The News

This update is being brought to you because I just read a story from a writer for The Mobile Press Register. I found the article while researching a completely different matter; but for some reason my great city, it's newspaper, and the site, AL.com have an issue with public information. Specifically, where archives are concerned. For some reason I thought that microfiche had gone digital. I used to spend hours at the university library, looking through volumes of the newspaper dating back 100 years or more. I'm not doing that today. I should be able to find archives on the internet in 2013.

The one article I found was written in January, so at least they still had that available. It was mostly irrelevant. The thing that made me throw my topic down was the way the article was written, and how in the world it got published in a newspaper. The writer said, "is the reason why" in the first paragraph, and then again in the second paragraph.

There are a few basic rules to journalism that were somewhat ignored. The first, and this applies to all writing, is to explain yourself succinctly. Don't use a bunch of modifiers, adverbs, etc... Too many words make it hard to read, and sometimes readers can miss the point altogether. The second is to make yor article interesting while informative. Redundancy is not advised unless you are writing a thematic piece. Also, the English language is so complex that there are endless possibilities to not repeat the same phrase, spaced out between five lines; especially in a journalistic article.

I am not a journalist by training, but any writer that learns the craft should have the basics down before they begin writing for a newspaper. I wouldn't make a good journalist for two reasons:  The first; I am long-winded like a pentecostal preacher. Listing only the facts leaves me feeling like I wrote a scant piece of work, and I could never be satisfied. I would probably be frustrated to the point of writing in a paper journal again; you know, the place you write about all the things you hate. I don't want to devolve.

Second: I can't keep my opinion out of my writing. Writing is a right brained practice for me, and though I can gather facts easily, I still view the whole thing through an artistic lens. Even when I state my opinion, it is usually crafted into the factual content. There are a few exceptions though. If I write about politics, or Wayne LaPierre, the piece will be rife with what I think; maybe the whole thing. I don't have a particular agenda to push either because I don't belong to a news outlet. I do like equality, but that is hardly something that people need to be sold.

Tomorrow, I will have something new to talk about, so all six of you can have a break from the death that cannot evade the news. Sure there will be drones killing innocent people, there will probably be a bank robbery somewhere, and maybe an unoccupied house will burn down, but I will step around that and offer something different. I won't be thinking about my journalistic career, or a dream of becoming an editor one day; I want neither. The facts will be straight and true, and there will be no political slant.

                                                            -Johnny

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