Ed Murrow’s Formula

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A + B = C

“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.”

—Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965), legendary broadcast newsman

• Editorial Comment: Fox found a different combo.




PeezPix by Ted Pease

The Calla Lilies Are in Bloom













Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 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.) #tedsword
 
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

Facts Is Facts, Jack

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‘Trump’s Troubles with Facts’

“How do you report on a president who often veers from reality, without appearing to be biased, and without turning off fair-minded citizens who are trying to stay informed?” . . . 

“We saw it last week when Time Magazine did a full interview with the president on the question of his own credibility, producing a magazine whose cover asks, “Is Truth Dead?”

“We saw it on the Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial page, which criticized the president for insisting that his predecessor had had him wiretapped, using this startling metaphor: Trump is ‘clinging to his assertion like a drunk to an empty gin bottle.’

“And we’re seeing it on the CBS Evening News, where Scott Pelley, quietly and backed by reporting, may say, as he did last month: ‘The president’s real troubles again today were not with the media but with the facts.’”

—Margaret Sullivan, media columnist, “Scott Pelley is pulling no punches on the nightly news — and people are taking notice,” The Washington Post, March 26, 2017.

• Editorial Comment: I call ’em like I see ’em.


PeezPix by Ted Pease

It’s a Dog’s Life
(See the whole story.)







Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 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.) #tedsword
 
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

Barking Dogs

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Words Count

“I believe that words count, that writing matters, that poems, essays, and novels — in the long run — make a difference. If they do not, then in the words of my exemplar Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the writer’s work is of no more importance than the barking of village dogs at night.” 

—Edward Abbey (1927-1989), writer, activist, essayist, “A Writer’s Credo,” 1985.

• Editorial Comment: Abbey also said, “When a man’s best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.”


PeezPix by Ted Pease

Dog




Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 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.) #tedsword
 
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

Marching Orders

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‘You Are Supposed to Be Skeptics’  

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“Having you in this building has made this place work better. It keeps us honest, it makes us work harder. America needs you, and our democracy needs you.

“I have enjoyed working with all of you. That does not mean that I have enjoyed every story that you have filed, but that is the point of this relationship. You are not supposed to be sycophants, you are supposed to skeptics.

“You are not supposed to be complimentary, you are suppose to cast a critical eye on folks that have enormous power, and hold us accountable to the people that sent us here.” 

—Barack Obama in his final White House press conference as president, Jan. 18, 2017.

• Editorial Comment: Everybody get that?


PeezPix by Ted Pease
 

Morning in America











Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 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.) #tedsword
 
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

Snap!

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Bad for America 

Sean Hannity, guest: You think we’re bad for America? You think I’m bad for America?
 

Ted Koppel, host: Yes. . . . You have attracted people who are determined that ideology is more important than facts.

—David Morgan, senior editor, “Ted Koppel tells Sean Hannity he is bad for America.” TV/radio talk show host Hannity was interviewed by veteran newsman Koppel on CBS’ “Sunday Morning,” March 26, 2017

• Editorial Comment: Point: Koppel.

PeezPix by Ted Pease

Trinidad Bluff Heading to the Sea











Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 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.) #tedsword
 
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