In some ways, the impending death-oops, I meant dearth-of print journalism will make our story choices simpler: If we assume our audience doesn't need us as dearly for breaking news coverage, we [...]
Byron Calame, whose tenure as the New York Times' Public Editor has seemed largely lukewarm to me, finally hit a home run. He caught the Times Magazine in what appears to be an embarrassing and [...]
I'm reading a little differently these days because I quit the Los Angeles Times (accepting a buy-out offer) in July. I think this will mean more frequent postings on this site. Right now what it [...]
The best way to write with authority is to make an extra phone call every hour. Authority is not a matter of style, it's not even primarily a matter of writing. It's a matter of reporting, of [...]
Laurie Hertzel, projects editor at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, surveyed her paper's writers about a widely ignored art: self-editing. Most reporters never become excellent at this because [...]
I'd like to get the last six weeks off my chest.
That's how long it took my newspaper to drag out of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles the simple confirmation that a specific [...]
Are we in the midst of a blackploitation revival (L.A. Times) or a funk revival (N.Y. Times)? Humor me: You’re sitting at work somewhere in the features department of your newspaper and [...]
I assigned myself a profile: A syndicated radio talk-show host named Tom Leykis who was based in L.A. and specialized in hard-core sex talk for men. I thought the show was horrifyingly and [...]
This is the first in a series of essays written by L.A. Times reporters about techniques they used to put successful stories together. The stories and essays are several years old, but the [...]
If you're intrigued with the blurb on the right side of Newsthinking's March 11 home page devoted to promoting my CD, here's the explanation. It grew out of some demo songs I recorded at home and [...]