Surfing The Web So You Don't Have To
The National Weather Service issued high wind warnings for the Central Oregon coast. And according to the dateline of the story, we need to be sure we avoid the city “UNDATED” as that’s where the story was written.
Pays to filter (or actually read) your AP feeds, folks, as anybody who has worked in a newsroom knows, AP feeds notoriously have issues like this. It’s not the first time it’s happened.
Now radio stations are selling the naming rights to their newsrooms. Thanks Barn for the link.
I don’t know what you’re talking about! Just check out this column by Modest Bee Managing Editor Dan Day, who took a look at his appointment book where he shows you he has no media bias:
Monday
8:30 a.m. — Take dogs Lyndon, Johnson to vet
10 a.m. — Assign negative stories about Modesto
11 a.m. — News meeting
Noon — Newsroom lunch-hour tai chi
2:30 p.m.– Search wires for negative stories about American military
4 p.m.– News meeting
5 p.m. — Copy desk training: twisting headlines
7 p.m.– MJC Marxist Faculty Bowling League (Opponents: Engel’s Bengals)
Link via Romenesko.
This has been floating around the Web the last couple of days, and the reason I’m linking to it is because I love good covers (studied Magazine Journalism in college, after all). But the American Society of Magazine Editors has named it’s top magazine covers of the last 40 years, and there are some great ones (that’s a mirror link as the original is down — you can download a torrent of them here).
I missed this as I don’t watch the Today Show, but a few mornings ago (Friday, apparently), Michelle Kosinski, reporting on location about the floods in New Jersey. Kosinski was canoeing in what looked to be in deep water but as the segment went on, two workers walked right in front of her in what looked to be about three or four inches of water. Priceless video here and other story links if that one dies.
I’m just glad that Katie Couric and Matter Lauer laughed about the whole thing.
This is an incredible piece of investigative journalism that’s been well-packaged online. It documents how FEMA has just been wasting tax-payer’s dollars for years.
The paper has investigated how $9 million in FEMA tornado recovery money went to people in Miami-Dade County, even though the storm hit up to 37 miles away. More than $5 million in “free money” went to people in the Los Angeles area, even though wildfires burned up to 30 miles away. And $168.5 million went to people in Detroit to help recover from a storm that people have trouble even remembering.
It’s just scary to see how much money went to places with little or no damage.
Needless to say, the newspaper there isn’t printing today (despite a mention on their site yesterday that they were going to try to use a printing press in Baton Rouge). But they have produced and distributed the entire paper online in PDF format. You can also view Newspaper front pages from around the world at Newseum.
It’s certainly a mess in New Orleans right now. And to think that if I still worked for my previous company, I’d probably be in New Orleans in October, though there’s a small chance the convention might not be held, as it was scheduled to be held at the Hyatt in New Orleans which was pummeled by the storm.
While it’s sad that there was all this destruction in that are, and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, it’s hard for me to feel sorry for the idiots who, despite plenty of warning, stayed around to watch the storm out. I watched plenty of footage on CNN of folks stranded up on rooftops, having to be rescued by Coast Guard helicopters. But I have ask: Why the hell are you still there? You knew this was coming, you had plenty of warning, so unless you’re part of the clean-up or rescue efforts or some other important official (some media is important, as are some government officials), you should’ve gotten the hell out of town a long time ago. This thing was a Category 5 storm as it moved across the Gulf — I would’ve left town a long time ago.
I also wonder about the idiot who drove his car into a road-turned-lake while a news reporter was on camera. He had to drop his microphone and run into the water to rescue the moron, pulling him through his car window. That clip got played a hundred times on CNN last night and wondered about the sanity of both the reporter for being out in that storm and the nit-wit who drove his sedan into the flood.
As usual, Wikipedia has a ton of links and information regarding the storm, its effects both physically and economically, and a bit of science about the storm as well. For journalists (and even the general public), Al has a bunch of tips and useful links.
Back in my college newspaper days, I can’t honestly say that this wouldn’t have happened to us. I’d like to think we would’ve done our homework and the research needed to verify her story, but it’s hard not to believe an innocent looking little girl when she says her father died in Iraq. But, in reality, the little girl was part of a bizzare, elaborate hoax pulled on the campus newspaper by an alumni of the school. The little girl wasn’t who she said she was, nor did her “dad” exist. She just thought she was acting as part of a movie.
The newspaper obviously apologized and campus reaction was mixed. The former editor of the paper called himself a bad journalist, but said that he’s innocent of the charges that say he was involved in the scheme.
More coverage in the Chicago Tribune, as well as in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
Moral of the story for journalists? Always check your sources. Even if it’s your mom, always do a background check. Don’t believe anything unless you can prove it yourself.
This just came across the CARR-L mailing list re: the hurricane:
I just heard the woman on CNN say their correspondent could send news on Katrina from the French Quarter despite lack of satellite signal “with the use of a new technology called ‘F. T. P.'”
I’m sure the lady reading that script thought this was some new, fancy technology, not one that’s been around for 30 years.
Otherwise, Dateline NBC will send its crack team of high-tech reporters to hunt you down. I would’ve loved to have heard them say “Spunkfarm” on TV. More commentary on the lame excuse for journalism (this was just sensationalism, folks) here where one commenter says “If I had to shake hands with someone from that news organization, I’d make sure to count my fingers immediately afterwards.”