Silly Season Stories are emanating from “a time of year, usually in midsummer or during a holiday period, characterized by exaggerated news stories, frivolous entertainments, outlandish publicity stunts, etc.,” according to the dictionary. reference Website.
Silly Season Stories usually occurred in August. This was a time when there was a discernable “News Hole” in newsworthy stories.
However, the autumn of 2009 certainly sets a new record for innumerable silly Season Stories. Witness: Michael Jackson’s glove selling for $350,000; public enemy number one John Dillinger’s blood-stained dollar bill, the last in his wallet when the was gunned down, selling for nearly $20,000 at a public auction; and finally the sports icon Tiger Woods unraveling publically and hanging up his golf clubs in order restore his marriage after innumerable “transgressions” (a.k.a. “infidelities.”)
These are but a few of Silly Season Stories. I won’t even touch the political arena, where we have vaudeville-style performers like Sarah Palin’s runaway bestseller, Going Rogue, topping the charts.
Sixty years ago it was Flying Saucers invading the skies. Today our Silly Season Stories have branched out to new levels of banality.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Quips about Clips
According to the inimitable Encyclopedia Britannica, “The learning of an art, craft, or trade under the tutelage of a master is called apprenticeship.” Most journalism and communications organizations still respect those who have undergone apprenticeships. After all, they reveal skills that were learned on the job, from the proverbial ground up.
Covering town meetings, school board conferences, and local community activities, I learned how to distill seemingly meaningless events and, via the alchemical employment of words, turn these happenings into something readable and important.
This takes endurance, perseverance, imagination, and attention to details. But it’s worth the time, the effort, and the below-subsistence-level remunerations.
As I have mention in my on campus classes, all my journalism-related jobs at daily and weekly newspapers, magazines, corporations, advertising and PR agancies were gained by perusal of my clips.
Sure, the academic credentials were important. But in all instances my BA in English, my MA in Journalism, and my 30 doctoral credits in Communications Studies were secondary to those evaluating my potential value as a writer.
The moral? It’s in the clips.
Covering town meetings, school board conferences, and local community activities, I learned how to distill seemingly meaningless events and, via the alchemical employment of words, turn these happenings into something readable and important.
This takes endurance, perseverance, imagination, and attention to details. But it’s worth the time, the effort, and the below-subsistence-level remunerations.
As I have mention in my on campus classes, all my journalism-related jobs at daily and weekly newspapers, magazines, corporations, advertising and PR agancies were gained by perusal of my clips.
Sure, the academic credentials were important. But in all instances my BA in English, my MA in Journalism, and my 30 doctoral credits in Communications Studies were secondary to those evaluating my potential value as a writer.
The moral? It’s in the clips.
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