Advice from the pros

Profile writer Sean Smith spoke to our class on conference call Monday. I really admire his writing, so the opportunity to ask him direct questions was delightful.

Sean gave several tips that I will take with me into the harsh world of journalism:

• Write out your interview questions before hand. Write a script, memorize it, and then leave it at home for the actual event.
• Research everything you can find about a person before you interview them.
• Get a good digital audio recorder.
• Don't wear red to an interview.
• Celebrities are not your friend. Be polite and formal, work into familiarity gradually.
• You are not writing the truth, but a truth. Relax: you will not understand everything after a single interview (think first date), so focus on giving the readers an accurate impression of your experience meeting and speaking with that person.
• Writing well is hard. It will not get easier.
• If you want to succeed in this business, don't be lazy. Do the best you can with every assignment you are given--article or photo-caption. Gain the reputation of reliability.

It was a good pep-talk: Time to step it up and get into the game.

Sleuth it up

Recently we had a detective from the Springfield Police Department guest lecture during our 3-hour Reporting 1 class on a Wednesday afternoon.

John Umenhofer spoke at length about his experiences in Springfield--the "bad part of town" to a lot of Eugene types--finding dead bodies, arresting bank robbers, and interrogating serial rapists. We were supposed to learn interview techniques from Detective Umenhofer that might be applicable to investigative reporting. Umenhofer's lecture, however, consisted almost entirely of humorous and frightening anecdotes from the police beat. He told us about the time he found the deceased body of a man with a mental handicap who had clearly been neglected and forced to live in a tent by his apathetic family. It was the most disturbing story he told, if only because he couldn't stop laughing.

I'm painting Umenhofer in a bad light, which I didn't mean to do. The things I learned from the lecture weren't the things I expected to learn. He expanded on a few interrogation techniques that might have wider application-- such as "minimizing," where the investigator creates a comfortable environment for the offender to confess by minimizing the moral weight of his or her crime-- but the most valuable thing I learned was the importance of a good relationship between law enforcement and media. 

Umenhofer was eager to tell us how much he loves the bill of rights and Orwell's 1984. He explained the ideal symbiosis between journalists and detectives, where journalists hold the police accountable when it is relevant and fair and assist the police in passing along information to the public, and police officers are comfortable giving journalists the necessary information to keep the public informed. He recalled fond moments when the media chose the safety of the public over a juicy story, and negative moments when he was burned and misquoted by a lazy reporter. On our side of the river, in the land of tasings and party-raids, we tend to think of journalists and police officers with a "vs" in between. I often agree with criticism of Eugene police, though Umenhofer is right that a negative relationship doesn't create an environment conducive to accurate reporting or good police work.

Screw you, objectivity

Everyone, journalist or citizen (or citizen-journalist), should read this article from the Columbia Journalism Review. Author Brent Cunningham outlines the flaws in the "objectivity" paradigm that American journalists hold to. Here are some of his strongest points:

• The objective standard makes reporters lazy; it is easy to find two official perspectives on an issue and harder to find out what is actually going on.
• Nobody is unbiased, so the rule of objectivity asks for dishonesty.
• The Society of Professional Journalists stopped including objectivity in their code of ethics in 1996.
• Newspapers in the mid-19th-century adopted objective journalism not as an ethical standard, but as a business practice to draw a wider range of readers.
• Avoiding bias is often avoiding the more crucial role of journalists in a society; to dig deep into controversial issues and undermine the status quo.

This is a scary time for journalists in terms of job security, but let's face it: A media overhaul has been long time coming. Journalists are supposed to be society's eyes and ears, and we have essentially been blind and deaf for the last decade-- all because reporters were afraid of Anne Coulter calling them out on liberal bias. The article also reminded me of a Poynter link I posted earlier today about changing ethical standards. Basically, I agree with Cunningham. I'm biased, and that's the point. 

Hard News Analysis III: Best Article Ever in the Davis Enterprise

In early January of 2008, my hometown newspaper printed this brief about one of my peers:

Davis man caught with his pants off

A Davis man found himself in the Yolo County Jail this morning facing vandalism and prowling charges--all over a pair of misplaced pants, police said.
According to Sgt. Scott Smith, a resident in the 200 block of J Street awoke at about 12:40 a.m. today to noises coming from the garage area of the home. When he investigated, he found a man, dressed only in a button-down shirt and boxer shorts, trying to get into the home.
"My pants are in your house--let me in," the man reportedly said. The resident shut his front door, locked the deadbolt and called 911, but the man was able to kick open the door, Smith said.
A struggle ensued, and the resident detained the man until police arrived on scene. Jeffrey Jorgensen, 19, was lodged at the Yolo County Jail on suspicion of felony, vandalism, prowling and public intoxication, Smith said.
The whereabouts of his pants remains unknown.

In the week after, Jeff Jorgensen was all anyone could talk about. My high school was big, and few people who discussed the article actually knew Jeff personally. But the incident, apparently fueled by too much gin at a "Risky Business"-themed dance party, became folklore for all the Davis kids back in town on winter vacation. "That article reads like a poem!" said a friend of mine.

Indeed, the article tells a very elaborate story in a short space. It includes all the important details but leaves a lot for the curiosity of the reader. The humor in the piece is revealing; the author, either a PR person for the police or a staff writer at the paper, was clearly tickled by the event.

Certain awkward and inaccurate aspects of the article lead me to believe that the author didn't work for the paper, though I wouldn't put it past the Davis Enterprise to write crap. "Davis man caught with his pants off," for example, would be a more cutting headline without the "his." The last line-- the punch-line, really-- is the best and worst part of the piece. When I am in Davis, I still occasionally hear people repeating this line to one another at parties: "They actually printed that! 'The whereabouts of his pants remains unknown!'" Unfortunately, the author blew the punch-line by making a clumsy grammatical error; the phrase should have been, "The whereabouts of his pants remain unknown."

And as for the whereabouts of his pants? I know them! After the article was printed I held my own investigation. It was rumored that the host of the original party (not the one that ensued when Jeff kicked down the door of an unwilling host) had to sign an official statement explaining the whereabouts of Jeff and his pants for the Jorgensen family's lawyer. For months after the party, Jeff's pants sat neatly folded on a desk in the front room--where he originally took them off to dance a la Tom Cruise.

Hard News Analysis II: The Oregonian on Poison PB

The Oregonian reported today that federal officials are recalling several brands of peanut butter cookie. The lead is packed with the following information:

• Federal officials are recalling "more" peanut butter snacks. (This must be a follow-up)
• Some of these p-buttery snacks are Wal-Mart products. (Scandal)
• The recall is part of an investigation of a "nationwide" salmonella outbreak. (These dangerous cookies are giving people diarrhea across the country.)
• More than 470 are sick and six have died. (This PB snack attack is deadly)

Because the media is an important part of public health and safety campaigns, the writer clearly listed near the top of the article, in bullets, the specific brands and products affected by the recall. If you have been noshing on any sort of peanut butter cookies, I suggest you check out the article and make sure you aren't living in the salmonella danger-zone. Or better, take the FDA's advice and stay the hell away from all packaged products that contain peanut butter. Peanut butter alone is okay. Perhaps you could buy a package of non-PB cookies and spread on the peanut butter yourself.

Appropriately, The Oregonian writer did a much better job than I maintaining a serious tone in an article about dangerous peanut-butter snacks. The web-version also has hyperlinks to the FDA and the CDC so that readers can get a complete list of recalled products.

The salmonella outbreak provides a good analogy for investigative reporters. If all of the cookie companies rely on the same peanut butter source, they might all give people diarrhea. So, journalists, rely on diverse sources; create a unique product.

Hard News Analysis: The BBC

The top story on BBC News online today was about the Israel/Hamas ceasefire: "Scale of Gaza Destruction Emerges." The article has a very formal tone, though the writer didn't shy away from the vast destruction in Gaza. There is a sense of humanity veiled by the formality of the prose. The writer didn't fit that much information into the lead, probably because this is a continuing story. The first few paragraphs describe with numbers and U.N. sources the damage to infrastructure caused by Israel/Hamas fighting.  The article then goes on to describe international plans to restore Gaza. The latter half of the article, under "Israeli Failure," is a discussion about the implications of the ceasefire and the meaning of "victory."

This figure was curiously imbedded much later in the story than other information about damage in Gaza:

At least 1,300 Palestinians, according to Palestinian sources, and 13 Israelis have been killed since Israel launched its offensive on 27 December. Palestinian medical sources say at least 95 bodies have been pulled from the rubble since Israel halted its assault.

This was possibly placed later in the story because it had already appeared in earlier reports, or maybe because statistics from Palestinian authorities are not considered reliable against Israeli sources. Still, this was the most startling figure in the piece, and most casual readers would miss it where it was placed.

Poynter Makes Me Cry

Poynter Online reports news about the news. Some blogs expand on popular issues in a more informative, detailed, and opinionated manner. Others, like Poynter, post a downpour of short news items that give the reader an immediate impression of the current state of affairs. This blog is aimed at journalism aspirees like me, but I don't want to read it-- not because it's bad, but because every post is a slap in the face and a reminder that my parents will be paying my rent until I'm 35. Look, Poynter, I know journalism is dying; j-school kids have been hearing about it for months now. Tell me something good! I did enjoy this brief post about changing ethical standards. Please excuse me; I need to go curl up with a box of Kleenex and listen to NPR.