Prescilla Walker’s Blog

Adapting newsroom copy and picture flow to a Web-first model is one of the biggest challenges in newsrooms across the country. I’m working on a training module that addresses this issue and will provide insight on how to tackle this problem.

• The goal is to make sure users are getting fresh news that is relevant to them.

1. It’s about helping employees see the benefits of getting breaking news on our Web sites as quickly as possible.
2. We must teach writers how to write for the Web. One of the best examples of this type of writing is the Associated Press. Their stories usually start out with basic information and are regularly updated as the reporter develops the story.
3. If a reporter is at the scene of breaking news, he must realize the importance of getting something online right away. There are various ways this can be accomplished. Many newsrooms are equipping reporters with laptops, which allows them to write a short summary of the event and send it in immediately for posting online. Stories also can be phoned in to someone in the office. Text messaging can be utilized as well.
4. Photographers, too, should be compelled to send in photos as quickly as possible. Studies show that visuals are a major attraction for users when they visit a Web site. In order to be competitive with other news sites, we have to make sure we’re giving what they seek when they come to our site.

• What are the tools I must use to help the staff development Web-first attitudes and skills?

1. First they must be equipped with the proper technology to accomplish this task. Cell phones, laptops, etc.
2. Use examples of how it’s done. (Web sites that teach writing for the Web; articles that have been written about this)

a. Writing Style for Print vs. Web: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/print-vs-online-content.html
b. Writing for Online News Channels:
http://www.content-strategy.com/Web_Writing/?module=Articles;action=ArticleFolder.publicOpenFolder;ID=579

• How to put it into practice

1. Reporters will have a daily quota for breaking news articles. Each of these stories will be updated at least once, even if it’s just to let the reader know that there are no more developments for this story.
2. Photographers will have a daily quota for a breaking news or local photo that will be posted on the site in real time. Examples can be a wreck, feature photo, or anything they come upon that’s happening in the community.

• Employees will get feedback on how well they did. This can be done in one-on-one conversation with their superviser or the digital desk editor.

1. They will have an opportunity to discuss the challenges of accomplishing the task.
2. They can share problems they encounter or make suggestions on how to better reach their goals.
3. They will also have a chance to get input on how to improve their skills.

Here’s the last video project I’ll do at the Maynard Institute’s Multimedia Editing Program, which ends this Friday. I had fun filming this. I was able to incorporate the things I’ve learned about video in the past few weeks to produce this project. Hopefully, it’s a little better than my first one. Enjoy.

This morning after our regular editing and headline-writing drill with Deborah Gump, co-director of the Maynard Institute’s 2009 program, the group spent time with Rich Holden. Rich is executive director of the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund.

Rich talked to the class about numbers and how they have been a thorn in the sides of journalists for as long as there have been journalists. “The biggest source of mistakes in newspapers is numbers,” he said.

To illustrate his point, he took us through various editing assignments, all involving the use of numbers. I titled this blog “mathematical speed bumps.” In an earlier post, I explained how certain words and phrases in copy can be confusing or inaccurate and should cause us to pause, the same is true when it comes to numbers in a story.

Rich used examples from newspapers from all over the country. Each example had numbers issues — something just wasn’t quite right with the math. Here’s an example. Can you spot what’s wrong with this paragraph?

• Whether it takes an hour, a day, a month, or even years, most of the children reported missing in the United States are found. About half of those found are alive and one-fourth are found dead, according to national statistics.

The problem with math in this graph is that one-fourth of the children are not accounted for. They most likely were the children that were found, but the story should say so.

Here’s another example. See if you can spot the problem.

• The mile-high glaciers that cover most of Greenland are melting so fast that one of them, Jakobshavn Isbrae, has more than doubled in speed, moving at a rate of 7.9 miles and hour from 3.5 miles an hour only a year before.

See the problem? This glacier is moving mighty fast. Did the writer mean miles per year? Maybe, but this is a fact that should make the editor stop and ask questions.

These types of omissions and mistakes are not unique to any newspaper. We looked at 40 examples, and it was interesting to learn that some of these mistakes resulted in corrections being ran in some prestigious newspapers such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

It was with much blood, sweat, tears, pain, headache, heartache and grumbling that I birthed this video. Criticize it at your own risk!!!!!!!

Dennis Joyce explained data visualization to us Friday, and showed us various ways it can be applied. He introduced us to free Web sites that will let you input your data, select a type of display and print out data in various forms, including as a pie chart or bar graph. This is very useful to know because using visuals to tell a story is becoming more productive in print, as well as online. Readers tend to prefer visuals in both products.

On another note, I used the data site manyeyes to input a story about Michael Jackson’s death. Below is a data tribute to him.

Critical thinking is another topic addressed this week at the Maynard Institute. Merrill Perlman, a former editor for The New York Times, talked about how stories can be like pictures and some of the problems that plague some photos can ruin a story as well. She gave several visual examples and show us how they can apply to stories.

Some examples:
• Some pictures crop out vital content; a story can leave out vital information and have holes in it.
• Some movies are hard to see and have too much going on; the same can apply to a story. Too much rambling detail, don’t get to the point.
• Video sometimes stops or pauses unexpectedly; continuity can be a problem with some stories as well — they just don’t flow.
• Studios have colorized some original black-and-white movies, oftentimes they look harsh and unnatural; sometimes the reporter embellishes too much when writing, resulting in a story that has too much description and doesn’t more along.

These are just a few examples of how photos and stories can have similar problems. As an editor, something to consider and look out for.

Dennis Joyce from The News Center and The Tampa Tribune spent several days with us this week and offered some valuable tips on attracting online readers. Here’s a summary about display type on the Web, and how important it is in grabbing the user’s attention.

When it headlines and cutlines, he said, be accurate, clear and compelling. We should look at headlines as links, which can help draw people to our sites. A very effective way to do this is through the use of keywords.

Keywords help bring people to our door, Dennis said. Words like “free” and “cheap” usually are attention getters. Also, when writing headlines, editors should use the name of a place, i.e. Greenville instead of just “city”; a person’s full name, Gov. Mark Sanford instead of governor; and use celebrity names instead of actor.

This becomes important as people use search engines to research topics. If someone is looking for information on Greenville and Greenville’s not in our headline, then they won’t be directed to our site.

Dennis talked about four numbers that are important for display type — 11, 60, 110 and 140.

Surveys show that readers generally read the first two words in a headline, which usually is about 11 characters. This is important to know; the first two words are the most valuable. Sixty is the number of characters AP bolds in E headlines, important for search engines; 110 is the number of Twitter characters you have if you want to leave room for a link; and 140, as most people know, are the number of characters you have when writing a tweet.

As we compete more and more for millions of online readers, learning how to use display type to attract them is key to increasing the numbers coming to our Web site.

Here’s a soundslide I produced to illustrate story-telling on the Web.

On July 23, Warren Larude, a legal expert and professor emeritus at the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada-Reno, talked to the class about our First Amendment rights as journalists. Professor Lerude was very engaging and really knew his stuff.

Larude mainly discussed libel, and some of things journalists need to consider when writing about individuals. I want to emphasize individual because you can’t libel a group. Most of us are familiar with the word “libel” but I bet few of us really know exactly what it means to libel someone.

There are three things required for libel.
1. Identification
2. Defamation
3. Publication

Basically, if these three ingredients are present, then there is libel. But, according to Professor Lerude, there are two different standards when it comes to libel, one for news that can be verified and one for breaking news.

Knowing this is important in this age when breaking news is a major part of disseminating information. According to Professor Lerude, the rules for breaking news aren’t as stringent as those for information printed in the newspaper. Time is the ruling factor. Usually there is ample time to verify information printed in the paper as opposed to news being posted online in real time. This is an area I’d like to explore more thoroughly, especially since my job is posting breaking news on The Greenville News Web site.

Professor Lerude also talked about Shield Laws, which pertain to confidentiality of sources. He also discussed First Amendment “protection” for reporters and their sources, which does NOT exist, he said. The First Amendment protects confidentiality between lawyers and clients; doctors and patients; and priests and parishioners. But according to Lerude, it does not protect confidentiality between reporters and their sources. But, most states do have laws protecting reporters and their sources, he added.

We also briefly discussed malice, reckless disregard for the truth. Malice occurs when a publication knows information is false and prints it anyway, Larude said. But malice was almost always impossible to prove, he added.

These are highlights of the things I learned about our First Amendment rights as journalists. After hearing examples and some of the cases involving libel, I realize that editors are oftentimes the gatekeepers of accurancy and truth, and what a great responsibility it is.

This morning, Michael Roberts from The Arizona Republic, talked to the Maynard Class of 2009 about how to teach adults new skills and how adults learn differently from children and teens.

Michael pointed out that there are two types of training, skills and management — skills being learning how to do something and management being relaying information, which oftentimes can be done in a memo.

Either way, the key to training is “being specific about what you want people to learn,” he said. Michael went over one process that is important when it comes to teaching adults. Below is what he outlined.

• 1. Welcome and introduce students to the topic. This also is a good time to let them know the reason they’re in the class, what they are expected to learn. This should take about 5 minutes.
• 2. Give students reasons for learning the new skill. Give them an idea of what learning this new skill will accomplish and how it will help them on the job. This, too, should take about 5 minutes.
• 3. Next should come the lecture or descriptions and explanations of the new skill. Be clear about how to perform the task. Use examples to help get your point across.
• 4. Demonstrate how to use the new skill. Make sure students are clear on this section and encourage them to ask questions along the way.
• 5. Then students should be given plenty of time to practice the new skill. Make sure the exercise or practice portion of the training is not too difficult. And finally, give the student feedback. This feedback can come from you, the instructor, or from their peers.
  

  ---

Later, Maynard participants will use this information to create a training module which we can take back to our newsrooms. We also will share our modules with others in the program. Each of us will leave the program with 14 training modules. This should be very useful in helping each of use set up in-house training classes when return to our newspapers. What a great idea!

In the afternoon session, Merrill Perlman, formerly of The New York Times, took as through editing drills that help us identify errors in news copy. There are certain things that should give us pause as we edit. These “pause-creating things” are what Merrill calls “speed bumps.” When an editor has the slightest bit of mistrust in a fact or spelling, he should check it out,” she said. She urged us to stop whenever we hit a glitch in copy and take time to ask questions, do research, and check to make sure information is accurate.

Merrill then took us through several examples of N.Y. Times stories that had errors. These errors that resulted in corrections that ran in the paper. We, as a group, had to find the mistakes, based on our knowledge. This was a fun and challenging way to put the concept of “speed bumps” into practice. It was surprising to see some of the mistakes I missed. But the exercise was useful in helping me to see how certain phrases or bits of knowledge I’ve learned over the years should be used to help me identify speed bumps.

This is my first attempt at creating a map. I think that I maybe, kind of, sort of know what I’m doing. Brad Heath from USAToday, my teacher, says it looks like I DO maybe, kind of, sort of know what I’m doing. Hooray!!!!!

View foreclosures in a larger map

Well, my excitement was short-lived. We moved on to Mapping Part 2, and now my eyes are glazed over.

I now have a greater appreciation for my boss, Bill Fox, an assistant managing editor at The Greenville News, who does the majority of programming for our Web site. My head is reeling from going over all this mapping “stuff.” Right now, my head hurts.

Maybe after I’ve had a minute, rather a few days, to go over what we covered, I’ll feel better and wiser about creating maps.