HoHoHo

The WORDgrinch sez: If the WORD’s going to take a holiday break, this seems as good a time as any. I would explain why, but let’s not get into that. Except to say, here’s to a happy, healthy and saner New Year. I’m off to St. Mumbles. We’ll see if things look any clearer in 2020. As Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, every one.

 

 

“Facts are like cows. If you look them in the face long enough, they generally run away.”  

―Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), British crime novelist and poet.

• Editorial Comment: HoHoHunh?

 

PeezPix

We don’t need a Christmas tree either.

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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

Shoe Sale

“It upsets the people in the newsroom to talk that way, but the ads were the most important editorial content from the standpoint of the reader.” 

—Warren Buffett, billionaire businessman, in Catherine Chiglinsky and Gerry Smith, “Warren Buffett Sees Most Newspapers as ‘Toast’ After Ad Decline,” Bloomberg, April 23, 2019.

   

• Editorial Comment: Shoe sales always beat city council stories.

 

PeezPix

The famous Cox Crabpot Christmas Tree

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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

Young Writers

“It is much harder for young writers to start now . . . it is much harder for young a lot of things to start now. . . . It’s too bad there is no way for a poor person to make a beginning as a writer now.” 

—Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), in Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell, “Kurt Vonnegut on Making a Living as a Writer,” The Nation, 1973. (Thanks to alert WORDster Andrew Merton)

   

• Editorial Comment: And that was 1973, before I started trying to make a living as a writer...

 

PeezPix

It was another time . . .

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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

Warts and All

“The job of vigorous, independent journalism is to hold up a mirror so that we can look at ourselves and learn, painful as it may be, whether our actions as a nation square with our aspirations as a people.”

—Clark Hoyt, former Washington editor, Knight Ridder, 2006.

• Editorial Comment: Maybe some wart-removal cream?

 

PeezPix

Santa Cruise

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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

Partisan Press

“Historians and media scholars say the current moment is in some ways a throwback to an era long before the rise of mass media, when partisan newspapers were the way Americans received their news. . . . 

“Many viewers have come to prefer partisan media venues, and the divide extends beyond cable. An entire news pipeline — from message threads on Reddit to chatter on Twitter and partisan Facebook groups — allows Americans to consume information that confirms their own biases and beliefs.”  

—Michael M. Grynbaum, media writer, “In Prime Time, Two Views of Impeachment for a Divided Nation,” The New York Times, Nov. 16, 2019.

• Editorial Comment: Gotta be true — all my friends think so.

 

PeezPix

Seasonal Leaves

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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 Corner Newsstand

“‘Everything is going down, down, down,’ said one newsstand operator. ‘I’ve been here for twelve years, and every day is worse.’ 

“He blamed the proliferation of chains like Duane Reade and Walgreens. ‘This business will not be around for much longer.’

“The solution? One guy wants to see updated newsstands selling ‘millennial-targeted’ stuff, like bike helmets and natural condoms.” 

—Jeremiah Moss, author and blogger, “Newsstands Dying,” Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, May 17, 2017. 

• Editorial Comment: And sushi?

  

PeezPix

Good Night

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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

Healthy Skepticism

“I just don’t know what to think. You would have to know the facts, and I don’t know that I’m getting the facts from the media right now.” 

—Jerre Corrigan, Wisconsin elementary school teacher, in Sabrina Tavernise and Aidan Gardiner, “‘No One Believes Anything’: Voters Worn Out by a Fog of Political News,” The New York Times, Nov. 18, 2019.

• Editorial Comment: Whose facts?

  

PeezPix

Autumn Dog

 

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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

Titillation

“Media exposure, which is the oxygen of terror in our age, not only amplifies the perception of danger but, in generating such hysteria, makes the bloated threat to society real. This is especially true today because the media is mostly designed to titillate the public rather than inform it.” 

—Scott Atran, anthropologist, University of Oxford,“Isis is a revolution,” Aeon, 2015. (Thanks to alert WORDster John Taylor)

• Editorial Comment: These days, the sky is always falling.

  

PeezPix

Shoelog

 

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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

Slimy Stuff

 

“One of the things that concerns a lot of Americans lately is the increase in plain old nastiness in our political discussion. It comes from a number of sources, but Rush Limbaugh is a major carrier.

“I should explain that I am not without bias in this matter. I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn’t actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.”

—Molly Ivins (1944-2007), political columnist and commentator, “Lyin’ Bully,” Mother Jones, 1995.

  

• Editorial Comment: A slander on newts.

  

PeezPix

Stella Washed Up

 

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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