Auto-Tune the News!

Ever wonder what current events wouls sound like if reported by r&b singers? Probably something like this:




(For those not up on the latest advances in mainstream hip-hop, Auto-Tune is a pitch-perfecting program that also happens to make you sound like a robot. Some singers, like T-Pain, (over)use it as a special effect. Some wannabe singers, like Kanye West, use it in a futile attempt to mask the fact that they can't sing. Most of the people in this clip sound more melodic than Kanye, and they're not even singing.

Also, Gail Collins' column this week is on Wisconsin. Go read it.

Angry Journalists, Part 2

Courtesy of the former Times Foreign Desk intern Adam, here's what copy editors have to put up with. And here's the editors' response.

WARNING: Not safe for work!

Intern Blog

My post is up.

Wasting too much time on blogs so you don't have to: Angry journalist edition

(Otherwise known as links I stole from Gawker).

At Angryjournalist.com, you can rant anonymously about your co-workers, your recent layoff or how you feel your journalism degree isn't worth the paper it's printed on. For the views of laid-off journalists, the hopeful and the hopeless, on the future state of the news industry, there's Parting thoughts, recently started by the Columbia Journalism Review. (Sample thought: "I still want journalism. Journalism just doesn't seem to want me.")

On a less negative note, are you a reporter scrambling for a source? A publicity whore looking to get your name in the paper? Then check out Help a Reporter, the free site that links reporters and sources. Gets good reviews from Gawker commenters, for whatever that's worth.

But why am I wasting so much time on Gawker? Because I am taking a break from working on a blog post for the Temple University Editing Residency blog, started by Dr. Trayes and this year's crop of interns. So I'll let you know when that's posted.

The Newspaper Industry is Fucked

See the job losses in map form!

Paradox: Some of these places are still hiring even as they're firing all their veteran staffers. Ah, cheap labor.

Why I'm glad I didn't go into broadcast journalism

Because of things like this.

Reading the News so You Don't Have To: College Journalism Edition

—At The Spectator, there are a lot of late-night deadline conversations about who would cover the story if the entire staff died in some kind of horrible calamity (as a freelancer, the greatest compliment you can receive is being known as the one to whom this responsibility would fall). Well at NIU the staff of the campus paper lost one of their own in the recent shooting.

—There is a student paper in Colorado fighting to stop the administration from brokering a "partnership" with the Gannett-owned local paper. Two reasons this would be a bad decision:
-The powers that be insist that any deal will ensure that it remains a student-run paper. But the move comes after uproar last semester over a four-word editorial in the paper that read, simply, "Taser this ... fuck Bush." Think what you want about the editorial (no way would I personally have printed it if it were up to me), but the timing on the administration's part is suspect.
-Even though college and local papers are not direct competitors, the competition on the beats that overlap still helps. Truly, in my experience working at both papers at once the relationship was often mutually beneficial. It made finding sources easier in both jobs. There were times when I would get permission to reprint our work in both papers — probably an easier proposition than at most papers because all I had to do was pop my head into the editor's office (five feet from my desk) and ask permission (an upside of independent papers). But there were plenty of city and general interest-related issues when I knew I was going up against another paper and that made the writing better. Gannett as I understand it tends to streamline things and share content as much as it can — which is arguably helpful for small papers with few resources in large, spread-out geographical areas like northern Wisconsin, but not so good when it threatens to squelch the competition in a smaller market.

— "You probably don't REMEMBER me, Mr. Woodward ..."

(About the schism between the Washington Post and its online counterpart.)

While I'm in link-happy mode, I forgot to mention in my post on Century 21 that when I was in line for the cashier the man in front of me, buying only a small bag of socks, insisted that he didn't need a bag. The cashier was completely flabbergasted, calling him back after he walked away to make sure he didn't want one and even remarking to me when I stepped up how crazy it was that someone would turn that down. But recently I read an article on how people in Ireland have been taxed 15 cents a plastic bag since 2002, and the move has been so successful that using them has become socially unacceptable (the guy in question looked like he could have been european).
Speaking of plastic bags, check this out. The part about the bags = the story of my life. And read the rest of the site, a lot of it is dead-on.

Ugh.

If you are ever at a New York deli, never, ever eat anything containing breaded chicken or (especially) slices thereof. Because I promise you it is not chicken. More like greasy chicken-flavored rubber that will fill you with loathing upon consumption. I have had this experience in at least 3 or 4 delis that were otherwise at least tolerable.

Moving on ... I love how Wisconsin is, yet again, a battleground state. It trips the hell out of me to see Appleton and Oshkosh and Madison datelined in the New York Times, and even more so, to see my alma mater get a mention. (On that note, this fine publication is also doggedly following the campaign season in Blugold country).

I know that the primary system is designed for the maximium benefit of special-interest groups, and it does drag on for an excruciatingly long period of time. But it does have the side effect of forcing politicians to go to electoral pip-squeak states like Iowa and New Hampshire and Nevada and at least pretend to listen to their concerns. And since there was no coronation after Super Tuesday, the pandering continues. As Lauren Fox of Shorewood, Wis., puts it, "having zoomed from ignored to adored in one day, we might as well put on tons of sparkly eye shadow and enjoy ourselves, because no one will remember our name in the morning."

Of course, being that it's Wisconsin they'll be back to pander some more before the general election. I already miss living in a purple state, at least for now. But I've always had a love-hate attitude toward politics. It's the ultimate reality show, in that it has pretty much the same ratio of reality to utter ridiculousness as most reality shows. But follow it too closely and you'll start to lose brain cells and possibly your lunch.

But to end on a positive note, I the best story I edited today (well, besides the Wisconsin one, which was from the same series) was about the caucuses in small-town Maine. I think Jennifer Finney Boylan has a brilliant take on the Democratic race:

Toward the end of the event, though, someone asked, So what was it like, to grow up as the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton?

Well, she said, one day, when she was 6 and living in the governor’s mansion in Arkansas, Chelsea decided she’d like to have a coconut. So the Clintons went out and got one. When they got it home, though, the first family faced the traditional problem when it comes to coconuts: how do you open one up?

Chelsea allowed as how her father and she had gone outside, and thrown the coconut again and again onto the hard asphalt of the governor’s mansion’s driveway, hoping to make a dent. But the coconut, alas, refused to yield.

Finally, Hillary came outside with a hammer.

The point being, Chelsea said, that her mother knows how to solve problems.

In the 2004 election, voters repeatedly said that they’d rather have a beer with George W. Bush than with John Kerry. This election, it seems as if the question for Democrats is this: Whom would you call if you really, really needed to open a coconut? Hillary Clinton, with the Hammer of Experience? Or Barack Obama, with the Machetes of Bipartisanship and Change?

Finally, a true statement from Fox News

Sorry, I lied about the photos. They're coming soon, but in the meantime you must check out this headline.

EDIT: That link no longer works, but the headline said:

Police: Crack Found in Man's Buttocks

I wish I was lying. But you can't make this shit up.

How To Identify the People on the Elevator

I think it was Mom who told me a few months ago that she saw a picture of the newsroom of the Virginia Tech college paper, in which everything was immaculate and all the staffers were dressed up. She was wondering if they always dress that way, and I've concluded that they probably don't. Journalists are not big fans of dress codes. At the New York Times, for example, there isn't one. You can walk in wearing sweatpants if you want, and every so often people do. They say dress for the next job up, but whenever I see the executive editor he always seems to be wearing jeans and a polo shirt. But I guess he doesn't have any higher up to go.

The people in corporate, on the other hand, are suit-and-tie types. And I hear the ad representatives get a clothing allowance so they can wear designer clothes.

Also, that's the flip side to being a journalist and not getting paid much — you have a whole department of people who get paid (a lot more) to worry about money so you don't have to.