A WORD That Keeps on Giving

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Errata

In the interests of Constant Vigilance and the giving spirit of the season, The WORD sends a heads-up from St. Mumbles: Check out Poynter’s year-end list of the best news corrections of 2014.

Compiled by the indefatigable Craig Silverman, the exhaustive listing is a tribute to our ever-faster rush to judgment and publication. 

Do NOT read this column while drinking beverages you do not want in your keyboard. Such a rich trove: Ann Patchett weds her dog; cow farts and eagle poop; beers, dancing, whingers and wookiees. And dozens more. 

Recommended holiday reading. 

• Editorial Comment: And a Happy Nude, er, New Year!

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Trinidad Fishermen’s Memorial, Christmas Morning 2011 











TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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HoHoHo

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Let It Blow, Let It Blow

Well, faithful reader, Friday was supposed to have been the final WORD of the 2014 Fall season, as the last of the final exams come in and we brace for holiday hoopla. But before the WORD could be enticed into a final spate of journalistic “wisdom,” a pretty big storm hit us here on the Northern California coast—maybe you heard about it?—and everything went out: power, Internet, landlines, cells. And the WORD.

All but one of the 17 commercial crab boats that call our harbor home got out of the way beforehand, except for the oldest and slowest—Surf Rider (I kid you not)—which bounced on 15-foot and bigger waves plowing up from the south directly into the Pier. (Pix here.) Winds up to 50 knots, the Weather Service said, and a fair amount of rain, trees down, flooding. The usual thing. It was pretty exciting.

Anyway, the point is that the WORD didn’t get out ahead of the storm, and the white-coated boys came over the weekend to haul him off to St. Mumbles for the holidays. So I’ll just have to rely on inspiration and this gap in my media ethics exams to wish you and yours blissful, restful, safe and happy holidays. We’ll be back after New Year’s. 

Until then, to quote Tiny Ted, “Dog bless us, every one.”

• Editorial Comment: Ho, Ho and also the very most Ho.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Trinidad Fishermen’s Memorial, Christmas Morning 2011 












TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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Helloooo?

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Ethnocentrism

“For an imperial power, the United States is an oddly incurious place. Our media don’t help. They should poke and prod and demand that we pay attention to people abroad even when they’re neither disaster victims nor terrorists. Instead, by their inattention, the media perpetuate the dangerous belief that our divine right is to speak and be heeded, never to listen.”

 —Edward Wasserman, Knight professor of journalism ethics, Washington and Lee University, 2007

• Editorial Comment: The thing is that, from grocery aisle to Congress, we really don’t care.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Coast Guard Rescue 
(just to show I still have it)













TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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Headlines

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’Nuff Said

“But the headline, whatever apologies may be made for its bad manners and its offenses against good taste, remains one of the clearest illustrations of the temper of a newspaper—of its sensational character or of a restrained desire to indicate the nature of the news beneath it without exploiting it.”

  —Lucy Maynard Solomon, journalism educator, 1923

• Editorial Comment: As my mother always said, there’s no accounting for taste.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Winter Scenes









TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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Movie Minestrone

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Soup Cubes

“Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen become bouillon cubes.”

—John le Carré (David John Moore Cornwell), British spy novelist

• Editorial Comment: How big a pot do you need for an ox?

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Country Living







TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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I Like Ike

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Marching Orders

“Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you’re going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book.” 

—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), general, politician and book-reader

• Editorial Comment: Hut Hut Hut! Next stack! Hut!

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Heads Up











TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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Cheerleaders

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Captains of Industry

“The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don’t need it). 

“The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions.

“That’s not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I’ve had enough. How about you?”

—Lee Iacocca, auto industry tycoon, 2007

• Editorial Comment: Rah rah! Now I feel better. You?

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Snowday







TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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Algorithms

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Writers Needed
 

“[W]hile I’m all in favor of this new world of media startups, where truly well-intentioned people are trying to figure out how the heck to make money from journalism on the Internet, I just need to step up right now and call bullshit on pretty much all the algorithms. Cause you guys just aren’t understanding the importance of a good writer.” 

—Erin Biba, writer, “Your Newfangled Media Algorithms Are Bullshit,” Medium.com, 2014

• Editorial Comment: Brave New World. Do they have writers there?

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Shroomies





TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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Typewriters

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Subtlety

“Composing on the typewriter, I find that I am sloughing off all my long sentences which I used to dote upon. Short, staccato, like modern French prose. The typewriter makes for lucidity, but I am not sure that it encourages subtlety.” 

—T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), poet, essayist and social critic, 1916

• Editorial Comment: After the pencil stub, A Waste Land.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Nose








TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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Campus Rush

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Truth Will Out

“And let me say emphatically that how we answer these questions is not about protecting the university’s reputation. It’s about doing the right thing. The reputation I care most about is the reputation for following the truth, wherever it may lead.” 

—Teresa Sullivan, president, The University of Virginia, on fraternity rape on campus, “UVA President Announces More Changes on Wake of Sexual Assault Coverage,” National Public Radio, Dec. 1, 2014.

“From Rugby Road to Vinegar Hill, we're gonna get drunk tonight.
The faculty's afraid of us, they know we're in the right. 
So fill up your cups, your loving cups, as full as full can be. 
As long as love and liquor last, we'll drink to the U of V.
 —“Rugby Road,” University of Virginia fight song 

• See Sabrina Rubin Erdley, “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA,” Rolling Stone, Nov. 19, 2014.

• Editorial Comment: Truth on campus can be slippery.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Navigation








TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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Hi-Def

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Aging Gracefully

“With high-definition TV everything looks bigger and wider. Kind of like going to your twenty-fifth high school reunion.”

—Jay Leno, former Tonight Show host, 2001

• Editorial Comment: Up close and personal.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Sunday Evening








TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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Hut One Hut Two Gobble

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WORDmeister Note: The WORD—Lazy bugger!—is taking a couple of days off, the better to loll and eat and generally goof off. This benevolence should be noted in your giving of thanks this week. I’ll be back Monday, once I’ve digested this perfect American holiday of food, sloth, family, food, TV, sloth, food. Have a lovely interlude. 
  
Go Long for Pie

“Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.”

—Erma Bombeck (1927-1996), columnist

• Editorial Comment: Gratitude and a savory sauce, with cranberry, before the second-half snap.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Thankful for Feet






TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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Kiddies

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. . . and Idiots

COLBERT: “Why do you write for children?”

SENDAK: “I don’t write for children. I write — and somebody says, ‘That’s for children!’ I didn’t set out to make children happy or make life better for them, or easier for them.”

COLBERT: “Do you like them?”

SENDAK: “I like them as few and far between as I do adults — maybe a bit more, because I really don’t like adults at all.” . . .

COLBERT: “What does it take for a celebrity to make a successful [children’s] book. What do I gotta do?”

SENDAK: “You’ve started already by being an idiot. That is the very first demand.”

—Children’s author Maurice Sendak (1928-2012) with Stephen Colbert, wannabe, in “Grim Colberty Tales,” The Colbert Report, January 2012. 

• Editorial Comment: A lot of us can make it through the first step. Next?

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Eureka Waterfront










TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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