Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Best & Brightest

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“This Department of Corrections has certainly never seen a first year like this. Falsehoods and exaggerations have tumbled relentlessly out of Trump’s Twitter account, speeches and interviews, the vast majority in service of his ego. 

“Other presidents have skewered the truth — George W. Bush on the pretext for the Iraq war, Barack Obama on the benefits of ‘Obamacare’ — but Trump is of a different order of magnitude.” 

—Calvin Woodward, Associated Press fact-checker, “AP FACT CHECK: Trump presidency creates an alternate reality,” Associated Press, Jan. 18, 2018.



Editorial Comment: Job security for AP’s Department of Corrections.





PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Woodley Island









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, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Echo Chamber

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“People who lie to themselves and listen to their own lie come to such a pass that they cannot distinguish the truth within them, or around them, and so lose all respect for themselves and for others.” 
 
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), Russian author, “The Brothers Karamazov,” 1879. Pope Francis quoted this in his address condemning fake news last week. See NYTimes story.






Editorial Comment: Such people should step outside every now and then and take a breath, walk a dog, turn off the damn Tweeter.




PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Hunter is a year-old Black Lab, a new inmate at the Humboldt County Animal Shelter. Doesn’t your household need this 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, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Monday, January 29, 2018

Day of Reckoning

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“[T]hank God we had these journalists. And that they exposed this truth and that they continued to cover this story. . . . 

“The final takeaway is that we as a society need investigative journalists more than ever. What finally started this reckoning and ended this decades-long cycle of abuse was investigative reporting. Without that first Indianapolis Star story in August of 2016, without the story where Rachael [Denhollander] came forward publicly shortly thereafter, he would still be practicing medicine, treating athletes, and abusing kids.”

—Angela Povilaitis, Michigan assistant attorney general, in her prosecutor’s statement at Larry Nassar sentencing, Jan. 24, 2018.  

Image: Olympic gold metalist McKayla Maroney was one of 156 former athletes treated by Nassar, USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor, who accused him of sexually molesting them over three decades. Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison.
 
Editorial Comment: The Indy Star should have won a Pulitzer for that work.

 

PeezPix by Ted Pease

Crab Pots









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, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Friday, January 26, 2018

Orders From Above

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“A Michigan man was arrested after allegedly threatening to shoot and kill CNN employees, WGCL-TV reported Monday.

“‘Fake news. I’m coming to gun you all down,’ the man told a CNN operator. . . .”

“He allegedly later called CNN again, saying, ‘I’m smarter than you. More powerful than you. I have more guns than you. More manpower. Your cast is about to get gunned down in a matter of hours.

“‘I am coming to Georgia right now to go to the CNN headquarters to f---ing gun every single last one of you,’ he said.” 

—Jacquleine Thomsen, reporter, “Man arrested, accused of threatening to kill CNN employees,” The Hill, Jan. 22, 2018.
 
Editorial Comment: Where he could have gotten such a murderous, cockamamie notion?

 

PeezPix by Ted Pease

More #EurekaWomensMarch2018












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, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Writers Wanted

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“Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality.”

—Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018), the visionary and literary fantasy writer died this week at 88. “Ursula K. Le Guin's speech at National Book Awards: 'Books aren't just commodities’,” The Guardian, 2014.
 
Editorial Comment: Let’s remember to look beyond the horizon, and “wander working magic from isle to isle.”
NYTimes obit.
Don’t know where to start? The essential novels of Ursula K. Le Guin,” The Guardian, Jan. 23, 2018.
Ursula K Le Guin, by Margaret Atwood: ‘One of the literary greats of the 20th century’,” The Guardian, Jan. 23, 2018.
 

PeezPix by Ted Pease

Stump









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, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Nuntii Fallaces*

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The WORDmeister notes: Today is the Catholic feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists. In a tweet to his 40 million followers, Pope Francis announced plans  to release a statement on “fake news” today in preparation for World Day of Social Communications, May 13. 

“The pope’s message for the day will propose ‘a reflection on the causes, the logic and the consequences of disinformation in the media,’ and it will try to help ‘promote professional journalism, which always seeks the truth, and therefore a journalism of peace that promotes understanding between people.’” 

—Carol Glatz, reporter, “Pope’s communications day theme: Truth in age of ‘fake news,’” Catholic News Service, Sept. 29, 2017.


  
Editorial Comment: *“Nuntii fallaces” is “fake news” in Latin. Meus deus.





PeezPix by Ted Pease

Vista Point to Trinidad







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, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Naturally

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“Nature abhors a moron.” 

—H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), the "Sage of Baltimore," journalist, satirist, cultural critic and scholar of American English.













Editorial Comment: Does that explain global warming?





PeezPix by Ted Pease

Women’s March II, Eureka, CA












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, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Monday, January 22, 2018

Clear Enough?

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“Madison and the other Framers of the First Amendment, able men that they were, wrote in language they earnestly believed could never be misunderstood: ‘Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom . . . of the press. . . .’ 

“Both the history and language of the First Amendment support the view that the press must be left free to publish news, whatever the source, without censorship, injunctions, or prior restraints. In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. . . .”

In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly. In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam war, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do.”

—Justice Hugo Black, concurring in the Supreme Court’s 6-3 Pentagon Papers decision, affirming the right of The New York Times and The Washington Post to publish without government prior restraint, 1971.


Editorial Comment: But you’ve got to wonder what would the current Supremes do?

Related: We just (finally) saw “The Post,” which inspired today's quote from Hugo Black. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, see it. Here’s the NYTimes’ review, “In ‘The Post,’ Democracy Survives the Darkness.”


PeezPix by Ted Pease

Women’s March II, Eureka, CA








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, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Friday, January 19, 2018

The Mommy-Daddy Model

 
“[T]he mommy-daddy model of morning TV, thought to be an immutable industry truth ever since Barbara Walters was officially named the show’s first female co-host in 1974 opposite Jim Hartz, looks more and more like an anachronistic prejudice.”
 
—Emily Jane Fox and Joe Pompeo, writers, “‘It Is Always About a Family’: Inside NBC’s Decision to Promote Hoda Kotb,” Vanity Fair, Jan. 2, 2018.


Editorial Comment: It’s a bright new morning on NBC.



PeezPix by Ted Pease

Winterwater












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, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Wanted: Principled Leadership

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“We cannot afford to abdicate America’s long-standing role as the defender of human rights and democratic principles throughout the world. Without strong leadership in the White House, Congress must commit to protecting independent journalism, preserving an open and free media environment, and defending the fundamental right to freedom of opinion and expression.”

—John McCain, U.S. senator, R-Arizona, “Mr. President, stop attacking the press,” The Washington Post, Jan. 16, 2018. Image: Nigel Parry/NYMag 




Editorial Comment: This is a good, clear-eyed, principled op-ed, Sen. McCain. It’s worth a read. But in what universe would this Congress actually do that?


Related: Committee to Protect Journalists: “Trump Attacks Provide Cover for Record Journalist Imprisonments,” December 2017.




PeezPix by Ted Pease

Seagrass







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, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Cult of Ignernce

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“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”

—Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), scientist and author, 1980. (Thanks to alert WORDster Ann Berry)


Editorial Comment: That’s bull. I know what I know.



PeezPix by Ted Pease

Moving an Icon










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, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard