The Editor’s Desk

Carla Correa is a community coordinator at The Baltimore Sun. In this Q&A, conducted by e-mail, she talks about her job and her transition from the copy desk to social media. You can also follow her on Twitter.

Q. Describe your job at the Baltimore Sun. What is your typical day like?

A. My title is community coordinator. Community coordinators at The Baltimore Sun are responsible for generating loyalty, frequency and advocacy among Web site users through blogging, social media and other outreach tools.

It’s a new position, so we have the opportunity to shape our roles in the newsroom. On a typical day, I get to the office between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. I track page views and local visits to various stories, blogs, etc.

Throughout the day, I update the @baltsunarts Twitter account, and occasionally @baltimoresun. I help to update and enliven our Facebook account, too, and keep tabs on social news sites. Our team also works on special Web-side projects; helps organize and run live chats on baltimoresun.com; and assists reporters with social media, if need be.

Q. You’re active on Twitter. What makes for a successful tweet?

A. It’s important for journalists to remember that Twitter is a conversation. So, news organizations, in my opinion, shouldn’t set up an automated feed of their stories. Sometimes, automated feeds feel a bit too much like spam and turns off followers and potential followers.

Successful tweets are engaging, personalized and a bit humorous. Successful journalists on Twitter respond to questions, retweet others’ tweets, seek sources, etc.

Now, for the actual wording. Unlike most newsy headlines, tweets can be a random interesting quote or catchy fact — couple that with a link, and you’ll have something people might click on. Like a headline, you ideally want to use keywords so people can easily find news and comments that interest them.

Using a hashtag is also a good way to classify your tweet and to help people find it. For example, the hashtag #dixontrial has helped Baltimoreans follow what people are saying about trial of our mayor, Sheila Dixon.

Q. You started at the Sun as a copy editor. What skills from that time do you use in your job now?

A. Aside from the obvious — fitting important words in a tight count (140 characters or less!) — I think that the good judgment that I developed while copy editing helps me in my new position. I need to pick the stories that I think will appeal to users.

Time management is always important, too, and I don’t think there is a better place to learn that than on a night news copy desk. And good grammar and correct spelling are always applicable!

Q. Journalism students would probably like to have a job like yours. What advice do you have to them in landing one?

It’s a tough environment out there for journalism students. But they have an advantage because they grew up with the Internet, and they can offer news organizations and other writing-and-editing focused fields skills that more experienced journalists may not have.

I would suggest that students stay on top of social media, social networking and all the new, fun ways to tell stories. For example, students should experiment with live tweeting a hot story, using Google Wave or working with some kind of format that established news organizations haven’t thought of.

As far as actually landing a job, be persistent, flexible and creative.

Susan Tart is an American journalist living in Beijing, China, where she has spent the past two years. As a member of the staff at China.org, she has covered the 2008 Olympics, the one-year anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake and has even had the chance to interview the legendary “Back Dorm Boys.” Tart graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2007 with a double major in journalism and international studies, and a minor in Chinese. In this Q&A, conducted by e-mail, Tart talks about her job and journalism in China.

Q: Describe your job at China.org. What do you do on a typical day?

A. As any news job, it pays to be in-the-know regarding local and global events, so first thing in the morning I try to read-in. During the day, I usually copy edit several articles and then spend the rest of the time working on a broadcast story.

Most of that time goes into research. As a foreigner, I find it difficult to make contacts and know which organizations/companies will be likely to give an interview (much less trust me), so just the research for one interview can sometimes take longer than all other aspects of the story combined.

News in China is much more relaxed than in the States, so while deadlines do exist, I’m not usually stressed about getting a story done. Lunch is important in the Chinese culture, and so it takes place every day, with a minimum of 75 minutes … even when there is “breaking news.”

Q. You’ve found yourself doing copy editing as part of your job. As a person trained in broadcast, what is that like?

I knew I’d be copy editing when I took the job, although my main focus was to produce video stories and develop the video section of the site. However, the company is more like a state owned enterprise (SOE) — and in typical fashion of bureaucratic organizations, accomplishing that task has proved quite slow and difficult.

I think copy editing is almost inevitable when working in a country that operates in another language. Sometimes it can be amusing, as some of the articles are loaded with hilarious Chinglish words and phrases. Other times it can be frustrating.

Most of my coworkers studied English in school rather than journalism (much less broadcast journalism), so I often end up teaching how to write news articles when I copy edit them. It’s great to watch their writing skills make progress. The English and Chinese languages have very different ways of presenting the news, so even coworkers who have mastered the language don’t necessarily understand what’s important to include in an article targeted at a native English-speaking audience.

Q: The Chinese government controls the media there, and it blocks some sites such as Facebook and Twitter. What is it like to work as a journalist in a more restricted environment?

To be honest, it’s not as bad as I had originally thought it would be. Or maybe I should say it’s not how I thought it would be.

I was allowed to go after pretty much any story I wanted to in the beginning. Even though my boss never rejected me, I found that the people here would often censor themselves. As I learned only after running in circles from contacting government agencies day after day, it’s pretty much impossible to do some stories (even those with a positive message), especially with a camera. After the first three months, I was told to stop trying to cover the news, and I’d have more success. Truest thing I’ve ever been told.

About a month ago, there was a gas explosion at a Uyghur restaurant not too far from the office. However, everyone was informed to not cover the story, as it was potentially sensitive. We could only report what the main government news source said. That was frustrating as a journalist who is trained that such events dominate headlines.

Another time I recall is when the top boss told me I could go to Tiananmen on June 4th (though publishing a story about it wasn’t guaranteed). However, a less-high-up coworker freaked out and convinced the boss they’d all lose their jobs for life if I went.

The news is conducted in a hierarchical manner here, and fear of disrupting that system runs how it gets reported. Understanding that concept makes life a lot easier. Other than that, you have to have a sense of humor and be optimistic. Change and opening up takes time; you can’t force it.

Q. How do you think your experiences in China will shape you for a journalism career back in the United States?

It will no doubt be a huge advantage for me. As China’s power and influence increase, life in the U.S. will inevitably be affected by it more and more.

Whether it’s local, national or business news in the States, I think it will be vital to understand the Chinese culture(s), government and how/why everything is done the way it is in China. The importance of networking in China can’t be overstated, so the contacts I’m forming now will definitely prove useful later in life.

As the news here can’t really express dissent about the government, a lot of it tends to hate on America. While this can sometimes give me high blood pressure, I honestly believe I’m gaining valuable insight and learning crucial perceptions— which I think are important for the bilateral relationship China and the U.S. will have in the future.

My visit to China is done, and although I’ve adapted once again to Eastern Daylight Time, I’m still thinking about my experience half a world away.

My colleague Laura Ruel and I spent about a week working with journalists of the China.org news site. The English-language site has a staff of about 30 people, including a few Americans.

I was impressed with the dedication and skills of the China.org staff. It’s a different sort of journalism — run by and controlled by the government, created in an environment where Facebook, Twitter and most blogs are blocked. Yet, the staff there is doing much of what their Western counterparts do: trying to figure out the best to get the news to readers, in both form and content, while on constant deadline pressure.

I was asked to speak to the staff on several topics:

• Story editing

• Headline writing

• Caption writing

• Alternative story forms

I covered each of those topics in workshop sessions at the China.org offices. Each went well, and with each session, the staff grew more comfortable asking questions and offering comments.

On my final day in Beijing, I worked with staff members one on one in the newsroom. This was the most rewarding part of the week because I got to help people with the stories, captions and other content that they were working on at that moment. I also got a surprising compliment from one editor: “Thank you for your help. And I would like to say that you are very handsome.”

Thanks to everyone at the site for their hospitality, and special thanks to Celine Chen for organizing the trip, showing us the city and and allowing us to bring a little bit of U.S. journalism to China.

Eric Frederick is the managing editor of the Web site of The News & Observer. Before taking that job, he had worked for more than 20 years on the print side at the Raleigh paper, including stints as sports editor and front-page editor. In this interview, conducted by e-mail, Frederick discusses his job, how online content is edited and the site’s redesign.

Q. Describe your job. What does the managing editor at newsobserver.com do on a typical day?

A. A little of everything. We have a very small staff and a pretty complex site that is, of course, always live. (I tell people that if our Web site were the White House, I’d work all day in the Oval Office, but I’d wake up at 3 a.m. to grab a broom and go sweep off the North Portico or run the security booth.) There really is no typical day.

Put simply, and ideally, I oversee the news on newsobserver.com. But some days, I’m barely acquainted with the news that’s going up, so I’m lucky to have a talented team.

At any given time, I could be working on a future project, planning online coverage of a sports season or election or other big event, listening to a scanner, assigning a reporter (or sometimes reporting a story myself), sitting in a meeting, testing a new technology, coordinating with McClatchy Interactive and other papers in our chain on a news presentation or a technical issue (which I usually try to punt), editing and posting stories, rewriting headlines or story summaries, rearranging the sports pages, changing promotion on the site, moderating reader comments, checking site traffic for daily or hourly trends, updating our social media pages on Twitter and Facebook, helping readers with problems or just listening to them, handling the online coverage of sports events, dealing with vendors, assigning repair or development tasks to programmers (every day there’s something), setting up e-mail news alerts, listening to staffers’ ideas and refining them, updating coverage budgets, selecting and sending stories to Web aggregators, or documenting and communicating changes in procedures (they are frequent).

Many days I spend the predawn hours sitting in an empty newsroom getting the site ready before people wake up. It’s never boring; I’ll say that.

Q. How does story editing and headline writing work for content on the site?

A. In the morning, most of the prominent stories on the site were edited and headlined for print by the nightside copy desk. Only one online producer is on duty, and that person spends about four hours just getting the site ready, so he doesn’t do a lot of additional editing, but there are numerous changes that do need to be made.

Print headlines often don’t work on the Web because they’re labels or because they’re only clear in the context of a print page, so they must be rewritten. The body of a story written for print often doesn’t make sense online either because it’s produced in pieces that, again, make sense in a print context but are inscrutable online. So the producer does have to do some essential editing.

As we post new stories during the day, the assigning editor in the newsroom will sometimes give a story a quick edit before passing it to the online team, but often, stories come straight from reporters. The online producer on duty does whatever editing he has time to do and writes the headlines.

During a typical day, we’ll post about 50 new stories. Hundreds of wire stories also are added to the site each day, but most of them are not edited at all by my team (except for an occasional headline revision on a prominent story).

In short, there is no traditional rim/slot structure, for a couple of reasons. The first is that, with only one person on duty, that’s impossible, especially since that person is occupied with many other tasks. The second is that speed is essential online, and that means the normal newsroom editing chain isn’t in play.

Q. Why is The N&O redesigning its site, and what are some of the big differences between the new site and the old one?

A. Our site had outgrown its design and was collapsing under its own weight. It had nearly 3,000 “sections” that offered some kind of content, and the search didn’t work as well as it should, so things were hard to find.

We were offering a lot of great news and multimedia and interactive content, but most people didn’t know it was there. We figured we owed our readers something easier to use, and we needed to upgrade the site’s functions — better search, better photo display, better video player, etc.

Biggest differences? Readers can customize their home page with a news grid that will automatically display the categories of news that users choose. The home page also offers, at the top, a visual menu of our featured stories that can be set to automatically scroll through those stories, or can be operated manually to give the user more control or a more leisurely pace.

The site search is a lot better and incorporates more of our content, including blogs, so we hope people will use it a lot more. The overall design is much simpler, easier to navigate. Navigation menus are horizontal rather than vertical, which makes them much easier to use. Photos display bigger.

The site in general is more visually appealing. There’s a video tutorial on the site that explains a lot of this.

Q. The N&O is part of a crowded media market. How does the new site help the paper compete against WRAL.com and other news outlets?

A. Our site, frankly, is much deeper than our competitors’ sites. We offer more news, and far more contextual content, than other sites.

Our writing is better and more complete. Our reporting on important issues is far and away the best in this area; it really can’t be touched. I think even our best story videos are better than what the TV stations do.

I believe that readers intuitively know this, but it’s not always obvious when you look at our current site because it’s not presented as well as it should be, and it’s a little intimidating. I hope the redesign will make the richness of our content more obvious and more readily available, and that will make more people choose us as their primary news site.

Editors at newspapers spend a great deal of time and energy on writing headlines. And for good reason — headlines attract attention, and some live on decades after they are written. This is the seventh in a series of posts on memorable headlines.

THE HEADLINE: “I’M SORRY… SEND ME MONEY”

THE PUBLICATION: The Huffington Post

THE STORY: In September 2009, Rep. Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, caused a commotion when he shouted “you lie!” as President Barack Obama spoke to Congress. The fallout included an apology and a fund-raising effort by Wilson and his Democratic opponent in the 2010 election.

ITS SIGNIFICANCE: This headline is more noteworthy for how it was done than what it said. The Huffington Post put out a call on Twitter, inviting readers to submit ideas for headlines for this story. Anyone on Twitter could offer a suggestion by using the hashtag #headlinehelp.

The winning submission was a hit because it generated about 100,000 clicks, according to HuffPo co-founder Arianna Huffington. She said that the site will continue to try “crowdsourcing” headlines on occasion.

Many readers seemed to like this approach to headline writing. “This is a good idea,” read one comment. “The headlines need improvement. I’d rather have a little snark than an overdramatized eye-grabber anytime.”

At least a few professional editors, however, may prefer “outsourcing” as the name for this practice. “How much are they paying?” asked Patrick LaForge, director of copy desks at The New York Times. Yes, he used Twitter and the hashtag to ask that question, which has apparently gone unanswered.

Laura Leslie covers state government for WUNC radio, and she also blogs about that topic at Isaac Hunter’s Tavern. Leslie is the president of Capitolbeat, the national association of statehouse reporters and editors. In this interview, conducted by e-mail, Leslie talks about her blog, her use of Twitter and the state of journalism.

Q. You’re a broadcaster and a blogger at WUNC. How do you balance those roles?

A. Broadcasting comes first. It’s our primary purpose, it reaches more people, and it’s what I get paid to do. The online work is sort of a labor of love.

I pushed for the blog for almost two years before my bosses agreed to let me try it as a volunteer effort — I don’t get credit for the time I spend working on it, and I’m still expected to produce just as much radio as people who don’t blog. But their attitude toward it has warmed some as it’s taken off. None of us, especially me, expected it would find such a big audience.

When I started writing it, I was thinking it could be sort of an extension of my notebook — I could just slap my radio scripts up there and build them out with the extra stuff there wasn’t time for on the air. But I learned pretty quickly that doesn’t work. It’s a different style of writing, aimed at a different audience, and it offers a much richer palette of storytelling tools – links, graphics, etc. — than radio does.

One surprising outcome is that the blog has helped me become a much stronger radio writer than I used to be. The best way to write for the radio is to write like you talk, in your own voice. That’s harder than it sounds. I think writing the Tavern has helped me develop that skill because that’s in my own voice, too.

Q. You’re also active on Twitter. What do you like about that format to “broadcast” the news?

A. I love its immediacy, of course, and its portability — I tweet from my phone at events or from my desktop at the legislature.

It also forces you to boil it down. When you’ve only got 140 characters to work with, you’ve really got to focus on what you want to get across. It’s like writing a good headline a dozen times a day.

When I live-tweet an event, I treat it like my notebook. When it’s over, I can go back and build radio stories or blog posts out of those nuggets of information.

I also love the way tags allow you to follow a range of people at different events in real time. At the legislature, if you follow #NCGA, you can see what’s going on in various committee rooms – it’s like being able to track six meetings at once. Plus, you get the benefit of multiple perspectives. When you’ve got lobbyists, lawmakers and reporters all tweeting about an event, you get a lot more information about what’s at stake and why it matters.

Q. For your blog, how do editing and headline writing work? Do you have someone read back on your posts?

A. I don’t get an edit before it goes live. In the beginning, that was because our platform wouldn’t allow for that. Now, it probably would, but we’ve just settled into doing it this way.

I write a post, I come up with a header of some kind, and I let my bosses know about it. They go back and look it over for typos or mistakes, sometimes a day later.

My most dependable editors are my readers. They’re quick to let me know when a link doesn’t work or I’ve misspelled something. I always say thank you when they do, and I mean it.

Q. What advice do you have to student journalists who want to go into the field nowadays?

A. Number one, learn every medium or platform you can, as early as you can, even if you’re not sure how or when you’ll ever use it. I can’t say that strongly enough.

Audio, video, blogging, Twitter — these are all tools for storytelling, and who doesn’t want a bigger toolbox? Even more importantly, get good at learning new media, because you’re going to be doing it on a regular basis as technology evolves.

I think the smartest way to think about our field these days is in terms of what we do, not how we do it. A journalist is a journalist, regardless of your mode of communication. We aren’t “print” or “broadcast” or “online” anymore. We’re doing it all.

That’s a change some older journalists have had a hard time accepting. You hear a lot of complaints: “Why should I have to do X? It’s taking time away from my reporting. ” No, it IS your reporting now.

We have better tools than ever to be smart, absorbing storytellers. The journalists who succeed will be the ones who focus on the potential of those tools, not the drawbacks.

Brian Russell is the owner of Carrboro Creative Coworking in Carrboro, N.C. He also blogs at Yesh.com. In this interview, conducted by e-mail, Russell discusses what coworking might mean for journalism.

Q. What is coworking? How is it different from going into a coffeehouse and working on a laptop?

A. Coworking is a movement of freelance workers who are joining together to share resources like office space, Internet access, etc. This movement is in the process of going mainstream. It’s poised to really influence how corporations of all size see work. Freelancers aren’t the only ones who will work this way.

Coworking spaces usually have a very professional atmosphere in contrast to coffeehouses. But they are often focused on the type of professionals that use them. For example, Carrboro Creative Coworking has a lot of freelance software engineers. We work hard and play hard together.

Q. What kinds of people are coworking? Are writers and editors trying it?

A. All kinds of people are coworking. Many of them are involved in Web development. But we have many journalists and writers at our space.

These folks really understand the value of community. It’s a natural fit for this type of professional.

Q. Newspapers have typically operated from a central newsroom with bureaus in surrounding communities. Now, many bureaus have closed because of financial pressures. How could newspapers use coworking to cover the news?

A. Newspapers could use coworking spaces as ad hoc gathering places to meet and create news. Journalists should be in the field covering the news and regenerating the news beats of old.

Coworking spaces are also greater community hubs. With a diverse group of people working in the same place, lead generation is amplified. Plus, coworking spaces are about sharing resources and are very cost effective.

Q. In addition to coworking, you have experience in Web development and citizen journalism. In your opinion, how can newspapers better use online media?

A. Journalists must be active participants in our physical and virtual, online communities. Online media is social. No more passive observation. This means reporting should be a two-way process.

The Clue Train Manifesto explains it this way: “A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter — and getting smarter faster than most companies.”

(Photo by BrianR.)

I spent a few days in Boston this week at the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. I participated in these sessions, met with the good people from NewsU and saw some old friends.

My favorite session was a discussion on Tuesday afternoon about the future of editing instruction. I was on the panel with Rick Kenney of the University of Central Florida and Jill Van Wyke of Drake University. Two students who are Dow Jones editing internships at the Cape Cod Times were also on the panel, and their candid comments were the highlight of the day.

Susan Keith of Rutgers served as the moderator, and she posed this question to the students: What would you remove from the editing courses you took?

One of the students described spending a great deal of time hearing about the role of journalism in the Watergate scandal, a topic that came up in several courses. “After a while, we get it,” she said. The other student said that her editing professor still taught students how to hand-count headlines with pencil and paper. Both wished that they had gotten more experience with online editing and multimedia journalism.

Perhaps there is still some value to knowing that an uppercase W uses more space in a headline than a lowercase i. And yes, journalism students should know about Watergate, just as every American should.

But the students were right: Those who teach editing need to rethink how they use their time in the classroom. How do we best prepare students for not just the future, but for the present?

We professors on the panel offered some ideas about how that can be done, and you can see some of our suggestions in this .pdf handout. Tim Lynch, a former Los Angeles Times copy editor, has some ideas too.

We don’t have all the answers, but it’s obvious from the students on this panel that editing instructors must constantly revise what they teach. That’s something every faculty member on the panel and in that room learned on Tuesday.

I’ve spent part of my summer working with 12 talented students at UNC-Chapel Hill on Powering A Nation, a Web site that looks at the intersection of energy and demographics. The site, which debuted Friday, is part of the News21 project.

As one of several faculty coaches, I advised the project’s editing team on issues of work flow, story editing, alternative story forms, word choice and headlines. It was a pleasure to work with this group in our newsroom.

It’s important to note that members of the editing team also served as reporters. As reporters wrapped up their stories, they were sometimes drafted for other duties, including help with editing. As you can see on the site’s “making of” blog, everyone did a bit of everything.

The idea behind News21 is to serve as an incubator for multimedia journalism, where students can chart a course for the future of news. My time with the students this summer reinforced my belief that editing will play a significant role in that future.

The annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, which will take place this year in Boston, brings together about 2,000 journalism professors and media professionals. Editing has a prominent place on this year’s agenda, notably in these three events:

The Future of Editing. An afternoon of sessions on Tuesday, Aug. 4, will look at the state of editing and where it’s going. Chris Wienandt, president of the American Copy Editors Society, will be among the panelists.

Great Ideas for Teachers. This annual contest is a great place to pick up some new teaching ideas. Some of this year’s 25 winners have an editing angle; they will be on display on the afternoon of Wednesday, Aug. 5.

Breakfast of Editing Champions. Faculty members and newsroom editors will get together at this session on Thursday, Aug. 6. We’ll swap teaching ideas and discuss what is happening in the field and what’s to come.

I’m playing a role in each of these events, and I hope to see you there.