Sitting in front of me as I write are six paper notebooks.

Four are A4 size, two are old-school reporter notebooks. One A4 notebook is open and I’ve an array of pens to hand – I’ve left a few messages this morning and am waiting for various call backs on stories I’m writing. There are many more used notebooks packed away in boxes.

I’ve made huge strides in the past two weeks reducing the amount of paper in my life – cutting the notebooks looks harder. There are reasons for this:

1. A journalist’s notebook is a legal record of interviews, conversations and so on. If something goes badly wrong and I find myself on the wrong end of a defamation action, my notebook could be valuable evidence. In the past I’ve been told to keep old notebooks for seven years – many journalists keep them for longer.
2. Notebooks are valuable. I write quotes, dates, times, phone numbers, web and email addresses as I go. There have been many times when I’ve gone back to a notebook and found a missing piece of information.
3. It’s physically hard to scan notebooks – I mainly use ring-bound ones.
4. My handwriting is not easy to read, I use a little self-taught shorthand. It’s even harder to read scans of this material.
5. There’s far too much to scan anyway.

Years ago I though my Apple Newton MessagePad might solve this problem, but it was simply too slow and clunky. My Palm TX was also a useless substitute and the old style tablet PCs couldn’t hand the job either. I did see something called a ‘chording keyboard’ which looked potentially useful, but in practice it was too flawed.

I’m interested in hearing how other journalists have dealt with this problem.

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A month ago I had a short but interesting online conversation with Australian journalist Renai LeMay who says Twitter is journalism. He has written a few posts on the subject on his blog and elsewhere. The best jumping off point for new readers is his Twitter’s impact on media and journalism.

LeMay is a visionary. For my money he has a great grasp of where news journalism and online media may go.

In my earlier post Can Twitter be journalism? I said I agree with him in principle. However, I few twittering journos use the technology as an interactive news media.

Most simply use Twitter as a broadcast medium – rather like an RSS feed. A number have Twitter accounts, but say nothing of value. Perhaps 40 percent are serious Twitter journalists.

I may have been over optimistic with this estimate. Yesterday the Online Journalism Blog reported on how British newspapers use Twitter. In Newspapers on Twitter – how the Guardian, FT and Times are winning Malcolm Coles writes;

“newspapers have a total of 1,068,898 followers across their 120 official Twitter accounts – with the Guardian, Times and FT the only three papers in the top 10.”

This sounds encouraging. Buried further down the story is the comment:

“Out of 120 accounts, just 16 do something other than running as a glorified RSS feed. The other 114 do no retweeting, no replying to other tweets etc”

Coles also points out the newspaper sites rarely follow Twitter users.

Cluetrain barely stopped here

Both these points apply to the bulk of Twittering publications in Australian and New Zealand. My guess is managers encourage journalists to promote stories using the technology, but they are actively discouraged from replying and retweeting.

There’s a precedent for this. After all, hardly any online publications in the region ever link to titles owned by other publishers – which means they are missing the point of online publishing. Until publishers encourage reporters and editors to engage with their audiences, they are going to miss out on the potential of Twitter.

Of course, the journalists who do really well at this will become media brands in their own right, which will worry the bean counters. But that’s another story…

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Australian tech journalist Renai LeMay says Twitter is journalism. He’s right but only up to a point.

LeMay writes;

Journalists are not simply using Twitter to promote their own work and get news tips. This is nowhere near to being the whole truth. In fact, audiences are using Twitter as a powerful tool to engage with journalists directly and force a renewal of journalism and media along lines that audiences have long demanded.

Well some are.

I follow about 25 Australian and New Zealand journalist on Twitter, about the same number of public relations people and a handful of both from elsewhere in the world. As an unscientific rule of thumb, I’d say only 40 percent of journalists are using Twitter in the way LeMay suggests.

About the same number simply use it as a way of promoting their online stories. In other words they aren’t joining the conversation, they are simply using Twitter as a broadcast medium. I suspect, but can not prove, this usually is because of dumb managerial restrictions on their use of the technology. A small percentage dabble in engagement, going on and off-line depending on their workload (I’m guilty of switching off Twitter when there’s a looming deadline and a huge number of words to write).

The rest are still in the dull “morning tweeps” and “I had muesli for breakfast” or the more disturbing narcissistic school of Twittering.

Incidentally, Mr LeMay is worth following. @renailemay

via Twitter’s impact on media and journalism « Renai LeMay.

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At school we were taught never to start sentences with “And”.

And yet newspaper journalists do it all the time. It’s one of the first so-called writing rules professional writers learn to break.

There’s nothing wrong with using “And” to begin a sentence or a paragraph. In fact, it can be a great way to smooth the flow of a series of short sentences that would otherwise appear too staccato for comfortable reading.

However, it works best if you only break this rule in moderation. Overusing “And” at the start of sentences quickly makes your text boring.

As Keith Waterhouse points out in the excellent Daily Mirror Style, if you write too many sentences starting with the word, your prose will read like the New English Bible.

I consciously limit my use of sentences beginning with “And”. As a rule of thumb I aim for only one “And” sentence start in a short piece. For longer stories, you can get away with using it a few times. But control any urge to sprinkle sentences starting with “And” through your copy.

Other conjunctions

The school rule didn’t just apply to “And”, starting sentences with other conjunctions was equally forbidden. As an aside, conjunctions are ‘joining’ words used to string phrases together – usually, but not always, to build more complex sentences.

There are plenty of alternative conjunctions to call on at the start of your sentences:

• “But” is a great way to start a sentence that disagrees with the previous one.
• “Yet” is a less-frequently used alternative.
• “Or” is a great word for helping text flow.
• Some people don’t like sentences to start with “However”. I would regard that as another rule worth breaking.
• “Although” is a possibility. In practice it can be better to shorten the word to “Though” at the start of a sentence.

More ideas

Michelle Pierce covered this subject rather well in Three Grammar Rules You Can (And Should) Break for Copyblogger.

Better writing

This is the second in a series of articles aimed at helping you to improve your writing. The material is based on my 30-plus years experience as an editor and journalist working on newspapers and magazines. If you could use my skills to help communicate your message, please visit my website: billbennett.co.nz

A company may be made up of many employees, but it is legally and grammatically a single entity. Always use singular verbs with companies, even when the company name sounds plural. The same applies to countries, political parties, governments and partnerships. All are singular.

There is a feeling in some circles that using they instead of it makes your writing more personal. Maybe. But being grammatically incorrect makes your writing and, more importantly, your meaning, unclear. Resist all temptation to treat companies as plurals.

Better writing

Good clear writing is readily understandable and unambiguous. Great writers ensure there are as few barriers as possible between their message and their audience. They help ideas flow smoothly.

I don’t claim to be a great writer, but I’ve made a decent living for the last 30 years from being a competent journalist. Along the way I’ve learnt a thing or two. Most of my writing is in what we in the trade call newspaper style.

Newspapers and magazines or publishing companies usually have their own style books which lay out a set of rules – mainly for the sake of consistency. They differ from paper to paper, town to town and country to country, yet many of the best ideas are common to most, if not all, style books.

This is the first of a series of my tips to help you become a better writer. You don’t have to follow them all. You don’t have to agree with any of them. But reading them will help you think about your writing and that will improve matters.

If you need a writer to help communicate your message, please contact me.

• The inverted pyramid
• Keeping it simple
• And can start a sentence
• Adjectives: use fewer
  
• Capital letters

Image via Wikipedia

It’s not a particularly profound or original thought to draw parallels between the music industry and the newspaper business. Thousands of others have already made the observation.

Both industries are in freefall leaving skilled career-committed professionals struggling to find ways to carry on doing what they are good at, while putting food on the table.

Although the newspaper industry may now be collapsing faster than the music business, the record companies started their decline earlier. Which means musicians have had longer to work out ways of coping.

And some of them are coping nicely thank you.

I was struck when reading David Byrne’s Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists online at Wired magazine at how some of the lessons already learnt by professional musicians may be adapted and applied to journalists.

Byrne’s article starts with a description of what happened to the music business that is optimistic from a musician’s point of view:

What is called the music business today, however, is not the business of producing music. At some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases, and that business will soon be over. But that’s not bad news for music, and it’s certainly not bad news for musicians. Indeed, with all the ways to reach an audience, there have never been more opportunities for artists.

In my more positive moments I could construct an equally uplifting argument about the opportunities for journalists.

Later in the piece, it’s a longish read over five virtual pages, Byrne looks at possible music distribution models – most of which have analogies in the newspaper world.

David Byrne’s Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists

It’s not my question. I’ve stolen it from Gerard McLean Do you know how to do anything? McLean has a brilliant point. One that’s been touched on before in Knowledge Workers. When he asks do you know how to do anything? He says people with identifiable skills to fall back on will be better placed to survive the downturn.

I’ve already found this to be true. After a meander down the paths of management, I’ve gone back to my journalist roots and now earn a decent crust writing thousands of words each week. That’s because I know how to do something.

McLean isn’t perfect. I stumbled across his site because I’ve set up Google alerts for the term knowledge workers. He spoils his otherwise insightful post finishing with:

We don’t need more knowledge workers or consultants or bloggers. What we need are people who can actually do things like write code, design stuff, make pottery, edit video. And we need people who can do more than just one step in the process.

We need craftsmen. And lots of them who can also lead.

Well that’s just plain wrong. People who write code, design stuff and edit video are all knowledge workers by just about any accepted definition of the term. People who can do more than one step in the process are higher level knowledge workers. So are craftsmen. And craftswomen too.  Those who can do these things and lead other people exist even further up the knowledge worker food chain.

Do you know how to do anything? | GerardMcLean.com

Writing at Word-Pictures-Web, e-marketer Buddy Scalera says there’s a need for people who can find information quickly. He calls them search specialists. My guess is the job title will be something else, but his job description is spot on. While we’re on the subject, we should also add e-marketer to the job titles your father never knew list.

In 2009, we’ll see the evolution of the search specialist. Now, these people are already out there in niche jobs (and they’ll probably be able to find this blog posting). But coming soon, we’ll probably see head-hunters and HR departments looking for knowledge workers who can quickly and effectively mine the Net for super-specific information.

He says “Search specialists will be needle-in-a-haystack researchers who defy traditional job roles. Some of them will be research specialists or editors or scientists or journalists or work from home entrepreneurs.” That’s good news for us career journalists who are finding it increasingly hard to stay employed as newspapers and magazines continue to close.

Incidentally:

After almost 30 years’ experience as a newspaper and magazine editor I’m fussy about these things: a job title is not a proper noun and therefore shouldn’t have capitals. That also explains why I changed Buddy’s job title from eMarketer to e-marketer, the capital letter in the middle of that word is random and looks illiterate.

Help Wanted: Search Specialist
Job titles your father never knew and your kids probably won’t know

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