Obama & the Press

. 
Transparency

“[A]dministration spokesmen are often unresponsive or hostile to press inquiries . . . . Despite President Barack Obama’s repeated promise that his administration would be the most open and transparent in American history, reporters and government transparency advocates said they are disappointed by its performance in improving access to the information they need. 

“‘This is the most closed, control freak administration I’ve ever covered,’ said David E. Sanger, veteran chief Washington correspondent of The New York Times.”

—Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor, The Washington Post, in special report for the Committee to Protect Journalists, “The Obama Administration and the Press: Leak investigations and surveillance in post-9/11 America,” Oct. 10, 2013. 

• Editorial Comment: Hope for change.

 

PeezPix by Ted Pease
 

Dinghy Rack





Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com 

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever 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.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, and Humboldt State University, Arcata, California
To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com.  
(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Blind Optimism

. 
Nincompoops

“I have this sort of heuristic view that journalism, we possibly offer hope because the world is clearly run by total nincompoops more than ever. . . . 

“Not that journalism is always wonderful, it’s not, but at least we offer some way out, some integrity.”

—Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, in “Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the ‘pathetic’ American media,” The Guardian, Sept. 27, 2013

 

 

• Editorial Comment: Now I feel better.

PeezPix by Ted Pease
 

Surfer Dog






Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com 


TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever 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.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, and Humboldt State University, Arcata, California
To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com.  
(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Dear Mary

. 
Correspondence Course

“Letter writing is nearly a lost art in this age of telephones and easy travel, and the receipt of written correspondence that is detailed and witty is a lost pleasure. 

“As a result, when Ms. magazine began publishing in 1972, few of us who were on the staff were prepared for the experience of reading the rich variety of the letters that were addressed to the editors. They allowed us to get to know thousands of our readers on a level of intimacy that one shares with only a few real-life friends. . . . Ms. was founded to give voice to the concerns of a movement, and the letters help us fulfill that purpose.”

—Mary Thom (1944-2013), writer and former Ms. Magazine executive editor, in Letters to Ms., 1972-1987 (1987) (NYTimes obit)

-->

 

• Editorial Comment: Note to self: Drop mom a line.

 

PeezPix by Ted Pease
 

Pastels on the Plaza






Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever 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: While I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, and Humboldt State University, Arcata, California
To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Stoop News

. 
Slow Down

“There is now and will be a monster explosion in the means of disseminating material . . . but there’s still something to be said for sitting on the stoop reading a daily newspaper.”

—Chuck Ward, newspaper publisher

• Editorial Comment: Please pass the lemonade. And the sports section.



Image: Alfred Eisenstaedt

PeezPix by Ted Pease

Pastels






Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever 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: While I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, and Humboldt State University, Arcata, California
To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Slow and Steady

. 
The Grind

“Writing is like the life of a glacier, one eternal grind.”

—John Muir (1838-1914), naturalist, conservationist and author

• Editorial Comment: My floor is a constant moraine of ground-down inspiration.


PeezPix by Ted Pease

Pastels







Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever 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: While I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, and Humboldt State University, Arcata, California

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

What’s Killing Newspapers

. 
The Threat of Single Motherhood

“Even in a supposedly prosperous and well-educated state like Connecticut, how strong can demand for [the news] be now that half the children are being raised without two parents at home and thus acquiring developmental handicaps. . . .”

“Indeed, newspapers still can sell themselves to traditional households—two-parent families involved with their children, schools, churches, sports, civic groups, and such. But newspapers cannot sell themselves to households headed by single women who have several children by different fathers, survive on welfare stipends, can hardly speak or read English, move every few months to cheat their landlords, barely know what town they’re living in, and couldn’t afford a newspaper subscription even if they could read.”

—Chris Powell, managing editor, in editorial, “Journalism’s problem may not be the Internet,” The Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Connecticut, Sept. 28, 2013 

• Editorial Comment: Sheesh.

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Delish





Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever 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: While I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, and Humboldt State University, Arcata, California

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

The Elusive Muse

. 
Keep Your Head Down

“Mr. Clancy said none of his success came easily, and he would remind aspiring writers of that when he spoke to them.

“‘I tell them you learn to write the same way you learn to play golf,’ he once said. ‘You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think something mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely inspired — it’s hard work.’” 

—Tom Clancy (1947-2013), blockbuster novelist, died Wednesday. (NYTimes obit by Julie Bowman) (Thanks to alert WORDster Mark Larson)

• Editorial Comment: Damn. I’ve been waiting for a muse kiss since 1964.

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Houda Beach




Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, and Humboldt State University, Arcata, California

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

The Academy

. 
Campus View

“The academic community has in it the biggest concentration of alarmists, cranks and extremists this side of the giggle house.”      

 —William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008), conservative icon, author, talk-show host, magazine editor and wordman. (NYTimes obit)

• Editorial Comment: Nothing to do with journalism, but it has a ring of truth to it.

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Cukes






Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, and Humboldt State University, Arcata, California

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Read a Book

. 
Gramma Says

“My grandma always said that God made libraries so that people didn’t have any excuse to be stupid.” 

―Joan Bauer, author, Rules of the Road (1998)

• Editorial Comment: Let’s hit the library and check out Gramma.






PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Surf’s Up! Elk Head, Humboldt County, California





Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, & Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

George Orwell Was Right

. 
Big Brother

“While the collection of private information by the National Security Agency is under scrutiny worldwide, a remarkable amount of your digital trail is also available to local law enforcement officers, IRS investigators, the FBI and private attorneys. And in some cases, it can be used against you.”

“. . . [T]here’s a wide range of ostensibly private data that's obtainable even without court approval: Law enforcement can create a map or timeline of a person’s whereabouts by accessing data from license-plate scanners, toll-bridge crossings and mobile phone carriers and, without much trouble, access records on your power consumption, purchasing habits and even snail mail.”

—National Public Radio and the Center for Investigative Reporting, “Your Digital Trail, And How It Can Be Used Against You,” Sept. 30, 2013 

• Editorial Comment: Hey! What’s that bug doing in my soup?


PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Surf’s Up! Elk Head, Humboldt County, California





Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, & Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Journalistic Timidity

. 
What’s Up Seymour?

“It doesn’t take much to fire up [Seymour] Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as ‘the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist.’

“He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.

 
“Don't even get him started on the New York Times, which, he says, spends ‘so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would’ — or the death of Osama bin Laden. ‘Nothing’s been done about that story, it’s one big lie, not one word of it is true,’ he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011.” 

—Lisa O’Carroll, reporter, “Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the 'pathetic' American media,” The Guardian, Sept. 27, 2013 

• Editorial Comment: And about that so-called “moon landing”?!?

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Autumn Squash Basket







Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, & Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Brainiac

. 
Simplify

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

—Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Nobel Prize-winning physicist

• Editorial Comment: It ain’t rocket science.

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Autumn Squash Basket





Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, & Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Cosmic Pressure

. 
Angst of the Newswriter

“Newspaper writing is not writing. No more than shooting a basketball at your front-yard hoop is like playing in a basketball game with nine others. Or strumming a guitar is like playing in a band in front of 3,000 people. ‘Writer’ connotes the sun, reflecting on the forces around it. The reality of ‘newswriter’ is the asteroid, being tugged at violently from every angle—bitchy sources, bitchy competitors, bitchy editors, bitchy readers, deadlines, space limitations and the emotional fragility those pressures create.”

—Bob Baker, journalist, editor & author, “Newsthinking: The Secret of Great Newswriting” (1981). Bob Baker's Newsthinking. (Thanks to alert WORDster Mark Larson)  Image: “Newspaperman in Paris,” Giovanni Boldini, 1878

• Editorial Comment: Mama wanted me to go into something kinder and gentler. Like air traffic control...

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Unsettled Sea off Elk Head





Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, & Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.

To receive Today's Word on Journalism, send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.