Smarts

A thought for a New Year:

“True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing, and in knowing that you know nothing, that makes you smartest of all.”

—Socrates (470-399 B.C.E.), Greek philosopher.

• Editorial Comment: Can this be real? Socrates sounds like Dr. Seuss.

PeezPIX 

In January, Senior News takes A Walk on the Creative Side.

 

FREE! TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM This free “service” is sent to rafts of subscribers worldwide 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: Don’t shoot the messenger. I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em.)

 

“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

_____________
Edward C. Pease, Ph.D.
Professor & Department Head Emeritus
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University
Today's WORD on Journalism

Sentiments for the Season

 

“God help us, every one!”

—Timothy “Tiny Tim” Cratchett (1843-??), in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” (paraphrased)

• Editorial Comment: Dear WORDsters: Have a lovely holiday, and here’s to a happy, healthy and saner New Year. The WORD will be chugging eggnog and otherwise in recovery until January. See you on the flip side.

PeezPIX 

From our home to yours, may your days be merry & bright.

December's SENIOR NEWS is The Stocking Stuffer Issue. And the January 2022 issue is out — “A Walk on the Creative Side.”

FREE! TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM This free “service” is sent to rafts of subscribers worldwide 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: Don’t shoot the messenger. I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em.)

 

“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

_____________
Edward C. Pease, Ph.D.
Professor & Department Head Emeritus
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University
Today's WORD on Journalism

Imperfect Pitch

“I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.”

—Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), French novelist.

• Editorial Comment: My inner Madame Bovary sounds like a kazoo.

PeezPIX 

Get the hell off my lawn!

December's SENIOR NEWS is The Stocking Stuffer Issue.

FREE! TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM This free “service” is sent to rafts of subscribers worldwide 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: Don’t shoot the messenger. I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em.)

 

“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

_____________
Edward C. Pease, Ph.D.
Professor & Department Head Emeritus
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University
Today's WORD on Journalism

Thought Police

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” 

—Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), English author.

• Editorial Comment: Stay toasty — throw another thought on the fire.

PeezPIX 

Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse, Christmas, 2014.

December's SENIOR NEWS is The Stocking Stuffer Issue.

FREE! TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM This free “service” is sent to rafts of subscribers worldwide 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: Don’t shoot the messenger. I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em.)

 

“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

_____________
Edward C. Pease, Ph.D.
Professor & Department Head Emeritus
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University
Today's WORD on Journalism

Buzzards, Again.

“Horror is not too strong a word for how the news hit me. Alden Global, the most rapacious of the ownership groups currently wrecking local newspapers, wanted to buy my old paper, the Buffalo News. 

“When Alden buys a paper, the results are unfailingly negative for the community. . . . I knew this from years of covering the news media and from writing a book about the dire effects on our democracy when local news declines. 

“In short, we become more politically polarized and less engaged in our communities.”

—Margaret Sullivan, media columnist and author, “Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy,” “Vulture capitalists are circling my old newspaper. Here’s why we need to fight them off,” The Washington Post, Dec. 16, 2021. 

• Editorial Comment: Anyone got any Buzzard Spray?

PeezPIX 

Who?

December's SENIOR NEWS is The Stocking Stuffer Issue. Click here.

FREE! TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM This free “service” is sent to rafts of subscribers worldwide 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: Don’t shoot the messenger. I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em.)

 

“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

_____________
Edward C. Pease, Ph.D.
Professor & Department Head Emeritus
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University
Today's WORD on Journalism

Wholesome

“I believed then, as I do now, in the goodness of the published word: it seemed to contain an essential goodness, like the smell of leaf mold.”

—E.B. White (1899-1985), writer and farmer, “The Egg Is All,” remarks on receiving the National Medal for Literature, The New York Times, Dec. 7, 1971. 

• Editorial Comment: In my view, standards in publishing, if not in leaf mold, have since slipped.

PeezPIX 

Crab Pot Christmas, 2011

December's SENIOR NEWS is The Stocking Stuffer Issue. Click here.

FREE! TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM This free “service” is sent to rafts of subscribers worldwide 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: Don’t shoot the messenger. I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em.)

 

“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

_____________
Edward C. Pease, Ph.D.
Professor & Department Head Emeritus
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University
Today's WORD on Journalism

Crayola

“When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.”

—Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), pretty good writer, limbed or not.

• Editorial Comment: What color?

PeezPIX 

Aw . . . Don’t look at me like that!

December's SENIOR NEWS is The Stocking Stuffer Issue. Click here.

FREE! TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM This free “service” is sent to rafts of subscribers worldwide 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: Don’t shoot the messenger. I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em.)

 

“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

_____________
Edward C. Pease, Ph.D.
Professor & Department Head Emeritus
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University
Today's WORD on Journalism

The Liberal Press

“My colleagues in the media are serving as accessories to the murder of democracy.

“After a honeymoon of slightly positive coverage in the first three months of the year, Biden’s press for the past four months has been as bad as — and for a time worse than — the coverage Trump received for the same four months of 2020.”

—Dana Milbank, columnist, “The media treats Biden as badly as — or worse than — Trump. Here’s proof,” The Washington Post, Dec. 3, 2021. 

• Editorial Comment: Equal opportunity jackals.

PS: Hey WaPo, it’s “media TREAT.”

PeezPIX 

Rainy Day Girl

December's SENIOR NEWS is The Stocking Stuffer Issue. Click here.

FREE! TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM This free “service” is sent to rafts of subscribers worldwide 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: Don’t shoot the messenger. I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em.)

 

“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

_____________
Edward C. Pease, Ph.D.
Professor & Department Head Emeritus
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University
Today's WORD on Journalism