At my old newspaper, the main frame computer that ran all the newsroom writing terminals used to routinely freeze at 4 p.m., right when reporters were on deadline. When it happened, everyone popped up from their cubicles like Punxsutawney Phil on GroundHog’s Day. If you were lucky, whatever part of the story you’d written was […]
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Make Headline News
Want a quick way to an editor’s heart? Write your own headlines. Make it a practice to send a headline – and a deck too if a publication uses them – with every story you submit. Whether an editor actually uses your headline is beside the point. Writing headlines is good practice. And it shows […]
Go Web, Young Man
Newspapers see the future, and it’s digital. The latest evidence: earlier this week the New York Times Co. and three other investors sank $29.5 million into Automattic, the company that makes WordPress blogging software runs the WordPress.com free blogging Website. (Disclaimer: I use WordPress.com to create and host this blog.) According to a news report, […]
Web Editor Up for LA Times Top Job – A Good Thing
It’s the worst of times at the Los Angeles Times. James O’Shea, the paper’s editor in chief resigned last week after a budget dispute with publisher David Hiller. This comes a month after real estate mogul Sam Zell took control of the paper and the rest of the Tribune Co. It’s the latest skirmish in […]
More than One Way to Make Freelancing Pay
In one episode of Sex and the City, Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw character lands a freelance assignment for some incredible amount, like $4 a word. As a real-life freelance writer, I’ve never made $4 a word, or even met anybody who does. I’m not sure rates like that exist. Even $2 a word sounds […]
Adaptations
The venerable PBS Sunday night miniseries Masterpiece Theater is mounting a Jane Austen retrospective, airing new and old versions of made-for-TV movies of all of her novels. It’s a big deal for Austen’s legion of fans, but let’s hope the first production isn’t representative of things to come. The version of Persuasion that aired on […]