I’m in a Hall of Fame, y’all

https://collegemedia.org/cma-to-induct-steven-chappell-into-hall-of-fame-2/

Steven Chappell, a college media adviser with more than three decades of service to College Media Association, will be inducted into CMA’s hall of fame this fall.

Inclusion on the list is CMA’s highest honor, said Chris Whitley, the organization’s president.

“In 30 years of working with college media, Steven has given so much of his time to help CMA, from being the tech guru at conventions when he first started to being the organization’s treasurer on its board of directors,” Whitley said. “Throughout that time, I’ve always known him to be one of the first people to help out if something needed to be done and the first one to assist an adviser who needed guidance.”

Chappell serves as an instructor of mass media and director of student publications at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville. He has been a media adviser and active member of CMA since 1993, arriving to the profession after 10 years as a professional journalist.

He is also the founder of the Twitter feed @comminternships, which shares internship and entry-level openings in communication jobs across the globe.

Chappell began advising at Northwest Missouri State after being recommended for the job by Laura Widmer, who had held the adviser’s job there for decades.

“I first met Steve when he attended the CMA New Advisers Workshop in Washington, D.C.,” Widmer said. “I was the instructor for that workshop. His personality filled the room then, and that started a great friendship that continues today. He’s unique. He’s smart. He’s student-focused. He’s an incredible adviser. He’s a hall of fame adviser.

“The biggest compliment I can give Steve is after 29 years I left my job at Northwest Missouri State University and went to Iowa State. I made one phone call for the one adviser I wanted to take my job. Steve Chappell was that one call. I knew he would take care of the program I built, and would take it to the next level.”

Before becoming a full-time college media adviser, Chappell was a sports photographer, sports editor and newspaper editor.

He was named to the CMA Four-Year College Newspaper Adviser Honor Roll in 2004 for outstanding media advising and service to the organization. 

He received the President’s Award from the Southeast Journalism Convention in 2010 for his work as vice president and contest coordinator, and he was named Missouri College Media Association Adviser of the Year for 2016.

His @comminternships feed has landed him roles as a communications internship expert with organizations such as ProfNet, Reuters and LinkedIn. 

The John A. Boyd Hall of Fame recognizes longtime CMA members who have contributed to the betterment of the organization and student media programs, in general.

Those considered for this award must have contributed to college journalism education for at least 20 years while being an active member of CMA. 

Whitley, the CMA president, said Chappell will be inducted during the National College Media Convention, the nation’s largest gathering of collegiate journalists, media students and their advisers. 

This year’s convention runs Oct. 29 to Nov. 2 in Atlanta.

“Steven is the quintessential college media adviser,” Whitley said. “He loves the job. He fights for his students and for his colleagues. He pitches in on anything that’s needed to help the organization. And he loves all things CMA.

“If ever someone deserves a place in CMA’s hall of fame, it’s Steven Chappell.”

Oh, copy editors, wherefore art thou

Time for a relaunch

This blog has been inactive for the better part of two years, but it's time to refocus and redevelop this into a solid resource for those with a passion for journalism, and particularly those with a passion for grammar and AP Style.
Pretty much everything I am involved with will be posted here, but I promise all of it will be relevant to mass media and college student media going forward. Keep an eye out for the posts and updates!

Well, I don't post often these days...

Life has been busy. And frankly, Twitter and Facebook more responsive to my rants. But just in case your head has been under a rock, check out my newest blog:

http://www.fireraywatts.com

Save UAB Football. #FreeUAB

This is just wrong....

Even more on the Sun-Times debacle

Jack Lail, a journalist I respect, has written a short missive on his blog about this debacle. I encourage you to read it:

Does the audience even need journalists -- or photojournalists?

He makes an obvious statement that I think can't be repeated enough: "There's a vast difference between between a profesisonal photojournalist and someone who takes pictures."

Sun-Times Follow Up

I'm recording an episode of the podcast Polarizing Images discussing this topic as I type this. However, I had to share this memo from the Sun-Times Managing Editor sent to the staff shortly after the Thursday layoffs:

MEMO TO SUN-TIMES EDITORIAL STAFF FROM MANAGING EDITOR CRAIG NEWMAN

From: Newman, Craig
Date: Thu, May 30, 2013 at 3:33 PM
Subject: photo and training for editorial employees

All, thank you for your patience and understanding after today's announcement.

In the coming days and weeks, we'll be working with all editorial employees to train and outfit you as much as possible to produce the content we need.

These sessions will be mandatory and will concentrate on several areas:

• iPhone photography basics
• Video and basic editing
• Transmission and social media

And other sessions as needed or requested. We will start training this Friday with two sessions - 11 a.m and 4 p.m. - concentrating on iPhone basics in the 9 West conference room. This blog post [URL and password deleted] will offer some tips and techniques to be covered. The blog itself will become a standing resource for documentation and discussion points.

We will focus on downtown employees for this first session, but will set up similar sessions next Friday for suburban employees - details TBA.

In the meantime, I welcome any questions on training and technique. Suggestions on topics, in particular, are definitely worthwhile. 

Thanks for your time.

-Craig

I am speechless. Here's an expanded story from The Verge.

Did the Sun-Times just kill photojournalism?

I'm back. As usual, it is because of a major life event, or something that's pissed me off.

This time, it's the latter.

Thursday, May 30, The Chicago Sun-Times decided to lay off its entire photojournalism staff, including John H. White, one of the best photojournalists out there, and certainly the best in the city of Chicago. Twenty-eight journalists who specialize in photography lost their jobs, all because a group of greedy media owners who can't see the forest for the trees think any jackass with a camera can do photojournalism. Let me tell you something -- he or she cannot.

Photojournalism takes skill. It takes training. It takes experience. It takes talent. It requires good equipment (though today's smart phones are as good a camera in some instances than the equipment of yore). Still, it requires one to understand what makes a good journalistic photograph. It takes understanding of composition, contrast and content. It also requires a solid understanding of media law and ethics. The average man on the street with a cell phone camera has no idea what I just said or what any of that means, or why it's important. And apparently, neither do the owners of the Chicago Sun-Times.

From the photographer's point of view, no one said it better yesterday than Scott Strazzante, who posed the question on his blog "Are you just the photographer?"Of course, the answer is no, but it's often the question I was asked when I worked as a photojournalist in my early days of journalism. And, apparently, it's now the attitude of media owners, and editors -- seeing as none of the editors at the Sun-Times have spoken out against this travesty -- of the Sun-Times, and I fear, it will soon become the attitude of media owners and editors everywhere. Frankly, I expected this sooner. When Gannett decided to issue every reporter -- note, just reporters, not photographers -- iPhones, I was certain the reason was to put a camera in their hands so the Evil Empire (my name for Gannett) could eliminate its photojournalists. That hasn't happened yet, but you can bet your bottom dollar they will be observing what happens in Chicago very carefully.

In addition to Scott's excellent post (by the way, Scott was an observer, not an employee), the day after the layoff former Sun-Times photojournalist Michael Smart discussed the layoff with a Daily Herald reporter. In the story, Smart said the managing editor made the announcement in about a one-minute talk, refused to answer questions, and left the newsroom (in an aside, the managing editor, named Jim Kirk, should be ashamed. Capt. James T. Kirk would never be such a coward). The Sun-Times management is refusing to speak to any media outlets regarding this decision. Again, this is indicative they are all cowards.

The manner in which this Sun-Times went about this, in my opinion, is about as unethical as it comes, which makes me wonder if the paper has any morals or ethics in its newsroom at all, given the attitude for these principles come from the top. It seems that within seconds of the announcement (and the layoffs were immediate), the email accounts of all the photojournalists were deleted, which means the journalists laid off lost access to who-knows-what.

(Aside: My 14-year-old son just asked what I was writing, when I told him, he said, "How the hell do you produce a newspaper without professional photographers? That's just stupid." I love my son.)

The implications of this are far-reaching, especially in Chicago, where the police haven't exactly paid much attention to the First Amendment and its application to photojournalists in recent years. In fact, hundreds of reports of the police in Chicago confiscating cameras and cell phones from citizens have surfaced when they take photos at crime scenes. I imagine no one is happier to hear that the Chicago Sun-Times photojournalism staff has been terminated than Chicago's police chief, who clearly based on the intimidation of photographers by his force in recent years is plenty indicative he hates photographers. If the Sun-Times is going to rely on freelancers to get its photos, is the Sun-Times going to provide them legal representation and stand by them when their First Amendment rights are trampled by city officials? I'll wager the answer the answer to that is no. Expect the reports of civil rights violations of citizens in Chicago by the police to increase.

As a journalism professor, I have no idea right now what to tell my students who aspire to be photojournalists. The honest answer is the outlook isn't good. And it's certain none of them will have the photojournalism career that many of my friends and colleagues once enjoyed. I'll sit down with my journalism colleagues in the coming weeks and talk about what we all see as happening next. Of course, we'll all be just guessing, because this field is changing too fast to keep up.

To that end, I'll be discussing this nasty turn of events on what I think is the premier photography podcast on the Internet, Polarizing Images, next week. Check them out at PolarizingImages.com and keep an eye our for next week's episode, which will be posted late Tuesday or early Wednesday June 4 or 5.

And if you have feedback on this, please post it here! I would love to hear what everyone thinks.

My Aunt Jean died yesterday

I really should post to this blog more often. Sadly, I always wait for some major life event to spur me to write. This time is no different.

My Aunt Jean, a beautiful woman with a huge heart and sweet spirit, died Monday after a short illness. She was, without a doubt, my favorite aunt, just as her husband, my Uncle Clarence (who was my dad's brother), was my favorite uncle. I learned a lot from both of them over the years, and now that she has died (Uncle Clarence died three years ago), my cousin Karen and I (and our two sons) are the last of the family to survive. It's kind of a sobering thought. My son is the last male Chappell.

Funny story: My son might not exist -- nor me -- were it not for my Aunt Jean. She used to work with mom, and introduced her to my dad. Whey they started dating, Aunt Jean also warned my mom that my dad was bad news, and she might not want to date him, so I guess you could say that's a wash. Either way, I'm pretty sure the introduction helped bring me about.

Here's my aunt's obituary. I will be flying down Sunday morning to attend the service, and at my cousin's request, sing the same song I sang at my uncle's funeral at my aunt's request -- Beulah Land. Pray I make it through the song. It's made more difficult by the fact they attended a Church of Christ. They don't believe in music. A cappella is it.

A memorial service for Norma Jean Shipp Chappell will be held Sunday, October 21, 2012 at 2:30 p.m. at the Ohatchee Church of Christ. The family will receive friends at 2 p.m. Mrs. Chappell passed away Monday at her residence in Jacksonville, Ala. Mrs. Chappell was a loving wife, mother, grandmother, sister and friend. She was preceded in death by her husband of 54 years, Clarence Edward Chappell. Her daughter, Karen Chappell Davis, son-in-law John W. Davis and grandson Caleb Chappell Davis survive her. She also leaves behind one brother Charles Shipp and his wife Margie, sister-in-law Mary Shipp, nieces and nephews, and many, many friends. Mrs. Chappell grew up in Corner, Ala., and graduated from Corner High School. She worked for various employers and was retired from the State of Alabama, where she worked as a secretary for over 20 years. A giving and generous person all of her life, she has chosen to continue giving in her passing and has donated her body to the UAB Anatomical Donor Program. The family requests no flowers. Please honor her memory by giving to the charity of your choice.

I fly into Atlanta at 9 a.m. Sunday, and fly out of Atlanta at 1 p.m. Monday, so this is a quick trip. I'm sorry there won't be time for visits with friends.

New job underway

As many of you know, but some may not, I got a job! It's not permament, and it's not the perfect situation, but it is employment.

I am now the Interim Director of Student Publications at Northwest Missouri State University. It's a one-year appointment for which I may apply for the full-time appointment; however, some things have to be worked out first. The location is Maryville, Mo. Right now, that means I live apart from Crista and Duncan during the week, and commute back to Indianola on the weekends. With Crista's job at Wells Fargo going so well, and Duncan skipping the eighth grade, we felt now was not the time for a family relocation -- particularly for a one-year appointment!

Should I apply for the job full time, there are other considerations. There's really nothing in Maryville for Crista. I mean, nothing. Outside of the University, this town is a black hole of employment. Businesses are closing up shop left and right, and vacant properties are everywhere. The University had a number of layoffs itself in spring (a plight I am all too familiar with), but at least here, the layoffs seem to have been targeted and involved a campus-wide reorganization and restructuring. The opposite of Simpson College, where a bunch of lazy administrators took the easy way out and made no substantive changes.

Additionally, the health insurance here is abysmal. I've never worked anywhere with such a bad health plan. Everyone I talk to has a spouse working somewhere else with better insurance (which is my case with Crista). If we were to be on the family plan here, more than half my paycheck would be taken to pay for the plan! It's insane! So, that may be the deal-breaker in terms of me working here full time. We'll see.

But at least I'm working this year, which is more than I can say for many of my former friends and colleagues at The Birmingham News.

Six months and counting

Well, it's been almost seven months since Simpson College cut my position due to funding issues, and I'm still in the hunt for a job. My two best prospects came up empty -- one was filled by an alumnus, fundraiser and big-time donor to the college, which made me question why the search was conducted -- and the second search was placed on "indefinite hold" due to budget problems of its own. It's a shame to see the economy having such a negative impact on higher education.

As a result, I've expanded my search beyond higher ed. As much as I love teaching and advising students, something I think is my first, best destiny, I do need a job. I remain a journalist at heart, so whatever job I pursue will have that as a focus. I don't think you will see me flipping burgers anytime soon, at least, I hope not.

In the meantime, I am working hard at my other passion, connecting students with internships and entry-level jobs. My @comminternships feed and blog continues to grow. Now, if I could only find a way to monetize that thing....

10 days later...

It's been 10 days since Simpson College told me I would not be returning next year due to budget cuts. Aside from finding myself incredibly unmotivated to support the college at this point, I haven't given up on my students. And they haven't given up on me. I want to first publicly thank the students who have vocally and otherwise protested my layoff. I want you to know I'm still in your corner, and I remain completely devoted to you and the classroom and my responsibilities to you.

I've spent the past 10 days reflecting on what it is, exactly, I want to do next. I honestly still don't know. I thoroughly enjoy teaching, and I can honestly say the students at Simpson have been among the best I've ever taught. I love our interactions and relationships. The faculty here have been overwhelmingly supportive as well, and I will miss them terribly when I leave.

In the meantime, my search is underway. I have to say that today's high temperature of 14 degrees has me looking South as much as possible (sorry, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, I won't be applying for your vacancy), but I remain open. My wife is also being incredibly supportive, telling me that I should be looking for my dream job. Frankly, I thought I had it here, which is what makes things so difficult. Hopefully, the next place that hires me will appreciate me and see me as a valuable asset. I still don't know if that will be in higher education. Since I'm over 40, though, I'm not sure how to reinvent myself at this point. I have to say I find myself extremely frustrated. I've applied for three jobs in the past week. I was very selective and applied only for places I felt I would be valued and for which I would value working. I imagine if I'm still unemployed come May, that selective application process will fall by the wayside. We'll just have to wait and see.

I could always plant a chile pepper farm and enter the salsa business....

So, I need a job...

As many of you know, I was "laid off" from Simpson College Tuesday afternoon as part of a major cost-cutting initiative. Enrollments here are at an all-time low, and the college is hemorrhaging money, and letting faculty go is now part of the way to get students to come back. Yeah. It makes no sense to me, either, but it is what it is.

As I begin the job hunt again -- something I honestly wasn't ever hoping to do again, because I liked it here at Simpson -- I find myself wondering two things: (1) Do I want to stay in higher education, given the climate nationally, and (2) is there anything out that there that is stable at all? I love teaching, and I'm rarely happier than when I watch that proverbial light bulb go off over a student's head during that moment when he or she "gets it." I have also started a small side hobby, a Twitter feed called @comminternships, dedicated to helping college students land that first job during and after college. It has also expanded to a regular blog post at College Media Matters. I will endeavor to continue that regardless. In fact, I am already considering ways in which I might be able to monetize that in the future. Let's just say it may be time for me to practice what I preach in the classroom regarding entrepreneurial journalism.

The nice thing has been the parade of students and faculty stopping by to tell me they can't believe I, of anyone, was let go. The fact of the matter is that wear a lot of hats here -- I teach three classes a semester minimum (I usually teach an overload or two in our night program as well); I advise the newspaper, magazine and the radio station; and I serve as the internship coordinator for communication and media studies. Now, all of those duties are going to be distributed among the three remaining journalism faculty members -- each of whom is already stretched to the limit. I feel sorry for them, because my departure hurts them almost as much as it hurts me.

I am hopeful this job search is as fruitful as my last. When I chose Simpson, I had four other job offers on the table at the time. This seemed, at the time, to be the most stable option. One lesson learned: I'm clearly not a good judge of stability.

If you have any knowledge of job options, please let me know.

Another random, belated update

Today, my wife sent me a text message following a meeting at her job. During that meeting, one of her coworkers asked another coworker to make some "verbiage enhancements and adjustments" to a document. I have no idea what this document is, or any other context of the meeting, but I do know that at least one of her coworkers is a monumental moron when it comes to communicating effectively and clearly with his or her coworkers.

When did it become standard practice for corporate America to make standard communication as convoluted as possible? Why can't you just ask someone to edit a document? Why do we have to utilize something instead of just use something? What's wrong with clear, plain, simple English?

I'm back, baby, and I'm angry...

A new semester has started, and after several months of neglecting my blog, I'm back with a vengeance. It's the third day of classes at Simpson College, and while for the most part I am very pleased with my students this semester, a few of them have really touched a nerve. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know what that nerve is: Some of my students this semester -- enrolled in a communication practicum class whose very catalogue description tells them they have to write -- are complaining because they have to write.

This upsets me on a number of levels. The first is that pretty much every student in this class, which is a new course that combines several old practicum courses into one, is a communication major. They either have a Multimedia Journalism designation (and I've heard no complaints from these majors), or they have an Integrated Marketing Communication designation, which is Simpson's iteration of public relations, and it's the major from which I'm hearing the bitching. Yeah, I said it, and now I'm going to tell you to quit your bitching.

I've talked with several of my colleagues about it, and we all remain amazed that these students believe they can get through a degree in Communication and Media Studies with little or no writing required of them. I was told by the faculty member who works most closely with IMC students they expect they will graduate and immediately become account or marketing managers, and therefore don't need to know how to write. I guess they've not bothered to do any research whatsoever into their chosen careers and read the job descriptions, every one of which lists "excellent oral and WRITTEN communication skills" as the top job requirement. I wonder what they consider "written communication skills" to entail? Their Facebook posts, most of which are grammatically incorrect? Their drunk Tweets sent at 2 a.m. from The Zoo Bar? The text messages they send nonstop before, during and after class?

It's a puzzle. I run a Twitter feed called @comminternships, where I tweet and retweet dozens of internship and entry-level communication jobs -- most of which are in the field of public relations -- every day. I read every job description I tweet, so to ensure that the information I send out is real and not some kind of spam that's slipped through the cracks. I've never seen one that doesn't strongly emphasize the need for the student not only to have the writing skills, he or she also needs the proof those skills exist. In other words, there better be a portfolio of written work.

I recognize that there will always be a group of students who, for whatever reason, just don't get it. But for the love of God, if you declare yourself a communication major, you should, at the very least, be prepared to write. Otherwise, I think it's time to find a new major.

Indianola Middle School bomb threat notification

Here's the e-mail notification sent this morning regarding the bomb threat received by Indianola Middle School:

Attention Parents:

A staff member found a note today that referred to a bomb threat around noon in a specific room of the building. District procedures have been followed and will continue to be followed. The classes were placed in “stay put” meaning students did not travel  from room to room while the noted area and adjacent areas were searched. Students will be returning to their regular schedule. A planned evacuation will take place surrounding the noon time that the threat noted.

If you feel that you need to pick up your child from school, please contact the office at 961-9530, ext. 3156.

Annette Jauron, Principal

Indianola Middle School

515-961-9530, ext. 3100

Confidentiality Notice: This email and any attachments may be covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C.§§2510-2521and may contain privileged and confidential information intended only for the use of the individual or entity named. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you should not review, use, disclose, distribute, copy, or forward this email. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete/destroy any and all copies of the original message.

First off, screw the privacy notice. Second, really? Kids stayed in place while the building was searched for a bomb? That's district procedure? Third, you are going to wait until the alleged bomb is allegedly set to detonate before evacuating? That's district procedure? I knew I moved to a rural, rather undereducated area, but this just seems ignorant beyond belief to me.

I already knew Duncan was probably the smartest kid in the middle school; now I find out he's also smarter than the adminstrators? Good grief.

A fascinating social media tool...

This morning as I was checking Twitter (my new morning regime that has long-supplanted reading a print newspaper over a cup of coffee), I noticed I was mentioned in a tweet (it's a good idea for everyone on Twitter to track their @mentions by others):

New-Media Educators Daily is out! http://bit.ly/dcQjaq ▸ Top stories today via @thomfound @cityjournalism @andybechtel @thegrammarnazi

I had not heard of New-Media Educators Daily, so I clicked the link to find out what this was. It's a newspaper, or, at least, the latest evolution of newspapers. In essence, it's a creation of a day's tweets in a newspaper layout, complete with sections. Here's a screen grab of this edition:

The issue of New-Media Educators Daily that featured
one of my Tweets as a "top news item."

At first, I was under the impression this Twitter user was a coding genius -- and he may be. But what @ryanjz (Ryan J. Zeigler, a self-described "aspiring tech journalist") has done is use an online aggregator at the website http://paper.li/ to create an aggregation of the day's tweets in one of the Twitter lists that he follows. What's a Twitter list? It's simply a collection of people you follow on Twitter. You can create a list of people, or you can create a list from hash tags (#), or keywords, people create on Twitter. I follow more than a dozen lists. Why? Well, it separates the people I follow into categories. It also allows me to find tweets by people I don't follow on topics of interest to me. I have created several lists of people that include twitterers whom I do not follow, but I want to see what they say on that specific topic. Following lists comprised of hash tags allow me to follow everyone else who has an interest or passion in that specific topic.

So, what this website has done is created a way for people to simply type in their lists and, presto, you have a webpage that looks like a daily newspaper comprised of the day's tweets that contain URLS from your twitter list. The paper updates every 24 hours, and it includes the previous 24 hours' tweets. It's still in beta testing, but it hasn't stopped me from playing with it. I've created two newspapers since I started writing this blog: One for media website and journalists I follow (The media Daily: http://paper.li/thegrammarnazi/media) and one for Simpson College, where I teach (The #SimpsonCollege Daily http://paper.li/tag/SimpsonCollege). The latter presently has no content because, apparently, no one used the Simpson College hashtag in the previous 24 hours. 

Some of the fascinating things I have discovered at first glance (keep in mind I'm so fascinated by this thing I'm writing a blog about it fewer than 30 minutes after finding it) are that it included embedded ads (making it look like a real newspaper); it divides your tweets into sections (including such titles as arts and entertainment, business and education) using keywords in the tweets, and it's surprisingly accurate at doing so; it includes an embedded live view of all the tweets in the list you used to create the paper; you can automatically promote it each day with a tweet sent to your followers; subscribe to it via RSS; embed the code into your blog or website (see the right side of this blog for a sample); archive previous editions and more. To put it mildly, I won't be getting as much done today as I anticipated as I play with this new social media tool.

You'll notice I italicized one interesting aspect of the tweets that are aggregated: They must contain URLS. In other words, it tries to weed out tweets that are just a person's musings or ramblings, and includes only tweets that link through to additional content. I'm guessing, though I don't know this for certain, that the reasoning behind this is to include tweets that ostensibly contain more depth and provide additional substance than just the "I just bought a new dress" tweet. I will be monitoring this paper each day to see what's included and what's excluded from the paper. 

And, while my paper The media Daily has been out for just 42 minutes, I already have three subscribers. I wonder how many I'll have once I tweet I've created it and post this blog? Yet another interesting experiment!

A disturbing grammatical trend...

Now that we are four weeks into the new academic semester, I have had multiple opportunities to grade my students' work. This semester, I'm teaching six classes, including three practicums. I'm grading papers for courses ranging from the entry-level Introduction to Communication Studies up to a 300-level journalism history course. The history course is the most diverse, as it is an evening course with a number of nontraditional students, many of whom are working professionals.

But, it doesn't seem to matter whether the student is an older working professional or a freshman just out of high school, one trend is clear -- grammar is dying across the board. My freshmen are particularly weak at it, making mistakes that lead me to consider drinking heavily to dull the pain of all the red marks.

I know that at some point these rules were taught to them -- at least, I presume they were. I know they were taught to my 12-year-old son, who spent last Saturday during down time at a taekwondo tournament reading some of the papers I was grading for a class. He was constantly commenting on the poor grammar, with statements such as "these are college students?" and "I learned that in the third grade! Good grief!" However, at some point between elementary school and college, it appears teachers quit giving a rat's ass about grammar in favor of "content" and "ideas." At least, that's what my students today are telling me. My question: How can you effectively convey an idea in writing if I can't understand it for your poor grammar?

Some mistakes I saw this week that made me cringe: "granite" for "granted," "boarder" for "border," "then" for "than" (at least 10 people did this), "incontinence" for "inconvenience," and I won't even begin to rant on the hundreds of punctuation errors. Apparently, no one at any age or level of education has a clue for when a comma is needed, or not.

Several years ago, when I was teaching at a different college, a student group held a faculty spelling bee as a fundraiser. I participated, as did many of the other faculty. I remember this vividly, because I was so stunned it happened, but the first five faculty to lose? English faculty members. The last three standing? All journalism faculty. The English faculty defended their defeat by saying they are more focused on the message and its meaning when they teach. The journalism faculty were at constant war with the English faculty over the inability of students who had supposedly demonstrated competency in ENG 101 and 102 in order to qualify to take the first reporting class, because the students we were getting couldn't master simple subject-verb agreement. The argument from the faculty remained the same. Again, how can you understand the message if you can't read it?

Of course, the bigger question is, can this problem be fixed? I don't know the answer to that question. I welcome your suggestions.

Social media on the rise, but does anyone know how to use it?

This report on Mashable Monday says that social media use in 2010 jumped 20 percent. My Simpson College colleague and department chair Brian Steffen blogged over the weekend about how we can turn Twitter into a journalism tool. Meanwhile, tools such as this blog saw a decline in use in 2010, the same Mashable story reported. What does this mean? But an even bigger question is, do we even know what we are doing on here?

The Mashable report indicates that people are moving away from delayed communication online (websites, blogs and the like) and more toward real-time communication, which sites like Twitter, Facebook and foursquare provide. However, do we really understand -- both as journalists and consumers of news -- how to use these sites as journalism tools? For that matter, do we even understand how to the use the sites themselves, as tools for journalism or something else notwithstanding? One student asked me today why bother learning them at all.

As this semester started, Steffen and I both noticed that more of our students were already on Twitter than in prior semesters. However, it's not yet a majority of students, and I still had to show a few students at the start of this semester not just how Twitter worked, but how to set up an account. While we like to think these tools come to our students intuitively because they grew up in a "digital world," the fact of the matter is many of them do not understand it.

As Steffen pointed out, he, I and our peers came of age before these tools existed. As Steffen said in his blog post over the weekend, "I’ve had to pick up a lot of tools and techniques on the fly during my years of teaching, but I don’t think that I’ve ever — until now — had to teach a tool that was evolving right before our eyes." And Twitter isn't the only tool on that list.

My students in my Journalism 2.0 class are already stressing over the requirement that they create a blog and update it regularly. They must also maintain and frequently update a Twitter account related to multimedia journalism. How often is regularly, they ask. I tell them ideally, daily, but I'll accept weekly. They stress they may not have the time to do it weekly. I feel their pain. I started this semester with the goal of blogging at least once a week, and I'm finding it more and more difficult to set aside time to do it. In fact, I started writing this blog post Monday morning. It's now Tuesday afternoon, and I'm still not finished with it. However, if I am going to be effective in teaching these new media tools, I must find the time myself to immerse myself in them -- and keep them updated (as well as myself updated) to remain relevant in the classroom.

But, the question remains, how do we teach our students to use these tools appropriately. Here's a tweet from earlier today from one of my students: "sajdhsjdadjjsa'ldkjsadh! thats the best way to express how mad i am for having to be up and not having class til 2!" Not only is it irrelevant, it's grammatically abhorrent (a rant I'll save for another post). When that student starts looking for a job or an internship, and a potential employer searches the Web for information about that student, will that tweet hurt him? Maybe. Maybe not. But if all other things are equal, that single tweet might be the tiebreaker in the job search. And if all of his tweets read like that, he may not even get to the interview stage.

Beyond that, how do we teach them to blog, Facebook, use LinkedIn, foursquare and the like? And which of these tools will be dead and buried when some of these freshmen graduate in four years. Who remembers Google Wave?

Teaching our students how to use the tools that are in vogue now may not be as important as teaching them how to recognize which tools are emerging -- even if they are just going to be a flash in the pan -- and make them relevant to their careers as quickly as they can. And, once that tool falls out of favor, to recognize that as well and move along to the next tool. Early numbers say this "traditional" blog and others like it are falling out of favor, while Twitter, Facebook and other microblogging tools are on the rise. It's probably only a few short years before microblogging fades away for the latest, newest form of instant communication. Technology and time will tell.

Another example of why copy editors, indeed, are necessary...

Charles Apple has a great post on his American Copy Editors Society blog today regarding a mistake in today's issue of the Iowa State Daily. It's a small typo, but it has BIG consequences. As in, the difference between sexual consent and sexual assault.

You can read what Charles wrote here, because it says it so well. But, for those to lazy to click through, here it is:

The front page story

The jump page

The typo from the jump....

If that is accurate, then there are a lot of people who are going to be seeking to have convictions overturned....