The case of KDFW-TV reporter Rebecca Aguilar should raise questions in TV newsrooms everywhere. Aguilar was suspended after a parking-lot interview she did with a 70-year-old man who had killed two people trying to break into his home-based business in…
Declaring war on errors
The founder of the Web site Regret the Error (slogan: Mistakes Happen), Craig Silverman, has a new book out by the same name. It’s not just a compendium of hilarious newspaper corrections, although there are plenty of them, including these…
Newspaper video catches up
I spent some time recently exploring what television and newspaper Web sites are doing with video and came away convinced that newspapers are catching up to TV more quickly than folks on the TV side might have anticipated. Yes, a…
Web video not yet a TV alternative
A new study says Internet video is years away from drawing a major audience, while television viewership continues to grow. Reuters reports this prediction from the consulting firm Bain & Co: U.S. viewers on average will spend nearly two more…
Passive voice redeemed
Here’s something I love about the Internet: the way it forces you to reconsider what you think you already know. Take the passive voice, for example. For years, I’ve urged journalists to avoid it in almost every circumstance. Writing in…
Ethics in translation
How do you use sound bites from an interview with someone whose native language is not English? The standard approach is to have their answers translated and use a voiceover for the bite you decide to include. That sounds simple…