John Edwards’ presidential campaign, perhaps inspired by this report, has created this video to complain about how the media have turned the Democratic race into a two-person contest. Edwards isn’t one of the two people. If he were, this video wouldn’t exist.
The video is interesting to editing types in that it makes prominent use of newspaper and Web headlines to make its point, followed by clips from cable TV news.
A simple misspelling by a political candidate is front-page news in The News & Observer today. It’s not the error itself that merited the attention, but the way Pat McCrory’s campaign handled it.
When the “governer” problem was pointed out to McCrory’s people, they blamed a computer hacker who had somehow altered the “banner” of the e-mail that included the mistake. Then the campaign backtracked and blamed the blunder on an overworked graphic designer. (Aren’t they all?)
It would, of course, have been better to admit the error from the start or to say nothing until the source of the error can be identified and confirmed. Humility is better than paranoia. My colleague Paul Jones, however, points out that such e-mail banners can be confusing to those who don’t understand how they work. An update to one, done from a remote server, can look like hocus-pocus, but it’s probably not “hacker magic.”
Although it’s an interesting combination of crisis communication and copy editing, the matter will likely be forgotten in a day or two. The Charlotte Observer treated it that way, including it in a textbox with this perfunctory story about McCrory’s bid. The textbox mentioned Under the Dome, calling it “a Raleigh-based blog.” Actually, Under the Dome is a blog and long-running column that is part of the Observer’s sister paper, The News & Observer of Raleigh.
Note to Charlotte: Now that both papers are owned by McClatchy, it’s OK to mention your “competitor” by name.
UPDATE: News & Observer columnist Rob Christensen writes about what the “governer” gaffe says about the McCrory campaign.
Karen Miller Russell, who teaches public relations at the University of Georgia, poses an interesting question on her blog. Is it time to allow writers to refer to a company or organization as “they” instead of “it”?
Many of us speak of a company as “them” in casual conversation. “Did your hear about Apple? They’re releasing a new operating system.”
But grammar tells us that a company is a singular unit that takes a singular verb and a singular pronoun: “Apple is releasing a new version of its operating system.”
Yet Miller suggests that “they” is the better choice because it’s more accurate. She wants to know what editing types think — and so do I.
News stories can broaden our vocabulary, making us better writers and editors. Reading this obit on Eddie “Bozo” Miller, a record-breaking gourmand, added a word to the dictionary in my head: trencherman.
Want to learn about alternative story forms in a hurry? Try this upcoming Society for News Design Quick Course in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Given the SND sponsorship and the impressive list of designers who will serve as trainers, it’s safe to say this two-day workshop will have a visual focus. It’s suitable for reporters and editors, too.
For more on readership and story forms, check out this Q&A with Sara Quinn of The Poynter Institute. For information about copy editing and ASFs, take a look at this post.
My colleague Leroy Towns recently wrote about how television is still the best way to get election results. He said that the immediacy and the drama are there, not online.
Although I am a print person, I admit that I have gotten my election news through TV for as long as I can remember. Even when I was the Nation & World editor at The News & Observer, I had one eye on the wires and another on CNN. After reading Towns’ blog, I decided to challenge myself for the New Hampshire primary. No TV, only the Web. Would it be the same? Or would I be left wanting?
With polls closing in New Hampshire, I began to feel the itch to turn on the TV and flip through CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and C-SPAN. I was a political junkie in the true sense of the term. I turned to the computer instead and went to the Washington Post’s site, which a friend had recommended as quick and complete on election nights. I found early returns there and on MSNBC. The News & Observer site was a step slower on the numbers, but its Under the Dome blog gave me some of the flavor of the night.
I went to bed without having watched a split second of Chris Matthews and Wolf Blitzer. I hadn’t seen any speech by any candidate. I didn’t hear the “analysis” by Bill Bennett and other pontificators. Yet I understood that John McCain had an easy win, that Hillary Clinton pulled off an upset and that John Edwards was still optimistic despite another loss. Maybe I didn’t need TV after all. The Web could give me results as they came in, and the newspaper could put it all into perspective the morning after.
Then I noticed this post at MSNBC’s site that forced me to question my new method. Journalists should always check out claims of the first, the last and the only. But the site didn’t do that when it said Wednesday night: “In the modern primary era, this is the first four-way split in Iowa and New Hampshire in the Republican and Democratic races.” The MSNBC site forgot that Richard Gephardt won in Iowa in 1988, not Michael Dukakis. This isn’t hard to track down and verify.
Sure, errors happen. But even after this one was pointed out in the post’s comments and on prominent sites such as Talking Points Memo, the MSNBC post stood untouched for nearly 12 hours. It was corrected mid-morning Wednesday and an editor’s note blamed “the late-night haze of election returns and the barrage of numbers.”
Maybe I will turn on my TV again. Sure, they make mistakes too, but they correct themselves more quickly.
For all the talk (and jokes) about the decline of print media, the front page of a newspaper maintains a certain power.
This photo from the aftermath of the LSU-Ohio State game illustrates one aspect of that power: the keepsake value of a historic front page. Does the victorious player flip open his laptop or tap his iPhone to get out the message that his team has won a national title? No, he shows off a newspaper.
And it’s suitable for framing.
This post at Swampland, a Time magazine blog, starts this way:
If the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s 100 Club dinner is any bell weather – Barack Obama will handily win here.
Never mind the awkward use of a dash where a comma would do just fine. The real issue here is “bell weather.” What the writer meant was “bellwether.” Its definitions include:
The post went up on the Time site at about 9:30 p.m. Friday, and a few comments mention the mistake, which at this writing is still there. Says one:
It’s BELLWETHER, not “bell weather.” Who is your copy editor?
It’s a reasonable question. Will Time answer it?
UPDATE: As of the day after the New Hampshire primary, this error is still there.
Parade magazine, that Sunday staple of hundreds of U.S. newspapers, isn’t known for its timeliness. As noted here, events can overtake the “news” in Parade — things happen between publication and circulation that can render stories out of date.
The latest example is a big one. The cover story for the Jan. 6 issue is on Benazir Bhutto, and it went to press Dec. 21, nearly a week before the former leader of Pakistan was assassinated Dec. 27. Parade issued a statement to editors of newspapers that include the magazine in Sunday editions, arguing that the interview with Bhutto is even more relevant now.
Perhaps, but the motivation behind sticking with the out-of-date cover story probably has more to do with the fact that 32 million copies of Parade had already gone out the door.
Now newspapers are working to explain the situation to readers. The Wichita Eagle is using this blog to get the word out, and The News & Observer ran this ad on 8A today. Many readers will probably overlook these efforts and wonder why Parade missed the assassination story. So it goes.
For more, check out:
UPDATE: The N&O includes a mention of the Parade problem in its “Coming Sunday” promos on the Saturday front page.
FURTHER UPDATE: Not everyone got the word in time. This post is getting numerous hits from people who are trying to figure this out. (Welcome!) Search terms leading them here include “Parade error.” Angry readers are also leaving comments at the Parade site. “Parade should stick with celebrity nonsense subjects such as whether or not Britney is wearing panties,” says one. “Obviously important subjects are beyond beyond their capabilities.”
