Kevin Streelman arrived, as always, by car. He placed his Callaway golf clubs in the trunk of his Toyota Camry parked outside his condo in Scottsdale, Ariz., wasted two hours in Phoenix rush hour and then drove 300 miles northwest to Las Vegas. He stopped only once, for gas. Streelman already had logged almost 6,000 [...]
If you have aspirations of being a publicist, spell things correctly. If you do not have aspirations of being a publicist, don’t put your name as a contact on the press release form. Once upon a time, I was given a (very poorly written) press release by a local woman. The woman spelled at least [...]
My friend Vox wrote an excellent post this morning on getting mainstream media to pay attention to issues that don’t get enough coverage. Not only that, but her guide includes tips that any writer who wants to break into newspapers can use. Examples: Write a lede that is one or two sentences long and says, [...]
Hank Stuever of the Washington Post wrote an excellent profile of Bob Barker , who is retiring in June, for yesterday’s paper. I was entertained, amused, and wowed. It’s not all sunny and smiles, of course, but there’s a wonderful exuberance in the writing. I wasn’t familiar with Stuever’s work, but I’ll be on the [...]
Having just finished writing a major project about a predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood in Brooklyn, I figured that now was the time to finally figure out the proper label for immigrants from Central and South America.* I remembered learning something about how “Hispanic” was a term created not so long ago, not a term preferred by the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]