Among my journalism handouts: how to write a hard news story, the news story vs the English essay, and how a journalist stays out of the story.
I already have some handouts on writing titles for web pages and writing titles for college papers. I don’t (at the moment) have a full handout on writing headlines for news stories. In this age of clickbait (“Clickbait Tactics Drive the Writing of Headlines on ABC News,” 2015), revisiting Poynter’s advice on writing traditional news headlines is worthwhile. Clickbait headlines generate visits, but they don’t generate shares or trust. If…
All of us with Facebook accounts do work for Mark Zuckerberg. Our tagging, sharing, and liking gives Facebook valuable information that advertisers use to reach us. This article describes how Facebook has been courting news organizations, asking them to provide content tailored to Facebook’s needs. Facebook is not interested in an informed, educated public that has access to a wide range of considered opinions. Facebook wants you to spend time…
It’s extremely important to understand what a wide range of people are thinking about, and that includes being exposed to influential ideas that I disagree with. I’d rather not hide from an idea that has power, especially if it turns out I can do something about the issue. The headline is a little misleading… there is no new feature, Wales is wishing that such a feature exists. “What I would…
Fake news is frustrating. Nothing new there. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. Students in my freshman writing class often want to write their first college research paper on the topic of unrealistic images of women in advertising. Their first thesis is often something like “Advertisers should not damage women’s self-esteem by promoting such unhealthy body images.” When I ask them who should make advertisers change their ways, they usually…
I didn’t use Newsweek’s clickbaity headline: “Trump and JFK Are More Alike Than We Like To Think.” They are different in many ways, but JFK was remembered for mastering the new medium of television (people who listened to the Nixon/Kennedy debates on radio were more likely to believe Nixon won, but those who watched the debates on TV were more likely to say Kennedy won), and while I pay more…
To believe Donald Trump, you must believe two largely contradictory things. | You must believe that there are a slew of leakers in the executive branch who are providing damning details to the press illegally, and who must be rooted out and punished. punished….You must also believe that the press makes up imaginary leakers simply to slowly and incrementally report false stories that are tangentially embarrassing to the president. —Washington…