Posts tagged journalism
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“ Political reporters? When Elizabeth Santorum says, “I have gay friends and they support my dad because they agree with him about family issues,” i.e. her dad’s opposition to gay people having a families of their own, your immediate response should be a request for the names and phone numbers of some of these gay friends. Because that claim requires checking out before you put it in print or pixels. Reassure Elizabeth you’ll quote her friends anonymously to protect them from potty-mouthed gay bloggers, they can talk to you on background or whatever, but tell her that you’re going to need to verify the existence of these gay friends. Because you’re a journalist, not a stenographer. You’ll either catch Elizabeth Santorum in a revealing lie—what does it tell us about this moment in the struggle for LGBT equality that even homophobes like Elizabeth and her dad perceive a political risk in being perceived as homophobic?—or you’ll land a fascinating interview.”
“ But here’s the point: communication isn’t simply casting out information from atop a tower. There are two parts to it: presenting an idea to someone, and them understanding it. Sometimes we have to change the way we word things to make that second half happen. Otherwise we’re shouting all the facts in the Universe to an empty room.”
Scientists are from Mars, the public is from Earth | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
Brilliant article on the meeting of science and journalism, and why they’re so important.
NewsStand built into iOS 5
It’s a good day for the newspaper business.
“ It was, perhaps, the worst time in history to be starting out as a writer. In 1934, only 15 authors in the United States sold 50,000 or more books, and the magazine market was even more straitened; advertising was at an all-time low, and many of the mass-market, high-paying “slick” magazines had either shrunk or folded.”
From Blake Bailey’s Cheever: A Life. (It’s not… unfamiliar sounding, is it?)
Rings a bell… or an alarm.
“ Bollocks to a world in which all conversation is shorn of its private context. Bollocks to a world in which everyone’s on permanent speakerphone, terrified of verbalising a thought crime. We’ll get nothing done. If you can’t make Friends or host football shows without talking shit between takes, how the hell can you run a country? Phone-hacking. Hidden mics. Heavily publicised show trials for citizens holding private conversations. This is beyond snooping in the public interest. This is the world of the Stasi. And rather than protecting us, reporters are sitting there in headphones, making notes.”
“ Here’s a news flash: Journalists have opinions and I, for one, would rather know the sentiment of the people delivering the news than to pretend they have none.”
