To Be an Editor

To be able to see every side of every question;
To be on every side, to be everything, to be nothing long;
To pervert truth, to ride it for a purpose,
To use great feelings and passions of the human family
For base designs, for cunning ends,
To wear a mask like the Greek actors—
Your eight-page paper—behind which you huddle,
Bawling through the megaphone of big type:
"This is I, the giant."
Thereby also living the life of a sneak-thief,
Poisoned with the anonymous words
Of your clandestine soul.
To scratch dirt over scandal for money,
And exhume it to the winds for revenge,
Or to sell papers
Crushing reputations, or bodies, if need be,
To win at any cost, save your own life.
To glory in demoniac power, ditching civilization,
As a paranoiac boy puts a log on the track
And derails the express train.
To be an editor, as I was—
Then to lie here close by the river over the place
Where the sewage flows from the village,
And the empty cans and garbage are dumped,
And abortions are hidden.

(Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology, Editor Whedon)

The MoJo Concept

Facing deadline and multimedia demands, "backpack" or "mobile" journalists ("mojos"), who spend most if not all of their time outside the newsroom recording, shooting, and writing stories without ever sitting at a desk, are making cars and coffeeshops the new office.

E&P Senior Editor Joe Strupp writes in a special report:

Some even predict the "mojo" concept could lead to editors and some non-journalistic staffers working outside the office. With most editing, ad placement, layout, and design done on computers anyway, it's conceivable that the newsroom as it exists today could be eliminated, with folks working from home, their car, or even the local Starbucks.

Frappuccinews!

G'd Night...

The sleep of journalism brings forth monsters.

Cliché

Cliché is a feature of bad journalism.

The New York Lies

Do you remember? Five years ago on May 11, 2003, the New York Times rocked the world of journalism with a front-page story about one of its own:

A staff reporter for The New York Times committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud while covering significant news events in recent months, an investigation by Times journalists has found. The widespread fabrication and plagiarism represent a profound betrayal of trust and a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper. The reporter, Jayson Blair, 27, misled readers and Times colleagues with dispatches that purported to be from Maryland, Texas and other states, when often he was far away, in New York. He fabricated comments. He concocted scenes. He lifted material from other newspapers and wire services. He selected details from photographs to create the impression he had been somewhere or seen someone, when he had not.

It was a stunning admission from the "Gray Lady."

[Newseum]

The True

The True is the whole. But the whole is nothing other than the essence consummating itself through its development.

(GWF Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit)

The Word

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

(The Gospel according to John 1:1)

Ashes

The ash blonde
rakes over
old ashes:

tobacco and raucous
memories:

that coughing life!

(Léon Bertoletti, Ashes)

Farmers of Journalism

They're the farmers of journalism. They love the good rich soil itself, for itself, not for the pay -- they like to plunge their hands into the dirt.

(Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities)

Digitus Impudicus

There is no place on the globe where raising a single middle finger (and perhaps jabbing it aggressively at your counterpart) is polite.

It's supposed to symbolise the erect penis and means, universally, 'F*** off.'

The gesture dates back to Roman times, when it was known as the digitus impudicus (literally, 'the rude finger').

(Mark McCrum, Going Dutch in Beijing)