****

"There's a dirty little secret about the politics of negativity and division: unfortunately, they work," said Trudeau. "Mr. Harper has proven that you can get elected with a majority that way. He's also proven that once you get elected that way, you can't govern worth a damn."

That is a quote in a story I did as an assignment about Justin Trudeau's speaking appearance in Lorette, MB last Wednesday. As I always do when writing a story, I consult the Canadian Press Style Book when I'm not sure on something.

This time, I wanted to make sure I could quote Trudeau saying "damn".

After reviewing the section on obscenities, there are times when using such language is allowed, including when "A prominent figure cursing in public..." I was good to proceed.

But after thinking on it for a day, I wondered: is "damn" even an obscenity?

This time, the Canadian Press Style Book had no answers. There was no list of words that were deemed unacceptable to print.

On an online forum, a few posters had a debate about what's ok to print and what's not ok. A poster named Greg Rasa, who appears to be affiliated with a daily newspaper in the northwest United States, had this to say regarding the quote from George W. Bush in 2000 when he called New York Times reporter Adam Clymer a "major-league asshole":

"When it happened, back in the 2000 campaign, few papers printed it. We didn't. But after immersing myself in the Nexis search and seeing all of the dubious and lesser instances of that word being printed, I'm now certain that if it came out of the president's mouth today, we'd print it."

 The discussion brings up two good questions. Are the standards for printing certain words changing? And should there be different standards for online and print media?

Embracing Multimedia

Today, along with my fellow journalism majors, submitted a story to the Community News Commons (check it out why don't you).

There was a catch to this assignment however: we all had to incorporate at least two types of media into our story: print, audio, video, and/or pictures.

I had never done this before. All of my work previous to this had been 100% written words. In publications, it would be accompanied by a photograph taken by someone else but never before have I had to merge two styles of media into one story.

And I think it turned out pretty well.

With wrestling going through a whirlwind of being out and then back in the Olympics Games in a seven-month span this year, I pitched to interview local wrestlers (not these guys, these ones) about their thoughts on what transpired.

I ended up having a terrific chat with Adrian Bruce, who is the head coach of the University of Winnipeg wrestling program and has been involved with the sport provincially and nationally. At one point, he gave me a terrific response to the rule changes wrestling has implemented after being dropped from the Games and which ultimately led to them regaining status as an Olympic sport.

There was one problem: I couldn't fit it in my story. To quote him would be too long in written format and for someone like me, who knows very little about wrestling, paraphrasing would not be a good idea. Much of what Bruce was trying to convey to me would literally be lost in translation.

However, publishing online gave me the option to include the audio clip of Bruce explaining important rule changes inside my article. If the reader wants to find out more, they now have the option of listening to a :90 clip from an expert rather then a jot-note paragraph written out by me. Having that option available allowed me to publish what I think is a better overall story.

To wrap up, if I ever come across an opportunity to use different types of media in a story going forward, I say yes every day of the week and twice on Sundays. I think it gives any story a more complete feel and does a better job at engaging readers.

Audible in the Media Room

Every time football overlaps with the purpose of this blog, which is to point out journalism-related topics, it will be covered here.

This week is no different, especially since two similar situations popped up. However, how the media handled the different situations starkly contrasted each other.

Both stories come courtesy of Awful Announcing.We will start in Columbia, S.C., where for a short time, South Carolina Gamecocks football head coach Steve Spurrier took control of the sports department at The State, a daily newspaper in Columbia.

The whole story is at here, but this is a quick summary. Spurrier and State columnist Ron Morris have had a long running feud. Suddenly this week, Morris was removed from the Gamecocks beat and told never to report on the team again.

His replacement? Glenn "Superfan" Snyder. And one of Snyder's resume references was none other then Spurrier, who Snyder described as a "friend". Here's a passage from the story by Jim Romensko:

Spurrier told me that he helped “Superfan” Snyder get his job at The State.

“I did call The State newspaper and put in a good word for him, and they hired him,” the coach said.

The link above from Awful Announcing had some good reaction tweets from the always fantastic Richard Deitsch and Andy Staples.

The newspaper later backtracked and released this memo, which is seen on Romensko's site with some added commentary. Morris is now allowed to write about the Gamecocks again but you can't say it was a strong week for journalism in South Carolina.

As Staples' tweet above says, the Gamecocks have the right to complain if they don't like the coverage they're receiving. But for a newspaper to allow the program to have any influence on how they report and who reports it is so, so wrong on so many levels. It just goes to show how big of a stick college football swings in the south.

Well...not quite. After Southern University was upset with the coverage from The Advocate in Baton Rogue, the football program decided to limit access to its players for the newspaper. How did The Advocate respond? By dailing back coverage of their own.

The relationship between sports teams and the media that covers them is interesting. Some athletes and coaches loathe to give up time for the media because it takes time away from what they would rather be doing. And because sports reporting is becoming more and more agenda-driven, the words of those athletes and coaches are wrangled into whatever the reporter is trying to drum up that day.

However, beat reporters and observers are how fans are able to stay in day-to-day contact with the team. Sports teams and the media need to be respectful of each others jobs. In this case, both football programs have to realize the newspapers need to report fairly because it's their jobs, even if it wasn't favorably for them.

The Washington What?

Tonight, in a game with massive fantasy football implications for me, the Philadelphia Eagles travel to Washington, D.C. to take on the...uhh...hmm...

No, I didn’t forget the name of the team. I’m just deciding whether or not I want to say the word “Redskins”. Well, never mind I just said it.

Over the past year, the nickname of the Washington team has gotten an increasing amount of attention. Whether you find the name offensive or think the team should adopt a new moniker is not the question being asked here (although a recent poll found a response of yes and no to those questions respectively).

Lately, the question for media members is how you address the team. Do you say “Redskins” in your story and risk making a slur to members of your audience? Or do you try to stay out of the debate and report on the Washington Redskins as the organization is properly named?

For many years, everyone answered yes to the second question. However, more and more journalists are opting not to mention the nickname any further. 

A few days ago, lofty football columnist Peter King announced he will no longer use the name on his new website. He joins a list of organizations like Slate, The Buffalo News, and the Philadelphia Daily News that will reword any mention of the Redskins.

Should media organizations be getting in the middle of this name debate? It has become a hot topic as of late and don’t expect it to go away anytime soon. Ownership in Washington has said it will never, NEVER change the name.

Data Journalism

The digital age has no doubt effected the ways people consume information. Online technology has shrunk the 24 hour news cycle to one of minutes, or sometimes seconds. People don't need the morning newspaper or wait for the 6 o'clock newscast to rehash a story or event they learned hours ago on Twitter.

Although this has led to races to get the story first and the issues that come with that, the traditional vessels of journalism still suffer by the instantaneous nature of the news cycle. Instead of battling with it, data journalist Peter Verweij says journalists should embrace this new age of information and use it to their advantages when crafting stories:

"According to Verweij, readers don’t want to read the same thing in print that they have seen online either on news platforms or social media. He says that journalism should be about producing news, not rehashing it. For the data journalist this is where data comes in. He argues that people want good quality reporting and analytical stories that inform them.

He says that this data is available and that all journalists need is to do is use the technologies that are available to them to understand that data and construct it into a story."

The Guardian have been one of the leaders in embracing data journalism and their website has a massive list of stories it has done with data research being a crutch of the story. Their data-driven story on the status of the Fukushima Japan nuclear reactors is the highest reacted to data journalism piece they have done, according to The Guardian.

Here in Canada, data journalism has been beneficial to at least one news organization. In 2010, Global created their own data journalism team. Since their inception, the team has won several media awards and wrote a great story on the structural damage to the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto.

While the team is small, Global believes that in the long run, the data journalism team could have a big payoff for the organization:

"At a time when newsrooms are laying off staff and mounting paywalls, Global has recently revamped its website and just finished a hiring spree for its online team. The data team is one of early investments Global News made digitally. While other investigative teams are more broad ranging in their mate, Global's data desk devotes its time entirely to filing FOI requests, analyzing the results of those data requests and writing specifically data-led stories. They also collaborate with the television side of Global News on merit."

If Global continues to have success with data-driven investigations, more news organizations could follow suit. This shows that while journalists might have to dig deeper, good stories still exist to be reported on.