Go Ask Alice

From the tangled tale of mass literacy one can pluck a few specific objects—books that were to be found in every household where there was somebody who could read and people who wanted to listen. Aside from the Bible, a typical list would run like this: “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Robinson Crusoe,” and “Gulliver’s Travels,” to…

Clickbait Tactics Drive the Writing of Headlines on ABC News

I probably should not be surprised, but when I saw this run of several headlines on the ABC News website, I was struck by how deliberately uninformative they are. I added some useful information that could have been in the headline. A print journalist writes a headline for someone who’s already holding the newspaper, so…

No results found for “officer on leave after video allegedly shows him pulling gun on unarmed teens”

What is the story behind this image? What is the source of that text? Why is that word “allegedly” doing in the headline? The image is a screenshot from Facebook’s trending news stories. Who wrote those words? I searched Google for “officer on leave after video allegedly shows him pulling gun on unarmed teens” at 10:30am…

Hermann Zapf, the font designer behind Palatino and Zapf Dingbats, has died at 96

Hermann Zapf, the designer of fonts such as Palatino, Optima, Zapfino, Melior, Aldus, and the bizarre but much beloved Zapf Dingbats, has died at age 96.The revered German typographer and calligrapher passed away on June 4. In his long and prolific career, Zapf worked on many fonts, but his personal favorite was the humanist sans serif typeface Optima, the lettering chosen for the…

On Night, Darkness & the Past

When we banish the dark, what do we lose? The stars, of course. But what else? Archaeologist Colleen Morgan reflects. In Turkey and Jordan I’d sleep on the roof, watching shooting stars and satellites, feeling the depth of space all around me. In cities, hell, in most places, all the artificial light flattens the sky,…

Actually, this post really *is* about ethics in journalism.

People – journalists and non-journalists – who want to interact with others about the topic of journalism ethics should be transparent, courteous and civilized. One person should never harass, threaten or demean another.Also, people in the U.S. are not forced to read, view or listen to stories from news organizations. If a person believes the information…

Technology won’t fix America’s neediest schools. It makes bad education worse.

[N]o matter how good the design, and despite rigorous tests of impact, I have never seen technology systematically overcome the socio-economic divides that exist in education. Children who are behind need high-quality adult guidance more than anything else. Many people believe that technology “levels the playing field” of learning, but what I’ve discovered is that…

Email Tips: Top 10 Strategies for Writing Effective Email

After reading a clickbaity Bloomberg article that made a big deal about how ending emails with “Best” is supposedly wrong, I updated part of my “Email Tips” handout. I don’t think it matters whether you close your email with “Best” or “Thanks” or nothing at all, as long as you aren’t obsequious and wasteful on…