GIGO

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Media Effects 

“A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will in time produce a people as base as itself.” 

—Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911), press baron who knew whereof he spoke

• Editorial Comment: (Garbage In, Garbage Out).



 

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Boathouse







Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This 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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Good Citizenship

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Mad as Hell

“Ever since I was in junior high school, I was taught that to be a good citizen meant you needed to know what was going on in your country and in your world. You should read the paper, you should pay attention to the news, that's part of your responsibility of being an American. And the problem, especially in recent years, is the more informed I am, the more despondent I am, because day after day, there is news which drives me crazy and I want to see the public rise up in outrage and say, no, you can't do that . . . .” 

—Marty Kaplan, Norman Lear Professor of Entertainment, Media and Society at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, “Marty Kaplan and the Weapons of Mass Distraction,” Bill Moyers & Co., PBS, 2013 

• Editorial Comment: Too late for that. We’ve already amused ourselves to death.

• See the “Mad as Hell” speech by Peter Finch, Network (1976)

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Beach Creek











Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This 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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Habit-Forming

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Chewing Gum

“Reading newspapers had turned out to be one of the habits, like gum chewing, that have no really deep hold; people found they could take them or leave them alone.”

—A.J. Liebling (1904-1963), writer, “No Papers,” in “The Wayward Press” column, The New Yorker, 1945 

• Editorial Comment: Of course, this was before texting and tweeting.





PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Into the Woods







Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This 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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Too Graphic?

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Justified Video

“This video goes well beyond its shock value. The public has a need to know that police are acting within the law and this video draws that truth into question. Journalists are in the truth-telling business. Sometimes the truth is hard to watch. But the public has to be able to trust that when police make mistakes, journalists will hold them accountable, just as when the police shoot a suspect out of legitimate fear for their safety, journalists will report that fairly and aggressively, too.”

—Al Tompkins, “Graphic New York Times video seems justified,” The Poynter Institute, April 8, 2015 

• Editorial Comment: Too graphic? Damn right, when a cop shoots a man in the back as he runs away. This is what the watchdog is supposed to do: Bark his damn fool head off when he sees bad things happening.


PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Mossy Limbs











Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This 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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Selfie for Sports Week

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Run-Away Winner

Words aren’t needed today. Because I think this pretty much speaks for itself.

Photojournalist Troy Wayrynen took 1st Prize in the Sports Feature category of the National Press Photographers 2014 Best of Photojournalism contest with this photo of 17-year-old junior Jacob Gillingham of Skyview High School in Vancouver, Washington. (Thanks to alert PhotoWORDster Mark Larson)

• Editorial Comment: Now is the dawning of the Age of Self-Absorption.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Sand-puppy







Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This 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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Rape on Campus

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Misguided 

“Reporting on rape has unique challenges, but the journalist still has the responsibility to get it right. I hope that my mistakes in reporting this story do not silence the voices of victims that need to be heard.”

—Sabrina Rubin Erdely, contributing editor and author of discredited 2014 Rolling Stone story, “A Rape on Campus,” responding to Columbia University report on the story, New York Times, April 5, 2015 

 

“Rolling Stone’s story, ‘A Rape on Campus,’ did nothing to combat sexual violence, and it damaged serious efforts to address the issue. Irresponsible journalism unjustly damaged the reputations of many innocent individuals and the University of Virginia. Rolling Stone falsely accused some University of Virginia students of heinous, criminal acts, and falsely depicted others as indifferent to the suffering of their classmate. The story portrayed university staff members as manipulative and callous toward victims of sexual assault. Such false depictions reinforce the reluctance sexual assault victims already feel about reporting their experience, lest they be doubted or ignored.”

—Teresa A. Sullivan, president, University of Virginia, in statement on report about the Rolling Stone story, New York Times, April 5, 2015  

• Editorial Comment: 1. Tell the Truth. 2. Minimize Harm. The SPJ Code of Ethics.

• Related: “Rolling Stone’s investigation: ‘A failure that was avoidable,’” Columbia Journalism Review
• Analysis: “Rolling Stone’s ‘Rape on Campus.’ Notes and comment on Columbia J-school’s investigation,” Jay Rosen, PressThink

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Church















Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This 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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Journalism 101

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Journalistic Failure 

“Rolling Stone's repudiation of the main narrative in ‘A Rape on Campus’ is a story of journalistic failure that was avoidable. The failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking. The magazine set aside or rationalized as unnecessary essential practices of reporting that, if pursued, would likely have led the magazine’s editors to reconsider publishing Jackie’s narrative so prominently, if at all. The published story glossed over the gaps in the magazine’s reporting by using pseudonyms and by failing to state where important information had come from.”

—Sheila Coronel, Steve Coll & Derek Kravitz, authors, “Rolling Stone and UVA: The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Report: An anatomy of a journalistic failure,” Rolling Stone, April 5, 2015 

• Editorial Comment: Fine hindsight, but a little late.

• Related: Discredited Rolling Stone contributing editor Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s mea culpa, and University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan’s statement, New York Times, April 5, 2015


PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Purple Trillium











Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This 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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Higher Math

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Survey Says . . . 

“USA Today has come out with a new survey — apparently, three out of every four people make up 75 percent of the population.”

—David Letterman, late-night host

• Editorial Comment: Numbers don’t lie.




PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Easter Echium







Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This 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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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What a Rush

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Humongous Hypothalmus

“Greetings, conversationalists across the fruited plain, this is Rush Limbaugh, the most dangerous man in America, with the largest hypothalamus in North America, serving humanity simply by opening my mouth, destined for my own wing in the Museum of Broadcasting, executing everything I do flawlessly with zero mistakes, doing this show with half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair because I have talent on loan from . . . God. Rush Limbaugh. A man. A legend. A way of life.”

—Rush Limbaugh, the man, the legend, the radio loudmouth, in Richard Corliss, “A Man. A Legend. A What!?” Time, 1991

• Editorial Comment: “Fruited plain”? More like plain fruity.


PeezPix by Ted Pease 


Rose








Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This 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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Phoolish

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A Matter of Faith

“I have great faith in fools — self-confidence, my friends will call it.”

—Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), author, from his Marginalia, 1846

  



• Editorial Comment: I’ve always had great affection for fools. Shows, doesn’t it?




PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Morning Moon





Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This 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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Truthinews

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I Don’t Want to Hear This

“I don't know about you, but I do not watch the news to see what I don’t want to hear. And I shouldn’t have to — these days there’s a news channel for everyone: Conservatives have Fox, liberals have MSNBC and the elderly who lost the remote in 1998 have Headline News. Cable networks have one cardinal rule. That rule is to tell their viewers what they want to hear.” 

—Stephen Colbert, “The Word—Truthinews,” 2013

• Editorial Comment: What are we going to do without him in 2016?

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Beach Creek











Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This 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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Reporting . . .

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. . . Live from the Scene

“Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.”

 —Henry Anatole Grunwald (1922-2005), diplomat, journalist and former editor of Time, Inc., in Time Magazine's 60th anniversary issue, Fall 1983

• Editorial Comment: Speak up, newshounds.



PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Over the Bar







Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This 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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Oh, Dorothy

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Shoot Them Now

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

—Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), writer and satirist, in book review of The Elements of Style, Esquire, 1959 Image: Jill DeGroff

• Editorial Comment: Teach your children well.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Curl




Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This 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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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