Nate Parker’s Harrowing Debut ‘The Birth of a Nation’ Is a Hand Grenade Thrown at America’s – and Hollywood’s – Racist Legacy

Source: Nate Parker’s Harrowing Debut ‘The Birth of a Nation’ Is a Hand Grenade Thrown at America’s – and Hollywood’s – Racist Legacy

True leadership, rapport and learning to listen

Source: True leadership, rapport and learning to listen

True leadership, rapport and learning to listen

I’ve recently experienced first-hand that sometimes people who own a business are not necessarily leaders.

There is certainly a huge difference between being a boss and being a leader, everybody knows that by now, but this article I’ve just read on LinkedIn is particularly inspiring in my opinion.

It shows how true leaders can create what is commonly called ‘rapport’, a true relationship with the people around them. It’s not just about interaction, it’s about listening… truly listening to what others are saying.

Here’s the link to the article. I’m sure it’s going to inspire many people.

 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/leaders-learn-art-science-rapport-daniel-goleman

Back to business

After a rather long absence, due to various reasons, I’m finally back to blogging and doing business as a freelance. And this time, I have no intention of quitting anymore!!

More news and updates coming soon!

Stay tuned…

Journalism: The Interview

In my post today, I would like to take a look at the interview.

 

First of all, indirect questions are the best tool to get more truthful answers.

The person interviewed needs to be reassured in order for the journalist to get a scoop, even if the purpose is not to make him/her look good in the article.

The most important thing in an interview is that the journalist must be the one to call the shots. The best method to achieve this is to encourage the person interviewed to talk freely, but the interviewer must do it with a purpose, always knowing where he/she wants to get.

 

If the interviewed says something interesting, it can be published entirely, as it is; otherwise it is possible to publish only the parts that are more interesting to the readership.

Interviews are not always published, but they can be a useful tool to get to know the someone better.

It’s very important that the interviewer have no connection with the person he/she interviews, in order to avoid being influenced.

 

As for the positioning in a newspaper, there is no specific space dedicated to interviews, which are inserted according to their importance or relevance to a given context.

 

There are different types of interviews:

 

–      LOOSE INTERVIEW: declarations from witnesses and opinions gathered on location, where something has just happened

 

–      INTERVIEW TO THE PERSONALITY OF THE MOMENT: i.e. when a local is awarded a prize, etc.

 

–      INTERVIEW TO AN EXPERT: when the event is related to his/her field of expertise

 

–      OPINIONS ON A TOPIC: not connected to a specific event but relevant to a given topic

 

It is possible to interview someone who is not well-known, but who represents a whole social category. This type of interview, however, is manipulated because only those which follow the editorial line are published.

 

The title of an article isn’t usually chosen by its author, but by a specialized journalist.

The title, together with the pictures, is always important even if it has nothing to do with the article, which is only read by a minority of people.

 

There are several reasons why someone could be interviewed:

he/she is

–      a well-known figure

–      an important person

–      an influential person

–      someone who has something interesting to say

 

A good journalist needs to be an excellent psychologist; in order to encourage someone to talk, he/she should ask general questions, which later on must not be included in the published interview. Obliging or trivial questions must not be published either, even if they can be used.

Prompt interviews, which are the most common, have a value connected to the moment; however, there are also some interviews with a timeless value (i.e. interviews to world leaders, etc.).

Moreover, an interview should be oral rather than written, because the journalist can lead the conversation with targeted questions, based on the previous answers. And lastly, it should take place in the interviewee’s own environment, so that he/she can feel more comfortable and lower his/her guard.

 

In my next post, I’m going to talk about an example of interview.

 

As usual, comments or contributions are more than welcome.

Journalism: it’s not all about the articles

Here I am, finally back to blogging after a long hiatus, due to different (professional and personal) reasons.

 

In this post, I would like to talk about some of the aspects that were analyzed during the journalism course I attended in spring.

Some of these I already mentioned in my first post, but let’s take a look at them in more detail.

 

READERSHIP:

When writing an article, the first thing to consider is who would be interested in it.

 

The reader’s interest depends on:

–      physical

–      cultural

–      ideological or

–      psychological (sense of identification)

closeness to the publication.

 

Two of the elements which make a piece of news sound interesting are novelty and drama: a negative event is always news, while a positive one somehow appears less catchy.

 

Moreover newspapers, or publications in general, follow a specific division according to:

 

–      TARGET (reader’s hobbies, categories, specific social or cultural groups)

–      READER’S SEX

–      READER’S AGE

–      GEOGRAPHICAL AREA

–      COST (free publications, cover price, free offer)

 

APPROACH:

Different means of communication have different approaches to journalism. For instance, the speed of publication is essential on the Internet, while for the press it’s the frequency that counts (i.e. daily, weekly, monthly, etc.).

 

ADVERTISING:

A vital element of a newspaper is advertising, which can even influence the journalist.

In fact, journalists tend to censor themselves based on the financial interests of the newspaper they work for, and therefore can never be objective.

The more varied the ads, the less conditioned the publication.

Even the magazines that sometimes are sold together with some newspapers were created mostly for advertising reasons. They address mostly women and young people, who usually tend to read the newspapers less.

These magazines were therefore created to reach an audience that was not accessible before.

 

ARTICLE:

The backbone of a newspaper are obviously the articles, which follow a structure based on 5 elements:

 

–      Who (protagonists)

–      Where

–      When

–      What

–      Why (the most important element)

 

A true journalist is the one who finds out why something happened.

 

EDITORIAL LINE:

The choice of what to publish depends on the type of publication and on the geographical area, but also on the so-called ‘Editorial line’, which in turn depends on:

 

–      The OWNER, who invests in the publication but has nothing to do with it

–      The PUBLISHER: who manages the publication

–      The EDITOR IN CHIEF: who is chosen by the publisher and selects the journalists (for a new publication, otherwise he/she can hire someone new)

 

SOURCES:

The sources provide useful information to the journalist and are different according to the topic of the article. In fact, they can be:

 

–      INSTITUTIONAL SOURCES: i.e. press offices

–      INSTITUTIONS: Police, firefighters, doctors, etc.

 

Sources with important information can influence the journalist.

Information has a price. Quality journalism is when a reporter goes on location and gathers information on an event, but all this represents a significant cost for the newspaper.

 

 

These are just some of the main elements which make a newspaper (or publication in general).

 

In my next post, I will talk about the interviews, a type of article that can be challenging for a journalist, but also inspiring.

Meanwhile, feel free to add your comments or contributions on today’s topics.

Some blog posts you should read!

Thoughts On Translation

It’s been a busy couple of weeks here at the Thoughts on Translation wordface, with the end of school, the start of summer and a couple of very large (and interesting!) projects. Since I’ve been short on time and creative energy, here are some blog posts that I highly recommend:

• Lisa Carter of Intralingo on Advice on how to price a book translation. This is a tricky topic even for experienced translators, and Lisa does a great job of mixing the business mindset (actually needing/wanting to make money from translation) with other factors, such as wanting to get a publication credit, and even the fact that literary translators don’t generally produce 2,000 or 3,000 words per day. Lisa also reports that she discusses compensation issues at length in her online course Next Steps in Literary Translation.
• Judy and Dagmar Jenner of Translation Times on The 50% success rate

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Web marketing for translators (part one)

Translator T.O.

Daniel Freedman, web strategist for LinguaLinx, writes today’s guest blog post, the first in a series on web marketing for translators:

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Do you hate marketing? Are you overwhelmed with contradictory advice from so-called Web experts, none of which seems to have much to do with translation? If so, this blog post is for you.

I’ll offer some surprising advice on a few of the highest priority, do-it-yourself things you can act on right away to get more business – without spending much money.

I’m going to advise you to disregard generic advice that doesn’t apply to you and to focus instead on just two key things:

1. Establishing yourself as a translation expert
2. Making sure you have a website that proves your expert status

Is your priority doing great work? Does marketing feel like a burden that gets in the way of that? If so, you’re in good company.

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Do you have a plan for your translation business?

Interesting post about business plans for translators

Translator T.O.

Make more money, have more free time, translate, translate, translate. This seems to be the extent to which many freelance translators and interpreters would define their business plans.

In a poll featured on April 9, 2011, 19.5% of respondents said that they did not have a written business plan. This number decreased further in a similar survey run on September 6 of last year, in which only 8.4% of respondents stated that they had a written business plan.

Interestingly, over 37% of those who responded to yesterday’s poll answered “Yes” when asked if they had a specific plan or set of goals for their freelance businesses. Another 25.3% of participants said that while they did not currently have a concrete professional plan or set of objectives, they would like to develop one.

One might wonder what this difference in results means. Why did the minority of respondents say…

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Bravo! AITI’s New Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct