I’m thinking of using that headline every Monday. I don’t know what it is about the day, but they never lend themselves to anything insightful, curiosity-inducing, oblique or funny. TDoesn’t matter if they are busy days or quiet days or anything. They all seem to exist in the category of “They just are.”
And if that is the extent of your Monday problems, well, just try to keep it together, would ya, bub?
I took the opportunity for a quick ride this afternoon. I was going to go farther, but I started too late in the day. I was going to try a new route, but it seemed wise to get home in the daylight rather than the twilight.
Besides, I was just trying to stretch my legs and clear my head.
Which had a soda cup tossed at it. So that was charming.
That’s never happened before. But the best part was that I almost caught up with the guy in the white pickup, license plate redacted to protect the owner in case the truck was stolen for a joy ride by a guy with a taste for Sonic, at the next stop sign.
I’d decided I’d stop right by his window and nicely say “How awkward for you.”
But he got through the intersection before I could catch him. So that’s a good reason to get faster.
Things to read … Robot Writers and the Digital Age:
The printing press put a generation of scribes out of a job, and the telegraph sent couriers scurrying to find new employment.
Could software robots do the same for reporters?
That’s one of many questions raised by the emergence of Narrative Science and Automated Insights, two startups that have developed sophisticated computer programs that analyze large amounts of data and automatically generate news stories.
Someone told me once, when I was first starting out, this could never happen. She no longer works in news, but for different reasons. That story does a nice job identifying a lot of the interesting work done in automated/robotic/AI reporting. In the short and middle distance we’ll see a place where programs do some really awesome augmenting and complimenting the work of human reporters. In the long term? Don’t bet against this stuff. Or someone might refer to you vaguely, as I did to start this paragraph.
Once again, this was all foreseen by Back to the Future II. Though they’ve yet to deliver on the hover boards.
I wonder if robot reporters would accept so many “anonymous sources” as their human counterparts are doing as of late. Anonymous sources are increasing in news stories, along with rather curious explanations:
“Frankly, this kind of sourcing is ridiculous,” says Alicia Shepard, a journalist and NPR’s former ombudsman. She adds: “I get it that [news organizations] are trying to be transparent, but it doesn’t enhance the believability of the anonymous quote. The only thing worthwhile about the convoluted sourcing explainers is how funny they are.”
In fact, such descriptions can do more harm than good, says Matt Carlson, an associate professor at St. Louis University and the author of “On Condition of Anonymity: Unnamed Sources and the Battle for Journalism,” published in 2011. Rather than enhancing a reader’s understanding, the descriptions used by reporters can be disingenuous and misleading about a source’s affiliation or motives, Carlson says.
Using anonymity in reporting has a venerable place in the craft, but it is becoming a crutch.
I read some wire copy today that five times (five!) referred to unnamed sources. How many reporters, branded or generic, do you trust that you’ll, as a reader, allow five references to anonymity and no names on the record?
By the way, that was a sports story.
Related only in that these are stories and they are about sports: perhaps you’ve seen the Together We Make Football promos on television? Well, the finalists include some incredible tales.
Here’s a quote: “It took me a while to realize I was still alive. I thought, ‘This is what it feels like to be dead.'”
This video is of mom recording her son receiving his acceptance letter to Samford. Fun stuff:
In a somewhat similar vein, this reporter covered a story and then got involved personally. Two years later and the Boston Globe’s Billy Baker is updating the tale on Twitter, where it was a huge hit today. Now it is a story in the traditional format. Two critically poor kids. VIetnamese parents. Dad killed himself. Kids struggle. Reporter comes along and gives them a nudge here and there. They scrape and save, these kids. They worked hard:
In the fall, Johnny left for his freshman year at UMass Amherst.
As college application time rolled around for George a few months later, we knew he was in a good position. His grades were outstanding. He had a compelling story. And so he aimed high. Very high.
These boys are the nearest I’ve come to that thing we call the American Dream. But when George texted me on Monday evening …
Well, just go read the thing.
Take a tissue with you.
