Quitting the News

“I only make New Year’s resolutions when I sense something is amiss in my life: too much drinking, weight gain, not enough exercise. This year is no different, but the resolution is, to me, shocking. For 2022, I resolve to consume less news.

“Having spent more than 40 years reporting, writing and editing the news, I am surprised to conclude that overconsumption of news, at least in the forms I’ve been gorging on it since 2016, is neither good for my emotional well-being nor essential to the health of the republic.”

—John Huey, former Time Inc. editor in chief, “Opinion: All the news I intend to quit,” Washington Post, Jan. 3, 2022.

• Editorial Comment: Join the Ostrich News Health Alliance!

 

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In Other Bird News: Traveling Turkey

 

February's Senior News — Finding Friendship — is out!    

 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

‘You’re Gonna Miss Us!’

Sobering Factoids: About 1,800 U.S. newspapers have died since 2004, including more than 60 dailies and 1,700 weeklies. Daily newspaper circulation has dropped 63% from its peak of 62.8 million in 1987 to 24.3 million today; 57% of all journalists have lost their jobs since 2008.

 

“[N]ewspaper people often note that newspapers benefit society as a whole. This is true, but irrelevant to the problem at hand; ‘You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!’ has never been much of a business model. So who covers all that news if some significant fraction of the currently employed newspaper people lose their jobs?”

—Clay Shirky, journalism technologist and vice provost of educational technologies, New York University, “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable,” Edge, March 16, 2008.

• Editorial Comment: Get me rewrite! Please!

 

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Dumpty, Humboldt Animal Shelter, 2016

 

February's Senior News — Finding Friendship — is out!    

 

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

Words for Our Times

 

“‘Protect your body from viruses, your brain from lies, your heart from panic,’ said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, urging his compatriots to stay calm, as tensions remained high on its border with Russia.”

—Reuters, “Ukraine’s Zelenskiy urges calm,” Jan. 25, 2022.

• Editorial Comment: And dig a bomb shelter.

 

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February's Senior News — Finding Friendship — is out!

 

   

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

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Rejection

“A writer has to develop a hide like a rhino. If we allow ourselves to get upset every time a book is challenged we’d all be basket cases. . . .”

—Lois Duncan, writer, “This is how iconic YA author Lois Duncan dealt with rejections,” LitHub.com, 2011.

• Editorial Comment: Rhinos have feelings, too.

 

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February's Senior News — Finding Friendship — is out!

   

 

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

Suffering Writers

 

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” 

—Thomas Mann (1875-1955), Nobel Prize-winning author, “Stories of Three Decades,” 1936.

 

• Editorial Comment: Procrastination takes practice.

 

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Clam Beach Run, 2016

   

 

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

One President & the Press

 

“Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment, the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution — not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply ‘give the public what it wants,’ but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.”

 —John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) 35th U.S. president, The President and the Press: Address Before the American Newspaper Publishers Association, April 27, 1961.

 

• Editorial Comment: Seems the rules have changed.

 

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Lobstah Roll

   

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

The Future of Journalism

 

“In 2022 I hope we embrace the end of objectivity. While it may always be a requirement for journalists to maintain a certain level of professionalism and follow an ethical standard, it is absurd to ask that they erase facets of their identity to report accurately.

“Being subjective to certain matters allows for more substantial reporting and higher community engagement. Leveraging your human experience to connect with sources is a method to create trust within the community you serve as a reporter.

“When journalism begins to accept the death of objectivity, the industry will begin to thrive off relying on organic humanity rather than stiff, rigid and outdated mechanisms.”

—Sophia Ungaro, new USC-Annenberg journalism graduate, “What the Next Generation of Journalists Thinks,” Nieman Lab, December 2021.

 
 

• Editorial Comment: Just the facts, ma'am.

 

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Sadie's Not So Sure

   

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