Borked Unicode: Tips for journalists on Unicode and writing clean copy

Xtra, the homosexualist fortnightly published by a not-for-profit yet funded by de facto porn, is hiring for a new site, DailyXtra.com.

Editorial director Matt Mills won’t give me a straight answer about the new site. Conceptually, it sounds like another failed gay blog, with:

  • atrocious code that might take down your browser

  • /News/NationalNews/2011/jan7_mile-long-slugs-replicating-most-but-not-all-the-text-in-the-headline-that-incidentally-isnt-even-marked-up-as-an-h1.aspx/ (“asspix”)

  • tables for layout

  • Flash video

  • ads, including not-safe-for-work ads

  • gassy rehashing of other people’s work (plagiarism masquerading as “aggregation”)

  • defamation

  • pageview-inflating segmentation of articles; preponderance of “slideshows” with similar effect

  • comments, which may be reported to law enforcement

Xtra operates a severely broken technical infrastructure. Perhaps you’ve tried to load an Xtra news story on iOS?

Blank screen with message: An error has occurred

A tall, overly excitable Ukrainian bottom was chipping away at the Sisyphean task of fixing that infrastructure until they canned him. Among other things, he taught the men nearing retirement age who run the place what Flickr is.

A question I asked Mills, for which I await an answer: “Do you want semicompetent people with bad taste poorly implementing half-remembered bad advice, or do you want this thing to succeed? In other words, will you hire the least unqualified applicants or will you actually do digital journalism right? You’ve got one chance at this.”

A properly conceived gay-news site requires:

  1. positively no comments whatsoever on any news stories; ruthlessly premoderated comments on selected op-ed pieces

  2. bulletproof code

  3. professional graphic design (which costs in the low five digits for one of the few real Web designers at work today, most of whom I know personally); Webfonts inadvisable unless and until tested on Windows

  4. well-tested adaptive layouts for common and many uncommon platforms (double-checked by PPK)

  5. legitimate fact-checking, including looking up every factual assertion (down to the name of the sitting prime minister) and calling sources to verify quotes

  6. a viable print stylesheet

  7. ongoing training for staff in markup, semantics, and character encoding

  8. original journalism only; relegation of daily links to Pinboard

  9. its own Flipboard pane and Flipboard-specific CSS

  10. rational slugs (can be conceptually overlapped with shortlinks)

  11. at most exactly one ad at a time

  12. Instapaper and Readability integration, among others

  13. a reader-contribution model

  14. a ban on staff picking or perpetuating fights, especially on Twitter

  15. training pages and videos to raise the skills of its readers to 21st-century levels

  16. complete avoidance of internal E-mail for any editorial or production function whatsoever, with every single thing done via Basecamp, the chosen CMS (probably WordPress), meetings, instant messaging, and phone

In other words, anything at all that seems remotely familiar from existing gay-news sites must be avoided at all costs. Everything they’re doing they’re doing wrong.

It’s nice they’re hiring a copy editor; heaven knows they need one, even online. But this is a publication that still won’t use italics (because Ken Popert banned them 20 years ago) or write periods in abbreviations like Mr. and St., so they have nowhere to go but up when it comes to copy quality.

But this thing needs a real editor who actually knows his stuff and isn’t labouring under the misapprehension he’s a volunteer facilitatrix at a rape-crisis centre. This isn’t the first time Mills and Xtra have played games with me, but if at some point Mills deigns to actually answer my questions I might file an application. If I were you, I wouldn’t laugh.

The foregoing posting appeared on Joe Clark’s personal Weblog on 2012.01.07 13:33. This presentation was designed for printing and omits components that make sense only onscreen. (If you are seeing this on a screen, then the page stylesheet was not loaded or not loaded properly.) The permanent link is:
http://blog.fawny.org/2012/01/07/dailyxtra/

(CORRECTED) On 2012.01.05, the Canada 2 four-man bobsled driven by Chris Spring crashed on the track at Altenberg, Germany. Three of the four bobsledders were injured – Spring, Bill Thomas, and Graeme Rinholm – and were hospitalized in Germany. Tim Randall had only superficial injuries and was not hospitalized. The Canadian bobsleigh team pulled out of the race the next day, with coach Tom de la Hunty insisting the track remained unsafe.

On 2012.01.06, Bobsleigh Canada held a conference call for journalists. I phoned in and took notes. Participants (alphabetically):

  • Nathan Cicoria, high-performance director

  • Chris Dornan, media rep (normally out of Houston, in Val di Fiemme, Italy, during the call)

  • Tom de la Hunty, head coach

  • Pierre Lueders, driving coach

  • Lyndon Rush, pilot, Canada 1

  • Don Wilson, Bobsleigh Canada CEO

When not specified, usually it was de la Hunty answering questions. [continue with “Chris Spring bobsleigh accident: Liveblog of conference call with reporters” →]

The foregoing posting appeared on Joe Clark’s personal Weblog on 2012.01.06 15:53. This presentation was designed for printing and omits components that make sense only onscreen. (If you are seeing this on a screen, then the page stylesheet was not loaded or not loaded properly.) The permanent link is:
http://blog.fawny.org/2012/01/06/bobsleighcrash-liveblog/


Almost every mistake that could be made has been made in the conception and production of the “high-class” Berner Men Calendar 2011.

Embarrassed-looking bobsledder in square-cut swimsuit stands under waterfall as male photographer takes his picture
  • They picked bobsledders (gold star right there), then shaved them baby-smooth. Obviously that isn’t smooth enough, so out came the baby oil.

  • They forced one of the few ginger bobsledders, Manuel Machata, to take off his glasses. We’ve been through this already: You don’t need the façade of perfect vision, let alone actual perfect vision, to pilot a sled.

  • They made the second-biggest guy in all of bobsleigh, Alexander Mann, look as reedy as a platform diver.

  • Failing to heed the lesson of Dieux du stade, they cap the whole thing off with some scaredy-cat shower scenes that do nothing for anybody. I doubt the guy even felt cleaner by the end of it.

It goes on and on and on. And in another sign these Germans should have quit while they were ahead, Berner keeps pumping out self-incriminating making-of videos (Day 1, Day 2look up the rest yourself).

Something has to be amiss when any of these athletes looks better seated in a makeup chair wearing a T-shirt.

How exactly did Germans manage to make shirtless German bobsledders seem tacky? How much of an achievement is it that I feel sorry for these guys?

The foregoing posting appeared on Joe Clark’s personal Weblog on 2012.01.02 14:34. This presentation was designed for printing and omits components that make sense only onscreen. (If you are seeing this on a screen, then the page stylesheet was not loaded or not loaded properly.) The permanent link is:
http://blog.fawny.org/2012/01/02/bernercal2012/

So-called SEIER + SEIER( +  SEIER) from Copenhagen, e.g.:

The various SEIERs have hacked a photo gallery into a kind of architecture Weblog.

The foregoing posting appeared on Joe Clark’s personal Weblog on 2012.01.02 13:07. This presentation was designed for printing and omits components that make sense only onscreen. (If you are seeing this on a screen, then the page stylesheet was not loaded or not loaded properly.) The permanent link is:
http://blog.fawny.org/2012/01/02/seier-seier-seier/

‘Eye’ magazine, iPad, notes on marble-topped table

Cover Long-awaited development: An interview in Eye not conducted electronically. Feature not awaited by anyone: Complaint by Rick Poynor that graphic-design history picks and chooses its winners. And, as ever, I seem to be alone in noticing when the same topic comes up in more than one place in the magazine. Am I the only one who reads it cover to cover? [continue with “‘Eye’ 81” →]

The foregoing posting appeared on Joe Clark’s personal Weblog on 2011.12.29 14:14. This presentation was designed for printing and omits components that make sense only onscreen. (If you are seeing this on a screen, then the page stylesheet was not loaded or not loaded properly.) The permanent link is:
http://blog.fawny.org/2011/12/29/eye81/

Soi-disantblokey” homosexualist actor Mr. RUSSELL TOVEY in de facto Duran Duran music video.

Russell Tovey with caption # Do do do-do do do-do do do-do do do-do do do

The foregoing posting appeared on Joe Clark’s personal Weblog on 2011.12.14 14:33. This presentation was designed for printing and omits components that make sense only onscreen. (If you are seeing this on a screen, then the page stylesheet was not loaded or not loaded properly.) The permanent link is:
http://blog.fawny.org/2011/12/14/toveyism/

I cannot go so far to say he is the smartest man in publishing, but the smartest young man in publishing is clearly Mr. JAMES BRIDLE.

Mr. BRIDLE approaches Ben Hammersley levels of erudition.

The foregoing posting appeared on Joe Clark’s personal Weblog on 2011.12.13 14:48. This presentation was designed for printing and omits components that make sense only onscreen. (If you are seeing this on a screen, then the page stylesheet was not loaded or not loaded properly.) The permanent link is:
http://blog.fawny.org/2011/12/13/bridle/

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