Media

CNN, Fox got it wrong and hurt all news media’s credibility

Let’s all repeat the first rule of journalism: Get it right.

Rule number two may state that you also want to get it first, but getting it right is so much more important. And that fact seems to be disappearing in this age of skip the copy editor and get the story online immediately.

It’s all a rush to get it first. A few months ago, Joe Paterno was reported dead a day before he died. A reporter lost his job for that. He got it first but he got it wrong.

Things like that kill credibility.

Media

Illinois General Assembly fails to change controversial law

The Illinois General Assembly failed this month to change the state’s tough eavesdropping law even though federal and state courts have said it violates the First Amendment. Currently, audiotaping without the permission of everyone involved in a conversation is a felony in Illinois, making it unlawful for citizens to tape encounters with police.

Last month, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Illinois law – viewed as the toughest in the nation – could not be enforced as written because it barred recording of public officials’ actions in public. The decision was handed down just before the NATO meeting in Chicago, which attracted large protests and citizen-police confrontations.

Media

Dealing with the shrinking copy desk

Today’s copy editors face the prospect of being tomorrow’s unemployed as the copy desk has begun to go the way of the pica pole and proportion wheel. Just as technology made those ancient tools of the trade obsolete, it has contributed to the decline of the position itself. As more of the job has been mechanized, copy desks have begun to resemble assembly lines. With the growth of centralized editing hubs, where copy for multiple newspapers in a chain is edited and pages are designed, copy desks might better be called copy finishing plants.

These changes have implications for the future of journalism on paper and online, and for how we teach future journalists.

“The role of the copy editor today is to move copy as they get it,” David Arkin,

vice president of content and audience for GateHouse Media, said when he announced the company’s plan to centralize design and copy editing.