Do you correct your social feed?

Here’s a pickle. You link to a story. The story + HED are later corrected. Do you correct your Facebook & Twitter posts? Real life example:

I recently linked to a story from another publication on The American Lawyer’s Twitter stream as well as our morning newsletter. The story and headline turned out to be inaccurate and was corrected.

Because we treat the newsletter as a unique published item, we ran a correction in the next day’s edition.

Do we consider our social feeds a publication? Even if the link takes the reader to the story, where they can read an accurate version plus a correction, our Twitter feed remains inaccurate.

A link on The American Lawyer Facebook page went up much later using an accurate headline, but I could this could present a more of an issue on facebook, where the Page is a destination and the inaccurate Headline would be glaring at readers for ever.

What to do?

My inclination is to correct inaccuracies—using the comments on Facebook and a Retweet on Twitter.

Where’s our “solo incubator” for journalists?

At Pace Law School, recent law grads entering the field on their own as “solos” can opt to do so on campus, with the supervision of professors and experienced lawyers and access to resources like office supplies and research tools.

The Pace Community Law Practice is the fourth so-called “Solo incubator” launched nationwide, according to the National Law Journal. The first was a program at City University of New York School of Law (National Law Journal):

The school offers low-cost office space in midtown Manhattan and staff support for up to two years to a select number of graduates aiming to establish themselves as solos or launch small firms. The program offers more than office space; participants have access to a large network of experienced solo practitioners who function as mentors, and they enjoy an internal support network among their colleagues in the incubator, which helps to reduce the isolation many solo practitioners experience.

Where is the “solo incubator” for journalists?

OK, journalism isn’t really a for-hire business (freelance assignments aside). The best work continues to be done by reporting and editing staffs working together at news organizations.

But as the idea of content as a product evolves, and the universe of potential employers of journalists expands, perhaps a “solo incubator” could become a hive of journalism activity that companies can approach to hire at will.

“Need two reporters, an editor and an artist for 10 days to complete a research project? Ours are sharp and well-directed.”

“Need a site publishing in one month but you don’t know how to find a staff? We can help.”

“Need an editor to help define your audience and design a coverage plan? Sure thing.”

The fellas at Contently are doing so already and may have beaten academia to the punch in many ways. CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism Entrepreneurial Incubator is the right idea, but limited to students. There’s room for an Ivory-Tower version of the “solo incubator” and there are enough recent, and not-so-recent J-school grads without a job or an office to hang out in all day.

It could also be a great hive of inspiration for journalists dedicated to freelance and research projects or those among us who are entrepreneurs to collaborate and share expenses (a la coworking at Hive at 55 and New Work City), plus get the guidance of experienced journalists and educators.

Ernie Pyle’s legacy is homeless or about to be

Ernie Pyle’s legacy is homeless or about to be.
The artifacts of his life and work are spread across several sites, including two in his home state of Indiana now feuding over who is the real storyteller of his tale.
One of those, the Ernie Pyle Museum, is running on fumes and in danger of closing for good, the New York Times Reported yesterday.
The Ernie Pyle museum, in the man’s hometown of Dana, Indiana, is rather in the middle of nowhere and receives just a trickle of visitors—about 1,800 a year. The Indiana State Museum transferred some of the Dana site’s prized possessions, including Pyle’s typewriter, to Indianapolis, in part because it would expose Pyle’s legacy to more visitors—as many as 200,000 a year, said one Indiana official.
According to the Times’s Dan Barry, the museum in Dana “still has a lot to offer” and at one time gave visitors the “feeling as if they’d just been with Ernie, over there.”
With such a rich story to tell and the artifacts to do it, it struck me as a shame that the tiny museum has no Web presence (barely a Google Places entry), not even a skeleton site with a contact page.
How could the museum help itself and do a great deal to expose the story of Pyle to the world? Get it on the Web. Tell the story, display the artifacts, create interactive exhibits.
AND connect the sites of Pyle’s legacy. In addition to Pyle’s artifacts now housed in Indianapolis, others are in the Albuquerque Museum, in New Mexico, where he eventually settled before he went to war. His archives, including his many columns and academic research are at the Indiana University School of Journalism.
Creating an Ernie Pyle home on the Web that exposed viewers to the aspects of Pyle’s legacy at all three locations (are there others?) would knit the story together, enrich the experience of all three museums and, perhaps generate some revenue for the little outfit in Dana.
But it could do more. As the patron saint of American War correspondents, Pyle serves as the the exemplar of the trade and his legacy is their legacy. An Ernie Pyle Museum on the Web could be a home to the stories and study of War correspondence. Perhaps an organization like the Newseum, in Washington, D.C., which runs a meager War Stories section on its Website (it’s pretty limited and stops at the Bosnia/Kosovo operation in 1999), could join the three museums. Perhaps Scripps Howard, which, according to the Times, helped the Dana site build its exhibits—and which still has war correspondents in harm’s way—might help pay for such a project.
Pyle’s story is the story of war correspondents. It is the story of reporting on ugly events from a dangerous vantage point. The story is big and influential. It should be seen by more than 1,800 visitors a year. It should be exposed to more than 200,000 visitors a year.

What can we do to help?