Two takes on the Edwards scandal

How does traditional newswriting differ from blogging? It's not always clear cut, because some bloggers write in the same straight-ahead style as The Associated Press. Others have attitude. The latest news in the rise and fall of John Edwards offers some insight into blogging versus straight news. The story is about a new book by …

A boy’s view of editing

My 9-year-old son, Ross, is a faithful reader of the newspaper, especially the sports section. He sometimes takes note of editing errors: "They messed up again, Dad." Looking at the latest newsletter from the American Copy Editors Society this week, Ross noticed the top story about "newspaper copy desks across the nation dealing with fewer …

Q&A with Stephanie Beck, producer at WRAL

Stephanie Beck is the 6 p.m. news producer at TV station WRAL in Raleigh, N.C. Beck, who once aspired to be a features writer for a newspaper or magazine, started at the station in the mid 1990s as videotape editor. In this interview, conducted by e-mail, Beck discusses her job as producer (which includes story …

That joke isn’t funny anymore

Briefs columns have long been a fixture of newspapers. They give editors a handy way to collect and compile tidbits of information that may not merit an entire story. Briefs are especially useful now in the age of shrinking page sizes and diminishing news hole, but that's not easy because of cutbacks and consolidation. Plus, …

An appetite for anonymity

The New York Times ran a blockbuster story on its front page Sunday about John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina who ran for president in 2004 and 2008. The topic of the NYT story is Edwards' extramarital affair and a grand jury investigation into whether payments to Edwards' mistress broke the law. The …

Editing for the future with News21

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 …

Time’s up for this phrase

John McIntyre, blogger at You Don't Say, recently listed leads to avoid. Pam Robinson at Words at Work offered a collection of "not alone" sentences. I'd like to add another to the list of worn-out phrases: references to "15 minutes of fame." Andy Warhol's famous statement, uttered in 1968, lives on even though the artist …

An open letter to Madoff on the front page

A front-page story in The News & Observer last week set off an unusual exchange of letters to the editor. The news was the arrival of financier Bernard Madoff at a federal prison in Butner, N.C. The letters weren't about Madoff so much as the tone and approach of the story, which was written as …

Editing at AEJMC

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. …

Copy editors are storytellers too

Pam Robinson at Words at Work has taken note of yet another article about the future of newspapers. This piece, posted on The Moderate Voice, mentions some ill-considered advice from an editor at a New Jersey newspaper: Restructure the newsroom. Half of the journalists are involved in the “processing” of news — copy editing, writing …