COMM 150: News, paper, books, newspapers and TV

In 1985 Neil Postman of New York University wrote a book called "Amusing Ourselves to Death." It was one of those books whose title tells it all, and it is widely considered to be prophetic. His basic thesis is that we are affected by technology in more ways than we realize, and mass communication technology has changed the way we perceive the world ... even the way we think.

Your assignment: Read the linked excerpts from Postman's book and answer the questions below. Post your answers as comments to this blogpost.

But first, some background.

Print media are rational and linear, according to Postman. "To engage the written word means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning. It means to uncover lies, confusions, and overgeneralizations, to detect abuses of logic and common sense. It also means to weigh ideas, to compare and contrast assertions, to connect one generalization to another." That's how it's been since Gutenberg invented printing in the 1450s, but now electronic media are changing that.

At least in the United States, Postman says, television news "abandons logic, reason, sequence and rules of contradiction. In aesthetics, I believe the name given to this theory is Dadaism; in philosophy, nihilism; in psychiatry, schizophrenia. In the parlance of the theater, it is known as vaudeville."

(Dada was a theory of modern art in the 1920s and 30s. It was kind of like a visual form of punk rock. It wasn't supposed to make sense, and the more shock value it had, the better. And vaudeville was kind of a lowbrow popular theater, more like what you'd hear on an adult comtemporary or easy listening station than punk. But you get the idea. Postman doesn't like TV.)

While Postman concentrates on TV news, he doesn't let the print media off the hook. He says they're getting more like TV in their "superficiality and theatrics." In fact, most media analysts would say the print media -- including newspapers -- have gotten even more TV-like in the last 20 years.

The upshot, according to Postman, is a culture that fed a steady diet of "misleading information - misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information - information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing." He adds:

In saying this, I do not mean to imply that television news deliberately aims to deprive Americans of a coherent, contextual understanding of their world. I mean to say that when news is packaged as entertainment, that is the inevitable result. And in saying that the television news show entertains but does not inform, I am saying something far more serious than that we are being deprived of authentic information. I am saying we are losing our sense of what it means to be well informed. Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?

Like most people with a theory to argue, Postman almost certainly overstates his case. But he's been very influential.

Your assignment: Read the excerpts linked to this blogpost, and answer the questions below:

1. Writing in the 1980s, Postman said Americans had strong opinions about Iran during the "Hostage Crisis" in 1979 and 1980 but very little knowledge of "the tenets of Iranian religious beliefs" or "the main outlines of their political history" because TV news didn't go into that kind of background in enough depth. How would you rate coverage of the Middle East today? How would you rate our knowledge of Middle Eastern religion and history?

2. Postman suggested then-President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s got away with giving "mangled and perhaps misleading accounts of his policies or of current events in general" in part because TV audiences weren't interested in straightening out the facts. Postman said other presidents of the day had similarly misled the American people. Does the nature of the news business in a day of 24-7 reporting allow similar things to happen today?

3. Postman said in 1985, "The result of all this is that Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least well-informed people in the Western world." He blamed a steady diet of trivial stories, but also a failure to discriminate between serious stories and fluff ... and a tendency to present serious stories in a fluffy manner. "The problem," he said, "is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining." Do you think the same would hold true today, or have things changed?

COMM 207, 337: Student press furor

Cross-posted to my journalism blogs.

Content advisory. The subject matter of this controversy is offensive to many readers.

A student newspaper in New Britain, Conn., is in the news for a joke about locking a "14-year-old Latino girl" in a closet and urinating on her. The editors say they're within their First Amendment rights to publish it -- and the consensus is they're probably quite correct about that -- but the incident raises questions about professional standards and student journalism.

The cartoon appeared in last week's edition of The Recorder, student paper at Central Connecticut State University. It is difficult to describe, but The Hartford Courant made a creditable effort when it broke the story last week:

The comic strip printed in Wednesday's edition features a triangle-shaped figure talking on the phone with a square figure. When the triangle tells the square that his urine smells funny whenever he eats a certain cereal, the square asks if his urine tastes funny, too.

"I dunno," the triangle replies. "I'd have to ask that 14 year old Latino girl tied up in the closet."

In one of the panels, a chain can be seen over a closet door, and a voice from behind says "I'm hungry" in Spanish.

Underneath the comic, a message from the paper's editors says, "The Recorder does not support the kidnapping of (and subsequent urinating on) children of any age or ethnicity."

This is strike two for the student paper, the Courant noted. Last school year it published what was intended to be a satire praising rape as a "magical experience" for "ugly women."

Central Connecticut State president Jack Miller has come under fire for not cracking down on the paper, but he says he has to balance interests at a public, tax supported university. "While I recognize that the Recorder's right to publish is secured by the First Amendment and a broad range of judicial court decisions, I must say that I am offended by the decisions of the editorial staff, and Mark Rowan in particular. ... I share the concerns of my Latin American colleagues and students and others for the hurt inflicted by the editor's decision to run this offensive cartoon."

I have to sympathize on both counts. The First Amendment does protect offensive speech, but I also think the paper was highly unprofessional.

• The Hartford Courant, arguably Connecticut's most influential daily, summed up its attitude today in an editorial headlined "Recorder Hits The Gong Again." The Courant said controversy can be a good thing if it's in a good cause, but neither the rape column nor the earlier cartoon remotely qualify. "Both used questionable, insensitive and crude humor to demean women. They also appear calculated to generate controversy for its own sake. As such, they're a morally empty exercise; the literary equivalent of sticking one's tongue on a street sign in winter and reading aloud from the First Amendment."
  
  
• The Michigan Daily, a independent student newspaper in Ann Arbor, Mich. Opinion page blogger Gary Garca also noted The Record's past lapses and adds, "The cartoon is not only degrading and humorless, it has no point. Offensive speech just for the sake of being offensive is unproductive and hardly the point of the First Amendment. While some of the responses have been a little dramatic, including that from the university’s president who wants to cut off advertising (which would essentially shut down the paper), this type of material shouldn’t be accepted." [Boldface type in the original.]

One last point. Latin American women don't call themselves Latinos. They're Latinas. If they're aware enough of their heritage to use the word, they'll know "-a" is the feminine ending in Spanish. So the cartoon is not only tasteless and demeaning. It's ignorant.

COMM 207: An "Outfit" you don't wear in Chicago

We're reading about words for class Tuesday, and here's a piece of writing that uses words in a special way. It's a column by John Kass in the Sunday Trib. Kass writes a metro column in which he tries to project a wise-guy, streetwise tone (modeled after longtime Trib, Sun-Times and Chicago Daily News columnist Mike Royko), and this one is full of inside dope. It's also full of words and word choices that are self-consciously (I think a little too self-consciously) pure Chicago-ese. It's about a man named Raymond John "Rayjo" Tominello, and here's the way Kass describes him.

Tominello, 67, is considered a mathematical genius. He was convicted in 1989 of running the Chicago Outfit's illegal sports book operation under the supervision of the legendary Donald "The Wizard of Odds" Angelini and Dominic Cortina.

In 1989, Angelini, Cortina and Tominello all pleaded guilty, a week after their indictment on federal racketeering charges. Tominello served less than a year in federal prison. Angelini and Cortina have since died. But Rayjo still thrives, at least in real estate.

The rest of the column is about a real estate deal in Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's home neighborhood of Bridgeport. Kass' column gets a little convoluted at times, but it's worth looking at, both for what it says and -- more interestingly -- what it doesn't say.

But I was going to talk about words first. By the way, I love that nickname for the bookie. "The Wizard of Odds."

The "Outfit," in Chicago, is what is more commonly called the Mafia or the mob. So why doesn't Kass use the more common word? My guess is he's slyly patting his readers on the back, insinuating they're so with it and knowledgeable they don't need to have it explained to them. But in case anybody needs it (and some readers will), Kass slips in the explanation in the next 'graph when he speculates that Bridgeport developer Thomas DiPiazza, a mutual friend of Tominello's and Daley's who has consulted with the mayor on other real estate ventures, "has a mobbed-up business associate."

You'll want to read this part carefully, because Kass suggests a little more than he comes out and says. And in the next 'graph after that, he adds:

Of course the mayor will say he didn't know about it. And that may be true. He might not have ever heard the name Rayjo in his entire life, even though they're about the same age and grew up in the same neighborhood. Can't coincidences happen in Chicago?

What's the effect of this disclaimer? What is Kass saying here? And what is he not coming right out and saying?

Kass goes on, with one of the better quotes I've read lately. It comes when he calls Tominello's lawyer for comment.

"I really can't answer any questions. Have a good day sir," said [the lawyer], before hanging up the phone. Tominello did not respond to repeated attempts to contact him, through his attorneys and at his homes. That's too bad. It would have been nice to hear how he transformed his life, from Outfit bookie to Mr. Real Estate with Tommy D.

Kass adds, in the same innocent tone he's used before:

Investing in real estate with guys who know Mayor Daley isn't a crime, not even for a bookie. Understanding Chicago doesn't come by reading official press releases, but by reading the tracks of exotic creatures in public records.

I'm not going to say Kass' column is a hatchet job. It appears to be well sourced, both through interviews with people who have knowledge of Chicago real estate and examination of public records. It's not unknown for real estate developers to have relationships with elected officials. Nor is it unknown for them to have relationships with the Mafia or the Chicago Outfit. And, most important of all, Kass is writing a bylined column. That means he's allowed to speculate.

But I think he's also patting himself on the back, and patting his readers on the back, by hyping Chicago's rough, tough, streetwise image (not to mention his own) and the city's reputation for political corruption.

COMM 207: New extra credit

Look at the correct answers to the last extra-credit question, and rewrite them with the commas in correct AP style. Post as comments to this post.

COMM 207: Trademarks (in-class assignment)

Here's a link to a recipe for a cake that resembles a common pet owner's household product. Revise it for publication in a family newspaper that uses the Associated Press stylebook. See especially the sections on trademarks and brand names. Attribute it to the blogger who posted this version of the recipe. Be sure to follow AP guidelines on the use of trade names. We will discuss some of the issues in class before you start writing. Due in class. Today.

(You may need to surf around her website to find the blogger's real name.

(Oh, and as long as we're talking about surfing around, the easiest way to verify a trade name is to Google it ... oops! ... I meant, perform a keyword search on the Google search engine. See how it works? If you get a corporate webpage as your first hit, you're dealing with a registered trademark.)

Here are some questions to consider:

• Would you run it in a family newspaper? What are the arguments for running it? What are the arguments against?
  
  
• What are the rules for using a trade name? When do you use the trade name, and when do you use a generic? When do you use caps and when do you use lower-case?

Here's a summary of the law on trademarks put up by Iowa State University. It says in part:

If the owner of a trademark has spent time and money in presenting a service or product to the consumer, the owner should be able to protect this investment by being allowed to prevent others from using the trademark and profiting from the owners investment.

Test your copy editor's eye, by the way, on this passage. See the error? It's still a good statement of the basic law on trademarks. And the Iowa State webpage has one of the best explanations I've seen of the reasoning behind it.

COMM 150: Social responsbility of press

Here's an important supplement to the discussion of newspapering in our textbook. It's known as the "social responsibilty theory" of the press, or media. Here are some readings that will help you better understand how the news media are supposed to fit into our system of government and society, and to come to your own evaluation of how well the media live up to their responsibilities.

First, a "History of Journalism Ethics" by Stephen J. A. Ward of the University of British Columbia. It's a good, concise explanation of how the role(s) of the media have evolved since the 1450s into the 21st century.

One thing that's maddening, though. Ward summarizes an important book titled Four Theories of the Press (1956). But he only lists three:

Authoritarian. Prevailing theory when kings and inquisitors censored the press -- or tried to! -- during the 1500s and 1600s.
Libertarian. The English and American theory of a free press owned by private enterprise as a counterbalance to government.
Social responsibility. A 20th-century offshoot of the libertarian model, with more emphasis on the duty of the media to society.

OK, OK. But what's the fourth theory of the press? Read on.

An online journalism course for high school students in Oregon has an excellent summary of the "Four Theories of the Press." There you'll find out the fourth theory was called "Soviet-Totalitarian." (Remember, the book came out in 1956 at the height of the Cold War.) It's basically the same as the authoritarian model.

Also on Oregon's COOLSchool website is a thought-provoking discussion of "Four Functions of the Press." For the record, they are: (1) To Serve the Economic System: (2) To Entertain; (3) To Inform; and (4) To Influence.

How do these functions complement and/or conflict with each other?

"Knowing the functions of the press will help you understand the media and how it works in a free society," suggest Sue and Dean Barr, Eugene, Ore., authors of the curriculum. "Remember, the purpose of a free press is to guarantee free and open debate and discussion. If the media is too cautious, then people come to think the press should make them feel good and bring consensus. There should be a level of discomfort; if no one is ruffled, then the media has failed."

I would add only this: These issues, and how any conflicts among them might be resolved, were all over the midterm spring semester.

COMM 207: Extra credit for Thursday

As an inducement to get more people looking at the blog and answering the daily extra credit question(s), I will try to set this one up so it is not too intellectually demanding. Answer all three questions.

1. In what large German city is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung located?

a. Frankfurt, Germany.
b. New Berlin, Ill.
c. Frankfort, Ky.
d. the Cozy Dog Drive In on South 6th Street in Springfield, Ill.

2. How many spaces do you leave after a period when you're writing copy that will be set in type?

a. one.
b. two.
c. three.
d. as many as you @#$%! well please.

3. Do you see a pattern in the answers to these questions?

a. yes.
b. no.
c. maybe.
d. what questions?

Post your answers as comments to this blog.

COMM 207: AP Stylebook, the parts to know

Here's a list of some of the really confusing and really important entries in the AP Stylebook. Go through the Stylebook and circle the key words and the page numbers. Carry the book with you, and/or keep it in the bathroom for those moments when you want something quick to read and don't have enough time to curl up with "War and Peace." Some are easy to learn. Some aren't.

But you'll learn them in time. The sections below include the most important differences between AP style and the style you used in college papers:

abbreviations and acronyms. It's important. And tricky in places. I wouldn't try to learn it all at once, but I would start using the more common abbreviations. Using the right abbreviation in the right place is one of the marks of a professional journalist's copy.

addresses. Picky, picky. And arbitrary, arbitary. Learn at least the main guidelines, and know to look up the exceptions.

capitalization. In general, you'll use fewer capitals in AP style than you did in English papers. But there are lots of exceptions and special cases.

cents. See also dollars and percent. The principles are related. Write dollars and cents like this: $4 without the zeroes if it's a round number, $4.15 or whatever if it isn't. Cents like this: 15 cents. Percents like this: 30 percent.

composition titles. Basically you put titles in quotes for a newspaper that you would ordinarily underline or put in italics for college papers.

directions and regions. It's all about when to capitalize something like "central Illinois" and when not to. It's basically like the rule you learned in English classes, but it has a couple of wrinkles of its own.

fewer, less You'll make fewer mistakes if you know this, and you'll be less likely to get it wrong, too.

governmental bodies. Newspapers are full of government news. I know, I know. That's why they're losing readers. But till the last dying newspaper goes out of business, you'll be writing about governmental bodies. This item tells you how.

it's, its It's essential for you to put the apostrophe in its proper place.

midnight. Also see noon. The only times of the day you don't use "a.m." or "p.m." You don't use numbers, either. The Stylebook explains why.

more than. Also see over. Use "more than" with numbers of things, "over" with heights.

numerals This is probably the one that's hardest -- and most important -- to learn in the whole book. It's important because the rules are different than they are in more formal writing, and following the AP rules on numbers will mark your copy as being written by a pro. So keep the Stylebook in the bathroom, so your fancy can lightly turn to the section on numerals instead of, say, Tennyson whenever you're looking for a few minutes of light reading matter.

plurals. Did I say numerals was the hardest? Maybe it's plurals. What's worse, numerals and plurals come up all the time. You'll never run out of fun stuff to read in the AP Stylebook!

possessives. AP's rules defy logic. So you'd better learn them. More reading for the bathroom.

state names. The tricky part is the abbreviations, which are not the same ones the Postal Service uses. Learn a few you're likely to use, like "Ill." and "Mo." Look up the rest. I guess you could memorize them, but do you really think you'll be writing that much about Casper, Wyo.?

time element, time of day and times. Picky, picky, picky. But the rules make sense once you get used to them.

titles. Don't try to learn them all. Just know this section is there when you need it. And you'll need it often.

trademark. The principle here is you don't give free advertising to a commercial product. Nor do you want to dilute the value of somebody else's brand by using it loosely. See brand names above, and, for an example, "Xerox," below.

Xerox The stylebook says: "A trademark for a brand of photocopy machine. Never a verb." Why? It's a trademark that belongs to Xerox Corp. The verb you want, by the way, is photocopy.

yesterday AP says: "Use only in direct quotes or in phrases that do not reference a specific day." Why not? It's a relative term, so it changes every day. What's yesterday today is day-before-yesterday tomorrow, and what's tomorrow today is today tomorrow. Clear enough?

We'll look at punctuation separately later. But for now, here's one rule on commas you can start practicing now: When you have three items in a series, don't put a comma after the last one. It should look like this instead: "... ham, eggs and toast." And the rule on spaces after a period is different, too. Only use one space after a period. Not two, like you were taught in school. One. Always. Only one. If you double-space after a period, you mess up the justification (the spacing between words and columns). And you look like an amateur. You don't want to do either, right?

COMM 207: Extra credit question(s)

I promised you I would post my next extra-credit question in a more obvious place than the last one, which was hidden in plain view -- in my response to your comments on the reading we did in class Tuesday.

My questions were: (1) Now that you've read Chapter 3 in our textbook, how much editing do editors do? (2) Were you surprised to learn that? And (3) Do you consider this a trick question?

Congratulations to Jill, who not only found and answered the question, but found something in the chapter I hadn't noticed. She emailed me:

After looking up a few definitions of editor, "How much editing do editors do?" tends to be a trick question. Before taking any journalism classes, I always thought of editors as someone who gramatically corrects articles before they appear in the newspaper. In Chapter 3, I learned there are many different types of editors. The copy editor seems to be the one who looks over the grammar and corrects typos. The other editors are in charge of making sure everything happens exaclty the way it should in the newsroom. One definition of editor I found stated, "ed·it - To prepare (written material) for publication or presentation, as by correcting, revising, or adapting." This is what I had in mind before taking this class. Another definition said, "ed·it - To supervise the publication of (a newspaper or magazine, for example)." After researching this, I found that your question could be considered a trick question depending on which definition you go by. If you are a copy editor, you do a lot of correcting and revising. If you are an editor-in-chief, your duties would include more supervision of the publication.

In COMM 207, we will be dealing mostly with that first sense of the word.

But, now, I promised you an extra credit question. And I promised not to hide it like I did the last time ...

... so here's your extra-credit question for Tuesday:

Katie Couric can wear a blouse of what color in order to silence her critics?

Did everybody see that? The extra credit question is in the paragraph above. If you've read this far without noticing it, you've gone too far. Turn around and check the 'graf above. This time, you can post your answers below as comments to this blog post.

For extra, extra credit, tell me the name of the media critic for The Washington Post who quoted Couric about blouses and the blog about newspapering that linked to his story. You should know this guy's name. Hint: It starts with the same letter as Katie Couric's first name and rhymes with "shirts" (but not "blouses"). He's one of the best in the business.

If you read "Heart of Darkness" in high school, here's another hint. This Mistah _____, he not dead. He's very much alive.

If you're wondering if there's any point to any of this, stop wondering. There is. You should get in the habit of reading media criticism, and you should know the name of the media critic for The Washington Post at a minimum. I just think you're more likely to remember it if you go through dumb little exercises like this to learn it.

COMM 207, 337: Newspapers, news and the internet

Cross-posted to both my masscomm. blogs. -- pe

Here's one from a guy you should get familiar with, media critic Jack Shafer of the electronic magazine Slate.com. This column on how newspapers serve up a steady diet of leftovers from their internet editions is especially timely for students in Communications 207 (editing for publication) because it updates the chapter on news editing and copy flow we read for Thursday, but it's important for all of us.

What does the future hold for newspapers? That's anybody's guess, but you'll be able to guess better after you read Shafer.

And it will affect all of us, even those of you who have no intention of going into the newspaper business (or like me who have no intention of going back to newspapering). The news business still sets a lot of the standards for the communications industry. So it's worth knowing.

Besides, questions like this -- what does the future hold for newspapers? -- have a way of popping up on midterm and final exam essay tests.

Read it, and be ready to discuss in class.

Romenesko's newspapering blog
Here's another link. It's to Jim Romenesko's blog on newspapering and the newspaper business. Everything you need to know (and some you don't!) to keep up with the industry.

Check out, for example, the link to Washington Post metro columnist Mark Fisher's column on the Capitol Hill blogger who "outs" gay politicians. The headline catches Fisher's tone nicely: "Who Among Us Would Cast the First Stone? This Guy." Romenesko keeps track of the news biz for the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. There's a world of information in the FAQ about his blog, which is titled, logically enough, Romenesko.

COMM 207: Read, post, discuss (2nd chance)

Here's another chance for you to: (1) get some more practice posting comments to the blog; or (2) make your first successful post to the blog. For today, I asked you to read the part on ethics in Chapter 2. In class, I want you to read the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists and react to a story that's in the news today.

The Code of Ethics gives four basic principles -- which I summarize as tell the truth, minimize harm, be accountable to your readers (and not somebody else) and clean up your messes -- and lists any number of factual instances where the priniciples might apply.

The story is about a Washington, D.C., blogger who "outs" homosexual lawmakers and policy makers. He says what he does is ethical because they vote against gay causes. Others, including some of the people he's outed, would disagree.

Here's the question: According to your interpretation of the SPJ Code of Ethics, is it right for somebody writing a political newsletter to "out" congressmen over a public issue of this nature? Or should their right of privacy be respected? Please note: I am not asking whether you think homosexuality, politics and/or Congress are moral. The issues I'm interested in are journalistic ethics and the right to privacy. In analyzing the question, it will help you to make a list on scrap paper of which specific parts of the SPJ Code are involved in this story. You may get different parts of the code telling you different things -- i.e. don't publish because ..., do publish because ... and so on -- because that's the way it often happens in the real world.

If you're not sure how to post, ask me. I'll be glad to help you.

COM 150, 207, 337: Career advice for journalism students

Cross-posted to all my blogs.

Found while surfing The San Francisco Chronicle's website SFGate, a "30 piece" by outdoors writer Paul McHugh with a bit of advice for any young people considering making journalism a career." He sums it up in three words:

Go for it!

The column, which ran in the print edition Thursday, was McHugh's last. He's retiring after 22 years on the outdoors beat.

"I'm about to fold my tent and take a hike," said McHugh. "And yes, I do mean that literally."

Like many journalists, McHugh said he's proudest of the stories that exposed abuses and helped correct them:

One great part of a newspaper job is that it awards permission to ask questions and seek answers. I've focused on trying to wield that power well, particularly while facing folks who didn't seem inclined to answer. This job hasn't been only about fun; I've striven to address real resource and public-access issues.

On a few occasions, I've been able to perform investigative work that's at the heart of our journalistic mission. I broke up a cabal of the heedless and malfeasant, helping Asilomar become a well-managed funding source for our state parks department. I ushered an abusive administrator out the door of the California State Parks Foundation, and helped that organization to revive. Fighting for the public felt fabulous. If any of you young folks out there should feel tempted to join the right honorable crusade of journalism, here's my best advice: Go for it! You are needed. Especially if you have the insight and multimedia skills to help journalism re-invent itself for this new century.

McHugh says, "Humanity's age of exploration, of adventure and of existential challenge is far from over," even though the present isn't very inspiring. Again, his advice sums up in three words: Go for it! He adds:

History's overarching lesson, as far as I can tell, is that a time of ease ought to be used in steady preparation for times of hardship or calamity ahead - which will come to us in their turn, as surely as sunrise. If periods of ease are used only to grow soft and indolent, then after calamity returns, you'll have to shoulder more blame than you might want.

Something worth thinking about.

But what's a "30 piece?"
Back in the days when newspapers received their news over the telegraph, the custom grew up of keying in "30" at the end of a transmission. So "30" came to stand for the end of the story, and a "30 piece" came to stand for a writer's last bylined column. Nobody ever types "30" at the end of a story anymore (except occasionally an overeager public relations intern ending their first press release), but it's a bit of nostalgia that still lingers. Like this:

-- 30 --

COMM 207: News value -- novelty/"the bizzare"

When I was in J-school back in the Middle Ages, the list of news values (newsworthiness) I memorized included this item: "The bizarre." It was the one that's explained by saying if-a-man-bites-a-dog ... and so on. You know the rest. Now I see it listed in journalism books as "novelty" or "the unusual" or something like that. But I still think of it as The Bizarre, with a capital "T" and a capital "B." It just rolls trippingly off my tongue that way.

Well, here's a story in today's Washington Post that qualifies. It's a dog story, too, about how dogs that flunk out of obedience school find a new life as guard dogs in the Middle East.

Here's the lede, by Washington Post staff writer Laura Blumenfeld. It's a standard Newsweek-style soft lede -- I've heard them called a Jell-O lede or a marshmallow lede -- that catches the reader's attention by telling a little story. In this case, a couple of little stories:

The day before Ricky Bobby Baby Jesus was scheduled to die by an injection of pentobarbital, along came the cookie lady. She brought dog biscuits to the Howard County Animal Shelter. When she saw the yellow Labrador -- evicted for feistiness from three homes -- leap to catch a ball, she had an idea.

In a New York prison, Mary Jane, a black Labrador raised by a convicted murderer, was balled up in her cell. Bred from guide-dog stock and trained in an inmate program, Mary Jane flunked her test. "She lacks self-confidence," the evaluators noted. The convict sat on the cell floor and rubbed Mary Jane's belly, reading "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" out loud to her.

How Ricky Bobby Baby Jesus and Mary Jane went from being underachieving curs to canines sniffing out terrorists in Rabat, Morocco, is the story of how some Americans -- or at least their dogs -- are finding second chances through the war on al-Qaeda.

And here's the nut graf. See how it sums up the story in a nutshell? That's why a nut graf is called that. And "graf," by the way, isn't a misspelled graphic. It's a paragraph. Anyway, here it is:

In a 16-week program jointly run by the Justice and State departments, the two dogs, along with four other Labradors, transformed themselves from losers to potential lifesavers. Each canine teamed up for training in the Shenandoah Valley with a Moroccan law enforcement official. They would join more than 700 American dogs who have been deployed with foreign counterterrorism forces.

Read it! I think you'll enjoy it, especially if you like dogs and even more if you can't resist an undisciplined goofball of a dog. You know, the kind of dogs that will never win a dog show.

But also read it for style. Read it for the way the story's put together. Look for the odd little details that make the story come alive. Ask yourself: How did the reporter get that bit of information? Here's an example: When the dog handlers from Morocco ask, "Where's Wal-Mart? Where's Circuit City? Where's Potomac Mills?" Did she see it? Hear it? Did someone let it slip during an interview? How does she let you know? (That's called attribution.) Look for her story-telling technique. What writer's tricks does she use that you can use in your own writing?

Publish your responses as comments to this blogpost, and we'll talk about them in class. Here's how:

How to Publish Your Responses
Scroll down to the bottom of this post. On the right side of the last line, there will be a link that says "Posted by Pete # 7:42 AM ___ comments" (with a number filled in where I've left a blank, depending on how many comments have been posted). Click on that " ___ comments" link and fill in the comment field on the right. Sign in. You'll have to do something to register for Blogger. Do it. Make a note of the username and password you choose because we'll keep on posting to the blog, and if you don't make a note you'll forget it. Believe me. This is something we have learned by experience! Review your comment and publish it by clicking on "Publish Your Comment." And that's how you publish your comment. Logical, isn't it?

COM 150: Why I (kinda) Trust Wikipedia

In class Friday we went looking for "interactive" features on webpages and posted what we found to The Mackerel Wrapper. So today in one of my favorite online magazines, Slate.com, there's a story on on one of the most important interactive communities on the World Wide Web: Wikipedia. Read it. This article supplements and updates several things in our textbook.

(Great job with Friday's questions, by the way, everyone who posted. I like to throw my students into activities without a lot of hand-holding and spoon-feeding, let you figure things out for yourselves because you'll remember them bettter that way. So, especially in the first few days of class, it's kind of sink-or-swim. You guys are swimming! And I think we're off to a very good start as we build our class into another kind of interactive community.)

Back to Wikipedia --

As I think all of you know, it's an online encyclopedia. It lets anybody edit the articles, not just the "experts," and sometimes bogus information gets into them. That level of interactivity is controversial, and some instructors at Springfield/Benedictine don't let their students use Wikipedia. I respect why they do that, especially in introductory classes on how to do research, but I take a different angle: I recognize the danger of getting bogus information, but I use Wikipedia myself -- keeping my eyes open for B.S., of course, and not believing everything I read -- so I let my students do the same. Use it, but be careful.

Enough background. Slate staff writer Michael Agger tells about how corporate public relations people use Wikipedia to spin the public by editing out information that's critical of their companies, like some effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Agger used a program called by Wikiscanner, designed by a geek named Virgil Griffith who is described as a "future CalTech graduate student." Wikiscanner lets you look up who's been posting to Wikipedia, and let's just say Agger found a lot of spin artists. But he found a lot more to like in Wikipedia. And he found the bogus stuff gets edited out:

Wikipedia vandalism is as old as Wikipedia itself. The Wikipedians have a whole section devoted to the most inspired damage, called "Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense." I especially liked the archive of hoax pages, including the justly celebrated Upper Peninsula War, which details (complete with maps and historical photos) a skirmish over the Michigan's Upper Peninsula between Canadians and Americans during the Spring of 1843. But even a hoax as convincing as this one lasted only two weeks before being found out. Wikiscanner, despite its litany of mischief, points to the success of Wikipedia. The egotistical edits, slurs, and blatant puffery eventually get re-edited and fixed by the community.

As I scanned away, I found devoted Wikipedians who corrected grammar, argued finer points of historical incidents, and updated entries relating to their catholic interests: Jacques Lacan, steampunk, the Rabbit tetralogy, cannabis, the Empire State Building, weather balloons. So, that's the image I'm left with after two weeks of Wikiscanner: a thousand Cliff Clavins, anonymously sculpting the knowledge of Wikipedia during their working hours. No doubt there are subtle Wikipedia vandalism and public-relations black ops waiting to be discovered, but, for the moment, the open-source encyclopedia seems to be holding the fort against the forces of idiocy and spin.

There are links to the "Bad Jokes ..." page and the alleged war in Michigan, by the way, but I'll let you follow them in the original. Same with the reference to a character in the Cheers show that was on TV back in the later Paleolithic period. This will be more incentive to read the the original.

The whole Slate article is worth reading, and the question of interactivity is one we'll be following throughout the course.

COM(M) 150: In-class discussion questions

Friday in class we're going to go out on the World Wide Web, find real-world examples of the trends mentioned in the first chapter of the textbook and post them as comments to this blog post. (I'll explain how to do it below.) The questions:

1. Find three examples of interactivity (pp. 21-22) on the internet. Describe them and tell specifically how they complete the feedback loop in the SMCR model for the sender of each message.

2. What did Johannes Gutenberg invent? How did his invention change European society? What did it lead to?

3. How are the effects of the Internet similar to Gutenberg's press? How are they different?

How to Post Your Responses
Scroll down to the bottom of this post. On the right side of the last line, there will be a link that says "Posted by Pete # 4:21 PM ___ comments" (with a number filled in where I've left a blank, depending on how many comments have been posted). Click on that " ___ comments" link and fill in the comment field on the right. Sign in. You'll have to do something to register for Blogger. Do it. Make a note of the username and password you choose because we'll keep on posting to the blog, and if you don't make a note you'll forget it. Believe me. This is something we have learned by experience. Make a note of it. Review your comment if you wish and publish it by clicking on "Publish Your Comment." Logical, isn't it?

Is Paris burning? On MSNBC she was

A nice little bit of journalistic theater Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program, when co-anchor Mika Brzezinski refused to read an hourly lede story on Paris Hilton, tried to set it afire with a cigaret lighter and ran it thorugh a shredder that conveninently happened to be on the studio set. Staged? Well, MSNBC isn't saying. But a nice bit of stage business, anyway.

"I hate [the Hilton story], and I don't think it should be our lede," said Brzezinski.

The moment was captured on YouTube in all its glory. BBC News carried a brief account of Brzezinski's shtick in the entertainment section of their website. And Jemima Lewis, a columnist for The Independent, a center-left newspaper in London, commented on Brzezinski and the American media in general. What Jenkins said, I think, is important and right on target:

There is a thin line between respectable and supine, and American journalism has settled on the wrong side. Our own press [in the U.K.] is no less obsessed with celebrities, but we specialise - too much so, you might think - in tearing them down. In America, to be famous is to be worshipped unquestioningly. Hollywood stars demand copy approval, and get it - which is why you will never read an interesting celebrity interview in an American magazine.

It is also why the public loves Mika Brzezinski. Americans suspect that something is rotten in their Fourth Estate. They listen to the anodyne newsreaders, with their big hair and Colgate smiles; they munch through the dry, cautious news that's fit to print - and they wonder if they are being told the whole truth. They imagine that what's missing is "seriousness", but that isn't quite it. They need a press that is generally fiercer, more anarchic, less obedient. The word we're groping for, I think, is feral.

Feral? Why say that? Jenkins was giving a backhanded nod to former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who had accused the British media of acting like animals that have returned to the wild. She also said, and I think she was right, the Brits glory in a press that still retains the values of its working-class origins:

The British long ago accepted that their press is, as Tony Blair would have it, feral. Journalists in this country are despised, and we know it. Indeed, we embrace our lowly status with a perverse, distinctly British pride: we call ourselves "hacks", lest anyone should think we take ourselves seriously, and delight in Fleet Street legends of debauchery and low cunning. British journalism - both the profession and the end product - is tough, unscrupulous and, at its best, riotously good fun.

In America, different standards prevail. When I went to work at a current affairs magazine in New York a couple of years ago, my editor warned me that I was in for a culture shock. "American journalists," he said, "believe they belong to a kind of priesthood. Ever since Watergate, we have seen ourselves as guardians of the truth. That," he added ruefully, "is why our newspapers are so boring."

It wasn't always that way. When I started in the newspaper business in the 1970s, a lot of older reporters still only had a high school education. They were working stiffs, and they were proud of it. Now they're gone, and you have to have a master's in communications to get in the newsroom door. Nothing wrong with being educated. But I think we've lost something valuable, and I wonder if it's why newspapers -- and network television news programs -- are losing readers and audience share as the news product gets blander.

COMM 207: "Golden ratio" and page layout

It's a long way from copyediting and page makeup to the ancient Greek mathematician/philosopher Pythagoras -- about 2,000 years, to be exact -- but one of the principles goes back to the ancient Greeks. It's a proportion sometimes known as the "golden ratio" and still followed (usually by intuition).

Basically the golden ratio is the ratio between the sides of the Parthenon or, for that matter, the human face. There are pictures, diagrams and -- for those whose minds are capable of understanding them -- mathematical equations in the basic Wikipedia article on the concept.

Explains Bruno Maddox, in a June 1 article on classical proportions in plastic surgery (!) in Discover magazine:

... The ancient Greeks, for their part, were convinced that an explanation of, and definition for, Beauty was as concrete and discoverable as the answer to why the days got shorter in winter or why your toga weighed more after you’d gone swimming in it. Indeed, no less a thinker than Pythagoras, he of hypotenuse fame, logged some impressive early results. In music, Pythagoras showed that the notes of the musical scale were not arbitrary but reflected the tones produced by a lute string—or any string—when its length was subdivided precisely into such simple ratios as 2:1 or 3:2. In architecture and design, similarly, he managed to show that the shapes people found most pleasing were those whose sides were related by the so-called golden ratio.

The golden ratio, briefly, is the proportional relationship between two lines a and b such that (a + b) is to a as a is to b; in other words, the ratio between the whole and one of its parts is the same as the ratio between its two parts. This doesn’t sound like much in algebra form (a/b = (a + b)/a) and still less when expressed as a decimal (1:1.61814). But draw a rectangle—or build a Parthenon—with sides of a and b, and the sheer cosmic rightness of the thing leaps out at you. If you were to be stranded on a desert island with one particular rectangle, that’s the one you’d go with. Palpably, it’s the first rectangle that occurred to God when he realized he needed another four-sided, right-angled shape to complement his juvenile masterpiece, the square.

This was good enough for Plato, the 800-pound gorilla of ancient Greek intellectual life, to include Beauty as one of his famous forms: those transcendent, invisible archetypes of which this reality is nothing but a set of blurry ramshackle imitations. Beauty was not in the eye of the beholder. On the contrary, to borrow Plato’s legendary cave metaphor, the beholder had his back to Beauty, able to see only its flickering shadows on the grimy cave wall of reality.

In short, the Science of Beauty was inaugurated by the two classical thinkers upon whose shoulders the science of pretty much everything else would eventually come to rest. Among historians of science, that’s what is known as a rollicking and auspicious start.

Maddox is suspicious of any claims to precision in the theory, which was explained to him in great detail and with breathtaking precision by a Southern California plastic surgeon, but he thinks there's something to it ... especially if you stick to ballpark figures.

So, after laying out too many newspaper and newsletter pages to count over the years, do I.

If you're interested in learning more, see also Wikipedia's article Canons of Page Consruction. And if you're really interested, scroll down to the links at the bottom of the page to terms used in typography. Follow those links, and you'll find the difference between a "widow" and an "orphan."

Updates on kidnapped BBC correspondent

Alan Johnston, a correspondent for BBC News (the British Broadcasting Corp.), who abducted March 12 in Gaza, has been reported alive and in good health, although he is still being held, apparently by Palestinian militants.

The BBC has posted an online petition to its website and asks that weblogs consider demonstrating their support for Johnston, and the BBC, by linking to their website by pasting this button into their blogs:



I am more than happy to do so. And since The Mackerel Wrapper is a blog for journalism students, I highly recommend that you click on the button. It will take you to "a page on the BBC News website which has more information about Alan's situation and gives any of your blog's readers the chance to add their names to the petition."

COMM 209, 317: Newspaper ethics and child porn

Here's a riddle for you:

Q. What's worse than accusing a newspaper guy of downloading kiddie porn onto a newsroom computer?

A. Running a story about it without contacting him first to comment on the accusation.

Read all about it in Jim Romenesko's industry blog on the Poynter Insititute website. It's called -- what else? -- "Romenesko," and its "daily fix of media industry news, commentary, and memos" is must reading for news junkies.

Today's blog has several stories on the child pornography story, which apparently grows out of a longstanding labor dispute in Santa Barbara, Calif. Scroll down to the headline, and link, that says, "Roberts blasts News-Press' "defamatory" computer porn story." There are stories linked from The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times and local papers in Santa Barbara.

Open another window, go to the Society of Professional Journalists' website and see which canons of the SPJ Code of Ethics come into play here.

Here's another one. You won't find it in the SPJ code, but here's something working journalists have done for years and years. You can refuse to have your byline put on a story. Sometimes you have to. I wonder if that's what's happenening with the anonymous story in yesterday's paper.

COMM 209, 150: The future of newspapering?

Today's Washington Post has some letters to the editor about the future of the newspaper industry. Plus the paper's responses.

Tim Dudenhoefer, a reader in Silver Spring, Md., suggests:

... Stop publishing The Post.

First, it would save paper. Even recycled paper still needs to be processed, packaged and shipped; that costs money and puts cars on the road.

Second, quiet presses do not use fossil-fuel-generated electricity.

So it goes, for two more points. Dudenhoffer concludes: "So, when can we expect you all to shut your doors for the good of the planet?"

His reply comes in an Editor's Note: "We're giving your wisdom serious consideration. This may be your last newspaper.

Another reader, Cory Correll of Germantown, Md., says "you have a lot of nerve suggesting folks use less paper when you make a living printing on all the paper you do! Hypocrite! Why don't we just move back into caves, use candles and walk everywhere?"

Finally, Ellen McGee of Severna Park, Md., writes:

Newspapers can be a friend to the environment. When finished reading the paper, 10 pages of the paper, with hay over it, provide a very effective, organic and inexpensive mulch. Water is retained, and the weeds don't grow. Your feet lie on soft hay, and you don't get dirty.

Which led The Post to post (no pun intended) this note: Sorry, Mr. Dudenhoefer , Ms. McGee has persuaded us to continue publishing The Post.

COMM 209, 150: Those NBC videos of the Va. Tech slayer

This week's mass murder at Virginia Tech has raised some painful issues of journalism ethics, most recently the broadcasting Wednesday night of portions of a video made by Cho Seung-Hui, just before he shot and killed 30 people at Virginia Tech.

Media critic Jack Shafer of Slate.com, who in my opinion writes well and almost always displays good judgment (two traits not always found together in media critics), focuses not on the video clips but on TV's repeated airing of them:

NBC News needn't apologize to anybody for originally airing the Cho videos and pictures. The Virginia Tech slaughter is an ugly story, but the five W's of journalism—who, what, where, when, and why—demand that journalists ask the question "why?" even if they can't adequately answer it. If you're interested in knowing why Cho did what he did, you want to see the videos and photos and read from the transcripts. If you're not interested, you should feel free to avert your eyes.

The real story here is the odd restraint NBC News showed. Cho mailed NBC News about two dozen QuickTime videos, of which the network has aired only a handful. NBC anchor Brian Williams said last night that the network is also holding back Cho photos, as well as Cho writings it deems incoherent and obscene. It seems to think that it's protecting viewers by rationing Cho material while at the same time it reruns the already released video indiscriminately. (I wonder if Fox News would be so circumspect if it were sitting on a stockpile of fresh Cho. Actually, I don't really wonder.)

I suspect the networks stopped the Cho reruns in an effort to pre-empt criticisms that they are 1) needlessly upsetting people and 2) inspiring potential copycat killers. As a practical matter, I'll bet they were having a hard time getting the families of the murdered to talk to them as long as The Cho Show was running.

I find it hard not to agree with that. I also find it hard not to enjoy -- probably a little too much -- his digs at Fox News. Shafer adds:

Cable news reruns are usually defensible because nobody but invalids—and perhaps TVNewser—watches the stations around the clock. Viewers dip in for five minutes here, 15 or 30 minutes there, and then flit away. Few notice how much recycling goes on.

When a major story like Virginia Tech breaks, viewers linger, wanting to know more. There's nothing wrong with that expectation. But having committed to going wall-to-wall with the Cho murders, the networks are too cowardly to tell viewers that only 30 minutes of essential Cho story exists, and that viewers should feel free to turn their sets off after they watch that much. Instead, the networks added soy extender and sawdust to inflate 30 minutes of solid news into a six- or seven-hour marathon.

Another viewpoint was taken by the chief news editor of CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., who explained why he downplayed the killer to focus more on the people who were killed:

Overwhelmingly, the focus of our CBC coverage on radio, television and online has been on the victims and the many important issues which flow out of this tragedy.

Have we identified the killer? Yes, but not in a central way. In fact, on Tuesday, CBC.ca held back using the photograph of the killer for several hours because it would have displaced pictures of the victims. When it was used, it was in a secondary place. A similar restraint was evident on The National.

All of CBC’s news services avoided use of speculation and any coverage that could be interpreted as ‘glorifying’ the act. And overall, the quantity of the coverage on CBC Newsworld and elsewhere was reduced after the initial hours.

COM 150: Branding, NBC News and a mass murderer

A very thought-provoking piece in today's Chicago Tribune by media columnist Phil Rosenthal. I think he's overstating the case a little, but here's what he says about NBC's airing of the video of the Virginia Tech slayer who shot 30 people to death this week:

NEW YORK -- So now when the world thinks of Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung Hui, armed and glaring at the camera, forever embedded in the gruesome memory will be the NBC News logo.

Complete with the NBC peacock, in all its multicolored glory.

I'm not sure the American public has that great an attention span. But Rosenthal has a legitimate case to make. Here's his case:

While NBC News on Thursday withstood a furious backlash from viewers incensed that it would give a platform to a mass murderer, others in journalism circles say they, too, would have presented some of the same materials if Cho had sent his package to them. Accordingly, Cho's video and images ran elsewhere on the air and cable, in print and on the Internet.

But at NBC's request, the rantings and Travis Bickle poses of Cho's "multimedia manifesto," as "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams dubbed it Wednesday, had NBC's logo slapped on them. On other networks, it was Cho and NBC News. On cable, it was Cho and NBC News. On the front page of The New York Times, it was Cho and NBC News.

What an odd thing to want to have associated with one's brand.

And that's why I'm posting Rosenthal's story to the blog for COMM 150. The issues raised by broadcasting the video have been ably discussed elsewhere. But Rosenthal raises the issue of branding.

Was it good brand management for NBC News to slap its logo on the segments it released to other media?

I don't know. (Although I think if it were me, I would ask the other nets to use the logo and hope they had the good taste to pull the image when it crossed a line between news and gee-whiz graphic arts.) It's a hard call to make.

Here's how the networks -- including NBC's anchor Williams -- reacted to the controversy over airing the video. Followed by Rosenthal's reaction to their reaction.

All three network newscasts Thursday night prominently reported the backlash against coverage of the Cho video that they all had aired the night before. But, by midday Thursday, NBC and the others had begun judiciously scaling back their use of the material.

John Moody, Fox News Channel executive vice president for editorial, for example, issued a statement saying there was "no reason to continue assaulting the public with these disturbing and demented images," but he also reserved the right to run the footage again if events warranted.

"It was a new and newsworthy element of the biggest story of the day, the week and, I hope, month," Moody said in an interview. "I think it was legitimate to run it for a while, while it added new information to the story."

And CBS News boss Sean McManus said it would have been unsound journalistically not to air the video excerpts initially, but his network intended to back off in a hurry.

"The news organizations have an obligation to do it, but also have an obligation to be sensitive to what it does to the victims' families," he said. "The one thing that I do think is important is to not overuse it. … We're not going to air it unless it's absolutely necessary to advance the story."

Williams, in his Thursday blog, said he understood why people might be upset with NBC News.

And in truth, NBC is no more responsible than any other media outlet that carried Cho's video and pictures. But putting its peacock on those images binds the messenger to the message.

I still don't know. You decide.

COMM 209: Va. Tech links

Just a couple of links here to stories on the shootings at Virginia Tech. Just a samp[ling to facilitate class discussion.

Read this first. Jack Shafer, media critic for Slate.com, tells why reporters have to ask those inhumane, unfeeling questions when tragedy strikes. Then hit the back key or follow the link below for another insightful piece in Slate.

Online communication and tragedy. How students at Virginia Tech -- and elsewhere -- used interactive social networking sites to stay up with the news, and more importantly, communicate with people affected by the massacre.

Link here to the website of The Collegiate Times, the school paper at Virginia Tech. An excellent collection of preofessional caliber deadline writing.

Also a couple of stories from Editor & Publisher, the trade magazine for (well, the title says it, doesn't it?) editors and publishers in the newspaper business.

A feature of a nearby daily's social networking site in Blacksburg, Va., home of Virginia Tech. The website, called BickLickU.com, is a project of The Roanoke Times. Interesting in its own right as an example of a newspaper reaching out to a younger demographic.

An E&P interview with the editor of The Collegiate Times. The kids not only kept up with the major media but ran circles around them in covering a very difficult story.

An E&P story on blog coverage by The Roanoke Times and the Virginia Tech school paper. It also mentions blogs put up by The New York Times and the Washington Post.

COMM 317 -- final exam -- first part

In class tonight (Tuesday), I gave out copies of the first part of the final exam as I said I would. For those who failed to attend class, I have posted the final to the message board linked to my faculty page at http://www.sci.edu/classes/ellertsen/facultypage.html ...

Part 1 of the final is due in class Tuesday, April 24, and I will give you five short-answer questions in which you identify a term and tell its significance to journalism, mass communications or your future career. The final and all late class work are must be turned in Tuesday, April 24. There will be no exceptions to this requirement.

Ethics -- good story in the Trib today

Today's Chicago Tribune has a story about an ethics prof at Chicago's DePaul University who writes a column for not-for-profit agency professionals. He's Woods Bowman, who teaches at DePaul and writes a column called "The Nonprofit Ethicist" for The Nonprofit Quarterly magazine. Bowman, who used to be an Illinois state legislator, know about ethics where the rubber hits the road in the real world, and I think he's got some interesting things to say about it.

In a previous incarnation, I knew him as state Rep. "Woody" Bowman, D-Evanston. He once sat down with me and told me exactly how lawmakers' higher ed appropriations get divvied out. He's the only guy who ever explained it to me so it made sense. He left the legislature 15 years ago. Says reporter Charles Storch of the Trib:

"The Nonprofit Ethicist" has fielded questions on matters such as donated art kept in an ex-director's home; jobs doled out to relatives or pals; spouses on the same board; donations used for staff parties; charity auction conflicts; and church thrift shop volunteers who set aside the good clothes for themselves.

"When it comes to ethics, nothing is penny ante," Bowman replied to that thrift shop's overseer in a 2006 column. "You never know where small ethical lapses might lead."

When he is not being a moral compass, Bowman teaches graduate students in a DePaul program that prepares them for careers in non-profits or government. In his office in the Loop, the lean, bald and bearded Bowman explained his approach to the advice column.

"A lot of it is just basic logic, understanding what people's obligations are in particular situations and being true to those obligations," he said.

He added, "Very often, ethical problems are choices between two things that are good in and of themselves, but they conflict and you can't do both at the same time. Right versus right, or the lesser of two evils. The situation shouldn't have occurred in the first place, but you have to make a decision."

After he left the legislature, Bowman worked for then-Cook County Board President Richard Phelan during the early 90s and joined DePaul in 1996. He also paid his dues working with Chicago's Goodwill Industries, trying to straighten out financial irregularities. He wasn't successful, but it taught him a lot about non-profit agencies:

Bowman's Goodwill experience confirmed many of his beliefs about non-profit governance: Problems often can be traced to boards that do not have much turnover and put too much faith in a chairman or executive director. Bad boards often put the needs of individuals above those of the community the charity serves.

As for executive directors, he observed, "Good management requires technical skill as well as ethics. You can fail to be a good manager because you are incompetent. But if you are ethically incompetent, you are almost always a bad manager."

So in the end, it gets back to ethics. In fact, I think that's where the rubber hits the road.

COMM 209 -- Iraq parliament bomb -- color story

A gripping story by Sudarsan Raghavan of The Washington Post on the bomb blast in an Iraqi parliament cafeteria yesterday. Read it carefully for the way it's put together. The lede puts us as readers right at the scene:

BAGHDAD, April 12 The bomber blew himself up no more than a few yards away. First, a brilliant flash of orange light like a starburst, then a giant popping sound. A gust of debris, flesh and blood threw me from my chair as if I were made of cardboard.

I was lying on a bed of shattered glass on the floor of the cafeteria in the Iraqi parliament building, covered with ashes and dust. Small pieces of flesh clung to my bluejeans. Blood, someone else's, speckled the left lens of my silver-rimmed glasses. Blood, mine, oozed from my left hand, punctured by a tiny shard of glass.

"Are you okay? Are you okay?" asked Saad al-Izzi, one of The Post's Iraqi correspondents, standing over me, his face framed by an eerie yellowish glow, his voice distant. I did not reply.

It's a model piece of deadline writing.

Note the use of descriptive detail. Instead of saying people left half-eaten lunches on their trays, Raghavan notes a lot of them were eating chicken. Look for images that appeal to the physical senses, the sound of people stepping on glass, the feel of dust in your mouth. Not a lot of adjectives. (More than I like, but still not a whole lot too many!) Direct quotes. As you read down, Raghavan will quote from the tape recorder he inadvertently left running during the blast.

Raghavan's story is a sidebar, a story that runs to the side of the main story and throws more light on a related angle. In this case, what it was like to be there. The main story, by the way, is called the mainbar. What else would you call it? To see how the sidebar and mainbar fit together, follow this link to the front page of The Post's website. The sidebar is off to the left (or was at 7:34 a.m. Eastern time*), under a picture that shows people running from the cafeteria. The mainbar, headlined Attack Is Worst Strike in Protective Green Zone," is on the right, the first of four Iraq war stories stacked in what is traditionally the slot for the most important story in a daily newspaper. A "tease" (summary of what's inside) under the head gives the news:

Iraqi legislator says new Baghdad security plan is "dead" after apparent breach leads to bombing that kills eight, injures 23 in parliament cafeteria.

The sidebar only supplements it by giving color. But the color story tells what it was like to be there. That's important.

_________________
* By the time we look at these stories in class at noon today, The Post's website will have gone through at least a partial redesign. So the links, photos and page layout may or may not still be there.

COM 209, 317: Ethics, libraries and Katie Couric

In the news this week is an online essay by CBS News anchor Katie Couric. Well, uh, let's make that attributed to CBS anchor Katie Couric. Turns out the essay was plagiarized, and CBS has egg all over its face. The essay was about kids and libraries, and much of it was taken word for word from The Wall Street Journal.

Nice timing, huh? Just as we're reading the Missouri Group's chapter on ethics.

Here's Howard Kurtz, media columnist for The Washington Post:

In an Editor's Note posted online and distributed to CBS stations, the network said "much of the material" in the library commentary came from Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow, "and we should have acknowledged that at the top of our piece. We offer our sincere apologies for the omission."

What made the ripoff especially striking was the personal flavor of a video -- now removed from the CBS Web site -- that began, "I still remember when I got my first library card, browsing through the stacks for my favorite books."

Kurtz is a good reporter. If you're interested in the news media, you ought to get in the habit of reading him anyway. He doesn't tell us about plagiarism. He shows us plagiarism:

Much of the rest of the script was stolen from the Journal. Couric said: "For kids today, the library is more removed from their lives. It's a last-ditch place to go if they need to find something out."

Zaslow wrote in March: "The library is more removed from their lives. It's a last-ditch place to go if they need to find something out."

Couric said: "Sure, children still like libraries, but books aren't the draw."

Zaslow wrote: "Sure, there are still library-loving children, but books aren't necessarily the draw."

And so on, and so on. Enough to make the point crystal clear.

A later story by the Reuters news agency explained how it happened:

Although the text for the minutelong video was written in first person -- introduced by Couric with the line "I still remember when I got my first library card" -- Couric did not compose the piece herself and was unaware that much of it was plagiarized, Genelius said.

"She was stunned and very upset," Genelius said Wednesday. "It's the same reaction we all had."

* * *

Genelius said Couric met with a group of producers weekly to discuss upcoming topics for her "Notebook" video essays, and "she does write some of them herself."

"Sometimes the text is written by the producer," she added. "That's the way television generally works. It's a very collaborative medium."

Maybe a little too collaborative.

What are the ethics of plagiarism? That's easy. There aren't any. But what are the ethics of having anonymous staffers write stuff for a news anchor? (Disclaimer: When I was doing public relations for an elected state official, I wrote "by-liner" pieces that went out over his signature.) What are the ethics of anybody's writing anything under somebody else's name?

COMM 317: Oral presentations April 17

Here are the guidelines I gave you Tuesday night in class.

Your presentation will be 3-5 minutes long. It can be very informal. I do not want a summary of your term paper. Instead, briefly address the following points:

1. What did you expect to find out when you started your research? In other words, what was your research question and/or preliminary hypothesis?

2. What did you find out? What was your final thesis? How did you modify your hypothesis in light of the evidence you found?

3. What surprised you? I mean really surprised you? If research is a cut-and-dried academic exercise, it isn't worth doing.

4. Tell us something interesting that will wake us up. If it relates to the main point(s) of your research -- or to No. 3 above -- so much the better!

I'm serious about this business of surprise.

This emphasis on surprise I got from the late Donald Murray, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer for The Boston Herald and longtime writing teacher at the University of New Hampshire. In 1984 he wrote in College English (link is to excerpt in the online JSTOR archive): "My students become writers at that moment when they first write what they do not expect to write. ... Writers value the gun that does not hit the target at which it is aimed." Murray liked to explain that cultivating the ability to be surprised is linked to discovery and to creativity. He's right. It is. But there's another reason, as well. Life is just too short to waste your time on what you already know.

Here's a link to BenU course descriptions

Here, just to save us from those lengthy, agonizing and all-too-often unsuccessful efforts of mine to find communication arts course descriptions in Benedictine University's online catalog, I'm posting a link to my blog. I plan to also link the communications course list to my blue faculty page.

COMM 317: Philosophers -- links

Here's a good summary of utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham's and John Stuart Mill's philosophy of ethics that calculates whether an action does the greatest good for the most people or not.

COMM 317: Questions for April 10

Read the articles, etc., linked below on plagiarism and copyright. Then answer these questions ... post them as comments to this blog entry.

1. How is plagiarism in school different from plagiarism in the workplace? How is it the same?

2. How is plagiarism similar to copyright infringement? How is it different? What ethical issues are raised by plagiarism that are not by copyright infringement?

3. How would Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill have analyzed the case of former business columnist Stephen H. Dunphy of The Seattle Times? How would Immanuel Kant have analyzed it?

4. What specific steps can you take to ensure against inadvertent plagiarism in your own writing?

COMM 317: Plagiarism for grownups

Plagiarism isn't just for schoolkids! Professional writers can do it, too. And without meaning to. In fact, usually they don't mean to when they do it. Just like in school, huh? Here are some links to bring you up to speed on how it happens, why it happens and what it leads to. Firing, typically. But not always.

Here are some links to fill you in on the basics.

Roy Peter Clark, senior writing coach at the Poynter Institute, a newspaper think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla., has an overview of plagiarism. Clark says the consequences are serious, "with malefactors suffering all kinds of fates, from suicide to firing to, strangest of all, consignment to the copy desk."

To the copy desk? That's where news stories are checked for errors. Last place in the newsroom I'd want someone who can't keep his sources straight.

"Thank you, Mr. Fox, you are now in charge of the henhouse," says Clark.

Clark links to a 2004 story in The Seattle Times, about how alert readers tipped the paper on a plagiarized business column and how management smoked out the writer (who is no longer working for The Times). It should be pointed out he was a 37-year veteran of the news business, and his plagiarism does not appear to have been intentionally dishonest.

Clark's piece on plagiarism is a survey titled "The Unoriginal Sin." (Great title!) And it appeared in Washington Journalism Review in 1983. After citing several examples, Clark wrote:

Almost every newspaper I have consulted offers an anecdote about serious plagiarism. I have heard of editorials copied word for word from The New York Times and government handouts. I have heard, but have not been able to verify, stories about a managing editor at a small paper who routinely plagiarized stories from newsmagazines, stole a whole series from a larger newspaper and even stuck his name over the work of his own reporters. Such a man might have inspired Samuel Johnson's famous piece of sarcasm: "Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."

Plagiarism in newspapers (ethical plagiarism, that is, not the violation of copyright, which is a legal question) is more common than imagined and in many cases escapes detection. Most cases are cloudier and less spectacular than the ones cited above. Like defensive pass interference in football, they may be blatant or accidental, but they always deserve the yellow flag.

Two important points here. One is that plagiarism is a question of ethics -- some would say moral values -- rather than law. If the words involved are under copyright, then it becomes a legal question too. But the basic problem is one of ethics.

The other important point is that plagiarism by professional writers is not usually intentional. Clark said it grows out of the way journalists go about their business, the way we do research:

Part of the problem is that all good reporters compile, borrow and assimilate. "Writers do not read for fun," writes T. S. Garp. They read for work. They borrow juxtapositions, images, metaphors, rhythms, puns, emphases, structures, word orders, alliterations and startling facts. They store these in their memory banks and in their commonplace books [notebooks of quotations that people used to keep as sort of a writer's journal]. Months later these words emerge in a new context and with personal meaning, having become their own.

Journalists, like scholars, write within a climate of ideas, ideas that fly from newspaper to newspaper like migrating birds. The hardworking and curious reporter explores each new idea and collects everything on the landscape. But embedded in these good habits are dangers, for both the unprincipled and the undisciplined.

There is a lot in Clark's description that I recognize in my own writing. I don't keep an old-fashioned commonplace book. Instead, like many professional writers, I clip stories, or print them out, and put them in what I call a "swipe file." Clark speaks of "ethically ambiguous practices that go on each day in newsrooms." He doesn't mention swipe files. But doesn't that name speak volumes? Why do I call it a "swipe" file and not an "inspiration" file or even a "commonplace" file? There are plenty of other ambiguous practices, too.

And there are some good ways to guard against them. One, Clark says, is to check out what you see in the clips. Always. Even your own clips. Says Clark:

Plagiarism is a substitute for reporting [I would say a poor substitute]. A reporter who assumes the accuracy of information in the clips or in wire stories or in textbooks is living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. Of course, reporters consider the source of information and are always fighting the clock. But to the extent that they depend upon the work and words of others, they distance themselves from events and people and create an environment for inaccuracy. Important mistakes, especially when they turn up in usually reliable sources of information, become fossilized in the clips. ...

COMM 150: Let's make a hypertext link

Are you Web savvy? Or for all you know, do you think HTML might be a short-order cook's abbreviation for a ham sandwich with letuce and tomato? Here's an exercise designed to give you a taste of HTML. (OK, OK, you read the assigned chapter, and you already know HTML stands for hypertext markup language. Right?) Anyway, today we'll create a hypertext link on The Mackerelwrapper blog, taking advantage of a feature of Blogger that lets you use simple HTML tags in the comments field.

First a little backrgound:

HTML tags come in pairs. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but 99 percent of the time you have to use them in pairs. The first consists of angle brackets -- the "less than" (<) and "greater than" (>) signs you remember from math class -- around a code. And the second consists of a "less than" angle bracket and a slash -- which looks like </ -- and a "more than" angle bracket > around the same code. It tells the computer to stop doing whatever the first tag told it to do. For example, the first sentence of this paragaph would look like this in HTML: <b>HTML tags come in pairs.</b> The first tag tells the computer to start setting in boldface type, and the second tag tells it to stop.

OK, let's get started.

What I want you to do is to choose something to write a brief paragraph about, and post it as a comment to this blog post. Something you won't be embarrassed to publish to the World Wide Web. Cats, dogs, ferrets, the Cubs, the Cardinals, quadratic equations, dumb in-class assignments, whatever. For demonstration purposes, I'll choose butterflies.

Write something about your subject. It doesn't matter what. But here's what does matter: I want you to find a website that explains something about your subject, and create a hypertext link to that website.

Here's how it might work: As I surf the Web looking for stuff on butterflies, I come across the legend of the Chinese philosopher Chuang Chou (or Zhuangzi), who once dreamed he was a butterfly. But, according to the legend, when he woke up "he didn't know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou." Great story, huh? Really gets you thinking about the nature of reality. I found it in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, so I'll create a hypertext link to it.

The HTML tag for a hypertext link starts with <a href=" and the address or URL (which stands for Uniform Resource Locater, right?) followed by "> ... so I highlight the Wikipedia page's address and copy it, then paste it into the tags so it looks like this: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi"> ... then I'll write a few words that I want in the link and I close it with </a> (see how it picks up the "a" from the opening tag)?

Here's what my text might look like in HTML: "Butterflies don't make butter, but they do fly. And sometimes they make philosophy. The ancient Chinese philosopher Chuang Chou <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi">once dreamed he was a butterfly.</a> When he woke up ..." And so on.

Here's what it looks like when it's published to the blog:

Butterflies don't make butter, but they do fly. And sometimes they make philosophy. The ancient Chinese philosopher Chuang Chou once dreamed he was a butterfly. When he woke up ...

See how the words "once dreamed he was a butterfly" are converted by the HTML tag into hypertext? There are quite a few other tags to learn in HTML (although most of us get started by pasting them in from a list of tags we find through a Google search). But this <a href=" hypertext tag is the basic building block of the World Wide Web.

Now it's your turn. Think of something to write about. Find a Web page about it. And post a hypertext link to it. Please post as a comment to this blog post. It's easier to do it than it is to read the explanation!

COM 150: Last word on Web 2.0?

This from an article in this month's Harper's magazine on "Web 2.0," the catchy name (a little too catchy, in my opinion) for interactive features on the World Wide Web like YouTube and MySpace, which rely on content generated by users. They're trendy, they generate a lot of hype and my God does the money roll in. At least for the innovators. At least in the beginning. The article is by Michael Hirschorn, executive vice president of original programming and production at the MTV spinoff VH1, so he should know what he's talking about. Says Hirschorn:

Thanks to the inexorable process of Web invention, such stuff goes from "OMG" to "Whatever" in no time flat. (137)

Source: Michael Hirschorn. "The Web 2.0 Bubble." Harper's April 2007: 134-38.

COMM 317: Copyright / REQUIRED READING

Since the discussion of copyright in the AP Stylebook is much too brief, I went looking on the Internet this week for a good basic introduction to copyright law. And I found one! It's the online version of a brochure by, of all people, the U.S. Copyright Office. And it gives you all the basics of copyright. I'm not usually big on memorizing stuff, but I think you should commit to memory the following sections of the brochure: "What Is Copyright?"; "Who Can Claim Copyright?"; "What Is Not Protected by Copyright?"; How to Secure Copyright"; Publication"; and the bit about the "visually perceptible" c-in-a-circle dingbat that costitutes "Notice of Copyright." In other words, almost all the first part of the brochure (although you can safely skip over the part on international treaties if you promise to stay in Springfield between now and finals)!

See also the section on "Who Owns What?" in the University of Texas system's Crash Course in Copyright. It's a little more technical, but it's written specifically for people who are using copyrighted information in their own publications and therefore need to know.

Why should you know all this stuff? Two reasons: (1) it will be on the final exam; and (2) you will deal with copyrighted material every day of your working life. Most of what you produce on the job, by the way, will be considered "work for hire" unless you own your own business.

Copyright is grounded in a wider class of intellectual property law. It's well explained on the "WEX" website put up by by the Legal Information Institute of Cornell University. It's concise. It's clear. And it's easy to understand and remember. Here's how WEX defines intellectual property: "Intellectual Property is a broad class of property, similar to 'real estate' (land), and 'chattels' (movable physical goods)." That's important. People's words have value, just like any other property. So do pictures, songs or other products of the mind. But not ideas. It can be tricky.

But the basic principle couldn't be clearer. Words are property, which means they can be stolen. That means using somebody's copyrighted property without permission is treated as a form of theft.

The upshot: To use copyrighted information, you need written permission. The University of Texas' Crash Course in Copyright explains how to get the copyright holder's permission. Its content is licensed, by the way, under a Creative Commons license. It's a little beyond the scope of COMM 317, but Creative Commons is an interesting development, especially if you're interested in publication on the World Wide Web.

A footnote. Not sure what a dingbat is? Think it's another word for a journalism teacher? A journalism student? Well, maybe the former but certainly not the latter. But there's another meaning the word you ought to know.

COM 150, 209, 317: New owner of Tribune Co.

Sam Zell, the Chicago enterpreneur who is buying landmark local media conglomorate Tribune Co., was interviewed by Trib business reporters and editors for today's paper. It's interesting reading. Not only interesting. I'd say it's "must" reading for people who want careers in the newspaper business ... or who plan to go on reading newspapers in a changing economy.

Some of Zell's thoughts on the future of newspapering:

"If you are relevant, people are going to buy the newspaper," he said. "If you're not relevant, then people will stop buying the newspaper and stop advertising and we'll all be in a stew of trouble.

"I use that word 'relevant' and I'll be the first to tell you I don't know what it means other than, in effect, ultimately just like anybody, you have customers, and some way or another we have to find a way how to service them. I don't have an opinion as to what you write, believe it or not, other than what you write has to be truthful and relevant. And if it is, then I think the customer is there for you, and that translates into viable businesses."

He is investing in Tribune because he sees it as "a great challenge. … Everything I do is motivated by doing it best, doing it different, answering the questions that no one else could."

And on newspapering in general:

Asked about the relationship between editorial excellence and profit, Zell said quality matters. But he noted: "I really believe you can be relevant and editorially spectacular. And I think you can be irrelevant and editorially spectacular. The name of the game is to be the former and not the latter."

Zell said his favorite columnists are Charles Krauthammer, whose syndicated column runs in the Chicago Tribune, and the New York Times' Thomas Friedman and David Brooks.

"I don't pay much attention to the LA Times editorial page," he said.

Zell said he does not intend to influence the editorial policies and reporting of Tribune Co. newspapers.

"Do I look naive enough to think I have any influence about what people write?" he asked. "In fact, I will accept that your writing on me is gong to be, hard to believe, worse than it has been."

Asked what he would do if the newspaper were preparing an unflattering profile of him, Zell cut in: "You already did, you already did."

COMM 317: Libel, ethics on the blogosphere

Some of these questions are easier than others. All of them are based on your reading assignment for tonight. Answer them all as comments to this blog post:

1. What does Glenn Reynolds (allegedly) put in blenders? What does he (allegedly) make of the resulting concoction?

2. What does that have to do with the topic of his paper?

3. How do the standards regarding defamation that are evolving for the blogosphere differ from those of print journalism? Why? Do you think that's appropriate? Why (or why not)?

4. What are the ethical standards of the blogosphere? How do they compare to the SPJ canons of ethics for print and broadcast journalists? How are they the same? How are they different?

5. What can you take from these different standards to use in your own writing? Be specific, and explain why you say what you say.

I urge you to read each other's posts and say something different ... agree or disagree with each other (as long as you don't flame anybody), but think for yourself.

COM 150, 209: Today's news, more topics

An interesting story in today's Trib ... about an apparently successful buyer for the Tribune Co. A lot of very good background on the financial health of newspapers ... kinda sickly, with competition from the Internet.

Which reminds me of a couple of good COM 150 term paper topics:

Why are newspapers losing readership? Comptetition from the Internet? Too much news about old men wearing suits and not enough about anything that anybody cares about? Or: Too much fluff about celebrities and not enough about the substantive issues of the day? You hear both argued, and they're diametrically opposed.

"Info-tainment." That's a word of Neil Postman's. How much do the media -- especially TV but really all of them -- blur the line between serious information and entertainment?

How can newspapers win back readers? Especially your generation, the 18-24 demographic. Fluff? Music reviews? Local news? School lunch menus?

COM 150, 209: Brit blog broadcasts 'bear facts'

Channel 4, an independent television network in Great Britain, has published what it bills as "The truth about Knut the cute polar bear" on its newsroom blog.

(Brits being Brits, the blog also features what has to be the most remarkable necktie I've ever seen in the graphic at top.)

It's what we used to call a "non-story" when I was in the newspaper business, but it's a cleverly written one:

If you were watching Channel 4 News last week, you can't fail to have been charmed by Knut the polar bear cub. The adorable infant is so unbelievably cute that many people who saw that footage still haven't recovered their full composure.

He was seen playing with a life-size cuddly toy of a brown bear, listening to Elvis Presley songs, and walking unsteadily towards the camera with mournful little eyes - because animal rights activists are apparently calling for him to be put to death.

The argument, supposedly, is that since Knut is a zoo-born bear, and has been rejected by his mother (how COULD SHE!?!?!), he will never grow up to be real polar bear, gamboling on the ice floes, and should therefore start his career as a fur coat as early as possible.

When the news broke, pictures of Knut were flashed across the world's TV screens. The Chinese panda cubs, those shameless media tarts (and defending world champions of cute) had some new footage out that day, but editors didn't bat an eyelid. No-one wanted anything but Knut.

Some translation may be needed. "Tarts," to the Brits, are what "ho's" and "sluts" are to American high schoolers. The rest is quite clear, and, I think, cleverly written.

The story includes a link to blog called Knut, das Eisbärbaby (Knut the ice-bear baby) with lots of pix, audio and video files. The text and audio are in German, but the pictures aren't. So here we have an example of cross-platform convergence. Channel 4 concludes:

Now you could almost believe that all the media outlets that covered the Knut story weren't interested in the actual truth, and just wanted to run some pictures of an unfeasibly cute little cub. I'm sure that's not the case. But we're glad to be able to bring you the bear facts.

And of course that's what Channel 4 is doing. It may be all I'm doing, too, by posting the item to our class blog. But I wouldn't want to say that on April Fool's Day.