Sexy

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Oooo, Baby

“A new advertising campaign from the Newspaper Association of America seeks to . . . focus on how reading newspapers — in their digital or print incarnations — actually makes users sexy.

“On Monday, the association will announce a consumer marketing campaign that extols the virtues of newspapers, and by extension the news that they provide, as being something that makes people more informed, aware and savvy.

“‘Smart is the new sexy’ reads the tagline for the campaign . . . . ‘Be able to find Iran on a map,’ says one ad that shows an illustration of a woman reading a print newspaper at a table. ‘Know what the city council is up to behind closed doors.’”

—Tanzina Vega, media writer, “Group Says Newspapers Aren’t Dead, They’re Alluring,”
The New York Times, Oct. 23, 2010
(Thanks to alert WORDster Tony Seton)

• Editorial Comment: Sexy ain’t what it used to be. Bob Pierpoint had an idea...see below.

RIP: ROBERT C. PIERPOINT
LOS ANGELES (AP) — CBS News correspondent Robert C. Pierpoint — who covered six presidents, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination and the Iranian hostage crisis in a career that spanned more than four decades — died Saturday in California, his daughter said. He was 86. After making his name covering the Korean War — a role he reprised when he provided his radio voice for the widely watched final episode of “MASH” in 1983 — Pierpoint became a White House correspondent during the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, a position he would hold through the Jimmy Carter administration. “He lived quite an amazing life,” his daughter said. AP URL

Hear CBS’s Bob Scheiffer’s remembrance of Pierpont, and the story behind this photo, here. And see James Fallows in The Atlantic here.






Visit our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café
• Why live in Hyrum? Country atmosphere with city benefits, people say, by Kristi Ottley
• Mendon photographers compare and share tips on their craft, by Mandy Morgan
• City council votes to let North Logan animal control officer kill strays, by Steve Crass


• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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Esperanto Moderno?

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Tuning in

“For the first time in history, mankind is developing a universal language: video. People now communicate with video on two billion computers and more than one and a half billion television sets, and by 2013 you can add another one billion video-capable people regularly accessing the web from their cell phones. The most popular spoken and written language is English, with 1.8 billion users. Looks like video already wins.”

—Dave Marash, “Fade to Black:
As a video revolution sweeps the world, US television news caps its lens,” Columbia Journalism Review, September/October 2011

Image: Egyptians gather to watch Hosni Mubarak on TV during Arab Spring. Ahikam Seri photo.

• Editorial Comment: Nothing like TV time with the family.

Visit our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café





• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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Ow!

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Note: Interesting roundup of media attention to Occupy Wall Street.

Noticing OWS

“Media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests started out exactly as one might expect. There was little coverage at first, and as it expanded, much of it consisted of snide dismissals of demonstrators’ ignorance, hygiene and so on.

“But then something happened. . . . [O]verall the protests have received significant and sustained media attention. This is surprising, given corporate media's history of marginalizing or belittling progressive protest movements. . . . ”

“As the Occupy Wall Street movement spreads, political elites are trying to find ways to adopt some of its message. A Washington Post front-page story reported that the White House plans to ‘turn public anger at Wall Street into a central tenet of their reelection strategy.’

“The Post article acknowledges the inherent difficulty for a White House that drafted an economic team with deep ties to Wall Street to try and run against Wall Street. But it is nonetheless a sign that political and media elites sense that there is something significant happening in the streets—even if they don’t know what it is.”

—FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting),
“Have Corporate Media Warmed to Occupy Wall Street?”
Oct. 18, 2011

• Editorial Comment: If a reform movement falls on Wall Street, does it make a noise?

Media Perspectives on Occupy Wall Street:
• A New York Times took on the “chattering classes” who complained that Occupy Wall Street lacked a clear message or specific proposals: “The problem is that no one in Washington has been listening.”—New York Times, “The Protesters Against Wall Street,” Oct. 9, 2011
• The protesters as “Milquetoast Radicals.” —David Brooks, columnist, The New York Times, Oct. 11, 2011 URL
• “Starbucks-sipping, Levi’s-clad, iPhone-clutching protesters denounce corporate America even as they weep for Steve Jobs,” . . . “indigent indolents saddled with their $50,000 student loans and English degrees” whose policy proposal boils down to, “Eat the rich.”—Charles Krauthammer, columnist, The Washington Post, Oct. 14, 2011.
• “It’s not just protest Wall Street. It’s protest Wall Street and it’s an embrace of Communism and there is no doubt about it.”—Fox business reporter Charles Gasparino, Oct. 17, 2011

Visit our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café
• Review: ‘Killer Elite’—secret agents, spies and a whole mess of guns, by Cathy Morgan
• Truck stop plaza in Wellsville dominates P&Z commission debate, by Allie Jeppson
• Why sewer bills in Richmond are higher than elsewhere in Cache Valley, by Rouchelle Brockman


• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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Election 2012

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Nuts

“There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.”

—Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), author, “Cold Turkey,” In These Times, 2004

• Editorial Comment: Sometimes you feel like a nut.












Visit our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café
• Review: ‘Killer Elite’—secret agents, spies and a whole mess of guns, by Cathy Morgan
• Truck stop plaza in Wellsville dominates P&Z commission debate, by Allie Jeppson
• Providence council scorecard: Roosters, 1; sleeping humans, 0, by Kristi Ottley

• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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Health & Wellness

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Dark Ages?

“We asked [editors] what the impact would be if newspapers closed and were not replaced. And 90 percent of them said it would be devastating and made reference to the role of newspapers as part of democracy—and what would happen if people were not held accountable by newspapers.

“It’s not the public’s responsibility to save news; it’s the newspapers’ responsibility. . . . It’s time for the industry to invest energy in getting the message across about how it contributes to society.

“It’s the best institution we have to reflect back to the community what it is and what it’s doing. It’d be a dark age if it went away. We don’t think it’s going away.”

—Paul Steinle and his wife, Sara Brown, are journalists and educators
whose Who Needs Newspapers? project examines newspapers in all 50 states.
In John Darling, “Who Needs Newspapers?,”
The Mail Tribune, Medford,
Oregon, Oct. 9, 2011

(Thanks to alert WORDster Brad Knickerbocker)

Image: Journalists Sara Brown and Paul Steinle browse their “Who Needs Newspapers?” website. The couple interviewed newspaper editors in all 50 states and assembled the website, which examines the evolution of newspapers in the digital age. Julia Moore photo

• Editorial Comment: Pretty dark already, I’d say.


Visit our award-winning
student news site, The Hard News Café
• Canal company’s storage needs more than a pipe dream in Millville, by Rachel Kenley
• Council candidates tell River Heights voters they’ll keep the status quo, by Lindsay Nemelka
• Providence council scorecard: Roosters, 1; sleeping humans, 0, by Kristi Ottley

• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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Obsession

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Yeee-ha!

“Day and night I’m obsessed by one recurring thought: I must write, I must write, I must write. … The moment I finish a tale, I must, for some reason, write another one, then a third, and after the third, a fourth one. … I’m writing nonstop, like a traveler switching horses midway, and I can’t do otherwise.”

—Boris Alexeyevich Trigorin, writer,

a character in Anton Chekhov’s (1860-1904)

The Seagull, 1895 (full monologue)

• Editorial Comment: Writing on horseback is tricky.








Visit our award-winning
student news site, The Hard News Café
• In Providence, autumn means it’s time to get your sauerkraut on
• Best-kept secret for fall fun may be American West Heritage Center
• Providence council scorecard: Roosters, 1; sleeping humans, 0

• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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Channel Surfing?

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Perseverance

“Violence and smut are of course everywhere on the airwaves. You cannot turn on your television without seeing them, although sometimes you have to hunt around.”

—Dave Barry, humor columnist and author

• Editorial Comment: Easier on the Internet.



Visit our award-winning
student news site, The Hard News Café




• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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Lonely Pamphleteers

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There’s Something Happening Here

“‘Get your newspaper, get your free Occupied Wall Street Journal!’ shouted one barker. Getting something in the hands of your average New Yorker is a pretty tough sell, but The Occupied Wall Street Journal was eagerly received, even by the people who just came to gawk, in part because it answered the question of what all the hubbub was about.

“Forgive an old newspaper hack a moment of sentimentality, but it is somehow reassuring that a newspaper still has traction in an environment preoccupied by social media. It makes sense when you think about it: newspapers convey a sense of place, of actually being there, that digital media can’t. When is the last time somebody handed you a Web site?

—David Carr, media writer, “A Protest’s Ink-Stained Fingers,” The New York Times, on the Wall Street protesters’ own newspaper, The Occupy Wall Street Journal, Oct. 9, 2010

(Thanks to alert WORDsters Sara Hostetler and Alexandra Halsey)

• Editorial Comment: All the News You Won’t Print.



• A Personal Note: 20 Years Ago Today: “Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas Came to Our Wedding”







New from our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café:
• Mendon’s volunteer firefighters: ‘Our pay really is helping people’
• Images of Ethiopia: Rick Egan’s photos from the Horn of Africa
• Review: Dream Theater wows enthusiastic crowd during rare SLC stop
• Paradise Town Council election canceled

• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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Monty Python

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Details, details . . .

“The words are all there, J.J., we just have to get them in the right order.”

—from a Monty Python skit

• Editorial Comment: I have to invoke my hero Tom Stoppard here: “Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you can get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” Aye, that’s the trick, laddie.


New from our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café:
• Mendon’s volunteer firefighters: ‘Our pay really is helping people’
• Images of Ethiopia: Rick Egan’s photos from the Horn of Africa
• Review: Dream Theater wows enthusiastic crowd during rare SLC stop
• Paradise Town Council election canceled

• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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Ostriches Wanted

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No Airheads

“What [is needed] is a revolutionary look at what a newspaper is and the role it plays. It must accept that it is no longer a mass medium. It is a cross-cultural medium for all people who are serious about being involved. It is not for airheads, intellectual peasants, or for people who put their heads in the sand.”

—James E. Shelledy, former editor, The Salt Lake Tribune, 2009

• Editorial Comment: EXTRA!! Ignore the news at The Ostriche Times!

• Visit our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café.
New from HNC:
• Cache school board ponders online options for students
• Images of Ethiopia: Rick Egan’s photos from the Horn of Africa
• Review: Dream Theater wows enthusiastic crowd during rare SLC stop

• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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.
.

Drones

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Press Threats

“(AP) WASHINGTON — Republican presidential contender Ron Paul on Wednesday suggested that the United States could assassinate journalists the same way it targeted Americans with ties to al Qaeda.

“The Texas congressman again criticized President Barack Obama for approving last week’s drone strikes in Yemen against a U.S. citizen who was tracked and executed based on secret intelligence that linked him to two failed terrorist attacks against the U.S. . . . Escalating his criticism, Paul told a National Press Club luncheon that if citizens do not protest the deaths, the country will start adding reporters to its list of threats that must be taken out.

“‘Can you imagine being put on a list because you’re a threat? What’s going to happen when they come to the media? What if the media becomes a threat? ... This is the way this works. It’s incrementalism,’ Paul said. ‘It’s slipping and sliding, let me tell you.’”

—Philip Elliot, AP reporter, “Ron Paul: U.S. Could Target Journalists For Killing” URL (Thanks to alert WORDster Brenda Cooper)

• Editorial Comment: News Item: “Press ignoring Paul candidacy.” Why isn’t this guy doing better in the polls?


• Visit our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café.
New from HNC:
• ‘Mingi’—journalists bring the story of Ethiopian infanticide to USU
• Images of Ethiopia: Rick Egan’s photos from the Horn of Africa
• 5k run planned to support returning troops in ‘Wounded Warriors’ event

• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

• PeezPix cards & prints








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Game-Changer

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Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

“Part of the narrative that made Apple what it is today goes out with Steve Jobs. I came out to honor the fact that one man with vision, courage and unwavering dedication can still change the world. The way that I communicate and the way that I interact with the world is through things that Steve Jobs has created.”

—Christopher Smith, 40, a former business development manager at vigil for Steve Jobs outside Apple HQ at 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, Calif. The Apple visionary died yesterday of pancreatic cancer. URL

• Bites from Steve Jobs:
• “How to Live Before You Die.” Stanford University commencement address, 1995.
• “It’s better to be a pirate than to join the Navy.”
• “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
• “Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.”
• “Insanely Great!”

Links:
• HuffPo: IPad, IPhone, Apple II: The 10 Most Iconic Products From Steve Jobs’s Career

• Editorial Comment: Please, Apple-shift-Z?

• Visit our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café.
New from HNC:
• USU-Eastern head basketball coach, 31, found dead in apartment
• Local merchants sell out of ‘weapons’ in USU Human-Zombie conflict
• Goat-milk soap, an all-natural attraction at Logan farmers’ market

• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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Lunatics

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Crazy People

“Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.”

—Margaret Chittenden, author of 100+ romance and mystery novels.

• Editorial Comment: Sometimes you feel like a nut . . .

• Visit our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café.
New from HNC:
• Zombies on campus: Police deny reports of zombie attacks at USU
• Interview: 26 years later, James LaBrie & Dream Theater still evolving
• USU-Eastern athletics budget lowest in state, SWAC conference


• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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Job Security

.
More Adventures in Punctuation

“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.”

—Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) writer

• Editorial Comment: The Wilde Life: And then, the next day . . .






Image thanks to alert WORDster and paper-grader Evan Pease. Related: Insert appropriate punctuation in the following: “Let’s eat Grandma.”


• TODAY!!! The Children of Ethiopia: From the Cradle to the Grave
Matthew LaPlante, former national security reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune (now an assistant journalism professor at USU), and Tribune photojournalist Rick Egan went to Ethiopia last summer. What they saw: Tuesday, Oct. 4, 1:30-2:45 p.m., TSC Auditorium, Utah State University.

• Visit our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café.
New from HNC:
• Drill team practice pays off for Mountain Crest’s high-kicking Caprielles
• Logan biologist running for presidency of famine-ravaged Somalia
• USU-Eastern athletics budget lowest in state, SWAC conference


• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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Curmudgeon

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Sign-Off

“I’m wondering why Andy Rooney is leaving his weekly post? We need writers now more than ever, especially cranky ones who use typewriters.”

—Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Tweeting on the retirement of longtime resident “60 Minutes” curmudgeon Andy Rooney at 92,
Oct. 2, 2011

Watch the “60 Minutes” farewell to the “Grampa Moses of broadcasting” here

• Editorial Comment: Did you ever wonder why we watch him every week?

• Rooney classic: “There’s no doubt about it that dogs are nicer than people.”

• COMING TOMORROW: The Children of Ethiopia: From the Cradle to the Grave
Matthew LaPlante, former national security reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune (now an assistant journalism professor at USU), and Tribune photojournalist Rick Egan went to Ethiopia last summer. What they saw: Tuesday, Oct. 4, 1:30-2:45 p.m., TSC Auditorium, Utah State University.

• Visit our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café.
New from HNC:
• Logan biologist running for presidency of famine-ravaged Somalia
• Opinion: Global economic meltdown worse in many ways than Cold War
• USU-Eastern athletics budget lowest in state, SWAC conference


• HELP WANTED:
PR FACULTY: The JCOM Department at Utah State University has opened a national search for a tenure-track professor of public relations and corporate communication. Start date: August 2012. See USU HR link here for full posting and details. Email ted.pease@usu.edu for more information.

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