Re: Cartoon on front page, really?

A fellow journalist e-mailed me and let me know The Des Moines Register has a cartoon on its A1 everyday. So, apparently it’s not as unique as I thought. Unlike the Press Register’s cartoon this one is not paired with a story.

For more, read post below..

Cartoon on front page, really?

I witnessed a journalism first today: a political cartoon on an A1 page. Today’s Press Register, the paper of Mobile, Ala. ran a cartoon (typically for its opinion pages) next to its story. I’m not sure whether I like it or not. I think it’s bold — but something gives me the creeps about mixing editorial and news copy. The cartoon was the art for the story right next to it. The story was about the Department of Defense and a tanker deal.

This is what one of my former journalism professors said about the cartoon on the front:

Don’t believe I have seen this since the 19th century. The media are really floundering in an attempt to enter the 21st century. Much of the “modern” shit–such as blogs, writing style, topics of coverage–do smell very 19th century and yellowish. But, you young ‘uns are the ones who have to figure it all out.

Ah, those college days! Who knows what will save newspapers? I wish I had the cancer cure.

Click here to see the page on Newseum.org, or just look below. The cartoon is located at the bottom right. By the way, the paper has an awesome design today with their SEC teases at the top.

Poynter: Ambiguity good in poetry, deadly in journalism

Roy Peter Clark, of www.poynter.org, wrote an article of why ambiguity is deadly in journalism, even though it is often acclaimed in other “discourse comminities,” such as in diplomacy.

Why it’s bad in journalism: Unintentional meanings could appear in writing. Hedlines that Clark pointed out include: Disney keeps touching kids, Prostate cancer more common in men, Gas levels high in Beantown, etc.

For more, read Clark’s article.

Off the beaten trail of beat coverage

Chris and I cover an entire county — seven cities, eight police forces, 21 fire districts, two school districts, etc. It’s a big chunk of territory and not enough eyes to watch everything. Typically, I cover three cities, county government and law enforcement. Chris has schools and the remaining cities. So, from a glance it looks like we have it all covered. But there are more governmental branches I stumbled upon and realized are important to cover, even though they fell outside of our typical beat jurisdiction.

• The first is a public improvement district. It’s lead by a board of directors and has the power to levy taxes. They have monthly meetings and must keep minutes of their meetings. The public improvement district has a handful of subdivisions, and it operates like a mini-municipality, with its board providing infrastructure and other city needs.
• The second is a flood district. Hinds and Rankin counties share one. This board of directors maintains current flood control devices and decides what future ones will be there. It’s a group important to watch. No one was watching the levee district managers in New Orleans pre-Hurricane Katrina, and the consequences were devastating.
• The Jackson metro area has a gigantic reservoir sitting in the middle of it. Several counties touch it. The area directly around the Ross Barnett Reservoir has its own leadership, including police force. I don’t know much about their board, but it’s something I need to brush up on.
• The health and hospital system could be considered a governmental branch when they are state-owned. Rankin County has a large mental health hospital. Good stories could be buried in these medical institutions.

Milwaukee paper: Potholes fixed more quickly for whites than minorities

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel studied the amount of time it took the city to fix potholes in white and minority neiighborhoods. A pothole in a white-dominated neighborhood took seven days, and in a minority-dominated neighborhood it took 11. I saw this on Poynter. To see the article, click here. Check out their cool map here.

We could definitely do this in Jackson… if they are actually fixing them. I don’t think they’ve touched any on Fortification or Ridgewood in years.

Four-graf lede may be better than an anecdotal

Anecdotal ledes are overused, especially in community journalism. When I use them so frequently, I begin to get burned out on writing them, and I’m sure readers are burned out on reading them.

I turned to the Web for advice and happened upon David Cohn’s four-graf lead. This is Conn’s version of the four-graf lede:

The first graph should be the basic who, what, where, when. What happened.

The second graph should expand on the first, give more detail or paint a picture.

Then third graph should explain why this story is important to the reader. Let’s face it if you don’t live in the Bronx and there is no hero story (somebody jumping into the flames to save a cat) then you need to find relevance to other readers. Since this entire story is phoney, I’ll just create some significance.

The fourth graph should be the “Cosmic Quote.” This is the best quote that you have from your reporting. The best are quotes from people who sum-up either the 2nd graph or third graph in a succinct and poignant sentence.

I used this technique on a story I am working on now (Note: It’s a rough draft). This is how I applied it:

Rankin County’s Sheriff’s Office and police departments have seen a spike in money and vehicles confiscated from drug traffickers this year, with at least $XXX.XXX seized since last October.

The drug seizure funds help alleviate pressure on law enforcement budgets and allow police forces to purchase equipment to combat drug trafficking, county law enforcement leaders say.

The I-20 corridor, which passes through the heart of Rankin County, is a hot spot for drug trafficking in the area, Richland Police Chief Russell James said.

“The police department has done an outstanding job in bringing in funds,” said Richland Mayor Mark Scarborough, who said he’s glad his department is able to purchase vehicles without tapping into the city’s general fund.

I’m a fan!

New Ford to get 65 mpg, but only for sale in Europe

Business Week magazine ran a story last week about Ford’s Fiesta ECOnetic, which runs on diesel and gets 65 miles per gallon. It won’t be sold in the United States.

Why?

Yet while half of all cars sold in Europe last year ran on diesel, the U.S. market remains relatively unfriendly to the fuel. Taxes aimed at commercial trucks mean diesel costs anywhere from 40 cents to $1 more per gallon than gasoline.

– from The 65 mpg Ford the U.S. Can’t Have.

To read more, click here.

My dad has a diesel, but the 3.5 ton Dodge Ram is hardly the eco-friendly car.

Collegiate journalist gets bigger gig for political column

Tyler Batiste, who I worked with last year at The Daily Reveille, had his column printed in The Hattiesburg American on Sept. 2. Batiste, now managing editor at the college daily, wrote a great column about Barack Obama. Check it out below:

I’m a moderate. Not liberal, not conservative – just a carefree, easy-going non-partisan college student.

Maybe it’s because of this obsession that comes with my print journalism major to be as objective as possible at all times. But that’s the way I am.

But Thursday night, I leaned a little – a lot – to the left, a tilt that’s been on the horizon for some time now.

Thursday night I was a left-wing maniac.

Sen. Barack Obama’s rise to the top of the political world has made me proud but not because a change in Washington and a new era of politics could be fast approaching.

Rather, it was for a reason Obama’s campaign tries to keep in the background, as hard as it may be: his race.

Racial tension should be a thing of the past in this country, but the truth is that it’s not.

I know several friends and family members who have supported Obama solely because of the color of his skin and know nothing about his life, policies or platform.

I was never one of those people.

For more, click here.

New ‘Ideas’ blog on nytimes.com is perfect

I do not have as much time to read as many blogs as I would like, but one blog I always read at least once a week is the Ideas blog on nytimes.com. It has short entries that are cleverly written.

The following are cool posts I found today:

• The Roman Empire and AIDS
• It’s a Man’s Burg
• The Wandering, Creative Mind

A college newspaper becomes a true ‘information center’

When Kyle Whitfield applied to be editor of The Daily Reveille and lsureveille.com, he said he wanted to make the site an information hub. And during Hurricane Gustav and its aftermath, the college daily’s Web site became the place to go for news regarding Louisiana State University’s campus and the effects of Gustav.

How The Reveille did it: lots of Web updates and multimedia. Whitfield stressed the importance of visuals, especially photos and video clips.

Check out the Web site. I think it proves to collegiate journalists around the nation the importance of serving as (I’m going to steal a Gannett buzz word) an “information center.” Keep up the good work, Reveillians!