Otterblog

We’ve talked from time to time about the dangers of photoshopping, i.e. adding “content” to a photograph that wasn’t there in the first place. Here’s the latest, and it involves Jocelyn Kirsch, the young woman from Winston-Salem who is in trouble with the authorities in Philadelphia for various ID theft and related charges.

There are all sorts of rules about creating photoillustrations, essentially the merging of a photograph and artistry (beyond the photograph itself). One is that it ought to be labeled as such. In this case, the newspaper did, but I’m told it was in teeny-tiny type. But I think more importantly, when a photoshop result looks like reality, as opposed to fantasy or the like, it is something to be avoided on serious subjects, such as crime and punishment.

Yes, this Bonnie & Clyde tale of young lovers in Philly is good stuff, but that’s not an excuse for lowering the standards.

I had to go to the Central Branch of the Forsyth County Public Library last night. The basement is about half empty. Much of the library expansive library collection has been removed. It’s for sale, as our story this morning noted.

There is something incredibly sad about the process. In the quaint old days before the Internet, the magazine archives at the library were the place where I did much of my research. It was an impressive collection. I don’t think we would have been able to report our mammoth history of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., known as Lost Empire, without it. I’ll be honest. In recent years, I haven’t used it as much, but I took comfort in knowing it was there and from time to time killed a few hours researching this or that.

Our information era is a scary place. We have more information than ever available at our fingertips. And with a few clicks you can often get to exactly the article you are looking for. But here’s what I fear is being lost along the way. It’s the art of browsing, and the joy of serendipitous discovery. Of going looking for one thing and ending up completely entranced and captivated with something else.

It’s true that NC Live, which has a vast collection of magazines online, is a wonder. But it’s not a replacement for what was there. The information you get is only the text. You don’t see the pictures. How a story was played. The ad on the facing page, and the really cool story that is just before it.

This is just one more example of how the Web is changing our world and changing journalism. I’ve always thought that journalism is a combination of exertion and observation, learning to recognize both patterns (i.e. trends) and non-patterns (things that don’t look quite right). And as information gets ordered up just the way we asked for it or somebody else asked for it, those skills become harder to exercise.

crossroads.jpg

I don’t do much reporting these days. I do meet a lot of people and I speak with them about coverage, both general and specific. But as far as attending news events and writing up stories, that happens rarely. But every once in a while I like to go an event and watch it myself, rather than absorb it through the discussion with reporters and editors and the stories that ensue.
Last night, I went to the public forum where the four candidates for police chief were interviewed by members of the community.
Our story is here.
I purposely didn’t sit with our reporters and editors who were there, but instead took a seat in the back to sort of watch the whole thing as a member of the public, rather than a journalist. It was a messy democratic process, but a democratic process of sorts nonetheless. The nice thing about going to an event that you’re not covering is that you don’t have to take notes. You can just absorb it all and not obsess about the exact quote a person said.
One of the things that impressed me this morning when I read our story was how spot on the coverage was. I occasionally hear comments and complaints from readers that our version of a meeting or event was as if the reporter was at another function. But we got this one right. If I had been telling a friend about the hearing and I had 20 inches to do it, what they wrote and what we read is what I would have said.

Two other things:
First, have a safe and happy Memorial Day. In between the burgers and the pain at the pump, remember what it is all about.

Second, I’ve attached a photo taken a few weeks ago that I found somewhat amusing. I call it crossroads, and you will see why.

appalachian.jpg

We talk a great deal more about the “news cycle” than in the past. The idea—of course—is that news is perishable and that in a world where information is being bombarded at us 360/24/7, things get stale quite quickly.
So discussions about what to put on our front page and how to present it are different than in years past. When picking stories for the front, I try to consider importance (locally and elsewhere), presentation possibilities, and its place in the news cycle. In other words an important story that has been the discussion of the cable TV stations all day may have less value as a front-page item than something that is equally important but less covered to death.

This is a rather lengthy preamble to our discussion about whether we underplayed the diagnosis of Sen. Edward Kennedy with brain cancer. We used a photo of the senator on the front page and teased to a full story inside the A section. In making that decision, I felt that this was a story that had been in the news cycle—no, it had been the news cycle—for most of the previous day and would be found by readers regardless of where we put it.

At our meeting yesterday, several editors respectfully said we should have put it on A1. National story, etc. etc. I disagreed then and still do. But as I try to do when reasonable people make reasonable arguments, I did some checking. Most regional papers did what we did. They teased to the Kennedy story inside the paper with a photo. National papers tended to make it an A1 story. The most interesting placement I saw was in the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page has often made Kennedy its personal whipping boy through the years. It was their lead story, stripped across the top with a two-deck head.

I’m interested in your thoughts on how this story ought to have been played.

Followup: On Monday, I discussed Winston-Salem’s inclusion in the geographic definition of Appalachia and asked why that is so. I’ve attached a story from 1965 that attempts to answer that question.

It’s that time of the year again,when a bunch of the best and brightest college students invade our newsroom for three months of work and learning. As I’ve said in previous posts, this is one of the true pleasures of the job, helping smart and ambitious college journalists advance in their careers. Many of our interns have gone on to big-time journalism jobs, and I’d like to think that some small part of their success was based on their 12 weeks at our paper.

Our four newsroom interns are Erik Spencer Hill, Winston-Salem State University; Liz DeOrnellas, UNC Chapel Hill; Maura O’Keefe, University of Virginia, and Jamie Chevillet, University of Ohio (she graduates next month).

So, you will likely see some unfamiliar bylines during the next few months. Give them encouragement and let them know what you think.

One of my favorite sites is something called The Rural Blog. It’s really a collection of news about rural America, but the folks who run it do a good job of culling stories and packaging. The most recent installment has an interesting debate about Obama and Appalachia. One thing that caught my eye in the included map is the boundary of Appalachia, as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission. Winston-Salem is in the region, but curiously enough, Roanoke, Va. isn’t. Will have to look into that.

Other views: It’s been a while, but about two years ago, I posted a bit about what to call people who aren’t in the country illegally. It’s an issue at newspapers across the country. Here’s what Ted Vaden, the ombudsman at the News & Observer of Raleigh has to say about the issue.

I apologize for the extended absence. Friday was a blur, with tornado coverage, and yesterday I was sick.  I know there are people who blog in their pajamas, but I am not one of them.

So where are we. Where were we?

One of the things I’ve been trying to wrap my head around recently is what I will call “disaster equivalency.” It is the horrid calculus of newspaper editors everywhere, in trying to equate tragedies at home with tragedies abroad. Now we have three. First is the damage from our May tornadoes in the Triad. Second is the tsunami disaster in Myanmar. Third is the earthquake in China. On a human scale, what happened here is a drop in the bucket compared to the unfolding tragedy in Asia. But as far as newsworthiness goes, it is a much bigger story, and one that people are still talking about. The high winds here yesterday kept the conversation going.

I know this: There is not enough time in the day nor column inches in the paper nor screens on the Web site to account for and take stock of all the suffering in the world from war and weather. So we pick and choose each day. This is not a cry for help or to yell “enough!). It’s simply a recognition that as our world shrinks, and more and more things become “local” stories, it is incredibly hard to find places for it all, in our hearts and minds and in our pages and Web sites. It’s not a desire to tune it out, either. Just a wish that there was less of it to worry about.

I had two radio appearances in the past two days, confirming once again that I have a face for that sort of business.

First, I was interviewed yesterday on WQMG by Busta Brown. He was talking about the photo that went with Day Three of our series on The Murders at Grassy Creek (It’s the 5th photo in the slide show). The shot shows Ron Hudler with First Lady Hillary Clinton when he was presenting the official White House Tree to the Clintons. There were two questions. One, were we making a political statement by running that photo? and Two, what was our intent with the two black men who can be seen in the background? To Busta, there was something a bit demeaning about the servile positions of these men. He’s a nice guy and a good and fair interviewer, so I enjoyed talking with him. My take is that A) the series was in the works long before we knew that there was a primary to worry about or that candidates would be in W-S that day, and B) the photo is about Mr. Hudler and Ms. Clinton. We received two photos from the presidential library, and this was the only usable one. The impression or pereception is bothersome, but not enough to not use the photo.

Second, I was interviewed on Talk of the Nation this afternoon by Neal Conan about the disappearance of local movie critics. As some of you may know or still remember, the Journal’s movie critic was let go during a downsizing several years ago. WFDD didn’t broadcast this half of the show, but it’s available online, although may not be available until later in the day. The summary of my comments: Tough decision, but ultimately the best of several bad scenarios. And movie watching and info about movies keeps changing. Citizen journalism includes criticism.

I received a request for help about archiving newspapers. I asked Julie Harris, our research director and library manager, who is an ace at all things regarding preserving the printed word: Here is her response:

It depends on how much newsprint to save, how often the papers are going to be used, and how elaborate you want to be in preserving the paper. Library of Congress has a discussion on preserving newspapers online. It discusses such things as microfilming and digitization but the main items are about preserving the printed paper itself.

Hope this helps.

If you read our Letters to the Editor, you’ve probably seen a fair number criticizing our columnist Scott Sexton. What started the ball rolling was a column about layoffs and executive pay at Hanesbrands and the company’s contributions to the proposed downtown arts complex. The gist of their comments are that corporate philanthropy is worthy, regardless of the giver or the timing of the gift, and that people who don’t recognize the value of downtown arts projects are shortsighted Philistines.

But more to the larger point that I sense in these letters and conversations around town is the idea that a columnist for a newspaper or a TV station (where Jesse Helms earned his stripes) or a Web site should be a cheerleader for and never ask hard questions for the folks in power. That they shouldn’t jab or poke or prod or tease.

That’s precisely what they should do, as well as praise if they think it’s warranted. Interpret facts and state an opinion. It’s not the newspaper’s opinion. It’s their opinion. We provide a columnist a forum (and a paycheck) because we think the voice is worth hearing, if not always agreeing with.

Now Scott works for the Metro Editor, who reports to me, and I report to the Executive Editor who reports to the Publisher. So, yes, there are a lot of people who could tell Scott what to write about (or more likely what NOT to write about.) But it’s a false Eden. The result is pablum. Once you start telling an opinion writer what their opinion has to be, pretty soon the whole thing falls apart. You can’t have a guard dog protect only one half of the yard.

Do I agree with everything Scott writes? Of course not. But that’s not the point. Or my job. It’s to make sure that he plays fair, reports accurately and states his opinion in a way that’s easy to understand and hopefully enjoyable to read.

Email-retention policies are not the sexiest three words in the English language. They’re not even the sexiest words in the English language of bureaucrats, but there’s a battle/skirmish being waged in Raleigh about how the government stores and keeps email. Here’s the link to Gov. Easley’s release on the matter. The background is that a press person at DHHS was fired after a series in the N&O about woeful mental health care. On her way out she said that the Easley administration was telling folks to delete their email. Easley folks said no, then others came forward to say yeah, sort of.

Email has become a treasure trove of sorts for reporters. Most newspapers have set up systems with local governments where they routinely get the email of city manager or the like just forwarded to their inboxes. We love it. Public officials don’t. Lots of reasons why. First, it’s a pain separating out email that is considered a public record and those that aren’t (such as email involving personnel). Second, the use of email is too pervasive. It is the way we communicate, and so the amount of email on a particular subject can be huge. Third, people say things in email that they wouldn’t say over the phone or in person or in an OFL (old-fashioned letter).

I think that everybody in the state has conceded that emails are public records, so the real question is how to manage and disseminate them to the public (whether the press or otherwise). It’s costly (both time and money). Nobody probably wants to read every email that Gov. Easley writes, but the idea of having 10 mm state of north carolina emails flood your inbox everyday is a little overwhelming as well. As with all large amounts of data, if you can’t sort, you’re lost in the woods.

If I was a betting person, I would look for legislation on this in the 2009 session, when a new governor and a new General Assembly try to figure out what makes sense in a digital age with a public looking for transparency in government.

Yesterday, I did my civic duty and answered the call for jury duty. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Right in the middle of spring break. But what are you going to do? Everybody I told I was doing this said essentially the same thing? They’d let you be on a jury? I tried not to take that as an insult on my impartiality/intellect/independence. The conventional wisdom is that journalists never get picked for juries. Lots of reasons/speculation: We’re anti-authority. We don’t believe what anybody says. We know too many lawyers. We’ve written about the plaintiffs/defense/prosecutors etc. Take your pick. But times have changed. I know several journalists who have been picked to serve on juries in recent years. My guess is it’s a function of several things. First, that the jury pool is more shallow than we care to admit. Second, a realization that we’re good at sifting through complicated matters and rendering fair decisions.

Now, civic duty takes many forms. For me, it was this. Sitting in a room about as cold as a meat locker for seven hours reading magazines and doing some work. In the background, reruns of Sanford and Son and the Jeffersons. Sort of an interesting dynamic there. The TV was off for the first 90 minutes. Then somebody turned it on. At first, it was a big annoyance, but slowly our group’s attention turned to the rantings of George and Louise, Fred and LaMonte. Even the most hard-boiled of us was laughing by the end of it all. And so, if most of us didn’t get to serve on a jury, I’d like to think there was a little bit of bonding and good will formed through the day that will carry over into our daily lives. That and the $12.