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EDITORIAL From the Foo Fighters to Michele Bachmann: Questions about media freedom and control

Twin Cities Daily Planet Editor Mary Turck considers the ethical questions surrounding concert photos and requirements politicians place on photos of themselves.

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/column/mary-turck/foo-fighters-to-michele-bachmann

EXCERPT:

In May, for example, the Poynter Institute raised the question of staged photos following the president's announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden. According to senior AP Staff Photographer Pablo Martinez Monsivais, “The statement for the photographers took place two to three minutes after the live speech and it happened very quickly — extremely fast — with each photographer rotating into the center position.”

Poynter noted that AP reveals in its captions that the photo is taken after the news conference, but not all newspapers publish that disclaimer. The practice had been standard for a long time:
Doug Mills, New York Times photojournalist and former Associated Press staffer, says it has been done this way “always, always … well, as long as I have covered the White House, going back to the Reagan administration. We [still photographers] have never, never, never, ever been allowed to cover a live presidential address to the nation!”

Poynter noted that "this practice of re-enacting a historic speech flies directly in the face of the National Press Photographers Association Code of Ethics, which includes this relevant passage: 'Resist being manipulated by staged photo opportunities.'"

VIDEO How to punctuate quotes

Are you punctuating quotes correctly? Make sure by watching this video.

VIDEO Write a good second paragraph

What comes after the lead? Your second paragraph. What makes a good one? Watch and find out.

CLASSROOM BULLETIN: Story 1

• Please remember to doublespace your stories. Place your name and the story number at the top, along with a slug line. (Refer to your syllabus if you’re not sure what a slug line is.)

• When it comes to numbers, remember this rule: Spell out one to nine. Use numerals for 10+. Exceptions are ages and years.

• It’s tractor-trailer (Needs a hyphen). This is the precise term for “semi” which is used in speech but not in writing.

• Avoid repetition in a news story. Be consise and to the point. Offer new details as you move through the story rather than restate what you already said.

• Question - How important do you think the traffic piece of this is to your readers? Should that information be placed earlier in the story instead of at the end?

AVOID WORDINESS IN NEWS STORIES

As it is in other styles of writing, you want to avoid wordiness and redundancy in news stories.

Ex) I-790 had to be closed.

FIX: I-790 was closed.

Ex) Sgt. Albert Wei counted the number of vehicles involved at 18.

FIX: Sgt. Albert Wei said 18 vehicles were involved.

MAKE SURE YOUR QUOTES ARE ACCURATE

Many of you made some of the quotes from the story into direct quotes. I applaud your desire to add direct quotes into the news story, and agree that it does make a story more powerful. However, in this instance, there were no direct quotes in your notes. If you don’t know for sure something is a direct quote, you can’t use it as such. One of the places reporters get into trouble with is their quotes. You want to be as correct as possible. Never make changes to how someone said something either.

SHOW DON’T TELL

Many of you included adjectives like “violent” and “severe” to describe the crash. Pull those out of your writing whenever you see them there. In journalism you want to show, not tell the reader. By using details like “deaths of two people”  or “20 injured” readers can judge for themselves what type of crash this was.

PUNCTUATION OF QUOTES

We'll be learning about how to correctly punctuatate quotes next week when we read Chapter 10 in our textbook. However, if you want to work on this area now, I encourage you to do the chapter 2 exercise in chapter 10 on pages 266-67. There is an answer key in the back so you can check your work and learn as you go.

YOUR CITY

When your textbook says “your city”, go ahead and substitute the name of a city, such as Coon Rapids.

YOUR LEADS

Read through these leads to see how your fellow classmates approached this subject. I’m sure you’ll get some ideas on what to do next time and some ideas of what to avoid.

• A fatal accident occurred this morning at 6:45 a.m. on Interstate 790, on the western edge of Forest Lake. 

• Four tractor trailers and 14 cars were involved in an accident at 6:45 a.m. today on Interstate 790 north bound near the west side of  Anytown, Minn. 

• Two people were killed and 20 others injured in an early morning crash involving four tractor trailers and 14 cars on the northbound lanes of Interstate 790. 

• A deadly car crash pile-up, involving 18 vehicles, occurred at 6:45 a.m. this morning on Interstate 790. 

• The grisly 18-vehicle pileup on I-790 this morning at 6:45 a.m. “looked like something from a war zone,” according to Fire Chief Tony Sullivan. 

•      Two people were killed and many others injured in this mornings commute when two tractor-trailers collided on Interstate 790. 

• A crash between two tractor-trailers, at 6:45 a.m. this morning, led to a massive chain of car wrecks on the northbound lanes of Interstate 790 that has left two dead and 20 injured. 

• Two tractor trailers collided around 6:45 this morning on Interstate 790, leaving two dead and twenty people injured.

• A tractor-trailer containing diesel fuel collided with another trailer early this morning on I-790, leaving two dead and 20 injured. 

• Until this morning's accident on the east side of Big Lake, Chief Tony Sullivan had never witnessed anything this bad in his 18_ years with the fire department.

•      Two people were killed today and 20 were injured in a multiple vehicle accident on Interstate 790 at 6:45 a.m.

Commentary on the future of journalism

"At a time when mainstream news media are hemorrhaging and doomsayers are predicting the death of journalism (at least as we've known it), take heart: The free press is alive and well in small towns across America, thanks to the editors of thousands of weeklies who, for very little money and a fair amount of aggravation, keep on telling it like it is. Sometimes they tell it gently, in code only the locals understand. After all, they have to live there too. But they also tell it with courage, standing up to powerful bullies — from coal company thugs in Kentucky to corrupt politicians in the Texas Panhandle."

Read more at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-muller-weeklies-20110913,0,3782815.story

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