Journalism Lives!

I dare you to read John Kroll's post about the five 5 Ws and H and tell me you don't agree.

He's right about the fact that expecting professional writers to apply this Journalism 101 principle to the concept of fact-checking should NOT require a half-day seminar, too. But damn. I got all goose-pimply reading this, and remembered why I wanted to be a journalist in the first place.

Sigh. So much for righteous dreams; I ended up as a freelance copywriter and taxicab driver. But hey, at least I can still get all goose-pimply.

Side note from copywriter me: I wonder how this page will rank for "goose-pimply."

~Diane Stresing

Warren Buffet Believes in Reporting

"I believe newspapers that intensively cover their communities will have a good future" -- Warren Buffet, June 2012 message to employees of the newspapers he owns.

Apparently Moody's doesn't share his view, at least as a short-term investment.

What do you think?

~Diane Stresing

Thanks to The Quill - in its 100th year - for highlighting this 60-second spot as something of a Valentine to journalists. The brief video shares a few gems the world might have missed (or learned of far too late) if not for journalists.

I'm proud to say I love journalists, on Valentine's Day and every day.

Thanks, Quill, SPJ, and journalists everywhere.

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Watch it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xlVx6za3Vo&feature=colike

Handy Journalism Toolbox

Thank you @JournToolBox for this DIY Freedom of Information Act letter template.

http://www.splc.org/legalassistance/foiletter.asp

If you see this, will you recognize it?

I write medical articles for "average" readers. Also known as "consumer" articles - a term that covers a wide and bumpy landscape. The medical articles I write are fact-checked by an editor, first, and then reviewed by an MD.

In other words, I don't write the hype you're likely to see on a glossy magazine (THE SNACK FOOD THAT CAN KILL YOU! see page 64) or blurbs you're likely to hear from a newscaster at 6:59pm ("Are donuts good for you? tune in at eleven!" [big smile, cue music]).

So I'll be interested in following a story on the possible/probable link between sweetened carbonated beverages and pancreatic cancer.

I'm jaded. I'm pretty sure the nitty gritty facts (a controlled study of more than 60,000 adults over 14 years found those who consumed two or more cans of pop each week were more than 87% more likely to develop pancreatic cancer than those who drank less pop) will be obscured in "news reports" or - more probably, and more maddening - simply ignored.

If I think about this too long, I'll start replaying Men In Black in my head; I'm thinking about the scene where K (Tommy Lee Jones) goes to the hot sheets to get some good leads on the bug that's invaded Manhattan.  The hot sheets are the National Enquirer and the like.

The irony is that while most of the "mainstream" media ignores studies like the one described above, a lot of dubious/alternative sites report on such studies to further their own agendas. (Acai berries, anyone?)

Readers beware. And journalists - is there a story in the Singapore pop study? Or is there a story in why it isn't a story? I think so.

More worries about the news hole

This, from NPR war correspondent Anne Garrels, says a mouthful.

I worry about the news hole

You know the old adage about 'sunlight being the best disinfectant?' It's meaningless without news coverage.

-- Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, in SPJ's The Quill.