Author Archives: jeff
On writing well.
“Good morning, everyone!”
“Good Morning Ms. Huffington!”
“Today we’re going to learn a little bit about irony. I know you’ve heard the term, but can anyone tell me what it means?”
*pause*
“Okay, well, say, for example, that we ran a headline saying, umm, something like ‘Hillary Clinton to go defuse tensions in Israel’, but juxtaposed that against a [...]
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Peggy Noonan reveals self as poor writer. Reveal, reveal, reveal.
Glynnis MacNicol at Mediaite has already pointed out most of the dodgy fallacy in Peggy Noonan’s column here.
She failed to point out the clumsiness of Noonan’s writing, which I find unbefitting of the Wall Street Journal:
It revealed what the president doesn’t want revealed, which is that he doesn’t want to reveal much about his [...]
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BBC: Internet ‘in running’ for Nobel Peace Prize
This does about as much good as when Time named me and you and everyone we know person of the year. Except this (sort of) actually matters. The Nobel committee needs a no-novelty bids rule, lest it become the Oscars.
[via BBC News]
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Why does every story written about Gawker have to be part-Nick Denton pinup?
Okay, fucking journalists, you know the name of the guy who started Gawker. Floss it. It is, for many of you, the one thing keeping you in one piece as your profession falls apart with you inside. But you never hear anyone saying “Why did Arianna Huffington turn her site into a firehose of obnoxious, [...]
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Brought to you by the number 8
If blog software had its way, eight would be the new 13; one trending fail WTPWB has been noticing lately is the inadvertent smiley in numbered lists, where the 8 should be. Take, for example, this list of “types of bitches,” found here.
(cropped at number 12, my personal fave)
This: is an emoticon, you see, [...]
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Facebook: used more on the weekend.
Two points to make about this World Editors Forum story:
1. No fucking shit more articles are shared on Facebook over the weekend; most of us have lives, things to do during the day, etc. Doesn’t it follow that not only will one see an increase in article trading by way of FB, but a general [...]
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For what its worth
(Trivia: How many times has that been used as a headline on this blog?)
Just heard a little bit of interesting info on the Diane Rehm Show’s Friday News Roundup from last week.
So as we all know, Iran has been building uranium enrichment facilities for a while now, but the number of functional enrichment facilities in [...]
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Hyperbole!
The Gothamist headline, copped from the NY Post says, “Police Bust Massive Rockaway Drug Ring”
But the content suggests neither “massive” nor “ring,” in the Don Corelone sense of the word, anyway. First, lets talk weight:
Police seized 41 bags of crack, 230 bags of marijuana, and smaller amounts of heroin and Oxycontin.
That’s referred to as [...]
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High-atus