Mistakes and missteps
Think like readers, edit like journalists
At the Washington Post, readers are calling attention to minor errors that they say are affecting the news organization’s credibility. The public editor, Andrew Alexander, makes that point in his column under the headline, “As errors grow, so does a credibility gap.” Readers rightfully complained about the wrong use of a word in a headline, [...]
Keep your credibility
Credibility is vital to journalists and their news organizations. That’s not news. But it is a valuable mantra worth repeating — often. Consider this statement by Lucio Guerrero, former spokesman for Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, as reported in a New York Times story today: “Once you lose credibility, that’s the kiss of death.” Guerrero was [...]
Tell Twitter, tell the world
You’d think with all the cautions about social media today, certain things wouldn’t happen: Like one of CNN’s Middle East top editors Tweeting about her “respect” for the Shiite cleric the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. Prompting the Tweet was Fadlallah’s death this past Sunday. Within hours, Octavia Nasr had been fired. According to The [...]
Twitter: Respect its power
Yesterday’s news included an item about John Daly, the pro golfer who posted a Tweet that included a golf writer’s phone number. Daly invited his followers to call the writer and chew him out for a story he had written about Daly; the piece detailed some unflattering things that were in Daly’s PGA Tour file. [...]
Make writing tight, logical: Video
Sometimes we read something and it stops us — for the wrong reason. It doesn’t make sense. We list some of these “favorites” in our book, including such things as “an almost infinite list.” But something can’t be “almost infinite.” Obvious as that is, we’ve seen this one quite a few times over the years. [...]
More views: Leaner copy desks
A quick post to bring your attention to an article published on vocus.com about the connection between mistakes in news products and leaner copy desks. The article was written by Katrina Mendolera, editor in chief of inVocus, who earned her master’s degree at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. We have posted before about [...]
