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Metro Column Writing 101
By adamg on Thu, 04/10/2008 - 8:59am
When news breaks, don't just sit in front of your keyboard and pontificate. Hit the streets and actually talk to people affected by the news. You'll get a much better story (and get leads for more stories). Now, class, let's look at Kevin Cullen's parking-ticket column as a great example. Adrian, wake up!
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Comments
3500 dollars a year?
There's gotta be a better way than that. Electrician Dominic Campochiaro says he spends 3500 dollars a year on tickets. That's 292 dollars a month he's apparently willing to pay to park willy-nilly. But guess what? At that rate, it's still cheaper than using a garage or owning a space downtown.
There should be a middle ground. Making parking meters more rational would be a good step. Instead of busted quarter-suckers, how about one machine per block that takes credit cards? How about a stored-value parking card or monthly parking pass? How about peak-adjusted parking charges?
If Campochiaro is willing to blow a few thousand bucks a year on tickets, he'd surely be willing to pay for a pass that got him somewhere. How else are you going to raise money? Bring payment for heavy parking users above board and lay off some ticket-writers and quarter-dumpers.
Did he make this up?
The story sounds so contrived. He just stumbled into the good Samaritan, then just stumbled into Menino? Assuming he did speak to the mayor, the quote shows the mayor isn't doing much to sell the idea, since he basically handed Cullen the headline ripe with negative stereotyping about city services.
Mr. Mayor, emphasize that it is a crack down on illegal behavior! Please! I haven't been issued a parking ticket in years. And it's been easy. I simply avoid illegal parking. I had no idea I was saving $3,500 a year, though. I should set up a consulting business on saving $3,500 through parking strategies!
Personally, I have a lot of sympathy for the revenue collection angle, but that isn't what this is -- it's a fine for illegal behavior. For revenue collection we ought to jack up the meter rates. There is no reason that I should be able to park all day using street meters for $2.00 an hour on city property when a private garage charges $5 to $8. But that's another argument to be made and so far the Mayor isn't making it.
But you are not a tradesman
who presumably has to park all over the city, visiting customers. The city should find a way to sell people like that some sort of citywide permit annually, so that they don't get nicked by permit-parking violations every few days.
See what years of insipid metro columns will do to you?
And the miasma of Barnicle?
Amazing but true: A good reporter really can get good stories just walking down the street (a good writer will then turn those stories into something you'll want to read to the end). Cullen's a good reporter. And what better place to find people to talk about parking tickets than Hanover Street? And given that Hanover Street is a short walk from City Hall, yeah, I can believe Menino would eat there.
Yes, perhaps, and Ron is right, but....
I'm not saying Cullen didn't really talk to these people, but his writing needs to be better. Whether or not it is contrived, it reads as though it is. Fix that problem with better writing.
But then, the reporting is questionable too, because he only presents one point of view. Did he make an effort to find somebody like me? Somebody like Gareth? Did he take the step to make Ron's point clear about the man who accumulated $3,500 in fines? There are lots of issues he could have delved into with the foundation he stumbled across, but he doesn't go there, and the result is evident.
Rather than an informative piece about parking and the issues facing the city/residents/visitors, he comes out taking shots at city government without any indication that he understands the issue at all.
News vs. Opinion
It's worth remembering that Cullen is not writing a news article. He's writing an opinion column. His columin is a good example of the opposite of news-gathering.
Because it's an opinion column, he didn't go out and find information that determined what he should write, and the conclusions he should come to. Instead, he went out with conclusion in hand and found people who agreed with what he already intended to write, in order to add color.
He doesn't care about my opinion, and I don't think he has to. He's not trying to be balanced. He's trying to express an opinion, and I think he did a good job. As long as he didn't just make up his sources like Barnicle did.
Nobel prize nominations
Cullen made a mistake in his first sentence.
Only the following groups can nominate someone for a Nobel Prize:
1. Members of national assemblies and governments of states;
2. Members of international courts;
3. University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes;
4. Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize;
5. Board members of organizations who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize;
6. Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; (proposals by members of the Committee to be submitted no later than at the first meeting of the Committee after February 1) and
7. Former advisers appointed by the Norwegian Nobel Institute.