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...