Journalism links 8/25

Martin Belam, on the future over the past:

What concerns me is that there are a whole generation of students who are being encouraged to pay for qualifications that will equip them to work in a 90s newsroom, because the people designing the courses and the industry input they receive are all from people who cut their teeth in a 90s newsroom.

A piece worth reading in its entirety.

Five curation tools you should know about. Pearltrees is a new one to me. I’ll check it out this weekend. The others are variations on one another, reminding you that you don’t have to be in every space. At some point these things are competing with one another. You want to be doing your work on the one that is the winner, which is to say has an ease of use, flexibility to do what you need and the place where your audience is willing to follow (or is already building a community). Otherwise you just build up platform fatigue.

What’s more, curation is a function, not your every solution. All of these things, all of them, are options, tools and components at your disposal. As a journalist your job is to amass large amounts of information, filter, screen and select. Your job here, with these many platforms, tools and doodads, is similar.

Copy editors: read the story before writing the headline.

Also, beware of sneaky copy in those pull out boxes.

Everyone knows of Twitter, and the wise ones are using it to their advantage in their professional life. But now comes Pinq Sheets:

Unlike Klout and other similar services, Pinq Sheets is keyword- and campaign-based, as opposed to user-based. And because Pinq Sheets uses Twitter’s streaming API (instead of the search API), Pinq Sheets subscribers can pull down entire Tweets, rather than just numbers.

Pinq Sheets also does the dirty work for you, compiling the data in readable graphs (see below) that can easily be distributed to your clients. This is pretty stellar. When we do reporting for our clients, we find they love graphs and infographics. When we can make them pretty AND useful, so much the better. Seeing information and insights, for some, is often more valuable than reading a report.

[...]

Additional features include showing users which individuals talk about a particular hashtag or search term the most, giving you valuable insights about either your brand or the brand advocates/influencers.

“If you’re trying to market to a niche, this is the tool that’s going to tell you how to do it and who to talk to,” Jen says.

Robust tools get stronger all the time.

Big names in journalism links: How Steve Jobs changed journalism. A study on Rupert Murdoch’s troubles. The semi-retirement of Jim Romenesko and his impact on journalism.

Was Twitter a vehicle for riots in England? A Guardian study:

Analysis of more than 2.5m Twitter messages relating to the riots in England has cast doubt on the rationale behind government proposals to ban people from social networks or shut down their websites in times of civil unrest.

A preliminary study of a database of riot-related tweets, compiled by the Guardian, appears to show Twitter was mainly used to react to riots and looting.

Timing trends drawn from the data question the assumption that Twitter played a widespread role in inciting the violence in advance, an accusation also levelled at the rival social networks Facebook and BlackBerry Messenger.

That’s part of a quality series from the Guardian, Reading the Riots.

Journalism links 8/19

The evolution of sports journalism, as seen by one man who’s covered the Southeastern Conference for 33 years. Turns out it isn’t that much different than the news side of things, though some of those changes took place a generation ago. Take it away Ron Higgins:

Thus, you have bad feature stories. And soon you have little or no feature stories, because of a head coach who then publicly wonders why the media doesn’t write more “great” feature stories about his players.

With no feature stories to write, the news cycle gets amped up even more. Because beat writers are required to blog and tweet every hour, and write something for their paper almost every day, an item that was a throwaway note suddenly gets developed into a news story.

The next day after the coach reads the story or has someone read it for him, he angrily asks the reporter, “How is that a news story?”

If the reporter is honest, he’ll say, “It wasn’t. You left me no choice. I wanted to write a feature story on your wide receiver, but you limited access to him and those around him so much, it was a weak story. So a note became the news.”

THAT is what Dan Mullen and a lot of other coaches don’t get. In their quest to control the messenger, they sequester their program into a witness protection atmosphere of “you can’t.”

[...]

The average reader, looking at this blog, will say, “Wah, wah, wah, poor media. Who cares?”

So, untrained journalists, inflexible coaches and SIDs have ruined it for everyone. And, now, the fans. Higgins was absolutely taken to task in the comments of his own piece.

Here’s his reply:

I don’t ever expect coaches to have a friendly, buddy-buddy relationship with the media that was prevalent through the mid 1970s.

What I would like to see is coaches care enough to have honest communication with the media to discuss problems between the two sides, to develop a level of professional respect.

From the sports perspective, where the “bloggers are untrained as journalists and thus, ill-equipped for the job” has also taken unfortunate root, the problems are that athletic programs are intent on protecting their large investment, their athlete-students and their powerful coaches. The programs know their fans are going to be their fans no matter the media coverage and, just as importantly, they have their own tools — the same tools — to reach out to their public. That’s enough to make any sportswriter nervous.

Or, if politics is your thing here you have the logical conclusion to a Jerry Springer culture:

A Ron Paul supporter in Texas has taken out a full-page ad in a local alternative weekly newspaper seeking women who have slept with the presidential candidate.

“Have you ever had sex with Rick Perry?” asks the ad, which runs in this week’s Austin Chronicle. The ad was placed by Robert Morrow, who describes himself as a “self-employed investor and political activist” and a three-time delegate to the Texas state Republican convention.

Morrow is also the president and single member of the Committee Against Sexual Hypocrisy, which, he says, can help women publicize their “direct dealings with a Christian-buzzwords-spouting, ‘family values’ hypocrite and fraud.”

“I think it’s only a matter of time until somebody credible comes forward,” Morrow told Salon.

The Washington Post asked if we should be OK with this:

It’s not even a personal attack. It’s an ad hoping it can make a personal attack later. Is this really where we are?

“Gee,” this ad says. “Wouldn’t it be great if there were a scandal in Rick Perry’s personal life? Get on that, facts.”

“Rick Perry Is A Family Values Hypocrite*” the ad says. *We still have no facts to support this claim.

Are we okay with this? We shouldn’t be.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle went immediately to the Let’s find out all about Morrow angle.

The coarsening of the political discourse (This isn’t new, and indeed goes back to the days of Jefferson-Adams. I published a book chapter on it last year.) is really a sign that the perpetual campaign lasts for too long.

The Birmingham News’ Sunday circulation is up, mirroring a recent trend taking place elsewhere. The reason:

The sour economy and a popular television show have combined to boost demand for the Sunday edition of The Birmingham News — among both frugal consumers and thieves.

Theft of the coupon-packed Sunday newspaper has increased about 15 percent since the April debut of the TLC show “Extreme Couponing,” said Troy Niday, News vice president for operations. Single copy sales of the Sunday paper have increased about 16 percent over the same period.

“It’s almost as if the market woke up and realized we’ve got coupons,” Niday said.

Writing leads (and even ledes)

Leads are important. Does your lead punch hard and have readers leaning in? Or does your lead flail around and push readers away?

There’s plenty of great advice out there on that all-important first paragraph of your story. Here are some key points, taken from Steve Buttry, a former newspaper writing coach, via Amy King.  How can you get all of this (and more) into one lead? It takes time and attention, but it can be done.

Start early
As you’re reporting, think about the lede. Are you observing an exchange that might provide a scene the lede? Don’t lock in on one lede so that you miss a better one that comes up.

Write as you report
After your first interview or two, start writing. You may not have your lede yet, but starting to write gets your mind into the story earlier. Keep writing after subsequent interviews. Write each time as though this is the story.

Use story elements

Decide which is the strongest element in your story: plot, character, setting, conflict, theme. Your lede should focus on the strongest element. Consider starting at the climax, or at least at a critical moment that establishes the conflict.

Entice the reader
Don’t treat your lede as a suitcase into which you will cram as much as you can fit. If your lede captures the essence of your story in a few words, the reader will read on to learn the facts. You don’t need them all in the lede. A long lede shows a lack of confidence, like you don’t believe I’ll read the whole story so you have to tell me as much as you can as fast as you can.

Challenge every word
However long your lede is, consider whether it could be shorter. If it’s longer than 30 words, it’s almost definitely too long. A lede that long has to flow smoothly to work, and few ledes that long flow smoothly. Try writing a lede of 10 words or fewer. Especially if your lede is more than 20 words, challenge each piece of the lede and ask whether that actually has to be in your very first paragraph.

Challenge the verbs
Are you using the strongest appropriate verb? Is it in active voice? Never use a form of the verb “to be” in your lede without trying some alternatives. Sometimes it’s the only accurate verb, but see if a stronger verb works. Challenge other weak verbs, such as have, do and get.

Avoid vague phrases
If your lede starts with (or uses) vague phrases such as there are or it is, see if you can rewrite it with strong, specific subjects and verbs.

Keep it simple
Ask whether you’re trying to tell too much in your lede. Are you answering all the 5 W’s, when a couple could wait till the second graf? Don’t try to cram everything into your lede.

Make one point
Does your lede have multiple points? If so, perhaps you haven’t decided what the story truly is about. Decide which point is most important and write a lede that makes just that point.

Remember the news
Does your lede get right to the news? Does it emphasize the news?

Stamp out punctuation
Many of the best ledes have one piece of punctuation, a period. Regard multiple commas or dashes as red flags.

Challenge prepositions and conjunctions
Identify each prepositional phrase in the lede and consider whether the information it adds is worth the words it adds. Can it be replaced with a single adjective or adverb? If your lede contains and, or or but, consider whether you’re introducing another element that you should save for the second paragraph.

Challenge adjectives and adverbs
Consider whether the lede would be stronger without each of the adjectives adverbs. What do they add? Can you eliminate them by using more specific (and stronger) nouns or verbs?

Don’t sweat the details
An important detail might strengthen your lede, but many details bog down a lede. Tighten your lede by cutting details that can wait until later in the story. Rarely do you need both a person’s name and identification in the lede.

Don’t get lost in process
On many beats, particularly government and court beats, reporters must learn and understand lots of processes. Sometimes the reporter loses perspective and thinks the process is as important to readers as it is to sources. Readers care most about results.