An honest mistake -- or something else?

When the CBS News show "48 Hours" aired a segment a couple of weeks ago about a murder in Columbia, Mo., it altered a picture of the front page of the Columbia Daily Tribune the show used as a graphic. CBS has acknowledged the mistake, although it has not explained very well how it happened. But there is evidence CBS still doesn't understand the seriousness of its action -- particularly given the conclusion the show drew about the case.

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The art of linking

Linking is one of the most powerful tools the web offers to journalists. With relatively little effort, journalists can use links to expand their stories and enhance the experience of the readers. Yet very few journalists or news web sites take advantage of this opportunity. Here are a few thoughts about this tool and how to use it.

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War News Radio

Students at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania have created an Internet radio station devoted to covering the war in Iraq. But their station, called War News Radio, is different. Instead of gathering Associated Press and other news service reports and repackaging them, they are creating their own reports using sources that are not often heard from and technology that is not often used by news organizations. The students troll the web for sources of information about Iraq – many of them in Iraq itself. Then they use an Internet telephone service called Skype to call these folks up, interview them and put together their stories. The result is something you would not hear on most radio news broadcasts, even National Public Radio, which, by the way, did a story about War News Radio in January and interviewed two of its producers. Another story about War News Radio has just appeared in the Los Angeles Times. War News Radio is the product of some innovative thinking and initiative, and it could happen anywhere.



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A wide range of knowledge

Among the many qualities that modern journalism demands of its frontline footsoldiers -- reporters -- is a wide range of knowledge. Simply put, reporters should know a lot of stuff about a lot of things. Terry Mattingly, who runs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, made the point eloquently in his weekly column about religion a couple of weeks ago. He tells the story of a reporter who seemed surprised and thought it was "interesting" that the new Pope also has the title of "Bishop of Rome."

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Grading writing assignments

For quite a number of years I taught the introductory writing course at the University of Alabama, the infamous Mass Communication 102. I worked with seven or eight graduate teaching assistants each semester, and in our weekly meetings we talked a lot about grading. This memo to them grew out of those discussions several years ago. It outlines some of the considerations writing teachers should give when awarding grades.

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Generous words for JPROF.com

Chip Scanlan is one of the Poynter Institue's writing gurus and a writer whose advice on the craft is widely read and respected. In addition to his articles on Poynter's website, he has begun a weblog called The Mechanic and the Muse: An Owner's Manual for Writers. Scanlan recently stumbled onto this web site and had some kind and generous things to say about it on his weblog, concluding with "If you want to learn about journalism and its current state of practice, pitfalls and power, J-Prof is one of the first sites I'd send you to."



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

JPROF's exercise room

JPROF's exercise room, hosted by Annie the Grammar Queen (right), is open 24 hours a day. You and your students will find a variety of exercises of sharpening their writing skills. Help your students learn the rules for using commas (exercises are keyed to JPROF's Rules for Using Commas page), the terms of grammar, subject-verb agreement and more.

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Learning HTML

Instructors of web journalism classes face a dilemma in how much HTML they should teach or require that their students should know, especially since many of us use web editors (Dreamweaver, GoLive, etc.) or content management systems to produce web sites. There are occasions, of course, when some use of HTML is required even when you are using these tools. My approach is that students should be comfortable with the basics of HTML so they can begin to figure out the tags if it is necessary. To that end, I have developed a couple of exercises (exercise 1, exercise 2) designed to help student get inside HTML and understand what is going on with tags. Anyone teaching web journalism is welcome to use them. Let me know how they work.



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GoogleMaps mania

The ability of web site developers to put a customized GoogleMap on their web sites is creating quiet a stir these days, including a story this week on National Public Radio that includes an interview with Mike Pegg, creator of a GoogleMapsMania, weblog that tracks the use of GoogleMaps. The implications and possibilities of using GoogleMaps for web journalism are enormous. (Check out a GoogleMap of all the murders in Rochester, N.Y., in 2005 that was built by the folks at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.) Still, at present, GoogleMaps is intimidating because a knowledge of javascript is require. A beacon of hope has begun to shine, however. Mapbuilder.net, developed by Andriy Bidochko, gives us javascript-challenged users an easier way to get our custom-built maps onto our web sites.

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Academics, start your engines

It's that time of year again when we in academia have to gear up for the coming semester. If you're one of those, maybe JPROF.com can help.

The syllabus for the course I am teaching in web journalism this semester at Emory & Henry College is located on this site. Anyone who is interested can take a look. A few supplemental materials are there now, and I will be developing some other materials -- tutorials, handouts and the like -- as the course continues, and I will be putting those on this site as well. (If you have any suggestions or materials that you would like to share, please let me know.).

In addition, if you are looking for ideas for lectures or discussions with your classes, JPROF has plenty. For introductory classes in mass media or journalism, go to the syllabus for this course and you will find links to lecture notes on the following topics: news, newspapers, books, magazines, radio and television.

There are also discussion starters and notes for some of your other journalism classes, including
• Simple words
• Wordiness
• Clichés
• Verbs of attribution
• Accuracy

There is also the ever-popular Rules for Using Commas in both HTML and PDF form. If you can't find what you want, use the search function, or drop us an email and tell us what you need.



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

Inside a cartoonist's mind

Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Jim Borgman is giving us a fascinating peek inside the mind of the editorial cartoonist with his new weblog, BorgBlog. Borgman is posting not just some of his cartoons but some of his sketches and his thoughts about how particular cartoons develop. The site currently has three versions of the cartoon he drew about the West Virginia coal mining tragedy, showing how he decided on where to place the miner's wife. In addition, Borgman includes a variety of sketches, some of which turn into cartoons and some of which remain as half-formed ideas. This is a wonderful site for those of us who envy the skill and the power of the editorial cartoonist.

(Thanks to Jonathan Dube at Cyberjournalist.net for pointing usin the the direction of Borgman's weblog.)

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Another aspect of immediacy

One of the five characteristics of the web -- identified and explained in Web Journalism -- is immediacy, the ability to post information quickly. With the growth of the blogosphere, this charactertistic has taken on another aspect: the ability of people to pass information around quickly, even if it isn't true and doesn't make sense. Frank Ahrens, in his Washington Post Web Watch column, has a good example. He cites the case of what happened to Wal-Mart last week.

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