My nominee for the best correction ever

What is the best correction ever run in a newspaper? It’s an informal competition, with no objective way to determine a winner.

This one brought “My Little Pony” and The New York Times together to comical effect. And this one about a potentially druggy drummer has made the rounds on social media several times over the past month.

My nominee comes from The News & Observer. Earlier this week, the Raleigh paper published an editorial about bluegrass music. Here’s how the top of the editorial appeared:

The name of the band was the Dillards, not the Dullards. That simple misspelling turns the word into an insult.

It’s a particularly embarrassing error for the N&O because of the North Carolina connection to “The Andy Griffith Show.” The newspaper’s columnists have frequently referred to the show over the years, and Raleigh was mentioned and portrayed in some episodes.

The N&O ran this correction today. It hits the right notes of regret, humility and chagrin. That’s about all you can do with this sort of error: chuckle, correct and move on. A bit of bluegrass courtesy of the Dullards Dillards might help too.

Share your style

Old stylebooks and updates from my days at The News & Observer. I recently donated these materials to a library at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Earlier this week, I stopped by the Park Library at UNC-Chapel Hill to borrow The Bluebook to assist me in a revision of a textbook chapter. The librarian, Stephanie Willen Brown, showed me a nice update to the library’s collection: freshly bound copies of stylebooks from newspapers.

The collection includes stylebooks from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Miami Herald and the San Francisco Chronicle. News services such as Bloomberg, United Press International, the Catholic News Service and The Associated Press are also represented. The oldest item in the set is the 1943 edition of The New York Times stylebook.

Nearly all of the stylebooks are print only, but you can see them at the Park Library and other libraries on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. I’m hoping to spend part of my summer thinking of how these stylebooks could be used for research.

I have several stylebooks in my office, including three from my days at The News & Observer. I’ve donated those to the Park Library. Like many newspaper stylebooks, these are in three-punch folders, so Stephanie will look into getting them bound.

Do you have a stylebook from a newspaper, website, magazine or wire service that you’d like to share? Contact the staff at the Park Library. We can study, save and protect your stylebook, and we’d be grateful for your gift.

Q&A with Elena Rue and Catherine Orr of StoryMineMedia

Elena Rue and Catherine Orr are the founders of StoryMineMedia, a North Carolina company that specializes in documentary storytelling. In 2011, they were among the News21 fellows who produced Coal: A Love Story. In this interview, conducted by email, Rue and Orr talk about their company’s mission, projects and business model.

Q. What is StoryMineMedia, and what do you hope to achieve?

A. StoryMineMedia is a visual storytelling company. We come from a photojournalism background with a focus on documentary-style video stories. We produce independent projects — stories we are passionate about, and are not necessarily getting paid to tell. And through those projects, hope to attract clients who like our style and see the value of using stories to communicate their message.

Q. How do you decide what projects to work on, and how do you go about reporting and editing them?

A. Most of our story ideas come from observing what’s going on around us. What stories aren’t being told, what stories are being told but could use a different perspective? How can we add to the conversation?

We recently released our first independent project, a quirky piece about a middle school student council election. “The Council” follows three eighth-graders as they navigate their way through the challenging landscape of middle school politics. The idea came from the flood of election coverage we’re all experiencing this year.

We wanted to offer a different perspective, and show what it could mean to “govern yourself accordingly.” Needless to say, we could learn a lot from these kids.Once we had the idea, we started contacting schools to learn about their student government systems and gauge interest. We chose a local middle school that was holding its first election in four years.

After meeting with the teachers and administrators, we did a round of pre-interviews with all of the candidates to determine which three we wanted to focus on. We chose Leah, Cara and Ryan because they are great and because they each represented something that added another layer of meaning to the project. (But we don’t want to spoil it, so watch “The Council” to see for yourself).

We filmed in the school and with our three subjects through the two-week campaign period and the election, and then came back for the first council meeting. We edit collaboratively, from identifying which parts of the interview should make the final script, to cutting scenes and choosing music.

In graduate school at UNC-Chapel Hill, professors and peers were constantly critiquing our work. Carrying that kind of constant back-and-forth into our business pushes us to be more creative and do our best work. Plus, it’s a lot more fun that way.

What we love about this startup is that we get to do any kind of story we want. “The Council” was light and quirky, but the next piece we do may be about astrophysics or race relations in college athletics (really).

Since the stories we’ll cover will differ greatly, so will the reporting and editing process. That too will keep us constantly challenged and hopefully mean that our work only gets better from here.

Q. How do you use social media to research your projects and promote them?

A. Viewing good work and seeing different ways of storytelling is essential to our process. Whether it’s a full-length documentary, photo essay, text piece, graphic or oral history, we are always looking for ways to build on our storytelling skills.

Social media is one of the main ways we are exposed to work on a daily basis. It is how we learn about new projects, share work that we find interesting, and follow other people in the field.

We also apply that same principal to promote our own work. Our hope is that other people who are looking for work might find our multimedia pieces interesting.

As a small startup, we rely heavily on word-of-mouth, bloggers and tweeters to share our work beyond our own personal networks. In addition to our visual work, we use our blog to share our experiences as we try to build our company from scratch. We have learned countless lessons from people who have shared experiences with us, and we would like to do the same for people who are also starting out.

One of the beauties of social media is that everybody (who has an account!) has a voice. We of course learn every day from others in our field, but we also recognize that we operate in a relatively small world of multimedia journalists.

One of our goals is to use social media to hear from others who are not in our field. We used crowdsourcing to find our name, choose our logo and develop a launch strategy for “The Council.” We plan to reach out to people for many of our decisions and ideas as we move forward. We know this will make our projects better, and we hope that it will help others feel invested our work.

Q. There’s lots of talk about small startups like yours as part of the future of journalism. What have you learned from the experience so far, and what advice would you give to people considering similar businesses?

A. The most important piece of advice we have for people starting out is to make time for your own work. Our commitment to producing independent projects was made before StoryMineMedia was born. We believe that good work is the best advertising for our skills and our hope is that people who like our independent work, might ask us to do similar projects for their organizations.

In an ideal world, every client would want us to work creatively and push the boundaries. In reality, most organizations have specific needs that don’t always fit into the most creative package. We respect this, but we also believe that we need to push ourselves creatively to be able to grow and keep ourselves engaged. Our independent work allows us to spend as much time as we need on a project and think outside the box.

Thank you, Ruth Walden

Ruth Walden, who teaches media law at UNC-Chapel Hill’s journalism school, is wrapping up the spring semester, and with it, a 31-year career in academia, most of them in North Carolina. At a going-away luncheon this week, Ruth estimated that she has taught 120 courses, or about 4,800 students, while at UNC.

I was one of those students, though I never took a course with her. For me, Ruth was mentor in two important phases of my life, and I’m grateful for her guidance.

GRADUATE SCHOOL

When I was a master’s student in the journalism school in the 1990s, Ruth was my adviser, and she gave excellent advice on coursework and preparation for my thesis. Because of my interest in the First Amendment and media law, she agreed to lead my thesis committee.

Ruth was the ideal adviser for this project, titled “Newspaper Distribution and the First Amendment.” The research centered on legal battles over the placement and appearance of newspaper newsracks, among other issues surrounding newspaper circulation.

From start to finish, I relied on her help to research the topic, organize my findings and present them in a clear, cogent manner. Ruth pored over drafts of each chapter, writing extensive notes and asking probing questions. She was a tough editor.

It was difficult but rewarding work. Ruth’s advice, questions and suggestions made my thesis a significant piece of research that I was able to use to write papers that were accepted at academic conferences. Her rigorous approach also prepared me for the thesis defense, which many graduate students find to be daunting. Thanks to Ruth’s preparation and thorough vetting of my research, the defense was more of a conversation about the topic more than a defense of my thesis. The result was a true exploration of ideas, and it was a wonderful experience.

JUNIOR FACULTY

I joined the faculty of the journalism school in fall 2005, and Ruth became my faculty mentor. Again, she provided invaluable counsel on issues of teaching, research and service.

A few times each semester, Ruth took me to lunch at a Mexican restaurant on Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill so we could discuss my progress in each area. She kindly picked up the tab each time.

The tenure process can have a “doom and gloom” aura, but Ruth made the path to tenure navigable, even enjoyable. She did so by explaining the expectations of the journalism school and the university, and how I could meet them.

Her guidance in this area gave me confidence to not only meet those expectations, but to beat them. I worked hard in each facet of my job, and in each area, Ruth gave me a gentle and steady push in the right direction. In 2010, I was granted tenure and promotion, and to celebrate, Ruth and I returned to the Mexican restaurant. This time, I paid the bill.

Ruth Walden is retiring this year, effective July 1. Although she will no longer be on the faculty, her influence and guidance will continue on via the faculty and students she has mentored here. Now I find myself in the role of mentor, both to graduate students and junior faculty. I’m pleased to pass along the type of assistance that Ruth has given me all these years.

So thank you, Ruth, for being a great mentor, colleague and friend. I will miss your words of wisdom — and your laugh — around Carroll Hall.

Student guest post: Viewing news through a different lens

Students in JOMC 457, Advanced Editing, are writing guest posts for this blog this semester. This is the 14th of those posts. Emily Nycum is a reporting major and art history minor. After graduation in May 2012, she will expand the professional photography business she started last year, Emily March Photography.

I love photography. Few things on this planet get me as excited as the opportunity to take pictures of a beautiful place or person, and the sound of a shutter is music to my ears. It amazes me how a single image can conjure up a range of emotions. I have always been a very visual person, so what draws me into a story is its photograph.

More than a catchy headline or modern design, a story’s image (if it has one at all) is its hook for me. Have a captivating picture, and I’ll read your story.

With the growth in online media and news, photography has become an essential feature of most stories on the Web. It seems that the vast majority of stories online have some kind of image to go along with them. In many cases (and I love this) the photos are the story.

Slideshows have become an alternative story form that give the reader more to look at than just text. Many news outlets, including The New York Times, have entire sections highlighting unique stories presented through photojournalism. I love the quality and diversity of work seen in this section. Here, photographers have the opportunity to not only share current events visually, but also human interest stories and features that provide additional education to the viewer.

I’ll be honest. I really don’t keep up with current events. You would think that after four years of journalism classes where I’ve learned the importance of media in society that I would have gained some semblance of desire to read the newspaper every once in a while, but no.

Enter the “photos of the day” feature that many newspapers are incorporating into their online platforms. In only a few minutes, I can see what happened in the world that is big, exciting or unique. Plus, I get to learn while feasting my eyes. Features like this are fantastic for people who like to get their news quickly, which is pretty much everyone I know.

Now think about the article you read in this morning’s paper. I don’t know about you, but when I think of the events that have shaped the world during my lifetime, I don’t remember headlines or news articles. I remember images.

Think of Sept. 11, 2001 or the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, what comes to mind? I immediately think of the terrifying sight of the Twin Towers burning and the heart-wrenching scene of a firefighter carrying the limp body of a toddler.

Those scenes have been immortalized because of what they mean to people in light of the events that brought them. Photographs move, inspire and provoke people.  On Sept. 12, 2001, no American could look at pictures of dazed New Yorkers roaming the ash-laden streets of Manhattan and not want to do something about it. I think that Robert Doisneau, an early 20th-century French photographer, put it beautifully: “I don’t usually give out advice or recipes, but you must let the person looking at the photograph go some of the way to finishing it. You should offer them a seed that will grow and open up their minds.”

Pictures have a way of expressing things that words simply cannot. So hats off to the photojournalists who provide a different kind of news, the kind of news that elicits a response, not just an opinion. So maybe a picture is not worth 1,000 words. Perhaps, instead, a picture is worth 1,000 actions.

Print is still in fashion

This weekend, I visited the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, N.C., to see an exhibit of works by Alexander Calder as well as some inspired by him. It’s a wondrous show that I highly recommend.

In a stop at the museum’s gift shop, I ran across some newspaper-themed bow ties. They’re clip-on ties made of pages from The New York Times, covered in a lacquer of some sort.

As a former newspaper copy editor, I couldn’t resist the mix of media and fashion, and I bought two of them. I think that it’s a good look on me.

I’ll keep one tie and donate the other to the 2013 silent auction of the American Copy Editors Society. You’ll have to be at the conference in St. Louis to bid on it — or you could stop by the Nasher now and pick up one of the few left.

Student guest post: For internships, think small

Students in JOMC 457, Advanced Editing, are writing guest posts for this blog this semester. This is the 13th of those posts. Ashley Russell is a junior at UNC-Chapel Hill who is majoring in editing and graphic design. She hopes to become a book editor when she graduates in the spring of 2013.

Are you on the hunt for the perfect summer internship to complement your major? Or are you bummed because you didn’t get an interview for the big editing or publishing companies in New York? Well, as it turns out, your alternative plans could be better for you than your dream summer internship with HarperCollins (not that getting your dream internship is necessarily a bad thing).

As a junior, I know all about searching for that senior summer internship that will help your resume when you start applying for jobs. However, sometimes finding a smaller company can be just the right thing for you.

That’s what happened to me. I had searched the University Career Services website for hours every week to no avail. Every internship that I could possibly apply for was in some big city and unpaid. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to go to New York City and live without a steady income. Factor in 40 hours of an internship a week, and that leaves little time to work elsewhere to pay for it all.

Fortunately for me, my combing of the UCS website paid off with an internship at Technical Information Publishing Solutions, or TIPS. TIPS is a publishing company in Carrboro. It is less than a mile away from my house, and I had never heard of it. TIPS works with companies to create and edit books. One of the main companies that TIPS works with is W.W. Norton, better known to college students as the creator of Norton anthologies.

Most people come back from internships at big companies and talk about how they didn’t do much more than make a bunch of photocopies and run errands. I am almost at the end of my internship, and I have learned so much. I have learned all about the process of book publishing and what it entails. With such a small office of only three full-time workers, TIPS offers an environment that is conducive to learning, which is what an internship is all about.

Although an internship with a big company may look great on a resume, it is not necessarily the best way to get the best experience possible. Working in a small organization allowed me to learn about every aspect of book publishing and allowed me to hone my skills even more.

Plus, as a UNC-Chapel Hill student, you have so many options. There are many small publishing companies and presses within a 25-mile radius (including Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, Duke University Press and Oxford University Press) that can offer students the opportunity to gain and polish their skills with publishing. Sometimes a smaller company can be the best place for you to grow.

Student guest post: Editing and design can be a harmonious pair

Students in JOMC 457, Advanced Editing, are writing guest posts for this blog this semester. This is the 12th of those posts. Chelsea Pro is a senior majoring in journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. She works as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer at the Carolina Union Design Department.

It’s an age-old question, one that haunts every undergraduate across the globe: What do I major in?

How do I take my interests and passions and turn them into a career? How do I make my talents marketable and profitable? For me, the question was how to take a habit of doodling aimlessly on papers and turn it into a roof over my head and a pantry that, at the very least, contained some Ramen.

Graphic design had always interested me. It was something creative and artistic, but also provided more stable and predictable job opportunities than studio art. When I first researched the graphic design program at UNC, I was disappointed and confused. Why was it part of the journalism school? And why was it combined with editing, of all things?

But I went on with the program, hoping that my penchant for (politely) correcting other people’s grammar would be enough to keep me interested in the editing part of my studies. It took me awhile to realize that the two subjects were paired together for more than just convenience.

With the recent budget cuts and layoffs in the field of journalism, many media outlets have decided to combine editing and design into one position. UNC’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication is preparing its students for the possibility that a job may require both skill sets.

But it’s about more than the logistics of the job market. There’s a reason editing and graphic design work so well together.

It’s all in the details. Both editors and designers must have a keen eye for specifics. Picking up on the small things that count is an ability treasured in both fields, and one that can dictate either failure or success.

A misplaced apostrophe can be the end of your credibility as a reliable editor. Uneven kerning between the letters of a logo could make your design look sloppy and unprofessional. It’s this detail-oriented aspect of both fields that makes them great partners.

Editing and design also make a logical pairing because they rely heavily on one another. If you can think about design tricks while you’re editing, such as the use of alternative story forms, the result will be more cohesive and effective. Similarly, if you’re aware of grammar, punctuation and syntax, designing will be much easier. Instead of designing a logo and then realizing the emphasis should be on a different word, by having a background in editing, you’ll be able to see these important cues from the start.

So if you’re a designer, brush up on your knowledge of language and grammar. If you’re an editor, think about learning some basic design principles.

Like me, you might be surprised at how often you’ll be able to use both skills together.

Q&A with Joe Ovies, radio host and blogger

Joe Ovies is co-host of a sports talk show on 99.9 The Fan, a radio station in Raleigh, N.C. He also writes a blog about sports for WRALSportsFan. In this interview, conducted by email, Ovies talks about his job, social media and the way sports talk has changed.

Q. You’re on the radio and you blog for the WRALSportsFan website. What is your typical workday like?

A. Outside of what happens between 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 99.9FM The Fan, the typical day fluctuates. The morning consists of sifting through Google Reader, catching up on Twitter and putting together notes for possible show topics later in the day. I’ll text or email with Adam Gold (co-host) throughout the day to get an idea of where he stands on an issue or take on a game.

The nebulous part of the day arrives around lunch time. There could be an interview taping or meeting to attend in the middle of the day before the show starts.

Most show prep actually takes place at home, where I do a ton of reading and listening to sports talk throughout the day. We have show meetings at the station twice a week with our program director for long-term planning and discussions of show format tweaks since listener habits are constantly evolving.

The day doesn’t end when the show ends at 7 p.m. During the high-traffic months of college football and basketball, I’ll spend most of my evenings watching or going to games. Obviously, I have to watch all this stuff if I’m going to talk about it the next day. It’s a rough life, watching sporting events for a living.

Q. How do you decide what to blog about, and what role do editors play in that, if any?

A. Local topics get priority. That’s what WRALSportsFan can provide better than any national outlet.

Want the full coach’s press conference from NC State? We have that. Missed the interview with Coach K on The Fan? It’s there. Opinion on North Carolina getting bounced by Kansas? I’ll write something on it. Local content is our bread and butter.

Oddly enough, I’ve never really had an editor. When I started the 850 The Buzz blog in 2005, it was your typical blog. No editor, snarky views on local sports and a comment section that would devolve into flame wars. I wrote what I wanted to write about with no input from upper management.

After the merger with Capitol Broadcasting in 2009, I was introduced to an environment with actual structure: operations manager, sports director, online editors, etc. However, not much has changed in terms of what I decide to write about. The only difference now is that there’s someone around to change the headline and correct my grammar. I write like I talk, which won’t please the grammarians.

Q. How do you use Twitter and Facebook as part of your job?

A. Twitter is versatile, so here is how I use it.

News gathering and distribution: The real-time nature of Twitter gives it a certain advantage over RSS, so it’s great for getting the most up-to-date news throughout the day. Who you follow matters, so I’ve curated a list of ACC media members and national folks that provide the best information. Twitter is used to distribute our own news, podcasts or anything I might find interesting.

Interaction: Talk radio has always used alternative ways to interact with the show. At one point in time, faxing your opinion to a show was cutting edge. Then it was email. Then it was texting. Now social media is the new thing. But if you want to get the most out of Twitter, actually engage with followers who pop up in your mentions feed. Spend enough time on there and you’ll discover that many of your followers can tip you off to stories or sources. Twitter is also fantastic for commentary during games.

Branding: While I hate the term, it matters, and I’ve seen the results of using Twitter as an extension of the show. Radio is a faceless business, but the power of the avatar helps put a face with the voice (for better or worse). The Final Four in New Orleans was good example, where media members recognized who I was based on my Twitter avatar. Flash back five years ago, you’d have to catch a glimpse of a press badge to have an idea of who that person was.

I keep Facebook personal and do my best to maintain a tight friends list. The rule of thumb is, “have I met this person in real life?”

Google+ is still figuring itself out, but it is useful. I’ll typically post my columns from WRALSportsFan and we’re toying around with the Hangouts feature.

Q. Many students probably like the idea of writing and talking about sports for a living. What advice do you have for them to get a job like yours?

A. Do everything. Write, blog, tweet, podcast, edit video or whatever.

Companies are looking for a wide range of skills and employees capable of providing content on multiple platforms. There’s no such thing as “just a reporter” or “just a radio host” these days.

Follow Joe Ovies on Twitter and check out his blog.

Student guest post: Is wordplay “Linning” or losing?

Students in JOMC 457, Advanced Editing, are writing guest posts for this blog this semester. This is the 11th of those posts. Kevin Minogue is a senior journalism and political science major from Reston, Va. He is a staff writer for The Daily Tar Heel, as well as a former intern at The Fayetteville Observer.

Earlier this year, the success of New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin brewed up a perfect storm for epic headline writers across the country. For those tasked with writing a paper’s front-page headline – better known in big cities as those snarky puns that persuade pedestrians to pony up two bucks for a copy of the day’s issue on their walk to work – Lin was the ideal subject of a clever play on words.

After all, how often does a Harvard-educated, couch-surfing, Asian point guard lead the New York Knicks to their most successful spell in recent memory? And how often does that hero’s name contain elements of a common preposition, prefix and suffix?

Not often, most New York headline writers concluded. The headlines during Lin’s roughly month-long reign ranged from the witty and original to the corny, the forced, the poorly contrived, the questionable and the … woops. After that last headline cost the ESPN employee who wrote it his job, the headline hubbub settled briefly.

But on Easter weekend, when a country bumpkin named Bubba used a pink driver to throttle golf balls more than 350 yards on his way to winning the world’s most storied golf tournament, the scribes of over-the-top headlines feasted once more.  Most of the former Lin-obsessed headline writers in New York focused on Sunday’s big Knicks win, but plenty of smaller papers and online editions posted Masters headlines with ill-fitting wordplay.

I suppose this British paper felt obliged to use the obvious Sherlock Holmes reference, but it doesn’t work when nothing about Watson’s one-stroke, playoff victory was elementary. In fact, if not for a hooking moonshot from the trees that defied the laws of basic physics, Watson would have gone home wearing only his buttoned-up polo.

Many other papers, including this Texas publication and this Utah paper, made obvious references to Watson’s bubblegum-colored attire. While I get the attempt at wordplay, the story is about his victory, not solely his clothes. It’s also poor form to poke fun at the man’s outfit when he wore it as a way to raise money for charity.

These headline hiccups didn’t flop quite as badly as the Lin headlines, but they would be better served sticking to the main premise of the story. Headline writers can still use clever wordplay, and I, for one, hope that they do. But here are a few of my rules for ensuring that your witticisms are appropriate:

1. Make sure the headline is not offensive to any particular group. Wordplay is funny, but not if it makes fun of you. Your readership is generally composed of a mix of ethnicities, religions and sexes, so try to avoid wordplay that hinges any of these items. Otherwise, you may offend and alienate a significant portion of your readership.

2. Be original. The point of wordplay is to be creative, and clichés are short on imagination. You won’t get your desired result from a “clever” headline if five other papers wrote the same thing that day.

3. Make it subject-appropriate. There’s no sense in thinking up clever headline wordplay if it has nothing to do with a story. The reader might initially be drawn to your front page, but he or she will quickly lose both interest and respect in your publication upon finding that the title is merely for show. The purpose of a headline is to give readers a sense of what they are about to read. Don’t lose sight of this.

4. Don’t force wordplay. If it’s not there, it’s not there. The headline should instantly jump out at you as you’re writing. If not, don’t try to convince yourself that it works and end up with a headline that isn’t apt. As is the case with a bad comedian, once you have lost your audience, you’ve lost them for good.

Those are just a few of my thoughts on the subject. Feel free to post your own or offer examples of other bad headline wordplay in the comments below.