Q&A with Mitch Kokai, communications director at the John Locke Foundation

Mitch Kokai is director of communications at the John Locke Foundation, a think tank based in Raleigh, N.C. Prior to taking that job in 2005, Kokai worked as a reporter at News 14 Carolina, a regional cable news channel, and at radio stations WCHL, WPTF and WENC. In this interview, conducted by email, Kokai talks about his work at the John Locke Foundation and its role in North Carolina media and politics.

Q. Describe your job. What do you do on a typical day?

A. The official title is director of communications, but the John Locke Foundation’s communications duties are divided among several different people.

I am primarily responsible for dealing with the news media, writing and distributing news releases, overseeing content for the Carolina Journal Radio program and the CarolinaJournal.tv video site, and blogging for JLF’s primary blog, The Locker Room.

Day-to-day duties include:

• reading research reports and translating them into a form that might pique the interest of a person who works outside the world of public policy;
• recording John Locke Foundation events, placing that content on the Web and editing sound for the radio program;
• conducting interviews for video, radio and print purposes;
• scanning state and national news sources for material worthy of promotion on the blog; and steering print and broadcast reporters to JLF resources for their stories.

I also help with copy-editing JLF’s monthly Carolina Journal print publication.

Q. You worked in radio and cable TV news for many years. What was it like to move from straight news to a job that advocates points of view and changes in law and policy?

A. Working for an organization that openly expresses its viewpoint is actually easier than trying to maintain the fiction of objectivity. If the material is going to prove useful to more than just the cheering sections on the ideological left and right, it must address arguments fairly from multiple perspectives. Regardless, people who follow the John Locke Foundation’s work closely have an inkling of the positions we take and can judge our work accordingly.

In contrast, a media outlet dedicated to “straight news” actively promotes the myth that its news coverage is unbiased. The choice of stories to cover or ignore; the relative weight given to the mix of stories on the printed page, in the newscast, or on the Web; the sources interviewed; the facts used and omitted; and the structure and content of the stories are all based on the organization’s biases.

Pretending otherwise is not particularly helpful. It’s nice not to have to take part in that game.

Q. On occasion, you write opinion pieces for Carolina Journal Online. How does the site handle editing and headline writing for that kind of content?

A. Every page of the Carolina Journal print publication gets at least three rounds of copy editing. Our publisher is our chief page designer and writes headlines, but at least two other people read each headline.

For Carolina Journal Online, the managing editor typically handles most copy editing and headline writing. He will ask for help if the column or news story merits an extra set of eyes.

Q. Some of the foundation’s critics say its views are over-represented in North Carolina media. How would you respond?

A. This is an interesting topic that could lead to a lengthy debate about fundamental elements of the political process. I’ll try to spare your readers from that debate, though, and hit just a few key points.

First, the criticism tends to emanate from people who hold a fundamentally different view about public policy and the role of government. They don’t like our viewpoint and don’t want to encounter it at all when they read, watch or listen to a news story.

Almost any quotation featuring JLF is going to rankle these folks. Their concern has less to do with volume of JLF representation than with the fact that JLF’s comments get any representation at all. They are entitled to their opinion. We don’t particularly care much about their criticism.

We also pay little attention to those who draw a paycheck based on their efforts to oppose our viewpoints. An open-minded observer of the North Carolina political process will notice fairly quickly that certain organizations are populated by staffers who spend most of their time engaging in what I like to call “argument by adjective.” Rather than engage in valuable political debate, they spend their time writing about “evil right-wing extremists.” Remove the invective from their commentary, and you’ll find there’s nothing left. Everyone has to make a living; I’m glad I don’t have to do it that way.

Setting those critics aside, there is another much more interesting reason why the John Locke Foundation might seem to be over-represented in the media. Almost every news story involving North Carolina government revolves around efforts to urge an official or agency to do something. It might be approving legislation. It might be rewriting a policy. It might be adding to the budget of an existing government program.

In some cases, there might be a partisan divide among elected officials on the issue in question. In that case, it’s easy for a reporter to talk to a Democrat and a Republican, and perhaps a Libertarian, and feel pretty confident that the bases are covered relatively well. In other instances, though, key players in the story are not necessarily elected officials. Often the players are interest groups seeking some type of government action.

How does a reporter find an opposing view when the advocate for a particular position is an interest group seeking government action? Even without deadline pressure, it can be very difficult for the reporter to track down a source who is going to feel a negative impact from the policy the interest group is promoting.

Does this mean there is no such person who will face a negative impact? No.

It’s often true that the negative impacts of a particular policy will play out in the future and in ways that are hard to document today. For instance, how does the reporter go about identifying a small business owner or entrepreneur today who is not going to be able to expand his business two or three years down the road because of a harmful new regulation or higher tax burden?

In these instances, it’s easier to turn to a group like the John Locke Foundation that focuses on the unintended negative consequences of government policies that might sound like great ideas on their surface. Many of our appearances in media reports stem from a reporter’s efforts to contact us, rather than our efforts to promote our own work.

At times, we are unable to help those reporters because they call us about issues (immigration policy and social issues come to mind) that are not part of the John Locke Foundation’s focus. But if we can provide a useful comment that offers an alternative perspective to that offered by the individuals or interest groups pushing for government action, we do.

Q. On the other hand, there are more sources of news and voices of opinion than ever before. How can organizations like yours get their messages out amid the clamor of online news and social media?

A. As the number of news and opinion sources proliferates, those that will fare best are the ones that develop a good reputation. Traditional media outlets can rely on their brand names for as long as those brands carry weight with news consumers. Others must rely on developing an audience that finds the product useful and reliable. We aim to fill that role.

People with a free-market, limited-government perspective might enjoy our work, but they will not find an echo chamber for the Republican Party. People with a left-of-center political perspective might not agree with our editorial conclusions, but those with an open mind will find value in the research and data used in constructing our arguments.

Plus our news reporting supplements coverage they can find from other sources. Not counting my own broadcast news background, the Carolina Journal staff has somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 years of combined experience working in traditional mainstream media newsrooms.

Yes, we show our viewpoint in the types of stories we cover, but that makes us no different than those traditional outlets. By presenting a consistent product, we hope to be a regular part of concerned citizens’ news and information mix.

Q&A with Ariel Zirulnick, Middle East editor at the Christian Science Monitor

Ariel Zirulnick is Middle East editor at The Christian Science Monitor. In this interview, conducted by email, she discusses her job, the editing process at the Monitor and how to land a job in international journalism.

Q. Describe your job. What do you do on a typical day?

A. I work from our Boston headquarters, editing copy from a slew of staff writers and freelancers living in North Africa and the Middle East, and occasionally reporting and writing myself.

On a typical day, I wake up around 6 a.m. and immediately check my work email to see if any of my reporters, who are anywhere from 6 to 8 hours ahead of us, have emerging stories or other time-sensitive things on which they need a response. Since they’re already halfway through their day at that point, it’s critical to get them an answer ASAP.

The international desk editors get in to the office at 7:30 a.m. and spend the first couple hours of the day assigning and editing stories, planning coverage, tracking news in our regions, etc. The afternoon, when our reporters are done for the day and heading for bed, is typically the time to catch up on more long-term work, whether it’s magazine stories, non-time sensitive stories for the Web, or just organizational and administrative things, like handling our reporters’ reimbursements for work-related trips.

We spend a lot of time tracking what is rising and falling on Google and Yahoo! news. It isn’t the only thing that dictates our coverage, but it does influence our decisions and it certainly influences the way we write our headlines.

Q. How does story editing and headline writing work at the Monitor?

A. Every story for CSMonitor.com receives two edits.

The first is almost always done by the relevant regional editor, who will edit not only for spelling and grammar, but also for content – ideas, analysis, etc. The first edit is sent back to the reporter for him to answer any questions that came up and to read over the editor’s changes to ensure nothing was changed in such a way that it became incorrect.

Then they send back a fresh file incorporating all the editor’s changes and questions. That version then gets a read from another editor on the international desk – this time mostly for grammar, style, readability, etc. – before being published to the website. Stories for our weekly magazine go through one additional layer of editing with a designated copy editor.

The international desk editors write the headlines for stories on CSMonitor.com. Typically it’s the editor doing the first edit who writes a headline, making sure to incorporate the so-called “key phrases” that Google News clusters are built around in order to get the story into that cluster and get traffic. We run our suggested headline by either the international editor or the deputy international editor, who gives the final stamp of approval.

Q. Readers often see bias in coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. How do you handle such criticism?

A. I receive more complaints on this than anything else in my region by a landslide. The fact is, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it can be impossible to satisfy critics – sometimes their objection is not grounded in fact and they will read whatever bias they want to into the piece.

It’s not rare to get two e-mails bashing the same story, one for being too sympathetic to Israelis, one for being too sympathetic to Palestinians. The only thing that’s different is the lens through which each reader is reading the piece. That’s what makes it so hard to satisfy everyone, or even most readers.

We do try to respond to all complaints because we want to make sure readers know we’re paying attention to their comments. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of pointing out to the reader the different voices in the piece to show that the reporter did her due diligence by using sources from across the political spectrum.

If the criticism seems valid – perhaps we forgot to include some background about a source’s political affiliation, or cast something in a certain light that seemed misleading – we will typically write to the person and ask them to provide us with their own sources to back up their claims. Sometimes we find that they can’t, sometimes they can and we file either a correction or, if it doesn’t warrant that, assure them that we will take that into account in future stories on the topic. Often readers are just happy to get an acknowledgement of their complaint, whether or not it prompts any action.

We get complaints the most often when we do a piece on only Israel or only Palestinians, mostly from readers angry that we “ignored” one half of the conflict. In that case, I’ll point them to previous stories that focused exclusively on the other “side.” Even if one piece is not straight down the middle, I can say with confidence that our cumulative work is.

Q. You are a 2010 graduate of the journalism school at UNC-Chapel Hill. What advice do you have for students there to get a job like yours?

A. A second major, preferably something with an international slant, is very important if you want to work in international affairs journalism (I double majored in journalism and international studies, with a Middle East focus).

While outlets like CSM are happy when someone has journalism training, we care less about that and more about the reporter’s ability to thing deeply about the topic at hand, synthesize complex information, and see events in their broader context. Knowledge of the region, including its history, is essential for that, and that comes from studying the region, likely in an academic setting. It can be learned in the field, of course, but it’s unlikely an outlet like CSM will take something from a freelancer if they just arrived in the country and have no prior experience or study there.

Studying abroad, and even getting an internship abroad, will also give you a huge leg-up. Getting an international internship overseas is not as unattainable a goal as it sounds – most countries have an English language publication or a bureau for a major US publication, and it’s often much easier to get an internship there than at a news outlet in the United States.

The catch is that they’ll often be unpaid, since they don’t want to go through the hassle of obtaining a work visa for you, but the j-school has many scholarships specifically for covering students’ expenses while doing unpaid internships. That’s how I funded a summer internship at the Jerusalem Post, which I did on the heels of a semester at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (which I also mostly funded with scholarships, in that case from the Global Ed program).

Also, work for the Daily Tar Heel! My work for them is what I used when I applied to my Jerusalem Post internship, and editors there were amazed at the quality of the student-run publication. UNC journalism students are fortunate enough to have a top-notch news outlet around that takes teaching peers very seriously.

Take advantage of it. No journalism school class can simulate the deadline pressures and real-life experiences that you get from writing for the DTH.

If a student wants first and foremost to be reporting overseas, his best bet is to take the leap and set up shop as a freelancer overseas. Do some research into what countries are undercovered (a tip-off is a dateline from a country other than the one the story is about) and move there! You’ll have to pitch like crazy to a number if outlets before you get a bite, but it’s really the best way to go if being overseas is your first priority.

But if, like me, you aren’t comfortable taking that financial risk (student loans!) or care more about being a part of a team than in getting overseas straightaway and having to work solo, you can look into internships with the international sections of newspapers based in the United States.

I got my foot in the door with CSM by taking a semester-long paid internship with the Monitor after graduating from college. You’ll probably spend most of your time editing, not reporting, but you’ll still have your head in international news all day long, and you’ll learn a ton about a lot of places, which will better prepare for a move overseas in the future and maybe even get you in line for a staff position.

I was fortunate to be interning with CSM when a staff position opened up. A year later the Middle East editor position opened up, and now I’m spending my day reading, writing and editing on the region that has enthralled me for years. I even got to take a reporting trip to Egypt and Lebanon last year, which was incredibly exciting.

The Monitor international desk hires an intern each semester and for the summer. If you are interested, or just want to know more, please be in touch! I need people to watch Carolina basketball with up here.

Follow Ariel Zirulnick on Twitter at @azirulnick.

Q&A with freelance writer Victoria Bouloubasis

Victoria Bouloubasis is a freelance writer based in Durham, N.C. She is on the food and restaurant beat for the Independent Weekly, an alternative newspaper. In this interview, Bouloubasis talks about her interest in food journalism and what inspires her reporting.

Q. How did you get into writing about food? What attracted you to that topic?

A. I find food culture fascinating. And personal narrative always surrounds food.

When you visit a new place, you always ask a taxi cab driver or a clerk at a mini-mart where to go eat. From there, you are led into a bit of their world, which leads to stories upon stories. And food itself involves so many senses and emotions, colors and sounds, that it provides the perfect backdrop for any story.

Q. The Triangle region of North Carolina has a lively restaurant scene. With so much going on, how do you decide what to write about?

A. I only write about restaurants that serve a cuisine that has influenced my palate and has made me knowledgeable about the food.

It wouldn’t make sense for me to write about types of food I haven’t had enough exposure to or a culinary style that I haven’t even attempted to cook. I don’t need to know how to cook it, but I should at least be familiar, in a kinesthetic way, with its process.

That said, yes, we have an incredibly lively restaurant scene … with lively characters and traditions, old and new. We’ll never tire of the vibrant food culture here, in restaurants and beyond, because it is constantly changing and shaping the place we call home.

Q. You have a blog and are active on social media. Why is that important for freelance writers like yourself?

A. My blog is more like a website to showcase my portfolio. It’s a convenient way to shoot a link over to anyone interested in seeing my work.

On the occasion that I do post something original for the blog, it lets me write in a personal essay style, which is a unique writing practice. And it’s fun to share online! I’ve gotten some great sources through Twitter.

Q. You are a graduate of the journalism school at UNC-Chapel Hill. Looking back, what was helpful about that experience, and what are some things you wished you had learned then?

A. Meeting peers in journalism was particularly helpful. I continue to collaborate with fellow JOMC graduates now that we have cultivated ongoing careers as writers, designers, photographers, videographers, etc. UNC gave me a network.

I wish the news-editorial sequence was more comprehensive. I tried to get into a photojournalism class for two or three consecutive semesters and couldn’t because that wasn’t my declared track. From what I hear now, the program provides more options for students.

The courses helped shape my skills as a reporter — sorting through stats, taking the most important bits out of a long meeting and expecting the unexpected during interviews. The constant writing in college makes the crazy schedule of my freelance gigs feel like a breeze.

Read articles by Bouloubasis and follow her on Twitter.

Vacation — all I ever wanted

This blog will be on vacation for the next two weeks. See you in July.

Student guest post: Can I get the news, to go?

Students in JOMC 457, Advanced Editing, are writing guest posts for this blog this semester. This is the ninth of those posts. Tyson Leonhardt is a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he studies journalism and political science. Leonhardt is president of the UNC chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and a digital producer for reesenews.org.

Three minutes after American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, CNN interrupted its commercial programming to break the news to an unsuspecting nation.

Across the country, Americans turned on their televisions to learn more — many in time to watch the second plane slam into the South Tower.

Back then, the Internet was comparatively undeveloped — journalists and media consumers alike had not even begun to realize its full potential. Social media was non-existent — only birds could tweet and friend requests were made in person.

When news broke, Americans had little choice but to turn to broadcast news.

Fast forward to May 1, 2011, when Keith Urbahn — chief of staff for former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — scooped the major news networks and broke the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death with a 15-word tweet.

The news spread like wildfire on social media. Many learned of the terrorist leader’s death on digital devices before they heard it on TV.

This illustrates an important point — the way Americans consume news has changed, drastically so, in the last decade. And, according to Pew Research Center 2012 State of the News Media report, it’s still changing — even faster than before.

The annual report, produced by the center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, argues we have entered a new phase of the digital revolution — “the age of mobile,” an era of unprecedented connectedness.

The statistics are astounding. According to the report, more than four in ten American adults now own smartphones, with one in five owning a tablet device, such as an iPad.

More importantly, the report finds, these mobile devices have increased Americans’ news consumption — more than a quarter of the U.S. population are now using their mobile devices to get news. What’s more, 23 percent of U.S. adults now consume news on multiple digital devices.

It’s not surprising that this growing trend in mobile news consumption is accompanied by a surge in social media usage. 133 million Americans are active on Facebook, while the number of Americans tweeting now tops 24 million — a growth of 32 percent in 2011 alone, according to the report.

Fortunately for news organizations, mobile news consumption does not seem to be eating away at traditional news consumption habits — it’s an additive experience. In other words, news consumption, as a whole, is expanding.

Further, the report suggests the proliferation of mobile devices is strengthening new outlets’ brand names and allowing them to reach greater audiences.

Such findings are encouraging for news organizations, especially those still searching for ways to shore up revenue in a world where most people are accustomed to consuming online news for free.

However, media companies cannot afford to react to this mobile device surge as slowly as they did to the Internet boom. Journalists must make an effort to learn news consumption habits of mobile device users and develop technology and revenue models that incorporates their needs.

That brings me to editing.

As more and more Americans turn to their iPhones, iPads, Androids, Kindles and the like for news, it’s imperative that editors get the memo, too.

They must recognize that the pages they design, the headlines they write and the copy they edit, no matter what platform it is intended for, will likely end up being viewed on a mobile device.

As journalists, we must remember it’s our job to be a resource. We must ensure readers are able to consume news on any platform, as quickly and efficiently as possible.

And although news applications tailored for specific mobile operating systems and mobile-friendly versions of websites have proliferated in recent years, it is an imperfect solution.

Multiple content systems are often disorienting for readers when switching between devices to consume news. For example, a story or photo gallery available on a news outlet’s desktop website may, for a number of reasons, never make it to the iPad application. This can anger readers.

There’s got to be an easier, more uniform way to get the news to today’s multiplatform consumers, right?

The Boston Globe thinks it’s found an answer to the problem in the form of responsive design technology, which automatically detects the platform being used and seamlessly resizes all content to fit the size and shape of the screen.

Such technology ensures readers always see the same content and layout across all platforms, whether it’s a tablet, smartphone or computer. The Globe switched over to the design system in September 2011.

Not many have followed in the Globe’s footsteps, yet. But with more and more Americans using multiple digital devices to get their news, that’s sure to change.

Student guest post: The Man Repeller kicks it up a notch

Students in JOMC 457, Advanced Editing, are writing guest posts for this blog this semester. This is the eighth of those posts. Stephanie Kelly is a senior journalism and political science major with a minor in French language.  She is from Charlotte and blogged for a fashion designer in New York City last summer.

Bloglovin’, an aggregator site that organizes the most recent posts from members’ favorite blogs in one place, awarded their coveted “Blogger of the Year” distinction to Leandra Medine of ManRepeller.com at a ceremony on Feb. 12.

Medine deserved it. She founded The Man Repeller blog on the belief that women should dress in a way that makes them happy, not simply to attract men.  And while Medine writes about clothes in a tones ranging from overwhelmingly reverent to hilariously sarcastic to shamelessly personal, her underlying message is celebrated for liberating women from dressing according the constraints of what men consider “sexy.” Her funny, edgy, pushing-the-limits-of-acceptable style has won over casual fashion fans and seasoned industry insiders alike, making her the coolest thing to hit the scene since the parachute pant.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Medine has built up an empire that sprung from her blog. She created and copyrighted the term “arm party” to describe what happens when one piles bracelets upon bracelets on one’s wrist.  She teamed up with Gryphon, a high-end fashion line, to create a jacket named for her.  She partnered with the jewelry designers behind the Dannijo brand to create her own capsule collection of accessories with a sense of humor.  Even Del Toro, a company that sells distinctive slipper-shoes, wanted her on its side. The result? In the words of The Man Repeller, “clicky-clicky.”

Having fashion-blogged myself, both independently (you don’t want the link, I promise) and professionally, I have to give the girl credit. It takes a lot to satisfy the fashion world, and the fashion world won’t hesitate to eat you alive if you stop giving them what they want.

In fact, on the eve of the Bloglovin’ Awards, Medine — The Man Repeller herself — did the unthinkable and got engaged.

As you might be able to imagine, chaos ensued. Some fans were happy for Medine, but many others felt cheated, claiming that Medine had built her reputation on repelling men, not attracting them, and certainly not marrying them. The backlash was so vicious that Medine was forced to remove what was allegedly a happy, somewhat mushy post announcing her engagement and replace it with a disclaimer in her defense. Medine wrote:

Yes, I’m consummating my relationship. But it’s not like you stopped celebrating Christmas when your parents told you they were Santa Claus or like I refused to continue taking science classes at my Jewish day school when evolution tried to disprove everything I’d previously learned, so the Man Repeller finding a man that says [expletive] like “I love that skirt over pant thing you do,” and “if you wear those shoes I won’t hang out with you, just kidding, I will, but please don’t wear them,” shouldn’t really change all that much. Despite a gimmicky title, this is in fact a fashion blog. New finger party addition or not, I will never stop subscribing to a school of self.

I have to be honest: When I first found out The Man Repeller was engaged, I wasn’t mad exactly, but I felt deceived.  I couldn’t place my finger on why; I knew it was unreasonable to expect Medine to divulge details of her personal life on her wildly famous and widely read blog.

But after reading the above post, I realized that the root of the problem (and the explanation for the outrage of some fans) was purely a product of her exceptional ability to write and relate to people.  Medine’s fans were mad because they felt they knew her so well — from her blog persona alone — that they should have been informed about the man in The Man Repeller’s life.

And this is why I completely support Bloglovin’s decision to declare Medine “Blogger of the Year.” She came out of the conflict with her reputation for unbelievable talent intact. But she also successfully defined the incredibly significant boundary between blog and blogger that had been left unexplored, not because it wasn’t important, but because no one had elevated blogging to the level that Medine has taken it.

Student guest post: Unicode and you, and what to do with weird band names

Students in JOMC 457, Advanced Editing, are writing guest posts for this blog this semester. This is the second of those posts. Joe Chapman is a senior from Asheville, N.C. He is the editor of the Diversions section in The Daily Tar Heel, and he has a keen interest in both music and journalism.

GL▲SS †33†H. Gr†ll Gr†ll. ℑ⊇◊⊆ℜ. Perhaps more recognizably, Spın̈al Tap (See: metal umlaut.) These are all band names that would be virtually impossible to propagate without the use of copy-paste. While an accented ‘e’ or umlauted ‘a’ will occasionally make its way into a story with words such as café or doppelgänger, band names like ///▲▲▲\\\ present a challenge for editors — how do you handle using these bizarre foreign characters in print and online?

Now here’s a headline for you: In 2010, The Guardian wrote on its music blog about the bands whose /\/ /\ /\/\ € $ were made out of $ ¥ /\/\ ß 0 \ $. While the headline is a little bold, it serves the article well. But its use of non-standard characters has me wondering how many people could actually see the headline and the band names in the article.

I’m going to spare you the technical history of rendering fonts on computers, the problems with multibyte character lengths and how they were fixed and the different standards for character encoding, but it’s a good read, I promise. Instead, let me say this: There’s a protocol browsers use to render text called UTF-8. UTF-8 is useful because it’s capable of rendering pretty much every single character from any language.

But just because your browser uses UTF-8 doesn’t mean you can start seeing ★★★.

Printing special characters is easy: All you need is a font that has support for the characters you need (and most Adobe fonts have support for at least the Latin alphabet). If for some reason all your computer has installed is the old version of Courier, there are plenty of open source alternatives for rendering special characters.

But rendering these characters online presents a problem. Practically no computer has the same set of fonts installed, and there is no font anywhere near supporting every UTF-8 character. The ‘look of disapproval’ emoticon and meme, for example, renders improperly on the majority of Apple computers running Safari.

ಠ_ಠ If you’re stuck seeing squares or question marks, unfortunately your browser doesn’t have adequate UTF-8 compatibility. If you see a rather unamused, glaring emoticon, congratulations — you’re using a modern browser with an adequate font library. (And the look of disapproval is probably unwarranted. I apologize).

Japanese emoticons make interesting use of special characters as well. ｡◕ ‿ ◕｡

So how do you decide if it’s appropriate to use special characters on your website? It comes down to knowing your audience.

Browsers with red columns have known issues with rendering more commonly used special characters.

While Internet Explorer 9 is much more robust in handling UTF-8, 15 percent of all Internet users still use an older version of IE. In IE’s default settings, Times New Roman is used to render Latin characters. And that’s a shame, because Times New Roman barely has any support for special characters.

So without some fiddling on the user’s end, they’ll be seeing question marks when you try and render a hip band name. (Similarly with Safari: the S5 works just fine, but there are still some stragglers using older versions.)

A quick and dirty fix would be to save a small, slim image of the band name and insert the image in line with the text. Or, just do what GL▲SS †33†H does with its bandcamp URL and get as close as you can in plain English.

Ask your website administrator to break down your viewers’ browser usage. If your website uses any sort of analytics software, it’s probably recording what browser people use each time they visit your site. If you have a high percentage of users with modern browsers — browsers like Chrome and Firefox are suited to handle most special characters out of the box — then you’re probably safe using nontraditional characters.

For me, bands like GL▲SS †33†H don’t really take it far enough. If I had to come up with a band name and I was feeling particularly sadistic, I’d probably go with something that would be a little more devastating to a website’s markup than black squares or interrobangs.

There are certain unicode characters out there that are instructional, non-characters and allow for text to be written vertically or backwards for special languages, like Arabic or Thaana. When combining the instructional characters with symbols from the runic alphabet, you can break text out of its bound space, and come up with something that look like you’re ripping a hole in the matrix.

Good luck getting this in print:

Ķ̥̥̹̗̭̗̻̫̳̝̦̫̭͇̖̾̋̋̓̈ͪ̏͊ͧ͑̊͊ͪͮ̚͟ͅE̶̝̫̖̭̤̘͙͒̒̆͋ͯ̂̄͐ͥ̈ͫ͑̄͂ͥ͞͡͠N̛̟̣̯ͤ͌̇ͧ̿̇̉͊͋͗̒ͨ͑̄ͯ̿͋̕͝ͅN̶̨͇͓͇̠̻̗͈̪̝͓͚ͨͩ̑ͤͧ̿͑͗́͘͡Y̨̨̛͍̙̜̖͑̋̋͋̋ͣ̔ͣ’̸̷͎̳̙̬̲̞͇̖͓̘̳̘͎̭̗̬͊̌́̄̉̇̾̐̌̚ͅͅS̴̶̞̮̘̱͕̣̲̭̠͔̝̦͉̪̭͓̉ͦ͋ͩ̃ͥ͛̈́͋͝

̵̵̴̤̹͇̮̼̱͙̜̱̝̠̟̯͍̜̗̼̞̒̋͑͌̽̅̍̕͡W̵̛͍̘̲̦͓̝͒̄̽̇ͬͧ̍ͫ̿̓̋̅̈́͆ͮ͒̚̚Ő̷ͧ̄̔̀ͥ̑͌͆ͧ̂̃̌ͧͧͣ͡͏͎̼͙̗͈̦͕̝̦̣̱͔̺͉͞ͅR̵ͤͧ̐̾͂̐̐͒̋̓͘҉̬̩͔̹L̶̖͉͇̟̫͍͈̹̞̖͙̯̤͐ͣ̄̓͘ͅḐ̷̶̡̗͕̺͓͂ͬͦ́̉ͩͤ̎

͊̎̂ͥͥ̑̽̇́̌͌͐ͬ̏̾̆͆ͤ͏̶̵̶̰͖̫̖̘͍̮̻̲̱̟̫͖̗̳̖̤͇͞O̡̢̧͇̳̥̜̭̲ͣͬ̿̉͐̿ͣͫ̀͠F̷̧̛̲̼̹͔̪̘̥̥̫̥͓̭͖̭̃ͨ́̈́̅́̉ͮ̐ͣ́͐ͮͮ̚͜͝

̴̥͔̺̮̪̝̯̥̻͇̤ͣͯͦ́͂ͮ̿̆ͯ͑ͦ̏͋̾̌̀̚B̶̸̻͎͈̭̱̳͍̗̥͉̙̳̌̌ͦ̿͒́E̛̛̛͖̬̼̙̬͈͖̭͇̞̤̖̟̺̙̭͈̐ͪ͋ͬ̄̿̈́ͫ̄ͯ̍̌ͮͪ͌̽͋͛͡E͎̘̱̲ͮͥ̈ͫ̅ͯ͆͗ͧ͒́̚F̴̨̞̞̗̾ͩ̎̊̅̋ͬ͂̉ͧ̿̌̚̚̕

And yes, you can tweet that. But your friends are probably going to assume you’ve been thoroughly hacked.

Interested in getting special characters to work on older browsers? Wikipedia has some guidelines for you.

A gap in Gingrich coverage

Newt Gingrich taught history and geography at West Georgia College from 1970 to 1978. He was denied tenure, but it's unclear why.

The primary season for the 2012 presidential race is less than a month old, and just four candidates remain. It’s been an intriguing contest so far, with Rick Santorum getting a delayed victory in Iowa, Mitt Romney winning in New Hampshire, and Newt Gingrich taking South Carolina.

Gingrich’s triumph in South Carolina may have been propelled by his answer to a question about his extramarital affairs. His candidacy also got a boost from Romney’s indecision on whether to release his tax returns. Romney has now agreed to make those documents public.

Although the media have focused a great deal on Gingrich’s personal life and his career in Congress, they have given scant coverage to other aspects of his professional life — namely, his time in academia in the 1970s.

Gingrich’s experience as a college professor is occasionally mentioned in the press, and he has discussed his expertise as a historian regarding his work with Freddie Mac. Yet, little attention has been paid to one of Gingrich’s professional failings: West Georgia College’s denial of tenure in 1978.

A recent column in the Anniston Star offers a glimpse of Gingrich as an academic. The writer, one of Gingrich’s colleagues at that time, says that Gingrich was a gifted and provocative teacher.

Excellence in teaching alone, however, is not enough for a faculty member to be granted tenure. Professors are expected to create knowledge by conducting research and having the results published in books, journals and other outlets. Faculty members must also perform service such as advising student organizations and doing administrative work.

The Star column hints that Gingrich spent too much time on politics and not enough on research. But it doesn’t offer details. A story by the Wall Street Journal profiles Gingrich’s days in academia, but doesn’t directly address the tenure decision. What happened exactly?

That’s where the media need to step in now. Gingrich’s time in academia is as relevant to his candidacy as his marriages, if not more so. Tenure decisions may not be as salacious as bitter divorces, but they speak to a person’s capabilities to accept and meet challenges in the workplace. A denial of tenure is a failure of sorts, and it needs to be explained.

Leroy Towns, my former colleague here at UNC-Chapel Hill and a longtime staffer on Capitol Hill, put it this way in a direct message on Twitter: “A candidate’s job history is important information to voters. If a candidate is turned down for tenure, voters need to know why.”

I agree, and I hope that editors and reporters newspapers, magazines and websites will too.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 42,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 16 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

This blog’s greatest hits of 2011

This blog is taking the rest of the month off. In the holiday spirit of re-gifting, I offer the top 10 posts on this blog for 2011, as selected by you, the readers, with the number of page views in parentheses.

Season’s greetings, and happy reading!

1. What’s your style for blog titles? (3,391)

2. Memorable headlines: BASTARDS! (2,158)

3. Memorable headlines: The filth and the fury! (1,733)

4. Memorable headlines: GOTCHA (1,727)

5. A tribute to N&O copy editors and page designers (1,635)

6. Playing with style: Lego or LEGO? (1,074)

7. Memorable headlines: Dewey defeats Truman (945)

8. Cutlines or captions? (734)

9. My favorite newspaper names in North Carolina (675)

10. Student guest post: The evolution of chat-speak (511)