Thursday, January 31, 2008

Monday, January 28, 2008

Dairy Today

I found this post about Dairy Today via How About Orange. What? An ag mag with great design?



The magazine was designed by Pentagram, of all places -- a great design firm.

See? You don't have to be at some glitzy glossy to get great magazine experience.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

my weaknesses

Things to improve on:

Clever headlines
Cover blurbs
Well, display copy of all kinds
Ledes
Conclusions

I'm fast and I do good work, says my boss (well, I added that "do good work" part. I think I do good work ...). But I need to not go with my first instinct on ledes, he says. Hm. I hate ledes. I hate clever cover blurbs. Perhaps that's why I'm not good at them. Any tips? What are your weaknesses?

Thursday, January 3, 2008

the questions of 2008

My media newsfeed posed some interesting questions today:

Where did you go, investigative journalism?

I don't know about you, but I went in to journalism thinking I'd write groundbreaking investigative pieces, ala Seymour Hersh's expose on the Mai-lai massacre (he's still one of my journalism idols). I'm not sure we'll ever have another era of hard-core investigative pieces that don't become salacious and "To Catch a Predator" in their ridiculousness. Thoughts?

Is everyone creating a Facebook application?

I find it very humorous that media and political pundits are essentially tripping over themselves trying to "harness the power of Facebook." I guess it's inevitable that if there's money to be made with anything, it'll be taken advantage of until it barely resembles what it started out to be (and I'd argue Facebook is nothing like what it was originally, thank you very much, newsfeed.)

Are J-Schools teaching the right things?

I'm curious: what do YOU think Drake's J-school should be teaching that they're not? What are they getting wrong? What are they getting right?

***

Are you caucusing today? Man, if I ever would miss Iowa, it'd surely be today. Caucus for me, ok? Though I'm still not 100-percent sure what side of the room I'd be standing on ...

These Portlanders just don't get the fervor that is caucus season. This time four years ago, I was running scripts for CNN. So fun -- yup, it's true. I miss Iowa today.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

The verboten list.

Awesome how a gimmick can put a JSchool on the map: Your neighbor, Lake Superior State University, polls students and faculty for the year's most overused words and blasts them across the Internets every January first. (Note to Drake admissions folk: This sort of thing would have revved my 18-year-old engine as I was applying to schools, nerd that I am/was.)

The truncated list, for your pleasure:
  • PERFECT STORM
  • WEBINAR
  • WATERBOARDING
  • ORGANIC
  • WORDSMITH/WORDSMITHING
  • AUTHOR/AUTHORED
  • POST 9/11
  • SURGE
  • GIVE BACK
  • 'BLANK' is the new 'BLANK' or 'X' is the new 'Y'
  • BLACK FRIDAY
  • BACK IN THE DAY
  • RANDOM
  • SWEET
  • DECIMATE
  • EMOTIONAL
  • POP
  • IT IS WHAT IT IS
  • UNDER THE BUS