911: Identification

Probably the hardest thing about this exercise for you was identification. We had competing interests at work here.

First, you should have been operating under the general journalistic premise that we do NOT name rape victims in almost all cases.

And on this point, some of us DID name the victim by name.

Earlier in this semester, we discussed when and when not to name victims in stories. In most cases we DO name victims, but a notable exception in American journalism regarded the names of rape victims.

In general, the current rule of thumb is that in weighing the benefit to society in knowing who exactly was victimized versus the harm that would come in terms of stigma to the victim, we do not name rape victims expect in rare circumstances, like a victim wanting to intentionally put a name and face to a victim to promote greater societal understanding, or a rape victim whose alleged attacker wasn't convicted in criminal court but who is facing a lawsuit for money in civil court.

This wasn't one of those times.

Then, there is the concern of making a virtual identification; that is, giving so much other information that it is easy for anybody to identify the victim.

Some of us named the victim's daughter. A daughter only has one mother, right? So that would be real easy to narrow down who the victim was if we gave the girl's name.

Also, some of us listed the exact home address where the crime took place. Only one family lives in a home, right? Again, we took a huge step in virtually identifying the victim.

Even though an exact address would expose the victim, don't readers still deserve to know where a crime took place? I mean, a story is much more relevant if it happened on your street or in your neighborhood than if it didn't. Some location is necessary to establish relevance.

A couple of us handled it in a smart way: you simply said the incident happened on Wilson Avenue. No street address included. That gave readers enough information to better set proximity, without giving away the victim's home and creating a virtual identification.

Now, what about the suspect's name? I think only under the rarest of cases would you not name the suspect. He's central to the story. As a society we need to know who among us is considered dangerous, and who among us is being locked up like a zoo animal by our authorities.

The only time in my whole journalism career when I didn't name a suspect was in a case around 1992 -- really early in my professional career -- where I was covering the trial of a teen accused of raping his own mother.

My editors went back-and-forth on how to handle it before deciding they wouldn't name the victim or the suspect, because naming the latter would identify the former. And there was a big ol' editor's note added ahead of my lede to explain their reasoning.

So exceptions are rare. Either the circumstances are amazingly twisted and unique or the suspects are juveniles and a particular media organization has rules about naming kids.

Again, this ain't one of 'em.

I also thought important to the story was noting that Caspinwall was a neighbor of the victim. Readers need to know if this crime was totally random or if there was some sort of link between the victim and attacker. Readers have more reason to worry if someone is willy-nilly breaking into random homes, as opposed to attacking a neighbor, right?

But only a few of us you noted the link.

Note I say Caspinwall was a neighbor, not her direct neighbor. A neighbor -- or even better, a nearby neighbor -- could be somebody next door or down the street, right? So using neighbor in the generic doesn't necessarily narrow the possible victim pool to a single house or two.

Next, is the suspect's home address needed? I think some identification of where he lives is noteworthy. Wouldn't readers really want to know if an alleged rapist and home invader lived by them? Wouldn't you?

Also, there was something else that I think we owed the reader: an explanation of why you weren't naming the girl or listing her exact address.

Even though you're following journalistic rules, your readers probably don't know those rules and may simply be wondering, why the hell aren't there any names or exact addresses in this story? It wouldn't have hurt to have a simple background sentence somewhere in the story, like this:

The names of the girl and victim and the exact address where the crime occurred is being withheld to protect the identity of the victim.

That way, you are being transparent with readers about why they're not getting the level of information that other non-rape stories would include. A couple of us did do something along those lines.

Admittedly, this was a confusing exercise. We had many different factors tugging at us. It's really a tough situation for a young reporter to find himself or herself in. In a real-world setting, we'd definitely want to bring an editor in the loop to help make the best judgments that give the readers the most information while at the same time minimizing harm to the victim.

But here, I wanted to test your judgment and see how you responded. And I figured you'd appreciate the lesson much more if we did it this way, as opposed to just lecturing about it.

And in all fairness to you, how you handled these circumstances were a smaller-than-usual part of your assignment grade here. I gave you a break because I didn't want you to suffer a penalty on this one, but I did want you to have to think about it before we discussed it now.

Finally, this is how I would have handled it: I WOULD NOT name the victim or the girl. I WOULD name the suspect and even use HIS home address. I'd say the victim lived nearby, but I wouldn't specifically say they were direct neighbors.

That way, readers know who did this (and know exactly where the sicko lived) and the general area where the crime occurred and that it wasn't a random crime, while at the same time limiting the ability to identify who the victim was.

This is the sort of stuff you'll have to think about all the time in deciding what is the best way to tell your story.

Speech: Titles And Commas

If you have a formal title ahead of a name, then there is no need for a separating comma and you do capitalize the title. So you do this:

U.S. Surgeon General Tom Izzo said ...

...and NOT this ...

U.S. Surgeon General, Tom Izzo said ...

... in the same way you would say this:

Capt. Crunch said ....

... but NOT this ...

Capt., Crunch said ...

Now, if that title is not being used as a direct title, but as an identifier separate from the name, then do use lower case and commas, like this:

The U.S. surgeon general, Tom Izzo, said ...

... and this ...

Tom Izzo, the U.S. surgeon general, said ...

... and this ...

Crunch, a captain, said ...

... and this, too ...

A captain, Crunch, said ...

Robbery: WHO, What, When, Where, Why

A few of you never named the robber. Why in earth wouldn't you?

I mean, the name is central to the story: WHO robbed the store. WHO was shot dead. Right?

Don't forget to include all the five W's (who, what, when, where, why) and the one H that accompanies it (how).

Others failed to name the robber until very late in the story, after generically referring to a gunman repeatedly in the story. Ideally, you'd want to ID the robber no later than the nut graf -- since WHO did the robbing and WHO was killed was a very major W among the 5 W's -- and go from there.

Just like you didn't wait to identify Layoux by name, don't wait to ID people who are considered central to the story. A person killed whose actions triggered everything else that happened -- Layoux having to use his gun, Layoux losing his job as a result -- isn't a bit player whose name can wait until later, like the district attorney or a cop who showed up after everything was over.

Robbery: Did You Need ...

. . . to use the clerk's full name of Michael Ernest Layoux?

It's not wrong to use middle names or middle initials, but here's a good rule of thumb: if you feel the name is so common where a middle name is needed to distinguish a person from others with a similar name, then you may want to use a middle name or initial. Like with former MSU football coach John L. Smith.

But if you feel the name is fairly unique, it's less necessary. Like with Omar Sofradzija.

BTW, you may have noticed serial killers or mass murderers or criminals of the highest profile are often referred to with a middle name included (like John Wayne Gacy, Lee Harvey Oswald, ect.). That's because with a crime so heinous, you want to go the extra mile to make sure you're identifying the right guy.

For a guide, please look under AP Style under middle names.

One more BTW ... did you need to use Layoux's name in the lede, or would it be sufficient to identify him in the generic as a 22-year-old clerk in the lede and then name him in the nut graf? What did you do, and why did you do it?

Alt Ledes: Did You Need The Name?

In your ledes, some of you referred to the car accident victim specifically -- Scott Forsythe -- while others referred to him in the generic -- 22-year-old local man, or something to that effect.

While neither is wrong, I'd say the latter is the best approach. You have no reason to believe Forsythe is someone that would be known by name to your readers. In such cases, the generic identifier would suffice in a first reference, and you can offer the specific name as a secondary detail later in the story.

Now, if the victim was Oprah Winfrey, the name would be a good bet for the lede, precisely because she is someone many people would instantly recognize by name.

Speech: Titles and Commas

If you have a formal title ahead of a name, then there is no need for a separating comma and you do capitalize the title. So you do this:

U.S. Surgeon General Tom Izzo said ...

...and NOT this ...

U.S. Surgeon General, Tom Izzo said ...

... in the same way you would say this:

Capt. Crunch said ....

... but NOT this ...

Capt., Crunch said ...

Now, if that title is not being used as a direct title, but as an identifier separate from the name, then do use lower case and commas, like this:

The U.S. surgeon general, Tom Izzo, said ...

... and this ...

Tom Izzo, the U.S. surgeon general, said ...

... and this ...

Crunch, a captain, said ...

... and this, too ...

A captain, Crunch, said ...





   

Robbery/Murder: Fatalspalooza 2012

Usually, every semester there are one or two practice stories where it seems like half the class goes off the fatals rail, and fatals are as common as puke on the sidewalk the morning after St. Patrick's Day.

Lotsa struggles on these assignments, especially the robbery one. Unlike the last few assignments were most people scored 3.0 or above, on the robbery one many people scored 3.0 or below.

What were the problems?


Ledes that were unfocused or failed to go enough toward ultimate outcome and end result.

Nut grafs that were entirely missing, leaving out a critical bridge between the lede and the body of the story.

A lack of attribution in paragraphs, leaving unclear where we got the information.

And yes, we had a bunch of fatals. Let's look first at the fatals and why they happened, and try to learn from 'em so we don't repeat such mistakes in the future:


We missed our deadline. One robbery story that had a 9 a.m. deadline was turned in at 9:47:28 a.m. That's 7 minutes, 28 seconds late. And that's a 0.0.

A time fatal is the worst kind of fatal we can get in this class, because everything we do in here translated to a 100-point scale. So when we get a 4.0 you get 100 percent of points, a 3.9 gets us 99 points, a 3.8 gets 98, and so forth.

And under that scale, a fact fatal that gets us a 1.0 still gets us 70 points. If we screw up an assignment so bad that we get a 0.1, that's still 61 points.

But a 0.0 is zero points. At a 0.1, we're closer to a 4.0 than a 0.0.

And again, that's to emphasize that missing your deadline is simply not an option in the media biz. We always need to hit our deadlines. Every single time.

We misspelled a name. Three of the robbery fatals revolved around the misspelling of the gunman's last name. It wasn't the common spelling of Weiss, it was Wiess.

Yet we used Weiss, even though what was given to us in your information was Wiess.

In general, first we should have noticed the different spelling. Second, if we found it odd, we should have double-checked with your sources to see if in fact the name was spelled in an uncommon way.

But in this case, the latter wasn't necessary. remember at the end of class I told you that all information was correct, as presented and spelled?

We spelled a name two different ways. In one robbery story, the last name of the clerk was alternately spelled Layoux and Lyoux.

Obviously, one had to be wrong. A thorough check of your story copy would have uncovered the inconsistency. Let's make sure that after we're done writing, we give ourselves a good chunk of time to go over the story and check each fact for accuracy.

We misspelled titles. Such as in the murder story, where one of us spelled North Point Inn as North Pointe Inn, with an "e" at the end of Point. Again, there's no such thing as a small mistake; make sure you are checking your info both before you start writing and after you finish.

Journalism isn't about writing; it's about getting it right.

We got dates wrong. Three of us -- three! -- in the murder story reported the slaying took place today; in fact, the information we had was that it took place yesterday morning.

We mistook facts. One of us wrote in robbery that two other clerks who worked at O-Mart were previously shot. In fact, two clerks at another convenience store in the city were shot and killed.

A thorough reading and understanding of the subject matter before we started writing would have headed off this error. Let's make sure that before we start writing, we give ourselves a good chunk of time to go over notes and materials and make sure we understand each fact correctly.

For those keeping score, eight of 18 people in this class now have at least one fact fatal. If you include missed deadlines, you can add as many as four more people (pending any verifiable excuses) to the list.

Now, is that awful? No. Typically in this class we get a ton of fatals in the first half of the semester, before good habits start to kick in and fatals become much more rare in the second half. And this class sofar has fewer fatals overall than I would expect at this point from previous classes.

Still, it's not good. We need to get better at this, pronto.

Robbery: WHO, What, When, Where, Why

A few of you never named the robber. Why in earth wouldn't you?

I mean, the name is central to the story: WHO robbed the store. WHO was shot dead. Right?

Don't forget to include all the five W's (who, what, when, where, why) and the one H that accompanies it (how).

Others failed to name the robber until very late in the story, after generically referring to a gunman repeatedly in the story. Ideally, you'd want to ID the robber no later than the nut graf -- since WHO did the robbing and WHO was killed was a very major W among the 5 W's -- and go from there.

Just like you didn't wait to identify Layoux by name, don't wait to ID people who are considered central to the story. A person killed whose actions triggered everything else that happened -- Layoux having to use his gun, Layoux losing his job as a result -- isn't a bit player whose name can wait until later, like the district attorney or a cop who showed up after everything was over.

Robbery: Did You Need ...

. . . to use the clerk's full name of Michael Ernest Layoux?

It's not wrong to use middle names or middle initials, but here's a good rule of thumb: if you feel the name is so common where a middle name is needed to distinguish a person from others with a similar name, then you may want to use a middle name or initial. Like with former MSU football coach John L. Smith.

But if you feel the name is fairly unique, it's less necessary. Like with Omar Sofradzija.

BTW, you may have noticed serial killers or mass murderers or criminals of the highest profile are often referred to with a middle name included (like John Wayne Gacy, Lee Harvey Oswald, ect.). That's because with a crime so heinous, you want to go the extra mile to make sure you're identifying the right guy.

For a guide, please look under AP Style under middle names.

One more BTW ... did you need to use Layoux's name in the lede, or would it be sufficient to identify him in the generic as a 22-year-old clerk in the lede and then name him in the nut graf? What did you do, and why did you do it?

Alt Ledes: Did You Need The Name?

In your ledes, some of you referred to the car accident victim specifically -- Scott Forsythe -- while others referred to him in the generic -- 22-year-old local man, or something to that effect.

While neither is wrong, I'd say the latter is the best approach. You have no reason to believe Forsythe is someone that would be known by name to your readers. In such cases, the generic identifier would suffice in a first reference, and you can offer the specific name as a secondary detail later in the story.

Now, if the victim was Oprah Winfrey, the name would be a good bet for the lede, precisely because she is someone many people would instantly recognize by name.

Robbery: Did You Need ...

. . . to use the clerk's full name of Michael Ernest Layoux?

It's not wrong to use middle names or middle initials, but here's a good rule of thumb: if you feel the name is so common where a middle name is needed to distinguish a person from others with a similar name, then you may want to use a middle name or initial. Like with former MSU football coach John L. Smith.

But if you feel the name is fairly unique, it's less necessary. Like with Omar Sofradzija.

BTW, you may have noticed serial killers or mass murderers or criminals of the highest profile are often referred to with a middle name included (like John Wayne Gacy, Lee Harvey Oswald, ect.). That's because with a crime so heinous, you want to go the extra mile to make sure you're identifying the right guy.

For a guide, please look under AP Style under middle names.
One more BTW ... did you need to use Layoux's name in the lede, or would it be sufficient to identify him in the generic as a 22-year-old clerk in the lede and then name him in the nut graf? What did you do, and why did you do it?

Robbery: Did You Say ...

. . . it was a brand of Winston cigarettes? Or just cigarettes?

Was the particular brand necessary to the story? Or was it unimportant, other than to give the company a free ad?

Specific brands should be cited if important to the story; like if a Ford Focus crashed into a Hummer. Knowing a teeny-car brand hit a monster-tank brand makes a story more understandable, right?

But in this case, the robber could have asked for Winstons or Camels or whatever. It really wouldn't have made any difference.

It's one thing if you were writing some sort of detailed narrative, where small observations mater in setting mood and color. This wasn't one of those cases. You were just writing a plain ol' daily news story.

Unless it was inside of a quote, I would have left out the brand name.

More Ledes: Did You Need The Name?

In your ledes, some of you referred to the car accident victim specifically -- Scott Forsythe -- while others referred to him in the generic -- 22-year-old local man, or something to that effect.

While neither is wrong, I'd say the latter is the best approach. You have no reason to believe Forsythe is someone that would be known by name to your readers. In such cases, the generic identifier would suffice in a first reference, and you can offer the specific name as a secondary detail later in the story.

Now, if the victim was Oprah Winfrey, the name would be a good bet for the lede, precisely because she is someone many people would instantly recognize by name.

Ledes: Seek Missing Information!

There was a sort of trick question in this exercise, and that would be on the one citing Mayor Datolli.

In journalism, we fully identify people in first referring to them in a story. So in a first reference, it's Omar Sofradzija, with both the first and last name.

In subsequent references, however, you just use the last name: just Sofradzija said, for example.

In this case, though, you weren't given a first name for Datolli. What to do?

As journalists, our job isn't to simply write what is put before us. It's also to seek answers to holes in the information we have.

The correct response would have been to ask me for the mayor's first name. In a real world setting, it would be to find out what the mayor's first name was by making phone calls or checking records or just asking the mayor what the hell her first name was.

Be curious. Don't settle for what you have if what you have leaves unanswered questions.

Robbery -- Did You Say ...

. . . it was a brand of Winston cigarettes? Or just cigarettes?

Was the particular brand necessary to the story? Or was it unimportant, other than to give the company a free ad?

Specific brands should be cited if important to the story; like if a Ford Focus crashed into a Hummer. Knowing a teeny-car brand hit a monster-tank brand makes a story more understandable, right?

But in this case, the robber could have asked for Winstons or Camels or whatever. It really wouldn't have made any difference.

It's one thing if you were writing some sort of detailed narrative, where small observations mater in setting mood and color. This wasn't one of those cases. You were just writing a plain ol' daily news story.

Unless it was inside of a quote, I would have left out the brand name.

Robbery -- Did You Need ...

. . . to use the clerk's full name of Michael Ernest Layoux?

It's not wrong to use middle names or middle initials, but here's a good rule of thumb: if you feel the name is so common where a middle name is needed to distinguish a person from others with a similar name, then you may want to use a middle name or initial. Like with former MSU football coach John L. Smith.

But if you feel the name is fairly unique, it's less necessary. Like with Omar Sofradzija.

BTW, you may have noticed serial killers or mass murderers or criminals of the highest profile are often referred to with a middle name included (like John Wayne Gacy, Lee Harvey Oswald, ect.). That's because with a crime so heinous, you want to go the extra mile to make sure you're identifying the right guy.

Hockey -- Fatals

Sorry to say two people fataled on this one. In both cases, it was the same culprit: the spelling of names.

The thing about these fatals that DOESN'T surprise me is who made 'em: they were two of the better-performing students in this class.

So, why is that not surprising?

Because it's a reminder that fatals can happen to anybody if they fail to do the basics of fact-checking in a rigorous and systematic way.

Fatals have nothing to do with talent and ability. Fatals have everything to do with the boring basic mechanical drudgery of checking things against other things and making sure you are correct.

Those procedures can never be skipped, no matter how good you get. It's why The New Yor Times has the best journalists in the world, yet they still have a copy desk to ferret out missteps.

Checking your work (and assuming nothing) to make sure you're correct is just like working out to make sure you're in shape: no matter how in-shape you are, the moment you decide that your routine workout is unnecessary is when you backslide and have to start from scratch.

Both of the fatals in this assignment involve things that could have been easily caught, with proper due diligence.

In one case, you misspelled the last name of board member Jane Tribitt, which you spelled correctly two references but as Tribett in the third. This one was completely catchable if you did your due diligence in double-checking every name, asserion, quote, figure, statistic, ect. after you finished writing.

The fact that you had one last name spelled two different ways would have been a sure tip that at least one of those ways was wrong.

Another person misspelled the first name of Stuard Adler as Stuart Adler. And that leads to another problem: the fact that the information regarding what an Adler had to say wasn't clear on which Adler was talking. Here's the passage:

Sandra Adler is a parent whose daughter was a senior on last year's team along with the four boys. Adler also was an all-state consensus pick as player of the year during her senior year on the girls' field hockey team thirty years ago. Her husband is Stuard Adler, minister of the Church of Christ. "I just don't think it is healthy mentally or physically to have theg boys and girls playing on the same team ... "

Nowhere were you told which Adler was speaking. Many of you made an assumption that I decided not to fatal. That was the wrong thing to do. What should you have done?

Ledes -- Do You Need A Name?

In your ledes, some of you referred to the car accident victim specifically -- Scott Forsythe -- while others referred to him in the generic -- 22-year-old local man, or something to that effect.

While neither is wrong, I'd say the latter is the best approach. You have no reason to believe Forsythe is someone that would be known by name to your readers. In such cases, the generic identifier would suffice in a first reference, and you can offer the specific name as a secondary detail later in the story.

Now, if the victim was Oprah Winfrey, the name would be a good bet for the lede, precisely because she is someone many people would instantly recognize by name.

Robbery -- Did You Say . . .

. . . it was a brand of Winston cigarettes? Or just cigarettes?

Was the particular brand necessary to the story? Or was it unimportant, other than to give the company a free ad?

Specific brands should be cited if important to the story; like if a Ford Focus crashed into a Hummer. Knowing a teeny-car brand hit a monster-tank brand makes a story more understandable, right?

But in this case, the robber could have asked for Winstons or Camels or whatever. It really wouldn't have made any difference.

It's one thing if you were writing some sort of detailed narrative, where small observations mater in setting mood and color. This wasn't one of those cases. You were just writing a plain ol' daily news story.

Unless it was inside of a quote, I would have left out the brand name.

Robbery -- Did You Need . . .

. . . to use the clerk's full name of Michael Ernest Layoux?

It's not wrong to use middle names or middle initials, but here's a good rule of thumb: if you feel the name is so common where a middle name is needed to distinguish a person from others with a similar name, then you may want to use a middle name or initial. Like with former MSU football coach John L. Smith.

But if you feel the name is fairly unique, it's less necessary. Like with Omar Sofradzija.

BTW, you may have noticed serial killers or mass murderers or criminals of the highest profile are often referred to with a middle name included (like John Wayne Gacy, Lee Harvey Oswald, ect.). That's because with a crime so heinous, you want to go the extra mile to make sure you're identifying the right guy.