Reading the Charlotte Sun Newspaper

Front page headline: Discover DoSoto County’s new drug discount

The headline orders, exhorts, cajoles, advises,urges and dictates. That’s because it’s in the imperative mood. Parents use the imperative to train children (Don’t do that!) and marketeers use the imperative to sell their wares (Buy now!) Why a promoter an editor would use it over a news story is beyond me.

The business page today awards about 30 inches to a local lawyer for a column called Legally Speaking. Warren R. Ross promises to dissect Hilton Hotels v. Carillo, a case about hotel safety brought by eight people who survived a terrorist attack in Egypt three years ago.

I read, eager to discover some far-reaching decision affecting life, property and happiness in my little town. Nope. Ross explains a recent ruling in the case decides whether the actual trial should be held in Miami or Egypt. He doesn’t mention a local lawyer on the case or that one of the injured is from these parts, so I assume there’s no connection.

The relevance is discovered in the phone book: The columnist is a principal in a firm that’s a major advertiser with this newspaper, a connection not disclosed in the column. The nice attorney buys ads, the publisher awards him editorial control.
Quid pro quo. I rest my case

Birds Call Kid a Winner

DeSoto County — Eighteen 4-H exhibitors took part in this year’s poultry show at the DeSoto County Fair, entering 105 birds, which announced the winners this week.
…..Grand champion of the open show was five-year-old Gavin Sullivan.

Gavin, we assume, was in fine feather. Thanks to staff writer John Lawhorne for the giggle.

This week’s travesty of medical “journalism” is written by public-relations person Michelle Ritter, who receives pay and benefits for saying nice things about her employer. And Charlotte Sun’s publisher provides the newsprint for its regular advertiser.

Ritter’s news is her employer is “celebrating” (yuck) a new unit at Fawcett Memorial Hospital. After making like she’s actually interviewed a couple of doctors about their “dreams” and “excitement,” she reports her employer provides “state-of-the-art” equipment where patients are treated “like family.” All those clichés are common among second-rate public relations writers. But most flacks — and newspaper copydesk editors — are bright enough to avoid the most sophomoric adjectives of all:

Another unique and very important feature of the program is its staff of dedicated nurses.

Tell us, please, what hospital-written news release has not mentioned its dedicated nurses? None of this is unique, Michelle.

The nurses that work in the Spine and Orthopedic Center are specially trained …

Patients expect the staff to have special training. Otherwise, why go to a specialist?

…and uniquely skilled to treat this type of patient.

Does Ritter expect readers to believe no other orthopedic service in the country trains its orthopedic nurses?

They work only with patients who have had spine or orthopedic procedures ….

And yet at various points in the rest of the story, Ritter claims the staff works with families, doctors, the concierge on call, visitors, and the rest of the hospital’s staff as needed. There’s no “only” about it.

…so these patients receive the maximum attention that they need to heal quickly and effectively

Umm, attention doesn’t promote healing, Doctor Ritter. Faulty cause and effect.

Ritter concludes in a tone of breathless amazement, calling even the nurse’s uniforms unique. The photo shows blue golf shirts and beige jackets and vests. Unique they are not.

And unfortunately, neither is this tired and windy piece of free, unedited copy provided by a regular advertiser and positioned as both the cover and “double truck” centerpiece in the Sunday tab.

For the weekly plagiarism discussion …

Come On, Chip — You Know You Should Cite a Source or Two

Local colorist Chip Ballard is a citizen journalist. He’s also a teacher and, as such, knows quite well that if we don’t cite our sources, we’re plagiarizing.

Ballard teaches children, and he regularly publishes his own works. Yet, this morning, he and Charlotte Sun editors found it acceptable to run a long paen to American writer John O’Hara without one word of attribution. It seems Ballard woke up one sunny morning knowing exactly what Dorothy Parker said to John O’Hara and what O’Hara said to John Steinbeck and what New York hotels John O’Hara drank at, and when and with whom.

Chip, you don’t have to steal something word-for-word to plagiarize. If you rewrite the research, ideas, and information of O’Hara’s biographers and present without acknowledging their efforts under your byline, you are a plagiarist.

This week’s travesty of medical “journalism” is written by public-relations person Michelle Ritter, who receives pay and benefits for saying nice things about her employer. And Charlotte Sun’s publisher provides the newsprint for its regular advertiser.

Ritter’s news is her employer is “celebrating” (yuck) a new unit at Fawcett Memorial Hospital. After making like she’s actually interviewed a couple of doctors about their “dreams” and “excitement,” she reports her employer provides “state-of-the-art” equipment where patients are treated “like family.” All those clichés are common among second-rate public relations writers. But most flacks — and newspaper copydesk editors — are bright enough to avoid the most sophomoric adjectives of all:

Another unique and very important feature of the program is its staff of dedicated nurses.

Tell us, please, what hospital-written news release has not mentioned its dedicated nurses? None of this is unique, Michelle.

The nurses that work in the Spine and Orthopedic Center are specially trained …

Patients expect the staff to have special training. Otherwise, why go to a specialist?

…and uniquely skilled to treat this type of patient.

Does Ritter expect readers to believe no other orthopedic service in the country trains its orthopedic nurses?

They work only with patients who have had spine or orthopedic procedures ….

And yet at various points in the rest of the story, Ritter claims the staff works with families, doctors, the concierge on call, visitors, and the rest of the hospital’s staff as needed. There’s no “only” about it.

…so these patients receive the maximum attention that they need to heal quickly and effectively

Umm, attention doesn’t promote healing, Doctor Ritter. Faulty cause and effect.

Ritter concludes in a tone of breathless amazement, calling even the nurse’s uniforms unique. The photo shows blue golf shirts and beige jackets and vests. Unique they are not.

And unfortunately, neither is this tired and windy piece of free, unedited copy provided by a regular advertiser and positioned as both the cover and “double truck” centerpiece in the Sunday tab.

For the weekly plagiarism discussion …

Come On, Chip — You Know You Should Cite a Source or Two

Local colorist Chip Ballard is a citizen journalist. He’s also a teacher and, as such, knows quite well that if we don’t cite our sources, we’re plagiarizing.

Ballard teaches children, and he regularly publishes his own works. Yet, this morning, he and Charlotte Sun editors found it acceptable to run a long paen to American writer John O’Hara without one word of attribution. It seems Ballard woke up one sunny morning knowing exactly what Dorothy Parker said to John O’Hara and what O’Hara said to John Steinbeck and what New York hotels John O’Hara drank at, and when and with whom.

Chip, you don’t have to steal something word-for-word to plagiarize. If you rewrite the research, ideas, and information of O’Hara’s biographers and present without acknowledging their efforts under your byline, you are a plagiarist.

I hope everyone at Sun-Herald newspapers who has an interest in “citizen journalism” and “reader-generated content” gets a chance to read Adam Weinstein’s ‘Stop the Press Releases’ in Mother Jones Magazine.

“The only thing newspapers still have going for them is their reputation for telling the truth, going deep, and reporting good stories,” Weinstein writes.

“There’s a place for reader blogs and community participation in the 21st-century newspaper, but let’s not kid ourselves that they are a substitute for what people look for in their morning paper,” Weinstein writes.

Reader-generated content and citizen journalism aren’t real journalism — and readers know the difference.

Copy thrown up on the Web seemingly just to fill space — readers recognize the sloppy, shoddy work of a demoralized “couldn’t care less” staff, dancing as fast as it can.

This headline has been rising and descending the list of top stories over at Sun-Herald.com’s news page. I wasn’t going to bring it up, hoping against hope it would simply evaporate. But as they say, once it’s on the Web, it’s there forever.

You can vote Monday but some stuff closed for MLK day

Stuff?

The story lead: “You can still vote in the Florida presidential primary on Monday, but there are a lot of closings people should be aware of.”

Still?

And, by the way, early voting in DeSoto County is only at the Supervisor of Elections office and “government offices for counties and cities in Charlotte, DeSoto and Sarasota are closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday.” So tell us, please, how we can “still vote” on Monday.

A DeSoto Sun staff writer attempts to report a local hospital’s staff reduction and produces the sorriest story the newspaper has run to date. The writer, John Lawhorne, simply hands the microphone, so to speak, to the suits and dutifully writes down a string of non sequiturs. Laying off five people contributes, in some strange way, to patient satisfaction. Lawhorne doesn’t think to ask how that might happen. Not one word of the story makes sense.

The reporter’s most profound failure is the ease with which he and his suit-source turn real people into abstractions: “five layoffs,” “staff,” and “positions.” The word “person” is not used once. “Job” doesn’t even enter the picture.

…DeSoto Memorial Hospital’s Chief Executive Officer Vincent Sica said today that five layoffs at the hospital’s Center for Family Health were not related to the new $20 million hospital addition.
…Sica said five positions at DMH’s Center for Family Health had been eliminated, due to a change in the hospital’s philosophy regarding the family center. The staff reduction led to the layoffs, with the goal of increasing patient satisfaction.
…The hospital board has decided to focus on operating the center more like a doctor’s office, Sica said.
…“Originally, we would bring new physicians into the center and let them work for a couple of years to build up their patient relations. Then they would go out on their own and set up a private practice.
…“We were trying to run the center as a hybrid — half doctor’s office and half walk-in clinic,” Sica said.

Yup, that’s the entire story, beginning to end. I’m almost at a loss for words. Sun Coast Media Group must have laid off all its copy editors for this to make it through the pipeline. And shame on John Lawhorne for failing journalism so completely.

A DeSoto Sun staff writer attempts to report a local hospital’s staff reduction and produces the sorriest story the newspaper has run to date. The writer, John Lawhorne, simply hands the microphone, so to speak, to the suits and dutifully writes down a string of non sequiturs. Laying off five people contributes, in some strange way, to patient satisfaction. Lawhorne doesn’t think to ask how that might happen. Not one word of the story makes sense.

The reporter’s most profound failure is the ease with which he and his suit-source turn real people into abstractions: “five layoffs,” “staff,” and “positions.” The word “person” is not used once. “Job” doesn’t even enter the picture.

…DeSoto Memorial Hospital’s Chief Executive Officer Vincent Sica said today that five layoffs at the hospital’s Center for Family Health were not related to the new $20 million hospital addition.
…Sica said five positions at DMH’s Center for Family Health had been eliminated, due to a change in the hospital’s philosophy regarding the family center. The staff reduction led to the layoffs, with the goal of increasing patient satisfaction.
…The hospital board has decided to focus on operating the center more like a doctor’s office, Sica said.
…“Originally, we would bring new physicians into the center and let them work for a couple of years to build up their patient relations. Then they would go out on their own and set up a private practice.
…“We were trying to run the center as a hybrid — half doctor’s office and half walk-in clinic,” Sica said.

Yup, that’s the entire story, beginning to end. I’m almost at a loss for words. Sun Coast Media Group must have laid off all its copy editors for this to make it through the pipeline. And shame on John Lawhorne for failing journalism so completely.

The polls are open and “Charlotte County’s Supervisor of Elections Mac Horton said about 1,500 people are voting daily …,” my newspaper reports.

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The polls are open and “Charlotte County’s Supervisor of Elections Mac Horton said about 1,500 people are voting daily …,” my newspaper reports.

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