Cursed

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True Patriots

“If I wished to put a curse on a nation, I would invoke the gods to decree that it be governed by those who consider themselves the only true patriots in it.”

—Sidney J. Harris (1917-1986), Chicago newspaperman, columnist and author. (Thanks to alert WORDster Skip Keyser)

• Editorial Comment: Making America Great Again. 




PeezPix by Ted Pease

On Reflection








Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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

Cynical

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Not So Funny

“No matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up.” 

—Lily Tomlin, comedian-philosopher. (Thanks to alert WORDster Barbara Zimmerman)

• Editorial Comment: Even I can’t keep up anymore.



PeezPix by Ted Pease

Leafy Chard









Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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

America’s TV Leader

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‘55 to Dead’

“‘I created a TV network for people 55 to dead,’ Ailes boasted to us. ‘Nobody believed it could be done, but I did it. It’s for guys who sit on their couch with the remote all day and night. ‘And they don’t want to see anyone like you,’ he continued, looking directly at me. 

“I wasn’t sure whether he meant a liberal, or a brunette newswoman in a dark pantsuit. ‘They don’t want to see you — they don’t even want to know that you exist!’ 

“And he was obliging them: he’d created a world where women were blonde and wore short tight skirts, men were in charge, and articulate, principled, complicated liberals — especially women — didn’t exist.” 

—Joan Walsh, national affairs correspondent, “My Only Meeting with Roger Ailes,” The Nation, May 18, 2017.

 
• Editorial Comment: Fox is closing in on 16 years as the No. 1 cable news network. Is that commentary on Roger Ailes, or us?



PeezPix by Ted Pease

Fungus Amongus









Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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

The Sinclair Broadcasting Deal

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Hello, Big Brother 

“These levels of consolidation are a threat to democracy regardless of whether liberal or conservative messages dominate. In 1947, the Hutchins Commission, a group of academics convened to study the freedom of the press, put it this way: ‘The owners and managers of the press determine which persons, which facts, which versions of the facts, and which ideas shall reach the public.’”

—Kevin Carty, columnist, “Sinclair's vast media merger threatens democratic ideals. Congress must fight it,” The Guardian, Nov. 24, 2017.

• Editorial Comment: If the FCC permits Sinclair Broadcasting to purchase Tribune Broadcasting, the new corporation will reach 72 percent of U.S. households. So much for the diverse marketplace of ideas.



PeezPix by Ted Pease

Winter Evening










Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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

Career Recommendation

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The News Habit

“I have spent half my life trying to get away from journalism, but I am still mired in it — a low trade and a habit worse than heroin, a strange, seedy world full of misfits and drunkards and failures.”

—Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005), journalist, author and grand poobah of gonzo journalism, in A Generation of Swine, 1988. (Thanks to alert WORDster Barbara Kelley)

• Editorial Comment: That wasn’t in the brochure.



PeezPix by Ted Pease

Cutler Marsh










Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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

Not So ‘Veritas’

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Bushwhacked

“We always honor ‘off-the-record’ agreements when they’re entered into in good faith. But this so-called off-the-record conversation was the essence of a scheme to deceive and embarrass us. The intent by Project Veritas clearly was to publicize the conversation if we fell for the trap. Because of our customary journalistic rigor, we weren’t fooled, and we can’t honor an ‘off-the-record’ agreement that was solicited in maliciously bad faith.” 

—Marty Baron, executive editor, The Washington Post, “A woman approached The Post with dramatic — and false — tale about Roy Moore. She appears to be part of undercover sting operation,” The Washington Post, Nov. 27, 2017.

• Editorial Comment: From the Why-read-the-story-after-the-longest-headline-ever? File.

• Related: “James O’Keefe’s Credibility Is On Trial As DOJ Seeks Felony Convictions For Trump Protesters”

 PeezPix by Ted Pease

Birch Swoop









Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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

qwertyLeaks

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машинистка in Russian

“My manual typewriters were stored in closets, with the fond regret bestowed on old prom photos and shells plucked from forgotten beaches. Now, however, all things analogue are coming back. Rumour has it that the Kremlin has returned to typewriters: a typed page can’t be leaked on the internet, or not as easily.”

—Margaret Atwood, novelist, “How Margaret Atwood Learned to Type,” The Walrus, Nov. 20, 2017.

• Editorial Comment: Just put that leak in an envelope and mail it.



PeezPix by Ted Pease

Beach Sky









Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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

Oh, Geez . . .

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Tweeter-in-Chief

• Editorial Comment: Contest? Let’s make it fair and balanced. A simple content study should do it. Step up, J schools.



PeezPix by Ted Pease

Truckload







Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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

Balder & Dash

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Everyone’s a Critic

“I rise to pay my small tribute to Dr. [Warren G.] Harding. Setting aside a college professor or two-and-a-half dozen dipsomaniacal newspaper reporters, he takes the first place in my Valhalla of literati. That is to say, he writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean-soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm (I was about to write abcess!) of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.” 

—H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), journalist, author and curmudgeon, “H.L. Mencken on Balder and Dash,” Lapham’s Quarterly, 1921. (Thanks to alert WORDster Karl Petruso)

• Editorial Comment: More flap than doodle, in my opinion.



PeezPix by Ted Pease

You Old Shroom







Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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

Unacceptable Ideas

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Free Speech

“It’s based on a faith that we’re all going to be better off when there’s more ideas expressed than having the government pick and choose which ideas are acceptable and which are unacceptable. Maybe that faith is misplaced. But the alternative, to me, is much more frightening.” 

—Erwin Chemerinsky, First Amendment scholar and dean of the UC Berkeley Law School, “What Students Don't Understand About Free Speech,” Truthdig.com, Oct. 27, 2017.

• Editorial Comment: Nah. Just tell us what to think.



PeezPix by Ted Pease

No Drumsticks



















Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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

Spavins

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A Fairy Tale Life

A reporter’s life “is like the plot of ‘Black Beauty.’ Sometimes he finds a kind master who gives him a dry stall and an occasional bran mash in the form of a Christmas bonus, sometimes he falls into the hands of a mean owner who drives him in spite of spavins and expects him to live on potato peelings.” 

—A. J. Liebling (1904-1963), press critic, quoted in David Remnick’s “Samuel I. Newhouse, Jr., the Longtime Owner of The New Yorker and Chairman of Condé Nast, Has Died at Eighty-nine,” The New Yorker, Oct. 16, 2017. (Thanks to alert WORDster Mark Larson)

• Editorial Comment: Bran mash will always beat potato peelings in any newsroom I know.



PeezPix by Ted Pease

View From Old Home Beach












Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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