#storylab

After reading about the Washington Post's Coffee House Newsroom experiment this morning, I decided to stop by and give J. Freedom duLac a visit. We chatted for a while about the university and journalism, and of course, Twitter came up.

I've had a love-hate relationship with the social media tool ever since I left last year's NewsVision conference feeling like not having a Twitter account doomed me to journalistic failure. (I caved and joined the next day.)

I agree that's Twitter's great for connecting people, finding cool links and breaking down the lines of corporate communication to, for example, unload on someone about the lack of power in your house.

I followed the #storylab tweets all day but felt like I was eavesdropping. Yes, people post this information publicly, so an expectation of privacy is absurd. But it was odd and surreal to see reporters joking back and forth and editors counting down the hours to deadline. I felt like I was in the newsroom with them, which is ironic considering none of the reporters were even in the newsroom.

Nevertheless, my inner pendulum is slowly swinging toward online re-engagement. I might give Twitter another shot. This evening I told my brother I'm thinking about getting an iPhone soon.

At least it's not an äppärät.

State Department Panel: "Human Rights Advocacy 101"

Idealists, consider yourselves warned. Addressing human rights issues may be the right thing to do, but that logic alone won’t convince any government to act.

Leaders of three prominent human rights organizations and a State Department official gathered with about two dozen students at town hall meeting Monday where they emphasized the importance of framing human rights as a central component of national and economic security, rather than a stand-alone issue.

Human rights advocates keep their eyes on a clear objective but must also remain cognizant of the “political dynamic,” said Elisa Massimino, president and CEO of Human Rights First. “Don’t change the goalposts, but you may have to change the plays,” she said.

Human rights organizations bring public pressure to issues, forcing the government to address them, said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. And as newspapers and their foreign coverage continue to decline, these organizations are often the only ones monitoring conflicts where human rights are being exploited or denied, he said.

National debates over detainee abuse and civilian trials of suspected terrorists that have intensified over the past two years show the world we’re prepared to consider what our laws really mean, said Michael Posner, assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor.

It matters who gives voice to such issues. For example, when Gen. Stanley McChrystal takes steps to reduce civilian casualties, and retired military leaders speak out against torture, the link between human rights and national security becomes clearer.

However, “you don’t push hard enough that you disempower those in government,” said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House. Rather, you continue to show stakeholders, including those in the private sector, that advancing human rights does not contradict motivations.

The panel discussed the Global Network Initiative, a coalition of private information and communication technology companies (including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!), nongovernmental organizations and academic institutions dedicated to protecting the freedom of expression. Something like the GNI elucidates to for-profit organizations their role as “a linchpin to this idea of American foreign policy,” Massimino said.

The session did not focus on a specific category within human rights; it gave the students a mental framework with which to approach the issues.

Example: Bad News Report

I know deadline pressure means some not-so-strong pieces have to run, but I wonder if anyone listened to this news item before airing it on the local NPR affiliate station WAMU this morning.

This follow-up to the apparent drowning of a 5-year-old child last Friday in a local pool where five lifeguards were on watch raises a legitimate question: how adept are teenage lifeguards.

The title, "Pool Safety Experts Weary of Teen Lifeguards," seems misleading considering the only people quoted are a lawyer and an anonymous pool attendee (more on that in a second).

The attorney calls pool drownings "almost an epidemic," but nowhere in the report does reporter Mana Rabiee include any numbers to back that up.

The part that really bothered me was Rabiee's awarding anonymity to her community member voice, a woman who regularly attends the pool and has expressed concern over the lifeguards' youth. First, Rabiee doesn't say why the woman, who makes a useless comment about how lifeguards appear to be high school kids, didn't want to be identified. Then, the kicker: the mystery pool-goer adds that she isn't "personally affected by it because I'm a good swimmer, but if I were a parent I might be concerned."

Is it too much to ask for the "man on the street" reaction to be a bit more applicable? It's hard to believe there wasn't one other person around who would a) speak on the record and b) say something at least mildly relevant. Had an editor shaved off that woman's 17 seconds of drivel, I would have wasted only a minute of my time listening to this report.

Fiction

An e-mail I just sent the co-owner of an area bookstore that closed a few months ago:

""The Camel Bookmobile" by Masha Hamilton was I think the only novel I bought from [the store]. Everything else has been nonfiction. As a child I devoured novels, mostly series' such as Cam Jansen, the Boxcar Children and Thursday Next. College courses on international politics and journalism consumed me and I increasingly read current affairs: Friedman, Zakaria, Pollan. The only fiction I recall reading in the last year or so has been John Grisham.

Exhausted by all the informative, educational reading, I longed for lighter fare. But for some reason I just couldn't find fiction that hooked me. The first book I bought at [the store] was Ruth Reichl's "Garlic and Sapphires." It was a lovely, enjoyable read and I thought, maybe I don't need fiction to fill my narrative void.

But I did. After reading the first few pages of "The Camel Bookseller" in the store, I decided to take a chance and buy it. A couple days ago, I started reading it. I tried to savor it by reading it a chapter or two at a time instead of the normal one afternoon feast that defines my reading habits. This evening I couldn't help it and finished the remaining three-fourths of the book while curled up in a blanket.

My journalism classes last year focused on feature and narrative writing, so I've had no drought of good prose. But drinking in this fiction, noticing its techniques, yet not thinking about anything but the story, was pure bliss. Better yet, the story made me think about our world in the same way the non-fiction did, only in a much more compelling and subtle manner.

So, for that, I want to say thank you. Thank you for reminding me how important it is to just bask in the pleasure of reading a book instead of always thinking that I have to learn something from reading. Obviously that inevitably happens, but sometimes all we need is an armchair adventure."

Lessons from Lou Grant

Yesterday a fellow intern and I compared how we followed Monday's Metro accident. She constantly checked the Twitter feeds of four D.C. blogs on her iPhone. I, after hearing the initial details, waited until about 9 p.m. to read all the lead stories on washingtonpost.com.

She wanted up-to-the minute bursts of information as they became available. I wanted a complete summary of the facts and eyewitness accounts packaged together and organized by the newspaper after the hubbub died down.

I am methodical, meticulous person and easily susceptible to information overload. As everyone tries to predict the industry's future, I'm increasingly intrigued by its past. Yesterday AJR posted my profile of Alan Mutter aka the Newsosaur. Listening to Mutter recount the glory days of newspapers, his voice full of enthusiasm and nostalgia, made me want to know about that business. After seeing a clip from the "Lou Grant" show on his blog and hearing him mention the newsroom drama in our interview, I decided to check it out.

I just watched the first episode on Hulu. I did get some good interview tips, reminding me that even if the newsrooms I work in look different, the basics will remain the same. But, ironically, a scene in the show did make it clearer to me the benefit of tearing down the walls between the press and the public.

Grant wants to run a story on a police sex scandal on the front page, but the paper's publisher, Mrs. Pynchon, doesn't like the story. Grant says something about it being his job to decide what's important and what's not. Pynchon responds that she's the publisher and if she doesn't like it, it doesn't run.

Hearing their back and forth made me appreciate that nowadays, we increasingly decide what's important. Then again, I'm the one who keeps saying she prefers the packaged version so that I don't have to sift through everything to make that decision in the first place.

Hmm. It seems the point I was trying to make wasn't so easily answerable after all. Great. I chalk it up to another symptom of this post-graduation-realizing-there-are-no-easy-answers-in-life-phase.

Creating a Web site

I'm trying to design a Web site and it is driving me crazy. I've spent the entire evening bouncing between Squarespace, Tumblr, Wordpress and Blogger trying to figure out which would be the best to host a personal Web site for my resume, clips, and possibly a revival of this blog. I've got a picture in my head of what I want, but the rudimentary Web design skills I learned in an online journalism class almost two years ago are not enough to make that picture a reality.

The cliche "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing," comes to mind. OK, maybe not dangerous, but not being able to create what I want is frustrating the hell out of me.

Anyone know any good basic Web tutorial resources?

Save the Series

Graduation is in exactly one month. Yikes.

But let's not dwell on that. Yesterday I had another front page story in the Diamondback, this one about how some teachers handle student laptop use in the classroom. I was far more pleased with the copy desk's chopping job on this story than Monday's. But you, dear reader, get the online link, where copy runs loose and editors aren't scrounging for space.

But on to more important things. I was incredulous about Monday's Romenesko headline "The days of the six-part series are gone, says Baltimore Sun editor." Mr. Cook, are you telling me I've spent four years and probably around $100,000 learning how to write news stories when all I have to look forward to are blogs, blogs and Twitter. Seriously?

Ironically, a little more than four hours later, a slew of Pulitzers were awarded to stories, columns, cartoons, and ahem, series.

And the next day, the following rebuttal, via Romenesko, "Why multi-part series are even more important for newspapers today." I'm really glad Temple talked about the value of series for reporters in addition to their obvious value to the community and public at large.

"They give the staff a way to grow," Temple wrote. Yes, it's nice when I can summarize my thought into a 140 character Tweet, but that's just a micropayment into the happiness bank. Writing a really good story, on the other hand, well that'll brighten a whole day or two. And though I haven't written a newspaper series yet, I can only imagine the weeks of joy and satisfaction that stem from seeing an idea blossom into a fully developed project.

Even better, series allow a newspaper to take readers to unexpected "journalistic heights," Temple said. Sure, we all know the beauty of crafting a mysterious lede or assembling an eye-catching multimedia package. But when a reader feels that same wonder -- well then we've really done our jobs.

Stories and series aren't going anywhere. I won't believe it. Sure, they might not be called newspaper series per say, and I'm willing to accept that multimedia is increasingly part of any good story. Let's go back to finding a new financial model that allows us to do those series rather than downplay their role the news business.