Dynamics of News Reporting & Writing

Journalists: If your mother says she loves you, go check it out (and then be damned sure it’s true)

As the Russian proverb says, “Trust, but verify.”

The long-held adage of journalists saying, “If your mother says she loves you, go check it out,” needs a little more updating these days, as it seems like NOTHING is as real as it seems. Thanks in large part to corner-cutting, scam-baiting and general laziness, we’re finding a lot of cases in which it never hurts to make absolutely sure you are sure. Here are a couple examples:

 

AT THIS POINT, JUST ASK THE MAGIC 8-BALL:  A few months back, we highlighted Rob Waugh’s story about journalists being duped by AI “experts” who churned out content that ranged from generic to highly suspect. Waugh’s latest piece found that journalists who are using supposedly “legitimate” systems to connect with sources are also now at the mercy of AI spamming, all while paying for the privilege of getting screwed:

A PR agency is selling an AI tool that automatically answers pitches from journalists on services such as ResponseSource, HARO and Qwoted.

The AI tool, called Synapse (not be confused with PR pitching platform Synapse Media), “reads” questions sent for for expert comment by journalists via the services, then analyses sources such as books, podcasts and reports per query and uses AI to draft email responses.

Journalist-request services such as HARO charge a fee for connecting PR agencies with journalists. PRs can send out story pitches to journalists and also get access to requests for expert comment.

<SNIP>

The makers of Synapse, Lithuania-based PR agency Wellstone PR, boast that it has a 7-8% acceptance rate, and that used by a human “editor”, it can answer around 20 pitches per hour with one human PR person able to do the work of five.T

The company brags in its pitch to potential clients that it will provide them with fictional content that sounds so much like the real thing, journalists won’t know the difference. I don’t know if it bothers me more that a) it would appear journalists are getting inept/lazy enough not to notice that they’re being fed total bullpucky or b) that the PR professionals are writing such average, generic stuff so often that journalists can’t distinguish it from whatever garbage an AI can produce.

The cost for this service is a one-time fee of $2,500. The only saving grace is that they apparently haven’t sold this to anyone. Yet.

The PR experts quoted in Waugh’s piece are clearly not thrilled by this breach of trust.

Andy Smith, founder of Sourcee, which aims to offer credible, video-checked experts, says that using AI tools in this way erodes trust.

Smith said: “When journalists post a journo request, there’s an implicit level of trust in the person replying. They’re hoping to hear from real people with genuine insights, experiences, and expertise that can bring their story to life.

“They certainly don’t want to receive an automated, AI-generated reply… if that’s what they were after, they could’ve just used ChatGPT themselves.

One thing that has me rethinking my “stop using these stupid “OK-Cupid-For-Quotes” sites” was a point that Smith made about how a good expert pool, like the one he says he’s built, is meant to broaden the reach of journalists. That can prevent them from only reaching out to familiar contacts and ending up with the “usual suspects” in every story. Still, if I had to pick between usual humans and a random lottery of AI word salad, I’ll stick with my boring peeps, thanks.

 

WSJ PLUS AI EQUALS WTF: If Cliff Behnke isn’t spinning in his grave over this situation, it’s only because he’s actively crawling out of it to come smack the shit out of somebody right now:

A story about development plans for a vacant downtown block that appeared on the front page of the Sunday, July 13, issue of the Wisconsin State Journal was removed Wednesday from the Madison daily newspaper’s website before being replaced by a “re-reported” story Thursday afternoon.

An editor’s note on the re-reported story states that the original “contained incorrect information and quotes that were created by an unauthorized use of AI, which does not adhere to the Wisconsin State Journal’s editorial or ethical standards.”

The story topic itself, both in what I can find of the original and the reboot, is a simple, boring tick-tock story about a development project, in which the material for the proposals are all easily accessible. This wasn’t like the reporter needed whatever the hell Tom Cruise is using in the latest “Mission Impossible” movie to create a miracle out of thin air.

It’s not quite clear what’s more terrifying: That a reporter decided to cut a corner on something this vanilla and didn’t bother to make sure on at least a few basic facts or that the editorial process didn’t catch something that was so wrong:

One section about “The Grove,” a proposal from Neutral, a Madison real estate development firm, outlined plans for a “food hall prioritizing minority-owned vendors” and a “community advisory board” that would shape the development’s public life. Neither of those features, nor the name “The Grove,” appear in Neutral’s proposal linked from a city press release listing the firms that responded to its RFP.

“It’s all wrong,” says Daniel Glaessl, Neutral’s chief product officer. No reporter had contacted the firm about the project before Isthmus reached out on Thursday afternoon, he says.

The Synapse people in the story above are like, “Hey, AI will write all your stuff, but don’t worry! The editor will be there to ‘create enough friction’ to prevent anything terrible from getting into the public sphere.” I’m having even bigger doubts about that concept now, especially since I know the folks involved at the WSJ and I have always respected and admired them. It always hurts a little more when it happens where you live.

And finally…

FOUL BALLS: It’s not a stretch to say that the sports memorabilia world is a multi-billion-dollar industry, in which athletes get paid exorbitant amounts of money for scrawling their names across all manner of items. What makes an athlete’s autograph worth the big bucks is a confluence of the awesomeness of the athlete and the rarity of their willingness to sign items. The more people want an athlete’s signature and the fewer of them exist, the more likely there will be fraud involved at some level.

In the 1990s, the FBI dug into the world of fraudulent autographs with “Operation Bullpen,” a multi-year investigation that took down a series of forgers who made a living faking the signatures of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Mark McGwire and others. In response, the major sports leagues and the preeminent autograph certification houses began using holograms, certificates, registration numbers and QR codes to assure buyers that the autographs they owned were, in fact, real.

It didn’t work as well as they had hoped:

Brett Lemieux, a 45-year-old resident of Westfield, Indiana, was the founder of sports memorabilia site Mister ManCave, which claimed to have sold millions of counterfeit items with net profits exceeding $350 million, and had “the largest framed jersey inventory on the web.”

Lemieux made the claims in a now-deleted Facebook post on the “Autographs 101” group Wednesday, saying the money was “too good” to pass up and that he wanted to stop the fraud, which had been going on for the better part of two decades.

Part of Lemieux’s post, bragging about his fraudulent creation of autographs and the holograms of multiple companies meant to prevent such fraud.

Over the past week, I’ve seen a ton of people submitting their Shohei Otani, Mike Trout, Derek Jeter and other autographs to online authentication groups, only to find that the balls, bats and photos are fakes. Many of these items have one, if  not more, authentic-looking holograms, to boot.

I know this seems far afield for journalists, but it really emphasizes an important point about how and why fraud persists in our space as much as it does everywhere else: If there’s money to be made in an easy way, people without scruples are going to take advantage of the situation.

That means we have to all be extra cautious about what we are willing to accept at face value and what we are willing to walk away from if the situation doesn’t feel right. It’s especially true when we really want something to work out, like getting that crucial source or making that tight deadline.

I’ve often said that paranoia is my best friend. Feel free to make it yours as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Mob Shakedown, Chump Change or An Affront to The Foundations of The Country: Framing Paramount’s $16M Settlement With President Trump

This interview, which literally and figuratively did absolutely nothing to the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, was at the core of a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit President Donald Trump filed against “60 Minutes.” 

THE LEAD: Paramount agreed late Tuesday to pay $16 million to settle President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over the editing of a Kamala Harris interview on “60 Minutes” that Trump deemed fraudulent and deceptive.

Trump sued Paramount in November for $10 billion, claiming the editing of the interview created “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference” intended to “mislead the public and attempt to tip the scales” of the 2024 election toward Harris.

Experts had long noted that the suit was frivolous and that Trump had a better shot of quarterbacking the Cleveland Browns to a Super Bowl title this year than he did of winning this case. Still, the parent company of “60 Minutes” took the settlement route, as a corporate sale of several billion dollars seemed to be at risk if it didn’t:

Many lawyers had dismissed Mr. Trump’s lawsuit as baseless and believed that CBS would have ultimately prevailed in court, in part because the network did not report anything factually inaccurate, and the First Amendment gives publishers wide leeway to determine how to present information.

But Shari Redstone, the chair and controlling shareholder of Paramount, told her board that she favored exploring a settlement with Mr. Trump. Some executives at the company viewed the president’s lawsuit as a potential hurdle to completing a multibillion-dollar sale of the company to the Hollywood studio Skydance, which requires the Trump administration’s approval.

After weeks of negotiations with a mediator, lawyers for Paramount and Mr. Trump worked through the weekend to reach a deal ahead of a court deadline that would have required both sides to begin producing internal documents for discovery, according to two people familiar with the negotiations.

FRAMING THE OUTCOME: We talked about Framing Theory a few months back, but for a brief recap, the idea is that how the media chooses to focus on an issue can shape how people in general will look at that issue. In this case, here are three I’ve seen pop up:

The Mob Shakedown: In most good gangster movies and TV shows, a scene emerges that showcases how to threaten someone without actually threatening them. It’s a pure demonstration of the power the “Don,” the “boss” or the “enforcer” has: Force someone to do something they don’t want to do out of pure fear of what otherwise might happen.

The shakedown scene usually starts with the gangster offering “friendship” or “protection” for a business owner, explaining that the world is a dangerous place and that a lot of bad things can happen. So, for a small percentage of the owner’s finances, this gangster will keep those bad things at bay.

If the owner protests, the gangster tends to get a little more specific while still being vague, offering “God forbid” scenarios like how a mysterious fire could burn the business to the ground or how a random act of violence could lead to the owner being hospitalized for serious injuries. However, fortunately, a payment to this “ambassador of goodwill” can pretty much eliminate those possibilities:

(This was the best “shakedown” scene I could find from any TV show or movie that a) didn’t use enough F-bombs to destroy an underground nuclear bunker, b) use other pejorative language regarding someone’s race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or pet preference and c) didn’t actually use the violence that was suggested earlier in the clip. Still, it’s not pure enough for totally virgin ears, so watch at your discretion.)

In the Paramount case, the company had a multi-billion-dollar deal waiting in the wings, but it needed “the Don’s” blessing to go through and a lot of terrible things can happen to a deal if, God forbid, the FCC decided to look reeeeeeealllly closely at it. I mean, who knows what might happen to all that money? If Paramount lost that deal just because of a little misunderstanding it could make right with this “60 Minutes” thing? Hey… I’m just saying…

Of course, the Trump administration definitely wasn’t doing that:

Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has said the president’s lawsuit against Paramount was not linked to the F.C.C.’s review of the company’s merger with Skydance. Paramount has also said the two issues were unrelated.

Right. And the business owner got that black eye and broken arm after “accidentally” falling down a flight of stairs before coming to the conclusion that protection money is a small price to pay for proper piece of mind.

 

Chump Change: If you look at some of the more successful campaigns to get money out of people, they tend to be the ones that appear to be the least taxing or consequential. Case in point, each year, my alma mater (or maters) send me a pledge card, asking for a “gift” of between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars. Those always go right in the trash without a second thought.

That said, I have a hard time recalling the last time I refused to “round up” at the grocery store, the hardware store or anywhere else for whatever charity the business was repping at the time. It’s like, “Hell, I’m already $132.47 into the Kroeger Family at this point. What’s another 53 cents for a good cause?”

In addition, I’ve seen people drop a few coins in a parking lot and refuse to pick them up, folks at rummage sales drop the “and XX cents” on a customer’s total and other similar maneuvers that basically just round off a relatively insignificant amount of cash.

Thus, the concept of “chump change.”

I personally have a hard time thinking about $16 million as “chump change,” but everything in life is relative, as noted in this clip from “The Social Network:”

I suppose if I’m looking at it from the perspective of a multi-billion-dollar company that wants to make several billion dollars on a deal, giving up $16 million isn’t a lot to make things happen. I also suppose that if a collections company told me I owed $1,000 to a creditor, but I could pay it off today for $1.60, I’d probably avoid the argument and fork over the cash. (Trust me on this one: The comparative math is solid.)

To Paramount, this is the cost of doing business. It’s rounding up at the register to move things along. It’s chump change.

 

An Affront to The Foundations of The Country:  After the news broke about the Paramount capitulation, it might have felt like time stood still for a few minutes. That’s probably because when Edward R. Murrow, Katherine Graham, Walter Cronkite, Ben Bradlee and David Brinkley (among other journalists) started simultaneously started spinning in their graves, the Earth found itself dealing with that “Superman The Movie” trick:

We’ve discussed SLAPP suits here before, where people with virtually no case whatsoever sue for a ton of money to get people to back off. In many of those cases, the defendants lack the sufficient means to truly stand their ground and fight back on behalf of truth, justice and the American way, so they knuckle under.

In this situation, Paramount had the funds, the legal might and the legal precedents to stand up for all the mom and pop media operations (whatever of those are left) and tell the president where to put his suit. Paramount also had the opportunity to stand up for the free press and free speech rights that have defined the country for generations.

It’s something Graham and Bradlee did before when a president came at them. It’s something Murrow did in a time in which a demagogue rattled this country to its core. It’s something so many other journalists and journalism operations have done in big and small ways to reassure us all that our rights are not a “when it’s convenient to people in power” thing.

But a funny thing happened on the way to our current predicament. News outlets are now part of larger conglomerates with larger concerns. TV news always lost money, relative to other programming, but it was seen as part of the deal: You give us quality news, we let you use the public airwaves. Newspapers use to make money and hold sway over larger groups of people. Furthermore, they weren’t part of a collective that also did entertainment programming, sold time shares, controlled real estate and answered to shareholders. Their concern was doing the news well and defending their right to do it.

For Paramount, “60 Minutes” is a “property” of the company, just like all the other stuff they put on TV. If an episode of “School Spirits” pissed off enough people to prevent a multi-billion-dollar deal from happening, they’d kill it or edit it or pay off someone, too. Cost of doing business. That’s the company’s view. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.

However, when one company lets the powerful dictate the news based on threats like this suit, it undermines the strength of those First Amendment rights for everyone else.

Ask a generic question, get a generic answer: The perils and promise of letting ChatGPT build your interview questions

Believe it or not, we actually used to sell beer like this. Try not to let AI make your interview questions as generic as this marketing approach.

As I noted in previous posts, I wasn’t significantly worried about ChatGPT or other AI programs taking over journalism at this point. The writing wasn’t clean, the material we cover is too specific and the nuances of the language tended to create more problems than solutions.

That changed a bit when a former student told me people in her orbit were using ChatGPT to create interview questions for everything from press releases to profiles. My concerns ranged from students becoming lazy to ChatGPT asking some pretty offensive questions that ill-prepared or inexperienced writers would use to their own detriment.

To see what would happen, I relied on a situation a friend found herself in last week while teaching at Missouri Boys and Girls State. One of the guest speakers was Barbara P. Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush and granddaughter of former President George H. W. Bush. She has also been a significant figure as an author and global health care activist.

My friend noted that one of her students had an exceptionally good interview moment with Barbara P. Bush, which we’ll get to in a moment. Before that happens, I decided to let ChatGPT take the wheel and build me a set of interview questions for the former First Daughter:

Here are five thoughtful and engaging questions an interviewer could ask Barbara Pierce Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush:

  1. Your work with Global Health Corps has been widely recognized—what inspired you to focus on global health, and how has that mission evolved over the years?
    (This connects her personal passion to her professional work.)

  2. Growing up in one of America’s most prominent political families, how did you navigate forming your own identity outside of politics?
    (This explores the personal challenge of living in the public eye.)

  3. You and your twin sister Jenna have often shared stories of your childhood—how has your bond influenced your adult life and careers?
    (This taps into her well-known relationship with her sister and could elicit warm, relatable stories.)

  4. What lessons did you learn from your mother, Laura Bush, that have shaped how you approach leadership and service?
    (This allows reflection on legacy and values from a female role model.)

  5. In today’s divisive political climate, how do you think members of prominent political families can help encourage civility and understanding?
    (This invites her to speak thoughtfully about public discourse without diving into partisanship.)

It’s a solid list, but here are a couple key problems I noticed:

  1. Bush has been asked and has answered most of these questions at length before. This means she probably has a pretty standard answer for them, so you’re not getting anything new.
  2. Not one of them directly attaches itself to the idea of your dad being the “most powerful man in the world.” (I always believed my dad to be the “most powerful man in the world” back when I was a kid, as I’m sure a lot of kids my age did back in the day. That said, my dad didn’t have Seal Team 6 or the 82nd Airborne to deploy when my room got too messy for him to tolerate.)

The question my friend’s student asked perfectly dealt with those two problems:

“How did your dad change after Sept. 11?”

Bush teared up immediately, not expecting a question like that, nor one phrased exactly that way. She gave a great answer about how he changed but he would always be her dad. She also thanked the student for asking that question and really tapping into something different.

Even in that scenario, it’s hard to pick on ChatGPT’s effort. These are good questions, and the bot does a good job of rationalizing what each question should provide the interviewer. I could clearly imagine being flustered if I were to interview someone famous like a former First Daughter, who has carved out an impressive career of her own. ChatGPT’s questions would put me on some better ground than, “So what’s it like to be a twin?” or “Was it weird having your high school dates pick you up at the governor’s mansion?”

That said, ChatGPT struggles a bit more when it comes to people who aren’t internationally famous. I picked a Facebook friend at random and tried the same thing, ending up with one of my favorite high school teachers, Greg Frederick, as the guinea pig for this situation (Sorry in advance, Mr. Frederick…):

Here are five thoughtful and respectful questions an interviewer could ask Greg Frederick, former teacher at Pius XI High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:

  1. What initially inspired you to pursue a career in education, and what led you to Pius XI High School specifically?

  2. How did your teaching philosophy evolve during your time at Pius XI, and what impact did that have on your students?

  3. Can you share a memorable moment or experience from your teaching career that still resonates with you today?

  4. How did you approach balancing academic rigor with the values and mission of a Catholic high school like Pius XI?

  5. What advice would you give to new educators entering the profession, especially those teaching in faith-based schools?

A couple of these are solid “opener” questions that could get the ball rolling for a decent interview. Why you wanted to be a teacher and why you ended up teaching at Pius for as long as you did could establish report. The third question is always a good one, in allowing the person to open up about something important and not forcing the interview subject to feel pigeonholed.

A couple of these feel problematic: The second question is a bit iffy in that we assume he changed over time (not always a guarantee) and that it impacted his students (again, not a guarantee). The fourth question could be taken poorly, as someone might read it as the values and mission of the faith are at odds with educational rigor.

The bigger thing, again, is that they’re generic. These could be asked of any biped who spent an appreciable length of time teaching any subject at any religious-based high school. In short, there’s less out there on Mr. Frederick because he’s not a president, a pope or a Kardashian.

I don’t know him as well as a lot of other people, I’m sure, in that I was a student at the school for four years during a specific time period, and I haven’t kept up with his life like a stalker in a made-for-TV movie. That said, I do know certain things that might have led to different questions:

  • He taught English at the school, including upper-level courses like honors English and a course in science fiction and fantasy literature. Sci fi seems to predict the future in a lot of ways, so I’d love to ask a question relating his work in that area with what we are seeing now (social media, phones glued to our souls etc.). I’d also like to know what thoughts he would have on how best to inspire his best writing kids to do good work these days, given AI’s rampant use in generating essays.
  • His wife was also a teacher at the school for a time, although not in the same department. A question about what it’s like working in the same place as a spouse, including benefits and drawbacks, would be interesting to me and probably a lot of people who face similar issues. I know how weird it was when Amy was working for the MU police department and I was running the crime beat for the local newspaper. I wonder how people who actually work closer than that find themselves coping with it.
  • His kids went to that school, including his son, Chris, who was in my grade. This opens up a ton of real estate for questions, particularly for me as I was also a teacher’s kid. After kindergarten, my mom and I were not at the same school ever. I’d be interested in finding out what discussions led to the Frederick kids going to school where mom and dad worked. I wonder if they’d do it the same way again, based on how it all worked out for the kids and the parents.

(SIDE NOTE: Chris and I participated in a number of musicals together, which speaks more to the desperation the directors felt in getting males into the productions than it did to our musical acumen. In preparing for one such musical, the choral director actually told both of us to just “mouth the words” during the songs as we were not only godawful at singing, but we were screwing up everyone else who could carry a tune. Good memories…)

  • I’d be interested on his take on things like homeschooling, which really beefed up its presence over the past few decades, in terms of teaching your own kids or being able to have other people teach them. I’m sure I could blather on forever here, but let’s move on…
  • It never hurts to ask the “So what are you doing now that you retired?” question, in that it opens the door to something people who learned from Mr. Frederick or taught with him probably want to know.

Again, this is just based on some basic stuff that I know that ChatGPT doesn’t. If I were to end up doing a profile on Mr. Frederick, I’d take my normal “build the donut around the hole” approach and interview his family, some people I know who taught with him, some of his students who have gone on to work in specific fields and so forth. The goal would be to figure out what kinds of questions to ask that are more on point about him specifically as opposed to Generic Catholic High School Teacher X.

This is why it’s important to use ChatGPT as a tool in your toolbox and not view it as a panacea for completing your work. If you don’t go beyond the basics that ChatGPT can offer, you will never create anything better than a basic piece.

Tell me what media-writing and journalism exercises your kids need and I’ll build them for you

So, so pretty… And no, I was not inspired by “Wicked” when I approved this. Unless you would adopt it because of that, in which case, I’ll have you know I always sing “Defying Gravity” before I come to work.

With the fourth edition of “Dynamics of Media Writing” set to debut in August, and with the third edition of “Dynamics of News Reporting and Writing” having just published, it seemed like a good time to add some extra value to the books.

The biggest need people tend to express in reviewing textbooks is the need for more exercises. A friend hit me with an email about that just the other week:

Really hoping to find a text that offers enough exercises so we don’t have to require an exercise book.

I get it and that’s one of the reasons why we shifted from the exercise books that accompanied the texts to the blog approach. Kids pay a lot of money for school, so if we can give them everything they need for less, hey, I’m a big fan.

That said, asking for more exercises is a lot like when Amy says, “What are you thinking about for dinner?” I usually have no idea, as she often asks this right after we eat a huge breakfast, and I’m more of a “eat whatever is near me when I’m hungry” type of guy.

So, to better guide the focus of my summer work that will include both learning how to weld sheet metal and creating some more exercises for you all, I need some help. I also figure it’s a good time to ask this now, as most of you have just finished a semester, so the “Holy hell, do these kids need more practice doing XYZ” angst is likely fresh in your minds.

Either post at the end of this post or shoot me a message through the “Contact” page and answer the following questions:

1) What topics are most in need of exercises for your kids? Look at the chapters in either or both books and see what things I’ve written about that your students struggle with the most. That could be broader topics like grammar or interviewing, or it could be more specific things like how to write an obituary or a press release.

2) What format of exercise is most likely going to help you meet those needs? I tend to categorize these things into a few basic areas:

  • Memory Exercises: Think multiple choice, true false, pick the right word, matching game etc. This is when you want them to know what FOCII stands for or which ethical paradigm is reflected in the phrase “justice is blind.”
  • Explainer Exercises: Think short answer or mini-essays where they have to tell you what they were thinking about and why. That could be something like, “Explain the difference between AI and generative AI” or “List five things that are wrong with this lead.”
  • Just Do It Exercises: Think about things where the rubber meets the road and the kid actually has to create something that demonstrates competency at the task. It could be building a press release out of a collection of facts, rewriting a meeting story to better fit the inverted-pyramid format or using press releases to write leads.

Hit me up with this and I’ll add your needs to the pile. Once I get the pile built, I’ll share with the class.

 

Sieve! Sieve! Sieve! AG Pam Bondi green-lights the harassment of journalists as a result of Trump administration leaks

(Rare footage of Wisconsin Badger Hockey fans either taunting an opposing goalie for failing to make a save or mocking Pam Bondi for not running a tighter ship when it comes to stopping sources from leaking information to the media… )

THE LEAD: Attorney General Pam Bondi decided the best way to stop the sieve-like nature of the Trump administration’s leaking problem was to go after the journalists who received the information instead of the people leaking it.

To do that, she issued a memo late last month that made it easier for the government to subpoena reporters, their notes and other documents.

[T]he Bondi memo appears to have rescinded a specific provision protecting journalists from Justice Department subpoenas, court orders and search warrants based on the “receipt, possession, or publication” of classified information.

This change would make it easier for Justice Department attorneys to pursue journalists to identify confidential sources in reporting that involves leaks — like the Pentagon Papers or Watergate. And that could chill news reporting in the public interest.

THE MEMO: Bondi’s four-page explanation for her rollback of the protections put in place more than a decade ago under Merrick Garland offers both shot across the bow at journalists who receive and use leaked material as well as a general disdain for journalists generally:

Without question, it is a bedrock principle that a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy. The Department of Justice will defend that principle, despite the lack of independence of certain members of the legacy news media.

My takeaway is bloggers, as non-legacy news media, are safe to be completely dependent upon whomever they want for cash and prizes while taking leaked documents. So… Send your cryptocurrency bribes and emails about TrumpCoin to the email address linked on the blog’s About Us page…

Also, this feels more like an angry wedding party host giving a toast more than a serious memo at this point: “I’d like to say congratulations to Jill, the bride, my sister and my best friend. I will always be there for you, even though you slept with my prom date while I was throwing up in the bathroom at after prom. Still, love you, Jill! Jack, welcome to our family, and you might want to get a blood test… ”

And then there’s this…

This Justice Department will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people. “Where a Government employee improperly discloses sensitive information for the purposes of personal enrichment and undermining our foreign policy, national security, and Government effectiveness—all ultimately designed to sow chaos and distrust in Government—this conduct could properly be characterized as treasonous.”8 

A lot of suppositions there, not the least of which is that stuff “could” be treasonous or that all disclosures they want to attack are also definitely meant to undermine policies, victimize agencies and hurt people. By the way, the quote is from one of Trump’s executive orders, as are several other footnoted passages. Just one more reason to read the footnotes before assuming the content is valid.

The memo demonstrated why she probably should have hired one of those journalists she is now targeting to do some proofreading and copy editing:

The Attorney General must also approve efforts to question or arrest members of thew news media.

(Emphasis mine)

 

SO HOW FREAKED OUT SHOULD YOU BE? I wanted to run this past a couple of my “legal eagle” friends to basically get two questions answered before I posted about this:

  1. What is essentially going on here?
  2. How freaked out should journalism folks be about this and why?

Starting with the answer to number one, the legal folks explained that we do not have a nationwide press-shield law, nor an unfettered reporter’s privilege to legally keep the government at bay indefinitely. The case of Branzburg v. Hayes (1972) established that reporters can be compelled to break confidentiality agreements with sources if the government feels it is important that they do so.

As one of the legal folks noted, this isn’t just Trump being Trump about stuff he doesn’t like. Other administrations have also poked the media in a similar fashion when the situation benefited them:

“Many admins have used their federal investigative powers to harass journalists — Nixon famously, but definitely GW Bush and even Obama and certainly the Trump 1 admin. Merrick Garland as AG issued a memo saying his justice department wouldn’t do that, but that’s just guidance, it’s not binding. Congress had a chance to pass the PRESS Act in December provide more protection by law, but Trump told the GOP to kill it, and they did.”

As for number two, the answer basically comes down to, “Be as freaked out as you normally would be about dealing with leaks, because you never really had a lot of protection to begin with.” As one of those legal eagles put it:

“Congress has never passed a shield law, or Free Flow of Information Act, so our legal protection has always been in that weird middle space left by Powell’s concurring opinion in Branzburg.

“We still have a little bit of protection if there’s evidence the government is acting in bad faith or retaliation or harassment against journalists instead of having a bona fide need to get information they can’t get otherwise.

“I think this is more about undoing anything the Biden admin did than anything practically different. We all knew Trump and his admin would go after journalists — he’s been clear about that since before he was elected the first time.”

Essentially, the law itself hasn’t really changed, nor has anyone really stood up for journalists on the federal level (states have passed shield laws here and there, but that doesn’t apply when the fed comes calling). That said, it’s the enforcement that’s likely to be more of a concern.

“Trump and anyone serving in his administration see journalists who report things they don’t like as the enemy. They will target them for retaliation and force their newsrooms (if they work for one) to invest resources to fight in court. Bondi just gave the green light for that. Nixon would be proud.”

(SNIP)

“If anything, I think it’s aimed at trying to scare journalists from publishing leaks — or to scare leakers that journalists may not be able to protect them.”

“I’m not sure that’s gonna work, but it’s definitely the message Trump wants to send.”

DISCUSSION STARTER: What are your thoughts on the Bondi memo as well as the history of the government not solidifying a national media-protection act of some kind? Would that make you more or less worried about what to do if you received important information via a leak?

 

How AI “expert sources” have duped journalists and four tips on how to avoid being the next victim

 

Meet Elizabeth Hubbell, a 25-year-old skin-care expert who is willing to be a great source for your next story on anything makeup or skin-care related. She’s actually completely fabricated. Her picture came from an AI generation site and her name is a combination of my car (Betsy) and a baseball player whose card I had laying around (Carl Hubbell). Careful. It’s dangerous out there…

When it comes to doing interviews, I always tell students they need to do them in person.  In response, they often look at me like I’m asking them to use a teletype machine or some semaphore flags. It’s easier, faster and more convenient for both parties if they can do a text, a chat or an email interview, the students say.

I argue that the face-to-face interview allows for a deeper connection for profile and feature pieces. This approach also can prevent sources in news stories from weaseling out of answers they could otherwise work through via several drafts of an email. Plus, if I spend some time in the source’s environment, I can probably find a personal effect that could give us something to talk about, like a family photo, a kid’s drawing or a sports item. At the very least, it’ll help with scene setting.

Apparently, there’s another good reason for my approach these days: Your easy-to-access, extremely helpful, expert source might be AI:

Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, anyone can generate comment, on any subject, in an instant.

It is a technology that appears to have fuelled a rise in expert commentators who have appeared widely in national newspapers but who are either not real, not what they seem to be or at the very least have CVs which do not justify their wide exposure in major newsbrands.

The rise in dubious commentators has been fuelled by companies that charge the PR industry in order to share quotes via email with journalists who have submitted requests for comment.

Journalist Rob Waugh found that in a number of cases, digital outlets were mass-generating content from these supposed experts, giving everyone from news journalists to PR practitioners the exact the quote or information they needed on a wide array of topics. However, when challenged to engage more deeply regarding who they are or what they have done in life, the “sources” suddenly had difficulty:

She has been quoted in Fortune talking about “loud budgeting” and by Business.com talking about the best countries in which to obtain a business education (both sites are based in the US).

A profile on Academized describes her as a “biochemist and science educator”. The same byline picture also crops up on a publisher called Leaddev, for someone called Sara Sparrow. Rebecca Leigh has written for DrBicuspid.com about how to write a business plan for your dental practice where she is described as a writer for Management Essay and Lija Help (two online writing services).

When challenged via email to do something that would be difficult to do with AI image-generating software (send an image of herself with her hand in front of her face) or prove that she was an environment expert, Rebecca stopped communicating.

One AI source, “Barbara Santini,” was particularly prolific in the volume and array of topics she could cover for journalists. Waugh found this roster of publications that had included Santini quotes:

She has been quoted in The Guardian talking about the benefits of walking (paid content), in Newsweek talking about white lies, Marie Claire talking about the meaning of money, the Daily Mirror talking about the benefits of sleeping with your dog, in The Sun talking about sexual positions, Pop Sugar talking about astrology, and Mail Online talking about how often to change your pillow.

Santini was recently quoted in a BBC article examining the lifelike responses of AI to Rorschach tests used by some psychologists saying: “If an AI’s response resembles a human’s, it’s not because it sees the same thing but it’s because its training data mirrors our collective visual culture.”

Despite her ability to be all knowing and wise, Santini apparently couldn’t receive phone calls, a relatively easy giveaway that the “person” on the other end is AI. Waugh also found other examples of journalists who were getting taken for a ride by an AI source, including one case where the non-human pitched a sob story about breast cancer survival:

“Seeing my scarred chest in the mirror was a constant reminder of what I had lost,” Kimberly Shaw, 30, told me in an emotional email.

She had contacted me through Help a Reporter Out, a service used by journalists to find sources. I cover skincare and had been using the site to find people for a story about concealing acne scars with tattoos.

<SNIP>

Shaw’s experience may not have been relevant to my acne story, but it tapped into the same feelings of empowerment and control I wanted to explore. Thinking she could inspire a powerful new piece, I emailed her back.

But after days of back-and-forth conversations, something in Shaw’s emails began to feel a little off. After idly wondering to my boyfriend whether she could be a fake, he suggested that I run the emails through a text checker for artificial intelligence.

The result was unequivocal: Shaw’s emails had been machine-generated. I’d been interviewing an AI the entire time.

As a result of Waugh’s story, a number of these information clearinghouses have tried to cull their ranks of AI “experts” while the deceived publications have retooled or removed the stories with fake people in them. Although the founder of one of these “expert mills” blamed much of the situation on “lazy journalists,” he kind of gave up the game a bit when it came to explaining why these platforms don’t prevent the frauds from gaining access in the first place:

Darryl Willcox, who founded ResponseSource in 1997 and sold it in 2018, says that the simplicity and speed of platforms like ResponseSource is key to their appeal and that attempts to add authentication risk slowing down the system.

Willcox said: “The other factor which complicates things a little bit is that these platforms are quite an open system. Once a journalist makes a request they can be forwarded around organisations, and sometimes between them, and often PR agencies are acting for multiple parties, and they will be forwarded onto their many clients.”

In other words, “If we slowed down to make sure things were accurate, we wouldn’t be as appealing as we want to be.” Eeesh.

So what can you to to avoid quoting a fake person? The overarching theme is basically, “Don’t be a lazy journalist,” but here are a few more specific tips:

TRUST, BUT VERIFY: The old Russian proverb really comes into play here and for good reason. I often say that paranoia is my best friend and has kept me out of a ton of problems. To that larger point, not only did I click on every link I could find in Waugh’s story, I also Googled the hell out of Waugh himself. Why? I imagined that it would be the most epic “Punk’d” moment on Earth if the media world was flocking to this story about AI screwing with journalists, only to find out that Rob Waugh was also an AI fake. I found LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, media staff pages and at least a dozen photos. I wouldn’t bet the house on the fact he’s real, but I’d probably bet the lawn tractor.

This can be harder in situations like the one involving the cancer scammer, as regular people tend not to have as big of a social media presence or digital footprint. That said, even regular people under the age of retirement should have left a few breadcrumbs out there for you to find.

KICK THE TIRES: If you can’t find the person clearly through a digital search, feel free to play a little game of 20 Questions to see if you can get some things ironed out. Experts who have kicked the tires on a few bots can offer you specific ways to ask questions that will tend to ferret out fakers. The author in the cancer-scam story revealed that asking for specific photos based on prior conversations can be helpful as well.

I learned about this kind of thing in trying to defeat scams when it came to buying sports memorabilia. When unknown sellers offered either exactly what I wanted when I couldn’t find it anywhere else or provided me with a ridiculously low price for something I knew should cost more, the pros who had been around the block a few times suggested I ask the seller to “coin the image.”

What this meant was that I wanted the person to take a picture of the item with a coin (usually asking for either heads or tails, or maybe even a specific coin) so I could tell they had the item and weren’t messing with me. Turned out, that advice helped me dodge a bullet or two. As weird as it might seem, asking someone to take a picture with their left hand raised or holding a quarter with “heads” showing might help you avoid a problem.

MEET IN PERSON: Again, this is the most obvious one to suggest. If you meet a person, in person, it’s a pretty safe bet that you can consider them real. The rest of the stuff (Are they the expert they claim to be? Did they really do what they say they did? Do they actually have cancer?) remains a risk without substantial additional reporting, but at least you’ll know they exist.

If that can’t happen for legitimate reasons (the person lives too far away etc.), look for other ways to get some human connection with the source. That could be a Zoom/Teams/Whatever video chat or an actual phone call at an actual phone number. In the cases where the frauds proliferated, it was pretty clear that the only connection between the source and the journalist was through a keyboard. That’s especially dangerous when you don’t have a prior relationship with a source.

WHEN IN DOUBT, DO WITHOUT: At the end of the day, there is no journalistic rule that says you have to use a source, a quote or a “fact” just because you have it. If you don’t feel comfortable with how a source is providing you with information or you aren’t 100% sure this person is a person, it’s better to leave that source out of your story than it is to run the risk of getting bamboozled.

If you say, “Well, the whole story will fall apart without this one source and I can’t get anyone else to provide me with this information,” maybe that’s more revealing than anything else we’ve said here.

 

The Junk Drawer: Only Good News Edition

 

I’m sure I put my happiness in here somewhere…

 

Despite all evidence to the contrary, this blog will not be renamed “Dr. Vinnie’s Trip Through Depressing News and Abject Sadness.” Over the past couple weeks, we’ve focused a lot on things that range from “not all that great” to “Can we get that asteroid Bruce Willis supposedly destroyed to take another shot at us?”

In a somewhat Quixotic attempt to make for a brighter day, despite the fact it might still snow here today and it’s likely that next week, the Easter Bunny will be frozen to the ground, we’re going to do a round up of a few things that give us some happiness. At least that’s the goal…

Let’s start with the best news for journalism…

 

AP’S BACK IN THE (WHITE) HOUSE: The Trump administration banned the Associated Press from the White House Press Pool in February for not agreeing to use the preferred term of “Gulf of America” when referring to the body of water everyone else calls the “Gulf of Mexico.”

AP sued to regain access and a judge found in favor of the wire service on Tuesday:

In a sharply worded opinion, Judge Trevor N. McFadden of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that the Trump administration must “immediately rescind their viewpoint-based denial” of The Associated Press from presidential events.

“The government repeatedly characterizes The A.P.’s request as a demand for ‘extra special access.’ But that is not what The A.P. is asking for, and it is not what the court orders,” he wrote. “All The A.P. wants, and all it gets, is a level playing field.”

Trump actually appointed McFadden to his current position, so there’s no room for the argument that he’s some sort of Commie-Pinko, Barak-Hussain-Obama, Panickan judge. (I’m sure someone will argue that anyway, but still…) The judge did actually stay the order for five days to give the Trump crew a chance to appeal, but the opinion is very pro-AP.

Speaking of awesome journalism wins…

 

A LOOK AT THE UT-DALLAS STUDENT-MEDIA DEBACLE EMERGES: Of all the stories we’ve discussed about student media getting shafted, the one I dodged was the story of UT-Dallas. The reason was that a good guy and former staffer at the school’s paper, Ben Nguyen, was working on a deep dive about the topic. He and I first crossed paths at a student media conference in Minnesota, when he and one of his colleagues ended up breaking a story about a professor at UTD saying disgusting things on social media.

In this case, the story looked like a short piece on how the school wasn’t acting right. Ben had sources and background on all of that. However, the more he dug, the weirder it got. We talked a couple times about where this could go or what he had found.

He just emailed me a little bit ago with the published product and a note:

Throughout everything, I’ve appreciated our conversations while I’ve put this draft together. It’s definitely ended up twice as long and about 5 months later than I initially expected, but I hope it’s at least a more comprehensive record of what was a truly absurd chain of events.

Click here to read all of Ben’s hard work.

Speaking of journalistic hard work…

 

TAKE SOME POYNTERS FROM A GREAT SOURCE: Barbara Allen, the former director of college programming for the Poynter Institute, has taken on a new adventure with the launch of her new project that covers college journalism from all angles.  The website can be found here, where she outlines the kinds of stories she covers, the resources she provides and the content she curates for educators, students and media folks.

You can also subscribe to the newsletter she puts out weekly, which keeps you up to date on the crucial events impacting student media as well as highlighting some amazing pieces that students are doing in their own communities. I was proud to be one of the early adopters on this one and I have found a ton of great stuff on this site.

And finally, speaking of being proud of something…

 

THAT’S “HEY, YOU DISTINGUISHED IDIOT” TO YOU, PAL: I try to keep the personal promotional stuff to a minimum here, as this blog isn’t about me, but rather it should be about stuff you care about.

That said, I have to mention this because it speaks volumes about what makes for a good job and a good boss.

I was submitted for a promotion earlier this year, and when a rather specious decision came back from the committee, my boss and my boss’s boss had my back. They could have easily said, “Well, the committee makes the decisions,” or “Well, you’ll get ’em next time.” Instead, they said, “This is stupid and wrong and we’re going to fix it somehow.”

And they did. So, along with not having to file an extra post-tenure review report, I got the benefit of being named a “distinguished professor” at UW-Oshkosh.

The title is nice, although I still go back to all the students who wrote fire briefs in which they noted how firefighters “distinguished the fire.” I also think back to the “Doctor of Paper” origin story. Trust me, I’m not getting cuff links made with “Distinguished” on one and “Professor” on the other.

However, I will continue to tell my students that while more money or a cooler title can be appealing during your job search, finding the kind of boss you’d walk in front of a bus for is really worth a lot as well.

I hope this was positive enough for everyone. 🙂

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

PS- I’ll be headed to Missouri to speak at the Missouri College Media Convention this weekend, so the blog is on break until next week. Can’t wait to blog all about it.

 

It’s all fun and games until someone sues you for being an idiot: Pat McAfee Edition

ESPN forced to put out 'don't sue us' disclaimer as Pat McAfee show launches on live TV as NFL icon apologizes at start | The US Sun

The disclaimer on the front of Pat McAfee’s show.

THE LEAD: Pat McAfee, former NFL punter and current podcast maven, amplified an internet rumor on his show about Ole Miss quarterback Jaxon Dart and his girlfriend, Mary Kate Cornett. The unsupported allegation was that the 18-year-old freshman student was involved in a “triangle” of sexual relations with Dart and Dart’s father.

After suffering weeks of abuse, threats and other unpleasantness via the Online Idiot Brigade of Dude-Bros, Cornett plans to sue for defamation:

Now she is looking to hold accountable those who contributed to ruining her life, with McAfee and his network, ESPN, clearly in her sights.

“I’m not a public figure that you can go talk about on your show to get more views,” Cornett said on NBC.

BACKGROUND: McAfee is one of several larger “main-stream” media outlets that amplified this rumor. Barstool Sports folks promoted the rumor, along with a meme coin of Cornett. Former NFL player Antonio Brown posted a meme about the rumor. And this doesn’t count the number of other yahoos and local “shock-jock” idiots who did their own hot takes on the topic.

As a result, Cornett’s life has become a literal living hell:

As the rumor spread, Cornett removed her name from outside her dorm room, but she still had vile messages slipped under her door. Campus police told her she was a target, and she moved into emergency housing and switched to online courses.

Houston police showed up to her mother’s house, guns drawn, in the early hours of Feb. 27, in an apparent instance of “swatting” – when someone falsely reports a crime in hopes of dispatching emergency responders to a residence. According to security camera footage and a police report reviewed by The Athletic, the homicide division responded to the call.

After her phone number was posted online, Cornett’s voicemail was filled with degrading messages. In one, a man laughs as he says that she’s been a “naughty girl” and cheerfully asks her to give him a call. Another male caller says that he has a son, too, in case she’s interested. Several people texted her obscene messages, calling her a “whore” and a “slut” and advised her to kill herself.

 

UNDERSTANDING THE LAW: I talked to a couple Legal Eagle friends about this and they’re pretty much in agreement that anything from a defamation suit to an invasion of privacy case would likely tilt in Cornett’s favor. The key things to consider are this:

  • Cornett is not a public figure by any reasonable definition of the term, which means defamation is easier to prove. Yes, she’s dating a high-profile college athlete in the days of NIL money, but that doesn’t make her fair game. If she were a high-profile athlete or if she were promoting her personal brand of something or other online with a “brought to you by Jaxon Dart’s girlfriend,” McAfee’s actions would remain despicable, but the law could be a bit murkier. As a private individual, the standard she has to prove is negligence, not actual malice.
  • The rumor and the people spreading it (especially McAfee) have offered no proof for the allegations they are making about Cornett. As far as anyone can tell, this started out as a random post on YikYak and just kind of spread all over the place. Truth is one of the best “silver bullet” defenses against libel, which is why accuracy is so vital in journalism. If you accuse your university president of running a cocaine ring out of the basement of the student union, and you can prove it, you’re likely up for a Pulitzer, as opposed to a multi-million-dollar legal bill.
  • McAfee is not protected by the word “allegedly,” despite him and his panel of merry men slathering it about like mayo on a BLT. As we’ve discussed before, “allegedly” offers no legal protection.
  • McAfee is also not protected by his stupid disclaimer about it just being a joke-y show with a bunch of “stooges” just throwing bull around. If simple disclaimers like that worked, I’d put one on the back of Amy’s truck that says, “Disclaimer: I have a lead foot and a total disregard for my speedometer, so don’t pull me over to ticket me. I won’t change my behavior.”
  • Hyperbole doesn’t protect him either. The concept of hyperbole is that something has to be so outlandish that no reasonable person would believe it to be true. That’s why the Flynt v. Falwell case ended up in the favor of the porn producer, not the televangelist.

DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: The first and most obvious thought is that Pat McAfee should know better than to do this. He’s 37 years old, so he’s been a grown-up for quite some time. He graduated with a communications degree from West Virginia University, so it’s likely he ran into some course at some point about what is and isn’t legal to say on air. He’s got a listener base of nearly 3 million people, so he should know that anything he says has a real chance to have a significant impact.

Even if he were none of those things, basic human decency plus the ability to observe the carnage that has befallen this poor kid* should have clued him in that it’s time to call off the dogs and apologize about this. (*Yes, the law considers her an adult, but she’s still basically a kid. Tell me you felt like a fully formed adult ready to deal with the world at large and I’ll be hard-pressed to believe you.)

Life as a teenager is ridiculously hard as it is. People are angry, petty and stupid. You feel lost and unable to control anything. Your mind races and wanders all at the same time as you try to figure things out for yourself, as every adult around you seems to be asking, “So, what are you going to do next?”

That doesn’t even account for the way in which social media has amplified the “Mean Girls” aspects of life, in which rumors spread more quickly, people get more vitriolic and anxiety can become amplified many times over. The crap teens say to their peers on a daily basis on social media channels could peel paint and give a truck driver the vapors. Now, imagine that it’s the entire world seemingly aligning against you for no good reason other than some chucklehead thought it would be funny to tell people you slept with someone’s dad.

I can’t imagine a way out. Actually, I can and others have as well, which is devastating beyond belief.

“It gave me a purpose and quite literally saved my life a few times.” Why Student Media Matters (A Throwback Post_

With Friday being the Daily Cardinal’s anniversary day (133 years and counting), I decided to dig up this look at student media and why it matters to so many people for so long.

These days, I check in on the Cardinal website from time to time, read articles of various student media outlets that their college media advisers share and often sit with a print copy of the Advance-Titan (the UWO student publication). I also find myself thinking about how student media are leading the way these days when it comes to important issues.

Tufts University’s student publication, The Tufts Daily, has been on top of the story about Rumeysa Öztürk, a graduate student detained on March 25 by Homeland Security as part of a “pro-Palestine” sweep in Boston. The Minnesota Daily on the U of M campus has covered similar issues, including a lawsuit a student filed as the result of ICE detention. The Daily Northwestern has looked into the denial of tenure for a professor who had spoken in favor of Palestine.

(And not to let my bias show, but the Daily Cardinal is nailing down significant stories about how the federal government’s cuts to the Fulbright program have bigger consequences in some lesser-known areas, the Wisconsin Supreme Court election and more.)

Without free and independent student journalism, we’re not going to see these kinds of stories getting covered as honestly and fervently. When friends say something like, “Hey, the chancellor is giving us a big new building for student media because we’re getting moved under the umbrella of UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS AND OUTREACH!” I start to develop a twitch.

Sure, you can still write stories about the cool new clubs or the professor who won a major award, but you’re going to have a hard time running stories about sexual assault reports, football player misconduct or hazing attacks. That’s one of the many reasons why I still support my student media friends and causes to this day.

(SPOILER ALERT: The post below starts with a look at Doane University and a problem related to student media. The situation at Doane University got worked out and Doane Student Media kept on rolling.  You can see all the great work students there continue to do through this link.)

Enjoy this look why student media matters so much to so many people.

“It gave me a purpose and quite literally saved my life a few times.” Why Student Media Matters

The Board of Trustees at Doane University approved of President Jacque Carter’s suggested cuts and mergers during its Monday meeting, meaning that Doane Student Media is on a downward spiral to financial insolvency. Editor in chief Meaghan Stout has been covering the situation since the cuts were first announced, which is a lot like being asked to serve as a pall bearer for your own funeral.

According to former Doane student media adviser David Swartzlander, the cuts don’t go into effect until July 1, which gives Stout and others about nine months to raise unholy hell about them, something we’ve asked you all to do throughout the week.

If you’re thinking, “None of this makes any sense. She’s graduating in a month, so she’s done with this place. And why are you dedicating so much time and energy blathering on about student media cuts at a university the size of your high school? You don’t have a horse in this race….,” well, I get it.

From the outside, this looks pathologically stupid.

If you’ve ever spent any time in student media, this makes all the sense in the world.

I asked people I know who have gone in myriad directions after their educational careers came to a close if they ever worked in student media and, if so, why it mattered to them. One of the best journalists I’ve ever been lucky enough to work with, a wordsmith and a storyteller unlike any other, didn’t disappoint:

My high school had no paper. I started one, called “The Cardinal Chirps.” There was news, sports and jokes on four mimeographed pages. (Smelled great!) It may have lasted three issues. The jokes were filler and I learned that not everyone has the same sense of humor. Don’t print jokes. Working at that paper was a revelation. I could find something that didn’t make sense – a section of the lockers were inexplicably located in a dark room with one narrow door – and write about it. It wasn’t safe for those who had their lockers in there. The principal and school board took note and changed it. No had ever brought it to their attention. The learning was true: You can’t fix something if you don’t know it is broken.

I expected a few responses from a few other people, but not much.

I was stunned when I got dozens, like this one from a journalism professor with a background in news:

I graduated from a small rural high school that didn’t even have a school paper. My interest in news grew from my mom’s obsessive consumption of newspapers (we subscribed to two and sometimes three), news magazines (I think we got four), news talk radio (on constantly), morning/noon/evening local and national TV news, public affairs shows on PBS and all the Sunday morning news talk shows, and my own growing awareness that there were other places in the world far from Tonganoxie, Kansas, that I dreamed of seeing someday. It seemed wise to understand what was going on in them before going. And before going, I had to have money. I understood from my good friend that one could be paid actual money for fixing errors in news writing by being something called a copy editor. The University Daily Kansan and my professors with newsroom experience showed me how to be that.

Another higher-ed friend who works as a student media adviser had a similar life experience:

Working in college media was the step for me that solidified how I could attain my dream to work as a professional journalist. Before my college media experience, the concept was very abstract. Moving from dreaming to doing via my student newspaper made it real for me. I am forever grateful to those who gave me the opportunity and helped me see I could do it.

Folks who took the path out of news and into corporate communications, consulting and other similar fields found that student media benefited them as well:

I wanted to write books before I signed up for journalism class in high school on kind of a whim. In that class, I found that I had a knack for journalistic writing, most likely from reading the local paper and my dad’s influence as a TV journalist. Taking that class and continuing that path led me to attend J-School at MU and altered my career path. It also gave me an understanding of and appreciation for the importance of LOCAL journalism.

These responses made sense: Student media was like an internship and a training center for going on to do great and mighty things in the field itself. However, I also saw how the people who went into fields that had nothing to do with news or PR still found amazing value in student media:

I draw from my experience at the DN almost every day. I’ve worked for two law firms and a dental office since college. I’m comfortable asking questions, I’ve learned how to build relationships and I have a better understanding of how government works. The most important thing I have learned is that no matter how much effort you put toward your day, something could change and you need to be ready to shift your priorities and maybe undo all you’ve just done.
My boss at SAGE, who puts up with an awful lot from me, apparently found her muse through student media as well:
Basically shaped my entire college experience. Learned the basic responsibilities, ethical implications, and work ethic of a journalist. Being on the paper motivated me to write about things I was interested in, when I already had to write so much for school…Also I got to interview some really interesting people!
The one common thread, I saw overall, however, was that student media was more than a thing people did. It was who they were. The newsroom wasn’t like a classroom where they HAD to go. It was a place that gave them something special and they WANTED to be there:
It was my happy place. The place where I always knew what I was doing, and why. The place where everything just made sense. Why else would someone finish a shift, go home, get their books and go back to the newsroom to study. Because that’s where I was always focused.

And…

It was my home away from home. And it allowed me to experiment with what I wanted to do.
And…

 

Genuinely don’t know where to start. The friends, the experiences, now I’m working in media. Joined junior year of high school and haven’t looked back since. It gave me a purpose and quite literally saved my life a few times. I could go on and on.
And so many other people did as well, sharing stories of life-long friendships that developed thanks to pressure-packed deadlines, no sleep and a sense of belonging they never found before or since. At the risk of becoming hyperbolic, student media provides people with something that borders on magical, a familial bond forged in a way that never truly seems to break.

 

I understand why Meaghan Stout is fighting like hell, against all common sense, for her student media family, because 25 years ago, I was her.

 

I remember sitting in my journalism adviser’s office six weeks after our student newspaper closed under the weight of $137,700 in debt. My adviser was also my teaching assistant for Media Law, a course I was essentially flunking because I had poured all of my time into fixing the Daily Cardinal.

 

“You need to quit the paper,” she told me. “You’re going to fail.”

 

In retrospect, I think she meant the law class, but that’s not how I heard it.

 

I then listened as she told me how when she was in college, her student newspaper was moving from a weekly to a daily and how she was pressured to put the paper first and everything else second. Instead, she stuck with her classwork and got her degree. Besides, she explained, even if I managed to fix the problems, the paper was likely to shrivel up and die after I left, so what was the point?

 

In the abstract, she was right. Take care of yourself. Get the grades. Besides, there was another student newspaper on campus I could work for, so what made this Quixotic journey so important? I couldn’t explain it, but even if I could, I doubt she would have understood.

 

So, I let her finish, told her I’d think about it and then I went back down to the newsroom and kept working on fixing the paper. By the next semester, we’d pulled it back from the brink of collapse and started printing again.

 

It’s still running to this day.

 

For me, my student media experience wasn’t about the articles I wrote or the editorial positions I held or the arguments we had. (We often joked that we were a family in the newsroom, in that we drank a lot and hurt each other…)

 

It wasn’t that, without that paper, there’s no way I would have gotten this far in life, and I’d probably have had a heck of a career as a fairly decent auto mechanic. It also wasn’t the life experiences it gave me either, although without the paper my kid would likely have different godparents and I would have been deprived of the opportunity to return the favor.

 

I still can’t adequately explain what it is that makes student media matter so much, whether it’s the paper I worked for, the papers I advised or the papers I never ever knew of before a crisis threatened them.

 

What I can say is that I love reading the articles the students write, as I wonder how much blood, sweat and tears went into just getting that inverted-pyramid piece to hold together. I love seeing those 20-somethings I knew through my media conference presentations or newsroom visits doing great and mighty things as reporters, editors, copy editors and more. I love it even more when I see them finding joy in life outside of the field, moving into politics, social work or psychology.

 

I treasure the photos I see of engagements and weddings that bloomed from seeds planted on a production night. The houses they buy, the babies they have, the lives they develop… Somehow, it all comes back to that moment they found someone else who had the weird sense of humor that grew from spending too much time in a windowless bunker that smelled of old newsprint and burnt coffee.

 

In all my time at all these institutions of higher learning, I’ve yet to come across another student organization or activity that even came close to what student media does, both for the campus and for its practitioners. This is something people like Jacque Carter don’t understand, because to them, it’s a pain in the ass that costs money and points out things they don’t want pointed out.

 

To us, it’s life.

 

P.S. – I passed law with a C that semester. Even if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

An Awesome AP Style Exercise That Will Get Your Kids Moving

I’m always a fan of people who have creative ways of helping students learn important tasks. That’s why I’m a mega-fan of Kameron Lunon of McNeese State University, who hit me up with an email back in 2021:

I wanted your thoughts on something. I’ve created (a series of AP rules and items) with the intention of taping them to students backs and they have to 1). Figure out who/what they are, but then 2). they have to pair themselves with their rule. After they’ve been paired, 3). The other students have to ask questions and try and figure out what the other students are.

I thought this was one of the coolest ways ever to do AP style, get students thinking creatively and helping them to remember key style rules. Kameron and I batted a few emails and texts back and forth about his plan to implement this. He also mentioned he’d video recorded it and would share it when it was edited.

As is the case with most things in journalism that lack deadlines, we both kind of lost track of time until last week, when he shared the final product with me. It’s absolutely worth the 12 minutes of watch time:

 

Kameron was nice enough to put together a quick walk-through for anyone interested in replicating the activity.

(Thanks again, Kameron! If anyone else out there has anything cool you’d like to share with the blog readers, just hit me up.)

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

It’s the first sentence of your story, not a clown car: Learn to make choices in your leads

 

The goal of good lead writing is to tell people two basic things:

  1. What happened?
  2. Why do I, as the reader, care about this?

While many leads fail to do one or both of these when they don’t include enough information, some leads do almost the same thing when they give the readers too much stuff all at once.

Here’s one about the death of a former NBA player who became an incredible businessman:

Junior Bridgeman, a former NBA sixth man who rose from modest means to forge one of the most successful post-playing business careers of any professional athlete, becoming a billionaire philanthropist and, recently, a minority owner of the Milwaukee Bucks team for which he once played, died Tuesday after suffering a medical emergency during an event in Louisville, Kentucky.

This 58-word monstrosity gives me way too much information and I find myself struggling to keep up with everything the writer is trying to say. The writer decides not to make any choices about what to keep in the lead and what to relegate to lower paragraphs, thus making this a difficult read.

Let’s take a look at how you can avoid this kind of problem when you have a lot of things happening and they might all seem lead-worthy.

First, let’s lay out all of the facts in the “One Piece at a Time” approach to this lead:

  • Junior Bridgeman died Tuesday.
  • He suffered a medical emergency while at an event in Louisville.
  • He was an NBA player.
  • He won the Sixth Man of the Year award.
  • He was born of modest means.
  • He had a successful post-player business empire.
  • He became a billionaire.
  • He was a philanthropist.
  • He was a minority owner of the Milwaukee Bucks. (meaning he wasn’t the main owner, for folks who are unfamiliar with concept)

That’s a heck of a lot of stuff, even when you consider that it doesn’t include at least one thing most obituary-style stories like this tend to have (age of the deceased). That means we need to make decisions.

Second, start off with the most direct Noun-Verb-Object kind of approach we can take here to what matters most:

Junior Bridgeman died after a medical emergency.

We have a good noun, a solid verb and a solid prepositional phrase with a crucial object of the preposition that tells us how he died (at least somewhat).

 

Third, start looking for ways that you can condense some of the statements above, removing redundant elements or reshaping them in a more direct way.

For example, we basically say he was rich three ways:

  • Successful business empire
  • Billionaire
  • Team owner

Maybe there’s a way to either eliminate one of those or to recraft the sentence to shrink up what is there to tighten the sentence:

Junior Bridgeman, a billionaire philanthropist and minority owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, died after a medical emergency.

We also say he was an NBA player in two ways:

  • Former Sixth Man of the Year
  • He played for the Bucks

We could rework that to both of those things into this as well with some tightening and structuring:

Junior Bridgeman, a former NBA Sixth Man of the Year  who became a billionaire philanthropist and minority owner of the Milwaukee Bucks after his playing days ended, died after a medical emergency.

I’m at 32 words here, so if I’m going to add anything else, I’m probably going to need to make some changes. Let’s see what we add and what we cut:

Junior Bridgeman, a former NBA Sixth Man of the Year  who became a billionaire philanthropist and minority owner of the Milwaukee Bucks after his playing days ended, died Tuesday in Louisville, Kentucky, after a medical emergency.

If we add the where and the when, we’re at 36. We could go one of two ways to make a cut here. We could remove the phrase “after his playing days ended” if we think it’s obvious that he didn’t become those things before or during his playing days. We could also cut the award and replace it with “player,” which would swap five words for one. We could do both if we wanted to find a way to weave his age in.

Junior Bridgeman, a former NBA player who later became a billionaire philanthropist and minority owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, died Tuesday at 71 after a medical emergency in Louisville, Kentucky.

This gets us to 30 words, adds in the age and allows for development later. We could swap out the age and put back the Sixth Man of the Year award, if we felt it was more valuable to the audience than his age. I’m also not a huge fan of three prepositional phrases in a row, as that starts to make this a little sing-songy. It’s a judgment call at this point. Either way, we basically have a congruent amount of information to the original lead in half the space.

The one thing to remember about lead writing is that there’s nothing wrong with pour out all the info you have into a sentence, but you then have to go back and make decisions. In most cases, the writing of the lead is in the editing, so make sure to give your lead those additional looks that can make the difference between one that’s tight and right and one that’s bloated and confusing.

EXERCISE TIME: Find a lead in a publication that you read that goes way over that 35-word limit. (The longer the better) and use this approach to get it under control. If you need to use other elements from the story to do so, feel free to dig into the body of the piece a little bit.

Then, see what other people think about your changes and be able to justify your actions as you go along.