What the Hell is Attribution? Who Wants to Know?

Who wants to know? It's the engineer. The one I married.

The conversation started, "what the hell is attribution?" and a minute later, we agreed to disagree. (One of the benefits to being married to an engineer: short arguments. One of the benefits to being a writer: I can always get the last word.)

My husband forwarded an e-mail to me this morning, with a lovely article (and picture) of one of his "bumps." The "bump" is a new communications radome used by Southwest Airlines to allow its passengers to enjoy wi-fi (sky-fi!) communications while in the air.

The article was lovely, however, there was no attribution. It took me less than a minute to find the source, Run Way Girl's blog, posted yesterday. Then I replied to the e-mail with a "attaboy" and a promise/threat to lecture his sales manager, who forwarded the article sans credit, about attribution.

"What the hell is attribution?" was his reply. Well, the writer deserves credit, first, I explained (and almost lost him right there) but more importantly, the reader needs attribution; it provides context.

If the article had been written by Southwest, or my hubby's sales manager, we'd know to read with a slightly jaded eye. (It's PR.) If the article had been written a month ago, it's old news - not necessarily less important, but time = context, too.

Then he had the gall to say, "Who cares? It's just an internal e-mail!" Which he forwarded to me, and a friend, and fellow pilot, and former co-worker... do I have to explain how this works?

Attribution matters, if you want to know you know. To riff on the old adage, in God we trust. All others need to cite their sources.

I Thank You, the Old-Fashioned Way

Are thank you notes really passe? After a few arguments with my daughter over birthday thank you notes she didn't want to write, we compromised: she wrote the archaic missives to Grandma and Grandpa, and two family friends.

She said she thanked her friends for gifts when they gave them to her. My arguments about etiquette, politeness, and heartfelt, handwritten notes caused her such eyerolling I thought she could be having a seizure. Silly me.

I gave up when I realized she hadn't received thank-you notes from two friends - who seem to be at least as civilized as my daughter - whose parties she'd attended in the previous few months.

OK, maybe thank-you notes really are a thing of the past. I'm officially a relic; I still send the notes, on paper, via US mail. (You're welcome.)

Bye Bye Blogs, So Long to Standards?

Today I read that blogs are passe, dead, a waste of time. When the question is, how can I get readers? apparently, the answer is Twitter. Hm.

I can digg (in fact, I really Digg it!) but I'm not ready to tweet.

Assuming there's some momentum and truth (or real worth) to back up the tweeting on Twitter, and Digg lasts longer than most of my web-crushes, then (you know what's coming) what does it mean for writers? and for writing?

I'm not sure, beyond the fact that it's acceptable to start a sentence like the one above with a lowercase "a."
- - - - - - - - - -

I believe writers are really, really important in any civilized society. Seriously. And not just the legal specialists who write the plethora of contracts, disclaimers, and warranties.

But it's been a long day.
- - - - - - - - - -

I spent part of it on a conference call with about a dozen eager writers who were, I was led to believe, all ready to jump at the chance to write for the website of a "major brand" in the medical space for ... ready? $70 per article. The articles should take about two hours to complete, we were told. (I suspect more like five.) Writers on the project are instructed to conduct one interview and use it to create 5+ articles on a given topic. And/or to source quotes from the host website - with attribution to the folks previously quoted on the host website.

Is anyone besides me nauseous at this point?

If we, the professional writers, are to repurpose and essentially regurgitate the same material, the same quotes, over and over and (I really HATE this part) reuse OTHER writers' material (even from "approved" websites - in this case, a partner site, but one with separate ownership and a separate staff of writers) how long will it be before what we read has no meaning?

Not very long, my friends; webspeed is roughly equivalent to the speed of light.

And the ugly twist in the wild-web-world is that while we can crank out "new" material with a few keystrokes and cut-and-paste commands, it's damn near impossible to to determine the relative age, or accuracy, of anything we read.

What if I repurpose a quote from a doc who was an expert in his field last year but who recently was indicted for having sex with his patients, prescribing drugs based on kickbacks, fiddling with research results to further his career at the big-name clinic?

I won't know and readers won't know, if I didn't do the interviews firsthand.

So for $70 you can get a pithy article on pinkeye, and say "goodbye" to journalistic standards.

That's a very costly mistake.

I'll admit that news of the death of the blog may be grossly exaggerated, and not at all related to the demise of journalism, however, there's a lesson to be learned in both.

I think it's this: While you don't always get what you pay for, even more often, when the price tag is low so is the quality.

In the case of the $70 medical article, you, dear reader, don't know if you're getting the story straight from the horse's mouth, even if the horse is quoted and the website looks like a thoroughbred.

Caveat emptor, dear readers. Writers, good luck. And fact-checkers, raise your rates. I hope you'll soon be in great demand.

The Book I Want to See

I'd love to see a book written by, or heavily packed with interviews from, the '08 presidential candidates' speechwriters. Specifically, the ones who had to write the candidates' acceptance AND concession speeches.

Crafting either must require a blend of skills employed in both fiction and non-fiction. Imagine your candidate wins: the acceptance speech should be worthy of a page or two in the history books; it must address joyous supports and angry detractors from the other guy's camp; and it must set the tone for the next four years, at least.

No pressure.

Oh, and when you finish that, could you spend a few minutes drafting a just-in-case-I-lose speech?

HA.

Top-level speechwriters in both campaigns probably began their drafts in May, if not before the spring primaries.

I'd sure like to find out how they did it, how much the candidates themselves contributed to the process, and how far McCain and Obama veered from the written document in their live addresses Tuesday night.

Pssst...I'll write it! Simon & Schuster, are you listening?

Who Writes This Guy's Stuff?

The guy, Barack Obama, has brilliant writers. BRILLIANT. The script of Obama's 30-minute infomercial was impressive, tight, effective, near-perfect in content, style, and of course, delivery.

Whether you look at life through red- or blue-tinted glasses, there's no denying it: this guy has an awesome team of writers.

Content is still King

So sez William Rice in September's Promo Magazine.

In his article on Web Marketing 101, Mr. Rice seems to suggest that writers are necessary, even in the all-about-eye-candy land of web design.

"FOCUS ON CONTENT" is first of the four steps he recommends to "help ensure a Web site's effectiveness."

Content is what people come looking for. And they expect much more than just words. They want links to manuals, customer testimonials or ratings, and virtual demos. Content needs to be as entertaining as it is informative.

I like this guy. Even if he does end a sentence with a preposition.

Becks Writes? Yeck.

David Beckham will lend his name to a series of children's books.

There's a lot wrong right there, in my opinion. But wait! There's more! Read the press release and you'll see the publisher isn't mentioned (they must be very proud) nor is the title of even one of his upcoming (ghostwritten) books.

And there's a typo in the press release.

Can you say, "sour grapes?" I can. Yes, I'll admit it: the celebrity-turns-children's-book-author trend really turns my stomach.

Yeck.