Writing summaries

One of the forms of writing that has emerged with the development of the web as a news medium is the summary. A summary is not a lead paragraph (although some news organizations use the lead as the summary). It tries to do more than the lead. It tries to give the reader an abbreviated but more complete idea of an article than the lead paragraph, which simply emphasizes the most important information. Good summaries help the reader decide whether or not to delve into an article. This short article (expanded from a previous version) on JPRORF.com explains more about summaries and gives some examples.

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Barry Bonds: hoisted on his own Louisville slugger

Call me crazy, but if I were Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, I wouldn’t be all that anxious to get a judge to dismiss the suit that Barry Bonds had filed trying stop the collection of profits for the book Game of Shadows (web site).

A judge in San Francisco almost did that this week.

The book details the steroid use of the San Francisco Giants superstar. It tells how Bonds began using steroids after the 1998 seasons to pump himself up and to start – at the twilight of what was probably a Hall of Fame career – putting up monster numbers, especially in the home run category.

The book was painstakingly research by Fainaru-Wada and Williams, two reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle. They conducted dozens of interviews, heard audio tapes, and read hundreds of documents. Some of those documents were grand jury testimony that was supposed to remain secret.

Bonds has not denied the allegations specifically. Instead, he has refused to talk about it. Now he has had his lawyers file suit to stop the authors and publishers from collecting any profits on the book. Why? It’s a novel legal argument that the profits are illegal because some of the documents used in the book were obtained illegally (a somewhat questionable assertion in itself).

That argument has the strength of a piece of cellophane in a hurricane.

This week a judge in San Francisco recognized it as such as refused to grant an injunction against the defendants based on it. He even said the suit had little chance of success. But he didn’t dismiss it.

And that may be a victory for the authors.

If they are forced to defend themselves against the suit, they would probably be able to depose Bonds himself. That would be a reporter’s dream – a major source have to answer questions UNDER OATH.

Man, don’t you know they have a question or two for the slugger.

But, unfortunately, it probably won’t happen. Some judge will do the right thing and throw the suit out as a waste of everybody’s time.

That’s too bad. The thought of Barry Bonds having to tell the truth in the presence of a couple of top-ranked reporters comforts the mind as we head toward Opening Day – when all things become new.



Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

Driving the message home

A Federal court has ruled that Tennessee (my home state and where I will soon be a resident again) can issue a license tag that contains the words “Choose Life.” A legal fight about the state legislature’s power to do this has been going on since 2002, and in the news story about the ruling, both sides have claimed the First Amendment supports their point of view and what the other side is doing violates the First Amendment.

The controversy got me – as one who is fond of the First Amendment – to thinking . . .

As an advocate of expanding the rights the First Amendment protects, I think the court’s decision was generally correct. If the state legislature wants to issue state license tags that say “Choose Life,” I think it should be able to do so. I also think that a state legislature should be able to issue tags that say “Withdraw from Iraq” or “Eat More Chicken” or “Impeach Bush” or “I’m a Religious Wingnut” or just about anything else it wants to say. As a college professor, of course, I draw the line at “Abolish Tenure,” which is about as perverse, sadistic and anti-social as you can get. (You have to draw a line somewhere.)

It now takes an act of the legislature to get a message on a license tag. It should be much easier than that. A citizen should simply be able to order up whatever message he or she wants without the approval of the clowns who usually inhabit state Capitol buildings. That would make driving up and down the interstate far more interesting and fun.

People can buy the all-about-me vanity plates, I know, but these are not very interesting. Besides, I like my words spelled out.

The newspaper where I read about the court’s ruling (yes, a real newspaper, printed on newsprint) carried an artist’s rendering of what the “Choose Life” tag might look like. It had the face of a fat, laughing baby behind the words. A quarter of a century ago, our only child – a son – was as cute a baby as had ever graced a maternity ward, particularly with his head of bright red hair. He could have been pictured on that license plate – except for the fact that he was colic and spent the first three months of his life screaming at the top of his lungs. (He’s fine now; his parents never recovered, however.)

So, instead of my son’s picture at that stage of life, I thought I might want another picture to go with my “Choose Life” tag – say, a picture of Tennessee’s electric chair. Now there is a “Choose Life” tag I would be proud to have on the back of my truck. I know the “Choose Life” thing is supposed to be about abortion, but I should be able to interpret it any way I want.

But this isn’t about me. It’s about the state of Tennessee, which won its case but had to endure a few condescending slings and arrows from both the majority opinion of the judges who ruled in its favor. Those judges wrote that although “this exercise of government one-sidedness with respect to a very contentious political issue may be ill-advised,” they couldn’t find anything to prevent it.

How silly. Legislatures all over the place take up contentious issues all the time. They sometimes even pass laws about these issues. What the judges should have said was that this issue didn’t merit all the time and effort it took to get it to court but that it was the state’s First Amendment right to waste everybody’s time if it wanted to.

The lone dissenting judge came closer to getting at the real issue when he wrote:

“If the KKK and Nazi Party are able to pull together 1,000 proud, dues-pay members who wish to display such license plats on their cars . . . they are entitled to do so the same as the Son of Confederate Veterans, Penn State Alumni, antique aficionados and member of pro-life and pro-choice organizations.”

Hear, hear.

I’m for a license tag that says “Support the First Amendment.” And the picture of the happy baby to go along with it wouldn’t hurt either.


Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

Getting a job in web journalism

Anthony Moor, associate managing editor/online at the Orlando Sentinel and editor of OrlandoSentinel.com, has written an interesting and encouraging piece about getting a job in web journalism. The article appears on the Online Journalism Review web site and emphasizes that web journalists need to develop the basic skills of the journalist – particularly editing and copyediting.

Next, are you Internet literate? . . . While we don't need code monkeys, we do need people who understand the unique attributes of the Web as it pertains to journalism.

So, have you built a Web page as part of a student project or on your own? Do you know basic HTML? Do you work on the student newspaper website? Do you frequent Internet news sites? Do you use an RSS reader? Do you podcast? Did you ask to shadow the Web producers for a few days at your last internship? An affinity for our medium is essential.

Good questions all. Moor says there is a bright future awaiting web journalists, but as with any other profession, they need to get prepared.



Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

Web writing example

David Broder, long time and deeply respected political columnist for the Washington Post, included the paragraph below in his column this morning (March 16, 2006). He is quoting from a speech given by Gen. Anthony Zinni in 2002 about the possibility of war with Iraq.

This paragraph is a good example of why writing for the web – using some of the techniques developed by those interested in the topic – could and should be better.

This is not latter-day wisdom from the general. In the summer of 2002, seven months before the war began, he told an audience in Florida what would be required raq, if you're willing to do it," he said. "If our economy is so great that you're willing to put billions of dollars into reforming Iraq. If you want to put soldiers that are already stretched so thin all around the world and add them into a security force there forever, like we see in places like the Sinai. If you want to fight with other countries in the region to try to keep Iraq together, as Kurds and Shiites try and split off, you're going to have to make a good case for that."

The column that includes this paragraph was written for the print edition of the Post and shoveled onto the web site without much thought or editing. It is difficult to read because Broder is quoting words from a speech that uses sentence fragments, and he had to do it in a solid paragraph form.

But what if Broder or his editors had used the simple web technique of a bulleted list? With a bit of rewording, here’s how the paragif the United States invaded Iraq. "You could inherit the country of Iraph might have looked:

This is not latter-day wisdom from the general. In the summer of 2002, seven months before the war began, he told an audience in Florida what would be required if the United States invaded Iraq. Zinni said, "You could inherit the country of Iraq, if you're willing to do it:

• "If our economy is so great that you're willing to put billions of dollars into reforming Iraq.

• “If you want to put soldiers that are already stretched so thin all around the world and add them into a security force there forever, like we see in places like the Sinai.

• “If you want to fight with other countries in the region to try to keep Iraq together, as Kurds and Shiites try and split off, you're going to have to make a good case for that."

The web, because space is not a consideration, can take a mass of words and make them easily digestable. This is a good example of where it can work.


Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

Gordon Parks, photojournalist

Gordon Parks, one of the pioneers of what we today call photojournalism died this week. He was 93 years old. Parks is widely known as one of the first major African-American movie directors. But long before Parks got into movies, he was taking pictures for the Farm Security Administration and Life magazine. His photographs and photo essays were not only technically good but also displayed a dignity, social conscience and anger that made him unique. Parks was also a writer, composer and founder of Essence magazine. Few creative people ranged as widely as he did, and few were as good at so many things as Gordon Parks. Read his New York Times obituary. See also Magazines and Photojournalism's Gold Age, a short essay on JPROF.com.



Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.