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Journos, You’ve Gotta Link To the Studies You’re Citing
My current pet peeve in journalism (and oh, there are many, so it’s sometimes hard to choose) is lines like this: ‘according to researchers…’ ‘a recent study…’ etc. With no reference as to the actual...
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Notes From the Urban/Rural Divide: Working Animals
As many readers know, I have a pair of cats of whom I’m inordinately fond, even though they also drive me absolutely up the wall sometimes because they refuse to get it together and reach a peaceable...
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Complicated Grief or Unacceptable Grief?
In recent years, there’s been much discussion about the concept of ‘complicated grief’ and whether it should be viewed as a psychiatric disorder, which has brought the idea into the popular...
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Crochety Curmudgeon Files: ‘Modern Love’
You know what, people? I don’t like ‘Modern Love.’ You know, the column at the New York Times that everyone routinely goes gaga over and starts linking in a wildfire that spreads across the Internet as...
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YA Is Not A Guidebook to Self-Harm, Teen Sex, or Anything Else
Discussing the slew of concerntrolling editorials about how YA is destroying the world, a radio producer recently asked me if I thought YA acts like a user guide to self-harm and other potentially...
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The Ethical Traveler?
The ethics of travel represent constantly shifting soil that needs to be navigated with care. Tourism in general comes with both costs and benefits, and those can become even more extreme in particular...
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Saturday Delivery
Saturday mail delivery in the United States almost came to an end this year, which I am going to freely admit makes me sad. I’ve been watching the struggles of the post office, and how people react to...
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On Working for Free
Periodically, this discussion flares up again, especially in the web-driven model of content production many of us work in today, where, let’s face it, freelancers are typically radically underpaid for...
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Media Diversity Matters
‘If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention,’ the saying goes, shaming people who aren’t aware of a social or cultural issue. The statement carries a strong sense of superiority; the speaker...
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tl;dr: Journalism, Longform, and Attention Spans
I was recently working on a piece that I was told was ‘too long’ for publication because it was 3,000 words; despite the fact that it was intended for publication in the kind of setting where ‘longer’...
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Developing Over Our History
There’s a situation in Berlin that I’ve been following with some fascination, because I have a strange sense of personal attachment to it, about which more in a moment. You see, a development firm...
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Notes From the Urban/Rural Divide: Yes, We Have Modern Conveniences
I thought I wouldn’t need to debunk one of the most ancient myths about rural life, but I guess I do, so here goes: Yes, we have modern conveniences. The very fact that you’re reading this post should...
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Pageview Trolling and Mass Media
Media has always been about informing the public, but also about sales. It’s a bit hard to disseminate information if your organisation doesn’t exist, after all, and thus you have a drive to keep...
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Internet, We Need to Talk About Inappropriate Uses of Social Media for Charity
‘For every RT, we’ll donate $10 to [cause]!’ ‘Like us on Facebook and we’ll donate to [cause]!’ ‘Help us reach 5,000 followers on [Pinterest/Facebook/Instagram/Tumblr] and we’ll donate to a...
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Thank an Editor
For some reason these days it seems to have become trendy to make derisive comments about editors, perhaps as part of a larger attitude about ‘gatekeepers’ and the complex framework that determines...
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How Censorship Works: A Primer (There Will Be A Test)
Dear my beloved internets, it has come to my attention that many of you are somewhat deficient on the topic of censorship. Namely, you don’t know what it is, and you seem to be struggling with this...
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Journalism is Still Important
I was shocked in May of this year when the Chicago Sun-Times laid off its entire photojournalism department at one stroke, effectively putting an end to a long and storied department with a rich and...
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Stop Having a Cow Over New Words in the Dictionary, People
So every now and then there’s a news story about new words being added to the dictionary that’s framed as both hilarious and awful because they’re all horribly outré modern words that are all gross and...
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If You Need An Incentive to Donate, You Might Be Doing It Wrong
One consequence of the decline of the economy has been a significant drop in charitable donations across numerous areas, like the arts, education, and the environment. There’s less money to go around,...
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I Don’t Need Faith to Have Ethics
A few months ago, I watched an interesting conversation with Elon James unfold on Twitter—his Twitter feed is well-worth adding if you haven’t already—as he started talking with followers about...
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