Earlier today, I posed that question. Thanks for the comments. Good stuff. But one of the comments in particular caught my eye. It came from DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander. Turns out, the question isn’t whether the DMN ought to Twitter; it’s why can’t the DMN write accurate headlines? I’ll let Dahlander explain (from the comments):
In this case, the initial headline that accompanied the story was wrong. That apparently caused the tweet to be wrong. There was not a job fair yesterday held by Dallas ISD. There was an information session for individuals who are interested in learning about how to become a teacher through the alternative certification process. There will be two more in February. … The headline and, correspondingly, the tweet both implied (”Hot after laying off…”) that the district was holding a job fair to hire 200 teachers right now. Wrong.
The headline has already been changed online to address the point Dahlander made. The same thing happened last month. The DMN wrote a sloppy headline and was forced to change it after the matter was brought to their attention. Last time, in a story about Michael Hinojosa’s performance review, they wrote in a headline that his contract wasn’t renewed. In fact, his contract wasn’t up for renewel, and he hadn’t even requested an extension.
20 comments
I think this sort of thing happens when copyeditors, generally reclusive nightdwellers, are not familiar with the topics and may be rushed because of a workload made larger by newsroom layoffs. The editors THINK they understand a story and write a headline based on their understanding. The harried copy chief checks it for spelling and, under a crush, says, “Close enough.”
And that is how it might happen in some cases. In other cases, people who are writing headlines should be selling paint, or sitting in rooms by themselves and being watched by professionals, or dressing in odd frocks, speaking with Olde English accents and selling ye concessions at street faires.
Editors these days are telling their staffs to make up for layoff by saying, “Work smarter.”
At the DMN, it’s “Work faster, work harder, not better.”
renewal
i used to write headlines and edit copy for a newswire, so can i empathize with editors
but there’s been two glaring mistakes in the DMN’s sports page recently that really speak to what both these comments above talk about
on the front page of the sports section about a month or so ago the mentioned the Steelers were getting ready to play the Baltimore Colts, when Pittsburgh was actually heading to Bodymore, Murderland, to face the Ravens, as the Colts left for Indy under the cloak of darkness on March 29, 1984
and then in today’s sports section, the DMN ran a box with tony dungy’s coaching career on page 3C, in which the paper printed that dungy amassed a 3-2 record in the 2003 playoffs and that’s simply not possible
were these typos? simple SNAFUs? who knows?
i do know “more with less” means more and more errors with less and less people relying upon you for news
typo or two there in my comment but D ain’t paying me…again i can empathize
twittering, tweeting, blogging, face-booking, myspacing, posting, podcasting…Doesn’t anybody actually write or read anymore?
I like to read the labels on beer cans.
So this other Joe guy says it wasn’t a job fair, it was an “information session for individuals to learn how to become teachers…” What’s the difference? Sounds to me like “job fair” is a shorter way to say “information session.”
@Bill I think all require reading or writing, perhaps with the exception of podcasting. All on your list can be good or bad, well or poorly written, up to the standards of the organization or person publishing them or not.
Be careful or you’ll end up like your friend Mr. Schutze.
Billy, Billy,
You youngsters don’t remember it, but there was a time when folks wrote in actual sentences and paragraphs. And they were expected to inform, analyze, amuse, even amaze. Readers had to think about those sentences as they went by, remember them, link them together in their heads until actual ideas appeared. When somebody was being wry or humorous, you didn’t need one of those little smiley faces to alert you.
Now it’s like plugging one of those things in your ear and imagining you’re actually listening to something called music.
By the way, I don’t think Mr. Schutze is going to be very happy about your comparison. We don’t always see eye to eye.
Thank you, all. Good points made here about the effects of a smaller workforce assigned more tasks. Yes. So you have a copy editor who hasn’t time to think it through and a Twitterer who (likely) has no idea how the district works. The former makes an understandable boner; the latter, driven by the medium in which he works, applies snark sauce to that boner and exaggerates it.
And it ain’t just the lone DMN Twitterer. It’s the morning radio guys. They read their news and base their commentary on what the DMN produces. So yesterday morning, they checked the paper’s website, saw the misleadingly headlined story about DISD looking to hire 200 teachers at a job fair, and the small mistake is amplified.
Will the DMN run a correction tomorrow? Will Bob Mong apologize for the mistake? Doesn’t much matter. The damage has been done (again). People get an exaggerated sense of the district’s shortcomings and challenges. Some decide it’s a total wreck.
Will we miss the (cash-flowing, properly staffed) newspaper when it’s gone? I think we already know the answer to that question.
well said, dude
Nicely done, Tim, and now we all see how the DMN abdicated its responsibilities in a democratic society just so stockholders could make an extra penny. One more time: This is what happens when these geniuses begin to think the main product is their stock and not their paper. Shame on them.
After reading ” Prdigal Son” I’ve fallen madly in love with Schutze. How refreshing to have SOMEONE in this stupid city who is in touch with REALITY
Where is the need for a correction?
What the Morning News called a “job fair” the DISD’s Minister of Propaganda calls an “information session.”
They can spin it any way they like but it’s the heart of the story that is causing heartburn for the school district:
During the same school year the DISD laid off hundreds of teachers they are advertising for hundreds of teachers – alternatively certified no less.
Yeah, that inspires confidence.
Tim: Since you keep demanding a retraction, can you please explain the difference between a job fair and an “information session?” I fail to see one. The job of a journalist, I don’t need to remind you, is to keep his/her bs detector on — especially when talking to flaks. Journalists are not stenographers. Repeat: Journalists are not stenographers.
@Tim “Some decide it’s a total wreck.”
No need to decide. DISD’s finances/budgeting/hiring ARE a total wreck. Given the crisis the district is in, “total wreck” is a generous rose colored glasses description. The 2009-10 budget is perilous at best, and 2010-11 will be worse.
More layoffs and deeper cuts are coming. Denial is not an option. DISD needs to take dramatic action to cut wasteful spending and nonessential management. The resulting savings should be directed towards keeping as many full time certified teachers as possible.
DMN’s bad tweeting is the least of DISD’s problems.
The PR guy for DISD has you talking about imprecise headline writing and has you convinced that there is a major difference between an “information session” for potential teachers and a “job fair.” In good old-fashioned journalism, I learned in history class, journalists didn’t let PR guys define the terms. They told it like it was.
FYI: The district has held similar sessions at this time of the year for the past four years, at least. They are not being held to hire teachers now but to inform people of the steps they need to take in order to be hired for positions to start at the beginning of the school year.
Hiring for teachers in the critical need areas will not begin until April, at the earliest.
this is getting good now and i’m gonna side with the DISD, man
i understand a job fair to be something at a convention center-type place with dozens if not a 100 different employers setting up booths to gather as many resumes as possible
while this DISD event seems to help people get started with the alternative-certification process, which i’m guessing can be confusing and tedious to some
still don’t understand letting numerous teachers go a few months ago and now putting out feelers to fill positions, but that’s another story