Journalism in the 21st Century

1. I resolve to never make mean faces when I read e-mail rejections from editors, or if I do, I resolve to not record them and send them as attachments; 2. I resolve to rely more on my brain and less on Spellcheck, unless of course I'm really tired; 3. I resolve to be nicer to PRs who interrupt my busy day with pitches that are 17 paragraphs long and are addressed to "Laura Weigler" (Never was, never WILL BE Laura, and it's i before e, thank you very much); 4. I resolve to be nice when checks are late. No, no I don't. I resolve to hunt down editors who don't pay on time, publish their names on my blog, and kidnap their puppies! 5. I resolve to encourage my fellow journalists in the same way I want them to encourage me: constant praise, heaps of praise, gushing to the point of idolatry; 6. I resolve to stop screaming when I read the way a 23-year-old editor has just ruined my copy; 7. I resolve to stop bragging when one of my edito...

I live in Milford, Conn., a pastoral community of roughly 53,000. We're about 26 miles south of Newtown, a town of about 27,000 and tucked within it lies the 18th century village of Sandy Hook. To call Sandy Hook quaint is like calling the Kardashians overexposed. Matter of fact, Bruce Jenner even graduated from Newtown High School. In addition to being a Connecticut resident, I'm a tutor; my mom is a fifth-grade teacher, and her mother was a high-school geometry and trig teacher. I don't have children, but consider myself a mother to my furry friend Wally, and have loved every child I've ever explained which way the printed 'e' should go or whose drawings of me on the subway or in a field of sunflowers graces my bedroom wall. It's trite to say this is a day of mourning, or that our hearts go out to the victims, but it's still worth saying. What's less obvious is that every journalist covering this story has, in a sense, gone to battle. Down on...

This will be a short column. For two days I went without power--a small price compared to what friends and neighbors experienced in Hoboken and Brooklyn, lower Mahattan and down by the water here in Milford, CT. But let me tell you, for about 18 hours straight I was terrified. I don't own a home; I am not even renting an apartment. I am staying somewhere about 3 miles in from town temporarily as I apartment hunt. I rely on people here to inform me of the integrity of the building. Am I going to ask for a recent building inspector's report? Right. So when the wind started kicking up Mon. morning as I left my room, I wrote out a "will". I use quotes because a) I didn't bet on not making it through Hurricane Sandy, but b) in case I was that one statistic from Milford, Conn. to not pull through, to get hit in the head by a collapsed roof or shards of metal that pierced the window, I wanted my brother to get my CD collection. Now, I've been through worse pe...

Reading the other day that AARP-the Magazine boasts over 22 million subscribers I felt a tingle -- how thrilling, I thought, to have a story appearing in its October issue. While this is my second small piece for them, I am aware that exposure on a national level is invaluable for a journalist. I've also been published in dozens, or close to 100 other publications, and these days it's tough to remember them all. I remember a time when waiting for a magazine article to come out was like waiting for Christmas and no one could ruin the surprise. That all changed with the Internet, though, and it's certainly likely I could be out-scooped. This is true not only for the AARP profile but for any stories I write, including environmental pieces for tce today or the new Green Guide published by the Hartford Business Journal. Even a citizen journalist or heck, Facebook friend, could publish an article that uses the same sources. While it's fine to say there are no accidents, i...

Whether you are 80 or 18, you're learning every day. People will say, too, that the world is your teacher, that experience carves character and life can provide lessons no classroom ever can. Yet, more and more I'm finding that my world is full of uneducated people, for whom life/experience and so forth haven't taught so much as proper grammar, a perspective on history or art appreciation, or the ability to count without a calculator. Saying "I didn't know nothing" is no longer the purview of backwoods characters on TV shows, but common language among the gum-smacking teenagers at shopping malls. Was I the only one who didn't fall asleep when the teacher taught us about double negatives? (Or for that matter, when my mom taught me how rude it was to smack gum in public?) The way forward is not only through experience, then, but through modeled experience. A good mentor is tantamount to our raising standards of excellence, not only for ourselves but ou...

Watching Ann Curry's heartwrenching goodbye Thursday on "The Today Show," I wept like a school girl. Who didn't? When was the last time viewers were treated to such honest, gripping emotion? First, kudos to the NBC executives who allowed her to have her five minutes. As critical as I am of her ousting, it could have been far worse -- we might have awakened to her simply being gone, like an anchor-cum-Sopranos victim. She could have been 86'd like the first Darren on "Bewitched" or the superiority of network programming over cable (oops - did I say that out loud?) Yet, we all know that what happened to her was merely what happens to all of us women of a certain age who are no longer desirable in the eyes of our male bosses - or in her case, the imaginary viewers these male bosses felt had lost interest. Their golden boy, after all, has to fight the drool coming out of his mouth whenever Savannah Guthrie or Natalie Morales are at his side. Is this a ...

I was in New Orleans to interview a professor at a university when the talk came up about the Times-Picayune impending layoffs. "It's very depressing," I told a PR. "I interviewed there last year. I was upset when they didn't hire me, but now I get it. There was a hiring freeze." The PR said indeed, it was depressing. "This is the only business in which people will just give their work away." Really? "What about actors? Musicians?" He: "People pay for tickets to see a play." Perhaps. I said goodbye, walking down that hot, muggy Canal Street despite having 1.25 left over for the street car. Suddenly, I was nervous that in my profession, without watching each penny I'd soon be on the streets. --- Since leaving my last full-time job in Jan. 2008, at least three of my girlfriends have been laid off or "downsized." Some have reinvented themselves beautifully: launching magazines, web sites, radio prog...

It's counterintuitive, but this is how hiring managers should be judging their applicants. Unfortunately, this is not an ideal world and all of us are judged on those thirty minutes or an hour, a writing or editing test thrown our way to assess our worth. Imagine if, wanting to choose a husband, you threw an hour-long quiz his way: "Here, catch!" He: "But, but...?" You: "Seriously! Time's a-tickin'. Go! Answer the 60 questions. I will be in the other room." ... The heart would race, the sweat would bead. He would turn in his answers, half of which would be "wrong" in your book. You: "I am sorry, but you lack skills for this job." He: "But we are crazy about each other! You said I was cu--" You: "Sorry. You failed the test. Next!" ... This is how we're judged in this very competitive job market, which makes it all the more important for editors and hiring managers to fine tune the...

It's not the "slut" and "prostitute" slurs or the insinuation that Miss Fluke offer the world free pornos in exchange for subsidizing her contraceptive fix. And it's not even that Limbaugh, on the face of it, is just a nasty, narrow-minded, clueless goon of a man desperate for ratings (and perhaps a roll in the hay). No, it goes even deeper. Limbaugh's rise to media power -- especially during an age when so many of my peers are flailing about as unemployed, unpaid or just as bad underpaid scribes/broadcasters/etc. -- points to what's really wrong with society. It's called Misogyny. Left unchecked, it allows for everything from the JFK mistresses to the wink from the boss who gives his 22-year-old waitress more hours than her gray-haired counterparts. Misogyny is the father who urges his daughter to quit competing so hard on the soccer team, and just settle down and have kids. It's the uncle who scolds his niece for a ten-pound weight gain on ...