Howard Kurtz takes a look at magazines Time and Newsweek, and asks ‘do newsmags still matter?’
“The rival editors are turning out weeklies that are smaller, more serious, more opinionated and, though they are loath to admit it, more liberal,” writes Kurtz.
“It is nothing less than a survival strategy,” he says.
Tags: Howard Kurtz, newsmags, Newsweek, time
It was human error, rather than calculated plagiarism, that led to the incident that Megan McArdle flagged up on her Atlantic.com blog last week. She had spotted two strikingly similar article extracts:
‘Doctors fear return of Steve Jobs’s pancreatic cancer‘ by David Rose, TimesOnline, January 15, 2009 (note: the article has now been amended)
In 2003 Mr Jobs learned that he had a malignant tumour in his pancreas – a large gland behind the stomach that supplies the body with insulin and digestive enzymes. The most common type of pancreatic cancer – adenocarcinoma – carries a life expectancy of about a year. Mr Jobs was lucky; he had an extremely rare form called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumour that can be treated surgically, without radiation or chemotherapy. (go to McArdle’s blog for more….)
Compared with:
‘Why Does Steve Jobs Look So Thin?‘ by Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune magazine, June 13 2008
“In 2003 Jobs learned that he had a malignant tumor in his pancreas – a large gland behind the stomach that supplies the body with insulin and digestive enzymes. The most common type of pancreatic cancer – adenocarcinoma – carries a life expectancy of about a year. Jobs was lucky; he had an extremely rare form called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor that can be treated surgically, without radiation or chemotherapy.”(go to McArdle’s blog for more….)
McArdle said she read Rose’s piece and thought… ‘wait a minute, I’ve read this somewhere before’. But how did it come about?
It seems the root of the problem wasn’t David Rose, as an email from another journalist at the paper, Mike Harvey, to Megan McArdle revealed, in which he explained how he [Harvey] had added the additional comments ‘at the last moment before publication’.
“It was done in a real hurry and I meant to put the proper attribution in but failed to do so before I pinged the email off. It was a mistake made in haste and my thanks to you for pointing it out,” he wrote.
“As a blogger and technology writer I know the importance of sourcing and linking to sources and rightly feel aggrieved when it does not happen,” he added.
Journalism.co.uk has been informed by David Rose and Mike Harvey that this email is genuine. The article has now been changed – Journalism.co.uk has a screen-grab showing the original with the paragraph intact.
Harvey since told Journalism.co.uk that he was trying to correct an omission in the original piece before it went online. The additional information specified the specific type of cancer that Steve Jobs had (note: something which has also caused controversy on McArdle’s blog).
The Times’ managing editor, David Chappell, is now dealing with the issue; he had no further comment for Journalism.co.uk but confirmed David Rose’s information.
Tags: adenocarcinoma, Atlantic.com, blogger and technology writer, cancer, chemotherapy, David Chappell, David Rose, DeWitt, Fortune, islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, Journalism.co.uk, journalist, malignant tumor, Managing Editor, Megan McArdle, Mike Harvey, neuroendocrine tumor, pancreatic cancer, radiation, Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs Look So Thin, the atlantic, The Times, tumour
John Mair, television producer and associate senior lecturer in journalism at Coventry University, shares his thoughts on David De Caires, the Guyanese newspaper editor who died last November. A memorial service was held in the UK on Friday.
David De Caires was a Great Guyanese. His death – last November 1 – robbed Guyana of a brave and noble editor and publisher. The Stabroek News lit the beacon of press freedom, since followed by the likes of the Kaieteur News.
Last Friday in London, his second home, his life was celebrated by his family and the great and good of the UK diaspora in a memorial service. The group that the late President Hoyte once disparingly called ‘The Putagee Mafia’ were out in force.
An overcast London winter’s day. The spiritual headquarters of the Jesuits in Britain, the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Farm Street, Mayfair. This is the home of High Catholicism where sinners come to repent. Decaires, despite his Catholic education at the British Catholic Public School Stonyhurst, later became an agnostic. One hundred plus were gathered to celebrate his life and achievements and to pray for his soul.
The faces in the congregation were predominantly white. The Decaires family, including widow Doreen, daughter Isabel and her partner Michael Atherton the former England Cricket captain. It was a gathering redolent of a bygone age in what was known as ‘BG’. Two former British High Commissioners-Edward Glover and Stephen Hiscocks, plus Guyana’s long-serving (and soon retiring?) High Commissioner to London Laleshwar Singh among the congregration. Professor Clem Seecharan there too, to pay tribute to a fellow restless mind, the Rev Ivelaw Bowman, Canon of Southward Cathedral, to salute a fellow Guyanese.
The tributes paid were warm. Atherton in his deep Lancashire burr, Nick King in pukka English: an old friend telling tales out of Stonyhurst about the ‘Dec’s’ life-long love affair with the turf and betting. It cost him dearly. As a teenager, he refused to apologise to a Bishop for hurrying a cricket innings so that he could hear the result of the Epsom Derby. He lost his first eleven cricket place at Stonyhurst as a result. He took up tennis instead.
That boy of principle became the man of principle three decades later when it came to setting up the Stabroek News and battling the PNC and later the PPP governments over press freedom.
David was a resolute life time fighter for that, defending it against attacks whichever direction they came from. Some think his final battle two years ago with the Jagdeo regime over the withdrawal of ads for the paper may have weakened his already damaged heart and led to his final demise.
David would have enjoyed his memorial service. Warm words, Miles Davis reverberating through the huge church, friends old and new meeting and ‘gaffing’ as they say in Guyana plus a dash of high Catholicism. Not a bad epitaph or memorial to have for a life of such great significance for Guyana.
Tags: Bishop, brave and noble editor, Britain, Church of the Immaculate Conception, Clem Seecharan, Coventry University, cricket, Cricket captain, David De Caires, David was, Derby, Doreen, Guyana, High Commissioner to London Laleshwar Singh, High Commissioners-Edward Glover, Hoyte, Immaculate Conception Day, Isabel, Ivelaw Bowman, John Mair, late President, London, Michael Atherton, Miles Davis, newspaper editor, Nick King, President, Professor, Southward Cathedral, Stephen Hiscocks, television producer and associate senior lecturer, the Kaieteur News, The Stabroek News, United Kingdom
It seems that – for President Elect Obama – ‘Change’ will come at the cost of incredible scrutiny.
American newspaper journal Editor & Publisher has posted news on its website of a new addition to feature on the PolitiFact website: The Obameter.
The idea is simple: to keep track of the progress made by the 44th President of the United States on every single policy promise made during his electoral campaign. According to PolitiFact, that’s 510 promises in total.
Three status rankings, ‘stalled’, ‘in the works’ or ‘no action’ will be used to indicate how well these promises are developing. Once the action is deemed to be complete, PolitiFact rates whether the promise has been kept or broken.
Even though the President Elect doesn’t officially take office until tomorrow’s inauguration, already PolitiFact claims two promises have been kept, while one is stalled and nine are ‘in the works’ (including Promise No. 502: ‘Getting his daughters a puppy’).
The Obameter will run in parallel to PolitiFact’s established, Truth-o-Meter, which examines official statements from Washington DC and public official consistency yardstick, the Flip-O-Meter.
The site, developed by the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly, won the National Press Foundation’s 2008 online journalism award last month.
Tags: 44th President of the United States, Congressional Quarterly, Editor & Publisher, Elect Obama, National Press Foundation, newspaper journal Editor, obameter, online journalism award last month, PolitiFact, President, public official, St. Petersburg Times, the St. Petersburg Times, United States, Washington DC
The Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) has been busy creating some new resources for journalists working in the field.
For starters you can subscribe to the centre’s delicious links, which can be viewed by date using the following format http://delicious.com/cijournalism/19_Jan_09 or subscribed to via RSS. Anyone who wants to subscribe through email should contact cij@city.ac.uk.
Links and occasional posts will also be published at the new CIJ blog.
This is all part of the CIJ’s current awareness policy – outlined by CIJ’s Murray Dick in this blog post, in which he says:
“At the CIJ, we need to keep up-to-speed on examples of excellence in investigative journalism, for a number of reasons.” These include:
- “The need to reach out to investigative researchers (and other interested parties, like whistle blowers and journalism students) wherever they are, to offer our help and services.
- “The need to develop our current contacts.
- “The need to keep track on journalists who are new to the field, to supplement our speakers.
- “The need to keep track on trends in investigative research, FOI, Computer Assisted Reporting (CAR), and new fields as they arise, which will help CIJ policy as it applies to our training and events.
“Relying on our own reading in the field is fine, but there is a whole world of new – and old – media out there which we could do with keeping on top of, not to mention people we haven’t heard of yet. A comprehensive approach is needed to make sure we don’t fall behind in the field.”
Tags: Centre for Investigative Journalism, cij@city.ac.uk, investigative journalism, Murray Dick
After we reblogged NPR’s proposals for inauguration coverage with a social media twist, it’s great to see the plans coming into action.
The broadcaster has created Inauguration Report, which features location-based reports from readers and listeners watching the inauguration events in Washington and elsewhere, submitted by text, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.
By tagging their entries by location, e.g. L:lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial, NPR will map the accounts. Real-time updates from contributors will feed into this stream.
Tags: #inaug09, Barack Obama, inauguration, Lincoln Memorial, social media, Twitter, us, Washington, YouTube
They say the first few weeks after Christmas are the most depressing days of the entire year. So as you sit hunched over your keyboard nursing a steaming mug of mud-like coffee, you might welcome the odd spot of workplace banter.
If your office fails to bring such joy, then check out ‘Overheard In the Newsroom’ (thanks to Sports Designer for pointing this out).
It does exactly what it says on the tin, bringing interesting and humorous comments made by newsroom colleagues direct to your desktop. Stunners like number 70: “Sure wish we knew what the hell we’re talking about” are sure to resound with every demotivated reporter in a mid-Monday slump.
Tags: Christmas, Funny, Overheard in the newsroom, reporter, Sports Designer
The National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) requires you to have shorthand at 100wpm in order to pass the course. When I first started my course 17 weeks ago I wasn’t very hopeful of reaching that speed.
Now 100wpm is doable – as long as you don’t get an exam about time capsules being buried with silver trowels, as I did last week, and can control your nerves. More on this later.
After reading a post on the Journalism.co.uk forum from a student, who was worried that they will not be able to get to 100wpm, I wanted to offer some hope.
Here’s my hope in a post:
Practice
In my first post on this blog I made a reference to my shorthand teacher insisting we did two hours a day shorthand practice.
It may seem obvious but practice is everything. I have been doing an hour of practicing special forms (see below) and an hour of dictations most days. If you don’t have time you have to make time. Partners, friends, dogs and life in general have to take a back seat.
That said, if you really can’t do two hours a day, doing some every day and keeping it consistent is better than nothing.
Special Forms and Common Words
My teacher advised us to create a special forms notebook out of an address book. This has become such a useful thing to have.
I, and a lot of people in my class, have written out all the special forms and common words onto an Excel sheet. I have a master sheet with all the outlines written in and a blank sheet so I can fill in the outlines. You can do this on the tube, at the doctors, in the lunch queue – anywhere where you have a spare moment. The Teeline Gold Word List is also a useful dictionary to have kicking about. You can always sell it to a student after you finish.
Dictations
Actual dictations at various speeds are really helpful for practicing. Hopefully your tutor will have some to give you. If not, or if you are doing a distance course, you can also order them from the NCTJ website or there are some great free ones on We Love Shorthand that go from 50–120 wpm.
The trick is to do a speed that is faster than where you are. So if you think you’re just about at 60wpm do the 80s. You won’t be able to get it all down at first, but you will eventually and it will make the 60 sound painfully slow and easy.
The same goes for the 100: do the 110s and 120s. It will blow your mind and you’ll get cramp, but it makes the 100 sound slow.
We Love Shorthand also has a rather strange music section called ‘And now for something completely different’. One would imagine that it is there to bring you back from the brink of doing 120wpm…
Pens and Paper
If you’re reading this and have only just started, bear with me. The right pen and even the right kind of paper can make all the difference. My group at college has whole conversations about the virtues of a certain type of pen – granted we need to get out more.
Try out loads of pens to see which one suits you best. I started with a biro but found it ran out or was patchy at a crucial moment meaning I missed whole sentences. I have settled on a Pilot V Ball 0.5, but other people in my class are using cheaper pens from Muji and swear by them.
The kind of paper and the way you fold it can also make a difference. I use A4 lined paper and fold it in half because it takes ages to bring you hand back across a sheet of unfolded A4 meaning you could miss words.
I have also been using narrow ruled paper. This was good for making my outlines smaller (supposedly the smaller your outlines the faster you are) but a word of warning here: I used narrow ruled in my exam and found it very hard to read back my nervous scrawl. Again it’s just about practice and what works for you.
Exams
The 100wpm exam is not as hard as you think it’s going to be and if you’ve been practicing with 120wpm then it will seem slow.
These exams are like taking your driving test. You can be excellent and at 100wpm but still fail because you’re nervous or get a hard dictation (silver trowel? Do me a favour).
Go in thinking you can do it and RELAX. This is hard and nerves have got the better of me two times now. Try Rescue Remedy or anything that you know calms you down. My Mum suggested I had a gin and tonic before going in but I’m not going to suggest that as an option (hic).
Do not be downhearted if you fail.
You can do it again.
Never give up.
Good luck.
Tags: And now for something completely different, Common Words My teacher, Journalism.co.uk, journalist, National Council for the Training of Journalists, shorthand, shorthand teacher, teeline, Too old to become a journalist?, tutor
Kevin Lee’s use of short film clips as part of his video reviews would normally be regarded as fair use, but several complaints about his channel forced YouTube to protect itself under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
“[I]t seems as if perfectly lawful clips are being silenced at the whim of copyright owners who don’t like the thought of anyone other than themselves posting content,” writes MediaPost’s Wendy Davis.
Tags: Copyright, film critic, Kevin Lee, Wendy Davis, YouTube
Gary Hershorn, Reuters News pictures editor for the Americas, gives a real sense of how it feels to chase breaking news in the post about how his team photographed the Hudson Rive plane crash.
Tags: Americas, editor for the Americas, Gary Hershorn, Hudson River, plane crash, reuters
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