Why I Don't Envy Sports Columnists (with video!)

If you don't think sports journalists take a lot of heat, think again. Here's a video of Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy flipping out over this column by Oklahoman writer Jenni Carlson:



Need I say more? I don't envy my sports colleagues one bit.

Student Editor Should Be Fired For "Fuck Bush," In Spite of First Amendment

Yesterday, Editor & Publisher's Joe Strupp wrote that Colorado State student David McSwane shouldn't receive a lashing for his widely-panned (as inappropriate) "Fuck Bush" editorial. Today, McSwane didn't apologize.

And you know what? He should have. And while we might want to consider easing up our outrage a little, being a "college student" is no excuse for not taking responsibility.

The editorial was inappropriate, Strupp wrote, "but to simply fire this editor and treat him like a seasoned reporter who has been around a while, and should know better, is also inappropriate. ...He is a college student. And it would seem he should be treated as such, someone in school to learn, and therefore, be taught that what he did was wrong and why."

And today, he decided to not bother to apologize, all while noting that he didn't think the fallout would be as bad as it was.

Freedom of speech and the First Amendment? I'm all about it. To me, this is protected speech, no matter how much it pisses off the next guy. The bottom line is whether his editorial was relevant to the news, and that's left for you, the reader, to decide.

But in my opinion, this guy shouldn't be fired for what he said -- he should be fired for writing such an obtuse, blockheaded editorial. A great op/ed is one of strength with finesse, one where nuance and evidence makes a powerful argument. This editorial, however, can't approach that when the headline is so blatantly heavy-handed.

E&P's Strupp put it wonderfully at the bottom of his column: "But because it did not express its message clearly and went so far in offending readers that it overshadowed its apparent point."

And that, my friends, is the reason he should be fired. Not for the use of expletives, not for apparently welcoming discourse about it beforehand -- but for poor editorial judgment. Yes, he discussed it ahead of time, but anyone with a brain will know the line between provoking the readers -- every college paper's hope and dream -- and starting a witchhunt. This isn't a journalist under fire for pushing the social boundaries of free speech, this is a journalist with a lot to learn. And the witchhunt has begun.

So here's The Editorialiste's take: Fire him from his editor position, but let him work for the paper. Let someone else teach him what's right and wrong. In the real-world, that chance wouldn't happen. But that's the only allowance I'm willing to give in to under the premise of being a "college student."

Mitchel Stevens’ Guide to Employment and Questions

Editor's Note: The following column is part of an anonymous weekly humor column chronicling the struggle of a new, young journalist out in the working world. You may find the author's previous posts in the archives. --The Ed.

A while back I was sitting at one of those circular conference tables for an interview with the HR woman reading over my impeccable, single-spaced resume.

“I like what I see here, Mitchel,” she said.

After all, who wouldn’t? I read through all the tips. I scoured pages from Lifehacker and Mediabistro. I practice in front of a mirror. I’ve done interviews with politicians, writers, former bosses, phone calls, voice chats, telegrams and even pitches over drinks. I’ve been screamed at, shouted at and can usually turn most conversations around over 20 minutes.

“But I can’t help but notice, you’re a writer.”

Except for this. I looked across the table at HR woman and nodded. Her eyes lifted from my spectacular, god-like resume and settled on me. And we waited. To give you an idea, I just took a break from writing this. I went and got some coffee. Scratched my hand. Leafed through a few spare pages of newspaper I have laying around. Then I came back to this.

“That’s right,” I said. After all, this interview was for an assistant editorial position. The job promised plenty of opportunities for copious busywork, editing, coding, writing minor copy and cleaning up other writers’ pieces, as they’d file in. Nothing too awful for an entry-level position and exactly what I had went to college for.

HR woman sucked in her teeth and then let out a tiny sigh.

“Well, what we’re looking for is an editor. Someone who can pay strict attention to details and sentence structure. Someone who isn’t so concerned with the writing side, but who wants to work in the production side.”

I semi-followed everything she said. After all, don’t you need to start writing in order to learn how to edit? Wouldn’t you need to be concerned with how pieces flow in order to understand individual traits? C’mon, not everything can be as soul-crushingly boring as a Washington Times article.

“Well,” I said, “I was an editor at [UNNAMED COLLEGE PAPER] and I do proof my own work before sending it in, you know.”

“Oh, I do, but you need to understand. We’re looking for someone who is very detail oriented. And you? Well, Mitchel, you’re just a writer. You’re concerned with how the story is just written. We’re looking for someone to be concerned with how the story’s made.”

Mind you, one of the other provisions for this job was to come in weekends, sit at a computer and monitor weather reports. God forbid if my strict attention to detail failed me while glued to a self-refreshing screen every ten minutes.

Suffice to say, I didn’t get the job. But it’s odd, since I’ve run into this same question while interviewing with two other extremely different organizations than the first. I’m not sure if this is an HR ploy used to knock candidates on their ass, or if they’re all so mildly retarded that HR across the land use a hive mind. This is, as my father tells me, a simple get. It’s used to irk a candidate, unease them and force them into an awkward silence. To see if they can think on their feet.

It’s this same get that inspired a generation of do-it-yourselfers who got tired of being pissed on by the same question from HR or dot-coms who realized that there are thousands of writers hungry for work and they can be cannibalized for sub-minimum wage in major cities.

The commercials lie: I hate working from home.

I hate having to bow to companies that can get away with paying me $4.50 to $5 an hour for my words. I hate hearing about stringers and how to get such a position I have to intern at the Times before sending in countless e-mails to deputy editors that purposely pick and choose their favorites to see who’ll jump through the most hoops. I hate having to spend weeks begging for an invoice to pay my bills.

I hate having to be a writer sometimes. Funny enough, people can’t help but notice that about me.

-MS

Ahmadinejad, Schmadinejad

Note: This post was also published on The Huffington Post. -Ed.

You know all this coverage of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's appearance at Columbia University?

Well guess what -- it’s all a bunch of baloney.

While everyone from CNN to The New York Times gets caught up in the politics of Ahmadinejad’s remarks, the real story behind the podium is how much this event – wait, pseudo-event -- is a victory for both the Columbia University and Iranian public relations teams.

That’s right: Columbia and Iran 1, U.S. Media Sources 0.

While the press debate in newsprint and over the airwaves whether homosexuals exist in Iran and the existence of the Holocaust, the real story is how Ahmadinejad’s visit to the Ivy League school is a non-event to most people and, in the words of the late Daniel J. Boorstin, a pseudo-event to the press covering it.

According to Boorstin’s definition in his highly-regarded 1961 book The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America, the Bollinger-Ahmadinejad prizefight met all four requirements of a fluffed-up circus of hot air, er, I mean a pseudo-event:

1) The event is not spontaneous but instead a planned event;

2) It is planted primarily for the media to report on it;

3) The reality of the situation (academic discourse?) is ambiguous;

4) It is intended to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

By this measure, our beloved news outlets shouldn’t have reported on this story at all. Do I even need to ask who reported on the presidents of Turkmenistan, Chile and Malawi who also spoke that day? No, probably not, because Geraldo Rivera was too busy asking people who were locked out of the university’s campus to shove their protest signs in the camera lens.

In just once piece of evidence of this truth, Bollinger’s heated introduction to Ahmadinejad was far more extensive and planned than his introduction for the other three aforementioned foreign heads of state. You can agree with him or not on his take on “academic discourse,” but there’s no denying that his day’s efforts got him leading stories on all the major national and regional news outlets all day.

So who really wins in this scenario? Certainly not the protestors, journalists or average Joe America. But investors in Iran and Columbia trustees? Start rejoicing. That’s coverage that money can’t buy.

My Colleagues Liveblog the President of Iran at Columbia

Want to hear Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Forget The New York Times. Read A President Visits: Ahmadinejad at Columbia, authored by my colleagues and fellow Columbia Journalism students. -Ed.

Rating The Latest Philly Inquirer Redesign

You readers know how dear I hold the Philadelphia Inquirer to my heart, having constructively criticized the paper's online endeavors before on this very blog.

Well this week, my prayers have been answered (including, finally, a blowout win by Mr. Donovan McNabb and his Eagles. But I digress.): The Inquirer has given its wing of the Philly.com estate a facelift.

But is it a success?

Well, I'd say that Brian Tierney and Co. are clearly concerned about their digital face, which is arguably more important than their printed one. But as good as some of the changes are -- and some of them certainly convey the right intention -- the overall result leaves something to be desired.

According to the site, "we added toolbars, flash viewers, more video and multimedia,most viewed, most emailed, and top story boxes" among others. All of this makes sense -- in terms of navigation, it's much easier to read the pulse of the day's news as well as what the rest of the city is reading (not to mention much more opportunity for the business desk to reap data from its readers).

Visually, the masthead is placed in much more prominence, with a smaller philly.com logo above it. However, a major navigation problem -- since the new layout preserves the philly.com layout, clicking "Home," "News," "Sports," "Living" and other tabs puts you right back into the philly.com-logo'd site, and not the "Inquirer" sections. Sure, the content is all the Inquirer's -- no use to double-report, naturally -- but the Inquirer masthead is lost into oblivion on all of the more breaking/online exclusive stories.

So how exactly is the Inquirer supposed to show that it's actually the one responsible for providing you, the reader, with content? The little "For the Inquirer" byline on each article in 50% grayscale?

To boot, mousing over the "Inquirer" tab brings up all the subsections of the actual paper, which are effectively mirrors of the Philly.com tabs. Not only do they look redundant, but they're actually out-of-date, too. As it turns out, the content under the "Inquirer" tab is what ran in that day's paper -- but there's nothing that would tell you that except the outdated timestamp. So if I wanted to find up-to-date coverage on the aforementioned Eagles-Redskins game, I'd have to use Philly.com's Sports tab, and not the Inquirer's own Sports tab -- even though the content is coming from the same source.

As for the front page, things are a little better. Some nice changes include including breaking news and a better front-page layout, with larger images and more selection of stories -- it now looks like the Inquirer publishes more than three stories a day. If you scroll to the bottom, there's a nice tabbed and featured-story layout, but more redundancy takes up valuable space. Why the doubled-up listings? And what's the tabbed box below the fold for?

One worry about the whole thing: I hear nearly every day that news studies show that a website loses 50 percent of its readers every "scroll" they must perform. On my high-resolution, small-font screen, it took me five scrolls to get to the bottom. Sp let me ask this: How many readers do you expect, honestly, at 800 by 600 pixels resolution, to get down to the pretty section-by-section breakdown at the bottom?

As you can see, there are some major unanswered problems in the Inquirer's redesign. For one, the front page gives up too much top and right-hand space to advertisements and doesn't distribute them better (and I'm looking at this in 1280 x 800 resolution, too, so "above the fold" is a lot of screen). Second, there's a major fight for attention: While the Philly.com masthead no longer dominates, it now fights for the reader's eyes with the Inquirer's venerable masthead -- even when the content is all Inquirer. As a reader, that means I don't know where to go for the news I want -- and also gives me far too many redundant options to get lost in. Once I'm lost, I can't find how to get back because the Inquirer masthead has disappeared.

So please, Brian Tierney, listen up: You and the boys are doing a great job (well, except for that whole headquarters mixup), but you're only halfway there. Keep pushing -- and call me.

Mitchel Stevens’ Guide to Employment and the Interview

Editor's Note: The following column is part of an anonymous weekly humor column chronicling the struggle of a new, young journalist out in the working world. You may find the author's previous posts in the archives. --The Ed.

I was checking my Gmail for the fifteenth time in 20 minutes when it occurred to me that I should be taking more time with my interviews. Perhaps I should prepare with a list, or some similar device where all my questions and fears will be answered.

Wait, oh no, I just totally forgot the AP rules on numbers! AHHHHH!!!!

Moving on, The Editorialiste was kind enough to pass along to me an email from his alma mater about tips for networking and—wait, meeting every single editor from the New York area? Huh?

“Come meet, mingle and munch with editors, producers and others. Chat about how to pitch freelance articles, get production work (or other opportunities) at places like Metro, Time Out New York, Essence magazine, Dan Rather Reports, Brooklyn Rail, NY1 News, Manhattan Media properties, Black Enterprise, Budget Travel.com, LifetimeTV.com, Details magazine, Village Voice, Chelsea Now, Moose Productions and more.”

Oh my stars and garters, AND there’s no RSVP needed? AND I need to be a student there?

Well, a pox on that. Especially when it seems like that silly J-Dept can’t even keep up with their original class load.

Well, let me see. What are the suggestions to make an impact?

• Make One Great Contact -- Don't feel compelled to "work the room." Instead, set a goal of making one great contact -- someone new who you commit to communicating with after the event. Remember to ask for a business card.

Oh, I can do this one! I once got someone’s business card after I spent the night playing dice with them and doing a shot of Goldschläger.

• Reach Out -- Approach an individual who is standing alone. They may appreciate your reaching out to them. Also, it's hard to break into a group unless you're invited.

Okay, be nice to the freak. Got it. So this means AM NY, Metro and The L Magazine, or Dan Rather’s company?

• Use a Neutral Ice-Breaker -- Begin each conversation with a smile, eye contact and an outstretched hand. Break the ice by asking a neutral open-ended question such as "Why did you decide to come to this event?"

“Do you like liquor? I have a flask.”

This is the true way into any journalist’s heart. Don’t ever forget it.

• Give First -- Focus your conversation on learning about the person you are meeting -- who they are, where they work, what their responsibilities include -- and how you can help them (not how they can help you).

…well, this is a bold-faced lie. And in bold in the original e-mail. Fitting.

• Follow-up -- Use the 48-hour rule. Within 48 hours of a networking event, follow-up with anyone you met who you'd like to stay in touch with. Send an email letting the other person know you enjoyed meeting them and hope you will meet again. In the same email, share any other information you think may be of help to them (for example your resume and clips or more details about a story idea you mentioned.)

Wow, how true! If only journalists weren’t so awful about following up to young urchins that will knife them in the back at the first chance they get in order to steal their job, get a book deal and then sleep with Nick Denton*.

Yes, thanks to these new rules, I will be rolling in more jobs than an analogy about a large number. I’ll be wearing feather boas and strutting around 30 Rock in no time. Why…oh, crap, I got to turn in by deadline. Till next time.

-MS

*Note: I mean, listen, how else do you think you work at Gawker? It’s like Mr. Show says: the world revolves around blowjobs. And mainly giving them to Nick Denton. Or Jason Calcanis. And yes, David Hauslaib, but that doesn’t mean anything. More likely, it just means you’ve met David Hauslaib.

Why Do Journalists Still Have Terrible E-Mail Etiquette?

Editor's Note: I apologize for the delays in our usual weekly coverage. Believe it or not, The Editorialiste has to file on deadline from time to time! Look for this week's Mitchel Stevens column tomorrow. -Ed.


One thing I've noticed in my escapades of freelancing in a major city is the rudeness and poor e-manners that many people have when using their e-mail. But what's surprised me most is that this affects a group of people that live and breathe the technology and love to write articles about the very topic: journalists.

That's right -- journalists often have few e-mail manners. And the irony astounds me.

Much of this I've seen firsthand. In response to cordial, introductory messages with proper beginnings and ends ("dear X" and "best, X") -- as well as brief but full sentences -- I often get truncated, tactless messages (without signature or signoff) in return that often never address the question or two that I originally asked.

Journalists are supposed to be easy to contact, right? So how come it's so hard to get a hold of one in a decent manner? While some journalists still prefer the telephone, it's evident that any working reporter or editor has a fairly constant connection to e-mail during the workday. So why don't they get back to you in a fairly timely manner? Or worse, why do they get back to you by writing that they don't have time to get back to you?
I do understand the "right here, right now" mindset of a journalist on a deadline. In fact, that's why I missed posting yesterday. And I'll admit that sometimes an e-mail does slip out of my memory's grasp during a flurry of activity. But I never, ever bother to reply with a "don't have time right now on deadline thanks" message. It's ridiculous -- if you had the time to read it and reply that way, why didn't you just answer my simple, original question?

Plus, aren't we all together on this? I'm a journalist e-mailing a journalist -- why should I get the same brushoff an IT person gets? (Sorry, IT guys.)

The generational thing also is of note. I usually don't get terribly formatted e-mails from young colleagues. It's really the older colleagues that adopted it mid-career that the (inadvertent?) rudeness comes from.

Remember the 90s? Many articles from back when e-mail hit the workplace claimed that the incoming young generation of white-collar workers had few digital manners. "They don't write in full sentences," "they use strange abbreviations," "they're presumptuous and rude," were some of the complaints.

But in practice, I've found that trend is exactly the opposite. And what surprises me is that journalists -- those e-mail-and-coffee-fueled workers -- follow this trend, too. Sure, a newsroom is a workplace, but for a bunch of people who survive on e-mail, the rudeness and sloppiness just surprises me. It becomes a role reversal -- suddenly, I feel like the old codger who is offended at the slapdash way I receive e-mail from older editors. I suddenly look like I'm crossing my I's and dotting my T's.

Is that it, then? E-mails don't get the same scrutiny that a journalist uses in all of his/her own writing? I don't expect drafts or anything, but your communication is incredibly impactful on how you appear to your colleagues and subordinate staff. And here me now, older journalists: it's not very good.

Am I making too big a deal of this? Or is it just because, as a freelancer, I am constantly flooded with e-mail?

And of course, there are always exceptions, and some of my older colleagues are great at e-mail and some of my younger, well, aren't. But it's 2007, people -- let's us journalists learn how to use e-mail appropriately. At this point, I think news organizations should require basic e-mail etiquette training for its staff.

What do you think? Leave your stories of poor (or great!) journalism e-mail etiquette in the comments below.

Newsflash, Mainstream Media -- Blogs Can Backfire

I was browsing my RSS feeds earlier today when I saw a post about the new Wu-Tang Clan album on MTV News' "You R Here" blog. "Wu-Tang Album Sneak Peek," the headline of the post written by intern Steven Roberts announced on my reader. So I clicked, interested.

Roberts began with the following "just an intern" angle, which lent itself well to the subject at hand:

I’ve been interning at MTV News for about three weeks and I already loved it, but when senior producer/hip-hop brain trust member Rahman Dukes asked if I wanted go with him to a sneak peek at the Wu-Tang Clan’s new album, The 8 Diagrams, that was the clincher. I played it cool and told him “sure,” but secretly I was thinking “hell yeah!”

But reading onward, it becomes painfully clear that Roberts doesn't quite exercise enough writing chops, ending paragraphs with material like "For the next 20 minutes, we sat in amazement" before starting the next graf with a copycat "The production on the sampler was amazing," as well as littering his congratulatory copy (not a single criticism in the whole thing) with exclamation points and other throwaway adjectives.

What am I trying to say here? Well, I'm certainly not here to bust intern Roberts' chops. But reading this unedited text made me cringe. MTV News is supposed to be pretty good at giving the music news goods, aren't they? So what's this doing on their site? Blessed with a high-profile review and a great opportunity for an intern, Roberts managed to get his text on the site apparently without passing it through an editor's hands, or even a peer's, and I think it reflects less than positively on the part of MTV.

MTV, it seems, jumped into having its interns blog without really setting oversight -- and in turn, without seeing what the consequences could be.

On the surface, having your interns blog is a fabulous idea. It's a great way for a quick byline and it keeps the site up on daily events without bothering other editors with the task. It's the perfect place to get tangible results, especially for a Webified generation. I support it wholeheartedly.

However, one must be careful about how quickly things can be published online. That's right, "published." Even if it's a blog, it's on the same level as the standard news content that the site offers. My RSS reader doesn't discriminate.

Which means behind the scenes, MTV should be doing just that -- discriminating. Teach those interns that even blogs need to be held to a standard, and help them learn how to achieve that. Blog-style writing can be chatty and informal -- but it can't be poor. And I think that's one reason why for MTV -- and any other mainstream media outlet that jumped in too quickly -- blogs can backfire.

Mitchel Stevens' Guide to Employment and Bubble Bust

Editor's Note: The following column is part of an anonymous weekly humor column chronicling the struggle of a new, young journalist out in the working world. You may find the author's previous posts in the archives. --The Ed.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the Grey Dog Café today, Internet readers. I sat down with an ice cold lemonade and waited for my scrumptious reuben sandwich when I found an odd “No Subject” email from my boss at part-time job #432.

It turns out that despite being a wonderful employee for the last two months, I was being released from my contract. The company was going to do more with the PR aspect, the site was going to be redesigned, they needed to save money for an actual web designer, it was a Tuesday, etc. You know how those things go.

But I couldn’t say that I was sad to see the job go. Sure, they were the first company I applied to that got back to me within a week. One of the countless Craigslist jobs I scoured, they seemed like good people when I interviewed. But the job itself was a bit—uh—lacking.

Okay, so maybe it was a crappy online job with barely-standard wages, little to no chance of mobility and near impossible to self-motivate.

But it promised $300 a month. And when it takes you five jobs to net in a standard triple digit sum plus other freelancing work just to buy groceries and save up for the apartment, anything looks good.

That’s the moral of the story in the Washington City Paper this week with "Wanted: Gullible Lawyers." The 34-year old author (and victim) relates how $14,000 has a funny way of making even the dumbest, most obvious scam seem like a marketable wonder.

When considering the online business, that’s basically all we have. When interviewing last week at an established newspaper, my interviewer gleefully laughed and talked about her own nephew’s foray into the online industry.

“Oh, you kids are so lucky,” she said. “You’re constantly jumping from job to job. It must be so exciting!”

Yes, having no stability, no benefits, no guarantee that I can afford the security deposit on that Bedford Avenue apartment or that my roommates will be employed next month is a great benefit to myself and my career. Why, as I wrote last week, I love juggling a number of jobs with no set pay who demand more hours constantly while taking one single job offers a real paycheck—but demands I focus solely on their work.

I don’t mind being told to focus. But like my generation, I do enjoy actually working on things productive to me. Of course I’ll write listings, but I also like to interview and write stories that will be read—not just “TODAY—LIVE MUSIC AT EVENT. FUN FOR WHOLE FAMILY. $302, A/C/E TO 126^TH ST.”

This myth is even better with the bloggers, who are worked like AP wire reporters but given the illusion that they have an easier, more fun job.

Then again, I do need a new job to replace #432. Hmm, maybe Gawker’ll fill that new position—oh, who am I kidding? It’s totes going to LOLCait.

Anyway, I’ll see you kids next week. In the mean time, I’ll reapply to that AP Editorial Assistant position for the sixth time this week, since they keep reposting it over and over. Clearly they’re not getting my résumé.

-MS

How My Alma Mater's Student Newspaper Got Away With Plagiarism

Last week, it came to my attention that my alma mater's student newspaper -- New York University's Washington Square News -- got away with plagiarism.

(To get full disclosure out of the way: as an undergrad, I once served as news editor at WSN. Some of the senior staff who work there, including the one in question, are former colleagues.)

On August 27, 2007, a fun feature story called "The Unofficial NYU Dictionary," by Barbara Leonard, was published for the paper's first issue of the year. The story, which details all of the campus jargon that a new NYU student might run into, ran in the printed edition and online (click here to see a scan of the original story).

However, the same story, slightly adjusted, ran under a different writer's name exactly one year prior. "Your guide to... NYU's dictionary," by Rachel P. Kreiter, ran August 28, 2006. In comparison, this year's version changed the lede, fleshed out some of the entries and bolstered the list a bit -- but nary a mention of the existence of Kreiter's original article was evident in paper or online (you can find it by searching the archives or clicking here).

Here's some evidence:


(More scans of comparable passages available here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)

Now, every student newspaper screws up in print; this is evident in the plethora of spelling errors that we see in every issue of every school's paper. In this case, Leonard's article ran in the paper and online without proper attribution. It's college; it happens. Students are learning what to do and what not to do. But when the Washington Square News realized its error, it made only one change -- to the byline of the new article sometime that afternoon, changing it to 'WSN STAFF.' (The paper version, already out on the streets, was beyond repair.)

Now here's an example of poor news judgment. When someone in your paper accidentally plagiarizes -- after all, it certainly doesn't seem malicious since the article is an evergreen one -- you simply run a correction. But what you don't do -- especially by commonly accepted online rules -- is change an important part of the story without saying so. It's a matter of transparency. But the Washington Square News neither acknowledged that it needed to properly attribute its own writer nor that it had made a change to the article in the first place. Plus, the online story doesn't match the paper version, and there's no indication of why that is.

There has been some tension behind the scenes about this very issue, and from what I understand, WSN plans on printing a correction in the next issue, which is due sometime soon. But I must ask: why not simply run a correction online, where the "printing press" is 24/7? Why wait until the printed issue? And furthermore, now that it has changed the byline of the story online, how will it explain its news judgment -- that is, making a change unannounced while still failing to give the original writer credit?

Where's the staff adviser in all this mess?

I know this isn't the front page of the Washington Post, and I'm not trying to "out" anyone or chew former colleagues out, but I'm using an example near and dear to my heart to show that these things often begin in college, and go unchecked. Thankfully, former WSN staff caught it before someone else did.

As journalists, our reputations are always on the line -- and poor housekeeping like this erodes what little we have left in our readers' eyes. After all, wasn't it Jayson Blair who so carefully internalized -- and then outright plagiarized -- his stories for the University of Maryland's The Diamondback before moving on to higher-profile missteps at The New York Times?

CORRECTION 9/7/07: Washington Square News ran a correction at the bottom of page 6 in Wednesday's issue, saying that the mistaken article "should have credited Rachel P. Kreiter as one of its authors."

Newspapers Aren't Essential, And Other Reasons Why This Week's Bivings Report On Magazines And The Web Is Flawed

Magazines are slower at adopting Web 2.0 trends than newspapers, according to a recent Bivings Report study and a post on this blog eons ago.

The study's authors write, via Romenesko:

"We can hypothesize that this is due to the differing cultures surrounding the two types of print media: newspapers and the content they present are essential to most people's daily lives. In contrast most magazines are something 'extra,' and are often focused on entertainment."

Wait a second, newspapermen: Since when is newspaper content by definition more essential to most people's lives than magazines?

Now I'm not here to fight the magazine fight, and I could sit here for hours and write about how much the "duh" factor comes in about magazine websites becoming full of unique content. But it looks to me like the study's authors are taking it for granted that newspapers are essential.

In a study that makes claims based on data, there's little data to support this. Why do most Americans need the newspaper? And what exactly is defined by "a newspaper"?

In my opinion, it can be argued, reasonably, that everything past the front page section of the newspaper (plus the figures from the business and sports sections) is entertainment. Top feature writer Paula Span said to me last week that feature writing is nearly half of all the writing in a newspaper. And nowhere is it more evident than the front section pages of the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, the Washington Post, all the way down to your local rag.

Now feature writing and "entertainment" aren't exactly coterminous, but you can see where I'm going with this. A good portion of your daily newspaper is the same fodder that runs in a magazine. So I take objection to this assumption in the Bivings study.

So what, then? How do you explain the slow migration by glossies to the Web?

One word: Pictures.

Magazines thrive on images, and the Web is a text-driven vehicle, no matter how much you dress it up with images and video. Magazines, on the other hand, thrive on their artwork. The tangible nature of having that in your hands -- which I'm sure lends itself some perceived value -- is a good bet as to why magazines generally didn't see the need to run to the Web.

It boils down to this: The Web can replace a newspaper. But it can only supplement a magazine. And that's why I've never received a paper copy of The New York Times in my mailbox but I receive a small handful of monthly glossies.

It's not the entertainment content. It's the format.

Mitchel Stevens’ Guide to Journalism and Fluff

Editor's Note: The following column is part of an anonymous weekly humor column chronicling the struggle of a new, young journalist out in the working world. You may find the author's previous posts in the archives. --The Ed.


So, the other day I was relaxing at my new favorite spot to kick back and just take in life—it’s this quaint park in Midtown that should offer free wi-fi, but doesn’t, so instead of “working,” I’m working on listening to the guys next to me with duct taped hands talk about how to tap an ass—when I picked up a copy of the Washington Post.

Or, as we call it in the J-Business: WaPo. Like, Alpo, but not. Because one’s dog food and the other one belongs to the Graham dynasty.

In a rather spectacular first-person style, Heather R. Taylor’s piece Midlife Intern: Free to Follow Her Heart showcases the power of the human spirit and it shows how one must always be evolving even aft—wait, she’s how old?

Something I can’t help but running across throughout the business are unpaid internships that offer nothing more than slave labor hours and even worse benefits. Craigslist rarely offers anything that pays under their writing section. Most times—and like my 54^th part-time job—they pay $.15 above minimum wage and would crack the virtual whip more than Belladonna.

The joke there is that Belladonna doesn’t do S&M. I mean, she does rough…I have totally lost this audience.

Mediabistro and J-Jobs are better and tend to be a tad more respectful of things like actually paying entry-level participants entry-level wages. But once in a blue moon, you get a position like the one I mentioned last week. I couldn’t get over that they wanted to see my High School GPA until I was re-reading the directions to their corporate overlord compound in the heart of Devil Country.

The core requirement of the job offering $16.60 an hour, twenty hours a week with heavy chance of being called in nights and weekends at a rate of no overtime?

A High School diploma or equivalent degree.

I gagged a bit on my coffee when I read that. Here was a job that was listed between advertising managers, staff reporters and copy editors—and it was meant for anyone who had a G.E.D. There’s nothing wrong with that, but still, talk about a blow to the ego.

I may as well tell the Union Square Barnes and Noble about that the next time I reapply to them and am informed I have “too much experience to work there.”

Yeah, ghost writing and editing articles in [BANKRUPT RELAUNCHED MAGAZINE] makes it impossible to scan coupons and stock Tao Lin, Miranda July and Klosterman.

In fact, isn’t that the sort of experience one needs in order to get that big chance on the Interwebs, in publishing or if your middle name is Rocket?

But let’s go back to Mrs. Taylor’s fluff. I love fluff. It tasted great as a kid, and there’s nothing better for you than colorless, sweet gook that is equal parts delicious and awful. While I’m thrilled she found her calling, which both “enriched and freed [her],” she’s still working for free.

By the end of her moving story, I can’t figure out if she’s making money or still an unpaid figure making a “living in…a fairly youth-obsessed industry.”

She shouldn’t worry. Most of us youth are ready to work unpaid for bylines, access and stories. In fact, to do what we love—write, design, draw—we’re forced to be free while haphazard Alt Weeklies tempt us with salaries and “oh, we’re sorry, could’ve sworn payables sent that out” checks.

Maybe it’s the multi-part time jobs I’m forced to work to not make enough to live comfortably. Maybe it’s the lack of communication I encounter after months of cold calls, pitch letters and watching NY 25. But please, Mrs. Taylor, do not glorify the internship when you’re clearly being exploited.

And don’t insult the intelligence, dreams and hard work of all those who came before you and will work after you.

Man, that wasn’t funny at all.

-MS.