Q. What is the purpose of The Carolina Mercury as a self-described “filtered aggregator of news with occasional bits of analysis”?

A. Eventually, we want the Mercury to be a mix of longer essays, visual elements (slideshows, video) as well as the shorter posts were doing these days to clue folks about issues and news events. Right now, we’re just trying to keep up with a news cycle that’s in hyperdrive because of the legislative session, so most of our posts are in the shorter style.

I think one of the big problems with aggregators, both the automatic ones and the human-initiated kind, is that they give you little or no context. My favorite new phrase for what we’re trying to do with our shorter posts is “curated aggregation,” and it means not just a link and a pull quote, but adding a reason why the story is important and giving the reader some context by noting previous, related stories as well as doing some taxonomy work.

For the various news feeds and Twitter feeds on the site, we’ve actually done some filtering. The Twitter feeds on the site monitor a mix of individuals, organizations and hashtags. The #NCGA (North Carolina General Assembly) and #NCPOL hashtags can occasionally be dominated by trolls, junk posts and people who keep writing tweet after tweet hyping some ideological view, so we’ve got those tweets filtered out to make the feed a better information tool.

Q. What is your role at the Mercury, and what is your job like from day to day?

A. Like I said, right now it’s a madhouse keeping up with legislation and the General Assembly, so that dominates life at present. I’m covering the legislature for two news organizations, one in the mountains and one on the coast, and have two columns a month on public policy to write as well.

My day starts with seeing what bills have been filed or are on the calendar, reviewing them and letting folks know if there’s something significant coming. The volume is so great at times that it’s all triage.

I either drive to Raleigh or tune into the committee hearings and House and Senate session via the web and blog accordingly. I coordinate with Lucy Butcher, who is the other main reporter/editor at the Mercury, on things that are coming up or what’s breaking. It’s all fairly reactive, which is not my favorite mode to be in, but that’s the news business when things are, well, newsy.

After the session, things will change a bit. I’m going to drive around the state for a while looking for interesting stories that do not include the word “legislation.”

Q. What are some of the challenges of covering the General Assembly and state government in general?

A. Keeping calm and carrying on. No, seriously, that is a big part of it because a lot of important changes are being pushed through.

There’s a temptation to cover something because it is outrageous, but you have to have some discipline. You can’t let yourself get distracted by every crazy piece of legislation that comes along. You have to stay focused on what actually might become law.

The longer I’ve done this, the more I dislike politics and all the noise that comes with it. I much prefer a good policy tussle.

The hardest thing about the NCGA this session is that there are so many new members. More than half of legislators are in either their first or second term, and at times, it really shows. There’s such a rush to change things that there’s not a lot of time for legislators to really understand what policies are now and why they’re in place before being asked to change them.

The rest of state government in this era of supermajority is a strange beast. The addition of three times as many political appointees and years of worry about having one’s budget slashed has taken a toll.

Nobody wants to get on the radar screen, meaning no one wants to say anything to the press that could bring down some heat. There’s a lot of self-censorship, and I’m not seeing any headway on making things more transparent.

Q. The big question with digital media is financial. How can sites like the Mercury become economically viable?

A. Do good journalism. Break some stories. Don’t let the site meter run your life, or you’ll end up chasing celebrities, pumping up scandals and ignoring stories that actually make a difference in people’s lives.

If you can do these things, you can find an economic model that works whether that’s a tip jar, subscriptions or some big grant. Whatever you do, don’t think you can do it through advertising. It’s been tried.

Q. Previously, you were editor of The Carrboro Citizen. What has the transition from a print-centric publication to an exclusively online entity been like for you, and what advice would you have for journalists looking to make a similar transition?

A. I always told people that one of the great advantages the Citizen had was that I got to integrate the web and print versions from the start. That was enlightening because it got us past the idea of adapting or converting and into a combined creative process.

It changes your writing if you know you’re going to be able to put the full text of a bill at the bottom of a story or be able to quote extensively from a report. You have to consider how to format, how people read online and how they share stories with each other.

I learned how to make newspapers when they were still made out of molten lead and you had to know how to count headlines. That shaped the profession long after offset changed everything.

You still see the same short verbs and slang created by clever editors for single-column stories. The mental exercise of composing a headline under those circumstances always helped me better understand the story I was writing.

Thinking about how you’d tweet something or post it to your Facebook page isn’t something you’re forced to do since that the big, mean Internet took your print publication away. It’s how information flows now and, frankly, it smells a hell of a lot better than those old linotype machines.

Visit the Carolina Mercury on Facebook and follow its Twitter feed.

This year’s speaker, Ken Lowe of Scripps Networks Interactive, concluded his remarks to the journalism school’s graduates with this observation:

You’re well prepared for the future, which is really about taking lots of facts, lots of information, lots of details, and editing them down to precise, usable and focused takeaways of information and, yes, stories. The world, in my opinion, belongs to you, the editors of our future.

When you think about it, just about everything in life is edited, isn’t it? This program today is edited. This building was edited. The streets on which you came over today were edited. The menu where you ate lunch today was edited.

Curation and the ability to take complex and sometimes difficult information and get it down to something that people can understand is very powerful. You have that in your hands.

It is a message to remember. Even in an age where copy desks are being cut and consolidated, editing is still an essential part of communication and, indeed, life.

Thank you, Ken, for your wise words, and good luck to journalism graduates across the country.

At UNC-Chapel Hill, students are asked to evaluate their courses using an online form. I was happy to see that most of mine had taken the time to provide feedback.

Course evaluations are useful. Here’s why.

To the instructor: I read the evaluations carefully, taking time not only to see how students ranked various aspects of a course, but also looking for comments that can help me teach a course better the next time around. Over the years, I have adjusted readings and assignments based on student feedback.

To the department and university: Course evaluations play an important role in decisions regarding tenure and promotion. They are the primary method for assessing a professor’s effectiveness in the classroom. At UNC, tenured professors are reviewed every five years on teaching, research and service. Again, the student evaluations are essential.

Thanks to the students this semester for their kind words and constructive criticism. I’ll consider your suggestions.

I cannot, however, honor your most frequent request: Eliminate 8 a.m. classes. You’ll have to take that idea to the chancellor.

Students could pick any product or service, real or fictional. The assignment asked them to identify a target audience, pick a medium and write a message that would sell the good or service. Other tips: use a celebrity endorsement and use the bandwagon appeal.

My son used Xtranormal to create this ad for a personal hygiene product. I find it to be highly effective spot, and I am glad that he’s learning about advertising techniques so he will be a savvy consumer.

Who knows? Perhaps my son will grow up to be a “mad man” of the 21st century — or even better, the next Darrin Stephens.

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

A. A typical day involves a combination of Travel and Food stories. I began my career in Southern Living’s Food department as a recipe editor, so a lot of my experience involves recipe-related copy editing. When I moved to the Copy Desk in 2011, I took over the Travel department’s copy editing as well. This means that my day is spent balancing the needs of both departments’ copy.

For my Travel stories, I’ll begin the day by making fact-checking calls, which means that I reach out to contacts as varied as park rangers, interior designers and PR reps. We make a concerted effort to maintain the factual accuracy of our stories, so this is an important step in the editorial process, and the bulk of this responsibility falls on the Copy Desk.

In addition to fact-checking stories, I’ll edit the text and input any changes into the copy on the network (we use InCopy to manage our stories). It’s a simple process — but multiply it by 15 stories per issue with anywhere from 1 to 50 sources to check per story, and you’ve got a lot to balance while maintaining accuracy.

Food stories are an entirely different animal. Our recipes are developed in-house by our Test Kitchen, and each one goes through a complicated testing phase before it reaches my desk. When a story is ready for copy editing, a manila folder will find its way to me, and that means that the recipes inside it have passed the Food department’s review and are ready for my read.

We have a strict food style that is outlined in a 200-page stylebook, and I use this as my guide when I edit the recipes. I begin by doing a top read of all the recipes in a story (on average, four to six of various lengths). Then I examine the testing notes for each recipe. This means I read handwritten notes from each stage of testing (a minimum of two to three). I’m looking for discrepancies: Did the amount of flour stay the same from one test to the next? The lemon zest was increased in test two but not updated on the latest version of the recipe. Should it have been?

These are easy questions in and of themselves, but recipes are complicated endeavors with important things at stake. One wrong word, and you’ve ruined Christmas dinner (or worse, burned down a kitchen). If I find a discrepancy, I work with the Test Kitchen to get it resolved. At the end of this process, I once again enter my edits into the story copy on the network.

In between all of this reading and editing, I have the luck of attending a taste testing each day with the Food department. A lunchtime break for my eyes is very welcomed, and the food isn’t too shabby either.

Q. What are some challenges of editing for the magazine? Rewards?

A. Time is a copy editor’s worst enemy (perhaps right next to a spell-checker). We are not a weekly publication, but when we head into production, stories can move through the pipeline swiftly.

You may need a full day to get a story into perfect shape, but because of that looming deadline, you’ll only have a few hours. You have to learn to be smart with your time, balance multiple deadlines, and still produce the top-notch work that is expected of you.

As for rewards, there are many. First, my co-workers. You spend more time with the people you work with than you do with your family (especially during production), so you need to really like your co-workers. Southern Living has a great staff, if I do say so myself.

Also, for someone who loves to eat, you can’t beat a slice of fresh-from-the-oven apple-carrot cake (destined to grace the magazine’s cover) on a random Tuesday afternoon. I leave work every day with a very happy stomach (and sometimes snag leftovers for my husband too).

Q. Southern Living has an internship program for copy editors. What does the magazine look for when selecting interns?

A. First, an error-free resume and cover letter. This is your first chance to introduce yourself to us, so make sure each of these items is without error.

Next, enthusiasm! We want you to be excited about working with us and helping with our work. Copy editing is meticulous, but rewarding. It will be much more fun for all involved if you enjoy it as much as we do.

Lastly, experience. This doesn’t have to be another internship necessarily, but we do look for what you’ve been involved in that has exposed you to the type of work you’d do for us: fact-checking, copy editing, researching.

Be involved on campus with organizations that will give you exposure to this (The Daily Tar Heel, Blue & White, etc.), and you’ll be able to tout these skills on your resume. It will also help you find and nurture references, which we check with before hiring anyone.

Q. Much of the news media, including magazines, are going digital. What do you see as Southern Living’s place in the changing landscape of news?

A. This is a complicated time for magazines. We’re trying to find our niche in this new digital landscape, and it’s a quickly moving beast.

Southern Living has made huge strides in this arena in the past few years. We’ve carved out market share on our website and in social media. Did you know you can follow us on Instagram and get behind-the-scenes pictures of our taste testings?

We’ve done this by harnessing our relationship with our readers. They feel an ownership of the magazine that is unique to SL.

We have to carry that bond to all platforms that the brand explores — web, video, tablet and more — and be able to maintain our core message successfully. We have to keep our readers’ trust and give them what they expect from us where they expect it, and that means providing content on more than just paper.

We’re striving to continue what we’ve done best all these years — represent Southern culture and tout the wonderful people of our region — on digital platforms that can reach a wider audience than ever before.

People often ask me how to make it in sports writing.

First, the main thing is to write your [expletive] off. But the other thing that’s emerged in importance is being able to edit.

Eyes moving from paper to screen for news and sports coverage have lessened the barrier between traditional media and new media. As a result, we’re seeing increased access being granted to bloggers as credentialed members of the media.

Even with growing respect for new media such as blogs, it’s not enough to just write a lot. Not only should writers be able to write well, but they should be able to edit, too. Creating consistently well-written works is crucial to keeping readers returning to your site and keeping their respect for your writing.

When I talk about consistency, I mostly mean style. I adhere to AP style, but regardless of preference, find a style (or create one) and stick to it. It’s also important to remember that style can bend. You’re writing to connect with people.

Above all, write so that readers of varying levels of knowledge can understand what you say. This also includes fact-checking, checking for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. You should have an inner editor following behind your fingers as you write.

Content placement is also key. With some websites, posts are automatically organized reverse-chronologically. But if you can change that, think critically about which stories will attract the most eyes from the home page.

Blogging is not the dirty word it once was. Starting a website is easy, but to break through and rise into the world of sports writing, an enterprising person needs to not only be able to write but also edit.

A good writer and editor that can write attractive headlines, engaging posts and draw readership can rise through the ranks and enter into the sports writing world with hard work. Being able to do it all in running an independent blog has never been so important in an industry where the level of access required is increasingly being leveled.

The relationship between the government and the media has always been a tricky one. In the three years I’ve been taking classes in the journalism school, I’ve heard time and time again that journalists are supposed to act as the government’s watchdog—though sometimes, that role changes to lapdog, depending on the issue. Regardless of the role, we’ve seen how government scandals and officials have been handled by all kinds of media. Just look at the Pentagon Papers, Wikileaks and Valerie Plame’s outing as an undercover CIA agent in The Washington Post.

But let’s take a step back from the notion of bureaucracy for a second. There’s another aspect of government that the media has to deal with every day, and it doesn’t carry the same stiff reputation. It’s called public diplomacy, which is a more grassroots form of diplomacy that relies on fostering mutual understanding among countries through international communication. Rather than do this through bureaucratic channels, though, public diplomacy relies on the people, which is why it’s often called “the people’s diplomacy.”

The most important word in that definition is communication. Any form of international relations would not exist without it, and the media is the perfect channel through which such communication should occur. No matter the region or the culture, newspapers, blogs and news broadcasts carry the same purpose: to inform.

But the way an event is interpreted by the American media may not be the way it is interpreted by media outlets in Argentina or Laos. This is why editing is so important. I don’t just mean editing for style and grammar, I mean editing for the audience, which may be the most difficult job of all. There are so many questions to ask:

• Is the information presented in the news piece biased toward Americans?
• Does it make any cultural faux pas that could potentially be damaging to international relations?
• How can I word this to make it sound neutral and not hurtful to any other people?

Granted, this isn’t usually a job for the typical journalist, especially one who works at a local newspaper. But if you work at a more prominent U.S. newspaper, especially one with international desks, this is something to keep in mind, as the consequences could build into something irreversible.

As an example of this, I spent my senior year writing an honors thesis that looked at how Filipino women are portrayed by Philippine and Japanese media sources, particularly newspapers. The articles I analyzed were rife with negative images, most of which were based on stereotypes, and all for the sake of familiarity and convenience. Most of the images weren’t even obvious — many were subtle, sneaked into a paragraph through a well-placed word or the absence of another. And the prominence of these constructions give the media power to subordinate minority groups.

This is something we have to avoid. Though I know it’s difficult (and much easier said than done), I want journalists to strive not only to inform their main audience, but the global audience beyond, in a way that really and truly promotes people-to-people communication rather than blind bias. Luckily, the U.S. Department of State is helping local and international journalists with that, as they have several journalism-oriented exchange programs, one of which — the Edward R. Murrow Program — is partly held at UNC’s own j-school.

I know the snag in the road is that there is no such thing as truly bias-free media. But I also believe that there is a point we can reach in our journalistic practices and pieces that can communicate the U.S.’ news and messages to the rest of the world in a way that promotes cross-cultural understanding rather than breaks it. Journalism is no longer — and has never been, really — a narrow, bounded industry. It was meant to be globalized and to globalize. We just have to find the right way to do it.

For the third consecutive year, I asked the students this week whether I should eliminate the portion of the course that focuses on print media and go exclusively digital. And for another year, the answer was a resounding no. The students said they valued the experience of editing, writing headlines and designing pages using InDesign and InCopy. After all, there are still jobs that require those skills.

Over the years, I have incrementally updated the syllabus to include more online editing. This semester, students used Storify for several assignments and wrote and edited posts for Triangle Wiki, a regional version of Wikipedia. (They said they especially enjoyed that assignment.) And each student wrote a guest post for this blog.

I’ll teach Advanced Editing again in spring 2014. Between now and then, I will think about how to add digital content while maintaining the print portion of the course. I’m open to suggestions.

We were still reeling from the news of the bombing at the Boston Marathon on Monday when we learned another devastating explosion had occurred near Waco, Texas, in the early hours of Thursday morning. Images of burning buildings and of the wounded ran constantly, a byproduct of the 24-hour news cycle.

As we cope with these catastrophes, it is critical that we evaluate not only what we information we create and consume, but how we create and consume it. Specifically, we must consider the ethics of photo editing in conflict situations, because of the graphic and exposing nature of these images.

Photos are valuable in conflict situations because they do help viewers understand and contextualize the information they receive; they help tell the story more effectively.

Think to the photographs circulating post-9/11, with which the New York Times did an exceptional job. Those images helped people around the world conceptualize the utter devastation and heart-wrenching grief, as well as the resilience and strength of the human spirit. Both aspects of conflict situations are vital to understand, and photography allows an unprecedented closeness to both extremes.

Journalists often walk a fine line between documenting and exploiting in sensitive situations, and this is particularly true of photos and film.

Photographs offer a seemingly unbiased and unmediated perspective on these events. In essence, they offer the illusion of objectivity. However, objectivity, even in photography, is impossible.

The framing of the photo, the perspective, the focus and the proximity all affect how we interpret the image; all of these elements are determined by a photographer. This fact, combined with the potentially disturbing nature of such photos, means that we must tread very delicately as reporters and editors.

As we edit such images, we must question the ethics of images and avoid exploiting the situation or the victims at all costs. Since such editing is subjective, it comes back to editing and taste. A few things to consider:

• Does the image help propel the story and aid readers, while avoiding sensationalism?
• Is the image respectful of the situation and the victims?
• Does the image present an accurate depiction of the situation?
• As a photographer or editor, would you be willing to be in the image?

Some examples from CNN’s coverage of the bombing at the Boston Marathon will help illustrate the potential problems. Though it isn’t graphic, this CNN slideshow does not propel the story and seems gratuitous.

However, this slideshow includes many graphic images that are both troublesome and seem to lack sensitivity. Additionally, viewers are not warned about the upcoming graphic images. While photograph four does seem to express the chaos of the situation while being deferential to the victims, photograph seven shows, I think, extremely poor taste in editing.

As a faculty member, I like the selection of Folt for a couple of reasons: She’s from outside the UNC system, and she will be the first woman to lead the Chapel Hill campus. After a period of academic and athletic scandals, it’s time for a fresh start and new perspectives.

As an editor, I like Folt’s selection for a couple of other reasons: “Folt” is a short word for headlines in print and online. And “Carol Folt” is an unusual name that is more helpful for search engine optimization than, say, “Becky Jones” would be. Both of those aspects of her name will help headline writers do their jobs well.

Best wishes, Carol, on your move to Chapel Hill. I look forward to seeing your name in the headlines — and for all the right reasons.