Elvis Sightings Expected to Plummet!

"The World's Most Reliable Newspaper" has died at the age of 28. The New York Times has passed away, you asked? Or perhaps The Wall Street Journal? Nope, it's the Weekly World News, that paper that has amused us at the checkout lines for years. Emil Steiner, a Washingpost.com blogger, writes about its demise in the printed form. Starting on Aug. 27, the Weekly World News will only be available online. So in light of this shocking, amazing, earth-shattering news, Steiner decided to list his favorite headlines from the paper over the years and asked his readers to add their own. So here's a sampling of those gems you wish you could have written:

Man Poses as CPR Dummy To Meet Women

Mother Nature Endorses Gore for President

Astronomer Rebuked For Endless Staring into Space

Man Marries Computer -- Becomes Gigamist

Pit Bull Eats Mobile Home

200 ELVES LAID OFF! Santa moves operation to Honduras sweatshop

VENGEFUL FROGS EAT FRENCH CHEF'S LEGS

VENTRILOQUIST IS IN COMA -- BUT HIS DUMMY'S STILL TALKING!

GRAVY TRAIN DERAILS!

Chocaholic Mom Has Sugar-Coated Baby

MEEK SUE TO INHERIT THE EARTH!

Woman gives birth to baby rabbits

Hitler's Brain Found in Mayonnaise Jar

HITLER'S NOSE ALIVE IN A JAR -- AND IT'S GROWING A MUSTACHE!

Gay Dinosaurs: the real reason they went extinct

Doctors Reattach Siamese Twins

Man searches for his own severed head

CONCRETE ENEMAS A BAD IDEA, DOCS WARN

You can read the full blog item here. (George Bush photo by AP)

Headlines Headlines

I went outside today to get our two daily newspapers. As usual, Bella, our year-old Golden retriever, went to retrieve The Star (we taught her to retrieve The Star when she was just a pup, taking the reins from our beloved, now-deceased Golden retriever Bixby) and I went to grab the L.A. Times. Surprise! When we unfolded what we thought was the L.A. Times, we found that it was the New York Times. We're still not sure how that happened, but I did take the time to look at the paper.

I found something interesting. When I went to the jump page of a story, I saw that the headline on the jump page said virtually the same thing as the headline on the cover.

Here are some examples:

Cover of The Arts section:

Down by the Boardwalk, a Two-Ring Circus of Bands

Jump head:

Two-Ring

Circus

of Bands

A1 head:

An Unlikely Adversary Arises

To Criticize Detainee Hearings

Jump head:

An Unlikely Adversary Arises to Criticize Hearings

Business Day cover:

Barbie Gets Another Accessory: an MP3 Player and More Stuff on Her Web Site

Jump head:

Barbie Gets Another Accessory: an MP3 Player and More Stuff on Web Site

Business Day cover:

Oops! ... They Did It Again

Defying Expectations, a Teen Pop Label Grows Up

Jump head:

Defying the Expectations of Critics and Rivals, a Teen Pop Label Grows Up

I don't know how long they've been doing this, but I began to wonder why they decided to do this. I came up with two possible reasons:

1. It's easier for the reader to find the jump of a story.

2. It's easier and quicker for the copy editor to duplicate the headline on the jump page.

If these are the reasons why they duplicate headlines, I'd say that both the reader and the copy editor benefit.

In these days when we are doing more with fewer people, is this something we'd want to consider? If the idea would be something that would make copy editors' jobs easier and more efficient but would negatively affect the reader, it wouldn't be worth considering. But when we are making things better for the reader while at the same time helping ourselves, why not consider it?

What do you think?

Have You Hugged a Journalist Lately?

I lost a special person recently. His name was Rich Ramirez. When I was a young copy editor with so much to learn at the San Jose Mercury News in the early 1980s, an enthusiastic, hard-working intern with a great smile came to work on the copy desk. Rich was fresh out of USC. Rich never left the Merc. He went on to hold a number of reporting and editing positions at the paper, the last 12 years as assistant to the executive editor. Just days after organizing a highly successful National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention and one day after learning there would be dozens more layoffs at the Merc and that his position would likely be eliminated, Rich apparently took his own life. We had kept in contact over all these years, including an e-mail a day before his death. My sympathies are with his wife and other relatives, as well as the "Mercury News family" that those of us who have worked there over the years have become a part of. I went to Rich's memorial service last week, and was amazed at the huge crowd of mourners. It was evident Rich had touched so many lives. The comments in this online guest book reinforce that. Rich and I shared a love for photography. He had wanted to know if I was coming to the conference so he could share photos from his three-week European vacation with me. Sadly, I wasn't able to attend. However, I was able to see some of his images in a slide show presentation that was shown at the service. I am so fortunate to have known him.

A number of stories have been written about him. I particularly enjoyed an opinion piece written by a friend of his, John Diaz at the San Francisco Chronicle. Here is an excerpt from that wonderful piece. You can read the entire article here.

Smooth-running conventions don't just happen. Behind every successful
convention are the volunteers who handle all the essential details. Behind every
effective band of volunteers is an organizer with a vision, a checklist and the
right blend of charm and persistence to cajole the troops.

At NAHJ that was Rich Ramirez, a 44-year-old executive assistant, from
the San Jose Mercury News.

In the weeks leading up to the convention, Ramirez was peppering his
colleagues around the country with e-mail requests, big and small. He sent
spreadsheets with detailed marching orders for volunteers. He made last-minute
pitches for editors to shake down their publishers for $1,500-a-hole
sponsorships for the charity golf tournament. He even sent out an appeal for a
baby sitter on behalf of a CNN producer.

The convention was a huge success and no one seemed to be having a
better time than Rich when I caught up with him at an opening-night reception.
As always, he was quick with a smile and quick with questions about how things
were going with my life and job.

Four days after the convention, Rich Ramirez was found dead in the backyard of his Livermore home, with a knife wound in his midsection. Police still suspect it was a suicide, by about the most painful and difficult method imaginable.

Those who knew Rich Ramirez could not say which was more inconceivable:
That he would take his life or that someone would want to hurt a man who
radiated such brightness and generosity. One could only speculate: Was it the
angst and uncertainty that has gripped the profession he loved? Or was it a
deeply personal pain that no one who thought they knew him ever recognized?

On Thursday, Rich was eulogized at a memorial service in San Jose. The
church was overflowing with family, friends, colleagues.

... One question came up, over and over, as his friends and colleagues
marveled at the size of the crowd and depth of sentiment at the memorial
service: "I wonder if he knew how much he was appreciated?"
I know what you're thinking about the Rich Ramirezes who bind the communities in your lives. Don't wait, don't assume they know. Tell them.

Punctuation Infatuation: Life of a Newspaper Copy Editor

At the recent American Copy Editors Society conference, Bob Garfield of NPR's "On the Media" interviewed Merrill Perlman, director of copy desks at The New York Times. Here are a few excerpts:

BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] Now, at the risk of stereotyping, how would you describe a typical copy editor? What kind of people are they? [John Weigle -- typical copy editor? -- is pictured at right for illustration purposes only]

MERRILL PERLMAN: I'm not sure there is a typical copy editor. I think they share some common traits. They all share that love of language. They all share that desire to get it right. Sometimes it's an obsession to get it right, and that's not necessarily a good thing. They don't so much care about the public recognition, but they like to bitch about not having the public recognition, so they're a complaining bunch.

BOB GARFIELD: I must say [LAUGHS], over several decades copy editors have saved my sorry ass more times than I can really count. Literally I can't count them, because I don't remember a single episode. What I do remember is the few times that copy editors edited errors into my stories. ...

MERRILL PERLMAN: There's sort of an unwritten credo that you do not damage somebody else's work. That no one should be surprised to read something under their own byline. So, you know, when copy editors do edit errors in, I think they probably flog themselves more than a lot of reporters will flog themselves, because that's worse. Now, the flip side of that is all the catches that copy editors make that they're never recognized for.

BOB GARFIELD: Yeah. There are those.

You can read the entire transcript here.

A Star Is Born: The Slide Show

If you missed The Star's grand opening ceremonies recently, you might want to take a look at a musical slide show I created. NOTE: You won't be able to view it at work, because the site requires that you download an applet and our system won't allow that. So when at home or elsewhere, go here and after downloading the application, click on "A Star Is Born." Start viewing the show and if you'd like to view it full screen, right-click on the show and choose "Full Screen." Hit the Escape key to get out of full-screen mode.

Top 10 Signs Your Newspaper Is in Trouble

Thanks to Dave Letterman's "Late Show," CBS, April 30:

10) "Covers all the news that happens within one block of the office."

9) "Today's exclusive: 'Nixon Dead!'"

8) "Reporter sent to jail for refusing to divulge a source...Oh, and he
also killed a dude."

7) "All horoscopes: 'Now would be a good time to get out of the
newspaper business.' "

6) "Paper's motto: 'Suck It'"

5) "Every 'hot gossip' item is about Jack Klugman."

4) "Managing editor and guy who wheels around breakfast? Same guy."

3) "Under 'weather,' it just reads 'yes.'"

2) "Instead of 'Garfield,' has a comic strip called 'Garfunkel.'"

... and the No. 1 sign that your newspaper is in trouble is: ...

1) "You endorsed Dennis Kucinich."

Inside the Brains of Our Readers

For the past few years at the ACES conference (see previous post about the conference), there has been a session where ACES brings in a few news readers off the street, so to speak, to find out what they like and dislike. Here's another blog posting, again from Katie Schwing, on this fascinating session:
"Sometimes it can be hard to distance yourself enough from your paper and look at it objectively, which is why I found the 'Inside Readers' Minds' panel fairly enlightening. Five people who all take in news in different ways were kind enough to spare some of their time to be quizzed by journalists. (What a fun Saturday!)It's hard to make too many generalities about what readers like, as this was far from a scientific or significant sample size, but it was interesting to hear what they had to say nonetheless.
Some observations:
They like short, easily digestible pieces of information, a la the front page of The Wall Street Journal, bulleted lists, raised quotes, etc.

They said their eyes often fall on pictures first, and those can give clues about what the story's about, even when the headline is more abstract.

Design matters. Some said that how the paper looks affects if they'll pick it up.

Sometimes we try too hard to be "hip" and conversational, and they don't always appreciate that.

Information presented should be as clear and specific as possible, and clear labels spelling out what information is where on the page are appreciated.

We're readers, too, of course, but it was nice to hear opinions from people outside the newsroom and to see how they feel about what we spend tireless hours putting together. Sometimes we can be all too close to the final product. I enjoyed hearing from people with a bit more distance."

Posted by katie schwing

Copy Editors Descend on Miami

A whole lot of copy editors are meeting in Miami this week for the 11th national conference of the American Copy Editors Society.

Those of us not lucky enough to attend can follow along on the ACES conference blog, which 13 conference attendees are contributing to.

Here's a posting about one of the interesting sessions they had this week:

Who's afraid of the big bad Web?
The people packed into the "Leaving Print for Online" felt almost like traitors, seeing how the other half works. But the impression given by Jay Wang and Jim Kavanagh was more positive than you might think. Turns out, you have all the skills you need to edit for the Web right now:
Solid news judgment.
Snappy headline skills.
Passion for accuracy.
Ability to work quickly and efficiently.
No fancy HTML coding skills required. (Though, honestly, it probably wouldn't hurt.) It helps to be able to write different kinds of heds for the same story; for example, ones that read differently for the front page of a Web site vs. an inside page.

Most importantly, it seemed, was this message: Newspapers need to stop seeing the Web as a threat. It's a tool we can use for more content and a bigger audience than we've even imagined -- if we can get away from the way we're used to doing and thinking about things.
Posted by katie schwing

They Shoot Copy Editors, Don't They?

What does this kitty have to do with copy editing? To find out, read the article that ran in the latest issue of the American Copy Editors Society's newsletter. I have scanned it as jpegs, so you'll have to call up the first segment of the story, which is here. Then link here to read the last part of the story. Actually, this story is about how one Universal Desk, at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, operates. It explains such things as how they're set up, who does what, what their philosophy is and how they have fun. While their entire setup may not work for us, you may find some interesting ideas in this.

The Latest from Apple!

Want to see the latest product from Apple? It's absolutely amazing. What, you say, could be better than the iMac ... the iPod ... the iPhone? Well, get a sneak peek by going to this link. Steve Jobs will show it to you. PLEASE NOTE: This link takes you to a video that will start playing. If you're going to watch it and listen to it at work (and you've got to listen to it), put on some earphones so as not to distract your colleagues. And have fun!

Grazin' in the Mass Media

By now you've no doubt heard about the controversy-scandal at the L.A. Times regarding the editorial page editor's choice of Hollywood producer Brian Grazer to "guest-edit" the Sunday opinion section, Current. Andres Martinez, the editorial page editor, resigned after Publisher David Hiller killed the section upon learning that Martinez was dating a publicist for Grazer. The perceived conflict of interest was the reason Hiller gave for killing the section. After Martinez resigned, he commented on some blogs, blasting various people, including Times media columnist Tim Rutten. Rutten responded on a blog, and there was one comment from him, about journalism conflicts of interest, that caught my eye. I'm sharing it only because it made me laugh and I thought it would amuse you too. Though, of course, it's also an important reminder that we need to be careful about conflicts of interest. Here's what Rutten said:

"I've always subscribed to the late Abe Rosenthal's standard for journalists: 'I don't care whether my colleagues sleep with elephants, so long as they don't cover the circus.' "

The Myth of a Neat Newsroom -- Exposed!

By now, we are all settling into our new digs in Camarillo (no, not the newsroom seen at left), enjoying our ergonomic chairs, flat-screen monitors, and the open, light, bright and airy room. Everything is so neat and clean and uncluttered and pretty. But is that what a real newsroom generally looks like? San Francisco Chronicle reporter Peter Hartlaub thinks movies and television shows misrepresent the look of a newsroom. He says they glamorize the rooms with neatly organized desks that hold books stacked just right and cups that are well-stocked with pens and pencils. He says the latest movie to get it wrong when it comes to journalists' work spaces is "Zodiac," which includes scenes from the director's vision of what the Chronicle newsroom looks like. Hartlaub says the neatly organized desks in "Zodiac" are the first mistake. He writes: "In real life, newspaper reporters just lie down a few of their heavier books horizontally to keep the others from falling, or they cram everything into the shelf tightly so all solid matter surrounding it is unable to move, like a well-played game of Tetris." He says the typical journalist's work area may contain: a dead plant, partially covered by a pile of used reporter's notebooks; a bunch of stuff the ergonomics consultant dropped off two years ago, in an unopened pile; and half-eaten ham sandwiches and birthday cake. Referring to Drew Barrymore's "Never Been Kissed," in which copy editors have their own offices, he writes: "Every group of copy editors I've worked with is lined up in two evenly distributed rows of tightly packed cubicles, like a team of basketball players flying in coach." So Hollywood's depiction of the newsroom may not have always been accurate in the past (though "All the President's Men," pictured here, is generally regarded to have gotten it right), but with our shiny, new digs here, we may demonstrate that a newsroom can indeed be neat and orderly. You can read the entire article here. My thanks and two thumbs way up to Trinity for posing for the photo above, back in our old offices, which were dark, cluttered and in disrepair.

Fire the Wire, Save a Copy Editor

A writer for Editor & Publisher has an interesting proposal. He'd like to save the jobs of copy editors and others, and he's got a novel suggestion for how to do so. He thinks newspapers should get rid of their wire services!

Here's an excerpt from the article, by Mark A. Phillips, in which he explains why papers should do this:

Wire service copy has become a commodity that is sent around the globe via the Internet at blistering speed. Wire is accessible through Yahoo!, Google, or any number of Web sites. By the time your valued local newspaper reader gets a copy of your paper, the news could be a day old. Is this really serving your readers? Don't you want to give them something they truly cannot get anywhere else? ... Before you throw that rock at me, look at the monthly wire and photo costs in your budgets and compare those to what you spend on local news and sports employees. Does it shock you that those resources are going to services that many of your readers get for free on the Web? It should. Take the money you spend on wire and hire more news and sports reporters, more editors, more photographers. Instead of wire, wire, wire, I want you to hire, hire, hire. Bolster your local news and sports coverage and it will pay dividends.

The complete article can be found here.

What do you think of his idea?

Headless Body in Topless Bar: Writing Headlines for the Web

Thank you to Alicia, who has pointed out an interesting article about SEO.

SEO? Huh?

SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization." The article points out that when a newspaper's Web site simply picks up the headlines we've written in the print product, those words may not be the most easily searchable.

On Web sites, headlines need to be written differently, the article says, loaded with key words and phrases that can easily be found when Googled.

The full article is here. As Alicia says: "It’s a very interesting article and since we are likely to be doing more Web editing with the reorganization, it’s something we should be thinking about."

E-Mail Addresses (From John Weigle)

From: John Weigle
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 15:31:37 -0800
To: VCS Editorial Group

Subject: E-mail addresses

We're getting some very strange e-mail addresses in stories (i.e., jweigle//www.venturacountystar.com).

No matter what a source might say, that won't work. The form has to be, using the same sample as above, jweigle@venturacountystar.com.

Here's the introduction to the Wikipedia article on the subject:

"An e-mail address identifies a location to which e-mail messages can be delivered. The word e-ddress is also used as the formal pre-registered authoritative electronic mailing delivery site for an individual (example: an attorney's e-mail address registered for delivery of proof of service digital copies of legal pleadings).

A modern Internet e-mail address (using SMTP or Usenet) is a string of the form jsmith@example.com. It should be read as "jsmith at example dot com."

The part before the @ sign is the local-part of the address, often the username of the recipient, and the part after the @ sign is the domain-part, which may be a host name or domain name which can be looked up in the Domain Name System to find the mail transfer agent or Mail eXchangers (MXs) accepting e-mail for that address."

John Weigle
Copy editor and stamp columnist
Ventura County Star

Ages in Stories (as of Jan. 22, 2007)

From: dpeschka
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 14:05:16 -0800
To: vcsuniversaldesk@venturacountystar.com
Cc: "Moore, John"

Subject: Ages in stories

Hi all,

Because there is still debate over ages in stories, please do not delete or put in notes mode any ages that come across in copy. A policy on this is still in the works.

Thanks,

Darrin

Nothing to "Boast" About: List of Banished Words

My apologies to Melinda Brown for posting this so late. In mid-December, she sent me a link to Lake Superior University's 2007 "List of Banished Words." One of the words on it is one of my pet peeves: "boast." We often say "the home boasts four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a media room and sun room." It sounds so boosterish, like a real estate advertisement. When I see the word, I always change it, generally to the simple word "has." Check out the list here. And you can see others' comments about the list (and add your own comments) here.

Two All-Beef Panties ... Errors to Hoot Over

A site called RegretTheError.com posted its picks for errors of the year here.

I actually liked some of its "other" favorites, such as:

From the Chicago Tribune:
An editorial in Friday’s paper incorrectly stated that Florida Cresswell, a candidate for state representative in the 28th District, was convicted in 1999 of battery and stealing Tupperware. In fact he was convicted of stealing a battery from a van as well as Tupperware that was inside the van.

From The New York Times:
A film review on Wednesday about “Little Miss Sunshine” referred incorrectly to contestants in the fictional children’s beauty pageant of the title. The critic intended to compare the contestants to underage prostitutes, not to “underage fleshpots.”

From The Oregonian:
A headline on Page One on Saturday should have made clear that Oregon Health & Science University will be studying the effects of meth, not cooking it.

From the Los Angeles Times:
A listing in Sunday Calendar said hot dogs would not be allowed at the Scandinavian Autumn Fest and Marknad on Sept. 17 at Vasa Park in Agoura. No canines will be allowed at the event.

Typo of the Year
The reigning champ in this category is Reuters for its report of the recall of "beef panties":
Quaker Maid Meats Inc. said Tuesday it would voluntarily recall 94,400 pounds of frozen ground beef panties that may be contaminated with E. coli.

Have you seen or heard about any doozies? Please share them here.

Bah, Humbug! 'Tis the Season for Those Cliches!

John McIntyre, The Baltimore Sun's assistant managing editor for the copy desk and a past president of the American Copy Editors Society, writes a blog that looks at issues of language and writing, particularly grammar and usage, as they come up in The Sun's reporting. Here's a link to his main site:
http://blogs.baltimoresun.com/about_language
I would like to reprint one of the articles he posted there (in early November), having to do with those tired holiday cliches. Do you have any other cliches to add to his list? Post them here.

Still no prisons? Still no workhouses?
Halloween may be just past and Guy Fawkes day tomorrow, but already the holiday catalogs clutter the mailbox and Christmas merchandise creeps onto the shelves. So before the impulse to use prefabricated phrases can overpower the unsteady hand, here is a reminder from The Sun’s in-house policy on holiday cliches to eschew. This list, compiled by Sun copy editors and colleagues in the American Copy Editors Society, appeared as the third posting of this blog and was also published in an earlier form on the Poynter Institute’s Web site under the title "Avoid holiday cliches."

"’Tis the season": Not in copy, not in headlines, not at all. Never, never, never, never, never. You cannot make this fresh. Do not attempt it. "’Twas the night before" anything: 'Twasing is no more defensible than ’tising. (And if you must refer to the Rev. Mr. Moore's poem, if indeed he wrote it, the proper title is "A Visit from St. Nicholas.")

"Jolly old elf": Please, no. And if you must use Kriss Kringle, remember the double s.

Any "Christmas came early" construction.

"Yes, Virginia" allusions: No.

"Grinch steals": When someone vandalizes holiday decorations, steals a child's toys from under the tree, or otherwise dampens holiday cheer, this construction may be almost irresistible. Resist it.

Give Dickens a rest. No ghosts of anything past, present or future.

Delete bah and humbug from your working vocabulary. Treat Scrooge as you would the Grinch, i.e., by ignoring him.

"Turkey and all the trimmings": If you can't define trimmings without looking up the word, you shouldn't be using it.

"White stuff" for snow: We should have higher standards of usage than do television weather forecasters. Also avoid the tautologies favored by these types: winter season, weather conditions, winter weather conditions, snow event and snow precipitation.

And the tautologies favored in advertising: free gift, extra bonus and extra added bonus.

Old Man Winter, Jack Frost and other moldy personifications can safely be omitted. If the spirit of ecumenism and inclusion requires mention of Hanukkah in holiday articles, these points should be kept in mind. Hanukkah is a holiday more like Independence Day than Christmas, and it is only the coincidence of the calendar dates in a gentile culture that has caused the holiday to mimic Christian and secular elements. The holidays are coincidental; they are not twins.

Pray do not ring out or ring in an old year, a new year, or anything else.

Parodies of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" are, if possible, even more tedious than the original.

Some readers (and, sadly, some writers) lap up this swill. It is familiar, and the complete lack of originality is a comfort. It is for such people that television exists.

Winners or Sinners??

Greetings everyone,

I'm back from vacation, so I'd like to start posting here. I'll raise issues, make comments and pass along information. But I do want to stress that any comments I do make are my own opinions, not official pronouncements for the desk. I hope you will join in and add your remarks and thoughts on various issues.

I'll begin by passing along an e-mail message I received from Timm Herdt. He in turn was passing along an e-mail he received from a reader.

It had not occurred to me before that it might be inaccurate to say that someone "won" a medal of valor. But after reading this e-mail, I thought the reader had a very good point.

I'd like to know what you all think about this reader's comments. Is it wrong to say someone "wins" a medal of valor, something they didn't compete for? Or do you think it's so much an accepted part of speech to say someone won a medal or commendation that it's acceptable use?

Please add your comments to this posting.

Thanks.

Patricia


Subject: FW: Traffic Officer Valor Article

Patricia, FYI, I pass along a note from a reader. My view is that he has a decent point; "winners" carries the connotation that the recipients were actually competing, as in the Academy Awards or something. These medals acknowledge valor in the face of danger; no one actually sets out to"win" one. A small point, perhaps, but I think a worthy one. -- Timm

-----Original Message-----
From: wgherbert@adelphia.net
To: therdt@VenturaCountyStar.com
Sent: 11/30/2006 7:59 PM
Subject: Traffic Officer Valor Article
Timm: This is not meant to be a slam on your journalist abilities. My comment about the article, and several before in the Star (Not necessarily yours...) has to do with the headline on page A8. Police officers do not "win" medals for valor. They certainly don't compete for the recognition. The choice of "Winners" might better have been awardees, recipients or even honorees. I'm sure there are several other choices, but not "Winners."
Cheers, Bill Herbert 642-4436 Ventura
------ End of Forwarded Message