Presswork

Each report is dated to the page it reads, not to the day it was filed here, so the file stays in the order the record was made. Thirteen reports below, one above, one date each.

• How Baltimore's daily and the alt-weekly cover the city

  Sept. 14, 2006 Baltimore and Maryland BALTIMORE SUN / CITY PAPER news report

  That choice, not the writing, is most of what a reader ends up knowing about the city.

• Covering a contested court case

  Dec. 18, 2001 Baltimore and Maryland COURTHOUSE DESK / WIRE COPY court report

  Philadelphia police arrested Mumia Abu-Jamal in December 1981 and charged him with the murder of officer Daniel Faulkner.

• Editorials, op-eds and the news: where the line sits

  March 14, 1997 Baltimore and Maryland BBC EDITORIAL GUIDELINES standards page

  The separation is real in some places and paper thin in others, and the rules that govern it are written down unevenly.

• Letters to the editor and the corrections box

  May 21, 2004 Baltimore and Maryland LETTERS PAGE / CORRECTIONS BOX published letter

  A corrections box is the press admitting, in public, that something it printed was not true.

• Alt-weekly press criticism: what it does that dailies do not

  April 26, 2000 Baltimore and Maryland CITY PAPER press criticism

  The alt-weekly was never the biggest paper in town. The form has thinned.

• Election night calls: who declares a winner and when

  Nov. 12, 2004 National Politics and the Press ASSOCIATED PRESS / NETWORK DESKS decision desk

  At 11 p.m. on election night, a call lands on live television and the race is over before every precinct has counted.

• How newsrooms handle 9/11 conspiracy claims

  Oct. 3, 2003 Disasters and Hazards NEWSROOM ARCHIVES / OPEN SOURCE DESKS news report

  Two decades on, the argument about September 11 is no longer only about what happened in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

• Verifying viral video before and after publication

  Jan. 9, 2004 Disasters and Hazards TELEVISION DESKS / FIRST DRAFT verification note

  A newsroom that asks its audience to send footage inherits a job it did not ask for: it becomes an investigation unit for somebody

• Hurricane coverage and the failure of the official account

  June 8, 2006 Disasters and Hazards NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER advisory

  That mix is the problem hurricane coverage keeps running into. The official account is written for the mariner and the emergency manager.

• Weather modification claims and the reporting that feeds them

  Oct. 30, 2008 Disasters and Hazards NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE / LOCAL STATIONS forecast page

  Read that sentence on the day a storm has just passed through your county and you will find it mild, specific and boring.

• Undersea cable cuts and how outages get reported

  Dec. 20, 2008 Cable, Broadcast and Finance INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION wire copy

  When an undersea cable fails, the outage map fills in before the explanation does.

• The HDTV standard: how a broadcast format reaches viewers

  Nov. 7, 1997 Cable, Broadcast and Finance STANDARDS PROCESS / TRADE PRESS technical report

  The HDTV standard did not arrive as a single announcement.

• Business desks and the Federal Reserve

  March 29, 2008 Cable, Broadcast and Finance NEW YORK TIMES / FEDERAL RESERVE release

  When the Federal Reserve changes a sentence, money moves before anyone at the central bank holds a press conference.