Case Study 2

One morning at the end of my eighth grade year, not but six months after Sept. 11, 2001, my homeroom class began the day by murmuring some words about "to the republic...yada, yada, yada..." with nary a hand on the heart. That is, except for that of a substitute teacher who was in charge of our class that day. When we were done, she made us stand up and do it again, this time the right way, saying all the words out loud. "Your generation has not seen a war like generations before you have," she said. We didn't understand how important our freedom was, even after it was attacked within our very borders.

And this war is no different. Most people know of someone who is in Iraq or they've had a neighbor who knows someone who died over there, but for the most part we live our lives in ignorant bliss. However, I don't think that's license to display graphic photos of dead bodies to the whole world. Not just for the fact that it is unprofessional and sensational, but because it's disrespectful to the people who are pictured, whether they're American soldiers or bodies of the enemy. There are better ways to express to readers the tragic loss of life and the intense suffering that is happening in the Middle East. It's easier and more shocking to show a picture, but we're not in the business of easy.

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Technological changes are taking place at a race-horse rate these days, requiring users to keep an exhaustive pace to keep up with seemingly small, but apparently important modifications, additions and upgrades to new tools and those already in use. For example, for many young people it's nearly impossible to think of the world "B.F." -- Before Facebook. Really the fertile womb of the Internet gave birth to what is now a fixed part of pop culture only six years ago, almost to the day, according to Facebook's own profile page. Yet in those six years, Facebook has matured out of its basic infancy and into an all-purpose social center, complete with its own marketplace.

The same evolution is happening right now with Twitter. According to its Web site, Twitter began "as a side project in March of 2006," yet it has already changed the way people read, communicate and even think. Like most online communication tools, it has found a place in journalism, and as the new "Lists" feature indicates, it will only find ways to become more useful and more involved in the news making process. If it's not already the case, checking Twitter will be as routine as checking e-mail for reporters, and it will be even more useful now that the lists can start the very process that is the purpose of news gathering, which is to "organize the flow of information."

The Internet is a living thing, at least in the minds of its users, and every tweet is like a cyber heartbeat. But, as Craig Kanalley points out, there is still the human element. "Humans--not bots--create the ecosystem," he says, referring to Twitter Lists. Everything on the internet started with a human at some point, which is why the same errors persist, no matter what form they come in. Whether on the screen or on an ancient scroll, errors require correction. Many times these days, those corrections aren't coming from within the newsroom, rather from the readers themselves. It's just a shame they're not all as courteous or as accurate as 19-year-old Daniel Lippman, fact checker extraordinaire.

And not every error is as innocuous as mistaken hip-hop lyrics, although that slip-up highlights the underrated omniscience required of copy editors. Every paper is like an episode of Jeopardy; you never know when there will be a "Miley Cyrus Hits" category. Some errors, however, can seriously affect peoples' lives for the worse, such as the British tabloid that accused a man of bringing two girls to his home to have sex with them. There's no doubt the error should be publicly corrected and apologized for, but do you repeat the entire allegation in the published correction? For clarity, yes. It wouldn't help to have the correction lead to more confusion.

Even if all the facts are right, some supermarket tabloids, which often get lumped in with "the media," find a way to twist the truth into something it's not by manipulating the wording of headlines. For example, "Thousands die after swine flu vaccination" heads a story about how older people have heart attacks and pregnant women have miscarriages, as if it that is a surprise. While "real" journalists condemn it, spin happens in even the most trustworthy of places. Not only can a copy editor at a respectable newspaper be tempted to embellish a boring story with a glitzy headline, the government itself is guilty of spin. It is notorious for using spin as a PR tool in an effort to make it seem like everything is under control. After Katrina, the primary damage control was to protect the image of the government.

Sorting out truth from spin is yet another bullet added to the list of responsibilities of a copy editor. As mentioned before, though, changing technology will keep that list forever growing. Now, just as a copy editor should always check any phone number about to be published in the paper, Web editors have to worry about hyperlinks. Beyond making sure the hyperlink actually links to the intended Web site, the decision of whether to include a hyperlink and to which site must come first. Does it add important information to the story? Is it linking to a reliable source? Does the source have to match our journalistic values? Will I be breaking copyright laws? (There is a handy online slider to answer that question).

There are many uses of hyperlinks, but perhaps the most useful kind is one that gives the reader information that is not common knowledge that will add to the background of a story. For example, in the conference on linking ethics from Poynter Online, Robert Cox mentioned "Dennis Ryerson's experience with Romenesko." In all likelihood, not many people are aware of what he's referring to. Those who do can skip over the hyperlink. Those who don't get an outside example of the topic at hand and can therefore make a more informed opinion on the subject.

However, while some online publications choose to link, and therefore must tussle with all the questions that follow, it is by no means the responsibility of a journalist to provide links, especially under the rationale that if the reader can find it easily, we should provide it as a service. The job of a journalist is so tell the reader something new, something they won't find on their own.

Robert Cox also mentioned a theory one might call "the Golden Rule of linking." The more you link to reliable sources, the more information you have on your page and the more other publications will want to link to you.

The post-WWII history of hypertext leads to an interesting perspective on the mentality behind the Internet, which is something foreshadowed by a scientist named Vanevar Bush. The Internet has become the manifestation of all mankind's communication desires. "I need to send this message right away" turned into e-mail. "Where can I find the answer to that random question" birthed Google. "I wish I knew what she was thinking all the time" spawned Twitter, and so on. Linking is the great connector. The need for extra information will continue to push technology further until our thoughts themselves can control our computers, or vice versa.

It's the vice versa that is terrifying the journalistic community. Tom Gitten's article on the woes of the written word provide a depressing reminder of how far the Internet has pushed news to adapt at the cost of jobs and institutions once valued as gold. The possibility of government subsidies to help the industry make it through a down economy is one that is not discussed in the public arena very much, perhaps because it is unlikely to succeed, no matter how hard the Federal Trade Commission tries.

Protocols

There are a few times in my life when I wished I had a nice, clean list of detailed protocols laid out for me in black and white. Unfortunately, nerve-wracking uncertainty usually pushes out any semblance of security.

So I am completely in favor of protocols in the newsroom. Not only do they save time by avoiding unnecessary phone calls and hand-wringing, but they create a sense of order and fluidity in a business that's infamously chaotic.

Also, coming from the point of view of a green journalist who lacks the self-assuredness of a veteran, I'm sometimes gripped with the need for external affirmation. It's wrong until someone else says it's right. That's slowly fading as I gain experience and confidence, but one slip-up and it's back to kindergarten. Along the same lines, for anyone who is new to a news organization, every day that goes by with fewer questions asked than the day before is a small victory. Protocols help with the transition process for new employees. When I had an internship at a magazine a few years ago, the first thing they handed me was a list of their style and production protocols. Needless to say, that paper was a wrinkly mess by the end of the summer, since magazines diverge greatly from typical AP style, and most even have trademark style elements specific to that magazine.

But even further down the road, protocols are something to look to when you encounter a new problem or a sticky situation that you're not sure of. There may be something to be said for figuring it out yourself, but to me protocols seem like a safe bet all around.

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More than a profession or even a calling, I consider journalism to be a breed. While as unique as snowflakes and as stubbornly individual as teenagers in the throes of self-discovery, all journalists have certain traits and skills that make them almost genetically predestined for the field. Following that same consistency, journalism and the ubiquitous "media" have stayed within a fairly specific definition of the job and its role in society throughout most of the 20th century.

Journalism requires a specific kind of thinking and it conforms to a time-tested set of standards. Certain questions must be answered and structures must be followed. In the days of olde, editors filled the space between the reporter and the reader, making sure the puzzle of words and facts blends together to form a coherent, informative and captivating piece of writing. But beyond meeting presentational criterion and checking all the facts, even the most well-edited story is deeply and critically analyzed to assure accuracy and truth, keeping in mind that the two terms can't be used interchangeably. Truth is the reality that lives behind and between the facts. It's seeing the big picture and capturing the tiny details. It's also something that's not very well defined in the minds of the average reader.

The truth to most of the world is a matter of belief and credibility, which is why there are still masses of Americans who believe Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen or that the recent health care bill will kill off Nana to save money, among other myths and misinformation. To his credit, Joe the Plumber doesn't have either the time or the resources to sift through 48 claims against the health care bill in that chain e-mail Nana sent him. So it's up to journalists to let him know that only four of the 48 were true.

Twenty years ago, these myths might have been discussed among neighbors or around the water cooler if they couldn't find a place in printed publication, but the average citizen had no personal means of mass communication. The defining development of the late 20th and early 21st century has been the ability of the individual to connect with anyone at any time with any message. Funny how these days many people don't know their neighbors, yet they talk regularly with what Amy Gahran calls a "personal posse" of Twitter followers, and they network with hundreds of Facebook "friends" from all over the world.

The catalyst, of course, was the introduction of the internet, a tool many people underestimated back in the days of AOL and chat rooms. Oh, how primitive life was before Google. For journalism, the internet shortened deadlines -- rather, it replaced them with one universal deadline: NOW -- and created a constant stream of unedited information. All this information is now searchable, and instead of "papers sold," a publication's worth is measured in "hits" and "posts."

Writing has changed to adapt to a new way of finding this information and reading it, in some cases sacrificing creativity for searchability. Headlines should be "abstracted sentences," writes Jim Stovall.

"That is, they must contain a subject and a verb and be as specific as possible. No puns, no play-on-words. Use alliteration only when it makes sense." He also advises using only one direct quotation per story when writing for the Web, which in my opinion essentially takes away the very voice of the public that news tries so desperately to capture.

The name of the game now is brevity. Enter: Twitter, the not-so-inner monologue of modern society. For journalists, the benefits are obvious. It is the ultimate networking mechanism, and it condenses the public consciousness into convenient 140-character squirts. It even offers the chance for collaboration in a way that would make traditional newsies cringe at the thought of fraternizing with the enemy. It's called "networked link journalism," pioneered by four journalists in Washington during a big breaking news story, according to the blog Publishing 2.0. This kind of endeavor is rife with techno-jargon like "hashtag" and "widgets."

Only recently out of its infancy, Twitter has become a fixture in today's media and in the everyday life of people all over the world. It even received international attention when it played a role in covering protests in Iran when journalists were prohibited from entering the country. It even allows for the customization of news to fit the reader with Twitter Time.es, a concept only dreamed of before.

Somehow in condensing information, the world of mass communication today has expanded to a realm that is quickly expanding beyond the comfortable control of the traditional news media.

Testing testing blah blah blah.