A Grave Tale (a short story I narrated for WAOB Audio Theatre)

A Grave Tale (WAOB Audio Theatre) Written by Kelsey McIngyre Narrated by Dennis G. Jerz Similar:And you thought your last teleconference was rough!PersonalThe Offspring (StarTrek:TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 16) Data Experiences FatherhoodRewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….CybercultureApple Hill Playhouse is closing, leaving theater group seeking new homeConfiguring socially distanced seating a…BusinessRandom gauge design, for…

Fake News Remains Top Industry Concern in 2017

“In the past, people fabricated content. There were ‘midnight flyers,’ which were pieces of propaganda usually sent out by candidates and put on the windshield of your car or under your door at home. And there were forms of content that contained serious misinformation in them. Sometimes they looked news-like and sometimes they didn’t,” explains…

The Mere Presence of Your Smartphone Reduces Brain Power, Study Shows

The researchers found that participants with their phones in another room significantly outperformed those with their phones on the desk, and they also slightly outperformed those participants who had kept their phones in a pocket or bag. The findings suggest that the mere presence of one’s smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity and impairs cognitive functioning,…

Donald Trump’s chilling escalation of his war with the media

A journalist’s response to President Trump’s early morning caps-imbued assault on the FAKE news media. Let’s be clear about what Trump is suggesting here. He wants the Senate intelligence committee to open an investigation into the “Fake News Networks” to get to the bottom of why so much of the news is “just made up.”…

How We Found Tom Price’s Private Jets

Great behind-the-scenes story of the hard work that went into breaking the Tom Price private travel story. The first tip came from a casual conversation with a source back in May: Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price was using private jets for routine travel, possibly in violation of federal travel rules that allowed such flights…

Backstage with the White Swan and her prince.

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Russian Grand Ballet Swan Lake.

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Half of my students have never read Hamlet. (I told them not to get too attached to any of the characters.)

We focused just on Act I today — the opening scene on the battlement, the initial court scene that introduces Claudius and Gertrude, the domestic scene where Ophelia gets mansplaining first from her brother then from her father, and Hamlet’s encounter with the ghost. After the slow opening acts in A Comedy of Errors, The…

British Politician begins reciting colonial-era Kipling poem in in Myanmar temple

After the UK ambassador cut off his recitation of a pro-colonial Kipling poem in a Maynmar temple, UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson said, “No? Good stuff.” The foreign secretary has been accused of “incredible insensitivity” after it emerged he recited part of a colonial-era Rudyard Kipling poem in front of local dignitaries while on an…

Carolyn and Nick in Beauty and the Beast

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Teaching the First Amendment Freedoms

In an opening lecture, I briefly listed the five freedoms Americans are guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Then I moved on. I quizzed them the next week, and they didn’t do too well. They did a little better when I surprised them with a follow-up quiz. After that,…

Inverted Pyramid: A news story starts with what’s most important, not with whoever spoke first at the event you’re covering.

Jerz > Writing > Journalism Using the inverted pyramid structure is one of the major differences between a news story and a personal essay. Similar:Elly Noble Reflects on Stage Right's New "Snow White"What’s it like on your first day rehears…CultureWhite House photo access controls public imageRather than permit photojournalists to s…CultureOmaha schoolgirl dresses as a different historical figure each…

Who cares about hyphens, commas and capital letters? You should.

You’re a busy editor, fighting a deadline. Two submissions arrive in your email. One is brilliant but full of grammatical errors and style inconsistencies. You’d have to spend an hour fixing it up. Another submission is just okay, but it’s ready to go. Which would you publish? I often encounter students who’ve been told all…

The girl rehearsing as Babette in Stage Right’s Beauty and the Beast

Carolyn rehearses with Nick Lenz. Her show is Friday night. (She’s a napkin, wolf, and villager Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.) Similar:She doesn't have keys or a phone or an ID. Why does my tween need a purse?To stash her Lemonheads and Smarties. ht…AmusingYes, I spent the last hour designing this brutalist pen holder for…

Reception after faculty workshop. #partylikeaprofessor

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In Which I Bow Before the Mistress of Teen Snark

The Girl: I’m sorry I’m being so… Me: Self-deprecating? The Girl: No! Me: Testy? The Girl: No… the term I was going for is “bitchily modest.” Similar:What happens to local news when there is no local media to cover it?The pressures on local news outlets have…CultureSocrates envisaged a time when we would forget how to…

On the Ethics of Rebranding a Former Trump Administration Official as an Amusing TV Personality

It’s also a disservice to readers to report on Spicer’s post-White House life and not mention how unusual and controversial his tenure was. This is a guy famous for meeting with reporters near the bushes on White House grounds, for coining the phrase “Holocaust centers,” for creating the necessity for courtroom sketch artists in the White House briefing…

I love my students enough to teach them the difference between passive voice and past tense.

If a goggles-for-brains Lego character can master the difference between active and passive verbs, you can too.

A very happy geekling playing Dungeons and Dragons on her one free evening. #llap

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Short Reports: How to Write Routine Professional Documents

New graphic. First step in touching up my collection of pages on writing short technical reports. A business memo, a lab report, or a professional e-mail are all variations on the basic report structure described in this document. Feel free to modify these guidelines in order to meet your reader’s needs. Think of Your Reader First Your busy reader…