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a blog by Jack Limpert, Editor of The Washingtonian for more than 40 years.

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The Mainstream Media Will Continue to be More Important Than the Blogosphere

February 24, 2021

From a Washington Post column by Daniel W. Drezner headlined “Everything old is new again in the mainstream media”:

See if this sounds familiar: The mainstream media is broken. These gatekeepers are panicked about losing their power because of the emergence of cheap ways for people to communicate directly with interested readers….I am writing, of course, about 2002.

Back in the day, there was the mediasphere and the blogosphere and a whole big debate about what this divide meant. I should know — I was one of those folks who grabbed a Blogger account and started writing because of my difficulties getting an op-ed published. I was not atypical: Most of the first generation of bloggers that gained followings were either academics writing for a public audience or former columnists and editors experimenting with the blog format….

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Jack Schwartz: “My proclivities were for indoor tasks: rewrite, editing, shaping the work of people who loved to go out and scramble and bang on doors.”

February 23, 2021

From a New York Times Those We’ve Lost story by Neil Genzlinger headlined “Jack Schwartz, Key Cog at New York Newspapers, Dies at 82”:

Jack Schwartz, a lifelong newspaperman, knew early that he was best suited to the kinds of jobs that are valued in a newsroom but largely invisible to the reading public.

In the fall of 1959 he landed a job out of college as a reporter for The Long Island Press, based in Queens, and a few months later found himself covering his first big story, a hotel fire on Atlantic Beach, on the South Shore. But he never actually went to the scene; instead he pieced the story together from telephone interviews and wire service copy.

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Samira Nasr, a Fashion First at Harper’s Bazaar: “I Want to Bring More People Like Me to the Party”

February 23, 2021

From a Washington Post story by Robin Givhan headlined “Samira Nasr, a fashion first at Harper’s Bazaar: “I just want to bring more people with me to the party”:

Over the course of three decades, Samira Nasr has run a well-paced marathon through a fashion system filled with flamboyant egos and prickly temperaments, all while maintaining a low-key reputation as someone with integrity, impeccable taste and a commitment to hard work. She is also terribly skilled at her job, which has been to tell visual stories using clothes and accessories. In July, she claimed a victory and stepped into history when she became the editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar — making her the first person of color to lead the fashion glossy in its 154-year history.

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A Minnesota Snow Plow Naming Contest: Nominees Included Lake Snowbegone, Plowin’ in the Wind, and Darth Blader

February 23, 2021

From a New York Time story by Neil Vigdor headlined “Phony McPlowface Has a Shot in Naming Contest. ‘Abolish ICE’ Does Not”:

The suggestions came in by the thousands, with the inevitable puns and nods to Prince, Minnesota Twins legends and, of course, snow.

There was Raspberry Brrr-et, Road Carew and Minnesota nICE, all credible options as clever names for state snowplows.

When the Minnesota Department of Transportation recently asked for the public’s help with naming eight snowplows as part of a contest, an even more popular suggestion was the phrase “Abolish ICE,” according to an analysis by The Minnesota Reformer, an independent news website, which obtained the 24,000 entries in a public records request.

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Writing Advice From William Faulkner: “Take up surgery or bricklaying if you’re interested in technique.”

February 22, 2021

From “20 Pieces of Writing Advice from William Faulkner,” posted at lithub.com.

On “being a writer”:

“Don’t be ‘a writer’ but instead be writing. Being ‘a writer’ means being stagnant. The act of writing shows movement, activity, life. When you stop moving, you’re dead. It’s never too soon to start writing, as soon as you learn to read.” (from an interview excerpted in The Daily Princetonian, 1958)

On the best training for writing:

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First the Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins, Now the Jeep Cherokee Is Besieged

February 22, 2021

From a story on caranddriver.com by Annie White headlined “Chief of Cherokee Nation Says ‘It’s Time’ for Jeep to Stop Using Name”:

For the first time, the Cherokee Nation is asking Jeep to change the name of its Cherokee and Grand Cherokee vehicles.

“I’m sure this comes from a place that is well-intended, but it does not honor us by having our name plastered on the side of a car,” Chuck Hoskin, Jr., principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, told Car and Driver. . . .”The best way to honor us is to learn about our sovereign government, our role in this country, our history, culture, and language and have meaningful dialogue with federally recognized tribes on cultural appropriateness.”

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Genevieve Young: “A book editor whose own life had all the adventure of a Hollywood epic”

February 22, 2021

From a Washington Post obit by AP writer Hillel Italle headlined “Genevieve Young, editor who helped shape ‘Love Story’ and other books, dies at 89”:

Genevieve Young, a book editor who worked with authors ranging from Herman Wouk to Betty Rollin, played a key role in the writing of Erich Segal’s “Love Story” and oversaw the estate and foundation of her former husband, photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks, died Feb. 18, 2020, at her home in New York City. She was 89.

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Adam Grant: On the Importance of Second Opinions

February 21, 2021

From a post on lithub.com by Adam Grant headlined “I Rethink, Therefore I Am: On the Importance of Second Opinions”:

With advances in access to information and technology, knowledge isn’t just increasing. It’s increasing at an increasing rate. In 2011, you consumed about five times as much information per day as you would have just a quarter-century earlier. . . .The accelerating pace of change means that we need to question our beliefs more readily than ever before.

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Peter G. Davis: “One of America’s leading classical music critics with crisp, witty prose and an enclopedic memory”

February 21, 2021

From a New York Times obit by Clay Risen headlined “Peter G. Davis, Music Critic of Wide Knowledge and Wit, Dies at 84”:

Peter G. Davis, who for over 30 years held sway as one of America’s leading classical music critics with crisp, witty prose and an encyclopedic memory of countless performances and performers, died on Feb. 13.

First as a critic at The New York Times and later at New York magazine, Mr. Davis wrote precise, sharply opinionated reviews of all forms of classical music, though his great love was opera and the voice, an attachment he developed in his early teens.

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Behind the Scenes at 60 Minutes: “Messy backroom brawls involving competing personalities and enormous egos.”

February 21, 2021

From a Washington Post review by Susan Benkelman of the book “Ticking Clock: Behind the Scenes at ’60 Minutes'” by Ira Rosen.

Television news producers operate outside the spotlight, figuring out story angles, sweating the details and persuading reluctant sources to go on camera. They also manage impossibly difficult personalities, get blamed for segments that go off the rails and generally don’t get credit for things that go right.

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About Editing

What Editors Should Look for in Writers

By Jack Limpert

When I became a magazine editor, I had no clue what to look for in a writer. As time went on, I began to think about left brain-right brain types of writers–left brain types being better at logic and analysis, right brain better at imagination and creativity. The split seemed to play out most noticeably with art directors–we went through lots of them and it seemed that we’d go from one that was creative and disorganized to another that was well-organized and not very interesting.

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About Writing

Writing That Is of Marginal Interest

By Mike Feinsilber

So there I was happily reading Lynne Olson’s fascinating book, Those Angry Days, about the pre-World War II struggles between the isolationists who wanted to keep America out of the war and the internationalists who couldn’t stand America’s hands-off policy while Nazi bombers were pounding London night after night.

And there I came across a series of pencilled in comments in the book’s margins by a previous reader of the book, which I’d borrowed from the D.C. Public Library. “Dear Reader” is how I’ve come to think of Olson’s ghostly second guesser. And  I’ve come to think of Dear Reader as elderly and a woman because of her frail, thin, and tiny handwriting. Maybe that’s sexist. My evidence is thin.

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“Words Are the Only Things That Last Forever.” – William Hazlitt

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