Life in the Echo Chamber

“It has now become possible to wake up, drive to work, listen to AM radio, sit at your desk, surf 200 different websites, go home and turn on cable news, and never once all day encounter an idea or a viewpoint that challenges the ones with which you woke up.”

—Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor, Slate, remarks at the dedication of First Amendment Monument, Charlottesville, Virginia, 2006.

• Editorial Comment: Smarter to stay in bed.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Goosenecking









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

Unblinking

“Photography can cut through abstractions and rhetoric to help us understand complex issues on a human level. Never is photography more essential than in moments of crisis. To witness people suffering is difficult. To make a photograph of that suffering is even harder. The challenge is to remain open to very powerful emotions and, rather than shutting down, channel them into the images. It is crucial to see with a sense of compassion and to comprehend that just because people are suffering does not mean they lack dignity.” 

—James Nachtwey, photojournalist, in the afterword to his powerful photo essay on the opioid epidemic, “The Opioid Diaries,” TIME, Feb. 24, 2018. Image: James Nachtwey, “Cheryl Schmidtchen, 67, being consoled at the funeral for her granddaughter Michaela Gingras in Manchester, N.H., on Sept. 17, 2017. Gingras, a heroin user, was 24.”

• Editorial Comment: More than 1,000 words.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Hot Off The Presses: March Senior News on Newsstands Everywhere













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

Speak, Write, Heal

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” 

—Toni Morrison, Nobel- and Pulitzer-winning author, “No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear,” The Nation, March 23, 2015.

• Editorial Comment: Time to get to work.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

New Morning














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

Fear

“Facts, not fear. Not fear! Even though we’re using the fear music, with the fear voice, and the fear font! That’s to get your attention so we can tell you, ‘Everything’s cool. Don’t be afraid.’”

—Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, 2007.

• Editorial Comment: Jon, that was then. Any update?

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

The Carson Mansion













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

Vilification and Vindication

 

“It’s a time of both crisis and triumph for responsible news media. Of vilification and vindication. They’re attacked almost daily as purveyors of ‘fake news’ to undermine their credibility. Yet they’ve delivered on their promise to keep the American public informed. Without them, we wouldn’t know what’s going on in Myanmar or Yemen or Charlottesville or Washington. Without them, there’d be no Mueller investigation.”
 

—John Darnton, journalist and curator of the Polk Awards, announcing a Special Polk Award to the New York Times and the Washington Post for their coverage of Russian connections with the Trump campaign, Feb. 20, 2018. 

• Editorial Comment: NYT and WaPo — also tops on CheetoHead’s enemies list.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Seaweeds









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

Angry Writers

“Much writing today strikes me as deprecating, destructive, and angry. There are good reasons for anger, and I have nothing against anger. But I think some writers have lost their sense of proportion, their sense of humor, and their sense of appreciation. 

“I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad: and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they happen to strike me.” 

—E.B. White (1899-1985), writer, in a 1969 Paris Review Interview, reported in Maria Popova’s “E.B. White on the Role and Responsibilities of the Writer,” Brain Pickings, 2012. Photo: Jill Krementz; Dog: Suzy.

 

• Editorial Comment: Thank dog for White’s record of the warming rays that struck his life, and thus ours.
 

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Bruno













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

Old School

“Students are no longer going to be educated in the basic function of journalism. I have the sense that they don't have the kind of indignation or spirit that will enable them to survive.

“To be a journalist you have to be tough-skinned and tough-minded, and there’s been a dilution of that kind of doggedness. As a consequence these schools have moved in a direction that is ultimately self-defeating.”

—Melvin Mencher, journalism professor (ret.), in Tony Rogers, “A Teacher From the Old School Worries About the Future of Journalism Education,” ThoughtCo.com, 2017.

 

• Editorial Comment: That’s Old School, all right, Mel. For the New School of Journalism, see Steve Doocey and Sean Hannity.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Anemones









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

No Faint Praise

“[L]et me say what an honor it is to be here with you, Christiane; you are the first female broadcast journalist I ever remember seeing on TV who was reporting on the ground from the most dangerous sites of conflict in the world. 

“You made my daughters think there was nothing at all unusual in that fact. Those of us who grew up in the 60s, when the narrative of serious journalism was always delivered in a baritone, we knew what a big a deal it was, and what a trailblazer you are. 

“You, Christiane, are the woman who made the flak jacket cool.” 

—Meryl Streep, actor, to CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour at Committee to Protect Journalists annual press freedom dinner, Nov. 15, 2017.

• Editorial Comment: And, hey, check out the tank.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

The Poem Lady












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

Drowning Language

“English is a beautiful, bewildering language, and the deeper you dive into it, the more effort it takes to come up to the surface for air.”  

—Kory Stamper, lexicographer and writer, “Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries,” March 2017.

• Editorial Comment: Which explains all the gasping, blue-faced, oxygen-deprived Scrabble people out there.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Bruce's Bass Back












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

The Unread Story

“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.”

—Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018), fantasy writer. Obit.

• Editorial Comment: And once it gets out of the book and into your brain, there’s no getting it back into those little black marks. 

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

There’s a Story Here









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

Tweety Birds

“Yes, yes, we journalists love Twitter, even feeling compelled to constantly regurgitate quotes from events, like presidential primary debates, that our prospective audience is already watching, as if we were AP correspondents in the Belgian Congo in a pre-Internet, pre-TV age.”

—James Warren, chief media writer, “For most, it doesn't generate much traffic,” Morning MediaWire, Poynter Institute, April 18, 2016.

• Editorial Comment: The undeniable pull of being first with instantaneous drivel.

 

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Rosebud









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