Howard Owens - Latest Comments

Re: ‘Lede’ vs. ‘Lead’

Fred Donaldson — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:39:47 -0000

Everyone used the term lede in the late 50s and early 60s, when I worked at the Evening and Sunday Bulletin, Philadelphia, and in the late 60s, 70s and 80s as an editor for Intercounty Newspaper Group, and even into the mid 2000s, when I published The Phoenix, a daily newspaper in Phoenixville, PA.

Wikipedia notes: "A lead, or lede, paragraph in literature refers to the opening paragraph of an article, essay, news story or book chapter. Often called just the lede/lead, it usually occurs together with the headline or title.
It precedes the main body of the article, and it gives the reader the
main idea of the story. Both spellings of the word are pronounced to
rhyme with "need".

"In the journalism industry, particularly in the United States (see News style), the term is spelled "lede". The alternative spelling was invented to differentiate it from references to the metal lead (pronounced the same as "led"), which was used to cast type.[1] "Lede" refers to one or two sentences, not multiple paragraphs.
This spelling is absent from almost all print dictionaries, though it has recently started to appear in some online-edition US dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster.com (it does not appear in any of their print versions, even unabridged) and theFreeDictionary.com; it is also listed in Wiktionary (and was chosen for the rest of this article).

"In journalism, the lede paragraph should not be confused with the standfirst (UK),
rider, kicker or subhead (US). These terms refer to an introductory or summary line or brief paragraph, located immediately above or below the headline, and typographically distinct from the body of the article."

Re: Migrating from Drupal to WordPress

Wordpress Arena — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 05:17:53 -0000

best option to use migration tool to export Drupal to WordPress

Re: My evolution as a photographer and thoughts on the Chicago Sun-Times

Brian Cubbison — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 11:48:09 -0000

The interest in video seems to be driven by the higher rates some news organizations can charge, above the digital dimes. That aside, I think it's notable that you weren't a staff photographer when you the boss gave your reporter self a camera and said go take pictures. You wanted to keep getting better and believed in what you were doing. There are likely to be reporters who take to it the same way. Have I described you accurately?

I've put some effort into seeing how well iPhones can cover the news. The iPhone is best at being "the camera you have with you." It's also good at uploading quickly, at least these days. Other things take some planning and are a challenge: Zoom, tripod, lighting.

Re: My evolution as a photographer and thoughts on the Chicago Sun-Times

Howard Owens — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:06:30 -0000

I have a 35mm 1.8 prime and a 55mm 1.4 prime and an 18mm 3.5 prime (came with a film camera in a box I bought at an auction). Yes, primes have superior image quality, especially over the consumer-grade zooms, but my 70-200mm is pretty awesome. For photojournalism work, zooms provide more flexibility.

Re: My evolution as a photographer and thoughts on the Chicago Sun-Times

Patrick Thornton — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 13:26:40 -0000

I'll have to look into the magic trio. I hadn't heard of it before.

I definitely want to spend money on glass before I upgrade my D40 body (I use a D3200 at work). I mostly shoot the Nikon 35mm 1.8 prime, which I really like. I prefer primes for their light weight and sharpness. I also want to get the 85mm 1.8 prime. But that leaves me with a big hole at the wide angle side of things, as the DX bodies make the 35mm into a 53mm.

Do you have the 14-24mm? I'd be very interested in that. If I one day do more sports shooting again, I'd definitely look long and hard at the 70-200mm.

Re: My evolution as a photographer and thoughts on the Chicago Sun-Times

Howard Owens — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:37:21 -0000

Thanks, Patrick. I doubled down on the 7000 when the 7100 came out because outside of the larger sensor, there wasn't much difference for the price. File size is important to me because I take so many photos and need to work quickly, so I saved a few bucks on the smaller sensor (which is still I think is a very fine sensor).

The 70-200mm is part of Nikon's magic trio. I wish I had all three lenses. http://www.nikonguides.com/tri...

It's definitely worth the money to buy professional grade glass if you can afford it.

Re: My evolution as a photographer and thoughts on the Chicago Sun-Times

Billy Suratt — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:28:44 -0000

Every knowledgeable newspaper staffer I've known who's shared facts about video use and demand at their paper has said stills consistently outperform video online. Video shouldn't be ignored for sure, and it's a visual journalism skill set all photojournalists should adopt, but I don't see still photography going away anytime soon.

Re: My evolution as a photographer and thoughts on the Chicago Sun-Times

Patrick Thornton — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 10:58:59 -0000

Well said Howard.

Part of what makes photography so powerful for news organizations, particularly good photography, is that people like to look at and share photos, even if the event or what is in them doesn't mean much to them. I find many of the photos you take for The Batavian interesting, even though I live in DC. That would never be true with video.

This is even more true today with social media. People love to share photos, and the Facebook algorithm in particular weights photos above everything else. Sharing photography is a good way to get new fans for a local site such as yours, something that I don't think video would do quite as well.

People like video too, but I find that people tend to like news video that directly impacts or interests them. People are less likely to watch video for the sake of looking at something interesting like they are with photos. Good news video also takes a lot of planning and editing, and I think a lot of people have gotten used to seeing poor news video on the Web and are turned off by it. Broadcast outlets produce strong videos and podcasts for the Web, but many newspapers have produced low-production quality audio and video that is much weaker than their own photography.

There is definitely a place for writing, photos, video, data and more for news organizations. I strongly disagree, however, with the Sun-Times decision to throw photography out the window to do more Web video.

For what it's worth, I think you've become a very strong photographer in the last few years.

I'm thinking of getting a D7000 or D7100 myself. What other lenses do you use besides the 70-200mm?

Re: My evolution as a photographer and thoughts on the Chicago Sun-Times

Darren Hillock — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 09:31:05 -0000

You often see articles that say video is the next big thing for the web. That people will demand video. I don't see it. Our experience at westofthei.com is similar to Howard's as far as stills versus video. I have not advanced my photography as far as Howard has, but we use much less video. I still capture some things on video that scream for it. Bands in parades. Tractor pulls at the county fair. Bagpipes and Taps at a law enforcement memorial ceremony. But there has to be a compelling action/sound reason for us to run video now. We largely don't cover an event strictly with an edited video of any length. We typically run pretty raw video to allow someone to experience something such as the above examples. As to the S-T, any move that is so lacking in nuance is probably ill-advised. In the modern big time newsroom do photographers need to contribute in ways beyond just capturing images? Yes. I just covered an event where the local daily newspaper (my former employer) also covered with a photographer and reporter. The reporter was arriving later. The photographer told the event organizer "I don't do quotes," when the organizer tried to pass on some info. And this is at a paper much smaller than the S-t. That kind of thing just isn't acceptable anymore.

Re: ‘Lede’ vs. ‘Lead’

KIGOZI ALEX — Tue, 28 May 2013 11:56:17 -0000

You seem to be conservative.Don't you want new word inventions? But you are quick to embrace technological inventions! Languages are not static,they keep on growing.

Re: Why I’m rooting for Vance Albitz

Bob Netherton — Sun, 12 May 2013 22:17:07 -0000

I've become a Vance Albitz fan as well. Last night, in a 20 inning game in Springfield (AA), he pitched three scoreless innings, including a pair of strikeouts. If that wasn't enough, he somehow got to Memphis (AAA) the following morning and played in an afternoon game there.

Yeah, I am totally with you - rooting for the guys that play beyond their statistical measures.

Re: ‘Lede’ vs. ‘Lead’

seagazer101 — Thu, 09 May 2013 23:16:15 -0000

As a retired English Instructor, I am only grateful that this year is the first I've seen of the word (?) "lede". Ha! My spell-checker just kicked it out! lmao! It would merely have added to my and my students' frustration with the homophone clusters, your/you're, they're/there/their, and so on.

Re: IFRA launches second vertical search engine for media

Pamela Lagahid — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:38:16 -0000

Good post. You better try the new vertical search and made a blog entry about it so that we will know. Thank you.

Re: My new Nikon F4

kapiyo — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:08:32 -0000

Cool shots, have fun with the Fs!

Re: Chris Tolles brings some stats to the anonymous vs. registration debate

bradleyplunk — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 14:29:33 -0000

This proved to be ridiculous. What it amounts to is Topix is a bullying site. The reason they don't have registration (and most other sites do) is lack of confidence in their users. The fact is this article came out in 2008 when they were averaging without registration around 150,000 comments a day which may sound good but they had at time probably 350,000 forums so if you think about it, that isn't that impressive. Five years later, Topix claims they are getting millions of hits, etc. That may or may not be true but let's examine the number of comments they are getting still WITHOUT REGISTRATION. They are averaging around 150,000 a day five years later. Think about that.
With this says is the lack of registration is a problem. Those that are posting are the people who go on Topix post lies about other people and attack Topix users. They are the cowards who hide behind computers with the intent to harm other people and the comments have not grown. They haven't grown at all. This means that those who go on Topix thinking it is a news site, may post a few times and then they are quickly ran off because of the trash allowed on that website only leaving the internet trolls. Topix doesn't want to go to user registration because they fear even minor accountability will run off their auidence. Doesn't say much for the product, does it?

Re: ‘Lede’ vs. ‘Lead’

Evelyn Stice — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 09:33:44 -0000

Because he clearly took it seriously for a while.

Re: ‘Lede’ vs. ‘Lead’

hetero habilis — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 18:08:24 -0000

If the writer can't remember who told him to use 'lede', how can he say it was someone he "obviously respected"?

Re: Suggested RSS feeds

Anona Mous — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 07:50:19 -0000

Well, I stumble across this post 5 years later and can't get to the Back Channel link.
Should've posted in both places, here and there!

Re: Personal Journalism

Jamie Jobb — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 12:21:47 -0000

Thanks for bring up this topic. Many great writers -- Jimmy Breslin, Tom Wolfe, Nat Hentoff, etc. -- engaged in "personal journalism" in the 1960s and beyond. Their writings then are still a thrill to read today.

Re: How to launch your own local news site in 10 (not so easy) steps

MM — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:06:54 -0000

Stephen, Where are you planning on opening?

Re: How to launch your own local news site in 10 (not so easy) steps

Stephen Davies — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 11:54:43 -0000

Excellent, unvarnished how-to guide. I just came across this because I'm looking into doing the same thing in my community, and I think you've nailed it, Howard.

Re: A collection of YouTube sales training videos for aspiring local online news publishers

errostjessica — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 05:27:21 -0000

You tube is one of the best source where you can get so many kind of training videos. I think it is is very much helpful for people to learn anything easily.

Re: It’s time to move legal notices online

errostjessica — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 05:23:58 -0000

This is such a nice information about this post which is based on legal notice. I think this post is really helps to people.

Re: You’re not in the railroad business, you’re in the news business

errostjessica — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 05:21:25 -0000

I really agree with this post which is such a beneficial to people to know about newspaper. You should be delivered as per the customers requirement.

Re: Photos: San Francisco

errostjessica — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 05:16:16 -0000

San Francisco is one of the best place in the world. These above photos are really very beautiful and looking pretty.