Here’s a nightmare: You’re assigned to write about a phenomenon so arcane that only a small group of policy nerds and engineers understand it—and yet so potentially devastating that it threatens [...]
In an effort to create a debate on a significant grammatical issue that appears to bedevil many newspaper writers, I would like to undertake a discussion of overwritten dependent clauses.
Countless reporters will throw themselves underneath the wheels of the narrative journalism movement this year. They'll waste time, waste space and frustrate themselves and their editors.
Once you've digested your material, once you've distilled it and outlined it, once you understand it...what's your first goal as a writer?
It's to get the reader's attention.
It's to make [...]
We do it because there is so much perspective to inject.
We do it because we're convinced nobody reads past the first graf.
We do it because we think the extra clause or phrase or [...]
This has nothing to do with journalism, other than the fact it involves a story that was published in a newspaper.
I have this hobby: I write songs and make recordings. And finally I liked [...]
"The news is what I say it is."
--David Brinkley
That is a rough approximation of what ex-network anchorman Brinkley once said in an attempt to explain that somebody has to choose what's [...]
By the power invested in me as the owner of a web site, I hereby proclaim April 19, 2006, as National Originality Day.
The purpose of National Originality Day is for writers to swear off [...]
I was reading a feature in the Los Angeles Times, and it appeared arduously long, but I hunkered down with it because of the byline: Paul Lieberman. I love reading Paul's profiles because he's [...]
I think I made the mistake of falling in love with a gimmick. Oh, she was irresistible. She sneaked up on me. And she was worth the fling. But I got greedy. I used her over and over and over, and [...]