Stuff I like by Benita
I'm awesome.
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New York Times, Houston Chronicle tell different stories of 11-year-old’s rape | Poynter.
Wow. This is interesting.
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Here's a Washington Post Story With All the Editor's Notes In It
An editor’s worst nightmare?
If you spend more than five minutes talking to an editor, you’re sure to hear about how some story or other was a total piece of shit before said editor got his hands on it. Now you can judge for yourself! The Washington Post mistakenly posted this health story by Laura Ungar online with ALL OF THE EDITOR’S ALL-CAPS NOTES INCLUDED. [The final version of the story hasn’t been published yet.] We’ve pasted it below in case it gets pulled. Editors make typos, too! Kill them!
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Jalopnik: How The Detroit News Sold Its Soul
Yeah… Scott Burgess resigned today as The Detroit News auto critic after his editors bowed to a request by an advertiser to water down his negative review of the Chrysler 200.
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A Letter to Our Readers About Digital Subscriptions - NYTimes.com
20 articles a month? I read 20 articles a day!
On NYTimes.com, you can view 20 articles each month at no charge (including slide shows, videos and other features). After 20 articles, we will ask you to become a digital subscriber, with full access to our site.
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The Women Of Imperial Avenue
In the fall of 2009, Northeast Ohio residents held their breath as investigators made a grisly discovery at a two-story house on Imperial Avenue in Cleveland.
Authorities found the decomposing corpses of 11 women: Crystal Dozier, Tishana Culver, Leshanda Long, Tonia Carmichael, Michelle Mason, Kim Yvette Smith, Nancy Cobbs, Amelda Hunter, Janice Webb, Telacia Fortson and Diane Turner
News reports abounded serial-killing suspect Anthony Sowell — everything from his childhood to his military service to his criminal record. He is set to go on trial June 6 and could be sentenced to death if convicted.
But even now, 16 months since the bodies were discovered, the public has come to know little about the slain women. Reports chronicled their criminal records and battles with drug addiction. Their deaths and funerals made news. But what about their lives?
They each had unique stories. Some of marriage, some of maternity. Some of scholarly pursuits, some of artistic ability. Some of faith, some of redemption.
Two Plain Dealer reporters set out to find out just who these 11 women were. Where they came from. And how they ended up in the house on Imperial Avenue.
(Source: youtube.com)
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Learning to Love the (Shallow, Divisive, Unreliable) New Media - The Atlantic
This an interesting and insightful piece on the history and current state of journalism. Long, but a must read in my opinion (probably only for journalism/media nerds, though).
“Everyone from President Obama to Ted Koppel is bemoaning a decline in journalistic substance, seriousness, and sense of proportion. But the author, a longtime advocate of these values, takes a journey through the digital-media world and concludes there isn’t any point in defending the old ways. Consumer-obsessed, sensationalist, and passionate about their work, digital upstarts are undermining the old media — and they may also be pointing the way to a brighter future.”
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The best journalism-job want ad ever ever.
You should, like, strongly consider applying to work for this guy:
We want to add some talent to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune investigative team. Every serious candidate should have a proven track record of conceiving, reporting and writing stellar investigative pieces that provoke change. However, our ideal candidate has also cursed out an editor, had spokespeople hang up on them in anger and threatened to resign at least once because some fool wanted to screw around with their perfect lede.
We do a mix of quick hit investigative work when events call for it and mini-projects that might run for a few days. But every year we like to put together a project way too ambitious for a paper our size because we dream that one day Walt Bogdanich will have to say: “I can’t believe the Sarasota Whatever-Tribune cost me my 20th Pulitzer.” As many of you already know, those kinds of projects can be hellish, soul-sucking, doubt-inducing affairs. But if you’re the type of sicko who likes holing up in a tiny, closed office with reporters of questionable hygiene to build databases from scratch by hand-entering thousands of pages of documents to take on powerful people and institutions that wish you were dead, all for the glorious reward of having readers pick up the paper and glance at your potential prize-winning epic as they flip their way to the Jumble… well, if that sounds like journalism Heaven, then you’re our kind of sicko.
For those unaware of Florida’s reputation, it’s arguably the best news state in the country and not just because of the great public records laws. We have all kinds of corruption, violence and scumbaggery. The 9/11 terrorists trained here. Bush read My Pet Goat here. Our elections are colossal clusterfucks. Our new governor once ran a health care company that got hit with a record fine because of rampant Medicare fraud. We have hurricanes, wildfires, tar balls, bedbugs, diseased citrus trees and an entire town overrun by giant roaches (only one of those things is made up). And we have Disney World and beaches, so bring the whole family.
Send questions, or a resume/cover letter/links to clips to my email address below. If you already have your dream job, please pass this along to someone whose skills you covet. Thanks.
I meant to post this a couple days ago. And I know this is Internet old now, but I love it.
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College weekly finds a clever — and powerful — way around the rules
This is badass: Proof that college newspapers DO matter. Some of the most talented and passionate journalists I know had been my co-workers at The State News (Michigan State’s student paper).
Click the link, but here’s the gist: A professor at a small university in Philadelphia gets in trouble involving strippers. The college paper gets the scoop and went to work on the story, but was ordered to hold it. The following week, the story broke nationally. The student paper plans to run the story 1A, but the administration orders the story held again. Finally, the dean gives them permission BUT they are not allowed to run the story above the fold (worst thing ever, by the way).
What did the students do? They ran the story below the fold like they were told to do. But they left the entire top half blank with tiny text reading “See below the fold.”
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'Robot Journalist' Out-Writes Human Sports Reporter : NPR
I don’t like this.
“University of Virginia player Will Roberts had pitched a perfect game against George Washington University. The story on GWSports.com neglected to mention that fact until the second-to-last paragraph.“That was shocking,” Carmichael says. “This was the first time this had happened in the NCAA since 2002. And when it happens, you expect to see it in the headline and you expect to see everyone talking about that aspect of the game.”
The writer of that story — it turns out — was a living, breathing human being. But the creators of Narrative Science, a news-writing software program, took Deadspin’s assumption as fighting words. They set out to prove that their system could produce a better story.
“We actually got hold of the information director of the school, we got the raw material, the numbers around the story,” said Kris Hammond, Chief Technology Officer of Narrative Science. “And we fed it to our system, which wrote the story, where the headline and the lead were focused on the fact that it was a no-hitter. Because how could you write a baseball story and not notice that it was a no hitter? I mean what kind of writer or machine would you be?”
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Osama bin Laden Front Page Newspaper - Photos - WSJ.com
Check out what newspapers did last night.
Newspaper copy editor, semi-new homeowner, amateur baker who is in love with words, sarcasm, news, pop culture, bright colors, music, design, books, Detroit, DIY.
