Sunday, September 14, 2008
Copy edit much?
(Sighs.)Readers catch everything. But unfortunately the on-duty editor, the copy editor(s?) and I didn't catch anything.
I wrote my first obit yesterday...
Yes, I know. Something as simple as an obit should be a piece of cake, right? And it was, sorta. Last night I worked the cops desk alone. During the last third of my shift, the editor told me I had less than an hour to research, report and write an obit about a local politician/activist that I barely knew anything about.
I did a public records search. Miraculously, I found the deceased activist's phone number in Sacramento and spoke with his daughter, wife and brother. I spoke with one of the activist's colleagues and attained an emailed statement from a more notable colleague.
By the time I had gathered all the information, I had twenty minutes max to write the story. Surprisingly, I came pretty close to deadline, crafting the best obit I could in just under 30 minutes.
I filed. The copy editor/pagination guy asked me a couple of questions and the story was put to bed. But what had I missed? Well, two or three things, according to a reader who so kindly emailed me to let me know:
Thought you may want to be informed of these probable typos in your article about Peter Camejo in the Contra Costa Times: Here, the word "man" is likely missing from the quote: "He was a person who fought constantly for justice. He was an activist, an entrepreneur and he was a dedicated family," Danny Camejo said.
And in the title of the article, you may want to use the word "rights"
instead of "right" in "Civil right activist..." The rest looks very good and
thank you for your article.
Great. Just great. My first obit and I can't use it as a clip. And who can I place the blame on? I just as soon place it on myself, except I swear two other sets of eyes read this story before it made it to the web and to the page.
Anyone else care to regale us with your copy editing nightmares?
Labels: copy editors, corrections, frustration, get it right
continue...Thursday, February 14, 2008
Like to Give me a Heart attack
My heart stopped as I read a story in the competiting paper."Fire Chief Gerald Tellier...."
I wrote his name as Gerard.
I had it as Gerald, but when I went to CQ my names before filing, I changed it after looking at an earlier story I'd done when he was appointed to the position. Don't tell me I got this man's name wrong. Don't tell me I got this man's name wrong.
I feverishly searched through our clips looking for earlier stories mentioning him. Gerard. Gerard. Gerard. The clips all confirmed my spelling.
But I know clips can be wrong.
So I pulled up the roster of all municipal employees in the state that our paper recently compiled and did a search for his name.
Gerard Tellier. West Warwick Fire.
Sigh.
Vindication. Is it bad that I'm kinda glad they're the ones who got it wrong and not me?
Labels: corrections
continue...Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Maybe I didn't learn anything from the Wire?
So, apparently, the good folks at Merriam-Webster and the creator of the Wire got into a little online spat over the usage of "evacuate" in Sunday's episode. Full story is here.From New York Magazine:
"Merriam-Webster's Peter Sokolowski, using the handle "MERRIAM_WEBSTER" (heh), commented on our post, pointing us to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage's article on this very subject. Summarizes Sokolowski: "This was indeed a usage controversy until about WWII, by which time the 'remove (people)' sense had taken firm hold. According the MWDEU: 'The respectability of this sense is no longer subject to question.'"
Wire creator David Simon responded with his reasoning:
"At the Baltimore Sun in my day, I was chastised by the great Jay Spry, rewrite man to the world, for evacuating people in my report of a downtown gas leak. I plead guilty to an anachronism if indeed that is what it now is. However, I would argue that since the evacuation of people can in fact mean giving them enemas, the use of such a phrase should be discouraged by editors, given that the alternate phrase in which a given locale is evacuated is better and unequivocal. When a word has two meanings, find another word."
Go figure. I still won't use evacuate alone though. I'm scarred for life.
Labels: corrections, the industry, The Wire, tips and tricks
continue...Friday, October 05, 2007
Why MJ? WHY?: An Update
Marion Jones, with her mother, arrive at a federal courthouse on Oct. 5. (AP)A little over a year ago, my fellow-Ten95er Darren - posted this piece about the way The New York Times handled track and field star Marion Jones' drug testing that showed she was free of performance enhancing drugs.
Well, it turns out things aren't always as they seem.
Well, it turns out things aren't always as they seem.
While Jones' sample did come out clean, today, she was to plead guilty to lying to officials about taking designer steroids from 1999 to 2001 in a New York court. As a result, she may be stripped of the five medals she won at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
Jones' about face doesn't negate Young Sands' comments that we should give people the same amount of play when they're cleared that journos give when folks are caught in the act.
It just kind of sucks that, after all, Jones' lied.
Gotta say I was rooting for her. Ah well. Such is life.
Sigh.
Jones' about face doesn't negate Young Sands' comments that we should give people the same amount of play when they're cleared that journos give when folks are caught in the act.
It just kind of sucks that, after all, Jones' lied.
Gotta say I was rooting for her. Ah well. Such is life.
Sigh.
Labels: corrections, dismay, sports
continue...Friday, August 31, 2007
Can I get a retraction?
I could hear my name being said as I walked through the door of my office this morning."There she is," one of my coworkers said. "Talia, did you write this story?"
The story, was a throwaway brief I wrote after being in court for more than 2 hours the morning prior. The case I'd been there for had been rescheduled, but that info didn't come out until after I'd already waited around.
"Yeah, why," I mutter.
"Bob is on the phone," said the office assistant.
Expletive.
I walked to my desk as my coworker grabbed a copy of today's edition for me to read. I didn't bother to look at it before I picked up the phone.
Bob didn't mince words.
"Are you going to print a retraction," he asked. "Because that story is false. I was never supposed to be in court yesterday. That date had been rescheduled weeks ago."
I sighed and turned to the story.
"Well, sir, I was there yesterday," I began. "Your name was on the trial calendar and they called your name twice. Additionally, a lawyer who said he was speaking on your behalf told the court that you were supposed to meet him in the courtroom. That you would be there. After we waited a while, I saw the lawyer preparing to leave and asked him what was going on. That's when he told me the date was rescheduled for October."
He told me that was untrue. That there was no one there representing him.
"This article reads like I'm a criminal," he said. "Like I intentionally disobeyed the court. It's damning."
Maybe, I said. But it's also true.
"Bob, I was there," I said. "I wrote what I saw. I didn't write it to be mean or to be unfair. But the court apparently expected you to be there because they continued to ask for you a number of times. I apologize I didn't get the lawyer's name, but there was someone there who said he was waiting for you."
I denied another request for a retraction before he hung up. I picked up the paper and read the article. The copy desk had taken out my explainer about the unnamed lawyer speaking on Bob's behalf. But the story still read true.
But in the back of my mind, I couldn't help but think that I should have done more reporting. I should have gotten that lawyers name. I should have asked him when and why they decided to continue the proceedings. I should have called Bob for a comment as to why he didn't show up (though he changed his phone number). I should have done more.
Next time, I will.
Labels: corrections, lazy reporting, lessons
continue...Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Come correct
I've never had a correction.*Knocks on wood*
I've never had a correction, and that's probably because I haven't had to report a great deal of stories that require me to fetch multi-layered, complex information. I'll get back to that.
Because in high school, I didn't see what the big deal was about a correction. So, you got something wrong in a story. Big deal.
Michael Holley, then of the Boston Globe, pretty much told me that because I'm African-American and a male that I had to be extra careful. Check everything. Three times.
"Here's the deal about corrections," he told me, chomping a ketchup-drenched french-fry at T. Anthony's in Boston. "With each one, you lose your credibility as a journalist. And all you have as a journalist is your credibility."
I'm 23 and I have never, to my knowledge, so much as spelled a person's name wrong in a story. Does this mean I'm overdue? I was pondering that thought this afternoon while reporting a story about an East Quogue, NY resident who makes birdhouses and signs out of salvaged materials from demolished houses. He mentioned rackling some materials from a mansion that I can't say for sure has ever existed on Long Island, save for a few random allusions that come up when you do a Google search. I wasn't satisfied.
My paper's (you can guess what paper that is by now, no?) library told me to take a look at a book called The Mansions of Long Island's Gold Coast. I looked on the book's accompanying website and still didn't find it.
I had the perfect, or perhaps, imperfect formula: relying upon local histories and a bad Google search. I wasn't willing to chance it, especially when I know that there are niche experts hanging around who recite the names of these things at wine tastings in the Hamptons for fun. Show me a correction and I'll show you a shaky foundation, source or story idea.
In the past I would have taken the entire graf in question out before my editor ever saw it. That habit probably has something to do with why I have never had a correction run that I was responsible for. But I'm going to report this one out. Why?
I've come to think a correction can serve as a rite of passage, and whether you've had one or not, going around trying to avoid them isn't going to make you a better reporter. (Let the church say -- ) But, then I read this quote from Don Wycliff, formerly Public Editor of the Chicago Tribune. And I have second thoughts.
"We had some disagreement about how to treat corrections, about how to handle reporters that make [a] number of errors," he said in comment published on Poynter.org, in which he then did what is known as keeping it real: "If you make more than your share of corrections, no matter who you are, you're in deep shit."
Labels: corrections, deep doo-doo, lazy reporting
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