working for a different medium
February 27th, 2008 at 08:25am Jennie Pollock
check out this interview with david folkenflik, a former newspaper reporter who made the leap to npr as a media correspondent.
it was a good reminder that the basics of journalism are the same, but the nuances of reporting for the web, radio and newspapers are so different.
like he mentions the quest for clean sound. as we’ve learned about video, we’ve struggled with the same thing, especially when it comes to the wind.
Entry Filed under: NPR
3 Comments Add your own
1. Horatio Alger | February 27th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Dear Jennie,
Interesting series of posts. But I have a question: what do you have against the capital letter? Who are you: ee cummings?
2. jennie pollock | February 27th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
i got the same question in a letter to the editor in rockford woman, so this was my response, in proper English…
For years, I have written in lowercase for e-mail, blog posts and text messages, not any formal documents. Lowercase e-mail can drive some people nuts sometimes: My boss told me today it used to bother her, and I had no idea. Funny enough, she’s the one who taught me “EOM” is end of message.
I do the lowercase thing for convenience: I figure the message is still clear. Have you seen those spam e-mails that show you can understand words just as long as you have the first few and last few letters correct and mess up the middle? At least I spell correctly most of the time.
It might surprise you that I had 12 years of Catholic school grammar and started in journalism as a copy editor. Language is my passion.
I’ve heard about the decline of proper language skills in school, and I intend to hold my own children accountable for their homework once they learn how to write a sentence.
3. Horatio Alger | March 3rd, 2008 at 11:54 am
Jennie,
I was hardly accusing you of being uneducated. And I completely understand that the interactive medium is different - calls for different thinking on the ways we communicate. But I think newspapers should at least hold themselves to some basics standards, even online. I just don’t see how the lower case thing helps better convey your message or make it more readable. It just comes across as…well…sorry to say it…lazy.
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