HAVING LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY “DONE this in my sleep(1)” on occasion as ahem an award-winning reporter for the Sonoma Index-Tribune and Sonoma Sun (and freelancer for the Novato Advance, Petaluma Argus-Courier and The Bohemian) and being somewhat-to-greatly rankled by what passes for “news” these days outside of local outlets and the Daily Show, methinks...
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1. YOU STOP WRITING A NEWS piece when you run out of facts. But when do you stop writing fiction? When you run out of story, I suppose. 2. In news, the most important information goes up top. In fiction, it’s in the reader’s head — at least with genre pieces. There has to...
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YES, THAT WAS MY EMAIL which KQED’s Michael Krasny read during his second hour this morning, which program concerned the effect of bad news on man-in-the-street audients. The show is worth a listen — archive available at http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201006091000. (I riffed on the concomitant effect of bad news on the reporters who witness it.) Many...
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ALL I REALLY HAD IN mind was helping out my colleagues — I didn’t know I’d also be helping myself. I’m referring to today’s North Bay Bohemian article titled “There to Be There: Police chaplains ride the thin blue line of compassion.” Aside from this blog and an occasional email, it’s the first thing...
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SUCCINCTLY.
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In the entire time I covered the Sonoma City Council, I only took the podium thrice: once to ask for clarification, once to offer my then-employer‘s help with disseminating something of civic importance, and once when the mayor declared 1/17/01 as “Neal Ross Day” when I first left the Index-Tribune. (Geeez.) Tonight will be...
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There is a certain poetry, or poetic side, to newswriting that’s not readily apparent to its readers — and perhaps not even to its practitioners. This derives in large part, I think, from the absurdity inherent in exchanging six to eight hours a day for six to eight hundred words which will be forgotten...
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