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Buy Nothing or Seek Bargains: Ready for Black Friday

Tips for editors, short url's included to promote sharing.

The group that provided the idea for the Occupy Wall Street movement is also taking aim at shopping with an annual promotion for what it calls Buy Nothing Day:  | Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters http://bit.ly/tTxB7w. This will be the 20th year that the Adbusters group has run its Buy Nothing campaign on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and an annual festival of sales kicking off the holiday shopping season.

Background on the editors of the Canadian magazine Adbusters: Kalle Lasn and Micah White, the Creators of Occupy Wall Street: The New Yorker http://nyr.kr/tycsF9

Another group of people is also protesting the extraordinary overnight shopping hours and the sales that in some cases will start at 10 PM on Thanksgiving Day. A petition started by one Target worker in Omaha, Neb., now has 130,000 names on it. Many retail workers and their families don't want their holiday interrupted: Retail backlash over Thanksgiving night openings http://bit.ly/uhqeVt

A recent consumer survey found that most people interviewed said they would think more highly of retailers that give employees the day off on Thursday:  | Mainstreet http://bit.ly/szLkT6. Other surveys show that more than 60% of shoppers are already planning a store trip on Black Friday.

Are they remembering the 2008 Long Island crowd that trampled a worker? Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death - NYTimes.com http://nyti.ms/vLvR6u What have stores in your area done to avoid a repeat?

Prompts of the day: 

*Is someone in your family working on Thanksgiving?

*Should retail employees have Thursday off?

*What is on your Black Friday shopping list?

*How much do you expect to spend on gifts this year? How does that compare to last year?

*How many gifts do you plan to buy online?

Full stats on holiday shopping: Black Friday 2011 - Deals, Tips and Statistics - TheStreet http://bit.ly/uTbmc8

Phoenix Jones, Open Newsroom, Scanning Photos: Tips for Editors

Prompt of the Day
Does your town need a superhero to fight crime? Make a reference to Phoenix Jones, the self-styled superhero arrested in a paper spray incident in Seattle. Jones's names is at the top of the Google hot search list early Tuesday morning. Here's the rest of the round up of editor tips (short url's includede to make sharing easier).

Open newsroom
Call it budget, sked or newslist - when newsrooms turn process into product and plan in the open, everyone wins: http://bit.ly/ptWxaK The Guardian has started publishing its news budget on the web, letting readers in on the process. From Dan Roberts, a Guardian editor -- Have Your Say:

What if all those experts who delight in telling us what's wrong with our stories after they've been published could be enlisted into giving us more clues beforehand? What if the process of working out what to investigate actually becomes part of the news itself?
It might seem a minority pursuit, but the experience of covering breaking news already suggests otherwise. Like many websites, we are discovering some of our best-read stories are the live blogs that report events as they unfold, often with brutal honesty about what we don't know or hope to find out.

What do we learn? The Guardian business news desk is kicking of the earnings season with a report on Alcoa's earnings and a politician's plan to crackdown on internet porn will be subject to a "reality check." It turns out the hidden plans of a newsroom gain nothing by being kept private.

In praising this step, Matthew Ingram of GigaOm (Memo to Newspapers: Let Your Readers Inside the Wall) says the time for secrecy is over: "Either newspapers develop a more balanced relationship with the people formerly known as the audience, by allowing them to contribute to the process, or they will find their audience has gone elsewhere."

Value of Photos -- From Your Archives, From the Police
In Conway, Ark., the Log Cabin Democrat has been scanning and publishing 5,000 photos a month. It organized them into what it calls the Conwaypedia. Another initiative from this Morris newspaper is Faulkner County Booked, which is attracting 300,000 pageviews a month.
These steps are part of the Morris drive to put digital first. A Morris exec, Derek May, posted this more detailed explanation of what the company is doing in an attempt to reverse a 40% drop in revenue and a 75% drop in profits over five years.
Digital first might have a familiar ring: Digital First, of course is the holding company for the JRC and MediaNews Group newspapers, from San Jose to New Haven.
It's also the rallying cry in papers from Seattle to Wichita:
In Seattle Times’ new digital-first newsroom, roles change to ‘creation, curation, community’ | Poynter. http://bit.ly/n0nzcE
Wichita Eagle: Testing a new organizational model for a digital-first newsroom | Knight Digital Media Center http://bit.ly/okhsUf
Making the most of every frame captured by staff photographers and your readers keeps readers engaged. When my hometown paper published a gallery showing the opening of a new fire station, our family was delighted to find this photo of my father: Photo Gallery: Canton's New Fire Station -  CantonRep.com http://bit.ly/nIKxE6  One tip: allow readers to add caption material.

Pumpkins, Unicef and Pet Costumes: Halloween Ideas
Who runs the pumpkin contest in your market? Size matters: 1,704-pound pumpkin earns CA farmer $10,224 in Pumpkin Weigh-off prize money: http://bit.ly/p7K0Ma

Unicef Halloween drive is a good peg for a prompt: Are you donating to Unicef this year?
UNICEF's Little Orange Box Goes Digital This Halloween http://on.mash.to/qlPEZc

Favorite pet costumes: MainStreet.com has a pet costume roundup: http://bit.ly/rqKgyO

Have you brainstormed your Halloween coverage plan? Have you been inspired by the Guardian to publish a list of stories your have in the works?

Rich List Rankings, DADT and Local Story Ideas

Follow the Money

Every September, Forbes publishes an update of The Forbes 400, the list of the richest people in America.
Every spring Forbes runs the richest people in the world and every fall, the publisher lists the richest people in the United States. Each list is an opportunity for local coverage.

A year ago, this MLive post was typical of the way local outlets used the material: Metro Detroit boasts 5 on Forbes 400 richest list: Ilitch, Taubman, Moroun, Penske, Ford | MLive.com.

Here is a similar post about the spring list, from a Florida TV station: Central Florida billionaires make Forbes’ richest list.

The Forbes site allows you to search by state. For example, here are the Connecticut people on the 2010 rich list.

Publishing at a time President Obama is pushing his Buffett rule for a minimum tax on millionaires, the Forbes list is also an opening for a local reporter to ask the wealthiest people in your area to weigh in on the tax debate.

Ask, Tell

Starting today, (Tuesday Sept. 20), the US military is open to openly gay service members. The topic can be mined for Facebook and Twitter prompts that will stir conversation in your area. What does it mean to a local recruiter? To students in your area considering enlisting? To veterans groups?

The AP has a strong piece about elite military training: Academies don't expect much change from DADT end http://bit.ly/oyZkN2 

Even the Pentagon is tweeting about this: Twitter / @DeptofDefense: #DADT is Repealed. http://bit.ly/no1rRi 

The Army is there, too: @USArmy Today marks the end of "Don't Ask Don't Tell." The law is repealed. http://ow.ly/6zmR1 #DADT #Military

A local reporter can use advanced Twitter search, the hashtag #DADT and local geographical information to find people in your area who are also Tweeting about the day.

ASNE Chat

 Copy editors in staggered shifts, starting at 6 AM? Dismantling the night rim was just one step Sherry Chisenhall took in Wichita. Read more and ask Sherry questions at #ASNEchat today at noon, Eastern time.
Wichita Eagle: Testing a new organizational model for a digital-first newsroom | Knight Digital Media Center http://bit.ly/okhsUf

Hat Tip

Many thanks to Yvette Walker and Steve Buttry, who continued the discussion about the use of Twitter for breaking news stories, based on my note about the Reno air crash and the @rgj Twitter feed.

Yvette: NewsTeach - Disaster plan 2.0 — does it include social media? http://bit.ly/qiCYUN

Steve: Carl Lavin studies Twitter use in covering Reno air crash « The Buttry Diary http://bit.ly/o7GO2R

 

Royal Wedding and Marriage Equality: What 3 Billion People Are Saying

Marty Rouse, HRC national field director, at the Equality Forum (Photo by Lauren Shay Lavin)

Many advocates of marriage rights for gay couples used the spotlight on the royal wedding to seek attention for their issue. Events in London and  Buffalo, in Australia and Iowa raised awareness and money for marriage equality.

The pomp and majesty of the Friday wedding at Westminster Abbey drew a global audience that many reports estimated at three billion people. From dress (elegant) to tiara (understated), from carriage (historic) to kiss (polite), each detail was dissected intently. The flood of voices and exclamations did much to drown out the few attempts to discern larger meanings in the event.

A day later, in Philadelphia, a panel on national politics at the Equality Forum included advice for those same marriage equality advocates. Use this attention to make the point that marriage does matter, Marty Rouse, national field director of the Human Rights Campaign, told 50 people gathered in a small auditorium at the University of the Arts.

It was a message meant for supporters and there may not have been many reporters in the crowd. Rouse's message, though, could start to resonate as more supporters spread the message and the debate over marriage equality sharpens in 2011 and 2012, with important legal and political events on the calendar.

Yes, Rouse, said, plenty of people will celebrate the passage of civil union legislation allowing same-sex couples dozens of the rights granted to married heterosexual couples. But civil unions are not marriages, he noted. "Millions and millions of people watched William and Kate get married yesterday," Rouse said. "Would they have done that for a civil union?"

 

 

Don't Be an April Fool; Annual Spoof Warning

Last year, I posted this April Fool's warning:

There is no off season for spoofs. Remember the film team that exposed the low standards of a lot of the reporting about celebrities? 

If the stories seemed far-fetched, it was because they were part of a series of fabrications about celebrities ‑ made up and fed to tabloid newspapers by a documentary team that wanted to prove that journalists don't check facts.

That was from October.

As March draws to a close, it's worth repeating this warning, a warning I send around the newsroom every year at this time:

The silly season is upon us. Many publications will be running corrections on April 3 for items they fail to see as pranks on April 1. Don’t let that happen to you – or to your readers.

One editor reminded me about a 1998 prank announcement that fooled the FT:

Guinness brewery issued a press release announcing that it had reached an agreement with the Old Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England to be the official beer sponsor of the Observatory's millennium celebration. 

According to this agreement, Greenwich Mean Time would be renamed Guinness Mean Time until the end of 1999. In addition, the famous observatory would refer to seconds as "pint drips." 

The Financial Times, not realizing that the release was a joke, broke the news in an article in which it discussed how some companies were exploiting the millennium excitement in order to promote their own brand names.

There are sure to be more examples this year. Have you seen any? Comment below.

Update: The UK started the day early, and in style. Some top 2010 spoofs, from a friend's list:

*Ferrets to deliver broadband to rural areas, Telegraph

*AA to use rocketman to rescue stranded motorists, Daily Mail

*Google launches translate for animals, Google

Funny to read. Not so funny when they are re-told as real news.

That was last year. Every year brings a new type of spoof, and 2011 is no different. That hot, newsy Twitter feed? Think twice, or three times.

A selective guide to fake Twitter feeds:

BP, Rahm Emanuel, Bronx Zoo cobra, Darth Vader.

 

 

No Controller, But Not 'Out of Control' -- Flight Safety Basics for Newsrooms

Non aviators may be confused by some of the news about the Reagan National traffic controller who has been suspended from his job after no one could reach him as planes were landing at the airport.

Reports of planes "forced to land" or "landing without clearance" point to a control problem, but not a cockpit problem or a passenger safety problem.

The Daily Beast labels the article "scary" and summarizes that pilots were "forced to land their passenger airliners without direction." Similar language appeared in other reports.

Pilots are in charge of a flight, not controllers. A few hundred airports have control towers. Thousands do not. All pilots train constantly on standard approach and landing procedures and do not depend on controllers to conduct safe operations.

Three keys: 1. Shared communication channel. Each airport has a designated radio frequency for all cockpit-to-tower and cockpit-to-cockpit communication. All pilots approaching National or departing National will be communicating on the same frequency. 2. Automated weather and airport condition reports. All pilots know to obtain weather and airport conditions from a separate standard radio broadcast for each airport. It includes wind speed and direction and which runway or runways are being used for landings and departures. 3. Collision-avoidance radar. All airliners have cockpit radar equipment that displays the location of other aircraft and sounds alarms if planes are approaching each other.

In addition, all airports have standard approach and departure lanes in the sky, clearly marked on navigation charts, that pilots know to follow.

Does a pilot need clearance to land safely? No. Controllers do provide essential traffic guidance and are a vital part of a safe transportation system. Flights to and from airports without air-traffic controllers are not, however, out of control.

If you are worried about flying to Reagan National, this might come in handy. Click to read the AOPA refresher guide to landing at non-towered airports.

Engage Readers, Distract Drivers

Any editor wants to create compelling content. On the highway between Newark, N.J., and Manhattan recently, we had a good indication that our friends at the Financial Times have reached a new level of reader engagement. While I drove, my wife, Lauren Shay, shot some photos. This driver mostly kept his minivan in his lane as he used two hands to hold the weekend section of the FT.

Newspapers are not the only distractions for drivers. Below, on the same trip, are Lauren's photos of other drivers who used the time to talk, eat anad text. Please note that texting takes two hands, too.

(Photos by Lauren Shay Lavin)

This year, Matt Richtel of The New York TImes won a Pulitzer Prize for his carefully reported series Driven to Distraction. Texting while driving had been an issue from Texas to Michigan and from coast to coast. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told Bloomberg he wanted to reduce temptations that would distract drivers:

“I don’t want people talking on phones, having them up to their ear or texting while they’re driving,” LaHood said in an interview this week. “We need a lot better research on other distractions,” including Bluetooth-enabled hands-free calls and the in-car systems, he said.

What will LaHood do when he finds out drivers are reading newspapers, too? Right, he'll tell them to get Google cars, that drive themselves. 

 

Don Lemon: Not Left or Right, but a Human Point of View

TV ratings trends and even a job switch or two have fueled the argument that audiences are more attracted to news delivered with a point of view. News from the left has helped Rachel Maddow and MSNBC. News from the right has helped Fox News. That's the argument.

Don Lemon on CNN showed another dimension on Saturday evening. Lemon hews closely to the CNN down-the-middle, politically nonpartial approach to the news. Politics, though, do not drive every news consumer. In the middle of a live report on allegations that an Atlanta pastor sexually abused young men in his congregation, Lemon admitted that as a youth he was a victim of a pedophile.

I have never admitted this on television. I’m a victim of a pedophile when I was a kid. Someone who was much older than me.

TVNewser was quick on the beat, reporting CNN Anchor Don Lemon's On-Ar Revelation:

Lemon’s admission led to an audible gasp from one of his guests. “I’ve never admitted that on television and I never told my mom until I was 30 years old,” Lemon said later in the segment. “Especially African-American men don’t want to talk about those things.”

The supportive reaction on Twitter and Facebook showed that Lemon had touched his audience:

You are an exceptionally brave man.God Bless You,Sir.

--and:

I am proud of you for talking about your abuse. I respect you as a reporter and a man.

--and:

 @donlemoncnn You have no idea how many people you helped to get free tonight.

These are just a quick sampling. At the end of his program, Lemon thanked his audience for the tweets. Others will have to judge how much it means for a reporter to share his all-too-human story and how many ways there may be to escape what Jay Rosen has derided as the view from nowhere.

Ohio Newspapers Lead Fight For Open Records

How many retired government workers in your state are receiving six-figure pensions from taxpayers? As more states face larger piles of debt and more voters worry about their own retirements, this question has a new urgency. In Ohio, a group of newspapers has gone to court to obtain the answer.

The Ohio Public Employees Retirement System has refused to make the information public, even though the information was collected by public officials and tracks how public money is spent. State law imposes privacy restrictions that will not allow the release of the information, even if names are blocked out, officials say. 

Three years ago, Pennsylvania officials cited similar arguments when they refused to disclose bridge safety data. Even after a Minnesota bridge collapsed, the Pennsylvania officials balked. I testified before a state Senate committee in favor or stronger open records laws, joining a cause championed by other editors and community groups. Ultimately, the Pennsylvania officials relented, and released the data.

In a post about that decision and about the committee hearing on the right-to-know law, I wrote:

Despite the general sense among officials at the hearing that disclosure is a public good, the debates over particulars showed that many officials have lost track of their role. They are not in charge, they work for the public. Have they forgotten "We the people"?

The reluctant Ohio officials are not alone. As Jeannette Neumann wrote in the Wall Street Journal (Fury Over Public Pensions Sparks Disclosure Lawsuits), similar legal battles are underway in New York and California.

Another legal case, however, shows that Ohio public pension officials are not always opposed to disclosure. They have gone to court as plaintiffs, accusing Bank of America of failing to disclose enough information about compensation paid to top banking executives. 

Taking On The Big Event: The Debate in Austin

The Austin Amercan-Statesman had a big challenge and a big opportunity last week, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton came to town for a debate in advance of the March 4 Texas primary.
Online, the newsroom found new ways to cover the event and to uncover what goes on behind the scenes. I noted one feature in a Trailwatch post:

Cool newsroom offering: check out the interactive seating chart from The Austin American-Statesman to see where Chelsea Clinton and the Obama family were sitting in the audience.

The multimedia coverage offered so much more:
A range of video reports.
A very active group live blog. Notice there are more than 30 entries, from debate-watching parties, from the debate, from post-debate gatherings. Writers include interns, staffers, managers. Here's one entry, with about ten comments. The entire newsroom was involved and that helped the entire community get involved.
Several slideshows, including photos of this debate party.
Oh, and there were articles, too, on the debate itself on the rallies and on plenty of other topics.

Maybe I missed it, but I did have trouble finding a good table of contents to all this great material. Navigation that allows readers to easily go from any one of these pieces of content to all the related links can be an engineering challenge, but also a great service.