Sunday, July 6, 2008

AP gives Obama highest priority

Original Link: http://blogs.chron.com/aboutchron/archives/2008/06/post_86.html

Wow. The Associated Press sent out a flash on Barack Obama's clinching of the Democratic presidential nomination. I've been looking at the news wires since the 1970s and, maybe I haven't paid attention, but I can't remember seeing one before. Here's the flash:

BC-APNewsAlert
FLASH

WASHINGTON (AP) Obama clinches Democratic nomination, making him first black candidate to lead his party

AP-WS-06-03-08 1656EDT

According to the AP Stylebook, the flash designation is used "on the rare occasion when an APNewsAlert represents a transcendent development _ one likely to be one of the top stories of the year."

There's no question that the story -- Obama being the first black to win the nomination of one of the two major political parties -- fits that description. The AP transmits several "bulletins" or "urgents" a day, but like I said, I can't remember seeing a flash. I think it's because the news organization doesn't often know at the time that a particular development will be momentous enough to justify the highest priority. The example used in the stylebook, datelined Space Center, Houston, is "Man lands on moon."

In other news, I came back from vacation with several questions about a situation in Friendswood. Here's one example:

Subject: Friendswood Junior High

Has the Chronicle investigated the story from Norwich University Website about the Islam teaching assembly to all the students? If not, why not? And if it hasn't been the subject of a major story, why not? Let's have an answer to this please.

The answer is, yes, the Chronicle has investigated the situation and covered the story. Ericka Mellon and Ruth Rendon have written about it in the Chronicle's School Zone blog.

Another reader e-mailed a comment about some sloppy wire editing:

You might want to alert writers about the value of complete information in news stories. Specifically, Tuesday's Notebook section had an article about Kevin Johnson's experience running for the office of mayor, yet nowhere did the article specifiy in what city he is running. It seems to me that's a relevant piece of information.... Google could answer that. (It's Sacramento). Just a helpful suggestion....

I noticed the same omission. Thanks for saving me the trouble of looking up the location.

Another reader posed the following question:

Hi again. Remember a week or so back people were complaining about photos? I've pasted a link to an article that has a very graphic picture and I was wondering how the other readers feel about this sort of thing. Basically, it shows a drunk driver running into a group of cyclists and (according to the article) 1 person died. That bothers me, but I never seem to read/hear of anyone else complaining about that sort of thing: photos or security videos of shootings/accidents/etc. where someone dies being shown in the media. My personal feeling is since someone died as a result of the incident, the photo/footage/etc. shouldn't be shown. Thoughts? casual_observer

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/world/5815718.html

To save you the trouble of clicking, here's a copy of the photo:

As a general rule, the Chronicle does not run photos of dead bodies. But the rule does not prohibit photos of accidents in progress that result in a death. I think this photo is a close call. It probably would not have run in print. The Web, however, is in some ways closer to TV than to a print newspaper.

In print, a photo stays there all day. On the Web, a photo can be taken down quickly. Also, an eye-catching photo is really important to the Web site because it is in direct competition for readers with other Web sites, including those of the TV stations. I don't think very many people make a decision on whether to buy a paper based on the page one photos. I'm not trying to justify the use of the photo on the Web site. I'm just trying to explain that the print product and the Web site are different animals.

If you have any other questions or comments, please let me know.

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