Categories: OLD Media Moves

Shades of certainty in Quartz story

Craig Silverman writes for the Poynter Institute about a story posted on the Quartz business news site using shades of gray in a story by Adam Epstein to distinguish facts it’s certain of, facts it thinks are correct, and facts that it doesn’t know.

Silverman writes, “Along with the key, Epstein also listed all of the sources for his information at the bottom of the story.

“‘We weren’t really sure how to weave the sources into the text, because the blue URLs would ruin the design,’ Epstein said. ‘So we put them at the end.’

“The plan was to update the shading of different parts of the story as new details were confirmed about the HBO service. Epstein didn’t have to wait long: On Monday, HBO’s Plepler was onstage at Apple’s Spring Forward to announce that the service, to be called HBO Now, would debut exclusively on Apple TV.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.