Two, Two, Two Leads in One

The Associated Press recently announced that it would start offering two leads for many news stories.

AP will now provide the traditional straight news leads containing the main facts of the story along with the optional lead, which AP described as "an alternative approach that attempts to draw in the reader through imagery, narrative devices, perspective or other creative means."

An article in Editor & Publisher quoted AP officials as saying the move was designed in part to provide readers with a "fresh" take on the news "so they will want to pick up the newspaper and read a story, even though the facts have been splashed all over the Web and widely broadcast."

According to the AP officials, the optional leads will only be available for print.

Will this move push print newspapers further into becoming strictly feature-oriented publications, perhaps attracting more subscribers from the sometimes-elusive younger demographic? Or is this just the latest attempt to try to revive a dying print newspaper industry?


Related link:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000844185

Mary Parker Follett as a Blogger

It occurred to me sometime back that Mary Parker Follett, the turn-of-the-(20th)-century management maven, author, and activist would make a delightful blogger. Follett (1868-1933), whose work was essentially ignored by a number of organizational theorists in her day, finally gained attention in the 1950s when Peter Drucker called her his "guru". Today, her writings are frequently studied in business schools, in community education, and among organizational communicators for their wisdom and managerial philosophy. That said, Follett was a frequent essayist, speaker, and commentator too. She was a student of organizations and business, certainly, but she also found time to read extensively in education, politics, sociology, ethics, world affairs, psychology, and the arts. Some say she is best known for her work in community development and the idea of community centers in particular. And it is this notion of community that focuses my point.

Were she alive today, I think Follett would be blogger in addition to a speaker, essayist, and scholar. She would find the essence of a weblog both fascinating and essential to developing a community within a global environment. In her article, "Community is a Process," written in 1919, Follett argues that: "...community is a creative process. It is creative because it is a process of integrating....The creative power of the individual appears not when one 'wish dominates others, but when all 'wishes' unite in a working whole....What then is the law of community? From biology, from psychology, from our observation of social groups, we see that community is that intermingling which evokes creative power....As the process of community creates personality and will, freedom appears."

I should like to think that Follett would see the weblog as a community, as a creative process that through individuals creates a whole, and an interchange that strengthens and unifies when other forms of collectivity fails. While Follett expands on larger issues than the essence of community, she always seems to relate it to freedom and the "practice of community."

Is blogging a practice of community?

We should all look so good after serving time

Did Newsweek mislead the public with its recent cover photo illustration of Martha Stewart?

The magazine identified the cover -- which shows a beaming Stewart emerging from gold curtains looking slender and happy -- as a photo illustration on page 3. In a March 2 interview on National Public Radio, Lynn Staley, assistant managing editor for Newsweek, explained that the photo illustration included Martha Stewart’s head placed atop a model’s body. Staley said the image was designed to depict Martha’s emergence from prison, looking ahead to what Martha’s future might be. She said it was not Newsweek’s intention to deceive. But does this photo illustration cross the line of deception? Should Newsweek have identified the image as a photo illustration on the cover rather than on page 3? Does it really matter in this day and age of complex digital enhancement capability?

See related links:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7038081/site/newsweek/
and
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4520166

Eulogy for a master wordsmith

Hunter's dead. His ashes have been blown from a cannon across his sprawling ranch outside of Aspen. Just thought I'd post my favorite Hunter S. Thompson quote, in honor of one of the 20th Century's most-inspired voices.
Hope you'll leave yours, too:

"The music businessis a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."