June 26, 2006
Journalism 101 for those alternative kids
Correction: In the last few hours, several editors (okay two) have pointed out that not all alternative weekly reporters are careless. PC apologizes to any of our weekly pals if they felt the previous post was too broad. PC, of course, was trying to teach one particular alt. reporter a few pointers.
Ah, alternative weekly papers. What fun they are. You can figure out which deejay is playing at what club, where to go eat some bangin' sushi, and who is renting a cheap studio- bedroom in Northern Liberties.
And sometimes those colorful tabs even write about news. Or at least they try to.
So, imagine Philly Confidential’s glee when she turned to page 8 inside this week’s Philadelphia Weekly. A whole page was devoted to critiquing the Daily News. How cute.
Writer Kia Gregory figured that the DN is racist because we cover crime stories that feature black victims and suspects. She was upset that the day we ran a front-page story debating the use of the N-word, other “regular DN stories provide ample accidental N-word examples.”
Really?
Of course, her one-sided diatribe failed to mention that a black man runs the DN or that one of the so-called racist crime reporters is actually a brown-skinned Brooklynite. PC just assumed that the rules of journalism don’t apply to alternative weeklies. Gregory defended her alternativeness in an email to the male-half of PC. She claimed that her factless article was really an opinion piece that allowed her to vent about the People Paper.
Sweetie, newspaper reporting doesn’t work that way.
Even if it is just your opinion, all stories need some context to it. Otherwise, it is just a sixth-grade styled essay titled “What I think about [fill in the blank].”
Enclosed are some writing tips. Heck, we all need help sometime. PC is not upset at you for printing your thoughts, we are pissed because a reader, not familiar with how proper journalism is conducted, might confuse your piece for the truth.
Read some lessons after the jump.
1. When writing an opinion piece make it clear that you are not trying to sell that article as pure fact. Your piece had only one mention of “I” throughout the 944-word tirade. There was also no clear indication that the story was a column and not a news article. You translated each mentioned DN story, into a personalized definition, detailing what each mainstream reporter was really trying to say about black people. Again, your translations were stated as fact, not opinion. That kind of writing would not fly at any big city daily newspaper.
2. Use statistics and background reporting to convince the reader that your opinion should be the correct one. You blasted the DN for shedding a bad light on blacks while failing to mention that the DN covers all major crime stories of the day. Just like all the television stations and the other dailies in town. It is no secret that a majority of the crimes that attract the news media occurs in black neighborhoods. According to police statistics, about 80 % of homicide victims in 2005 were black. In 2004, out of the 271 murder offenders arrested 212 were black. These numbers are a sad truth of Philadelphia and other big cities alike.
3. Contact the people who angered you, report what they said, and then debate the validity of their quotes. You never mentioned if you contacted any DN staffers to explain news coverage, and it is because you failed to do so.
In a nutshell, never leave holes in your writing to trick the reader into thinking that what you are stating is the truth. Remember, it is an opinion piece and it is your job to use facts to back up how you feel. Your mistakes confused the reader into thinking that DN reporters actually wrote, or purposely overlooked, stories that paint minorities as inhumane. You wrote: “Maleek Adams was 15. Why wasn't this child in school? Why was he abandoned on the streets by his parents, relatives, neighbors and teachers?”
You were referring to a story featuring a teenage murder witness written by court reporter Theresa Conroy. You failed to tell the reader that you were actually critiquing a run-of-the-mill story on a preliminary hearing, not a long in-depth piece on how the system failed a teenage boy.
PC has more lessons for you. But she has to tend to her daily journalism duties. Ciao!
Posted by simone at June 26, 2006 01:14 PMSome interesting points, but here's one that needs to be considered: Many alt-weekly columnists and journalists take great pains to report out their columns and stories just as diligently as daily columnists and reporters. (And many of us can't stand sushi).
Posted by: Brian Hickey at June 26, 2006 03:49 PM"Even if it is just your opinion, all stories need some context to it"
Just a tip: Stories, a plural noun, would need some context to them, rather than it.
That would be English 101, my friend.
Posted by: Kelly White at June 26, 2006 04:14 PM"Even if it is just your opinion, all stories need some context to it"
Just a tip: Stories, a plural noun, would need some context to them, rather than it.
That would be English 101, my friend.
Posted by: Kelly White at June 26, 2006 04:18 PMCat fight! Rowr!
Posted by: Robert Moran at June 26, 2006 10:31 PMI personally don't think Kia Gregory is in need of any "pointers" from anyone. She is a fine, fine writer and a reporter who has been consistently recognized by her peers -- including this one -- for her superior work. (This year alone she landed an AAN nomination -- which one local alternative weekly editor accurately described as being the "Oscar" of our business -- and was named Print Journalist of the year by the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists.)
As for you take on the weeklies sometimes trying to write news, I can only guess that you must not read them very often or very carefully.
The Weeklies regularly provide readers with extensively reported, well-written, in-depth news articles -- just the exact kind of pieces the dailies haven't had the rescources, manpower or energy for these last few years.
The proof is in the pages.
Steve Volk's crystal meth story, Beanie coverage, and excellent Brian Tierney profile.
Doron Taussig's investigation into why kids are dying in our state Juvenile detention centers.
Kia's continued coverage on gun violence.
Kate Kilpatrick spending time in a backwater Mexican village so she can better understand the growing Mexican community in South Philly.
My own coverage of the deadly flaws within the city's EMS system.
Not trying to be cross here. I just think you missed the mark.
Maybe next time you should take your own advice of using some "background reporting to convince the reader that your opinion should be the correct one."
Posted by: mike newall at June 27, 2006 11:44 AMPC is well aware of the stories PW puts out. Just like we hope PW is aware of the good journalism the DN prints. But PC ranted about one particular PW article written by one particular PW staffer. Your entire paper was never under the PC microscope. So, PC cannot support your argument. Sorry.
We at the DN do allow our reporters to write tirades blasting other reporters in town. But unlike PW, we limit our rants to blogs and not print. Again, PC cannot support your argument. Sorry.
Mike, your point that weekly papers do fine reporting is well taken. My career started out at a weekly, so I know the time and effort that goes into your stories.
The main problem that many of us at the Daily News had with Kia's column is that she didn't bother to call or e-mail any of the writers whose stories she "translated." (I should know; I was one of them.)
I brought that point up to Kia directly, and she opted not to explain her decision. It seemed a bit odd -- write a column accusing a paper of being racist (or, excuse me, "reinforcing negative racial stereotypes"), but you don't bother to even talk to the paper's editor, who is African-American?
I'm sure Kia does a lot of fine work for your pub and is respected in the newsroom. But sometimes you have to throw your hands up and say, "OK, I goofed," especially when the subject matter is that inflammatory.
When you translate another paper's story to say, "Black people have no regard for life, and they'll turn your quiet neighborhood into a war zone," common sense says your next paragraph should say "I brought this point up to Michael Days, the Daily News' editor. He said ...."
Does that sound so unreasonable?
Posted by: david at June 27, 2006 01:52 PMAs someone who's been fired from both the City Paper and the Phila. Weekly (I won the Weekly its first AAN award--the plaque arrived after I got chunked!), I can note that staffers there get very spotty editing--the issue here is that the editing at both papers are very weak and the writers don't get any backup...
You can tell because some writers have gotten better, and some keep making the same mistakes over and over... that's because the editors aren't stepping up and working with them... also, when some alt writers appear in the dailies, their writing is better--=because an editor worked on it or kicked it back to them with questions...
I wrote a few features for the DN and they always sweated me on them... and they were better for it...
A musician once busted on my bass playing and when I got all sulky, he said... "Look, white boy... you have to put yourself here and your playing over there and look at it... don't mix yourself up with your playing... you got to be able to look at your playing or you won't ever get any better!"
The alt papers don't really seem too look too hard at their stuff before they hit print... and they often make the mistake of acting like they are still garage bands--they aren't--they have tremendous power and they pretty much waste it.
The Beanie stuff was wasted ink, the gun stories were all founded on research done by the Inq. and DN, and most of their stories really lack the back and forth that could give em some snap.
It would be great to see some real tough editing at the alt-weeklies... but as they already make tons of money, it's unlikely the publishers will shake anything up...
sincerely
michael mcgettigan
schuylkill
As an argument between papers, (and miscellaneous embittered ex-employees) this thread is utterly fascinating. Thanks for that. As a reader, I remember Gregory’s article. As anyone with a grain of education and the most basic of critical reading skills could see, the article was opinion. Personally, I thought the piece was weak; and I say that as a general fan of Kia Gregory.
She painted the DN with a very broad and inflammatory brush. It could have been much more effective had she invested some real time and effort into research. As it was printed, the article came off as a very early draft of something which conceivably could have been important, and as something that never have been published as it was.
At the same time, I noticed (was it last week?) the DN cover story of the (African-American) boy from Olney who through make-a-wish and GM saw his dream of designing a car design come true. It was a positive and inspiring story. I haven’t bought the DN in months, but I bought that issue. Part of my impulse was that I had nothing to read while I ate lunch, but another impulse, honest-to-god, was Gregory’s article. I wondered if it influenced the running of that cover story. That's my 60 cents.