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Journalism Class - Tuesday November 8

Spider has a mug of coffee and a slightly more cheerful look on his face. He's seated again on the top of his desk and sharing his cigarettes with his cat. Swinging his heels, he addresses the class. "Grading's almost finished, up to and including the midterm, and I'd have to say that I'm impressed. Well, with those of you who are still with us, anyway. Attendance has been above and beyond the call of duty and participation has been very, very high. Grades, credit and attendance reports will be available by Friday for the curious."

Taking a swig of coffee, he gave his students an evil grin. "Which means that the final project for the term is going to be a doozy. I'll be giving you over a month to put together the article that I'm asking for, however, and I'm in final negotations with a few people before actually assigning it, however. I am very, very pleased with the amount of class participation."

There was a pause as he waved the cat away from his coffee before she got cigarette ashes in it. "Today I have an ethical question related to yesterday's discussion on slant - specifically the remarks concerning the journalist who seemed to draw from only one source and leave a great deal of detail to one side. Some of this is due to editing for space, some of it is sloppiness. When you have only a very specific number of column inches in which to tell your entire story... what do you cut first?"

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Duce answers almost immediately, "Anything that distracts from the main purpose of the piece. If your reader gets distracted, your story loses impact, and chances are good the reader will forget about it by the time they've finished their tea and toast."

"Very good. The first thing to go are the fiddly bits that have nothing at all to do with what you're trying to say." Spider nodded. "The ethical question comes when you're down to the wire. What qualifies as 'distracting'? When does it become a matter of skew?"

"When you choose hyperbole over fact," Duce answers. "You can spin just about any fact your way with proper motivation and context. When forced to choose what to cut, we'd rather cut the hyperbole and work the spin on the facts."

"An excellent answer."

"Any type of flowery, overly descriptive language," John answers. "Description is fine but overuse of similies, metaphors and purple prose isn't necessary for most news items."

"A good choice. Get the facts in first. Adjectives are splendid tools, but when you're working on news, they are destinctly secondary to the purpose at hand." Spider smiled as he pointed at Crichton with his cigarette. "Always stick as closely as possible to the point. Trouble may loom, however, when the editor or the owners of your publication expect a specific slant. Other than the elimination of loaded adjectives, what can you do to prevent that without losing your job?"

"When someone expects a certain slant with limited space, the easiest way would be to eliminate the entire opposing argument. Not usually good but it'll keep the slant." John pauses for a moment. "Instead of doing something like that, perhaps giving both sides equal space but using different semantics. Use words that put the side you want in a positive light. Everything is positive, possible and doable. For the opposing side, use negative words. For instance, if there's an eighty percent chance of a sunny day, say there's a twenty percent chance of rain. Frame the opposing side with negativity while still giving their side."

"A relatively obvious method and one of which I approve, if forced into it. It allows any reader actually using their mind to interpret the facts correctly, despite the forced slant."

"I guess you start by cutting details? You try to keep in as many points of view as you can, but maybe each side gets to say less."

"Keeping both sides equal while pairing down the number of comparisons would be a good place to begin," Spider nodded.

"If it's a story that's betting the farm and the lunch money on the skew working, you might be better off cutting a piece of solid evidence for your own side," Xander says, thinky-face (which strongly resembles indigestion-face, but he hasn't had lunch yet, so it must be thinky) in place. "If you have enough to spare it. And leaving in a weaker piece or statement from the opposite side. Makes it look like you're giving them balance, makes you look unbiased, but behind the scenes you're actually showing how strong one side's argument is."

"A very, very good point and possibly the method used in the FBI article that Krycek was quoting yesterday." Spider frowned a little. "It's very difficult to find a straight news piece that doesn't hold bias, if not that of the editor or the publisher, then that of the author. It's almost impossible to eliminate witness bias, however, and still manage direct quotes to support your article. How would you work around that?"

Xander frowns too. "Make sure the reader knows what the witness bias might be, by how you describe the witness? Like 'Police Chief and recent mayoral candidate Thatcher' vs. just 'Chief Thatcher' to show what the guy's biases might be."

"That is the easiest and most responsible way," Spider agreed. "The thing to remember about direct quotations in any article, particularly one with a bias, is that you have no idea what questions the quoted person was asked... and often the bias lies in the wording of the question in order to force the answer that the interviewer wants."

Xander raises an eyebrow. "Sneak-ky," he says admiringly. "I like." He coughs. "Well, not like, because I don't like the idea of somebody putting one over on me. But it's smart."

"It always pays to be skeptical," Spider told him, grinning broadly. "When reading any article, always be aware that someone, somewhere has an agenda... and the best possible reaction is to begin asking questions. Particularly questions which the article did not address."

Jake heads directly for the coffee.

Rory discreetly sets a large tumbler of coffee with caramel flavoring on Jake's desk when he's not looking, with a note:

Because the radio thing kind of made it all worth it.

Jake comes back with boring coffee, spots coffee with caramel flavoring, puts boring coffee down and beams at new!shiny!suddenlyappearingcoffee. He reads the note while sipping the coffee and snickers.

"I would start by trying to reword sentences. A lot of people tend to write in a flowery, rambling style that not only doesn't read well for a paper, but uses valuable space."

"A very good place to begin. You'll note that many newspapers have a very distinctive flavour or certain key phrases which turn up. This is an editorial method used to help staff keep within their column inches and on that regular readers can recognize and interpret easily."

Veronica nods.

"I agree with Rory. Tightening up the narrative can cut column inches without jeopardizing the integrity of the article."

D'anna mentally groaned when Spider spoke of the final project. Whatever he had in mind, she dreaded it. She made a mental note to stock up on film, coffee, cigarettes and possibly booze before then depending on what she could wheeled her Aunt into sending.

She considered the question the professor put forth for a moment or two, "First cut whatever isn't absolutely necessary to the feel of the piece. Then go back and check for word and sentence length. Remove what you can, shorten what you can't and see where that leaves you."

Opinion.

Well, that is opinion the writer of the piece doesn't exactly agree with. he'll support his own opinion and omit everyone else's in an effort to make his own point in that much less space.

He's heard a few other people say it, but his first reaction is that description would be cut first. To make room for the facts. And the author's personal slant to the story.

Irrelevant details, less than succinct language, and if you're trying to be unbiased, excessive interpretation and quotes from the spinners.

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Journalism Class - Tuesday November 8

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