Space journalism

Raasch: Putting lipstick on a campaign

Interesting column by Chuck Raasch, which demonstrates the importance of getting a quote right. He goes the extra mile to report the quote, as he says, "warts and all."

Raasch: Putting lipstick on a campaign

CHUCK RAASCH • GNS Political Writer • September 13, 2008

Can we get some adult supervision here?

John McCain's presidential campaign took a detour through the pigpen when his acolytes took rival Barack Obama's use of the expression, "lipstick on a pig," out of context. But there's enough lipstick smearing to cover several pigs in this election.

Obama clearly was describing George W. Bush's policies, but McCain's allies interpreted it as a slam on McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin. Outraged, off to the phone lines, blogosphere and TV ad production studios they went. ...

.... Here is Obama's "pig" line, grammatical warts and all: "John McCain says he's about change, too. Except - and so I guess his whole angle is, 'watch out, George Bush, except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics, we're going to really shake things up in Washington.' That's not change. That's calling some - the same thing, something different. But you know you can - you know, you can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig."


http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080913/COLUMNISTS0201/809130334/-1/voices08

How it all began

A good article on how the relationship between sports reporters and players dramatically changed. This is akin to how political reporters used to not write about sex scandals, but now they do.

Leonard Shecter’s Secret Led to Candid Sports Reporting

By ALAN SCHWARZ

Published: September 13, 2008

Try as they may, today’s sports fans can barely conceive of life before round-the-clock Brett Favre vigils, shots of ballplayers canoodling with women not their wives and the ink of athletes’ off-the-field escapades routinely staining their hands.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/sports/baseball/14shecter.html?ex=1379131200&en=845ddb1d1f29baf2&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Media Bashing 101

From the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/weekinreview/07leibovich.html?scp=1&sq=Media%20Bashing%20101&st=cse

New York Times vs. Gannett

Two stories on the mortgage bailout as reported by USA Today (Gannett) and the New York Times:

News York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/business/08fannie.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

USA Today

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2008-09-07-fannie-freddie-plan_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Can these stories tell us anything about the difference in their editing styles?

Why we edit

The city of Corning wants to participate and is preparing to undertake its visioning process as Chemung County has already done, she said.

Stop the presses

Here's the NBC report on the Portland Press Herald?

Reactions? Can a city survive without a newspaper?

A Maine beacon blinks

Portland shaken by warning that its daily could fold

By Tania deLuzuriaga

Globe Staff / August 15, 2008

PORTLAND, Maine - Every day for the last 20 years, shortly after 5 a.m., Mayor Ed Suslovic has stepped through his front door in an undershirt and boxers to begin a ritual that defines his day. He picks up the morning paper.

Then, sitting at his kitchen table, he peruses the paper for items people might talk about and for any that have to do with him or his fellow city councilors. He checks the obituaries for people he knows.

"I feel like my day hasn't started right if I don't have a newspaper," he said.

But he and thousands of others in Maine's largest city are confronting the possibility that the paper could soon stop landing on front porches and that Portland could become one of the first American cities to lose its daily newspaper. The Portland Press Herald said in court papers last month that it is hemorrhaging so badly that it may have to be dismantled if it isn't sold. The documents are part of an ongoing dispute between the pa per's owners and its editorial union.

After the documents were publicized on a website and in Associated Press stories last week, the publisher, Charles Cochrane, sought to quell fears that the paper would fold soon. But the possibility of its demise has become the topic of speculation as Portlanders in waterfront taverns, corner coffee shops, and ethnic grocery stores across the city tried to picture life without the newspaper that has set agendas, entertained, and informed residents for the past 146 years.