Features

Culture | Journalism | Language | Writing

Take A Minute To Watch The New Way We Make Web Headlines Now

Headlines once were stuffed full of proper nouns. But it turns out, old-fashioned headlines don’t convey things that aren’t news well. “Three-Legged Dog Desirable”? Nope. It doesn’t work, because there’s nothing there. Nothing except “aww.” And service pieces—how to do x, why not to do y—need the help for their softness too. –The Awl.

Current_Events | Ethics | Games | Journalism | Social_Software

Manti Te’o's Dead Girlfriend, The Most Heartbreaking And Inspirational Story Of The College Football Season, Is A Hoax

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Great example of investigative journalism, piecing together a coherent narrative from conflicting bits and pieces culled from various sources. A reminder that journalists — even when they are fighting deadlines, and even when they are writing more-fluffy-than-the-crime-beat pieces — must verify claims before going public. Too many sports journalists reported unconfirmed bits and pieces of [...]

Culture | Government | Journalism | Writing

Journalist math fail: “New pay-per-mile scheme would boost taxes 250 percent”

Hold on…

An on-again, off-again move by the Obama administration to scrap the federal gas tax in favor of a pay-per-mile fee would boost the tab to Americans as high as 250 percent, raising their current tax of 18.4 cents a gallon to as high as 46 cents, according to a new government study. –New [...]

Academia | Business | Cyberculture | Education | Journalism | Media | Rhetoric | Technology

Snow Fall: Finally an articulation for the digerati of what a big, expensive newsroom can do

Yes, the NYT multimedia “Snow Fall” was wonderful, and my new media colleagues are excited by it. But it took 11 staff members 6 months to publish. Is this really what new media journalists should emulate? How can I scale this down to the classroom?

The future of journalism is about speed, volume, rough and [...]

Business | Current_Events | Cyberculture | Design | Essays | Journalism | Media | Modding | Social_Software | Technology | Usability | Writing

What the New York Times’s ‘Snow Fall’ Means to Online Journalism’s Future

The New York Times debuted a new multimedia feature Thursday so beautiful it has a lot of people wondering — especially those inside the New York Times — if the mainstream media is about to forgo words and pictures for a whole lot more. Unlike a standard words-on-page article that doesn’t diverge too much from [...]

Culture | Journalism | Rhetoric | Sociology | Writing

Fathers disappear from households across America

A touching bit of balanced storytelling, without editorializing, via selection of quotes and telling descriptive details.

“I know dads that say they ain’t their kids. I see dads being disrespectful of the mothers. And I see ones who take other men’s kids to football games because they know their fathers aren’t around,” said Mr. McManus, [...]

Business | Current_Events | Cyberculture | Journalism | Media | Social_Software

So long, Newsweek

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Reaction to the cover:

- ‏Newsweek’s last print issue has just a hashtag on the cover. Like using your final breath to ID the killer. @sacca

- Newsweek’s last cover: one more flippant stunt. Ooh! A Hashtag! I’m proud to have worked there 1985-93. @jswatz

- [...]

Current_Events | Cyberculture | Ethics | Journalism | Media

Coverage Rapid, And Often Wrong, In Tragedy’s Early Hours : NPR

Nearly everyone reported so many things wrong in the first 24 hours after the Sandy Hook shootings that it’s hard to single out any one news organization or reporter for criticism.

Among the news outlets that wrongly reported major parts of the journalistic building blocks of “who, what, where, when, why and how,” were CBS, [...]

Current_Events | Ethics | Journalism | Media

As Shooting Story Unfolds, Media Struggle With Facts

With so many unanswered questions, TV correspondents were left to set the scene and to convey the impact in words that continually failed them.

However apt, the phrase “parents’ worst nightmare” became an instant cliche.

And the word “unimaginable” was used countless times. But “imagine” was exactly what the horrified audience was helpless not to [...]

Journalism | Media | Rhetoric

Dear News Media, When Reporting Poll Results…

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