Will Write For Food 2011: A New Hope
(WWFF11, Mike Rice)I spent half a day Sunday helping out with Will Write For Food 2011, a program that hands over the country’s second-largest homeless newspaper to a group of college journalists. The students were smart, driven, funny and dedicated. They cranked out some amazing work, which you should check out at spjwillwriteforfood.wordpress.com. Every time I start losing... Read More
A Farewell to Hogwarts
I saw the final installment of the Harry Potter movie franchise this weekend. I was dreading it. I started reading the series in college, I guess around 2000, about two years after Potter-mania gripped the rest of the world. I was skeptical at first, but like most everyone else, I lost myself in Hogwarts with Harry, Hermoine and Ron. I loved the series for its adventure, its clever... Read More
Rebooting, reporting
(Flickr, sskennel) I’m back. I won’t make any excuses for my absence, but I do have an explanation. I have willfully ignored this little corner of the web for months as I adjusted to becoming a reporter again. In December, I accepted a job covering Boca Raton and unincorporated Palm Beach County west of the city for the Sun Sentinel. The time since has been a crazy adjustment... Read More
Growing up on Dexter Avenue
The Alabama capitol, which sits at the East end of Dexter Avenue. (Flickr, sunsurfr)Dexter Avenue is a short street with a long history. At the East end of Dexter Avenue atop Goat Hill, sits the Alabama State Capitol where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the president of the Confederacy and where George Wallace declared “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation... Read More
Twentysomething: How my generation works
(Flickr/mugley) There’s been a lot of press about my generation lately. A lot of it questions our values, work and goals. So, here is my admittedly unsolicited opinion of my generation and, more specifically, our work life. You must understand that we are not starting out with a positive attitude. In our short careers, we already have been laid off or at least afraid that... Read More
Newspaper brain drain
Flickr/Aidan O'Sullivan When I decided to pursue journalism, it was the most fun job I could imagine. I couldn’t believe I could get paid to tell stories. Like every young journo, I dreamed of explaining complexity, exposing injustice and holding our officials and our society accountable to itself. When I finally got to work in a real newsroom, I was surrounded by talented... Read More
Working out: In which our heroine extols the virtues of physical exertion …
(Flickr/jronaldlee) I’ve been thinking a bit today about exercise and being active, mostly because my twitter feed is blowing up on the topic. In the past 6 months, I’ve lost about 25 pounds. That number sounds kind of ridiculous, but it doesn’t show up on me like one would think. I have a weird Tolkein dwarf-human hybrid body that tends to hide my weight well... Read More
For love or traffic: What I want in web journalism
I want you to want … my content (sqback/stock.xchng) I read a great post about the pitfalls of pageview journalism today, and it got me to thinking about my focus as a web editor. I’ll admit it. I want pageviews. Pageviews pay the bills. We know when we write on tech gadgets, real estate numbers, deals, product recalls and local business closings we’re going to get... Read More
Summer reading season is here
It’s the most wonderful time of the year — summer reading season! When other kids dreaded that list of books to read each summer, I was the nerdball asking for additional suggestions. Here’s my list for this summer so far (but probably not in this order): 1. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest: My dad bought it (somewhat illegally) from Europe, devoured... Read More
