Sunshine Week -- Is that what people really want?

Reading this information made me wonder if the
American people really put an effort forth in trying
to make sure their government is more open. We see
newspapers, magazines and news channels devote time to
celebrity news to satisfy the audience's palate. Are
these same people the one's who want the government to
be more open? With news outlets having to use more
time for other items instead of what many within the
business would feel is more important, time is spent
digging up who is staring in the next Incredible Hulk
movie. Among the access people want more of include
who lawmakers meet with and police reports from
certain neighborhoods. If a nightly news show would
attempt to show this, there is a good chance the
audience would turn it off. I wish these polls were
completely accurate but unfortunately I do not think
those taking the poll were really being honest to
themselves or with the poll.

Scott

Story folo raises Big Picture questions

Note the multiple media elements of this folo report on Carol Gotbaum's death at Sky Harbor. There's the main text story with links to other text reports, a source video from the airport, a statement from her family, a collection of witness quotes supplied by the Phoenix police, a still image with cutline material, and a host of "reader" comments that range from the astute to crude, rude and ludicrous. The question with which many editors grapple is which parts of this package should be edited, and to what extent? It brings up a larger issue: what is the goal of having something edited? Literacy? Fairness? Basic intelligence? The avoidance of libel? Public service? Copy editors have a responsibility to protect their publication from looking stupid or doing harm. Does that mean only publication employees -- reporters, editors, producers, etc. -- have the benefit of someone cleaning up their language and double-checking their thought processes? Do they only have that protection when they're reporting in certain genres -- in a "story" form rather than in a blog, for example? Should members of the public have that protection as well -- which means, suddenly, that copy editors are responsible for editing material from people they don't know, have no newsroom ties to, and did not agree to edit when they signed on for the job? We are in the turmoil of genuine upheaval as we transition toward a new journalism: same principles, perhaps, but vastly different modes of expression and accountability. Fascinating.

History of the byline

A journalism history listserv was asked how the byline came about and this response appeared this morning:

Gen. Joseph Hooker invented the byline. As commander of the Army of the Potomac, Hooker was very security-conscious. Convinced that Northern newspapers were publishing sensitive information of great value to the South, he halted a practice his soldiers had followed of trading newspapers with the enemy during cease fires. To underscore his concern, he then prosecuted the New York Herald's correspondent, Edwin F. Denyse, for a story alleging that the Union Army was preparing to take the field for an offensive that would occur "at the earliest possible moment." Although the story was utterly wrong, the general had Denyse arrested because he might get the story right the next time. A military commission tried the reporter in the command's provost marshal's office, convicted him, and sentenced him to six-months of hard labor. Hooker commuted the sentence, but he had made his point. His next move was considerably more original. To that point, virtually all news stories had been anonymous. The redoubtable William Howard Russell, for example, was known to readers of The London Times only as "Our Own Special Correspondent." In order to force the press to be more responsible, the general ordered newsmen covering his command to put their names on any stories that saw print. If they or their editors failed to do so, the offending correspondent would be banished and his journal banned from sale to the troops. This was a considerable threat because newspapers often made big money selling their product to the troops before and after battles. The papers complied, and the byline came into being. You can find the whole story footnoted in Stephen W. Sears wonderful history, Chancellorsville (New York: Houghton Mifflin, Mariner Books, 1998), p. 75.

William M. Hammond

I hadn't heard this history before; I dimly thought that bylines had originated during the Penny Press era as had so much of current newspaper tradition. If anyone has a different citation, please add!

Should journalists mine Facebook for data?

The current American Journalism Review explores the ethical and journalistic implications of using "dirty data" and self-selected information in contextualizing stories, finding ties between people, getting contact information and lifting quotes from social networking sites. Here's an excerpt from the article:

For example, a Boston Globe story this summer about the allure gangs hold for young people--particularly those with an older sibling in a gang--referenced the MySpace page of 21-year-old Gary Brown, who had been accused in the shooting death of two Georgia men. Brown's younger brothers, ages 7 and 12, regularly log on to his MySpace page to listen to his rap group, Soldiers Only Live Once. One paragraph illustrated the influence of older gang members on the next generation, as the story pointed out that the group is what the younger boys listen to on their front porch.

Other reporters have found that MySpace can be a resource in determining which gangs control what turf, and if shootings--based on "R.I.P." and other comments left online--are gang-related.

Stories are miles apart on death of N.Y. woman in PHX airport cell

I first saw this story when I logged on to AOL this morning. The splash page had the image, seen in this post, along with a link to the AP story. At about 8 a.m., there were about 10,000 comments posted to the online report. By noon, there were close to 17,000. That amazed me. But what amazed me more was comparing the Republic's report to one in the (New York) Daily News after a friend suggested I take a look. In one, the police reports are unquestioned. In the other, airline workers are quoted as saying the woman called for help and said she was sick. My alert friend, DeWitt Smith, later sent me the links to The New York Times and CNN stories. I urge you to look at all of these. If you are interested in extra credit, do some more digging in other places -- don't forget the print versions -- and be prepared to talk in class Wednesday about the differences you find in the reporting. UPDATE: The East Valley Tribune posted a deftly backgrounded story at 5:54 a.m.