Paterno’s death: Another Twitter lesson

UPDATE: The email ostensibly sent to student athletes at Penn State did not exist, as we find out in this overview by Brian Stelter in today’s New York Times. It’s a question we asked below. It’s a question editors should ask routinely: Did we see this ourselves or just hear about it?

EARLIER: We debated a bit before weighing in on the wave of premature reports that Penn State’s Joe Paterno had died.

The lesson seemed obvious, so we first thought there was no need to add our voice. But a piece by Poynter helped to change our mind.

The background: The Onward State student news organization at Penn State, which has gained a lot of notice for the way it leverages social media to beat the “old school” Daily Collegian, tweeted that Paterno was dead. Forty-five minutes later, it retracted the report, but not before a number of major news organizations, including cbssports.com and The Huffington Post, accepted Onward’s tweet as fact, tweeting the death themselves — often without attribution — and linking to their own pre-written obituaries.

Poynter, the venerable media watchdog and resource, was part of the crowd misreporting the story.

Later, however, Poynter pieced together a chronology of the error, which is worth the read just to see how things fell apart.

Onward State Managing Editor Devon Edwards already has resigned over the error, saying that Onward had been confident its sources were correct. But in a statement, he didn’t explain that. Onward’s tweet cited as its source an email that had been sent to Penn State players. Still not clear: Did Onward see the email? Was it shared by a player? Was there never an email? Just someone — “someone” — who said there was?

Poynter, in its chronology, quotes The Associated Press director of Media Relations, Paul Colford, from an email to Poynter: “At no time did AP report or imply Paterno’s death on any platform. AP was relying upon actual reporting. Just like with the aftermath of the [Gabrielle] Giffords shooting.”

Read the Poynter chronology. It’s a worthwhile piece for an inventory of Lessons Learned.

Did John King act alone or alert peers?

The Republican presidential debate Thursday night in South Carolina brought up a basic principle in interviewing: Don’t start with the hard question, or the bombshell question.

In his first question of the evening, John King, the CNN political reporter and moderator of the debate, asked Newt Gingrich about ABC reports that he’d asked his second wife, Marianne, for an open marriage. She declined, and they divorced; Gingrich then married Callista Bisek, who is now his third wife. Gingrich went off on King and the “liberal media” and earned a standing ovation, which became a big part of the debate story.

The question behind the question: Did King’s colleagues know he was starting this way? Did they discuss it? Was there any debate?

Paul Fahri’s piece in The Washington Post suggests that King acted alone. Fahri wrote:

In post-debate comments, King seemed to have few regrets. “I understood that if I asked the question, he was not going to be happy with it, and he was going to turn on me. Knew that coming in,” he said during an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper immediately afterward. (King was unavailable for an interview Friday.) “This is one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t. It was my judgment, my decision and mine alone. If we’re going to deal with it, let’s deal with it upfront, let’s not try to sneak it into the middle of the debate somewhere.”

King later spoke with Politico, and again did not indicate he’d clued in anyone else on his strategy: “My old AP training is, you deal with the lead of the day upfront first,” Politico reported King as saying. “I respect anybody who disagrees, but we made our decision.”

The behind-the-scenes conversations that did or did not happen are worth mulling, perhaps as much so as the dust-up itself, and may be part of Sunday’s TV morning show analysis of the Saturday vote in South Carolina.

When you have a big decision to make, it’s a good idea to include others and benefit from the wisdom of your peers. We know this is a cornerstone of ethics, as well. Your decisions affect everyone at your news organization, and the brand itself. But sometimes we hesitate to include others, fearing our “great idea” or what we want to do will be nixed.

That surely is a poor strategy, too.

Whether you agree with what King did or not — and there will always be disagreement — the process is what matters here as much as the decision itself.

Interestingly, King broke a second “rule” moments later in the debate questioning. He blamed ABC  for making an issue of Gingrich’s marriages. Redirecting the blame is just a poor strategy, journalism or not. Fahri ends his piece by quoting W. Joseph Campbell of American University:

“King seemed taken off guard. He looked a little sickened. And he did himself no favors by lamely pointing out that it wasn’t CNN but another network that dug out the Gingrich-infidelity story. That allowed Gingrich to pounce again.”

One thing to consider when you want to start with the hardest question: Start with your colleagues first.

SOPA: Stop, read and learn

Twitter is on fire today with “Stop SOPA”! Well, at least 99% of the people I follow agree with that sentiment, so that’s what I’m seeing.

But I wonder how many really have taken a look at SOPA, and its sister bill, PIPA. Today is an opportunity, if not an obligation, to settle in and do some reading and self-educating about these two pieces of legislation before the House and Senate that are being proposed to regulate online piracy (primarily movies and songs).

Do you — really — know what you’re “stopping”?

The New York Times, my go-to daily, has a good piece today, but there are plenty of others. As you “shop,” consider the backgrounders and updates and not just the screeds for and against, though you can learn from some of this indignation as well.

You may or may not choose to sign the Google petition.

What’s more important: Make today the day you begin to get a handle on some details of this debate if you really haven’t done that yet.

Information is power. So go get some today, and lend a knowledgeable voice to all the noise that is out there. It’s not just where you stand on an issue that counts. It’s whether you speak with some hard-earned authority.

 

 

How an unfortunate typo went viral

In the Syracuse community today, we are reading a story about how a typo on a sign outside a local high school went viral on social media, starting with Facebook.

Instead of “Martin,” the sign read “Martian” Luther King Day. The unfortunate misspelling caught the attention of someone passing by who snapped a photo with his cell phone and posted it on Facebook.

The good news is that the error was noticed by the school the day the sign went up, and the spelling was corrected. But by then, the Facebook posting had gone viral.

It’s a lesson in mistakes — and in correcting them.

Westhill Superintendent Stephen Bocciolatt, explains:

“The bottom line is it was misspelled. Obviously it’s unusual for us to misspell things. But mistakes happen. It was noticed and corrected immediately.”

We have always recommended that reporters and editors know the corrections policy at their news organizations so errors can be fixed in a timely manner. This advice is just as important for interns as it is for veterans.

This case of the misspelled name on the high school sign is a perfect example of how difficult it is today to take back something that is wrong. Errors online can be corrected in real time, true, instead of in the next print production cycle. But errors are also “out there” for more people to see. This error went well beyond the high school neighborhood and the Syracuse community.

Mistakes will always happen. It’s what we do about them that matters.

Competition vs. collaboration

We’ve written several posts about collaboration because working together is such an important way to accomplish a goal. It’s also an opportunity to learn new skills. But it won’t work if competition gets in the way.

How do you separate the two? Here are some tips:

>   When you truly collaborate, you’ll be just as excited about a team member’s successes as your own. Actually, you all will benefit from a positive end result.

>   When you collaborate, you’ll find yourself acknowledging another person’s skills as an important contribution to the project.

>   When you collaborate, you’ll reach out to people around you, inviting them to participate and looking to them not only for support but to lead.

>   When you collaborate, you won’t care about who gets credit as long as the team gets credit.

>   When you collaborate, you’ll use “we” and “us” more than “I” and “me.”

There’s a proper place for competition, but it isn’t in a collaborative setting. Watch for these warning signs that competition might get in the way of progress or attack you from the outside:

>   A team member is not readily available for meetings or agrees to meet and then cancels.

>   A person who is talented and skilled in a particular area does not respond when invited to work together on a project — or declines to participate.

>   Someone not involved in a project at all speaks openly and negatively as an observer about what the team is “doing wrong.”

>   A team member seems to care more about the division of labor by hours instead of by skills, which won’t necessarily take the same amount of a person’s time.

>   When problems or issues arise, a team member takes them to people outside the team instead of bringing them up with fellow team members.

The best collaborative experiences are the ones where team members follow through on their assignments, do more than is expected, bring a positive attitude to the team, and work with enthusiasm and energy.

The most effective collaborators focus more on solutions than on problems, aren’t hesitant to ask for assistance from someone who knows more, treat fellow team members with respect, and show an unselfish work ethic.

Multimedia journalists, especially newcomers to the profession, will find that sometimes collaboration is the only way to accomplish a small assignment or a major project. In today’s newsrooms, fewer journalists are expected to do more — something else we’ve written about extensively. With that knowledge going forward, why wouldn’t anyone strive for collaboration instead of competition?

 

Communication: Is anyone out there?

A page from a Mary Engelbreit calendar last year features a delightful drawing of a little girl talking into a tin can with a string attached. On the other side of the tree where she is standing, a little boy plays with a ball. At his feet is the other end of the string with another tin can.

An accompanying quote, attributed to George Bernard Shaw, reads:

“The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

Isn’t that the truth?

Communication comes in all forms these days:

>  In print — not only in newspapers, magazines and billboards, but also in written words on tablets, hand-held devices and computer screens.

>  In audio — not only via radio, television and CDs, but also on mobile phones and Mp3 players.

>  In video — not only on the big screen, but also on screens the size of digital flash cards.

Sharing information is easier today than ever, but the sender still needs to know that communication has taken place. How?

The best ways to communicate are the basic ways, which haven’t changed with new technology:

>  Be clear. State the message succinctly — in a paragraph, 140 characters or a 90-second video.

>  Be brief. Review your message — tighten it, no matter what the format.

>  Be logical. Follow a subject-verb-object format. Portray a series of video shots as a sequence.

>  Be selective. Let every word, quote, photo or video clip have a purpose.

>  Be visual. Picture yourself as the recipient. What message do you get?

The example from the calendar is cute only to the observer. You can be sure that the little girl will be frustrated when no one communicates back with her.