5 Ways to Spot a BS Political Story in Under 10 Seconds →

futurejournalismproject:

Political journos and junkies take note: Cracked creates a handy guide to evaluate an article’s newsworthiness:

#5. The Headline Contains the Word “Gaffe”
A politician accidentally misspoke in a way that made him or her look silly, and the opponents are pouncing on it.

#4. The Headline Ends in a Question Mark
A news story so questionable the publication literally felt the need to mark it as such.

#3. The Headline Contains the Word “Blasts”
A politician or other prominent person has taken to a microphone to say something inflammatory about the other side, usually by rephrasing their own party’s talking points over and over.

#2. The Headline Is About a “Lawmaker” Saying Something Stupid
A low-level politician with no power said something incredibly stupid, and the opposing party is trumpeting it from the mountaintops to make everyone in the low-level politician’s party look stupid.

#1. The Headline Includes the Phrase “Blow To”
Neglecting to explain hugely important policy changes in favor of focusing on the drama, and how it affects the personal political careers of the politicians involved.

Read through for explanations and examples of each.

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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A Guide to Navigating NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

emergentfutures:

Twitter acquisition confirms that curation is the future

“Twitter made an interesting acquisition on Thursday, when it bought a young Canadian startup called Summify, a company whose service (as its name implies) was designed to cut through the noise of all those social-media streams and summarize the content that matters. More than anything, this is perhaps the single biggest hole that exists not just in Twitter but Facebook and other services as well”

Full Story: GigaOm

It’s good to see curation is starting to get the respect it deserves.

Seriously, does this paper not have a copyeditor?

Copyright Basics: The Movie →

Free Movie from the Copyright Clearance Center.

Bonus: You can download it for free.

"In five years, a computer program will win a Pulitzer Prize, and I’ll be damned if it’s not our technology."

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~Northwestern computer science professor Kris Hammond.

Professor Hammond co-created a program called Narrative Science that actually writes news articles in less than a minute; articles that are so good you can’t tell they were essentially written by software.

Are computers the cheap, new journalists? - The Week

How Social Media Creates a Rough Draft of History →

infoneer-pulse:

Washington Post  publisher Philip Graham famously described journalism as the “first rough draft of history” in a speech to Newsweek  correspondents in 1963 — but as a new research paper from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism notes, that role is increasingly being played by social media such as Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Facebook. The latest example is the coverage of the Osama bin Laden raid, which triggered questions about whether the person sharing news via social media was a journalist or not. As the Reuters paper confirms, those kinds of questions are becoming increasingly moot, as journalism is distributed to anyone with a smartphone.

» via GigaOM

Journalism is distributed to anyone with a smartphone.

"We are investigating if we want to buy textbooks anymore, or do we want to buy iPads or something similar that the textbooks can be loaded into,” Ricci said. “The publishing field is changing dramatically. We met with representatives from Pierson, a big textbook publisher, and even they will admit that the industry is changing so fast that, in time, the idea of publishing textbooks on paper will probably go away."

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I was originally going to share this article for a note on iPads in education, but something caught my eye and the focus has shifted.

As a note for aspiring journalists everywhere: typos and incorrect names are inexcusable. You’re a professional. Do your job.

It’s spelled “Pearson”.

Ricci: iPads could be textbooks of the near future - The Westerly Sun: News

"Copyediting is something that’s done after the writers go home, said Merrill Perlman, retired director of copy desks at the New York Times and editing consultant and educator. Copyeditors are geeky and hard to manage. Few people understand what we do. When that happens, companies question our value and cut jobs. Said Perlman, ‘The copyeditor is dead.’

We must stop calling ourselves copyeditors, said Perlman. It’s a word (two if you follow ACES’s style) loaded with too many negative connotations. She suggested that we own a buzzword and become content editors. Copyeditors are expendable. Content editors are vital. It doesn’t matter if we’re coaching those creating the content or actually making the changes. It doesn’t matter if the work will appear in print or somewhere in the digital ether. No one knows what we know. ‘Our jobs are to educate,’ she said. ‘I am a communicator.’"

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Erin Brenner, ‘The copyeditor is dead. Long live the content editor.’ (via copyeditor)

Merrill was my instructor at the Columbia Journalism School. Any typos or grammatical errors that appear on this blog are in spite of her diligent efforts. 

(via futurejournalismproject)

Philadelphia university offering a course on cell phone photography →

A new cell phone photography class at a suburban Philadelphia university focuses on both the quality of the images and the ethical responsibilities that come with taking and publishing them.

Cell phone cameras — and associated scandals — have become so ubiquitous that it’s important for students to realize the “the full gravity of what’s at their fingertips and the power they can have,” Immaculata University communications professor Sean Flannery said.

Flannery teaches the class with Hunter Martin, a professional photographer who works with students on the mechanics of making the images, including composition, lighting and editing. Flannery deals with such issues as voyeurism, ethics, citizen journalism and the difference between public and private spaces.

This is surprisingly topical and relevant. I normally raise an eyebrow at some of these “new media” courses, but I think this one is actually thoughtful, and deals with serious issues that have emerged from a lifestyle dependent on technology.