Leave Storytelling to Professionals

Today's rant is inspired by a talented photojournalist, Sarah Coward. She has assembled a knock-your-socks-off web portfolio. One page is “comparisons gallery” at http://www.sarahcoward.net/. It's a gentle, highly educational “visual rant against the practice of forcing newspaper reporters ... out of their element and into the world of visual storytelling.”

In a dozen or so photos that unfold in sequence, Coward shows a general assignment reporter’s snapshot of a news event and then compares how the same subject might be seen through the lens of a visual storyteller. The mini-lesson includes all the bread and butter of small-town journalism – awards, ribbon cuttings, accident scenes, openings, school days. It is is well worth the site-visit to see how far we amateurs have to go to master storytelling with pictures.

Coward’s compare-and-contrast essay was on OWW’s mind this morning when Charlotte Sun’s weekly tab, “Feeling Fit,” slithered from the Sunday sleeve. The big story is an interview with a hospital CEO. It's a puff piece assembled by a “correspondent,” which roughly translates as "untrained." And, knowing Sun Coast Media Group, the title surely indicates an amateur willing to work free for the by-line. Well, readers got exactly what the Sun paid for.

That is, the freelancer who wrote "Hospital CEO talks of healthcare" fails to tell a story. Nothing explains how today is different than yesterday. The "correspondent" gives no hint that the man interviewed is unusual or outstanding (he loves family and job, to paraphrase the several paragraphs devoted to this point). No element engages the emotions, illuminates a national debate, or explains a local condition.

As if that weren't (little) enough, the article is replete with weak grammar, punctuation and spelling. The Sun's paid copy editors must be using their stylebooks and dictionaries as coffee-mug coasters because they clearly aren't using them as references.

OK, that's the rant. For gory details and line-by-line support of the thesis, peek below the fold.

It may be safe to say that grass doesn’t grow under Joseph Clancy’s feet.

We admire the caution (“may”) but wonder why a professional writer would submit a story whose second clause in a trite cliché. Sorry: is there any other kind?

As the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Peace River Regional Medical Center, [...]

Style. Where’s the copy desk? We don’t capitalize “pope” without attaching a man’s name to the title; how does an administrator at the region’s smallest hospital rate what the head of the one true church can’t have?

[...] he spends less time behind a desk and more time visiting each department — getting to know the more than 900 employees that are under his purview — using his personable and unassuming nature to get to know them — taking the pulse of the heart of the hospital that is, he said, its people.

Trite, again, and almost laughable imagery – taking the pulse, people are the heart, etc. If the man really said this, then put it in quotes so OWW won’t blame the writer. And if the writer is putting pretty words in his mouth, the writer missed a second opportunity (the first was the lede) to start telling a story that readers might care about. Of course a new administrator meets and greets staff. If he’s affable and unassuming, a real story teller wouldn’t tell us, a real story teller would show us.

To Clancy, his position is more than a job. For him, it is personal — it is, as he said, “coming home,” to help provide the best medical care possible to the community he and his family hold dear.

Delete the unnecessary comma; more triteness: “more than a job.” Don’t tell us (again), show us. Start chapter 2 in the story. By this time, readers should know why it's important or worthwhile to read this story.

And along with loving his job as CEO, he loves his role as husband and dad and said he tries his best to balance family and career. “They are my pride and joy. I love showing them off,” he said, pulling out pictures of his two children, Carson, 3, and Sophia, 4, of whom he and wife, Tobi, adopted from Guatemala three years ago.

Edit and repair: “of whom.” Professionals (writers, real copy editors) can handle this; amateur “correspondents” need a backstop – or at least a grammar review. The sad part is, any native speaker can hear something's off, and the professional would take time to “look it up,” get a quick grammar review, or simply recast the sentence to avoid the appearance of illiteracy.

“Obviously, this is a very time-consuming job,” he said of his new position. “But, every minute I am not here at work, I spend with them.”

Clarifying “job” as “new position” helps the reader understand the difficult concept here? More importantly, there’s no hint yet of story – just a man who loves his job and his family.

“This is my third stint in Charlotte County,” he said, adding he started his career in medical administration with Health Management Associates, who not only owns Peace River Regional, but Charlotte Regional Medical Center as well.

Not “who.” Reduce wordiness: “not only ... but” phrases create ornate verbosity that says “lookie, I’m a writer.” Meanwhile, readers continue their hunt for a story.

Clancy, who took over the position in May, said that he was handed a facility that is ready to move forward with the goal of improving and expanding services and taking on new challenges. “David [McCormack, former CEO] left me in a good situation in the sense that volume wise, we are doing very well in terms of overall admissions and overall surgeries.”

OK, I believe he actually said this; it’s pure business-ese. But why? The pablum is an invitation for a professional to do some homework and inject some substance: number of beds, dollar volume, procedures performed, years in operation -- recap of the “Standard & Poor's” stuff. And why not a note about the institution’s rank and place in the hospital food chain – a highly competitive market in our area? That's what a professional might write about. So, still no story, not even a note about where poor old Dave went.

The challenges Clancy faces, he said, are industry-wide with a health-care system that may soon undergo the scalpel. “Right now, it is wait and see — to see which plan they move forward with,” he said. “The overall premise of trying to provide insurance for the uninsured and the underinsured in this country — we are all in agreement as healthcare providers that it is needed.”

Wow; this is a hot topic and yet the correspondent is willing to submit as jouranlism a piece that lets the speaker get away with this gobbledygook. We’d overlook the unanchored pronoun, nonexistent copy editing, and unsubstantiated generalizations if we had a story to chew on. What’s the effect of un- and under-insured on this hospital’s inner workings, staff, and ability to serve? If you bring up the subject, you're required to add to the discussion.

In the mean time, Clancy is focusing on the now, working to continue to improve patient satisfaction. “We pride ourselves on providing quality, compassionate care,” he said. “Even if you excel, there is always room for improvement — improving the patient experience,” he said. “That is going to remain one of our big focuses.”

Mean time as two words is quite a different thing than “meantime.” The man’s quotes are more pap and puff. Readers have long since passed the half-way mark in this story -- and still no story. Not one word has been written to tell readers why the world is different today than it was yesterday, why this man is unusual or interesting, why the heart strings might feel a tug, or why this small-town hospital even exists. We haven’t a clue.

Another focus, he said, is moving the county's cardiac care facility from Charlotte Regional Medical Center in Punta Gorda to Peace River Regional. The $16.5 million project will add a two-story, state-of-the-art cardiac tower that is planned to be constructed above the emergency room. “The other option is to renovate the old emergency room.”

Quotes without attribution and missing hypens drive real copy editors up the wall. Correspondents, not so much. Note that it's not "the county's cardiac care facility," it's HMA's.

The new cardiac area will be private inpatient rooms only, something Clancy said is becoming the industry standard.

OK, here’s a bit of hidden news that makes us willing to ignore the awful copy editing: big construction looms. Months of jockeying patients and services are ahead. (Hospital construction and renovations are a masterwork of puzzle pieces as patient care takes place side by side with construction workers and cranes). The correspondent missed a potentially very interesting story, or at least a hook for her unfiltered adulation and mindless quotes. Does the new CEO have a special expertise in hospital construction? What does the planned disruption mean for people in the community? Is moving cardiac services part of a larger HMA plan? You bet it is -- but the correspondent doesn't seem to know the community well enough to think of this.

"I think moving the program from Punta Gorda — a town of 17 thousand, to Port Charlotte that has more than 90 thousand people just makes sense,” he said.

We’ll continue to ignore the awful copy editing (which a professional writer would take care of herself before handing in her story). But, more importantly, readers need a reason to believe that moving the cardiac service “just makes sense.” Locals know Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda are adjacent municipalities and the two hospitals are six miles apart. A journalist would find out why instead of abandoning this assertion to survive on its own.

Construction on the project, he said, should start in the spring of 2010. It is an exciting time, Clancy said, for healthcare in Charlotte County, despite the struggling economy and a healthcare system in flux. “The last year has been tough on this industry, and we are facing many of the same struggles other facilities across the county face,” he said.

More pap and puff. We’re clearly getting to the end of the correspondent’s mini-tape recording.

“Charlotte County will have all the services needed to provide quality healthcare to its residents,” he said, adding he and his family are glad to be home to be a part of it.

Home from where, exactly? Did he go to high school here? And BTW, what's his college and degree? And, really, haven't we heard "quality healthcare" somewhere before? If this were a photo, it would be called a "grip and grin."

While his career has allowed him the opportunity work at various facilities in the country, it is Charlotte County he ultimately longed to return. “Every move in my career, there has always been the goal to come back here,” he said.

We return defective products to the store. We don’t return counties.

"This is the community where I met my wife. This is the community we lived in where my son was born and where we brought our daughter home from Guatemala, and is here I want my children to grow up. This is where we call home.”

So sweet: a nice family man who wanted to come home to where his heart is -- and he did. But, some 30 sentences down the pike, readers are still looking for the story. The moral of this long tale: Assign news features and story telling -- written or visual -- to professionals.

FSNE Journalism Awards 2009 for the Sun-Herald Newspaper Group: None

The Florida Society of Newspaper Editors recently announced its 2009 choices for excellence in journalism. The local Charlotte Sun has been a presence at the winners table for as long as I’ve been subscribing, so I’ve been watching in vain for the annual “cheers to us” item in the local paper.

The lack of news sent me to the FSNE Web site to see what’s going on. In fact, nothing happened. A little historical tally, however, draws an interesting picture.

In 2002, the first year I know about, Jeff Langlois won second place for sports writing, Jon Fredin took second place for feature photography, and the staff as a whole earned second place in the business category. Today, neither Langlois nor Fredin is on staff with the Sun.
In 2003: Renee LePere and Mike McLoone carried home trophies. Neither is currently employed with the Sun.
In 2004: Sarah Coward, Malcolm Brenner, James Abraham, Carrie Call, Don Wilkie and Jon Fredin – all award winners, all gone.
In 2005: Sarah Coward, Chris Stolle, Keith Cerniglia – all award winners, all gone.
In 2006: John Haughey, Buddy Martin, Sarah Coward, Jon Fredin, Dana Clausing – all award winners, all gone.
In 2007: Dugan Arnett, Bob Bowden, Janet Boetsch, Denis DeRambo, John Finneran, Buddy Martin, Sarah Coward, Karlie Rose, Alyssa Schnugg – all award winners, all gone.
Last year, in 2008: Just two awards went to the Sun, one for a special one-time section about the Peace River, and another to columnist John Hackworth. He's still with the paper, survivor of what appears to be a staff-wide decimation of award-winning writers and photographers.

So what about this year? This year, there were no FSNE winners at "America's Best Community Daily." All gone.

Sun Columnist Struggles with "Unpronounceable" African Countries

Dave Morris, Sun-Herald's tireless consumer advocate, let it slip in his column today that he has trouble pronouncing the names of some "foriegner" African nations. Dave has helped so many readers and now Old Word Wolf is willing to turn the tables and help him. Being a fuddy-duddy old teacher, OWW can't idly sit by while when a nice young man feels the urge to turn ignorance into a small (very small) joke. Making ignorance a laughing matter fosters stereotypes and reinforces the sense that others -- even when speaking of their own nations! -- are somehow not up to Dave's linguistic standards. His joke doesn't bridge global understanding or nurture world peace. But OWW can help.

OWW is convinced that Dave can learn there are no unpronounceable names among African nations. To prove this, OWW has arranged a little chart, scaled from "really easy" to more challenging. It's a self-paced tutorial that Dave can take at home. He can start with the familiar and work through to the very manageable -- and enjoyable -- challenges of mastering how to pronounce the names of every African nation.

Level 1 Easiest: These are African countries whose national names are highly Anglicized in the Western lexicon (that is, Americans commonly say and write them using Dave’s native language family). They should pose no trouble at all to a trained journalist:

South Africa ................... Western Sahara .................... Central African Republic
Ivory Coast .................... Canary Islands ...................... Saint Helena
Democratic Republic of the Congo

Level 2 Also pretty easy. These countries have short names, just one or two syllables, which are easily pronounced with the Anglican sound system:

Chad ... Mali ... Niger ... Sudan ... Ghana (silent h)... Gabon
Benin ... Kenya ... Mayotte ... Togo ... Libya ... Egypt
Seyshelles (say shells)

Level 3 Less easy: Country names of three syllables (forcing Dave to make a decision about stressed-unstressed patterns) or names with adjacent vowels or double L’s (requiring Dave to either separate vowels or master a diphthong or blend.) Practice is easier than theory, I promise.

A. Diphthongs and blends: Zaire ..... Guinea ..... Melilla

B. Three syllables: Angola ... .. Botswana ..... Uganda....... Zambia .... . Maderia ..... Tunisia ...Senegal ..... Cameroon ..... Burundi ..... Comoros .... Malawi .....

Level 4. Maybe Dave finds countries of more than one word hard to pronounce. There are only four, and each can be “sounded out” using common English phonemic groups and stress rules.

..... Sierra Leone ..... Guinea Bassu..... Burkina Faso ..... Sao Tome and Principe

Level 5 The Big Words. Even African country names of four or more syllables are easy to master in about 10 minutes by a motivated learner with a dictionary and unimpeded by a speech impairment. First the rhymers because a little song always helps grasp new material:

Nigeria ..... Liberia ... .. Algeria ..... Somalia ..... Ethiopia ..... Namibia ..... Tanzania ..... Mauritania ..... Eritrea ..... Madagascar..... Mozambique .....

And finally, the Gold Medal for Difficulty is clearly, Djibouti.

The trick is not to let the initial "d" confuse Dave's American sense of what's hard to pronounce. Africans in this eastern continental nation where the local languages are Arabic and Somoli, have not been generally linked to scam letters, which is the context of our helpful columnist's linguistic xenophobia. Djiboutis are, I dare say, just happy if the world just knows they're around and like it when people respect their name enough to say it gracefully. If an American comes calling, they are willing to endure: Jä-BOO-tee.

Dave, if I've overlooked any African nations or if you find one you still can't pronounce, please call and I'll be happy to help. The one that is most commony associated with scam letters is actually among the easiest to pronounce: Ny-jeer-ee-a. Say it and repeat it. You'll get it.

DeSoto County School Board Meets Again

This might turn into a saga,"School Board Meeting: Part 2." **

DeSoto County School board held a meaty and important session last night. Its purpose was to set the millage rate for next year’s property tax payers (the millage goes up from 7.210 mills for the current year to 7.45 mills for the upcoming year), but before the board’s unanimous vote to place the legal ads and public notices for this, four of five members present – and the one member of the public who was there – were immersed in a robust, meaty, and highly informative look at the district’s funding prospects for the next fiscal year. It was not a pretty picture; the message was a familiar one -- a small, rural school district having to do more with less, within a state that seems not to believe that education is its most important priority, and doing it in times of great stress for the community and the people in it.

Preliminary figures in the first draft of the 2009-2010 schools budget show last year’s bottom line of $42.5 million is expect to dwindle to $39 million. And even that reduced number is likely to shrink further, pending some final calculations about how much the school district can realistically expect from local taxpayers (the tax base has contracted as property values have declined).

Old Word Wolf is going to post more detail about this, but first a digression. OWW was the one member of the public present. Why? It may be because the school board’s published agenda for the regular meeting made no mention of the budget backgrounder or the millage decision that came up for a vote. The finance director’s presentation came under the heading of “staff report,” without even a sub-title to indicate it was the finance director who would be presenting the show and tell.

That's the boring part: Now the good stuff

The trouble started when OWW went to the podium to ask the board to do two things: make the detailed budget available in the town library, and to publish agendas that revealed more about what would actually be heard, discussed, and voted on. Not even the press, it seems, had been alerted to the depth and breadth of the evening's business and was conspicuously absent.

When the meeting adjourned a few minutes later, Adrian Cline, the superintendent of DeSoto County schools accused OWW of going to the supervisor of elections to dig up information about him, of harassing his staff, and being sarcastic.

The accusations came in the wake of OWW greeting the school board chairman, Rodney Hollingsworth, and gently lobbying him to place a copy of the budget in the public library. Before the chairman could respond or discuss the public-records request, Superintendent Cline interrupted to bellow, “You’re not going to find what you’re looking for!” Since OWW doesn’t know what she is or isn’t looking for, the superintendent’s own clarity on this point was nothing short of amazing in a mentalist-fortune teller sort of way.

Unfortunately, a low-key discussion regarding the availability of a public document fast escalated into a red-faced, eyes-bulging set of snorts and accusations by the superintendent, who was wild to call names and impugn motives.

What's a Citizen to think?

The take-away message is pretty clear: (1) The public is not welcome to know what’s on the school board’s agenda (2) The school board membership's reputation for meekness and acquiescence has a clear reason for being: the superintendent acts like a bully (3) and the superintendent seems unwilling to release even the most public of documents without a boat load of paranoia, suspicion, and nasty name-calling.

** See "Muzzle the Press" of a couple of weeks back.

DeSoto Property Values Lower: Why? Don't Ask

Important local story today: The property appraiser's annual tally of real estate values adds up to about 10 percent less than last year's value. The story's sub-head includes the words "some skeptical," and the appraiser himself is quoted in the story as saying the tote isn't the 20-percent decline he had expected.

So, does our inquiring reporter ask the nice government official why? After all, it's one of the five W's, and a biggie, at that.

The nice reporter asks a nice real estate broker first. She says, "it's a great time to sell your property and buy another. " Not really helpful or even on topic, except if you're pressed into writing a dozen paragraphs in three days. The reporter's next attempt at relevance is a second real estate broker, who edges closer to the meat of the matter ("I can tell you in the real life, the housing market is down more than 10 percent"). But our government watchdog isn't watching. Most people, even folks who aren't trained reporters, would return to the property appraiser and ask, "Why? If the market's down a lot more than 10 percent, why don't your valuations seem to relfect that?"

Now, the property appraiser might explain to an inquiring citizen that so-called homestead properties have been enjoying a 3-percent cap on tax-value hikes for the last 15 years or so (ever since Florida voters approved the so-called SOS amendment to the state constitution that capped annual homestead valuation increases to 3 percent). Even in down-market years, those properties' valuations for tax purposes are allowed to rise a full 3 percent until taxable value catches up with market value. DeSoto has a high percentage of homesteaded properties; it's not a vacation land populated with second homes that would have been unaffected by the artificially low tax values awarded to homesteads.

Or, the inquiring reporter himself might have looked into a sampling of homes sold in the last year or so (but that would require genuine curiosity and a willingness to work at one's chosen profession). If the number of properties sold last year and the year before were relatively few, it is conceivable that there has been little impact on market price calculations. Again, this is not a hot real estate market and turnover might be historically low (I don't know this; but if I were a sharp reporter, I'd certainly ask).

Or -- there are certainly three or four additional factors that go into the fairly complex (but not opaque or unknowable) property valuation system. A real reporter, rather than a spokesman for his friends in government, would help taxpayers and readers understand how the system works: --->


The story fails to serve readers due simply to laziness and amateurism.

A real reporter might use this story to launch the yearly millage-rate explanation -- especially in light of a county commissioner's nearly meaningless quote: "I will not support a millage increase..." Now, the good commissioner is about to discover that when values go down, he can't use the same millage as last year to generate an equal amount this year. In order to maintain a flat level of spending on lower values, the millage must increase. It's a law of arithmetic, or something. Are taxpayers going to understand this? Not by reading John Lawhorne. That's the lazy part.

The amateurish part is, once again (this is becoming a habit), the reporter doesn't tell readers when this news broke. When did the property appraiser finish his tally? Was that Monday when there was "no paper?" or last Friday? This sloppy omission is doubly curious because the lede describes the property appraiser "working under the pressure of a 10-day extension." Ten days from when is not reported; who issued the extension is not reported; why the extension had been requested and granted is not reported. How the delay affects the work and timeframes available to the school board, county, and other taxing districts is not reported.

And, to make things sloppier and lazier, it looks like the reporter didn't bother doing the math. If last year's taxable value in the county was $1.8 billion and this year's is $1.6 billion, the $200 million difference is 11 percent less than last year's figure, not 10 percent as reported. Likewise, if the City of Arcadia's taxable value last year was $232 million and this year's is $218 million, then the $14 million difference is 6 percent less than last year's figure, not the 10 percent reported.

Say When: It's One of the Five W's

In their continuing struggle with the fundamentals of news writing, Charlotte Sun editors this morning published a story submitted by a “correspondent,” and the kids on the copy desk slapped on the headline, “Feds offering new immigration check system.”

“Nine Florida counties have been added to the list of law enforcement agencies using the federal government new secure communities and immigration check program....” reads the opener. Which prompts the reader to wonder what new system are we talking about? Was it new yesterday? New earlier this week? New last month? The correspondent never corresponds on this point -- and as it turns out, he can’t because the system isn’t new. The new parts (or better, “recent” ) are the nine counties joining.

A quick Web search uncovers that the “correspondent” has paraphrased (you know, changed word here, changed a word there) a June 19 government press release that does not call the program new. The program has been around a while. The writer doesn’t directly tell readers this; they must make a reasonable inference based on his last graf:

“Since it [database access] was issued to Florida law enforcement agencies, 8,407 matches have come through, including 787 Level 1 offenders, or aggravated felons.” Again, since when? Would that be 8,407 since yesterday? Earlier this week? Last month?

This story is a great example of a “correspondent” who has failed to take his journalism seriously enough to strive for a modicum of objectivity. Like a used car salesman, he’s trying to sell the almost-new old buggy. We expect the hype at the lemon lot, not the newspaper.

Dunn-Rankin: Global Warming is a Media Concoction

Well, he didn't say conspiracy: he said "media consensus."

The "he" in the "who" is our esteemed newsman, Dunn-Rankin the elder. The "where" is his column this sunny Sunday morn. The "what" is a Goldilocks opinion, "Not too hot, not too cold," wherein our scribe purports to do some myth busting.

Because ice ages and thaws come and go, the nice newsman concludes global warming is a myth, sprung whole from a "media consensus" (and a wrong one at that) that ignores what he knows for sure: this is just the warming trend side of a natural cycle.

Time for a short lesson in close reading.

First, readers will recognize that it's illogical to believe that "the media" have come together to create a consensus (or did we just miss the memo that the meeting was called?). Second, it's illogical to believe that a newspaper's or a television station's efforts can answer a scientific question. That's not their job. (The "media" practice journalism, not science -- two different things with different methodologies, aims, etc.)

However, we'll play along with the media angle for a moment and cite (for bevity's sake) one medium, The New York Times, which the columnist seems to have overlooked. Two years ago, scores of reporters covered a meeting of international climate scientists in Paris. The story ran under this hed:

Science Panel Calls Global Warming Unequivocal.

The reporters summarized the work of "hundreds of scientists and reviewers" who convened first in 1988. Over the next two decades, they collected and weighed data and evaluated possible conclusions. Their 2007 Paris meeting was summarized like this:

"The panel's four [published] assessments since 1990 ... asserts with near certainty -- more than 90 percent confidence -- that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human activities have been the main causes of warming in the past half century," the Times reported.

Dunn-Rankin is, of course, entitled to deny every bit of the massive scientific evidence for rapid-onset, human-induced climate change. He is also entitled to print and publish his denialism. And, being in a position of great privilege -- he owns tons of newsprint and barrels of ink -- he can broadcast that global-warming evidence is a media conspiracy (which seems weirder and weirder the more we think about it), and along the way he'll undoubtedly garner a few "atta boys" and "way to go's" from the conspiracy theorists at the yacht club.

This reader, however, chalks it up to weak analytical skills combined with willful ignorance of evidence. The two may be marks of a local curmudgeon, but they render the opinionmaker more pitiable than believeable.

Plagiarism is Ugly

Not a pretty sight: Kristen Spahr, the newest in a series of public relations and marketing youngsters over a the local hospital, makes it clear she can't be bothered with citing sources, paraphrasing, or producing original material for her employer. But she does make the effort to paste her own by-line on top of material that she took straight from a product brochure.*

Sphar's plagiarism graced page 6 in the Our Town section of yesterday's DeSoto Sun. Although Sun editors had been made aware of Spahr's plagiarism a couple of weeks back, not one of them seems to have "Googled" even a phrase from the most recent submission.

*Is the manufacturer of the knee-surgery equipment going to object to its name (in capital letters, no less) splashed all over the news hole? Not likely. Does the source's complicity mitigate the ethical failure of lying? Kristen, do I hear your answer?

Muzzle the Press

The DeSoto County School Board on Tuesday voted to expand its dual-enrollment agreement with the local community college to include 9th and 10th graders. This move -- affecting children who attend a high school that has been "graded" by the state as a D school, has not been reported to the community.

"Well, I'm not a editor, and I don't set these things up," Sun-Herald Reporter John Lawhorne said when Old Word Wolf telephoned him two days after the meeting to ask why the local paper had not yet run the news -- but found room to publish reports from two other districts on today's "Our Town" front. Lawhorne attended the meeting with tape recorder and notebook and appeared to at least one member of the audience to be alert during most of the proceedings.

The dual-enrollment item came to the 5-member school board's attention during the agenda item Superientendent's Report. There was no wording on the published agenda that would alert the public to a deal that could send 14- and 15-year-olds into a college classroom.

Also not reported -- because John Lawhorne seems to have been muzzled by the school superintendent -- is the citizen who addressed the school board that evening. A college instructor took the podium to accuse the school district of not adquately teaching Sunshine State Standards at its D-rated high school.

"I see students come into my college courses from DeSoto High School who are woefully underprepared," said Marilyn Tarnowski, an adjunct faculty member in English and Humanities at South Florida Community College.

Tarnowski told the school board that she regularly teaches DeSoto High grads who are unable to locate major features on a globe, read well enough to decipher even short passages from Shakespeare or such standard American classics as Thoreau or Hawthorne. She went on to describe the lack of "critical reading and critical thinking" know-how, despite the fact that these skills are a core part of the state-mandated skill set that describes teaching standards for every grade level in the public schools.

"I talked to nearly every board member about the high school's FCAT reading scores before coming here tonight, and every one had a range of reasons for the poor results. The finger-pointing ranged from blaming the test itself to blaming our demographics and even blaming the students. Not one school board member suggested the problem might be rooted in the classroom and what goes on -- or doesn't go on -- there," Tarnowski said. State standardized test scores released last month indicated that 80 percent of DeSoto High's 10th graders were reading below grade level and 41 percent could not compute using 10-grade math.

Reporter Lawhorne acknowledged that when he tries to track down stories that might construed as critical of the school district, the elected members of the school board nearly always defer to Superintendent Adrian Cline -- an elected official who by state law is answerable to the school board, not it to him.

Lawhorne defended the lack of a local school board story as a space consideration and for reasons known only to editors, Charlotte County and North Port school board stories were deemed of more interest to DeSoto readers. "That where the readership is," Lawhorne said.

News: Shoots Fired; Editors Didn't Hear a Sound

The hed says: Police investigating shoots fired in neighborhood.

The lede says: Authorities are investigating a call of shoots fired near Midway Boulevard...

"Academic Excellence" Praised, Not Practiced

Lake Placid Journal editor George Duncan has worked consistently to establish his reputation for putting out the sloppiest newspaper in Sun Coast Media Group -- which takes effort because he has only one day a week to make his mark. Old Word Wolf doesn't usually pick on typos (unless they're in display type), and only occasionally does she let careless but common grammatical errors elicit more than a private growl. Such admirable restraint (given the number of temptations) keeps her major focus, which is on the fundamental quality of local journalism, i.e., the job of actually reporting on the stuff that betters communities and makes democracy work.

And the Golden Sloppy Goes to ....

But this week's Lake Placid Journal effortlessly sets new records by which to measure the sloppiest editor in five counties. Duncan's page commits all his usual errors, but the irony of this edition's output rates a three-bark alert because Duncan uses his editorial to praise "Educational Excellence." (Now, who could argue with that? but I digress.) But why even bring it up, if our focus is on journalism, not typos? Because, at some point, readablity counts. Accuracy has always contributed to credibility. Duncan's constant harping on "left wing" this (bad), and "conservative" that (good), and "the main stream media" (bad, as if he's not one of the rivulets), and "liberalism" (worst of all) completely eroded his journalistic credibility by about his third edition. Today, we're simply going back to school -- in pursuit of excellence.

In one seven-paragraph opinion piece, Duncan commits nearly a dozen minor and six or seven major writing faults, not the least of which is a failure of fundamental logic. Our cheerful opinion maker leads by bemoaning "grade inflation" and cheerfully side steps over to Lake Placid Christian School where, he assures readers, no one would ever, ever, ever participate in such moral and academic bankruptcy. But Duncan's third graf about the graduation of the Class of 2009 makes it clear that something like a record number of academic awards were handed out in every major subject area. "LPCS students are clearly exceptional," the editor reports. Exceptional? Hmmmm. Now, about that grade-inflation lede, George.

But even that bit of community boosterism at the expense of actual coherence wouldn't have stirred OWW. It's the overall irony that infuses the page that sets her abarking.

Excellence -- particularly among newspaper editors who brazenly promote their own books on the boss's real estate -- includes the ability to spell the California governor's name correctly (or if you're not sure after all these years, the motivation to look it up), a willingness to adhere to the basic rules of English capitalization, recognize broken compounds, use commas in a consistent and conventional manner, understand the principles of subject-verb agreement, recognize and correct faulty tense shifts, and -- at a minimum -- save dear old Randy Ludacer from making a waterboarding joke in the letters column that says exactly the opposite of what he intended.

Aliens Did It

Yesterday's political cartoon rates a full five barks from Old Word Wolf, based on the apparent failure of a Viewpoints page editor at the Charlotte Sun to apply his history teacher's lessons to the real world. In the cartoon, a tall skinny figure representing the president says, "Let me get this straight -- they built this without government funds?"

Let me set you straight, dear Viewpoints Editor: Archaeologists and historians teach us, starting in about the third grade, that Egyptian pyramids were built by pharaohs -- heads of government. The government had at its disposal thousands of slaves who quarried thousands of acres of limestone and granite. The government ordered the slaves to shove thousands of tons of stone across the desert and make a pile of rock into a figure determined by thousands of engineers because the government, in the person of the pharaoh, wanted a place to rest its bones. Slaves and engineers alike received bed and board from the big guy on the throne -- the government. All these resources, both human and material, were spent at the behest and expense of the government.

So, anyone who can remember the story of the pyramids and how they came to be -- such as an editor who is relatively awake and not a victim of early onset senility -- would take one look at this cartoon and wonder why any ink in this time of frugality and cutbacks -- should be wasted on such an obvious error of generally accepted historical fact. Not at the Sun.

Plagiarism Redux

DeSoto Sun's local editor, Laura Schmid got taken -- again. More than a dozen writers have submitted plagiarized articles to her over the last couple of years. She dutifully publishes each one of them, and this morning is no exception. But today she adds a twist: instead of just publishing plagiarism, she actively promotes the authors. Here are the facts. First, in her column, Schmid urges readers to buy new books recently published by Arcadian plagiarist Barbara Oehlbeck and another by Arcadian plagiarist Chip Ballard. Then on page 6, Schmid runs an article "provided by" Kristen Spahr, marketing director at the local hospital.

Spahr's hospital promotion piece leads off with a fear-based tear-jerker. The words came not from her heart, but apparently from the Web:

As people grow older, they may suffer through many losses -- a spouse, family members, friends, health, mobility, status, and sometimes respect from others and ultimately respect for themselves.

This sense of loss can be overhwelming as the struggle for control in their lives may seem to be a losing battle.

Growing old does not mean emotional despiar has to be an acceptable condition of life. The good news is this downward spiral is not a necessary part of life, but a treatable condition that can be reverse. The quality of life can be renewed as the feelings of despair and hopelessness are changed to hope, joy and inner peace. Anxiety, depression, lack of motivation and sadness due to grief and loss issues can be minimized or resolved by effective treatment.

Spahr fails to acknowledge any source for the wording of "her" article. That leaves Old Word Wolf to assume it might come from or have a mutual source (a brochure?) as a page published by the marketing department at St. Joseph Memorial Hospital, which serves the rural southwest Illinois towns of Carbondale and Murphysboro. (Click on the image for type large enough to compare.) The good sisters at the Catholic community hospital posted news of their senior services program on the Internet last year, and Spahr appears to have simply scooped up their good words -- or used a mutual marketing source -- without so much as a thank-you.

And Schmid, who despite having been burned before, apparently didn't bother with a Google search on the first sentence. If she had, she would have encountered both the duplication and a "teachable moment." That's when she could have explained to the new marketing director that journalism, even small-town journalism that relies on free fillers, requires better than copying from a brochure.

Conflict of Numbers

This morning's business section carries an in-house ad that urges readers to write a letter to the editor and "share your thoughts with 80,000 of your friends and neighbors." It's a bit of boosterism spun from a deliberately misleading number.

Since the entire population of Charlotte County is about 150,000 and DeSoto's is a fifth of that (we're not counting cows), the 80,000 number suggests that every second or third person is strolling around with a paid-for copy of one of the Suns under his/her arm.

Well, that doesn't sound right to Old Word Wolf. The nice folks at The Lakeland Ledger were happy to look up some current reports on file at Audit Bureau Circulations, a company that maintains a proprietary database of newspaper data. Here's what ABC says about the Charlotte Sun:

-- For the six-month period ending Sept. 30 2008 compared to the same period the prior year, ABC reports the Sun's 2008 Sunday circulation fell to 43,331 from 46,490.
-- The paper's average Monday through Friday circulation in 2008 declined to 37,241 from 38,115 the year before.
-- Saturday circulation in 2008 shrank to 31,204, downfrom 32,513 the same period a year earlier.

The figures for the first six months of 2009 are not posted yet, but Old World Wolf will be very, very impressed to hear that Charlotte Sun circulation has more than doubled to 80,000.

Of course, the ad creates wiggle room: "Friends and neighbors" probably isn't the same as paid circulation. The publishers may well be calculating a pass-along readership, freebies, or even Web traffic. The problem is, the president of Sun Coast Media Group last Sunday claimed his newspaper's growing circulation figures had reached "record levels." The numbers don't tell the same story.

Now, OWW doesn't want to see any newspaper's circulation decline; there is no joy in watching a vernable institution that's so closely tied to the workings of democracy wither away. But there is no room for misleading readers. If circulation is so good, where have all the reporters, photojournalists, and real editors gone?

Dr. Seuss's Message for Grads

Derek Dunn-Rankin, top guy at the local press, told readers last Sunday there would always be a place for a well-edited newspaper. Unfortunately, that place isn’t his DeSoto Sun.

Today’s two-page photo feature of DeSoto High School’s Friday graduation and the after-party activities forgo editing entirely. One page shows photos taken at the high school gym (“Project Graduation,” designed to keep kids off the streets and out of trouble during their celebration), and the other page shows snaps from Turner Agri-Civic Center, the local auditorium and site of the cap-and-gown ceremony.

The editor had all weekend and all day Monday (no Monday publication in this one-daily town) to design, lay out, write and proofread. Readers can judge the quality of the layout at a glance, but it takes some time to figure out that the very last picture on the page shows the grads preparing to enter the opening processional. ... they who are last shall be ....?

Reading the cutlines (captions) takes a bit of intestinal fortitude. Three page-10 cutlines refer to "Friday." Six cutlines identify "the Turner Center" using two different names interchangeably. Two cutlines describe moving morterboard tassels as a sign of graduation. One young woman is described as graduating with an “associate degree” and hoping to go on for a “master’s degree.” (I’m barking at the omitted apostrophe, the omitted bachelor’s step and the omitted name of the A.A. granting institution.)

Over on the party page, cutlines repeat, repeat, repeat "where" and "why" in much the same fashion. The finished product reads as if 21 people organized 21 photographs with no idea that they'd be packaged together.

But maybe all this is in unintended homage to Dr. Seuss, who provided the theme for the evening. (Remember, 80 percent of DeSoto High 10th graders who took this year’s FCAT can’t read at grade level.)

The feature story, which starts on the local front and jumps, refers to a gym "bedecked with artistry." The writer reports parents saying "goodbye," and fleshes out the story by quoting nearly half of a lengthly Dr. Seuss poem, "Oh, the Places You'll Go," instead of reporting on the news. The free-lancer claims to be a humor writer -- but an editor, not so much. The writer's Web page includes obvious typos ("I'm way to conceited for my own good"), strange grammar ("My publicist says this is the page I am supposed to tell you all about me and how great I am. The fact I even have a publicist is scary."), and her computer-services Internet site is riddled with random Germanic capitalizations, irregular spellings, missing apostrophes, and badly punctuated sentences ("...which I do to bug people, primarly my editor," tossed hopefully in.)

That's OK, a humorist admits the need an editor. Paper President Dunn-Rankin as much as promised one -- after all, that's what newspaper editors do, right? Unfortunately, both he and the staff of editors in Arcadia -- assembling the biggest story of this little town this season -- all failed to deliver.

Do We Have an Editor?

Today’s self-referential column by Sun Media Group president Derek Dunn-Rankin kicks off with a 20-point hed question: “Do we have a future?”

To reach the story, readers must digest this headline’s silly question. They must pass through the navel-gazing, first-person voice it establishes. They’ll have to forgive that it ignores a general prohibition against questions in heds. And, they must overlook its yes-no fallacy.

But for all its failings, the headline isn’t what set Old Word Wolf abarking. The noise started about halfway down in the column, where the president of the paper attempts to answer his own question: “Nothing matches a well-edited relevant local newspaper in helping us understand and enjoy our community.”

OWW couldn’t agree more. So let’s see how the “well-edited relevant” part is working. We start by mentioning the missing comma, but that’s the least of the irony.

Instead of opening with something fresh on a tired topic (1.1 million Google hits for the phrase “the future of newspapers”), this large-press owner expects to grab readers with one of the topic’s most overused clichés: Mark Twain’s “reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” (69,000 Google hits for “Newspapers” AND “reports of my death”). As recently as April 13, San Diego News Network’s top executive, Barbara Bry, hauled out the same cliché to kick off her “Shop Talk” opinion piece on the subject in the industry organ, Editor & Publisher, a publication that inside sources tell me regularly lands on the boss’s desk.

Other things a real editor might have caught, questioned and repaired in a well-edited, relevant, local newspaper:

-- Newspapers prospered over the last 60 years, as we became a nation of consumers. (There’s that missing comma, tucked where it’s not needed. And, another cliché.)
-- Buying habits were driven by advertising. (Unnecessary passive voice; wordy. Are not buying habits still ad-driven for the most part? I mean, how are we going to buy something we’ve never heard about?)
-- Google has not a single reporter or editor. (Apples and oranges fallacy. A search engine’s job isn’t journalism. And, the blue pencil guy/gal might gently note that Google actually does employ editors, and quite of few of them at that. Ask Google.)
-- A dedicated staff of former and current employees has helped us navigate rough and rocky terrain. (Hmmm. Former employees are assisting the Dunn-Rankin family in their private enterprise? Is he trying to remind readers or trying to sidestep mention of the multiple rounds of mass firings he instigated in the last 18 months?)
-- Our circulation is at an all-time high ... (Unsupported assertion. The writer provides no supporting data; readers are expected to take his word for this. Sharp-thinking readers will recognize that newspapers still strongly appeal to an older population, and his is the only one – a monopoly – available in one of the nation’s greyest markets.)
-- The writer claims “we offer more content to our readers” than daily newspapers he reads in Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, Fort Myers, Bradenton, Lakeland, and Tampa. (Unsupported assertion number two. Further, the average reader is likely to be unsure what “more content” actually measures. I know I am. He probably counts the two sorry partial pages of three-graf bitties that have been assembled as “Northern Report” and “News Across America.” Until recently, those items ran without headlines because the publisher – Derek’s son -- said writing heds was time consuming and printing them took up space. Fortunately, that policy has been revised. But I digress.)
-- Newspapers ... reach more adults every day and every week than any other single advertising buy. (Unsupported assertion number three. This reader suspects a single ad buy in AARP magazine, a single ad buy on a super bowl day or any random Oprah show will reach far more adults than a full page Thursday insertion in the Charlotte Sun. )
-- As Internet advertising became fashionable with the young professionals who manned the advertising agencies, the industry was hit by the worst depression since the 1930s. (I can overlook the missing AP apostrophe as local style. But "fashionable?" Surely a strange way to express “effective,” “accessible,” “efficient” or any other of a wide selection of quasi-measures that would be more appropriate. And what’s with “manned?” Sexism in writing is nearly always caught by a good editor. "Staffed" would work just as well.)

There’s more, but that’s enough for Old Word Wolf’s first day back on the job.

Publisher's Quote of the Year

The year isn't half over yet, but I don't know how he's going to top this one. The publisher is writing about the daily page of three-graf bitties of "News Across America," a clone of a format popularized by USA Today. The local imitation provides volume without substance and tends to reflect the taste of copydesk kids: murder, mayhem, abuse and alternate realities. The copy kids convinced the boss headlines just take up space. Plus, they're hard to write.

To be fair ...

... the rest of the story is the publisher decided to change this policy and "headlines" now appear over the items. Let's see how that's working.

Today's sampling: Military training (Arizona); Pizza parlor shooting (Connecticut), Fort Wayne fire (Indiana); Bike-basking bees (Michigan); Snow in June (North Dakota) ... and so on. These aren't really headlines, of course. They are random phrases harvested from the lede.

This is what the publisher referred to when he wrote, "Our crack news team put their brainpower into finding a way to give you daily headlines but not create massive manual work."


Meanwhile, over at the Venice Gondolier, alien reptiles have invaded:




Since sheriffs in the "old west" never once assembled Sarasota County citizens to help round up alien reptiles, Carol Sakowitz's lede mixes fact and fiction and ends up being silly instead of clever. It fails journalism's sniff test for "clever." That is, does it help inform the reader and illuminate the story, or does the trope merely attempt to show off a writer's wit?

80 Percent of Local 10th Graders Fail State Reading Test ...

... and our local reporter -- John Lawhorne -- allows the school district superintendent to "focus ... on the positive."

There is no accountability when a reporter acts as PR flack for a town's power structure.

And more from the not-really-a-reporter department: (but given column space, anyway...

More on Chip Ballard's silliness

Real Editors Check the Math

When running a shoestring operation, it seems there's no time to check facts or do math. This morning's rant (Letters to the Editor) comes from a guy who slipped a couple of digits but no one on the newspaper's editorial or copy desks bothered to check. Incensed by "bailout funding," our citizen-watchdog claims he "sat down with a pencil and paper and divided 1 trillion by 300 million (the country's population) and calculated $30,000 plus for every man, woman and child in this country." Sorry Bud. That would be $3,333. This simple math error has been circulating in e-mails and blog rants for going on six months now. But no one at the Sun noticed -- or bothered to count the zeroes.

Editor's Job Opening: Reading Not Required

The story is about a couple who provides foster care for newborns and infants recently taking in their 100th child. The headline kicks it off: "100 and counting." Strangely, the copy desk editor couldn't be bothered to read deeply enough into the story (like the first sentence) to learn the couple is counting babies, not birthdays, before writing the fiction: "Foster parents hit century mark." No, they are 75 years young, as the expression goes. It's the Sun copy desker who has reached early senility.


Editors who read might help with faulty modifiers in the lede and elsewhere, as well. Instead, readers are giggling because instead of focusing on a child and his dirtbike, they encounter the all-seeing smile that ate the landscape:
While gazing across the five-acre track at Charlotte BMX Sunday, a smile spread across 11-year-old Ryan Nenno's face. Grammatically, it's the spreading smile that's gazing across the track.