The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times front pages for April 13, 13, and 11, respectively. From Newseum and the NY Times. Can we please lay Don Imus: The Scandal to rest? The media are jumping on this like he’s the next Anna Nicole Smith. And yet I have yet to hear … Continue Reading
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First with all the answers, but still feeling testy
A professor of mine e-mailed me her congratulations for a piece published in Newsday. I had no idea what she meant until I remembered an essay I’d submitted to them ages ago for their “New Voices” section. Apparently they liked it.
Reviewed: The Secret Life of Bees
At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzz that hummed along my skin. I watched their wings shining like bits of chrome in the dark and felt the longing … Continue Reading
Housekeeping 2
I updated the About page of this blog to better reflect where this thing is hopefully heading. I’m going to lay off politics (and The Splasher) for now and concentrate on my first love: language. What this means in real terms? Hopefully, more interesting (and more frequent) posts, assuming you like words, writing, books, journalism, … Continue Reading
More on writing skills
I work part-time as a writing tutor. Last Friday, I tutored a student who was a third-year business student, planning to (I believe) go for her MBA. She was a reasonably bright girl, but she was having trouble creating an outline for her paper (and having trouble documenting her sources properly, knowing nothing about either … Continue Reading
The Internet murdered the term paper.
The term paper has been murdered by the Internet. Right? Jason Johnson in Sunday’s Washington Post wrote on this topic; explaining how he was rewarded at work for putting his name on someone else’s writing. “It was an open secret that my entire report, written “by Jason Johnson,” had been composed by others and that … Continue Reading
Tapping into the power of the masses
Broadcast media can’t just be a bullhorn anymore; it has to be an invitation, or it misses out on some of the best stuff happening around it. Radio is so boring, isn’t it? All the commentators on the morning programs sound exactly the same (this is a proven fact, look it up) and the rest … Continue Reading
My dilemma
I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately that talk a lot about invisible discrimination, the discrimination that, except for the victims, nobody notices. (One such blog is Vox Ex Machina, which I’m not just recommending because I went to school with its author. Do go check it out; you will probably learn something. I … Continue Reading
On the Commodification of the Ecstasy of the By-Products of Action
(No, this is not another Splasher post.) If you haven’t read Jonathan Lethem’s amazing plagiarism, “The Ecstasy of Influence,” over at Harper’s, go do so. The idea that everything is a retelling is, in itself, not a new idea, but I don’t often think of works of art and literature as being better when they … Continue Reading
Are Journalism Internships a Joke?
Photographer: davidfg. Used under a Creative Commons license.Last week I came across The Editorialiste’s blog, and this post in particular: Journalism Internships Are A Joke (Financially). Period. Mr. Nusca makes some good points, and yes, there are many who take this same viewpoint, but I believe there are some things the naysayers don’t address. As … Continue Reading