Joe Murphy » Snippets http://joethink.com/blog A Denver web developer and journalist's thoughts on local online journalism, community, context and storytelling. Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:50:15 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2-bleeding One of my favorite headline rewrites (done by the New York Times) http://joethink.com/blog/2011/12/one-of-my-favorite-headline-rewrites-done-by-the-new-york-times/ http://joethink.com/blog/2011/12/one-of-my-favorite-headline-rewrites-done-by-the-new-york-times/#comments Tue, 13 Dec 2011 03:48:39 +0000 Joe http://joethink.com/blog/?p=466 This article was published in 2010. When it first came online (and ran in print), the headline read:

Study: Real News Comes From Newspapers

The next day, the headline read:

Study Finds That Papers Lead in Providing New Information

]]> http://joethink.com/blog/2011/12/one-of-my-favorite-headline-rewrites-done-by-the-new-york-times/feed/ 0 Highlights from the bad-word regex list I’m working on: http://joethink.com/blog/2011/01/highlights-from-the-bad-word-regex-list-im-working-on/ http://joethink.com/blog/2011/01/highlights-from-the-bad-word-regex-list-im-working-on/#comments Wed, 19 Jan 2011 21:38:57 +0000 Joe http://joethink.com/blog/?p=487 Today I put together the first draft of the regular expressions that will filter out bad words in the comments in a future commenting system. The variations are pulled from more than three years of comments + bad words on The Denver Post’s article commenting system.

These are the highlights:

  1. (CHAI|TE?E?A?)[ -]?B.*(A|U).*G.*G?(E.*R|I.*N.*G?|E.*D)?.*S?
  2. d(i|1|\|)ck(less|head|wad|weed)?
  3. (m(o|u)th(a|er))?(F|PH)[aeiouv\-\.\*':@]+.*C?.*K(E?R?S?|I?N?G?|FACE|HEAD)
  4. (jack|bad|dumb|fat)?(a|@).*[\$sz8x].*[\$sz8x].*e?.*(\$|s|z)?
  5. (dip|dog|chicken)?[\$s]?.*h.*[i\|1!-@a]+.*t(ty|t|head|eating)?s?
]]> http://joethink.com/blog/2011/01/highlights-from-the-bad-word-regex-list-im-working-on/feed/ 1 Some people have a hard time getting over “Click Here”-style writing http://joethink.com/blog/2010/12/some-people-have-a-hard-time-getting-over-click-here-style-writing/ http://joethink.com/blog/2010/12/some-people-have-a-hard-time-getting-over-click-here-style-writing/#comments Thu, 30 Dec 2010 21:26:25 +0000 Joe http://joethink.com/blog/?p=484 Example:

For the full interview with Miss Colorado, click the link.

]]> http://joethink.com/blog/2010/12/some-people-have-a-hard-time-getting-over-click-here-style-writing/feed/ 0 Quote http://joethink.com/blog/2010/10/quote/ http://joethink.com/blog/2010/10/quote/#comments Fri, 08 Oct 2010 01:12:19 +0000 Joe http://joethink.com/blog/?p=482

The Los Angeles Times reported recently that an estimated 30 reporters had been killed or had gone missing since a government effort began in 2006 to break up the powerful criminal groups. The article followed an extraordinary editorial in a newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, that appealed to the drug lords to tell it what news they don’t want published. The front-page plea followed the killing of second journalist on the paper’s staff.

From Difference between our news media and others’: 45 words

]]> http://joethink.com/blog/2010/10/quote/feed/ 0 Further proof newspapers are relevant: http://joethink.com/blog/2010/09/further-proof-newspapers-are-relevant/ http://joethink.com/blog/2010/09/further-proof-newspapers-are-relevant/#comments Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:19:41 +0000 Joe http://joethink.com/blog/?p=479 An editor had a voicemail left on his phone this morning… this is how he explained it to a colleague:

“I got an awesome message — a woman at a hotel room in Arvada, her alarm clock broke and she called because she wanted to know if it was Thursday or Friday. She left a voicemail, and included her phone number.”

]]> http://joethink.com/blog/2010/09/further-proof-newspapers-are-relevant/feed/ 0 One great mind-bender of an example of why copyediting is important: http://joethink.com/blog/2010/06/one-great-mind-bender-of-an-example-of-why-copyediting-is-important/ http://joethink.com/blog/2010/06/one-great-mind-bender-of-an-example-of-why-copyediting-is-important/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:40:05 +0000 Joe http://joethink.com/blog/?p=469 One great mind-bender of an example of why copyediting is important

]]> http://joethink.com/blog/2010/06/one-great-mind-bender-of-an-example-of-why-copyediting-is-important/feed/ 0 Oh god, you want to structure *what*? (the challenges of structured data in prep sports systems) http://joethink.com/blog/2010/05/oh-god-you-want-to-structure-what-the-challenges-of-prep-sports-systems/ http://joethink.com/blog/2010/05/oh-god-you-want-to-structure-what-the-challenges-of-prep-sports-systems/#comments Mon, 10 May 2010 18:28:13 +0000 Joe http://joethink.com/blog/?p=462 This email came in to our preps sports team, clearing up a few issues with a prep baseball standings:

FYI – The 4/20 baseball game bewtween ECA & CSCS was tied 8-8 when it was suspended by rain and never completed. The regular season ECA @ Calhan doubleheader originally scheduled for 4/24 was moved to 5/3. Calhan won the first game 11-0 and ECA won the second game 9-4. The 5/4 game between ECA & TCA was converted to a JV game. ECA did beat Kiowa 17-0 at 12:30 and Calhan 7-3 at 3:00 on 5/8. However, the only other 2A District 3 playoff game that day was Calhan over Cripple Creek-Victor 10-0 at 10:00. There was no ECA vs. Calhan game prior to 3:00 on 5/8.

]]> http://joethink.com/blog/2010/05/oh-god-you-want-to-structure-what-the-challenges-of-prep-sports-systems/feed/ 1 Question: Newspapers and the monopoly mentality http://joethink.com/blog/2009/11/question-newspapers-and-the-monopoly-mentality/ http://joethink.com/blog/2009/11/question-newspapers-and-the-monopoly-mentality/#comments Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:11:47 +0000 Joe http://joethink.com/blog/?p=440 Update: Sorry about the spam posted with this entry on the RSS feed.

Someone wrote this on an article about Sam Zell and newspapers: “The biggest single thing holding [newspapers] back right now is the monopoly mentality that pervades sales, marketing and editorial at most big papers.”

Do you agree?

]]> http://joethink.com/blog/2009/11/question-newspapers-and-the-monopoly-mentality/feed/ 0 [screenshot] KING5, bringing you the news http://joethink.com/blog/2009/08/screenshot-king5-bringing-you-the-news/ http://joethink.com/blog/2009/08/screenshot-king5-bringing-you-the-news/#comments Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:55:07 +0000 Joe http://www.joethink.com/blog/?p=417 Here’s a screenshot of a breaking news alert from KING5:
KING5 BREAKING NEWS ALERT

(thanks, @conarroe)

]]> http://joethink.com/blog/2009/08/screenshot-king5-bringing-you-the-news/feed/ 1 About the two types of knowledge (and a proposition for the third, and fourth) http://joethink.com/blog/2009/06/about-the-two-types-of-knowledge-and-a-proposition-for-the-third-and-fourth/ http://joethink.com/blog/2009/06/about-the-two-types-of-knowledge-and-a-proposition-for-the-third-and-fourth/#comments Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:30:25 +0000 Joe http://www.joethink.com/blog/?p=407 I was reading Ryan Sholin’s piece Why we link: A brief rundown of the reasons your news organization needs to tie the Web together and the part where he wrote “Because we absolutely do not know everything, but we know where to find out most of what we don’t know” reminded me of the saying etched in a wall that I read in the Multnomah County Library of Portland Oregon back when I was in high school and thought that run-on sentences were bad.

That saying was about the two types of knowledge:

There is knowledge that you know, and there is knowledge that you know where to look to find.

Thinking about that now I can imagine a third:

What you think you know, but don’t.

And a fourth:

What you think you know where to find on the web, but which has since disappeared from that location and is no longer in google’s cache.

]]> http://joethink.com/blog/2009/06/about-the-two-types-of-knowledge-and-a-proposition-for-the-third-and-fourth/feed/ 1