The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down for no good reason

Stunning. The Stars and Stripes is much more important than any local monument. Even for those of us who are all too wearily familiar with President Donald Trump’s disdain for journalists, his administration’s latest attack on the free press is a bit of a jaw-dropper. In a heretofore unpublicized recent memo, the Pentagon delivered an…

How hate and misinformation go viral: A case study of a Trump retweet

On Sunday night, President Donald Trump retweeted a video of a violent incident on a New York City subway platform. The video shows a Black man pushing a white woman into a train car and is captioned “Black Lives Matter / Antifa.” The problem? It is over a year old and has nothing to do with either Black Lives Matter or Antifa. It, in fact, shows the actions of a mentally ill man with no known ties to either group.

The Duolingo owl is proud of me.

Similar:I accidentally did too much DuoLingo. I don't want to advance to the harder league. Come o…EducationProgress.PersonalAuditioning in Pittsbugh (flanked by shots from recent performances).CultureI pulled out a shelf on my teaching station and was greeted by this lovingly arrayed arsen…PersonalShe was a musical ingenue Sunday, filmed a slasher movie past midnight Monday, and was…

Story Pitch: How writers present an article idea to a busy editor

I hoped this slide would appeal to my students as I taught them about pitching a news story. Similar:Bilbo's party sociological infographic.AestheticsSean Spicer: Hero in the War Against JournalismThe Onion reminds us not to normalize Sp…Current_EventsHow a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of GeniusesFirst of all, I’m always wary about any …CultureExcessive…

“Thank you for being kind.” —Friday afternoon email from a student who’d been a little salty this week.

Similar:‘Twelfth Night’ is a Shakespearean hoot, and Prime Stage actors Carolyn Jerz, Malcolm MacK…Why is Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Nigh…AestheticsYork Corpus Christi Pageant, Toronto, June 7I’ll be in Toronto next week to observe …AcademiaI try to create one brand new element, modify one existing element, and reuse existing ele…AestheticsHow are you holding up? What difficult choices have…

Journalists prefer plain language.

Similar:Time article with clickbaity headline: Web users annoyed by marketing tricksThis Time magazine article is a good one…CybercultureThe Problems of Real-Time Feedback in Teaching WritingSometimes my students get nervous becaus…AcademiaLessons (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 19) Picard and a new officer bond over …Rewatching ST:TNG When Picard is up i…AestheticsHeadlines matter. Were they migrants,…

Journalism: Muzzle your biases. Seek out diverse but credible sources. You’ll be criticized anyway, from multiple directions.

Similar:You are personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society you grew up in.Some people out there will never like yo…CultureThis the last hour I will have a teenager in my house. (Tomorrow my youngest turns 20.) I blogged in 2004: “The ti…AwesomeRolling Stone heading to trial over debunked story of UVa rapeFor the…

Took the whole day off and spent part of it making #greebles with #Blender3D because reasons.

Similar:Classroom Vignette: MLA StyleStudent (shouldering backpack and headin…AcademiaAdding random objects to the bookshelves for a fantasy #steampunk project. #blender3dAestheticsYour verbs have been lost and will be invisible until sentence author revision.The marketers and programmers at Google’…CybercultureHabits for happiness: tips for looking on the bright side of lifeHabits for happiness: tips for looking o…PersonalMy meeting was…

Jane Elliott’s “National Brotherhood Week” Lesson

  Similar:No, this photo of people wearing coats standing in front of bare trees was not a fake news…It’s distressing and shocking to realize…Current_EventsBig Calculator: How Texas Instruments Monopolized Math ClassMy math education predated the widesprea…BusinessPuns really matter to us over here in English.I swore I would wield my powers only for…AcademiaAugust Wilson House officially…

Imagine a world…

Similar:My Daughter's Synesthesia: "S" Is Always Red, and "T" Is Lime GreenAccording to a color-picking test at syn…AestheticsIt's probably safe to throw these out.PersonalSportsWorks Adventure at the Carnegie Science CenterI confess that I have never been all tha…CultureI can't really articulate why i enjoy crafting #steampunk control panels, but it's been a …AestheticsHow to interact…

Dennis G. Jerz | Associate Professor of English -- New Media Journalism, Seton Hill University | jerz.setonhill.edu Logo

In August, 2000 I was blogging about poetry, presidential wordplay, home-schooling, online learning, and a search engine you may have heard about.

In August 2000, I was blogging about Top 10 Tips for Writing Poetry (which I’ve updated over the years and is the most popular page on my site today) Richard Lederer’s presidential wordplay (“I predict that at the end of the campaign. Gore will be bushed and Bush will be gored. Then we’ll have either…

2020, In One Photo. (“Come join us!”)

Similar:"The Nightmare of Prince Prezelsky"Leigh, Peter, Carolyn and I had fun reco…AmusingEpilogue to Rossum's Universal RobotsMy big finish as Alquist in a Zoom-based…Drama5 tips for choosing the right typefaceWhen it comes to picking a typeface, you…AestheticsAll the Classroom’s a StageSome good observations in this essay. As…AcademiaMedia Bias Chart 8.0 (Left vs. Right; Fact vs. Propaganda;…

Long-Haulers Are Redefining COVID-19

Our understanding of COVID-19 has accreted around the idea that it kills a few and is “mild” for the rest. That caricature was sketched before the new coronavirus even had a name; instead of shifting in the light of fresh data, it calcified. It affected the questions scientists sought to ask, the stories journalists sought…

Ready to teach another set of students what research is (and what it isn’t).

Similar:How a billionaires boys’ club came to dominate the public squareThe world’s richest man, Elon Musk, atta…BusinessUnderstanding Anti-SLAPP laws – The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the PressShort for strategic lawsuits against pub…EthicsAttending Religious Perspectives on the War in Gaza. Attending Religious Perspectives on the…PersonalThis the last hour I will have a teenager in my house.…

Ratified 100 years ago today, the 19th Amendment, proposed by Illinois Republican James R. Mann, granted women the right to vote.

Similar:Rossum's Universal Robots (Act 2)https://youtu.be/XfOONrGsf2I For my b…CultureConfronting the Myth of the 'Digital Native'It’s one thing to be able use a service …Academia1949 NBC Radio Adaptation of Orwell's 1984Long before the Apple ad, and Michael Ra…CultureToilet paper isn't selling out because the supply chain is collapsing, or because people a…According to an article in Medium,…