Excited Crowds Greet Obama

Cutline1: Arcadians shout excitedly as president Barack Obama passes by in his motorcade Tuesday in DeSoto County, although he could not be seen from inside his limo.




Cutline 2: An excited crowed laughed, danced, waved their hands and supportive signs, took photos and chanted, "Obama! Obama! Obama!" as his presidential motorcade turned the corner where they gathered in Arcadia.

"Losing the News" Local Chapter: Puppies and Pop Warner

The man who owns the biggest press and the most ink in these parts used his column Sunday to review Alex Jones’ Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “L0sing the News.” Derek Dunn-Rankin recapped Jones' 300-year history of the popular press and “its role in shaping the world’s longest running democracy.” Dunn-Rankin tells readers he learned from the book that the “iron core” of the newspaper’s job is not letters to the editor, sports or celebrity gossip: “ It is hard news that can only be generated by expensive reporting. It is news produced by time-consuming digging, fact gathering, and analysis. It is the news generated at the state legislature or the local sheriff’s department ...”

Old Word Wolf hopes Dunn-Rankin’s isn’t just arm-chair philosophizing but plans to use this new knowledge to set the tone for his own newspapers.

Long before Dunn-Rankin read Jones' book, the journalist's sense of purpose and ability to do that traditional job were long lost here in Arcadia and, apparently, in other Sun Coast Media zones, as well.

The day before the owner’s column ran, news editor Christy Arnold, lost it, big time. Her Saturday column became a self-defensive rant built on sarcasm and bad analogies before getting around to screaming at her readers. In five lines of capital letters (“GET A HOBBY. GET A DISTRACTION IN YOUR LIFE THAT MAKES YOU A LITTLE HAPPIER AND A LITTLE LESS NASTY TO OTHERS...”) she tells everyone to go away and stop bothering her about spelling errors, their personal opinion of the president, and the amount of a “bad news” they are forced to read.

Arnold’s reasoning is “we do the best we can.” Specific examples support her claim: “Want to announce your child’s 6th birthday? We’ll put it in the paper. ...Want to announce your wedding anniversary? We’ll let all your neighbors and loved ones know...” She goes on to list honor rolls, Pop Warner football, fundraisers and pet photos as exhibits D, E, F, and G in her we-do-it-all-for-you defense.

What she omits, however, is more interesting than either her display of bad temper or her feel-good examples. There’s no mention of covering city government, county commissioners, monitoring school district operations, keeping an eye on the public budgets – those little journalistic jobs that that help keep open government open. Old Word Wolf used to complain that biweekly school board news has been essentially rehashed agendas. As it turns out, those were the good old days. DeSoto readers don’t get even that anymore because a photo of pet goldfish (her example, not mine) is her priority. She’s doing the best she can.

Meanwhile, DeSoto readers are left in the dark about how “citizens’ boards” are chosen and when and where their meetings are held. How are background checks weighed when someone with a dubious life story is appointed by friends in high places to positions of power? How many husband-wife teams teach at the schools, staff government offices and make it difficult to impossible to take corrective steps when necessary? Where are the reports on all these “informal” meetings held at eateries and from pickup trucks, local commissioners leaning window-to-window ... to talk about what? Why does the school board vote unanimously, week in and week out with not one member initiating a public discussion about thousands of dollars of expenditures? Why do school board members say, at meetings, “we are not required to respond” when a man with a polite but potentially embarrassing question takes the podium? Christy Arnold's column tells readers that “doing the best we can” means “we’ve been intimidated by the powers that be so we're going to stick to Pop Warner and puppies.” We're doing the best that we can.

I hope Derek Dunn-Rankin plans to have a chat with Editor Arnold about what a newspaper’s job really is -- “Digging ... information .. that lets us better understand the world around us" is his choice quote. I hope he shares with her his vision about a paper that upholds traditional journalistic values: "accuracy, balance, holding government accountable and the separation of news and editorial viewpoint.”

And then I hope he has the same chat with Arcadia Editor Susan Hoffman.

And then I hope he will forgo his yacht-club membership for a year to put a real reporter – not a family friend or relative of the local hospital administrator – in charge of being democracy’s watchdog in our little town. We're doing the best we can -- but the "journalists" aren't helping much.

Short-Change Complaints from One Gondolier Reader Increase

The headline: “Short-change complaints showing an increase.” But, the story doesn’t report this or anything remotely similar.

To say something is on the increase, real editors require (a) a report of how many events occurred last week, last month, last year – some base for comparison, and then (b) a report of how many events occurred this week, this month, this year.
“Crime Scene Columnist” Ken Kleinlein gives no such data. What he does offer, however, is a five-year-old urban legend as “news.”

Kleinlein claims “a potential victim from Texas, wrote” him (doesn’t say when). Now, Kleinlein is a retired cop in Sarasota. Unlike an actual journalist, Kleinlein doesn’t feel the need to name the “potential victim,” which might add some credibility to his story that Walmart customers are secretly charged for cash they didn’t ask for.

And a dash of credibility is sorely needed. The long letter Kleinlein puts inside quote marks is riddled with cop-speak: A supervisor “responded,” and “after the second transaction,” and “at this point,” just doesn’t sound like an irate “potential victim” describing his near-loss of $40 in a cash-back transaction at Houston Walmart.

The scam Kleinlein claims to be warning readers about is a five-year-old urban legend that has been pretty much debunked by the nice folks at Snopes, a Web site that looks into rumors and puts the results on the Internet for all to see – even Ken Kleinlein and Venice Gondolier editors. The urban legend claims Walmart employees secretly add “cash back” transactions when ringing up purchases. Snopes reports an early story circulated in November 2004, followed by a story from Milford, Del., and then a similar one from Houston, Texas – the city Kleinlein claims his correspondent contacted him from.

Kleinlein reports “Walmart Security is intensely investigating,” but he fails to tell who gave him this information or what intense involves.

Not to worry. Snopes investigated and found Walmart says clerks' registers are not equipped to add cash back transactions. Clerks cannot initiate cash-back requests. Only a customer can do this in a two-step process that includes pushing a “yes” button at the customer terminal and then selecting an amount. Furthermore, cash-back transactions are restricted to debit cards; the urban legend stories all involve credit card users.

Apparently the rumor is in revival. Just last month, a a real reporter in Traverse City, Mich., wrote on the same topic. The difference is, the Michigan reporter actually went to Walmarts, made phone calls, interviewed knowledgeable people, assembled facts, went to see with his own eyes how things work, and named and dated his work. The result: same as Snopes; the rumor is just there to scare you, folks.

How did this baseless rumor get started? Snopes says one reasonable inference is customers are “misplacing the blame for their own errors.”

As a juicy scare, the story gets legs every time a retired cop would rather sound knowledgeable than be knowledgeable. His ego error is compounded when the amateur writer’s editors don’t check their “columnist” against the basic standards of their profession. The only scam here stems from a newspaper that apparently doesn't see the need for accountability.

So, back to the headline. Is there an increase in “Short-change complaints?” Absolutely –- from Gondolier readers who crave genuine news instead of five-year-old fiction from five states away.

Beware What You Wish For

The Sun-Herald’s DeSoto County subscribers are in for a treat, characterized as “icing on the cake,” says Joe Gallimore, the local newspaper office’s general manager. (He’s the guy with the office thermostat key who, on the side, promotes boxing matches featuring young boys.) Gallimore dedicates his Friday column to the news that cow country folks will be getting a weekly Arcadian. The GM punctuates an amazingly strange column with numerous assurances that extensive surveys, polls, and a vast number of sidewalk requests show him that readers want the old Arcadian back.

Well, apparently, they’re going to get it.

What Gallimore glosses over is that the paper's six-day-a-week local section disappears. Well, actually, he does say this, but in an oblique way that requires dedicated reading to figure out, as well as the stamina to wade through 30 inches of meandering hype that borders on the bizarre.

Here’s the brief tour:

Lede : (posed as a question): "How do you react to seeing your favorite baseball team in back in the bottom of the ninth ....?" That graf goes on for three long, clause-laden sentences directed at “you,” which in this case would be me, and frankly, Joe, I don’t give a damn.

Second graf: Readers learn that the above produces the “ultimate high.”

Third graf: GM Joe adopts the intimate, personal voice: “I want to inform you about a change ....” False alarm. Readers will not be informed, yet. First, they have to read that his fantastic bosses “are going to continue our commitment ... but this is only a start!”

Next graf: The nice newspaper folks plan to “communicate back to the reader with the ability of reaching more and providing more of what this community has said it wants.” Readers are probably willing to overlook the dubious grammar that fails to say what GM Joe thinks he’s saying because linguistically challenged in one’s native tongue has never been a bar to writing for Sun-Herald newspapers. That tradition continues unchanged.

Next graf: “Everyone knows how hard the economy has been ....” Right, Joe.
Next graf: OWW paraphrase: Opening and running a business is hard work. This is true, Joe.
Next graf: “The Sun Newspaper Group did just that 25 years ago....” Got it, Joe.
Next graf: “...this family owned, community oriented paper has lasted!” That’s Joe’s exclamation mark there.

Next graf: “...our company will indeed make seven-day-a-week delivery service happen ... we will introduce both a DAILY and a WEEKLY news product.” Love the caps and the “news product” thing.

Next graf: GM Joe promises a new news product to deliver “news of extreme importance (breaking news) pertaining to DeSoto including obituaries.” Readers can be forgiven for emitting a giggle at this point, so long as they don’t become distracted from the task of finding out exactly what the news might be.

At this point, 22 inches into the thing, GM Joe’s opus jumps to page 10: DeSoto subscribers will get the Charlotte Sun plopped into their driveways. On Thursdays, they’ll get that icing on the cake, a local insert. Not only is that the icing, it’s “the combined punch,” he writes.

GM Joe uses another 10 inches or so to praise bosses who are like family, expound on photos readers can look forward to (there is no staff photographer covering DeSoto), and to promise that the town will be blanketed with fliers heralding the Oct. 1 event.

Actually, the fliers are probably unnecessary. The column ran last Friday. On Saturday, editor Susan Hoffman made a similar, if more literate, announcement. And then on Sunday, she undertook a follow-up that took up nearly half of the front of the local news section.

When Monday and Tuesday rolled around with no further developments in the three-day story, Old Word Wolf knew “the ultimate high” was headed into a downer.

Reilly: Quoting People He Didn't Interview

Steve Reilly’s report on a water-quality evaluation issued by a multi-state watchdog group ran today, Sept. 8. Without a time frame mentioned in the lede, however, the story startled 6 a.m.-readers awake when one of Reilly's sources says, “The report released today...”

Wow, that was fast! Well, maybe the water-quality report came out yesterday, and DeSoto readers don’t get news on Monday? Nope.

The story behind the day's big headline is that Reilly glossed over the little detail that Gulf Coast Restoration Network’s news hit the streets almost two weeks ago, on August 28.

Since then, Reilly has been busy interviewing sources, right? Well, not exactly.

The “today” reference comes from a state official who criticized the report in a prepared statement the day it was released -- "today" being August 28. Despite the reality that at least two other area newspapers and a radio station have already used the same quote, word for word, and acknowledged that the sources were quoted from prepared statements, Reilly chooses to quote the bureaucrat as if reporter and source had actually talked.

Reilly appears to do the same with at least two other people he quotes in the same story, representatives of state-wide and regional environmental groups: lots of words but no effort to tell readers that the "speakers" had issued prepared statements and weren't replying to Reilly's insightful questions.

This kind of reporting by omission does more for the writer’s ego than it does to help readers get a fair sense of what happened when and their ability to judge responses to the event. This writer deliberately creates the false impression that he made an effort to “dig,” as it used to be called. In fact, the writer took a week and a half to round up a lot of press releases that he stitched together in a way calculated to mislead.

New Staff Writer Republishes His Old Stuff

Josh Salman, writing for the Times-Union back in January, led a story he wrote about solar power this way:

The Sunshine State is beginning to live up to its name, with an explosion of residents using solar-powered energy for both environmental and financial reasons.

Now a Charlotte Sun staff writer, Salman kicks off his Sunday story this morning on solar power the same way -- even recycling the "explosion of residents," despite having had nine months to reconsider:

The Sunshine State is beginning to live up to its name, with an explosion of residents using solar-powered energy for both environmental and financial reasons.

As a Times-Union reporter, Salman quoted a solar consulting firm:

... the new incentives are also expected to create an additional 22,000 solar-related jobs in Florida within 8 years, according to a study by Navigant Consulting Inc., a consulting firm specializing in the energy industry.

Charlotte Sun readers got essentially same data this morning, changing only a time frame that prompts the question of when, exactly, did this prediction take place.

State rebates and federal tax credits are expected to create more than 22,000 jobs in Florida within six years, according to Navigant Consulting, a firm specializing in the energy industry.

Salman’s newer solar energy story takes a breezy survey of officials, residents, and a saleswoman, culminating in these factoids:

The advantages of solar stretch beyond the wallet. Over its projected lifespan, a 5-kilowatt solar system will offset 298,106 pounds of carbon dioxide, 928 pounds of nitrogen oxide, 840 pounds of sulfur dioxide, and 57 pounds of particles that cause asthma. The savings are equivalent to taking one car off the road for 40 years, or planting nearly 3 acres of trees.

Readers, however, are left wondering: who said this? How was this equivalency calculated? These are extremely specific numbers. A fairly extensive Web search fails to locate a single one of them.

So: Welcome, Josh Salman. But stop recycling your old stuff. And start telling us where you get your data. If you are going to report something that’s not general knowledge, or numbers that require conversion, manipulation or interpretation, you are obligated to tell us who is giving you those numbers. It makes a difference if they come from a university laboratory or from a solar-panel salesman (or saleswoman). Just to show how obvious this problem is, the unsubstantiated/unattributed factoid that using a 5-kilowatt solar system over its lifetime is “equivalent of taking one car from the road for 40 years,” is meaningless unless we know whether the car is a 1969 Chevy Corvette or a 2009 Prius.

Actually, it's meaningless no matter what kind of car it is. All the more reason to know who is making this stuff up.

Lake Placid, like Diogenes, Searches for One Honest Editor

Last week, it was three paragraphs.* Today, it begins with one sentence. And like a stray thread on a cheap sweater, Old Word Wolf pulled -- and the whole thing unraveled. The cheap sweater is George Duncan's column, Random Thoughts, bottom of page 7 of The Journal, which hit the streets and newsboxes in Lake Placid this morning.

From a blogger comes this account of a ruling by Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Judge Brown does what millions of taxpayers have always wanted to do - she zapped the IRS. She vividly starts the majority opinion in Cohen v. United States this way: “Comic-strip writer Bob Thaves famously quipped, ‘A fool and his money are soon parted. It takes creative tax laws for the rest.’ States Rogers: “In sum, the IRS unlawfully expropriated billions of dollars from taxpayers, conceded the illegitimacy of its actions, and developed a mandatory process as the sole avenue by which the agency would consider refunding its ill-gotten gains. (The Journal, Aug. 12, underlining in mine)

Since Duncan doesn’t name the blogger, OWW did a word search. The phrase “She vividly starts with the majority opinion in Cohen v. United States this way” ran in an Aug. 7 blog staffed by McClatchy News, Miami Herald owners. Duncan used the line, word for word, and then he used the blogger's quotes of the original document (I'm betting, but I can't really be sure. Maybe Duncan did go to the court decision -- it's on the Web -- and extracted exactly that quote. Somehow, though, I doubt it.)

"She vividly..." etc., is a one-liner, but it’s someone else’s one-liner. Duncan did manage to choke out “a blogger,” so he earns partial credit. But the newspaper editor hasn’t mastered using quotation marks around words he didn’t write, and he seems to have forgotten whatever he knew about using phrases like “said Michael Doyle, a reporter for McClatchy News Service’s Washington Bureau.”

The unraveling begins. The editor’s one-line transgression prompted OWW to take a closer look at the rest of his column. In his column's second Random Thought, Duncan reports remarks made by a congressman who opposes the national healthcare bill. Duncan offers a blanket attribution at the outset: “National Review online details this story about Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, R-New Orleans, who studied to be a Jesuit priest ...”

Google returns 456 places that used Cao's “I know that voting against the health care bill will probably be the death of my political career,” starting with The Examiner, wandering over to Politico, the Daily Mail, Catholic News Agency and a bunch of religious, right-to-life and right-wing nut sites. Not one hit is returned for National Review Online.

However, nearly every site that uses the congressman’s remarks tips a hat to the original source, the August 1 edition of The Times Picayune. A few sites even go so far as to name the hardworking reporter who cornered the hometown congressman and took the trouble to write down his words: Times Picayune Washington Bureau writer Jonathon Tilove.

Duncan wasn’t one of the hat tippers. Duncan appears to make no use of the miracle of the World Wide Web and his desktop browser to even try to credit the primary source. He apparently has relied on a report of a report – a source that he can’t remember and blithely tosses off to the NRO.

In fairness, perhaps National Review Online does carry word of the congressman's stand buried so deep that Google can't find it, so Old Word Wolf used NRO’s own search engine repeatedly, trying with the terms “Cao,” “being a Jesuit,” and “death of my political career.” Nothing found by NRO searching its own archive search feature.

OK, so Duncan didn’t source an interview that he didn’t conduct, and he didn’t accurately remember where he got the iinformation from. Could it get any worse? That’s a rhetorical question and the answer is yes.

Duncan’s an editor and he’s allowed to editorialize. He can make relevant (or even irrelevant) observations about the news that reflects his opinion. Here’s his opinionizing about congressman Cao’s willingness to commit political suicide:

Cao’s remarks call to mind the famous scene in A Man for All Seasons where Thomas More confronts his betrayer Richard Rich, who was made Attorney General for Wales for falsely testifying against him: “Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for Wales?”

This fine bit of editorializing ran word for word in a blog posted last week in The Weekly Standard. The association between the famous play and current event came to the mind of columnist John McCormack in his blog post titled "But for Wales."

The fruits of McCormack’s thoughts were harvested by George Duncan and secretly grafted onto Lake Placid’s cheerful little journal -- presumeably for personal aggradizement and ego gratification rather than a journalist's motivations to uncover the truth or inform readers.

George Duncan closes his paragraphs on Congressman Cao by noting that Cao is a man of morals and integrity. Duncan wraps up the whole column by remarking that Diogenes searched for one honest man.

Lake Placid readers are still searching for one honest editor.

* of plagiarism, that is.

And there's more unraveling below the fold:

OWW hadn't looked into The Journal's news editor when he was hired last year. If she had, she would have found out that the man who calls himself a writer and journalist, runs a personal blog that features "Science Fiction, Faith, and Golf." The logo's centerpiece is The Good Book.

Duncan's works of fiction -- and we're not refering here to his newspaper editorials -- are prominent stock among several Christian book clubs. And, like so many hypocrites before him, Duncan promotes himself as holier-than-the-liberals and a family-values kind of moralist.

"Mommy, are those doggies sleeping?"

This grotesque photo greeted Gondolier readers this weekend. The front page picture was not taken by a staff photographer, but submitted by a citizen photographer as news. The person sitting in the upper right corner is not identified.

The cutline reads: PHOTO COURTESY OF RICHARD SCHILLING Christopher Lee Siringer’s dogs lie dead in the yard of his home after being shot by a Venice Police Department officer who was trying to arrest him for domestic battery.

Journal Editor Plagiarizes Chamber of Commerce Brochure

To cover the week's top story for The Journal, the newsy little gazette that logs the first draft of history over in Lake Placid, editor George Duncan plagiarized the chamber of commerce's brochure. Duncan lifted almost a third of "his copy" directly from the center panel of the flyer, word for word, without attribution, quotation marks, or a single attempt to paraphrase. Clearly, it's a cut-and-paste world, even for the most senior of managing editors. **

Compare the texts below the fold:

From the newspaper:
Citrus - Second only to Polk County in the north, Highlands County produces more citrus than any other Florida county. Occupying more than 79,000 acre, producing many varieties of grapefruit, oranges and tangerines, the citrus industry has played both an economic and historical role in the development of the area.
Ornamental Foliage Plants - One of Central Florida’s fastest growing industries are the many foliage nurseries that provide seedlings and potted plants to local home and garden centers. Xeriscaping, the use of plantings that have low watering requirements, has earned its place in the landscaping industry and has proven to conserve water resources.
Wine and Grapes - both hobbyists and professionals are boosting the popularity of the wine industry in the area. Henscratch Farms will host a booth featuring their products for sale such as wine, jams and preserves, honey, dried fruits and an array of winery giftware.

From the chamber of commerce brochure:

Citrus - Second only to Polk County in the north, Highlands County produces more citrus than any other Florida county. Occupying more than 79,000 acres producing many varieties of grapefruit, oranges and tangerines, the citrus industry has played both an economic and historical role in the development of the area. Visit the Highlands County Citrus Grower's Association booth to learn more.
Ornamental Foliage Plants - One of Central Florida’s fastest growing industries are the many foliage nurseries that provide seedlings and potted plants to local home and garden centers. Xeriscaping, the use of plantings that have low watering requirements, has earned its place in the landscaping industry and has proven to conserve water resources. Visit the Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscapers Association booth, sponsored by the Highland-Heartland Chapter to learn more and spurchas just the right plans for your yard.
Wine and Grapes - both hobbyists and professionals are boosting the popularity of the wine industry in the area. Henscratch Farms will host a booth featuring their products for sale such as wine, jams and preserves, honey, dried fruits and an array of winery giftware.


**Duncan has used his editorial space on occasion to rail against "the mainstream media," as if he isn't one. His exhibition here of the low regard in which he holds the fundamental practices of his profession removes all credibility for any moralizing he may undertake in the future. Plagiarists don't get to tell the rest of us where the moral center of the world is. It's clearly no where near George Duncan's word processor.

Copy Editor: A Pay Grade, not a Job Description

School District PR Writer Plagiarizes Literacy Council News Release

Jessenia Cisneros may have cited her essay sources in high school under the watchful eye of a language arts teacher. But, apparently the lesson didn’t carry over to the world of work.

Cisneros practices in a field that some people consider a branch of journalism, a profession called “public relations.” In addition, she works for a school system where the following lessons are a specific part of the curriculum:

*The student will ethically use mass media and digital technology in assignments and presentations, citing sources according to standardized citation styles.
*The student will understand the importance of legal and ethical practices, including laws regarding libel, slander, copyright, and plagiarism and the use of mass media and digital sources, know the associated consequences, and comply with the law.
*The student will record information and ideas from primary and/or secondary sources accurately and coherently, noting the validity and reliability of these sources and attributing sources of information.

Although Old Word Wolf did the underlining, the words come directly from the Florida Department of Education, the agency that issues the Sunshine State standards. The standards mean that no matter where one goes to school in Florida, employers (among others) can reasonably expect graduates to know these things.

Here's what Cisneros' employer can rely on: She does not attribute information or credit her source. She is capable of copying a news release written by others without using quotation marks around the word-for-word material. She is willing to publish extensive news-style quotes from sources she did not interview. And, finally, she will put her by-line on a prepared news release and send it to newspaper editors as if it were her own work.

Cisneros was trying to get good publicity for her bosses. Instead, she provided a model of hypocrisy and ethical bankruptcy -- not the things she learned in school.

The evidence is below the fold.


IBM grant will help improve literacy
By JESSENIA CISNEROS DESOTO COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT
ARCADIA — Adults and families throughout the state will soon have access to new technology from IBM to help adults and families improve their reading skills. The Florida Literacy Coalition Inc. received a grant from IBM for the company’s Reading Companion software which will be used by 34 Florida-based literacy programs, with a total in-kind value of $340,000.

One of these 34 programs is the “Learning Together” Family Literacy program held at the Family Service Center in Arcadia, under the aegis of The DeSoto County Education Foundation Inc.

Reading Companion uses speech-recognition technology that “listens” to new readers speak and gives individualized feedback, letting them practice their pronunciation as they acquire fundamental reading skills. This Web-based technology was developed by IBM research to improve English literacy skills.

“The support of IBM enables programs throughout the state to employ breakthrough technology in the classroom, alongside traditional curriculum to help students achieve greater English literacy and language skills,” said Greg Smith, Florida Literacy Coalition Executive Director. “We certainly appreciate IBM’s generous support and commitment to literacy.”

Programs that will be receiving this technology grant include community colleges, school districts and nonprofit literacy organizations in 23 Florida counties.

“Literacy is a key ingredient for students to be successful in school, perform in their jobs, and conduct their personal lives,” said Janell Ray, IBM corporate affairs manager. “IBM is proud to be part of Florida Literacy Coalition’s programs helping our adults and families gain the literacy skills needed to become more productive in their lives and in our society.”

Reading Companion software is effective because it is simple to use. Readers wear a headset microphone connected to a computer, and then select an e-book from the virtual library. As they read the book aloud, the software “listens” to their pronunciation and accuracy, and provides them with immediate feedback (such as, “That was great!”). If they have difficulty with the words, they are gently encouraged to try again or hear a correct pronunciation. In addition, participants are given a special ID and password that makes Reading Companion available to them online, so they can continue lessons wherever and whenever they can access the Internet.

Reading Companion also gives teachers statistical results on how the new reader is progressing. IBM also introduced the “Book Builder” feature, enabling anyone to become an author by creating an ebook that becomes part of the e-library for students to use around the world.

Reading Companion uses innovative speechrecognition technology developed by IBM researchers in partnership with teachers in IBM partner schools and notfor-profit organizations. It can be used in schools as well as to help adult learners to read. Currently, more than 700 schools and nonprofit organizations around the world are using Reading Companion in more than 25 countries.

“We are appreciative of the continued efforts of the Florida Literacy Coalition and their continued contribution to the adults and families in DeSoto County,” said Martha Jo Markey, principal of the Family Service Center. “One can never have too many options for reading experiences.”

The “Learning Together” Family Literacy program will begin again when school resumes. Call 863-993-1333 after August 17 for more information or visit the Web site at www.desoto schools.com/fsc.

__________________________

Florida Literacy Coalition, Inc. to Apply Innovative IBM technology to Improving Statewide Literacy Efforts
Posted on Thursday, August 06, 2009
Orlando, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/06/2009 -- Adults and families throughout the state will soon have access to new technology provided by IBM that can help adults and families improve their reading skills. The Florida Literacy Coalition, Inc. received a grant by IBM for the company’s Reading Companion software which will be used by thirty-four Florida-based literacy programs, with a total in-kind value of $340,000.

Reading Companion uses speech-recognition technology that “listens” to emerging readers speak and provides individualized feedback, enabling them to practice their pronunciation as they acquire fundamental reading skills. This Web-based technology was developed by IBM research and aims to improve English literacy skills.

“The support of IBM enables programs throughout the state to employ breakthrough technology in the classroom, alongside traditional curriculum to help students achieve greater English literacy and language skills,” said Greg Smith, Florida Literacy Coalition Executive Director. “We certainly appreciate IBM’s generous support and commitment to literacy.”

Programs benefiting from this technology grant comprise of community colleges, school districts, and non-profit literacy organizations (see attached list) located in twenty three counties throughout Florida. “Literacy is a key ingredient for students to be successful in school, perform in their jobs, and conduct their personal lives,” said Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs Manager, Janell Ray. “IBM is proud to be part of Florida Literacy Coalition’s, programs helping our adults and families gain the literacy skills needed to become more productive in their lives and in our society.”

The Reading Companion software is effective because it is simple to use. Readers wear a headset microphone connected to a computer, and then select an e-book from the virtual library. As they read the book aloud, the software “listens” to their pronunciation and accuracy, and provides them with immediate feedback (e.g. That was great!). If they have difficulty with the words, they are gently encouraged to try again or receive a correct reading. In addition, participants are given a special ID and password that makes Reading Companion available to them on the Web, enabling them to continue lessons wherever and whenever they can access a computer.

Reading Companion also provides teachers with statistical results on how the new reader is progressing. IBM also introduced the “Book Builder” feature, enabling anyone to become an author by creating an e-book that becomes part of the e-library for students to use around the world.

Reading Companion uses innovative speech-recognition technology developed by IBM researchers in partnership with teachers in IBM partner schools and not-for-profit organizations. It can be used in both primary schools as well as help adult learners to read. Currently, more than 700 schools and nonprofit organizations around the world are using Reading Companion in more than 27 countries.

Visit http://www.sbwire.com/redirect?url=http://www.floridaliteracy.org/2004/recipients.htm to see a list of the Reading Companion Grant Recipients.
About the Florida Literacy Coalition:
Established in 1985, The Florida Literacy Coalition (FLC) promotes, supports and advocates for the effective delivery of quality adult and family literacy services in the state of Florida.

As a statewide umbrella literacy organization and the host of Florida’s Adult and Family Literacy Resource Center, FLC provides a range of services to support more than 300 adult education, literacy and family literacy providers throughout Florida. Special emphasis is placed on assisting community based literacy organizations with their training and program development needs.
Contact:
Judy Bodnar
Florida Literacy Coalition, Inc.
Office (407) 246-7110 Ext 207
E-mail: bodnarj@floridaliteracy.org
Website: http://www.sbwire.com/redirect?url=http://www.floridaliteracy.org
Media Relations Contact
Kari Doro Florida Literacy Coalition
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One of Our Own

Arcadia is a small town and many who live and work within its precincts may feel like family. But that's still not a good reason to write a headline in the first person. If this is the writer's headline, readers have to wonder why the editor endorsed it.

Sun Correspondent Plagiarizes Aviation Museum Web Page

It's just one sentence in Sun Correspondent Mel Jackson's story this morning about aviation pioneer Patricia Hange. But it's plagiarism, nonetheless. And the 50-bucks-a-pop scribe with no visible journalism skills probably just doesn't understand. Well, Mel, here's the lesson: When writers quote a Web site, the ethical ones acknowledge the source with punctuation (called quotation marks) and attribution ("said," or "according to," or similar). To do less is plagiarism. Here is is:

The museum is dedicated to the preservation of the history of women in aviation and space and the documentation of their continuing contributions today and in the future.

Why did this plagiarized sentence jump out at Old Word Wolf? The rest of the writing is riddled with so many syntactical problems, misplaced modifiers and failures to report that, by comparison, this vanilla smooth, compressed compound-complex sentence seems to have fallen like manna from writer heaven. After falling from the sky -- err, the museum's Web site -- it sat lifeless and nearly irrelevant in the middle of a paragraph about the local celebrity's achievements. It didn't fit or flow; it didn't read or report. It revealed nothing about Mel Jackson's story except that he couldn't write it himself.

Back in the old days, a real copy editor would have bounced Mel's story in a minute. Instead, it has been published, forever a testimonial to what journalism without editors looks like.


At the top of this post, OWW accused Mel Jackson of sloppy writing and a poor grasp of American syntax. Here’s the evidence, commencing in the first sentence: "To fly as an eagle has been mankind’s dream for centuries."

Using the wrong preposition (fly AS an eagle) is a classic case of schoolmarm editing that changes the meaning of an old cliché. Casting the time as the present imperfect tense makes the sentence’s action silly.

Second sentence: The subject of the story and our heroine is “a glide port owner and operator.” General readers can’t be expected to know what a glide port is or what it means to operate one. And, the “sun Correspondent” never corresponds on this point. A “glide port,” more widely called “glider port,” is essentially an airport that caters to engineless aircraft. A good reporter would treat the word as colorful slang (the word is not in Merriam-Webster’s or Webster’s New World, both standard journalist’s references, or in any of several on-line aviation encyclopedias; OWW derived her understanding from perusing up-scale hotel brochures that offer aviation recreation.)

The aviatrix is also a sailplane builder, readers are told. Again, a brief reference to “glider” would be reader friendly.

In the third paragraph, the correspondent reports her friends include “Jerrie Mock, the first woman to fly solo around the world in 1964.” This sentence is a classic case of sexism in writing: A woman achieves a milestone and she’s called by a diminutive – and diminishing -- nickname. The woman’s name is Geraldine Fredritz Mock, and it would be an honor and a salute to provide that level of respect before moving on to a second, familiar reference.

The writer's grammar garbles history. He reports Mock was “the first woman to solo around the world in 1964.” The misplaced modifier forces the sentence to imply there was a first in 1963 or 1965, as well. The misplaced modifier reappears in the next sentence. Jean Hixson wasn’t the second woman to break the sound barrier in 1957; in 1957, she became the second woman to break the sound barrier. A writer who misses these basics in sentence clarity and syntactical coherence needs an editor, not a $50 paycheck.

The correspondent needs to develop the skills of inquiry. He reports “for her achievements in the sailplane industry, Hange was inducted into the National Soaring Hall of Fame...” It would be nice to know what those achievements are: so far she is described as knowing other women who pioneered in aviation, and flying to South America on missionary work. Readers know there’s more to it than that, but this reporter seems too shy to ask for these details. "Why" is the juciest of the journalist's five W's, but in Jackson's hands, it's all but ignored.

The reporter dutifully reports Hange has received a "Charles E. Taylor Maintenance Award," for 50 years in aviation. But Jackson shares not one word with readers about who, what, when, where, or why. (Taylor built the engine for the plane the Wright Brothers flew; readers are left in the dark about which of the five or six insitutitions that honor Taylor sponsors the award or when it was given to the local woman.)

Much of the story seems to be buried deep in the jump where eye-witnesses to Hange's achievements are all listed. One is even interviewed. What a grabber this story could have been with editing, revision, and restructuring.

'Rithmetic

When editors inform the citizenry that the school budget is the same as last year, that had better be true. That wasn't the case this morning. DeSoto Editor Susan Hoffman told readers the school board increased its millage request, "although holding the budget to the same level as last year."

Here are the numbers according to one set of documents released by the school district, which doesn't include food service and several earmarked federally funded programs:

Last year's school budget was: $42,493,179.
This year's school budget is: $39,118,632.
That doesn't add up to "the same," even to an English major.
That's a $3,375,547 budget reduction.
Why is a measely $3.4 million or so significant? Ask the teachers and administrators who are trying to pull our district out of a dismal performance rating: a classic case of being asked to do more with less.

Another Reporter Plagiarizes Press Releases -- and Dear Abby

The blue circles marked onto the clip of a story bylined Mary Margaret Staik, right center, are not the parts she plagiarized. They are the 45 or so words she didn't plagiarize. The rest of the story -- about veteran's benefits for surviving spouses whose partners die of Lou Gehrig's disease -- starts with Staik's word-for-word pickup of two paragraphs from a Dear Abby item published in her boss's paper last Saturday. The rest of Staik's story is cut-and-paste from two press releases, one from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the other from the ALS foundation.

Staik's plagiarism even taints her local source, a veteran's affairs officer in Lake Placid, into whose mouth she stuffs a quote lifted directly from the "Dear Abby" piece.

The art is too small to read, so the whole sorry mess, including links to the original Web sources, is printed below the fold.



Veteran Services Office Helping Clients, Widows With ALS Claims
By Mary Margaret Staik


On Sept 23 2008, Lou Gehrig’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, became a presumptive condition under the VA guidelines for all veterans who served in our armed forces for at least 90 days. The result of this change means that the widows of those veterans who died of Lou Gehrig’s disease in years past are eligible for the VA widows’ monthly benefit. [this is the section that's word for word from a July 18 Dear Abby column printed in this and other newspapers.]

“From the number of telephone calls our office is receiving”, reports Joseph A. Dionne, Director Veteran Services, “many people are not aware that a veteran’s death due to this disease is now considered service connected”. [the second part of this "quote" is also lifted from the Dear Abby writer and simply attributed to a local spokesman. Except for the parts where Staik leaves the period outside the quote marks.]



The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has a national registry of veterans with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). The registry helps to identify veterans with a diagnosis of this fatal, neurological disorder, regardless of when they served in the military, and track their health status. Word for word from the Feb. 18 2003 VA press release.


ALS kills the brain and spinal cord cells that control muscle movement, resulting in gradual muscle wasting and loss of movement. It is estimated that only 20 percent of ALS patients live beyond five years, and affects as many as 30,000 Americans. The disease usually strikes those between the ages of 40 and 70. There is no known cure, though science is continuing to find better treatment and a possible cure. Word for word from the ALS organization’s press release dated July 10 2003.



In preliminary findings announced by VA in December 2001, ALS was nearly twice as prevalent among veterans who had been deployed to the Persian Gulf region in 1990 and 1991 than among those not deployed. The incidence was especially high among Air Force personnel who served in the conflict. The VA again


Other research on veterans of Desert Shield and Desert Storm has confirmed they are at higher risk for a mysterious cluster of symptoms known as Gulf War illnesses, involving chronic fatigue, musculoskeletal problems, asthma, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, memory loss and other problems. More from the VA press release.


For the surviving spouse of a veteran who dies with ALS, DIC benefits may be available. Please contact the Veteran Services Office, 402-6623, for an appointment.


Maybe Copying is Better ....

In the same paper in which Mary Margaret plagiarizes, her editor, George Duncan, writes this:

Many conservatives and almost all Libertarians believe the bunk of the federal government is involved in programs and policies that, in effect, it has no constitutional authority. [...Immigration ...] is another indication that the federal government has made a mess of things. So who does anyone want to allow the federal government to handle health care in this nation. Patients will be dying like flies. ...

And basic literacy and logic are on life support.

Charlotte Sun Reporter Ed Scott Slaps his Byline on Press Release

Ed Scott should know better. He's a staff writer at "America's Best Community Daily." The water-management district sent around a news release earlier this week. The ethical reporter has two choices: either call the district for the story behind the prepared statement and write original copy, or run the prepared statement in a way that acknowledges that no one on staff checked it out. Scott did neither. He opted, instead, to put his by-line on the news release and run it as his own. The first four paragraphs of the water authority's communique appear word for word under Scott's byline without quotes and without attribution. That's plagiarism. Ed Scott know it, his bosses know it. And now the World Wide Web knows it.

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.