Good PR verifies deadlines and procedures

A few months ago, I volunteered to submit “Religion Briefs” each week for my church to the local newspaper. Doing so made sense, because it compliments my work as professional Web Content Editor — of updating the upcoming Sunday service on the church’s website.

TIME author equates Asperger’s with trolling

As a survivor of bullying who has personally experienced cowardly attacks on the Internet, I share with TIME magazine author Joel Stein a concern that anonymity is a breeding ground for abuses. That said, I wish to express my concern with Stein’s portrayal of “the web” as “a sociopath with Asperger’s.”

Continuing interest in information literacy

Learning to evaluate websites for credibility has been an ongoing subject for concern, revisited this week in response to an assignment for LIBT 210, School Library/Media Center Operations.

Trolling: ‘part of the job’ for women in online media?

For The Mary Sue, Jill Pantozzi raises a valid question: “Is Dealing With Vicious Internet Trolls ‘Just Part of the Job’ For Women In Online Media?” She links to a piece in which “Jezebel Staff” describe the placing of violent pornographic images in the discussion section of their articles.

Although Jezebel staffers can manually dismiss comments and ban offensive commentators, “Literally nothing” stops abusive posters from signing up for another untraceable account and posting more abusive images. “It’s like playing whack-a-mole with a sociopathic Hydra.”

‘Open’ verification of information and source

How do we define verification in 2014? For PBS MediaShift, Julie Posetti writes thoughtful commentary about journalists’ use of social media to verify content and source.

My journalism mentor seeks new opportunity

Steve Buttry

Steve Buttry, a mentor of mine, announced that he’s a free agent, following layoffs by Digital First Media.

Until February 2013, I worked at the Lake County Record-Bee in northern California. Owned by MediaNews Group, it joined the DFM family when MediaNews appointed John Paton as its CEO and entered an agreement with Digital First Media to provide management services.

The move brought a change in emphasis from next-day print journalism to “digital first” publication across websites and social media.

‘The Last Newspaper Boy in America’

David family males have delivered the newspaper in Steele, Penn. for as long as the town has existed, with each boy taking over the route when he turns 12 years old.

On the eve of his 12th birthday, Wil David receives unwelcome news: the Cooper County Caller will end newspaper delivery to Steele.

Author Sue Corbett brings the perspective of a former youth carrier to her story of a town trying to survive hard times. Interwoven with Wil’s crusade to save the newspaper route is an effort by Steele residents to attract new business to the town’s closed hairpin factory.

Combine this with shady dealings at the county fair and Corbett’s novel is an exciting one. The title of each chapter cleverly mimics the newspaper headline-writing style.

Corbett, a journalist, accurately portrays the changing media landscape. When Wil researches articles online, the results are limited by paywalls.

And librarians may appreciate the library’s acknowledged role in bridging the digital divide: Wil conducts online research and checks his email on library computers.

Autism headlines: Lisa Jo Rudy urges caution

Lisa Jo Rudy

One of the most important responsibilities of an information professional is to empower clients to evaluate the credibility of information for themselves.

At About.com: Autism Spectrum Disorders, Lisa Jo Rudy offers suggestions about what to watch out for when reading stories in the media about “cures” or “causes” of autism.

Autism: Letters help shape perceptions in media

At TheInvisibleStrings.com, M. Kelter offers perceptive analysis of autism coverage in the media, arguing that a wider range of stories are conveyed through the “new media” of blogs and social posts, but are limited to fragmented audiences.

Monsanto marches: Not really ignored by media

A grammatically and factually wrong meme

A Facebook user named Jason Aaron Wood has a fantastic “Monsanto” meme. “Hate Monsanto? Want to make an effective viral meme?” it reads. “Try facts.”

Facts are too often absent from social media memes.

Case in point: a montage of images from the international protest against Genetically Modified Organisms that took place on Saturday. It reads: “Meanwhile the mainstream media completely ignores [sic] the global march against Monsanto in over 400 cities.”

As a former journalist and aspiring librarian, a claim like this matters to me. I have a doubly-vested interest in setting the record straight. Indeed, a search on Google disproved the claim with links to coverage by the Washington Post, USA Today and regional and local network affiliates.

Newswatch 12, an ABC affiliate, covered the protest march in Medford, Oregon. It reported a turnout of 800 people who joined their marching counterparts in more than 250 cities in 36 countries around the world.

A more accurate caption would read: “Meanwhile, March Against Monsanto organizers ignore coverage of their marches because they belie the marchers’ portraying themselves as ‘ignored’ by mainstream media.”

Autism reporting needs better sources

Shannon Des Roches Rosa, writing at BlogHer.com about autism in the media, urges journalists to “work harder, find better sources, seek out fairer messages, and help the rest of society learn to better accept and understand autistic people.”

As she aptly states,

“Would you want someone patronizing you in front of the entire world, or writing headlines about how awful your life is and how much you suck? Well, autistic people don’t want that either, and neither do autism families -- yet those are the autism stories most frequently in the news.”

This former journalist, diagnosed in adulthood, appreciates Rosa’s stance. When I worked for a California newspaper, I placed personal emphasis upon accurate, respectful portrayals of people with disabilities. I continue to advocate greater representation by people with disabilities in the field of journalism.

What I appreciate most about Rosa’s essay is that she goes beyond merely complaining about bad sources and misinformation in the media. Instead she has curated an impressive list of authoritative, credible sources.

Adult autistics, autistic parents and neurotypical parents of autistic children, autism professionals, autism science, research and pseudoscience debunking; journalists and autism communities are included in her list.

(Aspiring library professional that I am, I salute effective curating. I also advocate greater diversity among library professionals.)

 With their position of power, journalists have a responsibility to portray autistic people accurately. My thanks to Rosa for her efforts toward advancing this aim.

Authors’ books get ‘Coverflip’ treatment

Image credit: Book Revels

Similar to the Hawkeye Initiative’s commentary upon women in superhero comics: A Huffington Post slideshow features book covers with the author’s gender and the target audience’s gender flipped.

The idea originated with author Maureen Johnson who stated on Twitter, “I do wish I had a dime for every email I get that says, ‘Please put a non-girly cover on your book so I can read it. - signed, A Guy’”

As  Johnson elaborated at Huffington Post:

“This idea that there are ‘girl books’ and ‘boy books’ and ‘chick lit’ and ‘whatever is the guy equivalent of chick lit’ gives credit to absolutely no one, especially not the boys who will happily read stories by women, about women. As a lover of books and someone who supports readers and writers of both sexes, I would love a world in which books are freed from some of these constraints. ...

“Which is why yesterday, I proposed a little experiment on Twitter. I asked people to take a well-known book, then to imagine the author of that book was of the opposite gender, or was genderqueer, and imagine what that cover might look like.”

Johnson said she received “hundreds of replies within 24 hours.”

Social sharing credit goes to Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

Hawkeye Initiative: Male superhero duplicates women’s awkward poses

Source angels-assemble on Tumblr

My brother Andrew R. Parkhill shared this on his Facebook timeline: The Hawkeye Initiative duplicates female superheroes’ -- ahem -- overly exhibitive, off-balance postures with a male superhero, Clint “Hawkeye” Barton. It’s a refreshing alternative and commentary upon depictions of women in superhero comics. And it’s timely given the emphasis of my women’s health class upon media portrayals and social attitudes about women.

Don’t blame all media for unhealthy images of women

A selection of videos in my women’s health class this week raise interesting points about U.S. society’s unhealthy emphasis upon a narrow standard of female beauty. We were asked, in a discussion board, to respond to one film in particular, Miss Representation.

While I share genuine concern about messages of female dis-empowerment, one point that I object to is its attribution to “the media” of unhealthy attitudes about women.

A very small number of pundits, notably from Fox News, are shown presenting offensive comments dismissing Hillary Clinton, yet this attitude is attributed to “the media” as a whole. Images of emaciated models from magazine advertising are also attributed to “the media.”

News anchor Jennifer Livingston brought bullying into national dialogue when she responded to a viewer who called her fat.

Livingston’s television station is not Fox Network News and she is not Bill O’Reilly but when people dismiss “the media,” they lump Livingston into the same category as the pundits whose spiteful comments are featured in the film.

Why is it OK to stereotype “the media” and everyone who works in various media industries as somehow all contributing to these destructive attitudes?

I agree with a statement in the video about the importance of advertising as a source of media revenue and also agree that advertising is based upon making people feel anxious and insecure. But it is important to specify the medium and the type of advertising.

Journalism Accelerator: Support for minority entrepreneurs for greater diversity in media

Thank you, Journalism Accelerator, for highlighting my comment about media portrayals of the disability community on a recent JA blog post.

On Dec. 14, JA writer Emily Harris posted an interview with Doug Mitchell, co-director of the Unity New U Entrepreneur Fellowship program. The orgaization helps secure funding for minority journalists to want to start their own company. In so doing, it contributes to greater diversity in the media.

I advocated inclusion of the disability community among efforts to promote greater representation among minority journalists. JA posted a link to my comment on Twitter.

If you subscribed to the newspaper, you would already know the answer to your question

I wish I had the newsstand price of a newspaper for every time someone calls the newsroom asking if an item ran. "It's in this morning's newspaper." If you subscribed, you would already know.

Election news in Record-Bee

Look at all the election news on the Lake County Record-Bee website and the front page of today’s print edition. Be sure to tell managing editor Mandy Feder and the newsroom reporters how much you appreciate their efforts bringing these election returns to you.

‘What’s the difference between a columnist and a blogger?’

Steve Buttry poses an interesting question, blogging at The Buttry Diary: “What’s the difference between a columnist and a blogger?”

Copy quality affects swift publication of news release

One of the best professional investments I ever made was a $1 or $2 purchase: an Associated Press (AP) Stylebook that I found at a Santa Rosa yard sale. The book served me well during a two-year tenure as vice president of public relations for my local Toastmasters club, Tenacious Talkers, No. 8731.

From consumers to creators of media

Viking fans Brett Gardner and his mother, Tami Gardner, watch  a video on the
TC Rover TV with John Brewer and C.J. Sinner of TwinCities.com.
From Steve Buttry/The Buttry Diary

In the September/October edition of American Libraries, author Greg Landgraf highlights eight libraries and four museums awarded $100,000 grants to create digital learning labs and mentor teens to become creators and not merely consumers of media.