Posts tagged as:

journalism

OUTSOURCED JOURNALISM: jobbing out local stories to a journalism farm, maybe even in the Philippines

July 13, 2012

Last week an NPR story on the program This American Life revealed that a company called Journatic has begun contracting with some of the major newspapers in the country.   The company employs writers from all over the world who are contracted to the newspapers for local stories, even though they may never set foot on [...]

Read the full article →

SCOOPED: beaten “to the punch” with a breaking story you hoped to publish

April 16, 2012

On Thursday I was scooped by John Dickerson in a Slate article.  He beat me to the punch with an article about the overuse of umbrage in today’s political world and its relationship to the inappropriate acceleration of the use of  the term war by political organizations.   If you’re going to be scooped, it isn’t [...]

Read the full article →

DOPPELGANGER: ghost-like apparition of one’s “other self”

January 26, 2012

In common parlance a doppelganger is a person who is so identical in looks to another person (think Tina Fey/Sarah Palin) that it is uncanny.   I have a friend  who looks so much like me that we are frequently confused by people.  We both go to the same coffee shop so it happens all the [...]

Read the full article →

DEMOTIC: pertaining to the common people

August 21, 2011

I ran across the word demotic while reading the recent posting of John McIntyre in his blog You Don’t Say. Demotic is a word used with some regularity, it would seem, in the world of linguistics.  It means “common language” as opposed to “formal language.”   Over decades and centuries of use language changes.   Formal usages [...]

Read the full article →

ROBOT JOURNALIST: a non-human reporter who is created by technology

April 18, 2011

I heard the most incredible story on NPR yesterday.   It involved the invention of a robot programmed to replicate the abilities of a journalist. Wow!  What was that sound I heard?  Was it a plethora of journalists jumping off the top floor of their newspaper offices?  Not so fast, ladies and gentlemen of the Press.  [...]

Read the full article →

UN-AWED: is it a word?

June 27, 2010

In a New York Times commentary this past week, columnist David Brooks used the word un-awed. It feels good to vent in this way. You demonstrate your own importance by showing your buddies that you are un-awed by the majority leader, the vice president or some other big name. You get to take a break [...]

Read the full article →

VERISIMILITUDE: a statement which merely appears to be true (wikipedia.com)

December 8, 2009

Verisimilitude is a word that comes from the world of writing fiction. It emerged with the onset of fiction as a popular form of literature, causing some consternation among literary critics. Is the story meant to be true, or is it imaginary? How is the reader to know? What if the reader doesn’t understand that [...]

Read the full article →

SPURIOUS: not genuine, authentic, or true…counterfeit. (Dictionary.com)

November 14, 2009

——- Spurious is a great word. I use it too frequently, almost as an evil toy, knowing that a lot of people don’t know the meaning of it. It is an ego-driven, prideful action my part. But I love it, and I love being able to explain the meaning of the word. Usually spurious is [...]

Read the full article →

CYNICISM: an attitude of scornful or jaded negativity of the professed motives of others. (Dictionary.com)

October 28, 2009

The growth in popularity of 24/7 radio talk shows and cable TV has brought with it a new communication sin: cynicism. For a long time we have expected sarcasm, biting humor and strong criticism from such sources. But in the past few years, it would seem, there has been a tendency for banter by talk [...]

Read the full article →