked with her and knew her know that her loss, even though likely welcomed by the boys who run the paper, will be seriously felt.
Good luck Cookie!
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Top 10 story list a joke
Every year the Flint Journal posts its top 10 story list based on the votes of its staff combined with its online readership.
This year, the voters picked - ta-da - Lakisha Jones and her fourth place appearance on American Idol as the top story of 2007.
What the Journal didn't bother to tell its readers was the actual vote that led to the Top 10 listings in the paper. They rarely do, partly because they are embarassed at the ridiculously low number of voters who make the picks.
The Journal, in seeking to be credibile, should at least be honest about the number of people who make the story selection for the list.
I'm not privy to the actual vote totals, but I'll wager dollars to doughnuts that less than 15 staff members and less than 40 readers are the source of the Top 10 list. That's out of an editorial staff of 60-80 people and a total subscription base of about 100,000.
Mathematically, I don't think that puny number would even register on a calculator, not without a few zeroes in front of a whole number.
LaKisha Jones was a good local story, but editorial management decided that Jones was the path to journalistic salvation. Seriously - they said the following in meetings - that they believed if we saturated the paper with Jones news, young people would come flocking back to the paper, we would attract advertisers and save the newspaper.
Five months later, they offered a massive buyout to stem the financially bleeding at the paper.
To cover the Jones story, management took a full-time reporter off her beat covering two major suburban communities and told her to find a front page story everyday about LaKisha.
That reporter, Sally York, did yeoman's work in finding different angles everyday so that readers would never be deprived of some tidbit of the Jones story.
More remarkable because, Jones and most of her family were not allowed to talk to the Journal during the show's airing time. So while the Journal became a shill for a popular TV show, not even the show allowed access to the star the paper was shilling.
Meanwhile, York's regular beat went bascially uncovered for months. Don't blame Sally, she was doing what she was told to do and she did it very, very well.
So if you had a story last year that you thought was worth covering and didn't get covered, blame LaKisha. With American Idol starting up again this month, local readers can only hope that whatever divas make the final cut won't be from the Flint area or plan on similar overkill in 2008.
The Jones story should have been covered, but not at the expense of two local communities and significant front page space. Trust me, many reporters at the Journal were very embarassed by the Jones overkill, but were powerless to stop it.
This year, the voters picked - ta-da - Lakisha Jones and her fourth place appearance on American Idol as the top story of 2007.
What the Journal didn't bother to tell its readers was the actual vote that led to the Top 10 listings in the paper. They rarely do, partly because they are embarassed at the ridiculously low number of voters who make the picks.
The Journal, in seeking to be credibile, should at least be honest about the number of people who make the story selection for the list.
I'm not privy to the actual vote totals, but I'll wager dollars to doughnuts that less than 15 staff members and less than 40 readers are the source of the Top 10 list. That's out of an editorial staff of 60-80 people and a total subscription base of about 100,000.
Mathematically, I don't think that puny number would even register on a calculator, not without a few zeroes in front of a whole number.
LaKisha Jones was a good local story, but editorial management decided that Jones was the path to journalistic salvation. Seriously - they said the following in meetings - that they believed if we saturated the paper with Jones news, young people would come flocking back to the paper, we would attract advertisers and save the newspaper.
Five months later, they offered a massive buyout to stem the financially bleeding at the paper.
To cover the Jones story, management took a full-time reporter off her beat covering two major suburban communities and told her to find a front page story everyday about LaKisha.
That reporter, Sally York, did yeoman's work in finding different angles everyday so that readers would never be deprived of some tidbit of the Jones story.
More remarkable because, Jones and most of her family were not allowed to talk to the Journal during the show's airing time. So while the Journal became a shill for a popular TV show, not even the show allowed access to the star the paper was shilling.
Meanwhile, York's regular beat went bascially uncovered for months. Don't blame Sally, she was doing what she was told to do and she did it very, very well.
So if you had a story last year that you thought was worth covering and didn't get covered, blame LaKisha. With American Idol starting up again this month, local readers can only hope that whatever divas make the final cut won't be from the Flint area or plan on similar overkill in 2008.
The Jones story should have been covered, but not at the expense of two local communities and significant front page space. Trust me, many reporters at the Journal were very embarassed by the Jones overkill, but were powerless to stop it.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Sometimes no news is hypocrisy
In the 1990s, the daily newspaper I worked for published an editorial criticizing the entire state of Arizona for not observing the Martin Luther King holiday.
It was a well written, concise logical argument on a hot story at the time. What the newspaper left out of its editorial is that no one at the newspaper observed the holiday either. In fact, Arizona eventually adopted the holiday, but the newspaper still does not give the January day off to its employees.
In September the Flint Journal, in Flint, Michigan, offered all full-time employees a very generous buyout. It is the reason I am now retired. But what is interesting is that the newspaper, which has covered buyout news from large and small companies, as well as government agencies, has ignored the news of its own downsizing.
Two local television stations carried the news with only a minimum of comment from the newspaper, which did not authorize any employees to discuss the buyouts publicly. A strange restriction from an organization that demands openness from everyone else.
So here is the story that has not yet appeared in the Flint Journal:
FLINT - In a last ditch effort to stop the financial bleeding, the Flint Journal has offered most full-time employees very generous buy outs aimed at significantly reducing the size of the newspaper staff.
Plummeting ad revenues have resulted in unprecedented losses at the Flint Journal and other daily newspapers.
The publisher met with all the newspaper staff in mid-September and announced that anyone with two years or more of full-time employment would qualify for a buy out consisting of four weeks pay for each full year of full-time employment.
A fifth week for each year was available for any employee who declined the newspapers offer of continued health insurance.
For employees over 50, health insurance benefits were offered to age 65 and for employees under 50, the health benefits were offered for two years.
Deadline for employees to take the buyout was Oct. 29. The previous year the paper offered a buyout of two weeks for each year and only eight employees accepted the offer prompting the new round of buyouts.
While the paper's editor had anticipated 16-18 editorial employees to take the buyout, more than 40 took the deal, leaving the paper in the strange position of having to rehire new employees to replace the many veteran reporters and editors who are leaving.
Flint Journal wide the numbers were more than 80 employees who will be leaving between now and July 1. A little more than 200 employees were eligible for the buy outs.
Some of the Journals most recognizable bylines have left or will leave the paper soon. The entire business desk will leave the paper by early 2008.
The buyout period was also an opportunity for the editorial management to clean house of folks it no longer wanted in the newsroom with some reporters and editors strongly advised to take the offer even though they wanted to stay.
While the newspaper agreed that its lifetime employment policy remained in effect, it was made clear that reporters, advertising and other business employees could be reassigned anywhere in the chain of newspapers following the buyout period.
New reporters and employees hired for the newspaper would be hired under a lower pay scale with different benefits.
Many of the departing employees were grateful for the generosity of the offer and wished the remaining employees well in the effort to right the ship.
In explaining the buy out, the publisher said the paper's condition was dire and that drastic actions were need to save the paper.
With the loss of so many reporters, those remaining have been told they will continue to cover the beats they currently report on as well as picking up additional beats from the departing employees.
The Journal's position is not unlike that of most major daily newspapers in the country which are financially bleeding from the new dominance of free online news web services.
(Now that's the story that should have been written by the paper, but to date is still not published.)
It was a well written, concise logical argument on a hot story at the time. What the newspaper left out of its editorial is that no one at the newspaper observed the holiday either. In fact, Arizona eventually adopted the holiday, but the newspaper still does not give the January day off to its employees.
In September the Flint Journal, in Flint, Michigan, offered all full-time employees a very generous buyout. It is the reason I am now retired. But what is interesting is that the newspaper, which has covered buyout news from large and small companies, as well as government agencies, has ignored the news of its own downsizing.
Two local television stations carried the news with only a minimum of comment from the newspaper, which did not authorize any employees to discuss the buyouts publicly. A strange restriction from an organization that demands openness from everyone else.
So here is the story that has not yet appeared in the Flint Journal:
FLINT - In a last ditch effort to stop the financial bleeding, the Flint Journal has offered most full-time employees very generous buy outs aimed at significantly reducing the size of the newspaper staff.
Plummeting ad revenues have resulted in unprecedented losses at the Flint Journal and other daily newspapers.
The publisher met with all the newspaper staff in mid-September and announced that anyone with two years or more of full-time employment would qualify for a buy out consisting of four weeks pay for each full year of full-time employment.
A fifth week for each year was available for any employee who declined the newspapers offer of continued health insurance.
For employees over 50, health insurance benefits were offered to age 65 and for employees under 50, the health benefits were offered for two years.
Deadline for employees to take the buyout was Oct. 29. The previous year the paper offered a buyout of two weeks for each year and only eight employees accepted the offer prompting the new round of buyouts.
While the paper's editor had anticipated 16-18 editorial employees to take the buyout, more than 40 took the deal, leaving the paper in the strange position of having to rehire new employees to replace the many veteran reporters and editors who are leaving.
Flint Journal wide the numbers were more than 80 employees who will be leaving between now and July 1. A little more than 200 employees were eligible for the buy outs.
Some of the Journals most recognizable bylines have left or will leave the paper soon. The entire business desk will leave the paper by early 2008.
The buyout period was also an opportunity for the editorial management to clean house of folks it no longer wanted in the newsroom with some reporters and editors strongly advised to take the offer even though they wanted to stay.
While the newspaper agreed that its lifetime employment policy remained in effect, it was made clear that reporters, advertising and other business employees could be reassigned anywhere in the chain of newspapers following the buyout period.
New reporters and employees hired for the newspaper would be hired under a lower pay scale with different benefits.
Many of the departing employees were grateful for the generosity of the offer and wished the remaining employees well in the effort to right the ship.
In explaining the buy out, the publisher said the paper's condition was dire and that drastic actions were need to save the paper.
With the loss of so many reporters, those remaining have been told they will continue to cover the beats they currently report on as well as picking up additional beats from the departing employees.
The Journal's position is not unlike that of most major daily newspapers in the country which are financially bleeding from the new dominance of free online news web services.
(Now that's the story that should have been written by the paper, but to date is still not published.)
Sunday, December 16, 2007
A chance to vent
OK, I've had my chance to vent about editors. (And I'll do so again)
But now it's your turn. I'm hoping to collect a large number of the most egregious mistakes that happened after reporters turned in a story. In another words, those mistakes that were avoidable, frustrating and editor caused.
I'll even entertain the stupid questions that editors frequently ask reporters. Example: "Was the bus moving when it hit the man?" (An actual editor question)."What time are the Fourth of July Fireworks?" (Yes, another real editor question)
My answer: "When it gets dark."
Feel free to comment anonymously, but it might be a mistake to post from work. As we all know, freedom of the press and speech does not mean you will not be punished for exercising it, especially at a newspaper. So hold your fire until you are home, but then fire away.
But now it's your turn. I'm hoping to collect a large number of the most egregious mistakes that happened after reporters turned in a story. In another words, those mistakes that were avoidable, frustrating and editor caused.
I'll even entertain the stupid questions that editors frequently ask reporters. Example: "Was the bus moving when it hit the man?" (An actual editor question)."What time are the Fourth of July Fireworks?" (Yes, another real editor question)
My answer: "When it gets dark."
Feel free to comment anonymously, but it might be a mistake to post from work. As we all know, freedom of the press and speech does not mean you will not be punished for exercising it, especially at a newspaper. So hold your fire until you are home, but then fire away.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Putting the dead in deadlines
One of the great myths of newspaper journalism is how technology would speed up or improve the production of the newspaper.
As one who spanned several generations of new technology: Hot type, IBM Selectric (the worst type setting system every invented), crude computer word processors, ATEX and later Macs, the one that provided the greatest flexibility for updating and providing the freshest news in the newspaper was, ta-da, hot type.
Yes, the older technology allowed afternoon newspapers (the ones I'm familiar with) to update news and freshen its pages up to nearly noon (before I came around that deadline even extended into the early afternoon).
Now the dirty little secret is that after 8:30 a.m. at most afternoon papers there is little or no updating and for morning papers, the news is 8-10 hours old by the time it gets to your doorstep. Most of the news in your afternoon newspaper is from the previous day or the day before. If you don't believe me go to your newspaper's website and see what stories in the newspaper you received at home that day were on the paper's website early the day before. Sometimes the day before that.
Newsrooms now plan for Sunday front pages, weeks in advance. Long, boring features with beautiful stunning pictures now replace what in earlier days would be the breaking news of a Friday night or Saturday or a focused rehash of the major story of the week before.
But those long, boring features allow editors to layout the newspaper (editors love pretty pages) days in advance and then they pray that nothing major will happen that will make them cut a hole in their front page artwork to squeeze in a real news story for Sunday.
Often you will find major fires, fatalities or murders stuck in a page 2 hole or inside so as not to break up a potentially award-winning layout for an editor.
Newspapers would win back readers, especially to weekend papers if they would actually treat Saturday and Sunday like a regular news day.
The daily I worked for used to staff a regular reporter on Saturday and Sunday. The weekend shift was part of their regular responsibilities. They developed news sources and provided actual news for Sunday and Monday editions.
In later years, staff members were assigned to work on Saturday on a rotating basis, which didn't allow for the development of sources and the Sunday shift was sometimes used to punish a reporter that an editor wasn't particularly happy with.
More later on how editors rotate beats.
As one who spanned several generations of new technology: Hot type, IBM Selectric (the worst type setting system every invented), crude computer word processors, ATEX and later Macs, the one that provided the greatest flexibility for updating and providing the freshest news in the newspaper was, ta-da, hot type.
Yes, the older technology allowed afternoon newspapers (the ones I'm familiar with) to update news and freshen its pages up to nearly noon (before I came around that deadline even extended into the early afternoon).
Now the dirty little secret is that after 8:30 a.m. at most afternoon papers there is little or no updating and for morning papers, the news is 8-10 hours old by the time it gets to your doorstep. Most of the news in your afternoon newspaper is from the previous day or the day before. If you don't believe me go to your newspaper's website and see what stories in the newspaper you received at home that day were on the paper's website early the day before. Sometimes the day before that.
Newsrooms now plan for Sunday front pages, weeks in advance. Long, boring features with beautiful stunning pictures now replace what in earlier days would be the breaking news of a Friday night or Saturday or a focused rehash of the major story of the week before.
But those long, boring features allow editors to layout the newspaper (editors love pretty pages) days in advance and then they pray that nothing major will happen that will make them cut a hole in their front page artwork to squeeze in a real news story for Sunday.
Often you will find major fires, fatalities or murders stuck in a page 2 hole or inside so as not to break up a potentially award-winning layout for an editor.
Newspapers would win back readers, especially to weekend papers if they would actually treat Saturday and Sunday like a regular news day.
The daily I worked for used to staff a regular reporter on Saturday and Sunday. The weekend shift was part of their regular responsibilities. They developed news sources and provided actual news for Sunday and Monday editions.
In later years, staff members were assigned to work on Saturday on a rotating basis, which didn't allow for the development of sources and the Sunday shift was sometimes used to punish a reporter that an editor wasn't particularly happy with.
More later on how editors rotate beats.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Real people, NOT
One of the great fads in newspaper journalism is the desire to have "real" people inserted into all stories.
That's real, as in reality television real, or in real life, not real at all. Editors love to send reporters to the nearest mall, college student union or street corner to get comments on some breaking event from a "real" person.
Back when Magic Johnson announced his AIDS affliction, I was sent to a local mall to sample opinion from "real" people about what they thought about Johnson's announcement. The first problem was to explain to people what I was asking them about.
First, many of them hadn't heard the announcement (they were at the mall for gosh sakes) so it took some time to kind of run down what Johnson had announced and what it was I was looking for. Then there were those few folks who didn't know what AIDS were (this was the early 1990s) and so the lesson continued. All this to get the predictable "I feel very sorry for him and I wish him well," said Marge Firchberger, of Atlantis, Michigan. The quote is meaningless and trite, but the editor is ecstatic because suddenly the story has a real person in it.
There are thousands of examples of this. Reporters don't like to do these stories and frankly, readers should be insulted when they read these lame quotes. Don't blame the folks who provide the quotes, they are just being polite to a local reporter. Besides, who doesn't want their name in the paper even if it is about something for which they have no expertise.
But in the hallowed editorial meeting rooms this is what passes for outstanding editorial decision making. All a national story with no local connection ever needs is for some poor slob at the mall to add his two cents. It's frustratingly stupid, but you'll read an example of this in almost every newspaper, every day. Readers deserve better.
Later we'll talk about "real" people in election coverage. That's really a hoot.
That's real, as in reality television real, or in real life, not real at all. Editors love to send reporters to the nearest mall, college student union or street corner to get comments on some breaking event from a "real" person.
Back when Magic Johnson announced his AIDS affliction, I was sent to a local mall to sample opinion from "real" people about what they thought about Johnson's announcement. The first problem was to explain to people what I was asking them about.
First, many of them hadn't heard the announcement (they were at the mall for gosh sakes) so it took some time to kind of run down what Johnson had announced and what it was I was looking for. Then there were those few folks who didn't know what AIDS were (this was the early 1990s) and so the lesson continued. All this to get the predictable "I feel very sorry for him and I wish him well," said Marge Firchberger, of Atlantis, Michigan. The quote is meaningless and trite, but the editor is ecstatic because suddenly the story has a real person in it.
There are thousands of examples of this. Reporters don't like to do these stories and frankly, readers should be insulted when they read these lame quotes. Don't blame the folks who provide the quotes, they are just being polite to a local reporter. Besides, who doesn't want their name in the paper even if it is about something for which they have no expertise.
But in the hallowed editorial meeting rooms this is what passes for outstanding editorial decision making. All a national story with no local connection ever needs is for some poor slob at the mall to add his two cents. It's frustratingly stupid, but you'll read an example of this in almost every newspaper, every day. Readers deserve better.
Later we'll talk about "real" people in election coverage. That's really a hoot.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
There are editors and then there are hacks
First of all, I don't hate editors. I don't hate anyone.
Most of the editors I have known have been decent, kind people who are kind to their children and pets. My beef with many editors is not the kind of people they were, but the kind of editors they were.
In my 30 year newspaper career I had dozens of editors, some better than others, but several who were horrid. What follows is mostly about them.Not wanting to embarass anyone I will not name anyone in this blog, but if a few look in and recognize themselves, so be it.
There were those select few who knew how to edit and how to manage reporters. Specifically, three of my favorite editors were men and three were women, so there is no issue of gender here. In fact my all-time favorite editor was a woman many years younger than I, so it's not an age thing either.
Like Stonehenge and the Bermuda Triangle, the promotion of most editors is a mystery. Editor jobs are rarely posted and circulated among the newsroom. One day there is an opening, the next someone is beamed up out of the reporting ranks into an editor's chair.
If a government agency chose its leaders that way, a good newspaper would write about the secretive and unfair process. Editor hires, in most cases, is not about who was a great reporter and writer, often it was the opposite.
The best editors in my career were both great reporters and writers, but most great reporters and writers don't really want to spend their days reading the writings of others and mangling them. Hence the dearth of what I would call excellent editors.
Some bad reporters escape to editing positions to save a newspaper career in danger because of their ineptness at reporting or their desire not to work so hard. No doubt some of it is a power trip.
Reporting, especially that of breaking news, is difficult and stressful work. Many first and second line editors became editors because they didn't like or were not good at the down-and-dirty work of real news reporting. I have known more than a few editors who became editors with only a minimal level of real reporting experience. They were usually the worst editors.
Reporters, like good soldiers, respect those who have been in battle and who don't ask others to do things they themselves would not do themselves.Too many reporters who did short stints as political or government reporters have become editors without first spending four-five years mucking it up with police officers, firefighters, ambulance crews, lawyers and judges.
When bad editors worked as reporters they avoided stories where they had to approach angry and grieving relatives. But as editors they are quick to send the people they supervise into difficult circumstances with little or no knowledge of what they are asking.
Once good reporters and writers complete the hard work of gathering information and putting it together into a story, it falls to these hacks to put their inexperienced spin on it. Trust me, as much as the public dislikes the finished news product many times, we reporters and writers sometimes recoil and react with horror when we see what has become of our stories.
It is always important to remember, editors are people who didn't meet with the sources, didn't go to the scene or meeting, didn't make any of the follow-up phone calls, but despite all that, still believe they know more about the story than the person who did all those things. It is simply a display of incredible arrogance.
They take the writer's final product, rearrange, remove quotes or important paragraphs and basically change the meaning of the original work. The best editors, and as I said I have had a few, take the time to work with the reporter and change copy only when it is required or when there is an agreement between reporter and editor that the changes improve the story.
The best editors often help out and make a phone call or two to help in the process. A few of the great editors I had chipped in and did a little reporting of their own. Many editors would benefit from being assigned to cover a meeting or story occassionally to keep them sharp.
Too many hacks move around paragraphs, leave off important facts and quotes and basically change the meaning of a story to conform with what they want, and not what actually was.
Those editors are like the parent who lives through the athletic, musical or academic success of their children. They are nothing more than annoying stage parents armed with an expensive computer. If these hacks would stick to fixing grammar, spelling and news style - and we all need help with that - and leave the creative style and substance to the writer there would be no beef.
But for hacks, sitting at their desk all day simply repairing a mistake or two doesn't feed their need to feel important. What does feed their need to feel important are meetings. Long, boring meetings where nothing is accomplished except they get to run them and feel important.
"Feel" being the operative word. In the end, good reporters who are out on their beat will recognize and find stories of interest to the community they report on. Hack editors will only find and recognize stories of interest to themselves. This is why, in my humble opinion, newspapers are in the poor shape they are in today.
Reporter driven newspapers are interesting, informative and well-read. Editor driven newspapers are "award-winning," but ultimately boring, unread and likely failing.
I'll have more to say on journalism contests later.
My favorite "Shoe" cartoon had a great quote from the Professor who was talking to someone on the phone: "I'd like to do a story of interest to my readers, but first I must finish a story only of interest to my editor." That sums up what many good reporters feel.
Again, so as not to be misunderstood, editors are a vital link in the news gathering process, that is why it is so frustrating that so many of them are uniquely unqualified for the job.
Most of the editors I have known have been decent, kind people who are kind to their children and pets. My beef with many editors is not the kind of people they were, but the kind of editors they were.
In my 30 year newspaper career I had dozens of editors, some better than others, but several who were horrid. What follows is mostly about them.Not wanting to embarass anyone I will not name anyone in this blog, but if a few look in and recognize themselves, so be it.
There were those select few who knew how to edit and how to manage reporters. Specifically, three of my favorite editors were men and three were women, so there is no issue of gender here. In fact my all-time favorite editor was a woman many years younger than I, so it's not an age thing either.
Like Stonehenge and the Bermuda Triangle, the promotion of most editors is a mystery. Editor jobs are rarely posted and circulated among the newsroom. One day there is an opening, the next someone is beamed up out of the reporting ranks into an editor's chair.
If a government agency chose its leaders that way, a good newspaper would write about the secretive and unfair process. Editor hires, in most cases, is not about who was a great reporter and writer, often it was the opposite.
The best editors in my career were both great reporters and writers, but most great reporters and writers don't really want to spend their days reading the writings of others and mangling them. Hence the dearth of what I would call excellent editors.
Some bad reporters escape to editing positions to save a newspaper career in danger because of their ineptness at reporting or their desire not to work so hard. No doubt some of it is a power trip.
Reporting, especially that of breaking news, is difficult and stressful work. Many first and second line editors became editors because they didn't like or were not good at the down-and-dirty work of real news reporting. I have known more than a few editors who became editors with only a minimal level of real reporting experience. They were usually the worst editors.
Reporters, like good soldiers, respect those who have been in battle and who don't ask others to do things they themselves would not do themselves.Too many reporters who did short stints as political or government reporters have become editors without first spending four-five years mucking it up with police officers, firefighters, ambulance crews, lawyers and judges.
When bad editors worked as reporters they avoided stories where they had to approach angry and grieving relatives. But as editors they are quick to send the people they supervise into difficult circumstances with little or no knowledge of what they are asking.
Once good reporters and writers complete the hard work of gathering information and putting it together into a story, it falls to these hacks to put their inexperienced spin on it. Trust me, as much as the public dislikes the finished news product many times, we reporters and writers sometimes recoil and react with horror when we see what has become of our stories.
It is always important to remember, editors are people who didn't meet with the sources, didn't go to the scene or meeting, didn't make any of the follow-up phone calls, but despite all that, still believe they know more about the story than the person who did all those things. It is simply a display of incredible arrogance.
They take the writer's final product, rearrange, remove quotes or important paragraphs and basically change the meaning of the original work. The best editors, and as I said I have had a few, take the time to work with the reporter and change copy only when it is required or when there is an agreement between reporter and editor that the changes improve the story.
The best editors often help out and make a phone call or two to help in the process. A few of the great editors I had chipped in and did a little reporting of their own. Many editors would benefit from being assigned to cover a meeting or story occassionally to keep them sharp.
Too many hacks move around paragraphs, leave off important facts and quotes and basically change the meaning of a story to conform with what they want, and not what actually was.
Those editors are like the parent who lives through the athletic, musical or academic success of their children. They are nothing more than annoying stage parents armed with an expensive computer. If these hacks would stick to fixing grammar, spelling and news style - and we all need help with that - and leave the creative style and substance to the writer there would be no beef.
But for hacks, sitting at their desk all day simply repairing a mistake or two doesn't feed their need to feel important. What does feed their need to feel important are meetings. Long, boring meetings where nothing is accomplished except they get to run them and feel important.
"Feel" being the operative word. In the end, good reporters who are out on their beat will recognize and find stories of interest to the community they report on. Hack editors will only find and recognize stories of interest to themselves. This is why, in my humble opinion, newspapers are in the poor shape they are in today.
Reporter driven newspapers are interesting, informative and well-read. Editor driven newspapers are "award-winning," but ultimately boring, unread and likely failing.
I'll have more to say on journalism contests later.
My favorite "Shoe" cartoon had a great quote from the Professor who was talking to someone on the phone: "I'd like to do a story of interest to my readers, but first I must finish a story only of interest to my editor." That sums up what many good reporters feel.
Again, so as not to be misunderstood, editors are a vital link in the news gathering process, that is why it is so frustrating that so many of them are uniquely unqualified for the job.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Free at last, I'm free at last
For 30 years I've chased police cars, ambulances, fire trucks and politicians during my newspaper reporting career.
With my retirement Dec. 1 I will finally be free of the stupidity of editorial meetings and decisions, but I will undoubtedly still have a hunger to write. Thus this blog, which will provide a meager outlet for me to reach family, friends and those stuck in the morass of daily reporting.
Feel free to weigh in, criticize, lambast, insult and denigrate, you will join a long line of folks who have already done so. The only difference is I won't get paid for it anymore.
I'm a Christian who believes in the Golden Rule, so I won't fire back.
With my retirement Dec. 1 I will finally be free of the stupidity of editorial meetings and decisions, but I will undoubtedly still have a hunger to write. Thus this blog, which will provide a meager outlet for me to reach family, friends and those stuck in the morass of daily reporting.
Feel free to weigh in, criticize, lambast, insult and denigrate, you will join a long line of folks who have already done so. The only difference is I won't get paid for it anymore.
I'm a Christian who believes in the Golden Rule, so I won't fire back.
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