I know, long time no post. But I'm back with a couple of offerings and a promise for more.
First things first: I joined three of my best friends/colleagues on a very memorable road trip a couple of weeks ago. The four of us packed into a rental car and headed to my hometown, Halifax, NS, to attend the Junos -- Canada's version of the Grammys. I went for Toro magazine, but the chances of me filing something were slim, thanks to their long lead time. So I just got to relax and have fun. And oh did we have fun.
Jamie O'Meara wrote a column about our exploits for Hour (yes, that's me kissing my bicep in the photo; don't ask), as did Brendan Murphy (link) and Richard Burnett (link). It's all fun reading.
Next, I am quoted in an article in Presstime, the publication of the Newspaper Association of America. The story is about (what else?) errors in newspapers and how to prevent them. I've pasted the text below (the story is not online yet.)
Finally, I am off to speak to a writing class at Vanier College today. The class is taught by my good friend Martin Siberok. I've visited the class a few times over the last few years, and it's always interesting to hear what the students have to say about the media. This year I decided to get their thoughts on paper by giving them a questionnaire. The class ranges in age from 17 to 24 years-old. I'll be sharing some of the interesting results soon, so come back for the details.
The Presstime article:
'There Really Are No Small Errors'
BY MARY LYNN F. JONES
DURING THE LAST 12 months, thousands of errors have slipped into the nation's newspapers. Among the more memorable: a Dallas Morning News column referring to a woman as a socialist, rather than a socialite; a Denver Daily News item that called New Jersey "Jew Jersey"; and a Chicago Tribune photo caption that misidentified tennis star Serena Williams as singer Beyonce Knowles.
"Errors are probably always going to happen," says Craig Silverman, whose blog, Regret the Error (www.regrettheerror.com), has tracked journalistic mistakes since October 2004. "The question is, can you get rid of the real groaners?"
How to keep such errors out of newspapers will be among the topics discussed at the American Copy Editors Society conference April 20-22 in Cleveland.
Kathy Schenck, assistant managing editor for the copy desk at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, says she pauses before letting certain words -- such as corruption, gangster and epidemic -- into the paper. That's because those words "are loaded and are sometimes used inaccurately," says Schenck, who will lead a conference session on critical copyediting.
"It's about thinking about what those words really mean and making sure that the situation calls for using them," adds Schenck, who started a program for her paper's 33 copy editors last fall that focuses on topics such as math, the courts and use of the Internet.
In February, The New York Times launched the "Quarter Hour Project," aimed at giving copy editors an additional 15 minutes to work on each story. Each participating department -- all except for the Week in Review and Book Review sections and The New York Times Magazine -- determined where it could shave off the additional time.
The idea, says Merrill Perlman, director of the paper's 14 copy desks, which include about 160 staffers, is "to give them a little more breathing space to think about the content of a story."
All copy editors "should check error-prone, verifiable facts as time permits," such as spellings of names, titles, phone numbers and street addresses, Perlman says. Other suggestions include looking for internal inconsistencies in a story, as well as "focus errors," like whether a number should be followed by millions or billions.
And, Perlman says, copy editors should "think about what somebody is saying and what you know." For example, visualize the description of a car accident to see if it makes sense. "Follow your instincts," she adds.
Other common mistakes, according to Silverman, involve misidentification (making a man into a woman in a story, for example) and omission (leaving out an important word in a quote). "There really are no small errors," he says.