An amazing birthday concert is scheduled in New York City tomorrow for folksinger's folksinger, Pete Seeger, but I like the celebration page his local newspaper's Web site has posted up the Hudson a bit from Madison Square Garden:
Times Herald-Record - Pete Seeger Birthday
(Update: NY Daily News covers the show in words and pictures; The New York Times review of the show. More from NPR.)
Meanwhile, here in Virginia, I hear there's a hootenanny -- yes, a hootenanny -- in Richmond.
Now that's a word I haven't seen in the headlines in a LONG time -- one that Pete helped popularize. Ironically, he was blacklisted from the pop/commercial TV show by that name, during what he and others have called the "great folk scare of the sixties."
Pete eventually had his own show -- on PBS, some of which is now around YouTube, if you look for "Rainbow Quest," including interview jam sessions with some folks I never knew were captured on video, and this wonderful duet on one of Pete's songs, with him backing up Judy Collins, who also celebrated a hard-to-believe birthday this weekend. Speaking of Judy, she and the Smothers Brothers were on that original Hootenanny show at times, and both Judy -- and Pete, in a blacklist breakthrough -- were eventually on the Brothers own show. (And now everybody is on YouTube!)
(Disclaimer: OK, I'll admit it. Those folks, that hootenanny thing, and its less commercial echoes in the seventies (especially at this place and that place and other places) left me with a bunch of guitars, ukuleles, mandolins and, yes, banjos that I even play a little.)
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Happy Birthday to "the little book"
“The Elements of Style” by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White just came out in its 50th edition, so The New York Times "Room for Debate Blog" invited fans and skeptics for reactions... asking this question:
"But are its rules the be all and end all of writing? "
Happy Birthday, Strunk and White!
White's original, from before Strunk updated the book, is available for free online: http://www.bartleby.com/141/
Of course not everyone is celebrating, but even if you just want to argue about fine points of grammar, Strunk & White is a great place to start.
For more detailed questions of grammar, I point my students to Ken Wilson's Columbia Guide to Standard American English (close to 500 pages of advice) and the Guide to Grammar & Writing, a site started by Charles Darling in the early days of the Web at what was then Greater Hartford Community College.
(I knew both Ken and Charlie when they were alive, had great respect for both, and was charmed to find them both online.)
For more journalistic style and grammar issues, I suggest Gerald Grow's http://newsroom101.com
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Not only the usual suspects win Pulitzers
Five for the NY Times, plus several signs of the times
The 2009 Pulitzer Prizes in journalism include familiar names like The New York Times, but a few surprises, most notably a public service medal -- the most prestigious -- inspired by the work of a 29-year-old reporter a year into her job at the Las Vegas Sun.
Alexandra Berzon's stories investigated the high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip -- a dozen fatalities in a year and a half -- and lax enforcement of regulations. The paper got behind her, giving her six weeks to develop the first stories, and following them with editorials calling for change.
“This story was about the failure of government and an attitude of the people that said it was not important to inspect for safety violations the way they’re supposed to, which results in working people getting hurt,” Sun Editor Brian Greenspun said. “It was a failure up and down the line ... When it gets fixed, that means you saved that many people’s lives. What greater purpose can you have in the newspaper business?”
The Pulitzer citation was "to the Las Vegas Sun, and notably the courageous reporting by Alexandra Berzon."
The Sun's story about the surprise award credited Berzon -- a 2006 Berkeley journalism master's grad -- -- with "persevering against closed doors and intimidation" in reporting the series.
"The Sun’s Pulitzer victory is a win," the paper said, "for the underdog — workers on the Strip, a young reporter and an all-enterprise newspaper that doesn’t cover the ordinary news of the day — and provides inspiration at a time when journalism is reeling from cutbacks."
The Sun report says Berzon's first stories grew to a yearlong project that involved not only dealing with the OSHA bureaucracy, but "ignoring threats of physical harm if she showed up at a union hall."
Web brings winners
Meanwhile, in the National Reporting category, a Web-based project took a major award, and a story first published online took the Breaking News prize.
The National Reporting Pulitzer went to the St. Petersburg Times for “PolitiFact.com,” its "fact-checking initiative during the 2008 presidential campaign that used probing reporters and the power of the World Wide Web to examine more than 750 political claims, separating rhetoric from truth to enlighten voters."
(This is the first year the Pulitzer committee considered projects that were primarily online.)
The non-profit St. Pete newspaper also used the Web creatively to accompany the long-form narrative story that brought it the Feature Writing prize. See winner Lane DeGregory's video comments at Poynter.org on why the combination of awards is especially gratifying, and an earlier story about the project itself.
The PolitiFact project came close to winning the Public Service prize, but was moved to the National Reporting category. The other Public Service runner-up was The New York Times for its "comprehensive coverage of the economic meltdown of 2008." The Times did win Pulitzers in five other categories, for stories including its investigation of the role of retired generals working as radio and television analysts, and its breaking news coverage of the New York governor's sex scandal. The latter citation commended the paper for "breaking the story on its Web site and then developing it with authoritative, rapid-fire reports."
Speaking of Web things, see the Mesa, Ariz., Local Reporting irony below...
The other 2008 journalism Pulitzers:
The 2009 Pulitzer Prizes in journalism include familiar names like The New York Times, but a few surprises, most notably a public service medal -- the most prestigious -- inspired by the work of a 29-year-old reporter a year into her job at the Las Vegas Sun.
Alexandra Berzon's stories investigated the high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip -- a dozen fatalities in a year and a half -- and lax enforcement of regulations. The paper got behind her, giving her six weeks to develop the first stories, and following them with editorials calling for change.
“This story was about the failure of government and an attitude of the people that said it was not important to inspect for safety violations the way they’re supposed to, which results in working people getting hurt,” Sun Editor Brian Greenspun said. “It was a failure up and down the line ... When it gets fixed, that means you saved that many people’s lives. What greater purpose can you have in the newspaper business?”
The Pulitzer citation was "to the Las Vegas Sun, and notably the courageous reporting by Alexandra Berzon."
The Sun's story about the surprise award credited Berzon -- a 2006 Berkeley journalism master's grad -- -- with "persevering against closed doors and intimidation" in reporting the series.
"The Sun’s Pulitzer victory is a win," the paper said, "for the underdog — workers on the Strip, a young reporter and an all-enterprise newspaper that doesn’t cover the ordinary news of the day — and provides inspiration at a time when journalism is reeling from cutbacks."
The Sun report says Berzon's first stories grew to a yearlong project that involved not only dealing with the OSHA bureaucracy, but "ignoring threats of physical harm if she showed up at a union hall."
Web brings winners
Meanwhile, in the National Reporting category, a Web-based project took a major award, and a story first published online took the Breaking News prize.
The National Reporting Pulitzer went to the St. Petersburg Times for “PolitiFact.com,” its "fact-checking initiative during the 2008 presidential campaign that used probing reporters and the power of the World Wide Web to examine more than 750 political claims, separating rhetoric from truth to enlighten voters."
(This is the first year the Pulitzer committee considered projects that were primarily online.)
The non-profit St. Pete newspaper also used the Web creatively to accompany the long-form narrative story that brought it the Feature Writing prize. See winner Lane DeGregory's video comments at Poynter.org on why the combination of awards is especially gratifying, and an earlier story about the project itself.
The PolitiFact project came close to winning the Public Service prize, but was moved to the National Reporting category. The other Public Service runner-up was The New York Times for its "comprehensive coverage of the economic meltdown of 2008." The Times did win Pulitzers in five other categories, for stories including its investigation of the role of retired generals working as radio and television analysts, and its breaking news coverage of the New York governor's sex scandal. The latter citation commended the paper for "breaking the story on its Web site and then developing it with authoritative, rapid-fire reports."
Speaking of Web things, see the Mesa, Ariz., Local Reporting irony below...
The other 2008 journalism Pulitzers:
- Five for The New York Times (the second-best year in its 101-prize history)
- -- Breaking News Reporting - The New York Times Staff
- -- International Reporting - The New York Times Staff
- -- Investigative Reporting - David Barstow of The New York Times
- -- Criticism - Holland Cotter of The New York Times
- -- Feature Photography - Damon Winter of The New York Times
- Two for the St.Pete Times.
- -- Feature Writing - Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times for "The Girl in the Window."
- -- National Reporting - St. Petersburg Times Staff for PolitiFact and its "Truth-O-Meter."
- Explanatory Reporting - Bettina Boxall and Julie Cart of the Los Angeles Times
- Local Reporting - Detroit Free Press Staff
- Local Reporting - Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin of the East Valley Tribune, Mesa, AZ (With some serious state-of-the-trade and Web irony: By the time the award was announced, Giblin had been laid off -- and launched an online legislative news startup.)
- Commentary - Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post
- Editorial Writing - Mark Mahoney of The Post-Star, Glens Falls, NY
- Editorial Cartooning - Steve Breen of The San Diego Union-Tribune
- Breaking News Photography - Patrick Farrell of The Miami Herald
Friday, April 17, 2009
Twitter makes Forbes, tires Times, fills Facebook
This article titled The Twitter Zeitgeist at Forbes.com says "Twitter became a part of popular culture in less time then it takes to write a 140-character status update."
It adds some details to things I've been telling my students in the past few months, but (more importantly) posting this quick link also gives me an opportunity to test whether I've solved the Blogger glitch that was putting big external links at the tops of my posts and keeping me from editing them for the past week. (See test post from yesterday.)
Now the headline above should be a "permalink" to the address of this particular post. I like that, but can't promise to find time to go back and edit all my previous posts into that format. (For older posts, the "permalink" address is linked to the time stamp at the end of each post.)
Meanwhile (Sunday update), I've decided my own Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/bobstep) is a fine place to post links to mainstream-media stories about Twitter, including a flock of them recently in The New York Times, including a Sunday column that suggests early users are tiring of tweets. My three tweets, easy as one, two, three using http://bit.ly
But my best Twitter-related discovery is how to hide the Facebook posts of a Web-ubiquitous friend who mirrors all his Twitter posts as Facebook status updates. I only need to see his stuff in one place, thanks. Coincidentally, the problem and the solution came from bloggers with the same first name. Poetic.
It adds some details to things I've been telling my students in the past few months, but (more importantly) posting this quick link also gives me an opportunity to test whether I've solved the Blogger glitch that was putting big external links at the tops of my posts and keeping me from editing them for the past week. (See test post from yesterday.)
Now the headline above should be a "permalink" to the address of this particular post. I like that, but can't promise to find time to go back and edit all my previous posts into that format. (For older posts, the "permalink" address is linked to the time stamp at the end of each post.)
Meanwhile (Sunday update), I've decided my own Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/bobstep) is a fine place to post links to mainstream-media stories about Twitter, including a flock of them recently in The New York Times, including a Sunday column that suggests early users are tiring of tweets. My three tweets, easy as one, two, three using http://bit.ly
But my best Twitter-related discovery is how to hide the Facebook posts of a Web-ubiquitous friend who mirrors all his Twitter posts as Facebook status updates. I only need to see his stuff in one place, thanks. Coincidentally, the problem and the solution came from bloggers with the same first name. Poetic.
Journalist killed; journalism continues
The Center for Investigative Reporting launched the Chauncey Bailey Project in 2007, after the local news editor was shot down in the street in Oakland, Calif. The San Francisco Chronicle mounted its own investigation.
The Committee to Protect Journalists calls Bailey's death the first targeted killing of a journalist in the United States since 1993.
This week, the headlines are Man agrees to guilty plea in Oakland journalist's killing, Chilling account of killing editor, Oakland cops in hot water and Grand jury to probe Oakland editor's slaying.
Meanwhile, Democracy Now has an interview with Chauncey Bailey Project head Robert Rosenthal about the case, how reporters joined together to continue Bailey's work, and whether that model might be the future of investigative journalism, with newspapers all over the country having financial difficulties.
Bailey was a young reporter when we both worked at the Hartford Courant in the 1970s. He went on to the Detroit News and several California papers, and was back in his hometown as editor of the Oakland Post, where his work in community journalism included an investigation into the finances of an Oakland business at the time of his death.
The Committee to Protect Journalists calls Bailey's death the first targeted killing of a journalist in the United States since 1993.
This week, the headlines are Man agrees to guilty plea in Oakland journalist's killing, Chilling account of killing editor, Oakland cops in hot water and Grand jury to probe Oakland editor's slaying.
Meanwhile, Democracy Now has an interview with Chauncey Bailey Project head Robert Rosenthal about the case, how reporters joined together to continue Bailey's work, and whether that model might be the future of investigative journalism, with newspapers all over the country having financial difficulties.
Bailey was a young reporter when we both worked at the Hartford Courant in the 1970s. He went on to the Detroit News and several California papers, and was back in his hometown as editor of the Oakland Post, where his work in community journalism included an investigation into the finances of an Oakland business at the time of his death.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Previewing News: Wall Street Journal on the iPhone
In a Nieman Journalism Lab interview video clip, the executive editor of The Wall Street Journal Online previews the paper's upcoming Wall Street Journal iPhone reader.
"On the Web you don't get the sense of completing a task the way you do reading a newspaper," WSJ.com's Alan Murray says, suggesting that a top-20 stories "when you're done, you're done" approach will fit the way iPhone readers use the device.
The Journal actually sees its business Blackberry users as a bigger market than iPhone users, and both applications are modeled in part on the paper's half-century-old "What's News" box on page one.
The difference: The Blackberry version is more of a headline-feed of "what's most recent," while the iPhone content will be more "what's most important," with more substantial headlines for a top-20 collection of stories.
"I think people interact with the iPhone in a different way," he said.
Like http://wsj.com and the print newspaper, the mobile device versions will eventually require you to pay for the full experience.
"On the Web you don't get the sense of completing a task the way you do reading a newspaper," WSJ.com's Alan Murray says, suggesting that a top-20 stories "when you're done, you're done" approach will fit the way iPhone readers use the device.
The Journal actually sees its business Blackberry users as a bigger market than iPhone users, and both applications are modeled in part on the paper's half-century-old "What's News" box on page one.
The difference: The Blackberry version is more of a headline-feed of "what's most recent," while the iPhone content will be more "what's most important," with more substantial headlines for a top-20 collection of stories.
"I think people interact with the iPhone in a different way," he said.
Like http://wsj.com and the print newspaper, the mobile device versions will eventually require you to pay for the full experience.
bX-fjm14b means something Is broken
This is a test. A mysterious Blogger error message coded
bX-fjm14b has been making it impossible to edit items once they are posted.
Has it been fixed? (No, but there's a workaround.)
Update: April 17. It looks like the cause is related to three things -- some recent change in Blogger's software, using the "BlogThis!" script to post a blog item based on a Web site you're visiting, and Blogger's internal "settings" for display of page titles. With the page set to not display titles, "BlogThis" was copying the address and title of the visited site into the hidden "title" area, and displaying it on the blog post.
I've just reset this blog to display page titles, and now I can edit pages again, and make their titles words of my own choosing. That also makes my title/headline link to the permanent address of the blog post, which is the way my other blog works. That's especially helpful if you want to bookmark a particular item, not the address that gets you the most recent post.
Most recent: http://boblog.blogspot.com/
Just one post: http://boblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/l-gordon-crovitz-says-bernard-kilgore.html
bX-fjm14b has been making it impossible to edit items once they are posted.
Has it been fixed? (No, but there's a workaround.)
Update: April 17. It looks like the cause is related to three things -- some recent change in Blogger's software, using the "BlogThis!" script to post a blog item based on a Web site you're visiting, and Blogger's internal "settings" for display of page titles. With the page set to not display titles, "BlogThis" was copying the address and title of the visited site into the hidden "title" area, and displaying it on the blog post.
I've just reset this blog to display page titles, and now I can edit pages again, and make their titles words of my own choosing. That also makes my title/headline link to the permanent address of the blog post, which is the way my other blog works. That's especially helpful if you want to bookmark a particular item, not the address that gets you the most recent post.
Most recent: http://boblog.blogspot.com/
Just one post: http://boblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/l-gordon-crovitz-says-bernard-kilgore.html
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