Robbery: Falatspalooza '14

Every semester, we have a practice story of two where it seems like the whole class goes off the fatal rail and plunges straight into It Sucks To Be Us Canyon. For my summer class, it was the "robbery" exercise, where the summer class had eight fatals. Last fall's "murder" assignment had six. Joining that group is our "robbery" assignment, which had FIVE fatals among 13 people who actually turned it in. (Two did not.)

Gulp. That's a pretty high ratio for just one exercise, even for JRN 200. Not the most ever in one assignment, but more than usual. And not a rate I'm comfortable with.

Sadly but typically, many of the fataled exercised were well-written and organized, and many would have scored very well if not for the fatals.

But in journalism, it's not about writing; it's about getting it right. I'm afraid it's a lesson many of us are being reminded of the hard way today.  

Let's look at what happened and why, and how we can avoid such fatals going forward: 


*****


PROBLEM: We said Layoux was let go by police after being talked to for two years; in fact, it was two hours.

SOLUTION: Before writing, we need to make sure we understand the facts correctly; only then do we start writing. Then, when we finish writing we review the information to make sure that what we wrote was what we intended to write (that it was two hours, not two days) and that what we wrote makes sense (if a robbery happened last night, then Layoux couldn't have already been talked to by police for two years, right?).

Looking for illogical passages can help us identify fatals.

*****

PROBLEM: Inside of a quote, we said Layoux said, "$30 dollars." That is a fatal, since using both the word and the dollar sign means we are saying that he literally said, "30 dollars dollars." The correct use would be just to use the dollar sign and number, like this: "$30."

SOLUTION: Make sure that anything inside of quote marks is exactly what was said, and that the way things are worded correctly represents exactly what was said.

*****

PROBLEM: We put quote marks around paraphrased information, implying it was what was directly told to us. Doing so is a fatal.

SOLUTION: We can turn a quote to a paraphrase, but not a paraphrase to a quote. Quotes can only be what was exactly said by  person or a document. In this case, the paraphrased information you had from police could not be turned into quotes. 

We have to be very careful in using quote marks. They are ONLY to be used to convey the EXACT words of an identified source, and not a summation of what they said. In English comp we often use quotes as a decorative element, to highlight key words and phrases of the writer's own doing. In journalism, we can NEVER do that.

A quote goes inside of quotation marks, and nothing else. 

*****

PROBLEM: We spelled the clerk's last name both as Layoux and Layroux.

SOLUTION: One last name can't be spelled two ways, so that should be a tip-off that one is wrong and needs to be fixed. In addition to checking for errors in spelling and identification, we should also be looking for inconsistencies: names that are spelled different ways, numbers that don't add up, etc., to see if fatals are hiding in those ways.