Friday, November 19, 2010
OFFICIAL government drug jargon!
Gawker reveals that the U.S. government has an official glossary for street terms of drugs. The government link will be posted amid other links of interest on this blog.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Your final blog assignent, due Dec. 14
Here's some more information on your final blog assignment, which is worth 20 points and is due the final regular day of class, Dec. 14:
As mentioned, in the old days, if you had a correction to make, you simply waited until the next issue was published and then printed your correction. In some cases, you restated the error, as well as stated the correct information. In other cases, you simply stated the fact that an error had been made (without repeating the original mistake) and then gave the correct information.
In today's 24/7, multi-platform news era, corrections can be made almost as soon as the errors are discovered. In some cases, news operations will indicate somewhere within the online copy what the error was (perhaps by a strikethrough), and then give the correct information. In other cases, the correction is made without giving any indication that there was an error in the original story, a process known as "scrubbing." In all of these cases, subsequent print editions include the correction in some form, as well.
Your blog assignment is to put yourself in the hypothetical situation of being in charge of a major **multi-platform** news operation and create a corrections policy for your news organization. I don't want it to sound "corporate" or bureaucratic, but it should read like an official policy. Your policy should include:
-- Standards on who approves corrections (i.e., "The managing editor shall review all corrections before publication).
-- Procedures and practices on making corrections. For online corrections, should the original error be stricken forever from the record, a-la "scrubbing," or should the original error somehow be noted as the original error? Should your website include a prominent spot on the home page for *all* corrections? For print corrections, do you repeat the mistake in the correction or just acknowledge that a mistake had been made?
-- Whether the source of the error should be acknowledged (i.e., "Because of an editing error ..." or "Because an outdated source was used ... " or "Because of a typographical error ..." )
-- Whether and how exceptions can be made. For some "mild" errors, some editors are given more license to make the correction right in their copy, rather than in some other place for corrections.
-- What is the role of your ombudsman in determining the *play* of corrections?
I don't want you to include examples of corrections, just the bigger-picture concerns of having a strong corrections policy.
To help get you started, here is the link to a recent column at Regret the Error on the topic: http://bit.ly/bQzo66
Here's another column by the same author elsewhere: http://bit.ly/cRqlkY
Regret the Error also reported on ESPN's cross-platform corrections policy: http://bit.ly/a8kGw5 as well as commented on Politico's corrections policy: http://bit.ly/cz7oPu
Meanwhile, the MediaShift Idea Lab has this to say about corrections policies:
http://to.pbs.org/cQmaJn
You are free to explore and find other policies to help you with your own, but your work must be your own. You must provide links to all sources you use in forming your policy.
As mentioned, in the old days, if you had a correction to make, you simply waited until the next issue was published and then printed your correction. In some cases, you restated the error, as well as stated the correct information. In other cases, you simply stated the fact that an error had been made (without repeating the original mistake) and then gave the correct information.
In today's 24/7, multi-platform news era, corrections can be made almost as soon as the errors are discovered. In some cases, news operations will indicate somewhere within the online copy what the error was (perhaps by a strikethrough), and then give the correct information. In other cases, the correction is made without giving any indication that there was an error in the original story, a process known as "scrubbing." In all of these cases, subsequent print editions include the correction in some form, as well.
Your blog assignment is to put yourself in the hypothetical situation of being in charge of a major **multi-platform** news operation and create a corrections policy for your news organization. I don't want it to sound "corporate" or bureaucratic, but it should read like an official policy. Your policy should include:
-- Standards on who approves corrections (i.e., "The managing editor shall review all corrections before publication).
-- Procedures and practices on making corrections. For online corrections, should the original error be stricken forever from the record, a-la "scrubbing," or should the original error somehow be noted as the original error? Should your website include a prominent spot on the home page for *all* corrections? For print corrections, do you repeat the mistake in the correction or just acknowledge that a mistake had been made?
-- Whether the source of the error should be acknowledged (i.e., "Because of an editing error ..." or "Because an outdated source was used ... " or "Because of a typographical error ..." )
-- Whether and how exceptions can be made. For some "mild" errors, some editors are given more license to make the correction right in their copy, rather than in some other place for corrections.
-- What is the role of your ombudsman in determining the *play* of corrections?
I don't want you to include examples of corrections, just the bigger-picture concerns of having a strong corrections policy.
To help get you started, here is the link to a recent column at Regret the Error on the topic: http://bit.ly/bQzo66
Here's another column by the same author elsewhere: http://bit.ly/cRqlkY
Regret the Error also reported on ESPN's cross-platform corrections policy: http://bit.ly/a8kGw5 as well as commented on Politico's corrections policy: http://bit.ly/cz7oPu
Meanwhile, the MediaShift Idea Lab has this to say about corrections policies:
http://to.pbs.org/cQmaJn
You are free to explore and find other policies to help you with your own, but your work must be your own. You must provide links to all sources you use in forming your policy.
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