We’ve Got To Get Our Kids Edumacated

Im sorry that this is a little different from my normal political commentary but I cannot hold my tongue anymore. Here goes: WHAT THE HELL EVER HAPPENED TO JOURNALISM IN THIS COUNTRY???!!! When I took journalism in high school (which, admittedly, I flunked) they told us to always remember the five W’s. Who What When Where Why. National news is still pretty good but I read pieces from local new both in Salt Lake City and in my quaint little home town Salina frequently and they almost NEVER give the 5 W’s. Then to top it all off, captions have all but disapeared. You read an article and they usually put the headline down again as the caption. I seem to remember that a caption is supposed to describe what is happening in the picture. I really hope that President Obama or McCain can do something about the shitty education in this country. There, I mentioned politics, I kept my blog pure…

P.S. Cynthia, you’re a journalist, can you write a letter to somebody or something?

Im Eriq Kiltz and I approved this message.

October 29, 2008 - Posted by kiltze | Uncategorized | | 3 Comments

3 Comments »

Heh. Sadly I don’t have much pull with anyone, especially papers in Utah. The caption thing is tricky though.

Yes, you want to say what’s going on, but you don’t want to regurgitate the obvious. For instance, if it’s a picture of McCain and Obama shaking hands before the debate, you don’t want to say “Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., shake hands before the final presidential debate.”

Instead you might say something along the lines of “Sens. McCain and Obama met here at that time for the final presidential debate.” Views on more information vary, but I would find it perfectly acceptable to mention crowd-size and the type of questions answered, but one of my managers has some stick up her ass about not mentioning anything not directly in the photo — which makes it hard to not point out the obvious, which is another of her peeves. Sometimes my job is hard.

Comment by C. | October 29, 2008 | Reply
I agree that captions to photos and headlines for articles are often moronic. Unfortunately they are authored by some editor and not by the photographer or author of the article. However, they do offer fodder for internet humor and late night TV.

You are right about journalism – the 5 w’s are not always covered. Police reports are considered inadequate if the reader has any questions after reading the report.

Comment by Pop | October 30, 2008 | Reply
Unfortunately they are authored by some editor and not by the photographer or author of the article.

Photographers often grab very little information. They don’t have time to gather anything beyond names, date and place, nor is that their job. When I was going through school there was a lot of emphasis on photographers being able to write well and gathering a lot of information and on reporters to be able to work in a variety of mediums, but I’ve found the real world is slower to catch up to that and, is only just now starting to loosen its grip on traditional roles for photographers, reporters and editors.

But as it stands now, a good cutline — at least at my paper — is generally derived from the tiny bit of information from the photographer and information provided by the reporter in the story. And there have been times when I’ve even had to look up a press release for more information because there was no story — this happens a lot of the time for wild art of community/charitable events.

Comment by C. | October 30, 2008 | Reply