YIKES

From Tech Central, by way of unmediated:

China's first novel delivered through SMS (short message service) is being made into a film that will also be delivered to cellphones and on the Internet, state media said Sunday.

The Taiwan-based company Bestis Technologies has bought the film rights to Outside the Fortress Besieged, a 4,200-character, 60-chapter novel that has been sent out to mobile subscribers in short installments, Xinhua news agency said.

8:16:54 PM    

HOW TO READ A NEWSPAPER

Read the second paragraph; and look for quote marks
Surprisingly often, the key fact is not in the first paragraph, which is general and designed to grab attention. Look for the hard fact in the next paragraph. If it seems soft and contentless, there is probably very little in the story.

That's from Andrew Marr, at The Guardian on-line (free registration required) in an excerpt from his book, My Trade, a Short History of British Journalism.

The article is intended to help people read the news, but there's stuff in there for those who write the news, too. Marr starts...

Reporting is now so contaminated by bias and campaigning, and general mischief, that no reader can hope to get a picture of what is happening without first knowing who owns the paper, and who it is being published for.

...and then goes on to offer 11 tips for getting the straight goods from media. While he's dealing specifically with British media, you'll quickly get the point: Reading the news takes some work. The sampling of subheads gives you a sense of that: Suspect financial superlatives, Remember that news is cruel, and Suspect "research."

Two more quotes from the article:

If the headline asks a question, try answering "no"
...A headline with a question mark at the end means, in the vast majority of cases, that the story is tendentious or oversold. It is often a scare story, or an attempt to elevate some run-of-the-mill piece of reporting into a national controversy and, preferably, a national panic. To a busy journalist hunting for real information a question mark means "don't bother reading this bit."

...and...

Finally, believe nothing you read about newspaper sales - nothing
Newspaper sales have been falling in Britain for a long time, and steadily. Yet every newspaper manages to tell a heartwarming story about how successful its sales are, almost every month. Work it out for yourself.

Source: editorsweblog.org
9:32:58 AM