Rewriting history at college newspaper sites

Both of Radford's student publications, The Tartan and Whim (TheTartan.com and ruwhim.com), have changed content-management platforms in the past year, complicating the matter of finding things in their archives.

At first I thought that was a shame, because past contributors might have links to online-edition stories in their resumes or on their personal sites, or might want to retrieve stories or artwork to send to prospective employers. With the changes in publishing systems over the years, some links to individual pages still work, while links to "section" or front pages don't. Some stories may be gone because of redirected addresses.

There may be a bright side to missing archives: At least they can't do the student journalist's career any damage in the future, as reflected in this trend-story from the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Alumni Try to Rewrite History on College-Newspaper Web Sites.

The RU publications have good intentions about preserving their history and resurrecting their archives, but the process hasn't been rapid. Whim has carried a notice that "An archive of previous versions of Whim is forthcoming" since its change to publishing with WordPress last fall. Back then, I tracked down any archives I could.

However, Google was archiving stories from both publications through their homegrown flat-file editions to those done with the Absolut and WordPress php-based systems, which means plenty of old stories still can be found -- something I point out to news writing students as the modern equivalent of the old "check the clips in the morgue" routine and dead-tree newspapers.

While both publications own their own domains (thetartan.com and ruwhim.com), the pages are actually served from the radford.edu domain, usually the PHP server at php.radford.edu. As a result a Google "site:" search of the university domain with the name of the publication or a search keyword can be effective, so I guess student reporters' bylines also could be used by an employer browsing for stories by a job applicant.

For example, a search will produce plenty of stories about past years' editions of the annual off-campus revelry called "Quadfest" (because it was once on-campus). The Google search strings look like this:
site:radford.edu+quadfest+whim or site:radford.edu+quadfest+tartan
(A more refined search might eliminate stories that use "whim" or "tartan" as something other than publication names, but you get the idea.)

Similarly, Google can search the regional daily, The Roanoke Times, whose own search engine has had its problems, although it does a reasonable job "quadfest." Perhaps it has been fixed, even if it doesn't let me save a link to the search results. With Google, it's site:roanoke.com+quadfest Result: What do you know -- the RTimes had an editorial that said the party wasn't all that bad!

(Thanks to Bryan Murley, Steve Yelvington and other folks on Twitter for pointing to the Chronicle of Higher Education story. I really should renew my subscription.)

Sing a song of press-titution?

With layoffs, buyouts and closings, these days it seems fewer newspapermen each month are "meeting interesting people..." But a friend pointed me to this 2006 video after I posted my blog item (and a flutter of tweets) about Pete Seeger's birthday concert. I haven't heard that this song fit into the program. It would need a pretty serious update, since it dates back to the days of flagpole sitters. I was writing for my school newspaper the first time I heard the song, and found a copy in the old People's Songbook, related to the still-publishing Sing Out!, the folksong magazine. I should renew my subscription and see if anyone has set Phil Meyer's The Vanishing Newspaper to music yet... Pete doesn't mention it on the video, but the later verses of Vern Partlow's song make it clear it has roots in the early -- and better -- days of the Newspaper Guild union. Now that Pete has taught you the tune, everybody sing...: Oh, publishers are such interesting people! Their policy's an acrobatic thing. They shout they represent the common people. It's funny Wall Street never has complained. But publishers have worries, for publishers must go To working folks for readers, and big shots for their dough. Oh, publishers are such interesting people! It could be press-titution, I don't know. Ting-a-ling-a-ling, advertising. Ting-a-ling-a-ling, circulation. Get that payoff, keep those readers; What a headache, what a mess. Yes, publishers are such interesting people! Let's give three cheers for freedom of the press. Oh, newspapermen are such interesting people! They used to work like hell just for romance, But finally, the movies notwithstanding, They all got tired of patches on their pants. They organized a union, and got a living wage. They joined progressive actors upon a living stage. Now newspapermen meet such interesting people, Who know they've got a people's fight to wage. [big rousing chorus now...] Ting-a-ling-a-ling, Newspaper Guild, We got a free new world to build; Meet the people, that's a thrill, All together fits the bill. Oh a newspaperman meets such interesting people! It's wonderful to represent the Guild.

Lyrics from the Digital Tradition database at Mudcat.org Just a coincidence... Here's the latest on the Guild negotiations at The Boston Globe.

Webby Awards for radio, news, newspapers, magazines...

Webby Awards -- NPR wins seven Webbies and People's Voice awards for best radio, best music and best podcasts... makes me happy to be wearing my "I gave money to NPR" cap today. However, I was surprised to NOT see NPR winning news awards... maybe there was a coin-flip between BBC and NPR for "best radio" versus "best news"? I dunno...

The News Webby and the People's Voice award went to the BBC's News website http://www.bbc.com/news

The student site awards went to http://missionlocal.org of the UC Berkeley journalism school and a new one to me, http://waylandstudentpress.com -- Yes, it's a High School Journalism project! Maybe there's hope there...

The newspaper award went to http://www.guardian.co.uk/ with a People's Voice to http://NYTimes.com, which also won for "Best copy/writing" and in a "Best Practices" category, whatever that means. (OK, so I'm too busy to look it up.)

Both magazine awards went the http://TheAtlantic.com

Another one of my favorites won for "best use of video or moving image": http://www.TED.com

(Couldn't help noticing the video award went to TED, which is not a "television" network or channel, but a Web-only site from an educational/inspirational conference.)

Here are the rest of the Webby Awards (there are almost 70 categories) from the award home page... and here's NPR's self-congratulation, which I guess might define "media outlets" as "media older than the Internet"... But I don't remember seeing any other kind of site that matched NPR in number of awards...

"National Public Radio led all media outlets by winning seven Webby awards, the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences announced Tuesday. The awards competition, now in its 13th year, honors excellence on the Web.
"NPR won Webbys for best radio site, best music site, best news site in the mobile division for its iPhone site, and best music entry in the online film and video division for Project Song, an online video documentary series."

Meanwhile, I rarely have time for "entertainment" Web stuff, which the Webbies are full of... But after exams I'll go back and check out some of that... including Web therapy, especially if there's an episode about Web addiction and Twitter. (Which, by the way, won "breakout of the year.")

Happy 90th Birthday, Pete!

An amazing birthday concert is scheduled in New York City tomorrow for folksinger's folksinger, Pete Seeger, but I like the celebration page his local newspaper's Web site has posted up the Hudson a bit from Madison Square Garden:

Times Herald-Record - Pete Seeger Birthday

(Update: NY Daily News covers the show in words and pictures; The New York Times review of the show. More from NPR.)

Meanwhile, here in Virginia, I hear there's a hootenanny -- yes, a hootenanny -- in Richmond.

Now that's a word I haven't seen in the headlines in a LONG time -- one that Pete helped popularize. Ironically, he was blacklisted from the pop/commercial TV show by that name, during what he and others have called the "great folk scare of the sixties."

Pete eventually had his own show -- on PBS, some of which is now around YouTube, if you look for "Rainbow Quest," including interview jam sessions with some folks I never knew were captured on video, and this wonderful duet on one of Pete's songs, with him backing up Judy Collins, who also celebrated a hard-to-believe birthday this weekend. Speaking of Judy, she and the Smothers Brothers were on that original Hootenanny show at times, and both Judy -- and Pete, in a blacklist breakthrough -- were eventually on the Brothers own show. (And now everybody is on YouTube!)

(Disclaimer: OK, I'll admit it. Those folks, that hootenanny thing, and its less commercial echoes in the seventies (especially at this place and that place and other places) left me with a bunch of guitars, ukuleles, mandolins and, yes, banjos that I even play a little.)

Happy Birthday to "the little book"

“The Elements of Style” by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White just came out in its 50th edition, so The New York Times "Room for Debate Blog" invited fans and skeptics for reactions... asking this question:

"But are its rules the be all and end all of writing? "

Happy Birthday, Strunk and White!

White's original, from before Strunk updated the book, is available for free online: http://www.bartleby.com/141/

Of course not everyone is celebrating, but even if you just want to argue about fine points of grammar, Strunk & White is a great place to start.

For more detailed questions of grammar, I point my students to Ken Wilson's Columbia Guide to Standard American English (close to 500 pages of advice) and the Guide to Grammar & Writing, a site started by Charles Darling in the early days of the Web at what was then Greater Hartford Community College.

(I knew both Ken and Charlie when they were alive, had great respect for both, and was charmed to find them both online.)

For more journalistic style and grammar issues, I suggest Gerald Grow's http://newsroom101.com

Not only the usual suspects win Pulitzers

Five for the NY Times, plus several signs of the times

The 2009 Pulitzer Prizes in journalism include familiar names like The New York Times, but a few surprises, most notably a public service medal -- the most prestigious -- inspired by the work of a 29-year-old reporter a year into her job at the Las Vegas Sun.

Alexandra Berzon's stories investigated the high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip -- a dozen fatalities in a year and a half -- and lax enforcement of regulations. The paper got behind her, giving her six weeks to develop the first stories, and following them with editorials calling for change.

“This story was about the failure of government and an attitude of the people that said it was not important to inspect for safety violations the way they’re supposed to, which results in working people getting hurt,” Sun Editor Brian Greenspun said. “It was a failure up and down the line ... When it gets fixed, that means you saved that many people’s lives. What greater purpose can you have in the newspaper business?”

The Pulitzer citation was "to the Las Vegas Sun, and notably the courageous reporting by Alexandra Berzon."

The Sun's story about the surprise award credited Berzon -- a 2006 Berkeley journalism master's grad -- -- with "persevering against closed doors and intimidation" in reporting the series.

"The Sun’s Pulitzer victory is a win," the paper said, "for the underdog — workers on the Strip, a young reporter and an all-enterprise newspaper that doesn’t cover the ordinary news of the day — and provides inspiration at a time when journalism is reeling from cutbacks."

The Sun report says Berzon's first stories grew to a yearlong project that involved not only dealing with the OSHA bureaucracy, but "ignoring threats of physical harm if she showed up at a union hall."

Web brings winners

Meanwhile, in the National Reporting category, a Web-based project took a major award, and a story first published online took the Breaking News prize.

The National Reporting Pulitzer went to the St. Petersburg Times for “PolitiFact.com,” its "fact-checking initiative during the 2008 presidential campaign that used probing reporters and the power of the World Wide Web to examine more than 750 political claims, separating rhetoric from truth to enlighten voters."

(This is the first year the Pulitzer committee considered projects that were primarily online.)

The non-profit St. Pete newspaper also used the Web creatively to accompany the long-form narrative story that brought it the Feature Writing prize. See winner Lane DeGregory's video comments at Poynter.org on why the combination of awards is especially gratifying, and an earlier story about the project itself.

The PolitiFact project came close to winning the Public Service prize, but was moved to the National Reporting category. The other Public Service runner-up was The New York Times for its "comprehensive coverage of the economic meltdown of 2008." The Times did win Pulitzers in five other categories, for stories including its investigation of the role of retired generals working as radio and television analysts, and its breaking news coverage of the New York governor's sex scandal. The latter citation commended the paper for "breaking the story on its Web site and then developing it with authoritative, rapid-fire reports."

Speaking of Web things, see the Mesa, Ariz., Local Reporting irony below...

The other 2008 journalism Pulitzers:

• Five for The New York Times (the second-best year in its 101-prize history)
  
• -- Breaking News Reporting - The New York Times Staff
• -- International Reporting - The New York Times Staff
• -- Investigative Reporting - David Barstow of The New York Times
• -- Criticism - Holland Cotter of The New York Times
• -- Feature Photography - Damon Winter of The New York Times
• Two for the St.Pete Times.
• -- Feature Writing - Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times for "The Girl in the Window."
• -- National Reporting - St. Petersburg Times Staff for PolitiFact and its "Truth-O-Meter."
• Explanatory Reporting - Bettina Boxall and Julie Cart of the Los Angeles Times
• Local Reporting - Detroit Free Press Staff
• Local Reporting - Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin of the East Valley Tribune, Mesa, AZ (With some serious state-of-the-trade and Web irony: By the time the award was announced, Giblin had been laid off -- and launched an online legislative news startup.)
• Commentary - Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post
• Editorial Writing - Mark Mahoney of The Post-Star, Glens Falls, NY
• Editorial Cartooning - Steve Breen of The San Diego Union-Tribune
• Breaking News Photography - Patrick Farrell of The Miami Herald

Twitter makes Forbes, tires Times, fills Facebook

This article titled The Twitter Zeitgeist at Forbes.com says "Twitter became a part of popular culture in less time then it takes to write a 140-character status update."

It adds some details to things I've been telling my students in the past few months, but (more importantly) posting this quick link also gives me an opportunity to test whether I've solved the Blogger glitch that was putting big external links at the tops of my posts and keeping me from editing them for the past week. (See test post from yesterday.)

Now the headline above should be a "permalink" to the address of this particular post. I like that, but can't promise to find time to go back and edit all my previous posts into that format. (For older posts, the "permalink" address is linked to the time stamp at the end of each post.)

Meanwhile (Sunday update), I've decided my own Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/bobstep) is a fine place to post links to mainstream-media stories about Twitter, including a flock of them recently in The New York Times, including a Sunday column that suggests early users are tiring of tweets. My three tweets, easy as one, two, three using http://bit.ly

But my best Twitter-related discovery is how to hide the Facebook posts of a Web-ubiquitous friend who mirrors all his Twitter posts as Facebook status updates. I only need to see his stuff in one place, thanks. Coincidentally, the problem and the solution came from bloggers with the same first name. Poetic.