The Punctuation RAP Up

When I first sat down to think about what I would write about for my last blog, I had a small case of writer's block. I really wanted to go out big, do something different and exciting that would tie the entire semester together. But as I stared at my computer screen, all I could think about was the amount of work I have in these upcoming weeks and when I am going to start studying for our final lab test.

My eyes kept darting between When Words Collide and the AP Stylebook on my top shelf. I was going back and forth in my mind trying to give myself a brief summary of usage, case and, of course, punctuation before I started studying.

And then it came to me.

I have never done a link to a You Tube video. People always talk about the links to their videos when we discuss our blogs in class, but I’m old fashioned; I’d always rather just write.

When I was describing this class to one of my friends, I kept calling it my punctuation class. To this day, she does not seem to understand that we do not just practice placing commas and periods in the correct spot all day. I promise I’m going somewhere with this.

So as I said, it hit me. Even though I know I have learned rules about grammar, usage, case and more that I did not even know existed, I think I will always remember this class as my punctuation class. So as my farewell, I embraced punctuation and gave in to the rest of the class. I finally got a link to a You Tube video: The Punctuation Rap.

After just a few months of my punctuation class, I already find myself thinking about punctuation more than a normal person. Just yesterday, I was taking the Dow Jones Business Reporting Internship Test (what a mouthful), and I found myself thinking about punctuation. There is a section of the test where you simply need to choose between two words and pick which better fits the sentence; usage. But for some reason, even after I completed that section I could not stop looking at it because I wanted to correct the punctuation. It was not required and was not supposed to have mistakes, but I was positive that something was wrong. Oh punctuation class, what you have done to me….

The Best Coaches

A positive image does not usually come to mind when I think about coaches. I played sports, volleyball and soccer, for many years up until college. When I think about the coaches that I had on these teams, I think of men and women standing on the side line and yelling at me when I did something wrong; or pulling me out of the game because I’m not having a good day. The few coaches that have left positive impressions never really coached on game day. They would spend hours and hours during the week at practice working with each player and helping her correct any problems she was having before they happened.

This is why coaching writers also needs to happen early on.

If editors follow in the footsteps of who I consider to be great coaches, life in the newsroom will be much more relaxed. When stories are edited and reworded, they often lose meaning which is upsetting to the writer; however, if an editor steps in early in the process and gives constructive criticism, the writer will be able to come up with a great story and improve on her own without feeling like she has been insulted or forced to do something.

This past week in lab, we discussed coaching writers with Professor Follis. After going over main points from Roy Peter Clark and Don Fry’s book “Coaching Writers,” I followed up with the topic. Poynter Online has a great section where people can write in to an advice column about questions they have regarding journalism. I read a piece posted today titled “The Coaching Way,” which was a letter from a young editor at a small daily publication asking about how to properly coach writers. Although Chip, the columnist, had a long response, these were the four points he highlighted:

1. To make use of the knowledge and experience of the writer.
2. To give the writer primary responsibility for the story.
3. To provide an environment in which the writer can do the best possible job.
4. To train the writer, so that editing will be unnecessary.

After reflecting on my past athletic experiences, points two and four seem most relevant. As I said earlier, the best coaches do not look like they are coaching; the ones I remember and admire helped me before I had a major problem and made me feel like I was succeeding on my own. I feel like once editors master this philosophy, the newsroom will run more smoothly and writers will want to come to their editors for help and advice. And although it might take some work to really become a good coach, once editors are good coaches I think they will have cut out a significant part of their work load.

"Obama Wins"

It was incredible to see all of the different headlines and front pages the day after Barack Obama became the president elect of our country. I knew that his face would be on the cover of every American publication, but I was even more excited to see that he made it to the front of international papers as well; however, I can not say that I am that surprised. When I was abroad in Barcelona, Spain last semester, the first thing people would say to me when I told them I was from Chicago or America was “Barack Obama!”

At newseum.org, I found a few front pages that I really enjoyed, and a few that I really did not.

The Tribune from San Luis Obispo, Cali., had a great front page. It caught my attention because even though it featured Obama like the other papers, it was a little different. The picture is of his entire family, which I think is nice because I think seeing our next president with his loved ones shows how change really is coming our way. I also like the lay out and headline of the page. “American History” jumps out at me, rather than seeing another line that says “Obama Wins,” or “Change Has Come.” The lay out is also nice because it features Obama and his family as the center of attention, but also has stories underneath that follow up with the Congressional elections and the Democrat’s majority, which reminds readers that Obama winning was not the only news of the previous night.

The Gwinnett Daily Post from Lawrenceville, Ga., also had a front page I liked. The headline reads “Historic vote,” which shows the importance of Americans coming out and to vote for the first African-American president. The accompanying picture obviously shows that Obama won, so I think that it is nice the headline shows the story at another angle. I also like how the far left column gives the results of other national races, and then elections in Georgia to bring it back home, even on the front cover.

The front page of the San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, Calif., was not as appealing. When I first saw it, I thought that there had been some kind of background error because the photo showed Obama speaking during daylight, and his acceptance speech was at night. However, when I blew the cover up, I could tell that the shot was not of Obama giving his acceptance speech, just him speaking on another random day. I just think that there had to have been a better shot to use, or some way to get a photographer out to get a shot of the new president.

Collaboration: Do's and Don'ts

Should j-schools be partnering more closely with other academic departments in order to impart to students a more current and relevant skill set and mindset?

I do agree with Gahran’s point about collaborating with other departments. If journalism schools are more closely paired with other academic groups, not only would journalism students have an easier time getting into the job market, but other departments could learn about the important standards of journalism and apply them to their businesses, schools, etc.

In my opinion, it makes the most sense for journalists to collaborate with the business department. At this point in time, business journalism is the fastest growing area of journalism, so it would benefit students early on to have a backround in how to copy edit business work. In addition, a lot of business people have trouble with applying writing skills in their work when necessary, so they too could learn better editing and writing skills from the get-go. At our university, I think that business students also have an advantage in the job search, through opportunities like the business career fair and Symplicity, a Web site that allows business students to easily apply for jobs online. Perhaps if our departments merged, journalism students too could find jobs more easily.

Although at this point in time I think joining with the business school is most important, I think that if all of the departments could collaborate with journalism, they would all benefit. Writing and editing is such an important skill to have, no matter what career path one chooses to pursue.

After reading the comments on Grahan’s article, it does seem like there is an issue of time at hand. However, perhaps the merge could be started at a slow pace, making it a requirement for all students to take an editing class, and all journalism students to take a business writing class. The merge may take time, but I think it could do wonders for the students at any University.

"Another One Bites the Dust"

Unfortunately, print media suffered another loss this past week. Elle Accessories, a spin off of the popular Elle magazine, has temporarily halted publication. Anne Slowey, the editor of the magazine, shut down the production because she lost four key writers. Supposedly, Elle Accessories will return next fall.

To read more about what happened to Elle Accessories, check out this article on Fashion Week Daily Dispatch.

Of course I never like to hear that a printed publication is shut down, but I am especially sad to hear about this situation. I can accept that perhaps newspapers will eventually all be online; however I had more faith in magazines. I really thought that since magazines cater to a specific audience, i.e. fashion accessories, they will stay alive because they supply the pubic with information that generalized newspapers do not. On a more selfish level, I would be extremely upset to see magazines die out because next to a great book, they are my favorite things to read. Does this mean that all printed media, despite how specific, are on the downfall? Will every magazine we know of today eventually “bite the dust?”

Business Writing

This week was my first meeting with Lynn Holley who is my mentor in the College of Media this year. I decided to talk to her on occasion because as a graduating senior, I am in desperate need of finding a job.

I thought the hardest part would be starting to look for a job. I am still a little unsure of what kind of journalism or writing career I want to pursue, and it seems like an impossible task to get started on my own. However, the conversation that Ms. Holley and I had went a different direction than I had imagined. She encouraged me to look into the Dow Jones internship opportunities.

I am not going to lie, I have not been planning on taking the Dow Jones test. An internship in copyediting does not appeal to me, and I took the test last year and did horrible. But I forgot about the opportunities Dow Jones has in business writing, which is why Ms. Holley and I started talking about the subject anyway.

Business journalism seems like it is the fastest growing area of journalism right now; it is where the jobs are at. I showed Ms. Holley my cover letter for Sheila Solomon, the recruiter who is coming from the Chicago Tribune, and Ms. Holley said to focus on the writing I am doing for the College of Business. She said Ms. Solomon would be most interested in seeing those writing samples because that is now an important area of journalism.

Click here to check out one of the articles I wrote for the College of Business.

Despite the fact that I do not really want another internship after I graduate, I think I might just have to bite the bullet. Ms. Holley said that Dow Jones loved the intern they had in business writing last summer and offered him a job. So as much as I dread the days in class where I have to crunch numbers and practice for the Dow Jones test, I think keeping my options open my actually lead to a career in business writing.

Check out the Dow Jones News Fund website if you want to learn more about the internships opportunities.

The Bail Out Plan, Part Two

The most recent problem that our country has been battling is the financial crisis. After being rejected the first time around, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the revised $700 billion bail out plan; Bush signed it Friday October 3.

A CNN article posted last week describes the issue in greater detail: “Bush thanked all those involved and said the bill was essential to stopping the crisis on Wall Street becoming a crisis in the wider economy. Bush said it sent a message to the rest of the world that the U.S. was ready to take action to ease the credit crunch. He said it would take sometime for the bill to have an impact on the American economy.”

The bail out plan seems like it was a necessary precaution, however, I could not help think: When, or will, newspapers ever have to be bailed out?

In the CNN article, Bush said that he was glad the financial crisis could be stopped early on before spreading to the entire economy. Couldn’t there have been a way to stop the downfall that newspapers are facing sooner? Yes, I understand that it is a very different situation, but our country forgetting about the printed word and newspapers apparently forgetting how to appeal to their audience are problems that also need to be addressed. Of course, a financial crisis is solved with money. But what would it take, that is what law would need to be passed, to save newspapers? Maybe we need a law stating that the entire adult population in the country needs to pick up a newspaper everyday. Or a law that forces newspapers to cater to smaller, more specific audiences besides only running the obvious headline news, such as the bail out plan.

I also smiled to myself when I read the line that stated Bush said the bail out sent a message to the rest of the world that our country was fighting the credit problem. Well, what kind of message does the rest of the world get when part of our country can not get money to battle illiteracy, or the fact that slang is taking over our language and soon it may never be the same? Again, I understand the imminent danger of the financial crisis, yet perhaps a bail out should be considered for other parts of our country as well.

To Run or Not To Run

Would you run these photos?

The only photos that I would run are the first and last; the one of the boy and his dog and the Fat Tuesday celebration. If any of the others ran, I would feel like I violated my own code of ethics.

What criteria did you use to make a decision?

I thought about the code of ethics that we discussed in class and the 10 questions that journalists should ask themselves when publishing a story/picture. The following three questions really got to me: “What are the possible consequences of my actions,” “What are my ethical concerns,” and “Can I explain my thinking to colleagues, shareholders and the public at large.” I do not know how I could explain to the family in the second photo why I thought the picture of their deceased son had any journalistic value, or why the public needed to see a young boy with a fence post going through his chin. For photos like these, I try and put myself in the place of the person who is being featured or his or her family and friends. If I can not imagine having that picture published of myself or someone I love, I can’t bring myself to publish the photo.

Under what circumstances would you run the photos?

I would be strongly opposed to running the photos, regardless of who else wanted to publish them. The only reason I would publish the photos were if after consulting with others, I was the only one who felt strongly about not publishing, or if someone contacted the person or the family of the person in the photo and they insisted the photo be published. Otherwise, I would still not run the photos since I do not think the public needs to see them to understand the severity of the story.

Would your decision be different if the events were local?

No I don’t think so. I would still use the same criteria, which would lead me to not run the photos. Actually, a local story would make me even more likely to not run the photos because even more people would know the person who is in the photo.

Does where or how you play the photo have any bearing on your decision?

No, once again I would use the same criteria, despite how the photo was being played. I would certainly not allow for any of the photos to run on the cover of any paper, not only because it goes against my own ethical standards, but also I would never want the public to think I am using someone else’s misery to sell papers.

With which photo did you struggle the most? Why?

I had trouble deciding whether or not to publish the Fat Tuesday photo. I ultimately decided to run it because the girl's face and identity are hidden, and in the rest of the photos, the person featured can clearly be seen. I also thought that I could explain why I published the photo. In my opinion, all the other photos only showed pain and misery and taught or informed the public of nothing. In the Fat Tuesday photo, I think that it shows how out of hand Mardi Gras celebrations can get, and might cause people to think about their actions more closely, or at least draw more security to the event in future years.

The Gambling Problem

Apparently, gambling is addictive.

A story discussing gambling amongst students was published this past Friday in the Daily Illini. Overall, the story emphasized that gambling is a problem in our country, especially amongst young people. However, I do not think the numbers add up. There was really only one paragraph that included statistics, but it left a few unanswered questions:

“About 2 percent of the adult population are addicted to gambling, or have a high affinity to become addicted to gambling, Kindt said. The percentage of young people, between the ages of 18 and 26, is even higher, at 4 to 6 percent.”

This information is attributed to a professor at our University. If I was the reporter for this story, I would have looked further into the statistics he provided for the story and followed up with him about any questions I had. Since the professor is at the University, it should have been fairly easy to clarify any questions.

Now perhaps my math is off, but when I looked into these gambling statistics, I was a little confused. What is the adult population in our country? According to the World Fact Book, updated July 2008, there are 101,825,901 men and 102,161,823 women in our country between ages 15-64. Lets say then that the adult population consists of about 150,000,000 if we subtract about 50,000,000 for ages 18-26. So if 2 percent of adults are addicted to gambling, that means 3,000,000 people have an addiction. This figure seems high to me. Three million is an extremely large number of people to have an addiction or high affinity to becoming addicted. However, I am also not well-versed in gambling, so maybe the problem is how this data is presented. I think it would have been beneficial to have quote or attributed information for Kindt stating what exactly qualifies someone as addicted; is it a very serious problem or does it just refer to the amount of people that gamble in general. Also, I would like to know how you can quantify the percent of people that could become addicted to gambling. I think it would be hard to measure mathematically and would be clearer with further explanation. In fact, if it is possible to separate the number of people that are actually addicted to gambling and those that could become addicted into two separate percents the data would also be stronger.

The next statistic states that 4 to 6 percent of younger people, ages 18-26, are addicted to gambling. Going back to the math I did from the World Fact Book information, this means that there are roughly 50,000,000 people between ages 18-26. This means that according to this data, it is possible that the same number of people in the total population is equal to the number of younger people that are addicted to gambling: between two and three million. Again, perhaps I am wrong, but this also seems rather high, depending on the definition of addicted.

Copyediting: Because Language Matters

So I am sitting at Grainger and just finished reading the latest chapter of “When Words Collide” and thought now was a good time to blog. For some reason the creative spirit has not come over me so I decided to simply Google “Copy editors.” I have been Googling random terms since our lab session last week since we discussed the importance of Googling ourselves before job interviews.

I was not expecting much when I entered “Copy editors,” but to my surprise I found a very humorous hit. The piece started out by defining what a copy editor does:

“Your job title may or may not be ‘copyeditor,’ but copyediting is what you do: it’s your job to make sure that the documents and publications you work on are clear and accurate--that no errors of fact, grammar, punctuation, or style get in the way of the intended message.”

Copyediting newsletter link

This special, inspirational message to all the copy editors out there comes from a newsletter for copy editors! Maybe this is only funny to me because I have been sitting at Grainger for about three hours now, but come on. I just find it hysterical that there is a newsletter titled “Copyediting” that has been around “since 1990” for all those nerds like us out there who want the hot gossip about copyediting. You have to subscribe to this newsletter!

Besides offering people juicy copy editing tips, “Copyediting” also offers those who are interested in being certified in copyediting a self-paced training program to actually get certified. Although you have to pay for online modules, I can only imagine that the experience is priceless.

McMurray, the company that produces this magical newsletter, gets two thumbs up from me. Not only has it made me laugh out loud at Grainger and given me the energy to keep studying, but it also dotes on the importance of the copy editor. To all of those out there who believe we are destroying the English language and there is no hope in saving it, subscribe to “Copyediting.” At least some people still care and are trying to save our language, or at least having been trying since 1990.

Laura

The Bandwagon to India

At Mindworks Global Media in Noida, India, the work just keeps on coming. The company, started by Tony Joseph, 46, does not produce any type of publication itself, but instead works for media companies from all across the globe that outsource copy editing work.

In a BusinessWeek article from this July, I read that Mindworks has been doing outsourcing work for four years now. Mindworks started outsourcing copy editing work for the U.S. just last year. Joseph said that he realized that the fastest way for Mindworks to grow was to focus on receiving copy editing work from international companies.

Apparently Dell is not the only American company jumping on the bandwagon to India.

Yes, we all know that the newspaper industry is suffering. But outsourcing work to India just to save a buck? It’s hard for me to believe that leaders in the newspaper industry have not thought that although outsourcing saves money they don't have, in the end they are only further hurting themselves. One of the main problems that newspapers and journalism in general are facing at this point in time is a lack of credibility. The rush to be first in publication has allowed for more grammatical and factual errors that tarnish a publication’s reputation. How can outsourcing work to India help solve any of these problems?

As John McIntyre discussed in Back Talk, of course anyone can catch simple spelling errors, but that does not nearly cover the job that copy editors perform. They catch factual errors and mistakes in the English language that one of the 90 men and women at Mindworks would most likely blow over.

Besides the alarming fact that newspapers seem to be missing why outsourcing is not the solution to their problems, I am more upset about the view of America that is being projected to the international community. We are already known as the fat, lazy, stupid country. Which, to be honest, I understand, considering the image that we project to the world through our media and political decisions. But at least before, American’s were editing these stupid shows. Now, not only are we projecting a negative image, but in addition are admitting that we can not even edit this negative image anymore. I get a bad taste in my mouth when I think about the fact that the people who have chosen to pursue journalism and hopefully defend the demise of the English language have given up and passed the job onto people on the other side of the world.

It is one thing for Dell to outsource to India. I can come to terms with the fact that Americans may not be the leaders in computer science and engineering. The other day in my History of Journalism class, my professor reassured us that although our engineering friends on campus will be making three or four times the amount of money we will in a few years, we are not to worry because without communications, there would be no engineers. No matter how many numbers they can crunch, engineers still need to be able to communicate their findings and ideas with one another to make things come together.

The fact that this proud standard that I now hold myself to seems to be slipping away is hard for me to grasp. Are we passing on our pride in communications by passing on our editing responsibilities to India? Have we lost to the engineers?

Headlines gone wrong

Forgive me because I know this topic is a few weeks out dated, but I could not help but stumble across the first post of Professor McDonald’s blog about Steve Jobs’ premature obituary. A few weeks ago, the Bloomberg financial newswire published a story stating that Jobs, the Apple CEO, had passed away. Although Job is ill with pancreatic cancer, he has not died.

I could not help but think back to the article that we read last week by Vin Crosbie. Only in a society where there is a growing need to be the first rather than the best would a newswire rush to publish someone’s death. In the second part of Crosbie’s article he discussed that since the creation of the Internet, there is a 24 hour stream of news. Rather than priding themselves on being the best, newspapers have to be the first. In my opinion, I think that this is an even stronger reason for the downfall of newspapers, rather than lack of variety in the material offered. I feel like every time I tell my friends that I am working for the Daily Illini or want to go into journalism, they ask me why I am bothering to try and get a degree in something that I could already be doing.

At least in younger generations, it seems that there has been a loss of trust in the press, and honestly, I sometimes think for good reason. After looking over the Wired Blog Network’s article about the Steve Jobs situation, I got upset with myself for a second. For as long as I have been interested in journalism, I have always focused on content first. If I am a good enough writer, an editor should always be able to fix any grammatical errors easily, right? I should never have to worry about how or when stories are published, right? Well obviously those are both ridiculous ideas. If I had been the writer who wrote the obituary for Steve Jobs, my reputation would have been just as tarnished as the person who made the mistake in publishing the article. Even more importantly, if I know the grammar and master the language I am writing in, the content should all come together.

The Steve Jobs incident has prepared me to take editing and grammar more seriously. I feel like I have put it off for as long as I have been studying journalism, and am finally ready to master it. Hopefully, the process will not be too painful.

Response to Crosbie articles

After reading the first two parts of Vin Crosbie’s “Transforming American Newspapers,” I felt myself sweating a little bit. Seeing as how it is my final year at the University and I am clearly locked in this journalistic career path, I could not help but think to myself that I might have chosen a future that potentially has a dead end. The first part of Crosbie’s piece really hit home when he mentioned the Goldman Sachs equity analyst Peter Appert who talked about covering the deterioration of the newspaper industry: "If I covered only the newspaper industry, first of all I would have been fired a long time ago; secondly, I would have had to kill myself." Not only does this make me feel like my chances of a career in journalism are dying but also that the field is simply not interesting to the public anymore, which to me is even more upsetting. What surprised me most in the first article was that some online editions of newspapers are read even less frequently than the print versions because until I read Crosbie’s piece, I fell into the category of people that believed print journalism was dying because an online option was available. Although the first part of “Transforming American Newspapers” was filled with statistics that helped me understand just how much newspapers were struggling, I found the second article much more intriguing. In my Journ 405 History of Journalism class, we are currently studying Johannes Gutenberg’s invention the printing press since it allowed for what we know today as mass communication. It took people out of the Middle Ages and gave them the opportunity to communicate with their neighbors for the first time without being scared that the nobility would be knocking at their doorstep soon to come and be-head them. It was quite the shock, therefore, to hear from Crosbie how sticking to the technique developed by Gutenberg is what is actually destroying the newspaper industry just after learning about how it lead to communication in the modern world. Despite how highly I regarded Gutenberg and his ground-breaking invention, I still found myself nodding along with Crosbie as I read that the problem with the newspaper industry is that like in Gutenberg’s time, newspapers are still printing an over supply of a product that is the same for everyone. Of course the internet is more popular, people can get the exact news and information they want at the click of a mouse. But then I stopped myself. Although most mainstream newspapers that I have read are very general, there are also many special topic magazines that can be found right next to these papers at the news stand. Why would print circulation go down if people can get the general, important news from the mainstream papers and then just grab a special topics magazine to go along with it? Well as I read along with Crosbie in part two, I thought to myself, well duh. I forgot about the most important part of the internet: It is free. Of course people are not going to pay for a general newspaper subscription and then also a special topics magazine when they can get it all faster and cheaper online. After finding myself agreeing with Crosbie throughout almost his whole second piece, I felt like the article came to a disappointing ending. He ends with his opinion that there is now not a need for completeness and accuracy in journalism: who cares if a story is edited and factually correct and complete if it is not the first piece out there? With the internet up 24 hours a day, it is now a race to be first rather than the best. This left me again feeling grim about the credibility of my future career. Will anyone take me seriously when I say that I am a journalist? Because even though I went to college for four years and have a degree in the field, a man can sit and publish things online at home in his underwear. I also felt like Crosbie left a main question unanswered in this piece: How? OK, I agree with him that he may have uncovered the root of newspapers’ problems, but he does not say how they can actually shift into publishing more specific topics. Perhaps that will be in the third part of “Transforming American Newspapers,” but until he writes it, I think his argument is missing a key piece. Personally, I hope he does write about a cure so in ten years I won’t be blogging from my basement about what my career could have been.