Monthly Archive:: July 2014
31 Jul 2014
100 books every journalist must read
A young journalism student once asked a newspaper editor what she should do to prepare for her hoped-for career as a political reporter. “Read,” the editor said. Absolutely, I thought, sitting between them, waiting for my own interview for a top job to resume. “Read Shakespeare,” he said. “And the Bible.” Forsooth, I thought, that
31 Jul 2014
4 journalism books that aren’t must-reads
My list of the 100 books every journalist should read includes many works that show up over and over on lists like that. However, there were a few standard choices that I deliberately rejected for quality reasons. I’ll be listening to responses to my list and watching for others to come out; some books may
31 Jul 2014
Books that almost made my list
When I started to assemble my list of books that journalists must read, I thought I’d end up with an interesting number like 78. Instead, I kept adding more and more, finally deciding to cut it off at a round 100. Some books from other lists didn’t make mine because I preferred another book by
28 Jul 2014
The column is dead; long live the column!
Growing up in Chicago in the ’60s and ’70s spoiled me in regard to newspaper columnists. Mike Royko, of course, with whom no one else can be mentioned, but also Jack Mabley, Roger Simon, Bob Greene before he became Bob Greene™. Critics who were really writing columns: Roger Ebert the unmatchable, Ron Powers, even Gary
25 Jul 2014
Every mistaken idea about comments, neatly packaged
Rarely have I seen as many wrongheaded statements about news sites and comments rolled into one package as in a recent post by Una Mullally on the Agility. Let’s start here: If we didn’t have editors, news stories would land scatter dash on the page regardless of their importance. In many ways, prurience already drives this.
21 Jul 2014
The unfortunate human element in news sites
You’ve heard, I guess, about the software bots that the Associated Press is using to write thousands of corporate earnings reports? Writerbots have been around awhile — here’s NPR on what was then called StatsMonkey in 2010. And they’re coming on strong lately; see Slate on the LA Times’ quakebot. I’m not too upset by