“Words We Don’t Say,” An Update

In last week’s news meeting question, inspired by a list of forbidden words from Kurt Andersen’s days as editor of The New York Times Magazine New York, we asked you to help us make our own list of stale and lazy phrases that you’re tired of seeing and hearing from news outlets. Looking at the comment section, we’ve got a pretty good collection going; here’s what you’ve sent in so far:

Transparency
Strongman
Cutting edge
World Wide Web
Game changer
Robust
Love child
Illegitimate
“Adult conversation”
Iconic
Paradigm
Canoodling
Traffic metaphors (crossroads, juncture, intersection, turning point)
“-gate”
Brutal murder
Savage beating
Vicious attack
Deadly tornado
Destructive tornado
Bete noire
At the end of the day
Street smarts
Endeavor
Persevere
Regime
Going forward
Substantive (rather than Substantial)
The other side of the aisle / Both sides of the aisle
To be honest
Quite frankly
Mom (rather than Mother), and “Mom jeans”
Lawmaker
Tipping Point
Going Forward
Bloviate
Underwater
Impact (when used as a verb)
Walking something back
Throw under a bus
(Feel free to keep adding to the list, here.)

Correction: This article originally stated that the "words we don't say" list dated back to Kurt Andersen's days as editor of The New York Times Magazine. Andersen never edited that magazine. We meant to say that it dated back to his days as editor of New York. The relevant sentence has been fixed. CJR regrets the error.

Collaborative Reporting

via Strange Attractor

I read Highs and Lows of “Post Mortem” Collaboration Between Frontline, ProPublica, NPR, by Carrie Lozano over on Mediashift with interest, not least because collaboration has been a specialty of mine for many years now. Ever since I first started working with social media over seven years ago I have focused on collaboration, so a project that marries collaboration and journalism is of course going to pique my interest.

This piece, first in a series by Lozano, sets the scene, but doesn’t go into any detail about how journalists from Frontline, ProPublica and NPR actually got down to the day-to-day nitty gritty. That’s what I’m really interested in, because the collaboration tools available today make working together really easy, if – and only if – people are willing to learn and adjust the way that they communicate.
There are basically two types of collaboration.

Asynchronous collaboration:

• The actions of the collaborators are spread out over time 
• Materials are gathered or created and made available to the other team members who access them whenever they wish to
• Collaborators can be spread out over different time zones
• Conversations can occur slowly as there can be a delay before each participant is able to reply
• Tools include: wikis, blogs, microconversation tools (i.e. Twitter-like tools), Google Documents, file sharing services like Dropbox

Synchronous (or nearly synchronous) collaboration:

• The actions of the collaborators are taken in concert
• Materials are created together, in real time, either by simultaneous editing or by taking turns in a timely fashion
• Collaborators are usually in overlapping timezones, even if they are not physically in the same location 
• Conversations happen smoothly as collaborators can response almost instantly
• Tools include: instant messenger, chat, Google Documents, microconversation tools

The trick is in knowing what kind of collaboration you need and how to swap seamlessly between modes as required. A lot of people who don’t understand collaboration wind up using email as their primary tool, despite email being very badly suited for the work. If you’re going to collaborate with other reporters, you must set up your collaboration systems and ensure that everyone is familiar about what to use, when and how, before your project truly kicks off.

Were you gonna caption that?

via JProf

Captions are sometimes hard to construct, but they are very important. Photographers do not always have to write the captions for their pictures (although they should do so whenever they get the chance). They should always gather the information needed for a caption , including the names (spelled correctly) of the people visible in their photos.

Photo-Graphic Memory

via JProf

Daniel Okrent, the public editor of the New York Times, has written an excellent piece based on the decision by Times editors to run a picture of a grieving mother among a number of dead babies killed by the Dec. 26 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. The photo is graphic and difficult to look at. It is like many such photos that have burned themselves into our psyches.

Photoshop handouts

via JProf

One of the most important pieces of software in the journalism world these days is Photoshop. It is the premier photo editing tool, and no journalist or student of journalism -- whether working in print or on the web -- can do without it. JPROF.com offers three handouts that will help students get a quick start with Photoshop:

Beginning Photoshop (PDF)

Preparing images for the web (PDF)

Photoshop guidelines (PDF)
 
Photoshop is a deep program with many options and possibilities. Students can spend many hours learning its intracacies. These handouts will help you get them started.

Investigative reporting at its best

What does it take to investigate a national icon - a man who has been awarded and lauded across the world? The extraordinary determination and doggedness of Mr. Mojeed can only be admired:
http://saharareporters.com/news-page/nigerian-journalist-honored-exposing-philip-emegwali

Seeing ain't believing

via JProf

Changing a photograph in a way that alters its meaning -- even if only incidentally -- is not a good thing for journalists or journalism. We have been reading about this sort of thing far too much these days, and unfortunately, we will probably continue to hear about such behavior. But in an article in Slate ("Don't Believe What You See in the Papers"), Jim Lewis has some valuable perspective on how we view photography. A photograph has power because we believe it; we think that if we had been standing beside the photographer when it was taken, we would have seen the same thing. That's not true, and Lewis does a good job of reminding us of that fact. Lewis also links to a "rogue's gallery" of digital manipulation put together by Dartmouth's Haney Farid that reminds us that this sort of thing happens on a regular basis.