Journalism students cover 2007 races

"I can't decide whether to be scared or excited."

Wouldn't be either except in the larger context of efforts to get students to understand the true nature of the profession they think they want to enter. I taught the intro news writing course a few times, and I came away with the sense that the idea of an actual deadline with actual information, which had to be digested and reported succinctly, was particularly difficult for a number of the "but you don't understand, I have a club meeting...." or the "but you don't understand, I have trouble with time pressure . . . " segments of the student population. (Of course, I would have flunked myself for the length of that last sentence.)

Also, there is a qualitative difference between what you get from the DTH and what you get from j-school students in general -- especially on the issues of confidence in their understanding of the story and the relevant background information.

I applaud the UNC J-School for working to teach journalism students about political reporting. Such an important skill set to learn. We need more local newspaper style political journalism we can trust! Its essential to our democracy.

I'll be reading your coverage tonight J-School students! Break a leg or whatever you say in the News biz. :)

Thanks for the mention of this effort here. I think this will be a great opportunity for student reporters and editors. Will there be mistakes and missed deadlines? Perhaps. That's part of learning how to be a journalist.

If you are a source for a story who thinks you've been misquoted or if you are a reader who sees an error in a story, contact the reporter. On occasion, I read about how people don't do this because they think it is an exercise in futility. It shouldn't be, and calling attention to an error can help a journalist from repeating the mistake.

If you are a source for a story who thinks you've been misquoted or if you are a reader who sees an error in a story, contact the reporter. On occasion, I read about how people don't do this because they think it is an exercise in futility. It shouldn't be, and calling attention to an error can help a journalist from repeating the mistake.

Often trying to correct articles *is* an exercise in futility. Even if a correction is published, the reader has already formed an opinion and typically never sees the corrections since they are buried somewhere else.

Here is an example, On Sept 25th and Oct 26th, I emailed the following the editor of the Chapel Hill Herald, who is usually quite responsive. I have not yet received a response.

Hi ...,

Tried to call Julia since I haven't heard back and they ended up giving me your number and you were not there.

Please respond to the question below.

Thanks

-------- Original Message --------

Julia,

In the attached article, you state "A committee had already met to find enough money to cover essentials -- and where to trim non-essential items -- when county commissioners passed a budget that made the cuts unnecessary."

I am concerned with the statement "when county commissioners passed a budget that made the cuts unnecessary."

In July, the Herald Sun reported "The district had to slash $1.27 million from its continuation budget, the amount of funding needed to allow the district to maintain the current level of services."

So which is the truth? I was at the BOCC meetings where the budget was discussed and the county commissioners did not fully fund the continuation request.

Which leads me to conclude that CHCCS either made cuts or it had to dip into its reserve. Either way, your statement is incorrect.

Please either support your statement or publish a correction.

Thanks,
Mark

City schools step up budget

By Julia Crouse, The Herald-Sun
September 20, 2007 10:07 pm

--- SNIP ---

Correctness and Truth are two distinct objectives both in news reporting and campaigning. A reporter who gets the facts wrong is not necessarily lying.

Catherine, Is your comment in reference to my "truth" statement in the quoted email? If so, I was not implying that the reporter was intentionally misleading readers, but rather trying to establish "the true facts".

I have critiqued a number of articles throughout the years, both publicly and privately. The worst reporter mistakes locally seem to be making statements of fact which are either incorrect due to the reporter not checking them or due to failing to state that the interviewee provided the information/position. On a couple of occasions, I believed the reporter had an agenda. The worst editor mistakes have been masking an editorial position in what is supposed to be a fact-based article, timing articles and editorials to advance an agenda, and in one case I had very strong evidence that an editor lied and was libeling a group.

I think that Carolyn Norton of the Herald was one of the best education reporters and I am sorry that she moved on. She generally interviewed enough people to provide balance and she was more likely to frame an article to inform readers as opposed to making it salacious (maybe there is a better word).

Mark P,
Andy Bechtel who you responded to is a editing Professor at the UNC J-School. I believe his goal in asking the public to contact reporters is based on a desire to teach new journalists how to do their job well. Notice how he said "it shouldn't be". As in it should not be an exercise in futility to ask for a correction. I read hope in his voice. I too am hopeful that our community can create better relationships with our local journalists. Also I feel he is asking us, Ruby included, to have patience with student reporters who are learning. Lets help them understand our community better.

Yes, Mark, it was your demand for "truth" in the email quote that sparked my comment. Neither of us is wrong (ergo neither of us is lying). In the old days when I wrote mostly corporate/technical/medical training, I had a tendency to make leaps of logic to fill gaps in content. Sometimes we'd get to the final draft before someone at the table said, "Hey wait a minute..."

I maintain that the worst offenders in the newsroom are the headline writers who create false impressions without even trying.

Brian,

Yes, I know who Andy is, not to mention that it is obvious in his post.

I agree with Andy on how it *should* be in the real world and I was trying to discuss my own personal observations in hopes that his students would understand my observations in local news coverage. As you have probably experienced, I have attended many public meetings, often blogging about them and recording the meeting, and then seen how the meeting was reported. Sometimes the writer was clearly looking for a hook or controversy to make a flashy article. More often than not, those articles failed to inform readers about the important aspects of a public deliberation. I am not sure if that is what the editor asked for or if that is what the reporter chose to do.

I haven't given up on trying to make sure that local articles are correct. I have also had pretty good relationships with local reporters and editors.

I have had a number of journalism students call me at home and "interview" me over the past few years on various topics, usually because they see my name on a local blog commenting on a topic. I have always tried to give them sufficient background so that they understand the context of the topic at hand. I never saw the finished "articles", so I was unable to provide feedback. Had they posted articles like the ones I saw on the link, then I could have provided that feedback. Sounds like a neat opportunity.

Catherine,

Overlooked your post earlier.

I maintain that the worst offenders in the newsroom are the headline writers who create false impressions without even trying.

I completely agree. And many reporters I have spoken with were equally frustrated with headlines that put a bad spins on articles. I just emailed a reporter the other day suggesting that they talk to the headline folks about improving one particular ongoing headline.

Regarding the truth topic, it may appear since the articles are excerpted, that I am seeking some vague or complex truth. In this case, the matter at hand is quite simple. Either the school system got what it needed to fully fund continued services or it did not. One article from the paper reported it did and another said it did not. I closely followed the meetings and I know that the schools did not get what they needed to fund the continuation budget, but I chose to juxtapose the paper's own articles to show the inconsistency.

Also, I don't think "So which is the truth?" is a demand. It is a question. A demand would be "I demand to know what the truth is".

I've never written for a newspaper but in writing for academic journals and technical reports, as well as in my advertising copyrighting, errors frequently result during editing rather than in the actual writing.

Regarding the truth--sometimes there are multiple truths, depending on the context.I suspect that is why Mark felt Carolyn Norton was so good--she presented the same information from multiple perspectives and let her readers decide which truth was closest to their own situation. That's the missing media function in local politics IMHO. There's no one putting the different perspectives out in one place so they can be easily compared and contrasted.

Ruby,

Thanks for the thoughts. Don't feel like you're being a pest when you point out errors. Most reporters and editors do want to get things right, and they appreciate it when people politely point out problems in stories. That sort of communication can prevent the error from being repeated, and the original story on the Web can be corrected quickly and easily. A correction in print isn't as effective, but it helps.

Journalists who blow off problems in stories when they are pointed out to them do so at a great risk — alienating sources who will no longer be willing to be interviewed as well as readers who will notice the problems and question the writer's credibility.

Ambrose Bierce in The Devil's Dictionary

EDITOR, n. A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos,
Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, but is placable with an obolus; a severely
virtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the
virtues of others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the
splintering lightning and sturdy thunders of admonition till he
resembles a bunch of firecrackers petulantly uttering his mind at the
tail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a mild, melodious lay, soft as
the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star.
Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of
thought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the
Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the
editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to
suit. And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard
the voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines
of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack
up some pathos.

I have had the pleasure of spending time with both DTH reporters and Journalism students over the past few months and I think you are all great. You all have been very considerate, accomodating and intelligent. Errors do sometimes make their way into print, we all learn from our mistakes. Keep up the great work.

My initial comments were ungracious; apologies to the earnest students, on and off the DTH -- the large majority work hard to live up to professional standards, and I would guess those involved in this project are among the strongest.

During the 1990s when I was on the council, I spent many
hours talking with DTH reporters and J-school students who were
writing a paper for a course... I actually gave
them greater priority than reporters for the local commercial
papers. Part of my logic was that it was
my responsibility as a UNC faculty member to teach students,
and though journalism was far from my expertise, I tried
to help. An interesting sidebar
is that I found the DTH reporters somewhat too
trusting. Our conversations seemed to oscillate between
education (my explaining factual issues to them, trying
to be as objective as possible) and typical journalism,
where they would solicite my opinion and quotes, with
my knowing that they would do the same with people of the
other sides of an issue. I sometimes thought that I should have
some fun with this, and, like Ronald Reagan when he
thought the mike was off and joked about bombing Russia,
fabricate some issue, perhaps that Chapel Hill was going
to annex Carrboro, but my better senses took hold.
Sorry, Mark.

Sure the DTH kids made errors, but this is a college
town where learning is paramount, and errors are part
of learning. The DTH is arguably the best college paper
in the U.S., and its students, faculty advisors, and
paid staff deserve our thanks and respect.

Ruby (and all), in defense of the DTH: first, let's not forget that on college campuses it's perfectly normal to live one place and be a resident of another. Hi, I'm Bob, I live in Hinton James, and I'm from Wilmington. Thus the paper would quote Bob, who lives in Hinton James, and is a Wilmington resident.

Next, and this is my bigger point, I've been misquoted by oodles of papers. I worked for a while as the media contact and PR person for a large outdoor recreation company in the western part of the state. The stories about us were generally features, kinda fluffy, in the travel and tourism sections. Yet, there will still errors. I can distinctly remember walking down to my boss's office on at least a couple of ocassions, giving him an article, and saying something like, "Hey we have some great coverage in the national such-and-such, and please know that I actually didn't say what I was quoted as saying." And he would laugh and say it happened to everyone.

I talked to reporters at the Atlanta Journal Constitution (about Eric Rudolph!), the New York Times (about kayaking), National Geographic Adventure (ditto on the kayaking), and other large regional or national media, and National Geo was the only publication that regularly called us to fact check their pieces. They were really consistent about it, actually.

Anyway, my point is that mistakes in quotes are not, sadly, limited to college or small papers. They are pervasive in the industry. At least in the part of the industry that writes about whitewater paddling.

Maybe he lives on Hillsborough Street, and not in Hillsborough (though I agree with what Joan is saying). If so, that would make a lot more sense in context of the article.

Michael Stella, the UNC graduate student quoted on the front page of Wednesday's Daily Tar Heel, lives on Hillsborough Street. The bottom portion of the front page was put together by the graphics desk and somehow the "street" got lost in the shuffle of passing quotes from the writing to the visual desk.

On that note, I always want to be contacted if there is a mistake in an article from the city desk of The Daily Tar Heel. It's important to me that it is corrected quickly. Please e-mail citydesk@unc.edu if you have any concerns about something that is published.

We are all learning and trying our best! We have good intentions and are eager to correct mistakes when they happen.

Thank you,
Kayla Carrick
City Editor