Coping in 2020

“My New Year’s resolution for 2020 is to stop arguing with trolls who have 10 followers on Twitter and to try to drink more bourbon.” 

—Nikole Hannah-Jones, NYTimes journalist, “‘Tune out the noise,’ plus other New Year’s resolutions from media and tech executives,” CNN, Jan. 1, 2020.

• Editorial Comment: Better make it a double.

 

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And spend more time with dogs

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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

Who Are They?

“mainstream media, n. Derogatory shorthand for the thousands of public-minded women and men who spent years in journalism schools learning how to best mislead the segment of the population that still believes in fairies, witches and interest-free loans.” 

—Sean Braswell and Sean Culligan, “The Devil’s Guide to the Media,” Ozy.com, November 2017.

• Editorial Comment: What’s that about fairies?

 

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2020 looks nice (so far)

   

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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

Who’s Waggin’ Whom?

The WORDster sez: I’m baaaa-aaaack! Survived the first five days of 2020 with the same muddy clarity as 2019. All I know is that Australia is on fire and the Occupant-in-Chief just watched “Wag the Dog” with KellyAnne and Hannity, and got an idea. “That’ll fix that Pelosi b***h,” he tweeted. 

Motss: What do you think about lining the President up for the Peace Prize? 

Brean: Our job’s over come election day. 

Motss: Yeah, but c’mon . . . 

Brean: What, just for the symmetry of the thing? [Motss nods] Well, if Kissinger can win the Peace Prize, I wouldn’t be surprised if I woke up and found I’d won the Preakness. 

Motss: Yeah, but our guy did bring peace. 

Brean: There was never a war. 

Motss: All the greater accomplishment.

—Dustin Hoffman and Robert DeNiro in “Wag the Dog.” Barry Levinson, director; screenplay by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet, 1997.

• Editorial Comment: Not so funny now.

 

PeezPix

Speaking of hot news, the January SENIOR NEWS is out!

   

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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

HoHoHo

The WORDgrinch sez: If the WORD’s going to take a holiday break, this seems as good a time as any. I would explain why, but let’s not get into that. Except to say, here’s to a happy, healthy and saner New Year. I’m off to St. Mumbles. We’ll see if things look any clearer in 2020. As Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, every one.

 

 

“Facts are like cows. If you look them in the face long enough, they generally run away.”  

―Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), British crime novelist and poet.

• Editorial Comment: HoHoHunh?

 

PeezPix

We don’t need a Christmas tree either.

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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

Shoe Sale

“It upsets the people in the newsroom to talk that way, but the ads were the most important editorial content from the standpoint of the reader.” 

—Warren Buffett, billionaire businessman, in Catherine Chiglinsky and Gerry Smith, “Warren Buffett Sees Most Newspapers as ‘Toast’ After Ad Decline,” Bloomberg, April 23, 2019.

   

• Editorial Comment: Shoe sales always beat city council stories.

 

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The famous Cox Crabpot Christmas Tree

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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

Young Writers

“It is much harder for young writers to start now . . . it is much harder for young a lot of things to start now. . . . It’s too bad there is no way for a poor person to make a beginning as a writer now.” 

—Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), in Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell, “Kurt Vonnegut on Making a Living as a Writer,” The Nation, 1973. (Thanks to alert WORDster Andrew Merton)

   

• Editorial Comment: And that was 1973, before I started trying to make a living as a writer...

 

PeezPix

It was another time . . .

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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

Warts and All

“The job of vigorous, independent journalism is to hold up a mirror so that we can look at ourselves and learn, painful as it may be, whether our actions as a nation square with our aspirations as a people.”

—Clark Hoyt, former Washington editor, Knight Ridder, 2006.

• Editorial Comment: Maybe some wart-removal cream?

 

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Santa Cruise

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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

Partisan Press

“Historians and media scholars say the current moment is in some ways a throwback to an era long before the rise of mass media, when partisan newspapers were the way Americans received their news. . . . 

“Many viewers have come to prefer partisan media venues, and the divide extends beyond cable. An entire news pipeline — from message threads on Reddit to chatter on Twitter and partisan Facebook groups — allows Americans to consume information that confirms their own biases and beliefs.”  

—Michael M. Grynbaum, media writer, “In Prime Time, Two Views of Impeachment for a Divided Nation,” The New York Times, Nov. 16, 2019.

• Editorial Comment: Gotta be true — all my friends think so.

 

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Seasonal Leaves

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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 Corner Newsstand

“‘Everything is going down, down, down,’ said one newsstand operator. ‘I’ve been here for twelve years, and every day is worse.’ 

“He blamed the proliferation of chains like Duane Reade and Walgreens. ‘This business will not be around for much longer.’

“The solution? One guy wants to see updated newsstands selling ‘millennial-targeted’ stuff, like bike helmets and natural condoms.” 

—Jeremiah Moss, author and blogger, “Newsstands Dying,” Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, May 17, 2017. 

• Editorial Comment: And sushi?

  

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Good Night

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet 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: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 

 
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