Shut the shtup up!

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/is-the-new-york-times-trying-to-clean-up-yiddish-1.295581

This is fantastic -- if you're Helen Thomas.

According to the above, Jeffrey Goldberg, who works for The Atlantic, was interviewed by New York Times reporter Helene Cooper. During this interview, Goldberg said this: "I don't necessarily believe you solve all of America's problems in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen by freezing settlement growth. On the other hand, there's no particular reason for Israel to make itself a pain in the tush either."

Well, that's not exactly what he said. Originally, instead of "tush," he said "tuchus."

Goldberg says that a few hours after the interview Cooper called him up and asked him if he could come up with a "more elegant" way of saying tuchus. (This was at the request of Times editors.) Her suggestion? Tushie. Because, as we all know, tushie is the epitome of elegance.

Not to mention, it's very good to know that those Times editors are focusing on the, you know, important stuff.

Anyway, since Goldberg is a grownup, he declined to use the word tushie and finally, the elegant tush was inserted.

Don't wear rose-colored glasses

Robert Niles with the Online Journalism Review has suggested eight things journalism students should demand from a j-school. I’m going to post them here along with what I think of them. And I’m going to ignore the fact that I think anyone who bothers with j-school in this climate is bat-shit crazy.

This one stuck out to me, of course, being that I am an unemployed journalist.

Passion, not excuses
The worst thing that journalism schools can do to their students is immerse them in a culture of failure. Instructors do that anytime they complain about the state of the news business, griping how much better it used to be and how awful bloggers/forums/websites are.
Students need passion for their field they are about to enter, and complaints and excuses from those who have left it.
There are more news sources available today to readers than ever before. More eyes are watching our governments and our business institutions. The public can speak for itself to a global audience, moving closer to fully realizing the potential of democracy. Experts are becoming storytellers, offering greater detail and deeper insight to the readers who want that.
I can't speak for you, but this fires me up. It should fire up every journalism instructor, too.
There are so many opportunities out there for our journalism students today. But they won't be able to engage those challenges if they've been steeped in a culture of a failure, knowing no other way to work in journalism than to be hired by a shrinking newspaper chain.
Students must demand better than that from their journalism schools. Those schools owe it to their students to deliver.

My experience in j-school, though it was a few years ago, was that some professors were too damn positive. Some students obviously would never get hired at any decent newspaper of any size but were still encouraged to continue with their degree. Journalism students need an accurate picture of what working in the business will be like: they may have a tough time finding a job that pays them a living wage.

And most bloggers/forums/Web sites are pretty damn shitty. There’s a difference in a blog that delivers some kind of information and those that consist of someone who just writes about how their kid threw up, their dog is cute or they have might have the flu.

And please, how many “news” sites have sprung up via the Internet and are so biased that they only appeal to a select demographic? I certainly don’t aspire to work for one and don’t think any journalism student should. These kids need to know that if they get a job at a small daily, they will have a tough time moving up to a metro daily.

Here's the other deal: Where, exactly, are all these other journalism jobs not at newspapers?

Magazines are in woeful shape. I see lots of blogging jobs advertised -- and they pay, on average, $3 a post. I see Web content writing jobs and they pay up to $15 or $20 apiece for roughly 500 words. Most of the jobs I've seen for which I could apply my j-skills are in corporate communications and public relations. Anybody know about all these great job opps out there for journalists?

Wait for the details?

I read the Tampa Tribune's site, a mash-up of the paper, a TV station and Internet news, every day. (Yes, I'm still pining for Florida but that's another blog.)

In some cases, the comments that follow a story are more interesting to me than the story itself. tday, I was checking the comments nad noticed that several readers chastised the site for printing breaking news as it happened. They wanted the stories held until there were more details.

I find this interesting, since newspaper chiefs have long trumpeted getting the news online as quickly as possible. Personally, I find sticking a post up on the Web before the details are complete is similar to TV news breaking in with news alerts. The difference is it's still easier for TV folks; they show the scene, rehash and have the luxury of pointing out it's still happening, etc. With print, you get a brief and that's it.

I wonder if Tampa should try a blog-style post. Show the event is ongoing and keep feeding new info instead of writing it as a formal brief. That might give it a sense of urgency.

I have to admit, though, I've never seen comments like that at other paper sites I've read, though, unlike Sarah Palin, I don't read "all of 'em" in regard to papers and magzines.

I find any type of live news post helpful, especially if I live in the area. There are cops everywhere? A chopper overhead? I want to know what is going on and it's great if I can go online and read, even if it's a line or two, about what's happened.

Weather alerts are handy, too, at least until the power goes out. The last time we had big storms in Dallas, I tried the Morning News site with my cell after power went out. Zip. Thank God for TV sites; they had updates so I could track tornado activity.

A conspiracy, a birth certificate and world peace

I once took a call from a man who told me he would be a great story. He was mentally ill, but taking medication and living on his own. He was an interesting fellow, he told me.

Then he announced he was responsible for world peace. He accomplished this by using a direct line to the Reagan White House so he could negotiate with Scotland. He spoke in an authoritative voice and was certain about the world peace.

I'm guessing he skipped a dose somewhere in there.

I thought of this guy lately when the furor over Lou Dobbs' reporting about "birthers" came up. Birthers are people who insist that President Obama was not born in Hawaii as his birth certificate says, but that it was faked and our president was actually born in Kenya, the African country from which his father hails. Obama has released a copy of his Hawaiian birth certificate -- he did this months before the election -- but there's a fringe who refuses to believe it's real despite the copy and that Hawaii's Department of Health director has repeatedly confirmed it's authenticity.

And on it goes. Now, due to what is an error on Obama's MySpace page (a MySpace page, for crippy sake) the debate reawakens yet again. The page says Obama is 52. Hawaii reached statehood in 1959. Obama was actually born, though, in 1961. It's another round of complete lies based on a mistake probably made, as the LA Times points out, by a low-level staffer.

The Dobbs issue was raised when the CNN host said on his radio show that Obama needed to release his birth certificate. He also mentioned that on at least one of his shows. Other CNN employees and contributors, however, have debunked the conspiracy, calling it ridiculous and referencing tin foil hats. (People who wear these hats like to call up papers, too.)

The question this raises is how much ink or air time do we give conspiracy theorists? It's been thoroughly proven by more than one news organization and factcheck.org, an independent outfit, that the birth certificate is real; Obama was honestly elected. So why is Dobbs still talking about it on CNN?

It's an easy answer: none. We have more pressing issues to discuss, such as health care. And, as far as conspiracy theories go, this one is pretty boring. A faked moon landing, Marilyn and Elvis living in Tahiti, aliens landing in Roswell -- all of these theories are a lot more interesting but I haven't seen them pop up on CNN. They're relegated to the occasional special on the History Channel or as the subject of a book.

I can't imagine reading a book or watching an hour about Obama's birthplace. I'm pretty hard to please, though. I once passed on writing a story about world peace.

No job, just a few memories

Alas, I am over the excitement at the prospect of returning to a newspaper. For one thing, the paper I applied to never called me. But they did call my boyfriend for a quick phone interview.

Here is why this bothers me.

The job was for a content editor/designer. The editor was responsible for the atrociousness that is "citizen journalism." Editing and laying out reader-submitted crap, er, content. So, no, it wasn't a plum job, to be sure. But the thought of the newsroom ... well, hey. I couldn't help myself. I got excited at the thought.

They never contacted me. I have 12 years of experience with newswriting and editing. My boyfriend has about the same, mostly in sports. When I found out they interviewed him, I really thought they'd interview me, too. I was a bit down when it didn't happen.

But then I remember the handful of times I've been in this newsroom. It wasn't like the newsrooms I've worked in. (Yes, I'm OK with ending a sentence with a preposition.)

It was quiet. Too quiet. No laughter. No hum. No buzz. Nobody seemed excited. It was as if someone had come through with a giant cattle prod to subdue the herd.

As we walked by reporters' desks, most of them didn't even look up. Zero curiosity. Am I the only one who finds that weird?

All the editors had limp handshakes. OK, maybe this shouldn't bother me, but it did. There was only one editor out of God knows how many who I thought I might like to work for. And at least two that just looked like assholes. Serious assholes. I'd never trust a guy who wears a suit that costs as much as that one did. Even if he did buy it at Burlington Coat Factory.

I was at the office because this paper was owned by the same company that owned the itty bitty paper I worked for. When our paper was bought by the chain, reporters at our paper were assigned "mentors" from the larger paper, which was near us. (I got a pretty cool one.) So I was there with him and another reporter he mentored.

I remember the time several of us were told to attend a seminar at the big paper. We left work at 1 or so and drove the hour-plus to get there. We pull up to the company-owned parking lot and are told: Nope, you can't park here. Didn't care who we were, where we were from or why we were there. There were parking spaces; we could see them, but the guard would not budge. He directed us to city pay lot down the street. None of us had a stitch of cash on us. Why would we? So we said "fuck it" and drove back home. Took the rest of the damn day off.

How about that? A free half-day off, courtesy of the big guys. Thanks!