As a journalist, I was always taught to double-check spelling, attribution and grammar before ever submitting anything to an editor for publication. One would think that the general rule is applicable to all journalists at all media outlets, yet in a blog post done by Washington D.C.’s Politico, an editor clearly did not check spelling or grammar before posting.
In a blog written by senior political writer, Maggie Haberman, about Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen’s comments on Ann Romney’s choice of being a stay at home mother who “never really dealt with the kind of economic issues that a majority of women in the country are facing,” Haberman was clearly more concerned with getting the story published rather than being accurate in her copy. Read the rest of this entry »
Permanent link to this article: http://thewashingtonjournalismcenter.com/?p=4654
How many times are you going to see a story about frozen cows? I just had to take a look when I saw the story on The L.A. Times.
So two Air Force Academy cadets found six cows frozen to death in a cabin in the mountains of Colorado at a place called Conundrum Hot Springs. Now imagine yourself in that situation… wouldn’t you want to tell your story? The writer at The L.A. Times took the liberty of being a little witty, given the subject of the story, which I appreciated.
For officials, here’s the beef: Environmental restrictions won’t let them use machinery of any kind to remove the frozen carcasses. Read the rest of this entry »
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The entrance to the Washington Post on 15th street Northwest DC / Photo courtesy Dion Hinchcliffe
Throughout my internship at the Washington Times, my editor kept telling me that every story I wrote had been written before. Search long enough on the internet, he told me, and I would find my story already written by someone else.
It’s a biblical principal that no article is ever quite new, and one that this Easter showed itself on the Washington Post’s front page.
On Easter Sunday, the Washington Post covered the Trayvon Martin story once again. This time, the paper focused on the rise of justifiable homicides after the Stand Your Ground legislation passed in Florida. This was the law that had, until recently, kept George Zimmerman from being prosecuted for shooting Trayvon.
Search long enough on Google and you will discover the story the Tampa Bay Times wrote two years ago about the rise in justifiable homicides in the state. Both stories share many of the same facts — and most notably — the same anecdotes. Read the rest of this entry »
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This photo demonstrates the interactivity of the Post's story by showing a pull quote, short copy and video about one of the survivors.
It’s been five years since the massacre that shook the country. The Virginia Tech shooting has been commemorated through multiple articles, but none so interactive as the Washington Post’s click-through feature.
I love that the Post took the time to tell me a story. They introduced me to the characters. They didn’t just tell me about this guy who got shot, but they said, “Here’s Kevin. Listen to his story.”
The click-through begins with the photo of one of the victims, now a survivor of the atrocity. The graphic nature of the photo intrigued me to keep clicking. That’s how I met Kevin Sterne, the victim in the photo. The Post gives me a brief biography so that when Kevin tells me how he’s doing now, I understand. Read the rest of this entry »
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Don Sammons is the sole resident of Buford, WY
When many of us think about feature writing, we think about a narrative story that includes colorful details and background information about a specific person or event. Needless to say, the details of a feature story are key to the telling of the overall story. In a recent story by The New York Times, Dan Frosch was able to effectively communicate the story of Don Sammons, the sole resident of Buford, WY, without getting lost in the details.
In feature writing, it is easy for reporters and journalists alike to get lost in the story, trying to include too many details in order to make the story more colorful or creative. For example, in a version of the same story done by the Huffington Post, Bob Moen perhaps gets lost in the description and detail of the town that the central focus of Sammon and the auction is forgotten. Read the rest of this entry »
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Police are increasingly being granted access to phone records such as text messages. Photo by Meagan Ramsay
We often hear of court cases in which cellphone records helped nag the criminal. But do we ever consider the legality behind it? A New York Times story by Eric Lichtblau takes a balanced and well-structured look at the tracking of cellphones by law enforcement. Structure is always an issue in my writing, so I love finding stories that flow easily from one idea to the next.
The first requirement in this story is an explanation of the problem. The writer explains in a lede that is much longer than I would prefer, but it does explain exactly what readers need to know right off the bat by summarizing the issue:
“Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local police officials, with hundreds of departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little or no court oversight, documents show.” Read the rest of this entry »
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The rise in autism could be linked to obesity in women, or so the Associated Press reported based on a study published in Pediatrics.
With autism as a hot topic issue, several major media outlets from the Washington Post to USA Today have picked up the story. However, I don’t think that the story connects to its main audience: pregnant women. If you’re writing a story about pregnancy and obesity, I want to hear from women who are currently experiencing one or the other. The first few paragraphs are all statistics:
On average, women face a 1 in 88 chance of having a child with autism; the results suggest that obesity during pregnancy would increase that to a 1 in 53 chance, the authors said…Since more than one-third of U.S. women of child-bearing age are obese, the results are potentially worrisome and add yet another incentive for maintaining a normal weight, said researcher Paula Krakowiak, a study co-author and scientist at the University of California, Davis. Read the rest of this entry »
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On this continent, things used to be more difficult. Letters used to move around by horseback or on boats, Google didn’t exist to answer our every question, and getting published used to be only for the best of the best ADULT authors. But not anymore.
According to an article on the New York Times website, children are now publishing their own works of fiction, and while most parents are proud of their kids, not everyone is happy about this trend. In journalism and in life there is always room for a different point of view. Read the rest of this entry »
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In an April 1 article about Washington state passing a law to curb human trafficking, the New York Times proved that a reporter can aim for objectivity when covering human trafficking. The article allowed readers to see the key players and hear firsthand accounts of who is involved in the case, from lawyers to their opposition. This hot topic issue has been in the news for some time, dating back to before Craigslist shut down their personal ads section.
The story leads with a simple, factual anecdote of a girl who was trafficked for two years. The lede catches readers’ attention, and they want to know more about the girl and the issues she faced. The sources quoted are anonymous, but the facts speak for themselves. In this case, anonymity provided a personal story that gave way to background information so readers may understand the law. NYT reporter William Yardley highlighted this when he wrote:
She is also evidence. When one of the men who raped her was sentenced in February, one of the exhibits that prosecutors used was an advertisement selling her services as an escort on backpage.com. The ad said she was 18. Read the rest of this entry »
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President Barack Obama hosted his third annual Easter prayer breakfast at the White House, an event in which 150 Christian clergy enjoyed speeches by Obama, Vice President Biden and special music guest Sara Groves.
While the prayer breakfast event in its entirety did not receive thorough coverage, Obama’s five-minute speech became the focal point of every news article.
In the case of a Politico article by Kim Hart, few background or supportive details are provided to fill the spaces between Obama’s quotes. I found the article to be a series of quote after quote, leaving me with many unanswered questions. An article stripped of its supportive background information is just bones, no meat, making it altogether weak. (This was the case with most news coverage of Obama’s prayer breakfast message.) Read the rest of this entry »
Permanent link to this article: http://thewashingtonjournalismcenter.com/?p=4510
As a journalist, I was always taught to double-check spelling, attribution and grammar before ever submitting anything to an editor for publication. One would think that the general rule is applicable to all journalists at all media outlets, yet in a blog post done by Washington D.C.’s Politico, an editor clearly did not check spelling or grammar before posting.
