Mistakes and correcting them

Our newsroom has a love-hate relationship with factual and grammatical mistakes. We would like to think it's mostly hate, but every once in a while, you'd hear someone yell, "Fact error!" in a voice disturbingly like those you'd hear at bingo night. It's oddly triumphant.

At this point, I should define fact error: the misspelling of any proper noun, misquoting or just a plain old factual error. See headline above for an embarrassing fact error that happened to make it to print on our most important news day. In our J-school, a fact error is an automatic F on our stories.

Anyway, our odd relationship with fact errors is the reason behind a scoreboard we had up for a semester, where all the copy editors (see last post for some thoughts on copy editors) had a running tally for how many fact errors they find in stories. More loosely related to fact errors but strongly related to journalists' innate love for correcting/ editing people even in life outside of the newsroom, we also have a wall of epic fail. That's where we record all our favorite mistakes. I wasn't involved in the creation of this wall but I think the inspiration for the wall came from this blog.

A corner of the board is dedicated to the wall's hall of fame.
Here are some of our favorite epic fails:

• racial epitaph (needless to say, it should've been racial epithet)
• Scarborough Hall (no. Scharbauer Hall)
• Voctor Boschini (Victor Boschini)

I've been trying to come up with the reason for our fascination with errors when I came across a blog post on stuffjournalistslike.com. This post on jargon said that because journalism classes don't necessarily require brain power like biology, engineering and math classes might, we feel superior on this small expertise that we have: grammar, spelling and attention to detail.

Check out the post here.

Here's to no more Virginas ... the massive error as well as the violence.

Copy editors

Here's a tribute to copy editors.

They're probably the most often ignored when news consumers think about newsrooms. And now that newspapers are cutting back, there are even fewer copy editors in today's newsrooms. But they're the ones who know the community. The leaders, the street names, whether it's avenue or road or boulevard, whether it's President Obama or President Barack Obama (it's the latter, by the way. The AP style changed for some reason).

They're the ones who read stories the way a reader would, then make the technical stuff approachable, the abstract stuff concrete, and the faraway stuff humanized. They're on your side. Thank god for copy editors.

Apparently, according to our copyediting professor, copy editors used to wear green visors. The visors helped mitigate eyestrain because it is such a detail-oriented job. They're also called green eyeshades. They're way hip.

Anyway, the editors in our newsroom have multiple "hats" they must wear throughout the day. About half of them are actually also copy editors. Which means when they're wearing their copy editor hats, it causes lots of confusion about what they're supposed to be doing. The reporters want their attention, the senior editors want their attention, we wonder why they aren't doing what we think they're supposed to be doing when in fact, they're doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing -- copyediting. So, we decided to go a little literal with the term "hats."

Here are two of our editors diligently copy editing. How do we know? Because they're wearing the green visors! Duh.

Copy editors also write headlines. Here's an image of our recent favorite hammer headline:

A Coca-Cola truck caught a tree branch and "snapped" off a lot of the tree. Neither tree nor driver was injured. I should note that it wasn't a copy editor who came up with that hammer, however. Julieta was metaphorically wearing the green visor, though.

I'll end this post with a link to a Washington Post column by Gene Weingarten. It's about copy editors. You should also challenge yourself and see if you can find the fifty-something copyediting errors in the column. I'm sure it'll help you realize their value better.

Deadlines

To say that deadlines are a huge part of journalists' lives would be a gross understatement. Today's experience with our first news broadcast at KTCU reminded me of just that. After so many years of working under the constant pressure of deadlines, our tolerance for that pressure just gets higher.

This is our head radio guy still editing the recording two minutes before it was supposed to go on air. I think we got it ready with about 30 seconds left. Ah!

Michelle, the NewsNow adviser, said we had no reason to freak out until about 10 seconds before the newscast. I had already been freaking out for about three minutes by then. I'm thinking broadcast journalists have quite a different perception of deadlines. Wait, what am I thinking? The term "broadcast journalist" is so 1995. We're all journalists now.

Anyway, I know I'm only required to post once a week but my news judgment tells me that our first newscast will have lost its timeliness by time my next post is actually due (journalism buzz word alert). I even used my 2-megapixel camera phone to document the experience.

Rebekah, News Now news director practicing the script. I was very impressed with her voice.

Phil, who did the sports part, and Michelle anxiously watching as Rebekah reads the newscast. She particularly had a hard time with "Hillary Clinton."

Now here's a sneak peek at what the news cast actually sounded like. You can also get a sense of the anxiety in the station after having barely made the deadline. You can also hear the mastered reading of "Hillary Clinton." It's more difficult than you would think.

If you missed the newscast, be sure to tune in from now on. 88.7 KTCU "The Choice." The DJs also have awesome taste in music so you can even stay and hang out if you'd like. If you're not in the Metroplex, you still don't have an excuse. You can stream it live at ktcu.tcu.edu.

4 p.m. daily. Be there or be square.

KTCU "The Choice"

Welcome to a journal of a student-journalist.

Starting today, I will be posting weekly about my thoughts on campus media. The topics of my posts might be about what goes on at our newsroom, the Skiff, or student publications around the country. Student-journalists tend to find themselves in tricky situations. There is the tension among students and administrators, only to be intensified the conflicting duties of those who seek information and those who protect it. There are also questions of how journalism programs and in turn student media can prepare prospective journalists for an industry that is revolutionizing right as we speak. And for those who are very close to graduating, journalism is a scary industry to want to be a part of. Will we be hired? If yes, will we be able to afford to eat?

Through this blog, we will explore how student-journalists are coping, adjusting and blooming under these dodgy circumstances.

I'm the managing editor of the Skiff and have been involved with some sort of student media since high school. Journalism has been my passion for years, and as I get ready to graduate in May, this blog will be an opportunity for me to reflect, relearn lessions and prepare to (hopefully) jump into the professional field.

An e-mail I received today from our adviser served as a perfect inspiration for my first post. The Skiff has been easing into this concept of "convergence." Last semester, we partnered with NewsNow for several live streaming opportunities, including Election Day coverage. This semester, more specifically this coming week, we will be partnering with KTCU "The Choice." Our student-run radion station, which is the only campus station in the area that broadcasts to the whole Metroplex, according to admissions, will be broadcasting news that our reporters gather at 4 p.m. daily. This is something I have been pushing for several semesters and I'm excited that we're finally doing this. This will give us a lot more exposure -- just a wider group of listeners throughout the Metroplex, not to mention the additional skills we would be introducing to the students involved.

Although I never feel like we're making significant progress toward being able to truly take advantage of the converged newsroom our journalism students will have next year, this definitely is a step forward.