Ah, presidential debates. What a great social indicator for the political culture of our time. While I don’t want to take sides here, nor really do I care to get down and dirty (for it is dirty) and wade through the varied and banal ads, spin, blathering, condescending posturing, rhetoric, counter-rhetoric, meta-rhetoric, and who knows what else kind of rhetoric, I can take a politically neutral stance and point out that this Frank Rich op-ed piece has some interesting comments about the recent debate on ABC.

Most students of Columbia probably don’t need this blog to learn about Frank Rich, he’s popular and reliable. The reason I link to it here is because it’d be easy to pretend that the media doesn’t play favorites, and that the media doesn’t get submerged in the harmful political discourse it pretentiously and complacently believes to hold accountable. When the L.A. Times somehow intimates that Edward Said, a scholar of near-Olympian proportion especially at Columbia, is, to put it mildly, shady—and Obama’s in the story, so ohhh!—I don’t have a politically oriented reaction so much as just feel embarrassed for the journalism industry I wish to enter post-grad. (for stronger language re: the hackery, see our friends at Commentariat)

As Rich writes, you can remain politically neutral and still agree with the “viewers of all political persuasions [who] were affronted by the moderators’ failure to ask about the mortgage crisis, health care, the environment, torture, education, China policy, the pending G.I. bill to aid veterans, or the war we’re losing in Afghanistan. Those minutes were devoted not just to recycling the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bosnian sniper fire and another lame question about a possible “dream ticket” but to the unseemly number of intrusive commercials and network promos that prompted the jeering at the end.”

This is nothing new, or original (perhaps some will find it interesting that the editor of an Ivy newspaper can be something other than naively idealistic about journalism…naive and idealistic, maybe?) but the least I can do is post that I’m “mad” and wish I could “not take it anymore.”

“But that remains on hold while we resolve whether Mr. Obama lost Wednesday’s debate with his defensive stumbling, or whether Mrs. Clinton lost it with her ceaseless parroting of right-wing attacks. The unequivocally good news is that ABC’s debacle had the largest audience of any debate in this campaign. That’s a lot of viewers who are now mad as hell and won’t take it anymore.”

Hell, I hope he’s right.

We received a perceptive comment from a reader noting that we might be missing the point of this blog if we don’t comment on the process of developing our stories and describe how the big decisions are made. I think the note was right on. The design of this blog was to take last year’s news editor’s blog (almost solely dedicated to posts about process, and pretty successful in that regard) and expand that model with a broader scope (journalism in general) with more contributors (the entire managing board). So far we haven’t come through with enough posts on how we arrive at our final product. This is something we’ve already been discussing lately - blogging is a difficult endeavor, even Josh’s popular attempt became tedious once the semester spiraled into “Ahmadineamania” - but we will definitely try harder. Thanks for the feedback! (incidentally, check out this NYTimes piece featuring a Wal-Mart blog…it speaks to both an interesting media project by an American corporation and the difficulties of blogging authentically without sounding like pr)

On that note, I’ve been meaning to write about how we covered the plagiarism at Teachers College. Notice the title of this post uses specific language - “TC Plagiarism,” as opposed to “Constantine,” “Noose Victim,” or anything else that may get bandied about in other media outlets or almost certainly the blogosphere. As we saw it, the story here was that a Teachers College professor had allegedly committed plagiarism, copying without accreditation the work of a fellow faculty member and two students. Many newspapers and blogs played up the noose incident of October (it catches their readers’ eye, I guess), some even throwing in loose allusions to the possibility that Prof. Constantine placed the noose on her own door. When we first got wind of the story, we knew we had to be very careful about the information we received, where we got it, and how we reported on it.

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Particularly with the visit of Washington Post editor Len Downie just days away (whose speech we should have up online soon, for those who are curious), some of us at Spec followed closely the development of the rival New York Times‘ now-infamous story detailing (sort of) the romantic/professional ties of Republican candidate Senator John McCain with various lobbyists. The piece, which broke the story and was followed quickly by a Post article the same day (and which Downie admitted the Post needed before running their piece) took close to a year to develop. It drew instant backlash - to the point that the actual news was lost on some. Here, the Times editors respond to readers’ questions on everything from reporting logistics to the ethical merits of the decision to run the piece without what some would call key evidence. These Q&As with editors can make for great reads - at the same time, one can sometimes feel the judicious calculations made by the Times in how they pick and choose their response. Note, for example, a question about the Editorial side’s endorsement of McCain and whether it conflicts or has any relation to the News side’s work. While it may have been a coincidence, the Times was well-served by having the politics editor answer that one - after all, by its very nature, that editor could not speak for the Editorial side.

Also, an aside: Stephen Colbert’s hilarious segment on the “bad…bad journalism” exhibited by the Times. As one former Spec editor mentioned, maybe the “newspaper of record” simply got this one right, regardless?

Now, the actual point of this post. Thinking about the McCain story makes me think of the state of the media in general. If the Times can be discredited so well, so quickly, on a piece that took months of reporting, fact-checking, and editorial review, it seems anything can happen. Regardless of how one feels about the piece (I’m still iffy on its validity, myself), it speaks to the power of the press today, when watchdog journalism carries with it the perils of instant vilification in the blogosphere. The mainstream media, however small or traditional (read: reactionary) its role in the world, must feel threatened by all this. The Times also reports on an alternative form of media, Wikileaks.org, being shut down by a federal judge, drawing comparisons to the Supreme Court Pentagon Papers case. Ironically, the article reports:
“The feebleness of the action suggests that the bank, and the judge, did not understand how the domain system works or how quickly Web communities will move to counter actions they see as hostile to free speech online.”
Perhaps the Internet will save journalism? Perhaps.

The NYT ran an article the other day that has been floating around the Copy section ever since (and props to Amanda Sebba, a former Copy associate herself, who has been enjoying it with the rest of us). It can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/nyregion/18semicolon.html?ex=1360990800&en=d1bd9cdb6531580c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss.

I’m not sure the semicolon has really been entirely jettisoned as a “pretentious anachronism,” but while Neil Neches should of course be commended on his correct usage of the notoriously slippery punctuation mark, this seemed like a good time to make my Editors Blog debut talking about something near and dear to all the copy editors at Spectator—the mighty em dash (see what I just did there??).

While we take most of Spec style from the Associated Press Stylebook, which is pretty much standard fare for most newspapers around the country, we are pretty strict on semicolon usage, which is not explicitly prohibited by the AP. The basic rationale is that this is a newspaper, not a Lit Hum paper, and as copy editors, we value writing that is clear, concise, and vigorous. Semicolons tend to obscure that goal by making sentences longer, so we use the more direct (and pretty) em dash.
Observe:
“The exhibit shows Johns’ willingness to experiment with different materials—paint, pencil, charcoal, and clay are all present, as well as silverware, rulers, flashlights, and string.”

The em dash basically takes the place of a semicolon and provides a clearer, more distinct pause between the two parts of the sentence. We love em dashes so much, in fact, that above the copydesk there is a sign that says “OPTION+SHIFT+HYPHEN” (the way to make an em dash on a Mac) to remind wayward Op-ed columnists and newswriters on deadline.

Not that most (any?) of you care about punctuation TOO much, but it’s worth nothing that the cockles of this copy editor’s heart were further warmed by the correction appended to the Times article and sent to me by News associate and former Copy staffer Mary Kohlmann:
“An article in some editions on Monday about a New York City Transit employee’s deft use of the semicolon in a public service placard was less deft in its punctuation of the title of a book by Lynne Truss, who called the placard a “lovely example” of proper punctuation. The title of the book is “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” — not “Eats Shoots & Leaves.” (The subtitle of Ms. Truss’s book is “The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.”)”

The iron fist of Copy justice strikes again!

It’s Valentine’s Day, which means we’re a little low on staffers tonight - while some of us call Spec our significant other, many Speccies are actually out on dates - but we’re hoping the Weekend section (a perennial late-nighter) will match The Eye, which PDF’ed at 3:30 a.m., a record for the year (possibly longer). Of course, the late breaking story on, well, Barnard pipes breaking, kept us in the office for a few more hours. But last night the News team came together in excellent fashion, as the editors coordinated with Photo and a number of reporters on the scene (read: knee-deep in sewage/murky water).

On a more sober note, reports are streaming in of a gunman opening fire on an Illinois campus today. It’s sad, perplexing news. We here at the Spec have to figure out whether - and if so, how - to cover the tragedy. The precedent is technically set by the Virginia Tech incident of last year. What we’ll do now is ask ourselves if this compares, if there’s a local angle, and if we have the logistical support to cover it. While we’re all shocked by the news, this might be one for our readers to follow in the Times and Illinois papers, CNN, or Google News.

Yesterday we were graced by the presence of Edward Keating, photographer extraordinaire and two time Pulitzer prize winner. He served as a huge motivation for many photographers thinking of photography as a career. Guest speakers are really a great way to interest staffers and making meetings more dynamic. I look forward to having more guest speakers come to the Spec office and maybe even extend our invitation to people outside of the Spectator.

Seems like China is not the only country open to criticism regarding the free press.
The New York Times is reporting (shocking that they got this story first) that a New York Times reporter received a subpoena issued by a grand jury looking into confidential sources used in his 2006 book about the CIA. As the article notes, this isn’t the first time reporters have been pressured to disclose their sources’ names in recent years.