Nshima & Curry

Description for the sake of description

Aspiring reporters are often taught to put lots of description in their articles. "Description can help bring a subject to life," the journalism professor says. But not all subjects can be brought to life, not even with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

In the case of the Brampton, Ontario, double-homicide today, in which a man allegedly stabbed his wife and a Good Samaritan, the description that a Globe & Mail reporter decided to include served no purpose whatsoever, except perhaps to let everyone know that the reporter was wide awake in journalism class -- and probably sitting in the front row too.

Both the woman and the Good Samaritan died at the plaza, which was quickly flooded with police cruisers and emergency vehicles and cordoned off with yellow tape.

Two hours later, their bodies were still on the ground, covered by a yellow tarpaulin.

No names were immediately released.

Habiba Syed, who works at the nearby Bestway Food Market, witnessed part of yesterday's violence and recounted seeing a man try to stab himself in the neck with a bloody knife before slumping to the ground, shouting, ‘My wife is dead. my wife is dead.'

Pizza maker Amarik Mangar also saw some of the fight and described the slain woman as heavy-set. [Link]

Do we really care whether she was heavy-set, medium-set or light-set? Nope, not unless her weight had something to do with her death:

--- Pizza maker Amarik Mangar described the woman as heavy-set and said her last words were, "I don't care what you say, I'm not going on a diet!'

--- Pizza maker Amarik Mangar described the woman as heavy-set and said she was unable to run away from her husband.

--- Pizza maker Amarik Mangar described the woman as heavy-set and said she had just bought a large pizza at his store and refused to share any of it with her husband.

Perhaps the reporter should have tried to be a little balanced in his description:

--- Pizza maker Amarik Mangar described the woman as heavy-set, her husband as big-bellied, the Good Samaritan as rotund and himself as well-toned.

Or better yet:

--- Pizza maker Amarik Mangar described the woman as heavy-set, her husband as big-bellied, the Good Samaritan as rotund, himself as well-toned, and the Globe & Mail reporter as a horse's behind.

Photo by Peter Rukavina

I can't bring Halle Berry home anymore

If she's on the cover of a men's magazine like Esquire and GQ, I can't bring Halle Berry home. Not just Halle but other female stars such as Jessica Biel, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston. Esquire publishes some of the best in-depth feature stories in American journalism, but often puts a scantily clad woman on the cover. Back when I was a single guy with no children, I MAY have liked such covers, and by "MAY," I mean "Most Affirmatively Yes." I MAY have subscribed to Esquire, MAY have stuck the Halle Berry cover on my wall and MAY have written a letter to Esquire, complaining that they had made Halle wear too much.

But these days, I have two young daughters and want them to know that they need not dress like that to get attention. I want them to know that they can get on a magazine cover or be successful without using their faces or bodies to sell themselves. I want them to know that they can be like Ellen Degeneres and grace the cover of TV Guide, be like Annie Leibovitz and grace the cover of Newsweek, and be like Ann Coulter and disgrace the cover of Time. Well, maybe Coulter is a bad example, especially since I don't want my girls to stay in the kitchen and Coulter is always trying to "stir up the pot."

I'd like to subscribe to a magazine that puts all sorts of successful women on the cover, not just actresses and singers. And if one of my daughters chooses to be an actress or singer, I'd like her to know that she can act or sing magnificently without showing any skin, that Norah Jones would sound just as melodious in a burka. I'd like her to know that, even wearing a business suit, millions of people MAY still admire her.

King Kong and the Vogue cover

When Tom Withers of the Associated Press wrote that basketball star Lebron James was to appear on the April cover of Vogue magazine, this is how he described it:

Wearing a tank top, shorts and sneakers from his own Nike clothing line, James appears on the cover dribbling a basketball and screaming as if in game mode while throwing one arm around supermodel Gisele Bundchen with Tom Brady nowhere to be found. [Link]

Lebron holding Tom's girlfriend and screaming. Innocent enough, right? Not so fast. The cover, shot by acclaimed photographer Annie Leibovitz, has caused some people to scream foul, saying that the pose reminds them too much of King Kong carrying Fay Wray.

"It conjures up this idea of a dangerous black man," said Tamara Walker, 29, of Philadelphia.

... magazine analyst Samir Husni believes the photo was deliberately provocative, adding that it "screams King Kong." Considering Vogue's influential history, he said, covers are not something that the magazine does in a rush.

"So when you have a cover that reminds people of King Kong and brings those stereotypes to the front, black man wanting white woman, it's not innocent," he said. [Link]

Perhaps I didn't watch enough of King Kong, but the cover doesn't make me think of a giant ape holding a helpless damsel. First of all, Gisele looks hardly helpless. Secondly, Lebron looks like just another basketball player, screaming on the court, probably saying something like: "Look what I've got on my arm, dawg. Yeah, cost me five grand at the tattoo parlor."

Shocking News: American TV anchor asks about Iraqi dead

I was watching CNN last night and Rick Sanchez (pictured) was interviewing correspondent Michael Ware about the milestone that had just been reached: 4,000 American soldiers killed in Iraq. Then Sanchez absolutely stunned me. He asked about the Iraqi dead. I fell off the couch.

SANCHEZ: Let me ask you, Michael. Michael, I just want to interrupt you for a moment, because since we're talking of numbers, I want to ask you about something that rarely is talked about on network television in the United States. And that is, the 4,000 Americans is serious enough. But is it your understanding that the number of dead Iraqis would, what, double, triple? Or what would it do? What is that number? Do you know it?

WARE: Well, Rick, no one can give you a figure of the number of Iraqi souls that have been lost in the five years so far of this conflict. But it's exponentially greater than two or three or even ten times this terrible number of American casualties. We're talking about -- on conservative estimates between 80 thousand to 100,000 Iraqis have lost their lives.

And that's not to mention more than 4 million Iraqis are displaced from their homes. 2 million are lost here in Iraq wanting to return home. 2 million more plus are beyond this country's border and there seems little hope that any of them to return.

And the entire social fabric of this country has been torn asunder with a legacy of this war that it's now divided along sectarian lines, Sunni versus Shiite, when it never was before. Not even under Saddam. So the impact and the toll that this conflict has taken on these countries is almost immeasurable. [Transcript]

Some may fault Sanchez for saying "double, triple" and appearing grossly ignorant, but I'd like to give him a pat on the back. After all, we all know who the really ignorant people are: the ones who don't ask any questions and keep believing it's "double, triple."

How to tell if you're interviewing Hillary Clinton

Journalists mess up now and then. It just happens -- even when you're trying your best to get everything right. Perhaps you wrote "Hilary" instead of "Hillary." Perhaps you said "Hillary made her speech at 9 p.m." when she really made her speech at 8 p.m. And perhaps -- if your day is really going poorly -- you interviewed the wrong Hillary.

It was incorrectly reported in Tuesday’s Tribune Chronicle that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton answered questions from voters in a local congressman’s office.

Reporter John Goodall, who was assigned to the story, spoke by telephone with Hillary Wicai Viers, who is a communications director in U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson’s staff. According to the reporter, when Viers answered the phone with ‘‘This is Hillary,’’ he believed he was speaking with the Democratic presidential candidate, who had made several previous visits to the Mahoning Valley.

The quotes from Viers were incorrectly attributed to Clinton.

Wilson, the 6th District representative, hosted the first of six ‘‘economic listening tours’’ in his office on Boardman Canfield Road Monday. The talks were for people living in Columbiana and Mahoning counties. Wilson’s district stretches from Mahoning County to Scioto on the Kentucky border.

‘‘We rely on reporters to gather accurate information, and in this case, that obviously did not happen,” said Frank Robinson, editor of the paper. He said the the newspaper takes the matter very seriously and the situation is being reviewed. [Link]

As mistakes in journalism go, Goodall's article is a pretty big one (though not as unforgivable as plagiarism). I'm really surprised he didn't know he wasn't interviewing Clinton. Perhaps he didn't get the memo from the Society of Professional Journalists.

MEMO TO ALL JOURNALISTS

Some of our members have asked if there's a way to determine if they're really interviewing Hillary Clinton. Here are some clues. It's not Hillary Clinton if:

1. She answers the phone.

2. The next primary election is in Pennsylvania and you're writing for a small newspaper in Warren, Ohio.

3. She does not use the words "My opponent says ..." and "Under the current administration ..."

4. She can pronounce local names such as "Mahoning" and "Scioto."

5. She makes no reference to the prosperity of the 1990s.

6. She ends the call by saying, "Call me anytime, John. And don't forget to add me on Facebook."

Africa, the not-so-dark continent

Africa, even in the post-colonial era, has often been called the "dark continent" or referred to as "darkest Africa," mainly by people who have never set foot in Africa and apparently pictured it as one vast jungle upon which the sun never shined. Some have evidently relied on the words of tourists who visited Africa and never took off their sunglasses. ("You wouldn't believe it, Bob, even their sugar was dark!") It's been left to writers like me, who've spent years in Africa, to help shed some light on it. But to no avail.

As National Public Radio ombudsman (ombudswoman?) Alicia C. Shepard wrote in her blog, NPR newscaster Jean Cochran had to apologize recently for saying on Valentine's Day that President Bush was off on a visit to the "dark continent."

"I had no idea the term would be found offensive," said Cochran, who joined NPR in 1981. "I will concede antiquated but I was unaware it was 'racist and irredeemable,' as one person put it in an email. I was floored. Am I insensitive? I don't know how that could be since I didn't know there was anything to be sensitive about. I understood the term to refer to the African jungle. It's a canopy blocking out the light. A geographical term." [Link]

I could be wrong, but I think someone has been watching one too many Tarzan movies. Most Africans have never been to a jungle. The closest I've ever come to being in a jungle was in Baltimore.

Cochran is correct in one sense.  Originally, the term "dark continent" came into use in the 19th century to describe a continent largely unknown and mysterious to Europeans. Explorer Henry M. Stanley  used it in his 1878 book, Through the Dark Continent.

In fact, it is still used today, but in context. Because of the dearth of electricity on much of the continent, satellite imaging from outer space depicts much of Africa at night as literally a dark continent.  An article in The Economist last July, on how investors view Africa, refers to it as the "dark continent." "With all this concern of offending people, it is important for people to understand why and where the term exists," said Neal Weintraub, an author of four books on investing, who provided NPR The Economist example. [Link]

I don't buy that reasoning for the term's longevity. I don't think it has anything to do with electricity, even if Bill Gates has more lights in his front yard than Lusaka International Airport.

It's all about ignorance, a whole bunch of people who are still, despite our best efforts, in the dark.

Sorry, we messed up again and again and again

The media make mistakes more often than you think. Just ask Montreal-based journalist Craig Silverman, who keeps track of their corrections and apologies on his website Regret the Error. His review of 2007 errors includes the egregious, the entertaining and the downright exasperating.

Barack Obama has been the victim of media error several times, including twice by CNN. The first time, to headline a story about the search for America's most wanted terrorist, CNN asked, "Where's Obama?" The second time, the network reported that a mall shooting had occurred in Obama, Nebraska. And next year, they're going to do a story on the famous Portuguese explorer Vasco Obama.

The media haven't been kind to people with Muslim names. A number of them have been mistakenly labeled as terrorists, particularly in British publications, Silverman writes. Here's a correction from The Sun:

An article on 2 February "Hate on Shelves" about a police raid at a bookshop wrongly suggested in the first edition that Imran Khan, pictured above, was a US captive held in Guantanamo Bay. In fact, Mr Khan, a photo journalist and film maker, has never been a US captive nor involved in terrorist activities or allegations and is a head leaseholder unconnected with the business of the bookshop. We apologise to Mr Khan for the embarrassment caused.[Link]

Imran Khan is a head leaseholder? I would have thought a former cricketer would be doing something else, perhaps running for office.

Here's a correction from the Sentinel-Review (Woodstock, Ontario):

In an article in Monday’s newspaper, there may have been a misperception about why a Woodstock man is going to Afghanistan on a voluntary mission. Kevin DeClark is going to Afghanistan to gain life experience to become a police officer when he returns, not to shoot guns and blow things up. The Sentinel-Review apologizes for any embarrassment this may have caused. [Link]

You can gain "life experience" in Afghanistan -- and you can also gain "death experience."