Catching up with a former student got me to see how best to help future students

I spent part of this week catching up with a former student who has a job most of my current students would give multiple limbs to obtain: beat writer for the Green Bay Packers. The view he has of sports, his job and the importance of learning really inspired this post, so I’m hoping I do him justice.

When students around here discuss their desire to enter the world of sports journalism, they tend to focus on a variety of surface-level interests: Getting to cover games, getting to know players, seeing how the league works, publishing columns that offer opinions on the team and so forth.

In teaching sports journalism students over the years, they have often expressed a sense of connectivity to their team as well, much to my chagrin. In presenting the students with a fictional ethics scenario regarding the arrest of a football player from their school, they often declined to publish information about the situation because they say it will “hurt our team.” They’ve also noted that most of their readers would be upset that this story could create problems for “our player” or undercut “our chances” to win.

(In grading these, I’d often push back by asking, “What about your readers who think you’re playing favorites for an athlete in a way you wouldn’t for them?” or “What about your readers who aren’t fans of the team and think you’re picking sides against them?” I rarely got a substantive answer to those questions.)

Other students have complained about having to take on different assignments, such as open records, crime coverage, deep-dives and more. “I’m never going to have to know this stuff,” they’ll say, as they groused about stories that required them to look at the impact of vaccination rates on dorm dwellers, the difference between robbery and burglary or how a budget works.

In discussing this stuff with my former student a bit, he talked about all the random topics he’s had to learn about while covering college and pro sports, which led me to this list of things that can benefit ALL student journalism folks:

 

BECOME A LIFELONG LEARNER: If there’s one thing I’m REALLY worried about in terms of artificial intelligence, it’s that people will become less interested in learning things. If the AI can do something difficult for you, it’s a lot easier to let that happen and do something less taxing that you enjoy.

One of the things my former student mentioned was how he had to learn how the criminal justice system worked when athletes were accused of crimes. He also had to learn about medical conditions like CTE when former players found themselves dealing with brain damage later in life. He learned how to understand issues related to city construction and planning/zoning while seeing stadiums being discussed or construction projects related to athletics coming to fruition.

In each case, he found himself not only being nosy (a great journalism trait) but interested in learning the key aspects of each area so that he could clearly and fully explain what was going on for his readers. I also got the sense from him that learning those things made him feel more confident in his writing and less likely to become bored with the grind of the “pre-game/game/post-game” story treadmill.

Trying to inspire lifelong learning in some students can be like trying to teach a seal to play the cello, but it’s worth it when it actually pans out. Not only are students more likely to build a better knowledge base from which to write, but they’re also more likely to benefit the readers by going beyond the basics.

 

EXPLAIN “WHY” MORE: One of the stories he wrote that I still use to this day was from his summer as a sports editor at the student newspaper. As we were preparing for a final issue, an open-records request response came in, dumping dozens of emails on the sports desk that talked about the tension between a coach and the university. I distinctly remember the look on his face when that happened: it was like he’d seen a ghost coming after him with a chainsaw.

We printed off all the emails and started highlighting dates, people and specific chunks of text that ran counter to the standing narrative the U had put out, which was that everything was fine. In the end, he published a great story that really capped the summer nicely.

In chatting about it a little the other day, the former student mentioned how grateful he was that I was working with him on it and how I was explaining not just WHAT we were looking for or writing, but WHY we were doing it. He also was able to see WHY we decided to file that open-records request, as the resulting story showcased how open-record requests could reveal truths that some people had been hiding.

I have found that over time a gap has continued to widen on both ends of my teaching spectrum: I tend to think that things I have taught multiple times have a patently obvious rationale behind them, so explaining “why” seems redundant. Meanwhile, students every year seem to have less and less awareness of the entirety of things around them, thus making them less and less likely to understand why certain things matter the way they do. Each year, I try to recalibrate my end of the deal and lean in harder on explaining the “why,” both because it tends to help them better understand what I’m teaching and because if they understand the “why,” they tend to internalize it and have stronger buy in.

 

BREAK DOWN THEIR ABSOLUTISM: I don’t know if I’m the only one seeing this, but I’ve noticed that students in more recent semesters tend to either default to “I don’t know” when asked a question or they lock in on an answer and will defend it to the death, even when it’s completely wrong.

I’m not talking about questions like, “Is Donald Trump a good president?” or “Is the food on campus any good?” where strong opinions can emerge. I’m talking about things that are factually right or wrong like “Sylvester Stallone won a Golden Globe award” or “You can’t lose 50 pounds this weekend by eating a special brand of gummies infused with mystic herbs.”

I blame a lot of this on social media, not just because it perpetuates a lot of stupid content that is flat-out wrong, but also because the algorithms and such tend to reward louder, more confident, absolutist idiots. It’s always the “TOTAL PROOF THAT SELENA GOMEZ IS SECRETLY DATING A MARTIAN THAT ONLY AN IDIOT WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND OR SUPPORT!!!!” posts that do better than things with nuance and focus. Everyone is an expert, even though experts are among the most likely people a) not to be yammering on TikTok and b) to tell you that almost nothing is 100% certain.

Over the past few years, I’ve felt like I’m deprogramming ex-cult members in trying to get students to see beyond their self-assured sense of reality as they try to engage in journalism. As much as the recent political and social world has pushed us as journalists to not be objective and balanced, I think we need to actually push harder in that direction in regard to teaching students to report with a balance, but publish based on fact-checked accurate information.

A student once asked how I could do something like this with all the “bad people” in the world. I explained that every interview I did for a story, I tried to keep the door open in my mind to see what that person had to tell me. In some cases, that door was wide open, like when I would interview a fire chief about a fire or when I’d interview a nun about church safety.

In other cases, that door was hard to keep open, even a little crack, but I did it. In one case, I had to interview a guy who claimed to be the Grand Dragon of the Wisconsin KKK about his intent to stage a march on the Capitol for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. All I really wanted to know was if the guy had a parade permit, as it was essential for attempting this act. The door was open a crack with the idea that he might tell me, “Yes, and here’s why a march is protected speech and here’s the inherent value of what we’re doing.” The first six seconds of the interview slammed that door shut when he used words I won’t repeat here, but the point is, even in the most likely scenario in which I could ABSOLUTELY say, “This guy is a chucklehead,” I gave it a shot.

 

GO WHERE THE STORY TAKES YOU: In talking with the former student, we hit on a piece he did about football and brain damage.

“That was the longest time I ever spent on a story,” he said, noting it took at least a year or so. The funny thing? When he got the initial call from one source about the topic of the NFL denying an old player benefits, he figured the story would take about two days.

A lot of students have a preconceived notion of where they think a story is going to go, which can be a good thing if that’s based on significant research. Still, good stories can have a lot of twists and turns to them, so keeping an open mind (see the above point) can really help those stories develop into what they actually are, as opposed to what we might want them to be. Those stories also tend to benefit the readers more, as they reveal things that they hadn’t previously considered.

 

Some great interviewing tips from the folks running “The Interview” and an Exercise Opportunity

If there’s one common thread among all of my media classes, it’s the fear of doing interviews. Students in the earliest media-writing classes and the senior-level seminars will confess that they feel they don’t know how to do interviews, that they don’t feel they do them well or that they feel exceptional levels of anxiety while engaging in interviews.

In discussing this, some educators and writers consider this a generational thing: “Kids these days” tend to do everything digitally, so the idea of talking to someone with their mouth (in person no less!) is out of their comfort zone. I’ll disagree with that to the extent that I have had those same levels of anxiety and concerns about interviewing whenever I’ve done journalism. In the 1990s, I remember calling people for interviews and praying that they didn’t pick up the phone so I could leave a message and move on. I also remember more than once punching in six of the seven digits of a phone number, only to hang up and go for a soda.

I’ll agree with the larger point, though, in that we don’t do interviews enough, especially in person, to become proficient at them. After all, if you want to be good at anything (playing an instrument, shooting free throws), practice improves the performance. That said, the line “PERFECT practice makes perfect” really nails the key concept here: The better effort we put into each attempt, the better we will become.

Observing people who perform a task excellently is also a great way to learn how to better yourself at that task, which is where the New York Times podcast “The Interview” comes into play. The podcast/YouTube channel began a little more than two years ago and has already amassed more than 250 videos. David Marchese and Lulu Garcia-Navarro have extended discussions with all sorts of people, ranging from actors and musicians to political figures and economic experts. 

In this brief clip, the journalists discuss the things that they think makes for a great interview:

 

In terms of outcomes, absolutely, but in terms of how to get to that point, the videos themselves reveal a lot of value for anyone hoping to better themselves at this skill. Here are a few things to watch for and then adopt into your own efforts:

PREPARE LIKE IT’S THE FINAL EXAM FROM HELL: If you think about going to take a test, when are you most anxious? It’s likely when you feel like you don’t know the material and the test is in a subject you feel isn’t your best. Conversely, when you have prepped like heck for an exam in an area you know well, it’s like, “OK, stop talking and give me the damned test so I can rock this thing.”

Same basic principle applies here.

In reviewing a lot of the interviews, it’s clear the journalists have not only done their homework, but they’ve also read the book, studied the review notes and worked through some practice exercises before they got to the interview. They know all the nuts and bolts stuff about the source that they need to know before they get there and they’re often able to surprise the source with insights.

Case in point, this interview Garcia-Navarro conducts with actor and comedian Robby Hoffman walks through multiple areas of Hoffman’s life that are well-known: Growing up poor, being part of the Jewish community, taking on comedy and more. However, Garcia-Navarro touches on a key turn in Hoffman’s life when the family moved to Florida for a brief time, which leads to this exchange:

It’s not about trying to have a “gotcha” question, but rather demonstrating that you have a full view of the subject and that you left no stone unturned in trying to find out what you can. Not only will this make you feel more grounded in your interviews, but this kind of granular level research prep might even impress your subject.

CONNECT BUT REMAIN OBJECTIVE: In a number of the interviews, the journalists have some small talk prior to the recording to put the subjects at ease. They also tend to do the interviews in a place where the subject feels comfortable (a home, an office etc.). All of this is about attempting to find ways to connect with the subject and make the process feel less like an oral exam and more like an opportunity to learn some things in a relaxed (or semi-relaxed) environment.

The thing I like most about these journalists is that they are engaging and personable without trying to fawn all over the subjects they interview. They ask both simple questions as well as difficult, complex ones from a position of objectivity.

The Scott Pelley interview is the one that really drew me into the series and I have to say that Garcia-Navarro does a good job of digging into everything from the current state of CBS news to the precipitating incident that led to Pelley’s firing. She didn’t try to commiserate with him in the “Hey, I’m a journalist, you’re a journalist, we’re cool…” kind of way.

In a number of cases, she presses him on what appears to be either his naivete or ignorance in regard to how he remained incredulous that crap-talking his bosses in a staff meeting to the face would lead to his firing. When he shifts into the “Hey, ’60 Minutes’ had a lot of weird stuff happen back over my 37 years,’ discussion, she focuses him on the present. 

There is nothing wrong with having a sense of empathy and humanity in any interview, but it shouldn’t obscure reality or limit your ability to press a source when pressing is required. Always remember, you can be friendly, but you’re not friends.

ACTIVE LISTENING AND SHIFTING GEARS: The journalists have a series of questions they plan to ask over the course of the interview, but you can tell they take pride in paying attention to what the source is saying, thus giving them both a better connection with the source and giving them opportunities to learn more.

I often joke that when introductory journalism students come to my office for their five-question interview about me, they clearly are viewing me as nothing more than a slab of talking meat that helps them fulfill a course requirement. I’ve often been asked the, “Why did you come to UWO?” question and just once I’d like to say, “Well, our kid was getting older and we wanted her to have the “grandparents experience” my wife and I had, so being closer to home was good. Besides, I knew they didn’t conduct background checks, so those six students I murdered and buried in a cornfield outside Muncie, Indiana wouldn’t be a problem…”

I often imagine the student then saying, “OK, great. So, what do you like best about being here?”

Watch this clip of Marchese interviewing actor and author Lena Dunham and you can see how active listening opened a door that otherwise would have likely remained closed:

In listening to Dunham describe herself as a “slip of a person,” Marchese becomes interested in digging a little deeper on that concept. Not only does he look to Dunham for more information, but he also uses her own words to guide the discussion. All of this is part of active listening and it leads to both better answers and also better connections with the subjects.

GO BACK FOR MORE: One of the better elements of this series is that it’s really two parts: The big interview in person and then a follow-up interview to clean up some things or to allow for some rumination on the questions and answers. In a lot of those second interviews, the subjects feel more confident in their answers and also have had an opportunity to really think twice about what they said.

There isn’t a sense of “Wait don’t tell people I said that” but rather a “I’m not sure I said what I wanted to” or “I thought more about it and want to add something” or “I really find myself reflecting on that part of the discussion.” All of these elements lead to some good additional content and the reflections can help create stronger bonds between the journalist and the subject for future conversations.

EXERCISE TIME: Pick one of the videos from “The Interview” channel and watch it at least once. Instead of looking at the interview subject’s responses, look at some of the techniques the interviewer uses to connect with the source, garner information, engage in active listening and more. Also, if the interviewer hits a sour note (source reacts poorly to a question, source won’t answer the question etc.), how does the interviewer react to this? Write up some of your findings along with some thoughts on how you can use these techniques to improve your own interviews.

Snark Potion No. 9: Celebrating a near-decade of the Dynamics of Writing blog

(I’m not liking the ninth-anniversary gift options, particularly the idea of leather… Sage can just send me a case of Diet Coke or something… like a case of Diet Coke.)

 

Every year, I try to take a look back at what we’ve done here on the blog and what it is I’m hoping to do moving forward. Each year, I’m kind of amazed at how little I actually planned to do got done, while simultaneously being amazed at what it is we actually accomplished here.

With the launch of the Exploring Mass Communication textbook, I set up a goal of having Monday be that Mass Com day, Wednesday being that more traditional writing/reporting day and Thursday being a chance to pull a post from years past to give the folks who are new to the blog a chance to see it. That goal went to hell in a speedboat, as a ton of newsworthy stuff tended to find its way into the mix and rarely was I feeling the “mass com” vibe on Mondays as much as I was feeling the “Holy Hell, did you see what happened this weekend?” vibes.

It also came down to the idea of audience-centricity for me. Sure, I want to keep each book fresh and keep the folks nice enough to adopt them happy with new things, but I wasn’t going to rob Peter to pay Paul just because I made up my mind to have a schedule. If I thought, “Hey, a lot of people might be talking about X and might need some help…” well, I went there. If someone asked me, “Could you blog about X, because my students clearly don’t believe me and I’m at a point of taking up a new career in refrigerator sales if I can’t get them to get this concept…” well, that went to the top of the pile as well.

The real reason is that this blog has never been about me. It’s about you and what you need.

That was the deal I set up with the folks at Sage nine years ago or so when they told me I’d be doing this thing. I stuck to the 70-20-10 rule like it was the speed limit in Rosendale, putting out new, audience-centric content 70 percent of the time, reposts that had value 20 percent and book-pimping/personal glory stuff 10 percent of the time (or less.)

I’m still sticking with that, but I can always use your help, so please make sure to let me know what works and what doesn’t. I have never been egotistical enough to think that I know best and people are waiting with bated breath for my latest pontification. Hell, I’m only now able to say “Thank you” when someone says, “Hey, I’m using your book,” as opposed to my traditional responses of, “Oh. I’m sorry…” Tell me what you need and you’ll get it. Tell me how you want it, and I’ll try to make it work.

I’m really going to try to enjoy this year with you all, as I revise Exploring Mass Com, teach a class I’m dubbing “Life 101” and spend some quality time fixing things around the farm.

And Sage? Do I get a set of steak knives or something if I make it to 10 years? Just getting this out there now so you have a year to plan…

Summer weekly schedule starts now. See you all next week.

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

Gone Fishin’: “Time to grade whatever homework students actually turned in” Edition

(Is this just my students or are we seeing an epidemic of this kind of amazement?)

Just a note to say the blog is starting its summer hiatus, starting today. I have enough grading to stun a team of oxen in its tracks, so I’m not free and clear for summer yet, but I figure enough of you all are to make this a good time to hit the pause button.

As is always the case, if something insane happens or someone needs something, I’ll be back live for you all. Otherwise, we’ll probably pick things up in mid-June with the weekly summer schedule.

Thanks so much for reading!

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

UW-Oshkosh PR folks want to “coordinate the appropriate response” whenever the media wants a faculty comment

(More proof that efforts to “coordinate” aren’t always in the best interest of all people…)

THE LEAD: Just when I’m about ready to put up a “Gone Fishin'” post to close up the blog until mid-summer, my university decides to “go there” when it comes to free expression:

Dear Campus Community,
To help streamline media relations coordination and ensure timely, accurate, and consistent responses to media inquiries, University Relations & Communications asks that all media-related requests and outreach be directed to:
media@uwosh.edu
This includes requests for interviews, statements, comments, filming, photography, background information, expert sources, or any other university-related media outreach from external news organizations, trade publications, broadcast outlets, podcasts, and student media platforms.
If you are contacted directly by a reporter, producer, editor, student journalist, or media outlet regarding university matters, please relay or forward the inquiry to media@uwosh.edu so our team can coordinate the appropriate response and provide communications support as needed.
Student journalists and student media organizations are also encouraged to send interview requests and media inquiries directly to media@uwosh.edu for coordination and routing to the appropriate university representatives.

DOCTOR OF PAPER FLASHBACK: We went through this kind of thing about four years ago, when the folks at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) did a deep dive on the way in which the university was “muzzling” student media with a policy like this. At the time, the head of the PR arm of the university assured me that there was no policy about having to go through them and this was all a big misunderstanding.

Then, of course, the kids turned over the emails to me, and we found out the truth.

CHECKING IN WITH THE ADMIN: I sent a basic note to  Anindita (Andy) Anaam, the executive director of university relations and communications asking for some clarification as to if this was a mandate or a set of suggestions or a refresher on what the university’s policy was.

To be fair to Anaam, she literally started here two months ago and wasn’t part of the mess we saw in 2022. The same is true of our current chancellor, Manohar Singh, who has professed an interest in free expression on this campus. With that in mind, I provided her with the context of the previous debacle before asking for clarification:

Right now, it’s unclear to me if what you presented is in the form of a suggestion, as in “If a media person reaches out to you and you’re not the right person, or you don’t feel qualified, please feel free to forward them to our office.” Or is it a “All media relations requests are expected to go through our office, regardless of how you are contacted. Anyone who fails to do so will be chastised and/or reprimanded, and media reps who don’t reach us first will be treated similarly.”
With that in mind can you:
  • Clarify the intent and approach of this policy, as noted above.
  • Explain the source (chancellor, you, regents, some PR seminar someone attended once) of this policy
  • Provide the full policy the university has regarding media contact (a link to the proper part of the website or formal document would be fine)

She responded quickly, but incompletely:

Hi Vince,

Thank you for reaching out and for sharing your thoughts.

Just to clarify, the intent behind the note was simply operational. Our office has been receiving and coordinating a growing number of media-related requests, and we are a bit stretched thin at the moment, so the goal was simply to help streamline communication and coordination where helpful — nothing more than that.

Faculty, staff, and subject matter experts are still absolutely welcome to speak with media, particularly in their areas of expertise. The note was intended more as a coordination effort for requests that may already be routing through our office or involve broader institutional context.

Thank you again for reaching out and for the thoughtful note.

Best,
Andy

DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: I am at a loss as to why this sudden interest in “streamlining media requests” showed up in my inbox with less than a week to go before the end of school.

If I had to guess, and it’d be just a guess, The Advance-Titan did an amazingly good story on the antiquated nature of the Halsey science building, which is full of mold, bugs and rotting ceiling tiles. Professors were quoted as to how sketchy the place is, something I’m sure the folks at University PR would have preferred they not say. A friend of mine noted he was likely the problem, after he was vocal about the way the U used flock cameras around here without telling everybody.

Anaam’s email clarification to me is reassuring, although a broader clarification of the “talk to whomever you want, but we’re here if you need backup” nature would have been appreciated. In thinking about the A-T’s story, I imagine if the expectation is that everything routes through Anaam’s office, I’m guessing she’s not going to be connecting journalists with people who think parts of this place suck.

Also, we’re not getting answers to bullet points two and three. I did follow up and I’ll keep folks posted on what happens with that if I get an answer. I’m sure she has more important things to do than answer my emails, something that can be said safely of most human beings, but definitely of an administrator here.

UPDATE: Anaam wrote me early Tuesday morning and outlined a bit more of what we’re looking at here:

The email was really coming from a day-to-day operational context within University Relations & Communications, which is my office. Due to the increasing number of media-related inquiries and coordination requests coming into our office, along with current capacity realities, some requests have experienced delays in response, so I have been trying to streamline the intake and coordination process a bit more to make sure inquiries are routed appropriately and do not fall through the cracks, whether they are coming from student journalists or external media outlets.
From my perspective, this was more of an operational workflow effort tied to requests already routing through our office/team inboxes rather than a broader university policy framework.
At the moment, I am not aware of a separate, newly adopted formal university-wide media policy connected specifically to this email.

(Good to know. Will keep watching…)

I’m sure FIRE and the Student Press Law Center will be keeping an eye on this, and if there are mandates based on a non-existent-yet-enforced policy, I’m sure someone somewhere will forward them to me.

ACTION ITEM: Given how email tends to be a preferred outreach method of the university, I’d like to request that you take them up on their offer:

Please feel free to email the university affairs folks at media@uwosh.edu  if you want to let them know you would like UWO to be as open and transparent as possible. That includes making sure that the faculty, staff and students feel free to speak with whomever they wish in the media, without having to touch base with the PR department.

Trust me, it’s helped before.

What employers will likely ask you at a job interview and how to avoid killing your chances with your answers (A Throwback Post)

A former student stopped by to visit a little bit ago to get some help in assessing a couple job opportunities. He’d been out of school for about six months and been looking for a decent landing spot, all while avoiding the LinkedIn recruiters who found him “perfect” for an opportunity that was clearly a Ponzi scheme.

In our discussion, one thing he mentioned that stuck with me was, “I really wish they had taught me how to do a job interview while I was here.” I immediately wrote that down and taped it up next to my computer to remind me that I needed to add this skill to my upcoming “Life 101” course in the fall.

The issue of interviewing also hit my desk the other day when LinkedIn’s Andrew Seaman posted some valuable advice on what companies are looking for out of job interviews these days. (His “Get Hired” series is one of those things every student should sign up for, even if he doesn’t always focus on their particular field. He’s got great advice and great resources.)

A lot of this is what a lot of us intuitively teach our students, but the clarity comes from the structure and analogies in here. To add to his medley of advice, please consider this throwback post that gives students some good advice on the topic as well.

 

Four questions you will likely get asked at a media job interview and how to avoid killing your chances with your answers

With Thanksgiving around the corner, a number of you out there are headed toward that awkward moment at the family dinner in which some relative asks, “So… You graduate next month… You got a job yet?”

The fear of unemployment after college is not without merit, regardless of when you graduate (or graduated) and how well (or poorly) the economy is rolling along. The job-seeking process is filled with awkwardness, anxiety and anguish, a situation I have frequently compared to a bad dating experience.

During that process, a number of things can make or break you. Some of those things are out of your control:

  • You lack the experience or expertise for the position.
  • The company is looking for something else other than what you provide.
  • Some chucklehead on the committee makes a stupid-yet-compelling argument that knocks you out of the pool.
  • A ringer ends up in the pool for some reason and thus you find yourself competing against someone like Bob Woodward for a night GA job at the Beaver County Tidbit.

One thing that is mostly within your control, however, is the initial interview phase of the process, in which your potential future co-workers ask you a string of random inquiries based on whatever HR approved for them. We are currently going through this kind of thing here at the U, where we are searching for a colleague in the journalism department, so I’ve gotten kind of a refresher on the questions and answers that work and that don’t.

To help you along in this narrow way, here are a few questions you might hear in that initial phone/Zoom call, what the questions are trying to ascertain and how to answer (or not answer) them:

 

“What do you know about (NAME OF ORGANIZATION)?”

What they want to know: This is usually the warm-up question outside of “Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?” The goal here is simple: They want to find out if you did any research between when you discovered the job and this phone/Zoom interview. If you are going into a journalism-related field, you damned well better have done some research on this before you get there. Nothing says, “I’m going to be a lousy reporter/editor/PR practitioner/marketer” like the answer, “Oh… I know you have a job opening!”

The Answer: Don’t turn this thing into a 1950s Chamber of Commerce film that includes every tidbit you can find on Wikipedia.

Instead, look for key things associated with the organization itself. In most cases, place post information that matters to them on the “About Us” section of their website. Dig around in there for some elements that can form the broad strokes of your answer. Then, do a decent Google search on the organization, and rely on trade press or recent news pieces. This is where you can find if the agency just won some major award or if the newspaper is currently digging into something particularly shady. Highlight those elements as well, as they show you are looking into not just what they are, but also what they are doing/have done that is impressive.

Finally, look for ways to integrate yourself or your interests into the answer. This will help the interviewer start to imagine you as part of the organization’s story. It can be something like, “I know that you just won the IRE prize for investigative reporting. That series of trash collectors selling rat meat to unsuspecting grocery stores was amazing and I’ve always had a strong interest in big projects like that. I’d love to work with Bill and Sue on their next investigation.”

WHAT NOT TO DO: There are many ways you can screw this up, but here are the two basic ones:

  1. Don’t do any research and spitball it, hoping for the best. This is usually something people figure out right away and that will almost immediately place you on the “reject” pile. If they think your answer to a question is BS, they’re likely to start wondering what else you BS-ed along the way.
  2. Confuse the place with some other place you are applying for a job. It feels like the “I, Ross, take thee Rachel” moment from “Friends” for the people on the other end of that interview.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

What they want to know: Of all the possible interview questions, this one has always felt like the stupidest one to me. I wish I had the gumption to answer in one of two ways:

  1. “Probably stuck here, doing an interview with a job candidate and asking that stupid question of them.”
  2. “If I knew the future in any meaningful way, I’d be buying lottery tickets, not applying for this job.”

That said, what they actually want to know is if you have any kind of longer-term plan for your life and to what degree you see yourself growing and developing in their organization. Nobody wants to hire someone with no direction or sense of growth potential. To that end, you need to have a way to deal with this question without killing your chances of getting the job.

THE ANSWER: Demonstrate that you see yourself as both present at the organization and growing through your work at it. This can be something like, “I see myself doing both (THING YOU’RE BEING HIRED FOR) and (THING THAT IS SOMEWHAT ASPIRATIONAL, YET ATTAINABLE).” In the case of a reporter, it could be covering the daily grind of political stuff at the city council while doing more open-records reporting. In PR it could be cranking out press releases for clients while looking to develop a more involved strategy for clients across multiple platforms.

Another key here is to show value in areas that are beginning to develop. Five to eight years ago, that would be talking about social media and helping to draw eyeballs to your work by establishing a dominant presence on certain platforms. (Come to think of it, that’s still what we’re hearing people say, so maybe stick with that…) Look at the job description and look at what other jobs in the field are demanding and you’ll be able to paint a picture of someone who helps this organization stay on the “cutting edge” while retaining “bedrock tenets of the field.”

WHAT NOT TO DO: First, don’t give either of the answers I listed above. Second, don’t get too basic or aspirational in your answer.

If you go with the “I’m going to be here doing this job to the best of my ability” answer, they see you as a pedestrian hire who will literally do exactly what is asked of you and nothing more.

While that can kill your chances, the aspirational answer will kill them even faster: “I see myself working for (BIG NAME ORGANIZATION) in (BIG NAME CITY) where I’m doing (BIG DEAL STUFF).” Nothing says to a potential employer who is NOT a “big name” that they shouldn’t hire you more than the answer that essentially lets them know you see them as a stepping stone to something better.

Even if the organization knows it’s not a desirable career endpoint and even if you know you want to get in, get experience and get out, this is not the time to make those goals clear. It would be like during that slow dance at prom, when your date asks, “Do you think about us in the future?” and you answer with, “Sure. I figure I get laid tonight, probably date you throughout the next month until graduation. Then, I’m going off to college, where I promise we’ll keep up a long-distance thing until I find a better and hotter option in my res hall.”

“What do you see as your greatest strength and your greatest weakness?”

WHAT THEY WANT TO KNOW: They are trying to figure out if you are in any way self-aware and be honest about it. That said, there are red flags in the honesty that you don’t want to raise (see the prom example above). They want to know how well you know yourself to determine if you actually can do the things you say you can do. They also want a sense of “fit” when it comes to personality and social skill, most of which will be related to this answer.

The Answer: You need to be ready for this one, as I think it’s a keyboard macro that every HR rep has set up on their computer for job interviews. (Control-Alt-DUH, is probably the key combination.) Look for strengths that reflect their needs and your resume, while avoiding the generics. “Hard worker” and “team player” shouldn’t be the core of your argument here. That said, you can demonstrate your value here if you pair something they desperately want with something you excel at in a way in which they can see you in the position.

For example, if on the job ad, the company lists something like “Must be able to work under tight deadlines,” you could say something like, “I think my greatest strength is how well I work quickly under pressure. I spent three years on the night desk at the Smithton Daily Crier, and I had to turn around a lot of late-breaking news, without a lot of information, and make sure it was totally accurate. That experience is something I’ve carried over to my other jobs such as… ” and away you go.

As for the negative, look for negatives that can be trained out of you like, “I haven’t worked in a (large/medium/small) office like yours before, so I know I’d have to do some adjusting” work well, as do things that point to growth like, “I’m not as experienced as people who have been doing this for 10/20/50 years, so I know I have a lot to learn.”

WHAT NOT TO DO: You need to avoid things that overshadow everything else you have said, make you look like psychotic or can’t be fixed over time. In short, you don’t want people to remember you as “That candidate who said they bite their toenails in the break room” person or something. You also don’t want something where people can fear what you’ll be like at work, such as “I’m so competitive when it comes to stories, I’d stab a coworker in the neck to get a scoop.” Remember, your goal is to become an enticing option, not a cautionary tale.

“Do you have any questions for us?”

What they want to know: This always seems like a throw-away question because, in most cases, it comes at the end of the interview and it flips the interview on its head, giving you control of the dice. This question is only partially for you, in that you can get a few things clarified. However, it’s also for them, trying to determine what things matter to you above all else, as well as if you are still interested in this job going forward.

The Answer: You need a couple questions that demonstrate your interest in the position in a meaningful and productive way like, “I noticed you tend to work in teams when it comes to advertising strategies. Would I be integrated into one of your current teams or is there a process for new hires to become part of a newly built team?” That shows a) you know about their processes, b) you have an interest in working there, even after they asked you the previous three questions and more and c) you want them to see you becoming part of the organization.

You can also ask clarifying questions that allow them to expand on things, like, “You mentioned that this job would require me to do daily stories and in-depth pieces. What kind of balance would you want from me in this regard to help best serve the needs of the paper and the readers?” This shows the same kinds of things as above, while also showing that you were listening to them during the interview instead of just waiting to speak.

Other good questions include things like, “What is the time table for the rest of the search?” or “When might I hear from you again regarding the position?” These are simple, but show interest.

WHAT NOT TO DO:   This is always up for debate, given the situation, but here are a few things that I know tend to turn me off in a phone interview:

  1. Salary questions: It’s not that you SHOULDN’T ask this, but I’d argue that if you are on a phone/Zoom interview, it’s probably not the right place for this one. You will obviously want to know the answer to this, but that’s more of an in-person interview question. At this point, they’re still weeding people out, and anything that shatters the illusion that you are just a wonderful person whose sole purpose is to do fantastic things as part of their organization runs a risk here.
  2. “Serial Killer” questions: At this point, they are still trying to figure out if they like you or not, so questions that open a weird line of questioning can undo a lot of the good you’ve done. Things like, “The ad mentions a background check. Does that look into things that might have happened overseas?” suddenly have me thinking you buried a dead hooker in the sands of Cairo or something. When it comes to prepping out your questions, look at them the same way you read headlines to make sure you aren’t unduly worrying your potential employer. Have a friend or trusted adviser read them over as well for any “vibe” concerns.
  3. No questions: If you have no questions, come up with at least a few that will reinforce your awesomeness and how wonderful of a fit you would be in the job. Not asking questions can be somewhat of a turnoff for people.

That’s the best I’ve got. Hope it helps!

Indiana University Releases Its “IU Media School Task Force Report” Five Months After The Media School Ran Roughshod Over Student Media’s Rights

(A brief-and-yet-way-too-accurate explanation of how IU got into this mess in the first place.)

 

THE LEAD: Indiana University released its “IU Media School Task Force Report” late last week after a five-month process of determining how best to preserve student journalists’ rights while providing the various media outlets with governance and financial support.

The task force and subsequent report came after IU fired Indiana Daily Student adviser Jim Rodenbush in October when he refused to violate the students’ First Amendment rights. Shortly thereafter, the Media School tried to kill the still-profitable print version of the IDS, for reasons that still remain pathologically stupid.

CATCHING UP WITH THIS DISASTERBACLE: After Rodenbush was fired, he filed a wrongful termination suit against the university. As that was unfolding, the students at the IDS were prohibited from printing a paper for homecoming, as the university didn’t want any news in it because, God forbid, the alumni returning for homecoming might think something unpleasant might actually occur in Bloomington.

Not only did the kids run a full online edition of the paper, but the student media folks at Purdue University kicked in with a major assist. The folks at The Exponent printed the IDS on their presses for free and then drove the copies down to Bloomington to be publicly distributed. For a perfect cherry on top, the front page contained nothing but news of the shady stuff IU was doing to the IDS in terms of censorship.

More recently, things have turned around for Rodenbush, as he got a professorial gig at Western Kentucky University:

I have no idea what this is in the photo, but I pray its a mascot of some kind for WKU or a melting wax statue of IU Dean David Tolchinsky performing his “Stayin’ Alive” dance.

Meanwhile, the IDS staffers continue to do quality journalism on everything from drug overdoses in the area to the media report itself. 

DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: I was recently told I’d been getting overly long in my posts, so let’s keep this one short:

  • The report talks a good game, but let’s see what the media school does in its “refine and implement” stage. We’ve got a long, documented history of the administration here being somewhere between “completely inept” and “ignorantly nefarious” when it comes to student media. I tend to believe that the proof in the pudding is in the eating and IU’s media school brain trust has been serving up a lot of syrup of ipecac pudding lately.

 

  • Even if this whole thing comes out as fine as wine going forward, it doesn’t undo the damage done to the people involved here. Jim Rodenbush lost a job, an income and probably a lot of sleep as a result of this. His life was upended because of this, and just because we media folks know he’s a hero, it doesn’t mean this is OK. The staff at the IDS had to fight a fight they weren’t supposed to be in, all while doing the paper and school, which is more than plenty to cause burnout. Advertisers got shook, distribution people had to consider the impact of this and more. Fixing the future doesn’t un-mess the past.

 

  • The administration of the IU Media School needs to be held to account for every ham-handed thing they’ve done to this point involving student media. We were talking about the concept of “actual malice” today in class, in which people are held to account for libel when they know they’re doing something wrong and yet they do it anyway. I can’t think of a more apropos term to describe what’s been going on here in regard to the administrative action as it relates to the IDS.
    If you are in driver’s seat, you get the ticket for driving recklessly. Same basic concept applies here. Everyone on EARTH seemed to be telling these people, “Stop. What you’re doing here is wrong” and they didn’t seem to really care. If we don’t want to have another mess like this one, IU needs to mete out some punitive measures to make them care about the results of their actions.

 

ASU’s use of AI to build classes from faculty Canvas course materials has instructors saying “WTF?” (A Throwback Post)

THE LEAD: You can call it “experimental AI” or “educational innovation,” but where I’m from, we call this “theft…”

Arizona State University soft launched a web app earlier this month that allows anyone, for $5 per month, to create an apparently unlimited number of customized “learning modules” using artificial intelligence. The AI chatbot, called Atom, uses online instructional materials from ASU professors to create a course that’s tailored to the goals, interests and skill level of the user. After asking a handful of questions and processing for about five minutes, Atom debuts a personalized course that includes readings, quizzes and videos from a half dozen experts at ASU.

But several professors whose content Atom pulls from were surprised to learn that their materials—including video lectures, slide decks and online assignments—were being perused, clipped and repackaged for these short online course modules. The faculty wasn’t told anything about the app, ASU Atomic, they said.

(SIDE NOTE: I so DESPERATELY want to use a video clip here from “Ted 2” that smack talks Arizona State right now, given how stupid this situation is, but I think the editors at Sage might pop a brain bleed. The tamest thing said in that exchange was, “Do you say Arizona State University or just HPV-U?” Anyway… I digress…)

BACKGROUND: The university is doing everything to both say that tapping the braintrust of the faculty through this AI thing is the greatest thing on earth while also telling faculty this is just experimental and there’s no real concern here.

As with most things administrators SWEAR aren’t problems, the faculty members refuse to buy this bull-pucky:

As is the case for many AI chatbots still in their infancy, Atom gets things wrong. In the module it designed for Hanlon, it included clips from an old lecture he gave focused on the work and career of 20th-century literary theorist Cleanth Brooks. Throughout the course it called the critic “Client” Brooks.

<SNIP>

Ostling is worried that Atomic “will start being used widely, and I have content on my Canvas shelves that would be very inappropriate to show up without context in a course,” he said. “Not only do I think the students will be poorly served because they might learn things that aren’t true, but it could potentially get me in trouble.”

I’m feeling this as well, given that I often have students interview other students for classroom-only exercises that get posted to Canvas. So, for example, a student talking about their experience at the local Pub Crawl might not be all that thrilled if that info becomes part of a database of content for everyone to see.

Even more, I have to occasionally create “alternative timeline scenarios” for the students. For example, to have my students write an “announcement press release,” I make up the scenario that our current chancellor resigned a while back, the university did a search and today is announcing the hiring of the next chancellor. It’s a logical scenario that would be something students might be expected to do as PR practitioners (hiring news release) and it forces them to focus on what to include in a short space.

However, I obviously have made up the name of the person we hired as well as that person’s background and accomplishments. If AI slurps it up and treats it as gospel, that’s not going to be good for anyone involved.

This all led me to today’s throwback post about our system trying to steal faculty content for what I would assume could be a situation like this. Even if the Universities of Wisconsin folks double-pinky promise not to turn my work into AI slop, I still don’t want them co-opting my life’s work for all the reasons listed below.

I did a check on how this is going and the board of regents hasn’t passed this yet, but I’m always leery of summer months, as that’s a great time for universities to pass these “take out the trash” bills, because nobody’s looking.

 

The Universities of Wisconsin System is trying to steal faculty’s copyright rights to educational material. Please help fight this stupid power grab.

(The system says, “We would never look to diminish your rights or take your hard-earned work away from you.” What the system actually does is more accurately depicted in the scene above.)

THE SHORT, SHORT VERSION: The Universities of Wisconsin System is trying to rewrite its copyright policy and assign itself the rights to the educational work and scholarly materials faculty create. If this goes through, faculty who have spent years building and improving their courses could get the shaft and I have no idea if I’ll be able to share stuff that I’ve always shared with you.

If you think this is as stupid as I do, please email system President Jay Rothman at president@wisconsin.edu and tell him not to let this policy pass.

(UPDATE: Rothman is no longer the president, but that email address will still get you where you need to go.)

THE LONGER, MORE NUANCED VERSION: Here’s a deep dive on the way the system is trying to recreate its copyright policy in a way that disenfranchises its faculty:

THE LEAD: The Universities of Wisconsin has decided to rewrite its rules involving intellectual property, giving the system total ownership over pretty much everything faculty create:

The UW System is proposing a new copyright policy that professors say would eliminate faculty ownership of instructional materials. The revisions are stoking alarm among professors statewide who say such a move would cheapen higher education into a mass-produced commodity.

“This policy change is nothing less than a drastic redefinition of the employment contract, one that represents a massive seizing of our intellectual property on a grand scale,” professors from nine of the 13 UW campuses wrote in a recent letter to UW System President Jay Rothman. “It would allow any UW campuses to fire any employee and nonetheless continue teaching their courses in perpetuity with no obligation to continue paying the employee for their work.”

Aside from owning faculty syllabi, lecture notes and exam materials, UW would also have ownership rights over the scholarship faculty create:

A draft of the new policy, obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, would eliminate existing copyright language and replace it with the assertion that UW System holds ownership of both “institutional work” and “scholarly work.”

<SNIP>

“Scholarly work” includes most of what professors produce, such as lecture notes, course materials, journal articles and books. The UW System transfers copyright ownership to the author, as is customary in higher education, but notes that it “reserves” the right to use the works for purposes “consistent with its educational mission and academic norms.”

 

DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: Given that I’ve got about a dozen textbooks in the field, I edit a journal that needs scholarly work to keep it running, I spent seven years crafting hundreds of blog posts and that I’ve built a ton of courses over my nearly 30 years of teaching, this was basically my calm, metered reaction:

beaker from the muppet show is screaming with the words time to freakout above him

I’ve already sent a copy of the proposal to Sage for its team of lawyers to go over, so I’m hopeful that I receive an answer along the lines of, “Calm down… Have a Diet Coke… This isn’t going to destroy what you’ve spent decades creating…”

In the meantime, let’s lay out how stupid and problematic this is:

The quality of your courses depend on the people you’re pissing off:  We essentially went through this in my media-writing class today and a collection of sophomores and juniors understood it, so I’m hoping it might make sense to the Board of Regents.

I proposed the following scenario to one kid in the class: Let’s say you turned in a really good story as an assignment for this class. In fact, I thought it was so good, I took your name off of it, put my name on it and submitted it to the local paper. The paper then paid me $50 for the story.

I then asked the kid, “So, given that every time you turn in something good, I’m going to take it, put my name on it and make money from it, how likely are you to put forth your best effort in this class?”

The kid said, “There’s no way I’m going to do anything good for you anymore.”

Right. So, let’s play that out here: If every time I work REALLY hard on making good stuff for my class, the U is just going to claim it as its own, why would I bother to do anything more than the bare minimum to make my class work?

I guess you could make the argument that pride in our work and a desire to make things better for our students could inspire us to do great things, even in the face of a naked power grab by the system, but if you’re going to treat us like mercenaries, we’re going to behave that way.

This will stifle innovation, limit interest in developing new courses and create a general sense of animosity among faculty. It will also likely inspire professors to find new ways to hide stuff from the administration folks, as one person on social media suggested to me:

This stuff isn’t a product, but rather a process: Inherent to the system’s argument is the basic premise of work product: You built this stuff while you were employed by us and required to do so. Therefore, since we paid you for this, the stuff is ours.

That works in the private sector, where we’re tasked with specific outcomes and granted special provisions to create this kind of work product. For example, I know that when I worked at the Wisconsin State Journal, I wrote a lot of articles that the paper published. Implicit in my employment agreement was the premise that I was acting on behalf of the paper, writing things that the paper tasked me to write and publishing those things in a copyrighted publication. They own that stuff and I’m cool with that. I don’t think I’m ever going to want to republish a weather story I wrote in 1996, and if I did something cool I wanted to show my students, that’s acceptable use.

However, when it comes to my media-writing class, I didn’t get hired to write lecture notes and syllabi for that class. In fact, what I wrote was a tweaked version of something I’d been working on for decades. I’d drafted some of this conceptual stuff when I was working at UW-Madison, improved upon it when I was at Mizzou, reconfigured it at Ball State and then adapted it here. This isn’t like you hired me to bake a cake for your birthday. This is a tree I’ve been growing and tending for years and years.

 

The material might not be UW’s to steal: Even if you don’t buy the argument above, the instructors might not own the material they’re using in the first place.

Textbook publishers aren’t just sending out desk copies of a dead-tree books and telling fledgling professors, “Vaya con Dios.” They actually build a ton of back-end stuff into the educational packages they provide these days, which includes a lot of the stuff the system is trying to get its grubby little paws on.

I know for my books at Sage, we have sample syllabi, PowerPoint slides for lectures, notes for instructors, exercises and test banks crammed with questions. I might even be forgetting some of the stuff we provide.

(Shameless Plug: Sage really is amazing when it comes to this kind of stuff. If you ever need a book, check these folks out first, especially if you need some help with the shaping and molding of the entire class experience.)

These things are available to instructors because Sage built them to go along with the authors’ textbooks. The professors can use them as they are, add stuff, cut stuff or otherwise tweak what they receive. That said, it’s not theirs to sell or give away. Sage holds the copyright for this stuff and I imagine Sage and the other book publishers who pour a ton of time and resources into building these things would be more than a bit peeved if the UW System tried to claim it as its own.

 

The Coy and Vance Duke Theory of Education: When I was a kid, I loved “The Dukes of Hazzard” television show, which ran every Friday for about seven or eight years. The show involved two cousins, Bo and Luke Duke, getting into scrapes with the corrupt law enforcement of Hazzard County and doing amazing car chases in their 1969 Dodge Charger. Along with patriarch Uncle Jesse Duke and the lovely cousin Daisy Duke, the boys were “makin’ their way, the only way they know how,” to quote the theme song.

It was a simple show that drew a good audience and it seemed to work well. However, around the fifth season, John Schneider and Tom Wopat (who played Bo and Luke, respectively) got into a contract dispute with the studio over salaries. Rather than pay them and move on with life, the studio had the idea in its head that the car (the General Lee) was actually the star of the show, so it didn’t matter who was driving it and that they didn’t need these two pretty boys at all.

Enter new cousins: Coy and Vance Duke.

If ever there was a knock-off of a brand name, this was it. Like the original Duke Boys, one was blonde, one was brunette. They essentially wore the same wardrobe, had the same catch phrases and did the same insane driving stuff. That said, the ratings took a dump and after one season, Bo and Luke “returned from driving the NASCAR circuit” and Coy and Vance ended up fading from memory.

What the universities are doing here is essentially the same kind of thing. They figure, “Well, hell, if we have the notes, the syllabus and the PowerPoint slides, we don’t really need the professor who created them at the front of the room.” These folks assume that once we decide to leave, retire or whatever, they can just plug in an adjunct at a fraction of the cost and things will run like a Swiss watch.  And that’s not just me being paranoid, as other folks see it as well:

I pretty much know my notes aren’t going to be helpful to other people as I wrote them based on a lot of my experiences in the field. Notes like (BUS FIRE STORY GOES HERE) or (EXPLAIN DRUG DEALER SHOT THING) probably won’t work for a random Coy or Vance they bring in to teach my class after they decide they don’t need me anymore.

 

HERE’S WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: One of the biggest reasons I’m worried about this is because it impacts what I can do with my materials. That’s also the main reason why I think you should care about it, too.

I never took this job to get rich and I certainly don’t like the idea of coming across like Daffy Duck when he found the treasure room:

However, when I know stuff is mine to do with as I please, that tends to benefit a lot of other people as well. Whenever someone shoots me an email and says, “Hey, how do you organize your class?” I’m always happy to give them a copy of my syllabus. When someone needs an assignment I’ve built, I’m glad to share it with them or on the blog.

When we went into COVID lock down, I basically dumped everything I ever did that I thought would help people into the Corona Hotline section of the blog for free. All those goodies remain there to this day, so feel free to help yourself.

If this policy passes, I might not be as free to offer that kind of generosity any more, and that would really tick me off.

An Open Challenge for Writers of “Graduating Staffer Says Goodbye” Columns in Student Newspapers

(Depending on your view, the senior goodbye columns that tend to populate student newspapers this time of year are fine or an abomination against the basic tenets of journalism. Or, in some cases, both.)

 

One of the best resources online for student media stuff, student journalism and generally keeping up with anything related to journalism at the college level is Barbara Allen’s College Journalism Newsletter.

(Thanks to some recent sponsorship, she’s taken down the paywall, but as a continuing paying customer, I have to say, I get far more out of her wisdom than I pay for.)

Allen’s look at student media this week included her thoughts on the traditional “senior columns” that graduating student media staffers write in the final issue of the paper:

I always have a complicated reaction when I read them, but this semester, something finally became clear.

The curmudgeon in me: “What value do these columns have to the community or audiences?” The momma bear: “What’s the harm in these hardworking students finally just having a few column inches of fun?”

What finally struck me this year has been hiding in plain sight all along: These columns provide incredible insights into precisely why students value student media.

<SNIP>

My call to action for you this week, whether you’re running a student newsroom or lecturing to classrooms or running an entire journalism department: What about your student media program is revealed when you read between the lines of these student farewell columns? And how can you synthesize that information for future recruitment, talking points, mentoring and classroom lessons?

I’ll get to that last paragraph in a subsequent post, but today I wanted to commiserate a bit with Allen over her “maybe yes/maybe no” vibe when it comes to these kinds of things.

I also want to offer your students a chance to kick my ass all over the place.

Personally, I have no problem with these “goodbye” columns. The students who write them work for little to no money, work way too many hours not to be in violation of some sort of forced servitude law, get constantly beaten up in the world of public opinion for minor errors and generally have a decent portion of the soul eroded through this “extra-curricular activity.” If they want a chunk of newspaper space or a spot on the website to say their peace, I’m a big fan.

However, I’ll challenge the group of students building theirs right now to do them better than the seniors have in the past. If they do, I’ll feature their pieces on the blog. I’ll also gladly submit to any reasonable request they have of me (public decency and libel laws still apply. Oh, and I’m not writing your senior thesis for you…)

Here are the three points of this challenge:

STOP BEING SO PREDICTABLE: If there’s one thing that drives me nuts about these things is that they are so generic, I could write them in my sleep. It took all of about 20 minutes to create this “Madlibs” version of the typical senior goodbye column:

If you really learned so much at the paper over the course of your college career, consider demonstrating it by doing something engaging and special. At the very least, make your piece somehow different from the other six “goodbye” pieces that are running right next to yours in the paper.

Prove you’re better than the script of a B-movie horror flick and do something that doesn’t have the words “generic” and “cliche” written all over it.

 

ESCAPE FROM PERSONAL PRONOUN HELL: It isn’t easy to write a piece about yourself without being self-referential. That said, as much as this piece is for you, it’s also for other people, so try to find a way to cut back on the uses of “I” and “me” and “my” in here.

On a lark, I pulled the first three paragraphs of the last three of these “send off” pieces available on various student media outlets. Self-referential pronouns (I, me, my etc.) accounted for about 12-14% of all words used there.

It’s not always easy to cut back on these, and there’s no shame in being personally reflective in a piece like this. However, when you sound like Donald Trump writing his autobiography while on a meth bender, you really need to reconsider your approach to all this.

 

MAKE YOUR MEMORIES MEMORABLE (IN A GOOD WAY): As we mentioned in a previous post, a set of “goodbye columns” can be memorable for all the wrong reasons. What we’re talking about here is leaving behind something wonderfully memorable.

As someone who writes a ton of copy for various platforms, I’ll be the first to admit that not every day is filled with brilliance and not every missive should win a Pulitzer. Some pieces are good, others are like the “get me over fastball” that just has to be in the strike zone somewhere and at least a few are wince-worthy duds. It’s the normal curve of writing a lot.

However, you only get one shot at this. It’s your staff goodbye, your senior “bon voyage,” your one golden moment in the sun. Make it something epic and special in a way that the rest of us can feel it, too.

One of the best things that can be said of a well-reported and deftly written obituary is that people who read it learn about someone in whose death they wished they’d gotten to know in life. That is the thing the piece you are writing right now should provide for your readers.

Sure, the people who know you best will get a lot out of the stories you tell and the memories you share, but people who DON’T know you should find themselves enamored with your tales and desperate to connect with this newsroom you describe.

Give this thing one good swing and make it count. I can’t wait to see it.

 

 

Kash Money: FBI Director Patel sues the Atlantic over claims he’s a drunk (and what journalism students should learn from this situation)

Although this isn’t a great look for a guy accused of drinking to excess, the author of the Atlantic article on Kash Patel stated that this is among the least worrisome moments of his time as FBI director.

THE LEAD: Kash Patel is looking for cash money to the tune of about $250 million, after the Atlantic ran an article accusing him of being too drunk too frequently to run the FBI :

The F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, sued The Atlantic on Monday, accusing it of defamation over an article that claimed his excessive drinking and unexplained absences were putting his job in jeopardy.

The article, under the headline “The FBI Director Is MIA,” was published on Friday and detailed Mr. Patel’s behavior in his role leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation, citing more than two dozen anonymous sources. The author, Sarah Fitzpatrick, wrote that Mr. Patel’s conduct had “often alarmed officials at the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice.” The article said he “has also earned a reputation for acting impulsively during high-stakes investigations.”

Mr. Patel denied the claims in a statement to The Atlantic, which the article included.

THE BACKGROUND: Sarah Fitzpatrick’s article focuses on a string of incidents in which a long list of unnamed sources note that Patel was exhibiting all the textbook signs of an entitled frat boy. These allegations included:

  • He was drunk and missing a lot of work because of it.
  • He was drunk at his favorite local bar while hanging out with co-workers.
  • He frequently jetted off to Las Vegas, where he got plastered at another favorite hangout.
  • People had to rework his schedule to avoid early morning meetings because Patel was sleeping off the action from the night before.
  • He was too messed up to do his job when people tried to reach him, or they just couldn’t reach him at all.
  • He bragged about things that weren’t true, including misinforming the public about the capture of the Brown University shooter.

The White House issued a statement with a blanket denial of these allegations and Patel himself was quoted as saying, “Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court—bring your checkbook.”

 

IT’S ALREADY FIRST AMENDMENT 1, PATEL 0 IN DEFAMATION SUITS:  A judge has already tossed out one of Patel’s attempts at cowing the media based on allegations of defamation:

A federal judge in Texas has tossed a defamation suit brought by FBI Director Kash Patel against former FBI assistant director-turned-MSNBC contributor Frank Figliuzzi.

Patel had sued Figliuzzi over comments he made on “Morning Joe” about the FBI director’s evening activities.

“Yeah, well, reportedly, he’s been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building,” Figliuzzi said on the show last year.

<SNIP>

U.S. District Judge George Hanks Jr. (wrote) “Figliuzzi’s statement, when taken in context, cannot have been perceived by a person of ordinary intelligence as stating actual facts about Patel.”

“A person of reasonable intelligence and learning would not have taken his statement literally: that Dir. Patel has actually spent more hours physically in a nightclub than he has spent physically in his office building,” the judge added.

I’m glad about the verdict, but given what we’re seeing these days in terms of “reasonable intelligence and learning” out there, I’m worried where that bar will be set in the future.

 

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE AS A JOURNALISM STUDENT: This article and Patel’s suit provide a pretty interesting look at how defamation (or libel) tends to work or not work, as well as an opportunity to look into building stories like this. Here are some key issues:

UNNAMED SOURCES: This whole story is built on the backs of sources that Fitzpatrick did not name in the article. That is ALWAYS a huge risk in journalism for a variety of reasons. Source credibility comes into question, issues of people having axes to grind show up, sources who eventually get IDed might backtrack and leave you holding the bag… The list is pretty long and the dangers are pretty strong.

The things that make this a little more stable than many of the other stories that show up with an unnamed source along with a wing and a prayer are:

A) The volume of sources. Fitzpatrick is stacking people like cord wood in this thing, noting as many as a dozen people have corroborated the things she’s putting into her piece. If that is accurate, and I have no substantive reason to doubt it, that means this story has some stronger legs to stand on than most.

B) I go back to a conversation I had with my friend Allison, who covered the Chicagoland Catholic church molestation scandals of the early 2000s. I used to ask her how she knew for sure that the priests in her stories were serial pedophiles. The information she gathered came from the accusers, usually years or decades later, and was almost impossible to back up with documents or other “official source” content that I had gotten used to using in my own work.

Her answer was simple: She did a ton of digging, verified in every way she could and then she published the content and waited. In almost every case, if she published one or two accusations, she immediately heard from at least three or four other people who told her the same things had happened to them.

Cue the update from Fitzpatrick after her story ran:

“My response is that I stand by every single word of this report,” she said. “We were very diligent. We were very careful. It went through multiple levels of editing, review, care.

“And I think one of the things that has been most gratifying, after – immediately after the story published was, I have been inundated by additional sourcing going up to the highest levels of the government, thanking us for doing the work, providing additional corroborating information.”

The only way Fitzpatrick was going to get this story was by providing anonymity to her sources, so she took a risk. That said, it wasn’t a foolish risk, which is something to keep in mind when someone says, “Hey, I have a story for you, but you can’t use my name…”

 

A HIGH BAR TO CLEAR: As a public figure, Patel has to demonstrate that the Atlantic engaged in actual malice, as opposed to mere negligence, and that’s a pretty tough thing to do. As the folks at Poynter point out:

Can Patel actually be successful in his suit? Sure, anything is possible, but it’s unlikely.

During an appearance on CNN, Brian Stelter, CNN’s media reporter, said, “Actual malice is the very high legal standard that public figures have to prove in order to win a defamation suit. They have to prove that The Atlantic knew these claims were false or had a reckless disregard for the truth.”

This kind of goes back to the first point in a way: When you only have one anonymous/unnamed source, there’s a huge risk you are buying the Brooklyn Bridge and you should know better. When you have a dozen or more people telling you the exact same thing, it’s going to be hard to prove a vast conspiracy among those folks and the reporter, with them all knowingly trying to frame you for something.

It also merits pointing out that what makes for a public figure or not isn’t always easy, so it’s important to think about the stories you’re writing that might cast aspersions. Patel is obviously public, but if you’re writing a similar “too drunk to work” story about the school librarian or a local business owner, if things go south, this might be a concern.

 

GETTING SLAPP-ED AROUND: We have discussed the concept of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, or SLAPP, suits here before. The John Oliver/Bob Murray Suit was one of my favorite versions of SLAPP suits, primarily because not only was it so blatantly obviously meant to silence criticism, but also because it allowed me to use the name “Mr. Nutterbutter” in my textbooks.

As fun as this was, not every SLAPP suit involves two giant bankrolls fighting it out in court. In one case in Georgia, a prominent family sued a grocery worker with what was clearly a case of SLAPP. In another case, an Iowa newspaper almost went bankrupt defending itself against a libel suit that smacked of SLAPP. In that situation, a police officer sued the paper for accurately reporting his inappropriate relationships with teenage girls.

This brings to bear an unfortunate point: Just because you’re right, it doesn’t mean some yahoo won’t sue you to make your life miserable. What’s important to know before you go after a story is to what degree your media outlet will support you, to what degree you can accurately defend your work and to what degree you think the juice is worth the squeeze. Then, you can decide how to move forward.

In Patel’s case, it was obvious he would be coming after the Atlantic, and it was obvious the Atlantic had a big enough war chest to fight back. That said, these kinds of suits can create a chilling effect on quality journalists who want to do important work. It’s not supposed to happen in a society in which the First Amendment provides us with some of the best support in the world, but we do have to deal with the reality of our surroundings.

 

The Atlantic deals with a massive lawsuit regarding potential defamation. No, not that one… (A Throwback Post)

THE LEAD: The Atlantic magazine is once again on the radar of the Defamation Danger Zone:

FBI Director Kash Patel filed a defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic and its reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick following the publication of an article on Friday alleging the director had ​a drinking problem that could pose a threat to national security.
The magazine’s story, initially titled “Kash Patel’s Erratic Behavior Could Cost Him His Job,” cited more than two ‌dozen anonymous sources expressing concern about Patel’s “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences” that “alarmed officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice.”

CONCERNING CONTEXT: Patel is seeking $250 million, a number I can only assume is intended to cover his bar bill at the Poodle Room, in Las Vegas. His only comment in the story was a statement that challenged the magazine to “print it, all false,” adding that he would sue if they did.

Given the way in which media outlets seem to be folding like a cardboard box in the rain when it comes to settling these suits, it’ll be interesting to see what happens next.

We’re planning a Patel overview for Monday, as more pieces are moving in this situation than usual, but we thought it would be valuable to look back at a previous legal battle the Atlantic dealt with earlier this year. In that case, they quietly settled with an author who claimed their retraction of her story damaged her reputation.

 

“Can You Libel a Disaster?” (And several other questions that came to mind after The Atlantic gave Ruth Shalit Barrett $1 Million)

Ruth Shalit Barrett received more than $1 million after suing The Atlantic for defamation, based on its approach to retracting this story. For that kind of money, they must have said this is a photo of Barrett drowning a couple dozen kids in a pool laced with electrical lines.

THE LEAD: When in doubt, sue somebody, because it apparently works:

The Atlantic quietly agreed to pay more than $1 million early this summer to settle a lawsuit by the writer Ruth Shalit Barrett, who had accused the magazine of defamation after it took the rare step of retracting an article she had written and replacing it with an editor’s note, according to a person with knowledge of the settlement.

Ms. Barrett, who wrote an article about youth sports in wealthy areas as a freelancer for The Atlantic in 2020, sued the publication and one of its editors in January 2022. She said the outlet had smeared her reputation and asked for $1 million in damages.

 

DOCTOR OF PAPER FLASHBACK: I was working on another post over the weekend when I noticed a post I wrote several years ago about Barrett’s article and subsequent lawsuit was getting heavy traffic for no apparent reason. A quick Google search of her name helped me figure it out.

At the time, I figured there was NO WAY this thing was going anywhere. The strength of my prediction powers is also why I suck at Fantasy Football.

 

THE DETAILS: Barrett wrote a story about niche sports that rich parents were pushing their kids to enter, in hopes of gaining an edge when the kids applied to Ivy League schools. The story had a number of problems, including an anonymous source that wasn’t that anonymous, the creation of a kid out of thin air, the exaggeration of an injury to a kid during a fencing match and more.

Eric Wemple of the Washington Post dug into this story and started finding more and more things that didn’t make sense, something the editors of The Atlantic also began to notice. At some point, they decided, “Screw it, we can’t save the patient” and retracted the story with a lengthy editor’s note about the story and Barrett’s history in media.

As a result, Barrett filed the suit, arguing that the note defamed her in several ways. She asked for it to be rewritten and that she be given the story’s publishing rights. The two sides went to arbitration, leading to some edits to the note and a lot of cash.

 

A FEW QUESTIONS: In reading this over and over again, I found myself asking several rhetorical questions, one of which was, “Can I sue Sage for no good reason with the hopes that they give me a squillion dollars to go away for a while?”  While the answer to that one marinates in your mind, here are a couple others:

CAN YOU LIBEL A DISASTER? I’m not calling Barrett a disaster for obvious reasons, not the least of which is I don’t have a million bucks I want to throw away. I’m more or less wondering how we started with a story so bad that it required a full retraction and ended with a pay day of this nature.

The publication stated it was aware of her history of not quite exhibiting the best level of judgment in regard to journalistic integrity. Wemple dug a bit deeper into her life and found more than a few clinkers along the way, including problems with the story on these weird sports. The fact checkers were lied to in at least two cases, with one source being encouraged to lie. (The original note said “at least one” while the new note says “one,” a distinction without merit from a language position. Also, who told you it was “only” one? The person you initially found was involved in all the lying and encouraging others to lie, so… um…)

Courts have ruled on a number of occasions that certain people and situations are “libel-proof,” in that nothing further can be done to harm their reputation. In addition, courts have stated that libel doesn’t apply if only “incremental harm” can be demonstrated. In the former, the courts basically say that someone or something is so bad, any statement that might be libelous toward any other person or group won’t qualify as libel. In the latter, it’s like a person in prison for 10 counts of murder sues you for reporting that they have a dozen unpaid parking tickets.

In looping back to this situation, I fail to see how the changes to the note or the statements regarding Barrett improved the situation to the point of avoiding libel. The distinctions in here feel to me like the quote in “Great Balls of Fire!” when someone yells at Jerry Lee Lewis that  he married his 12 year old cousin, Myra, to which she retorts, “Second cousin, twice removed!” Oh. Well.

The question of how bad was the defamation in relation to what was already out there has me pondering what level of reputation she recouped as a result of the suit. In short, do people who thought poorly of her now think better of her after this? Or did people who thought better of her before the retraction think worse of her AFTER that retraction?

Or did the big check just make things better?

 

WHEN DID GP GO MIA? I seem to remember a time, not so long ago, when people did things on “GP” or “general principle.” In other words, it was standing up for the right side of something or holding someone to account for something, even if it would be easier to just throw in the towel.

Case in point, my parents told me when I first got my license that if I got a speeding ticket, I’d lose my right to drive for a protracted period of time. No muss, no fuss, no BS. Just put the keys on the table. Sure enough, when I was 17, I was ticketed for speeding along a stretch of road that was a notorious speed trap. I walked into the house, put the ticket on the table, dropped the keys on top of it and that was that for a while.

What my parents DIDN’T foresee was that I was involved in about 912 activities that required me to be at various locations at night and on weekends. It would have been far easier for them to just give me back the keys and let me drive myself. However, Mom and Dad dug in and ended up driving me to and from all those things until the predetermined punishment time had ended. It was inconvenient for them, but they decided the principle of the thing mattered. I learned a lot from that and have since avoided speeding tickets, although now that I’ve said that, I’m sure I’m getting nailed on the way home.

The larger point is: When did we stop fighting just because the fights were hard? We’ve recently had the “60 Minutes” lawsuit, the ABC lawsuit, and several other lawsuits that have the “Fourth Estate” folding like a cheap cardboard box in a rainstorm. It’s like, “It’s cheaper and easier to just pay people to go away.” Well, that’s like paying protection money to the mob, assuming it’s a one-time thing.

It’s not just the news business, but it seems like we fold up everywhere: A kid threatens us, we change a grade. A social media “influencer” pulls focus onto a post we made, we take it down and apologize. Don’t even get me started about what the kids are doing in the ice cream aisle at Walmart these days. What happened to standing on principle?

There are times where I go into a situation knowing full well I’m going to lose and there are other times, where the risks are pretty damned high that I will. Still, there’s something that says, “No. You aren’t folding. You’re gonna play this hand out, because you can’t live with yourself if you don’t.”

I feel this moment so deeply

I understand that money is a predominant factor in pretty much everything in the world today and I know that it’s easy to say what I would or wouldn’t do when it’s not my money to spend. That said, I think back to the people I admire the hell out of in this business, who would never have acquiesced as easily as it seems like so many people are so willing to do.