The other reason why we love newspapers:

Thanks to Ted Pease:

“A 19th century Irish immigrant named O’Reilly called the newspaper ‘a biography of something greater than a man. It is the biography of a DAY. It is a photograph, of twenty four hours’ length, of the mysterious river of time that is sweeping past us forever. And yet we take our year’s newspapers—which contain more tales of sorrow and suffering, and joy and success, and ambition and defeat, and villainy and virtue, than the greatest book ever written—and we use them to light the fire.’”

—Adair Lara, columnist,

The San Francisco Chronicle,

December 30, 1999

Amen

From Today's Word on Journalism:

“For journalists charged with feeding the digital news flow, life is a barely sustainable cycle of reporting, blogging, tweeting, Facebooking and, in some cases, moderating the large volume of readers who comment online. I applaud these journalists for their commitment, but worry that the requirements of the digital age are translating into more errors and eventual burnout.”

—Arthur S. Brisbane, public editor, The New York Times, 1/10/2011
(Thanks to alert WORDster John McManus)

... the power of journalism is when we make those "intimate connections"

Thank you, Ted Pease -- journalism professor at Utah State:

“The heart of journalism is storytelling—we are storytellers and story-listeners, and that was the magic of [Pulitzer’s newspaper] The World.

“[Today], the media are increasingly becoming a purveyor of [only] information, but information without knowledge and context is of little use to us. The cacophony going on—you turn on the average television station and you have a crawler about news, you have weather, you have stocks and you have someone talking in the middle, and there’s no narrative thread to link us.

“If you ask people to reflect on a disaster … when they read about the Haitian earthquake, they are not as moved as when they read about the one girl who is trapped for two days under the rubble. That intimate narrative story is what connects them. That’s why we read novels: those stories connect us with the experiences of others. The power of journalism to change the world is when we make those intimate connections.”

—James McGrath Morris, biographer and author, Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power (2010), discussing the impact of the giant newspaper baron on American journalism
at Utah State University, Jan. 25, 2010.

Click here for hour-long interview on Utah Public Radio

first -- and last -- draft of history

Terrific quote from Errol Morris, courtesy of USU journalism prof, Ted Pease:

History on the Hoof

"We often do not realize that history is perishable. It depends on evidence. There are countless stories where evidence is lost, corrupted or hidden, and hence, our attempts to re-assemble a picture of reality are doomed at best. If we lose all the evidence of the Battle of Hastings, what then can we say about it? Journalism may be the first draft of history, but sometimes it’s the only draft. It is often the journalist who collects evidence before it is lost."

—Errol Morris, filmmaker (Thin Blue Line, Fog of War…), author and New York Times blogger (The Opinionator), from a 2010 commencement address to the Berkeley School of Journalism http://www.errolmorris.com/content/lecture/berkeley.html

print stinks.

Love this quote from Anna Quindlen (thanks to Utah State journalism professor, Ted Pease):

The Book

"There's no question that reading off-paper, as I think of it, will increase in years to come.... And there's no question that once again we will be treated to lamentations suggesting that true literacy has become a lost art. The difference this time is that we will confront elitism from both sides. Not only do literary purists now complain about the evanescent nature of letters onscreen, the tech aficionados have become equally disdainful fo the old form. 'This book stinks,' read an online review of the bestseller Game Change before the release of the digital version. 'The thing reeks of paper and ink.'"

--Anna Quindlen, columnist and book reader, Newsweek, April 5, 2010 (http://www.newsweek.com/id/235551)

Gets your fingers dirty, too. On the other hand, rarely leaves you cursing the spinning beachball of death. bk

today's WTF moment:

Thanks to Ted Pease, professor of journalism at Utah State:

"A new poll finds Fox News as the only network that more people say they trust than distrust.

“Here are the trust/don't trust spreads: Fox 49 to 37, CNN 39 to 41, NBC 35 to 44, CBS 32 to 46, and ABC 31 to 46.

“Analysis: 'These numbers suggest quite a shift in what Americans want from their news. A generation ago, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in the country because of his neutrality. Now people trust Fox the most precisely because of its lack of neutrality. It says a lot about where journalism is headed.'"

--Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire, http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/01/26/fox_news_most_trusted.html (blogging on a survey by consulting firm Public Policy Poll: http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2010/01/fox-leads-for-trust.html)

In other words, ugh. bk

jlinx: back in action

Just back from the Sun Valley Writer's Conference. More later.

In the meantime, came across this quote from Anna Quindlen on Today's Word on Journalism:
“Being a reporter is as much a diagnosis as a job description.”

A reader had written to Utah Journalism Prof Ted Pease, who runs the blog, asking what the quote meant. Pease threw the question out to his readers, who responded here.

Among the best:

It’s a diagnosis like schizophrenia or Swine Flu. If you’re a reporter, it’s just in your blood… --Amy

And:

Quindlen intended to say, I believe, that journalism is an affliction, and its practitioners are addicted to it. If so, I would disagree with her in one respect: Journalists are many, but not all are afflicted. Only the good ons are. -- Hugh

bloggers anonymous

Editorial Comment: Filling those empty retirement hours, when you don't have a 'real' community anymore...

courtesy Ted Pease, journalism prof, Utah State University.