Ok, there are reasons to go to Boston that have nothing to do with watching the Yankees defenestrate the Red Sox, but none that are as much fun. 

However, that's not what this column is about. 

The reason I had the chance to watch a Yankees-Red Sox game at the venerable old ball park is that Region 1 of the Society of Professional Journalists held its annual spring conference at Boston University, 

The theme of the conference was Byte Back and many of the presentations covered the new media and things a working journalist (I actually prefer the term reporter or "old newspaper lady") needs to know to survive in today's world. 

But there were also panels that reminded us if we don't stand by the old values all the bells and whistles are meaningless. 

Kevin Z Smith, former national president of SPJ and current chair of the ethics committee, gave a talk on the proposed update of the SPJ Code of Ethics. The society isn't proposing huge changes, of course. The same things always apply: accuracy, accuracy, accuracy, minimize harm, take nothing of value from a source. The only thing that changes is the manner in which we do the job. 

We take copious, accurate notes. We may use a Dixon-Ticonderoga #2 pencil on a reporter's notebook or a Bic Crystal on a steno pad or we may use a laptop, although I, personally, think that's a dangerous game. But the most important thing is how careful we are, not what we use.

The reason I think taking notes on a laptop is dangerous is that somebody might want to subpoena your notes. If you take notes on paper, you can burn them or shred them or feed them to a goat. If you take notes on a laptop they never leave. Sure, you can delete them, but, as we all learned from countless episodes of Law & Order SVU (I so-o-o miss Christopher Meloni, don't you?) they never really disappear. Our notes could be floating around cyber-space with all those videos of Henri le chat noir and pornography in some sort of celestial minestrone. And, my friend Cece, who is a programmer, says The Cloud is actually a former Westinghouse elevator warehouse in Pocatello, Idaho, staffed by six guys who wear hoodies and live in their mothers' basements. Makes you feel secure doesn't it? 

Regardless if you want to take the chance or not, ethics don't change. 

Other panels featured specialists talking about writing for an expert audience. Many were science and technology people, being right down the street from MIT, but I could relate. A specialty is a specialty.  We all know we are writing for people who know as much about the topic as we do, and that's pretty intimidating. 

So, Boston was great for many reasons, not the least of which was the opportunity to scream "Derek, Derek!" and get dirty looks from Boston fans. And to sing "Sweet Caroline" like an idiot. But, meeting with people in the same business, networking and just plain seeing old friends is great, too.


 

The First Draft

News is the first draft of history. 
That's a cliche, but like a lot of cliches, it's true. 
We learn about our past from the record. 
Sometimes those records are personal. My cousin and I were going through boxes in our great-grandparents house which is no longer occupied, but is lovingly cared for on the family farm. Photos of people we don't remember with names (if we were lucky) scrawled on the back. We can piece together some of our personal record from family Bibles and yellowed newspaper clippings. 
Newspapers, even the first draft of personal history.
The engagements, weddings, births, graduations, county fair ribbons. And not just general circulation newspapers. A picture of my grandfather and two of my uncles with one of their beloved English Shepherds and the Alamance County Agricultural Agent that was used in an extension service brochure. 
Even today, with must news broadcast or on the internet, the public record is there. Older records are on paper, later on microfiche, now on servers or in the cloud -- which I still think is an old Westinghouse elevator warehouse in Pocatello, Idaho managed by six guys who wear hoodies and live in their mothers' basements. But, wherever, it's the public record. 
I'm not one for predictions, but I have a feeling our descendents won't be amused by our public record of today. 
The fourth marriage of the third Kardashian? Seriously?
The public really doesn't want that stuff.

The Jefferson Township Council is not too glamorous, but they are doing their job.

Oh, they may be mildly amused when Alec Baldwin is dragged off a paparazzo by two burly cops. 
They may even be appalled when David Duchovney confesses to being a sex addict. Especially considering his father-in-law is Italian. 
But, it's not what they want. 
Surveys have shown the public wants news about the thing that have an impact on their lives: traffic tie-ups (natural or politically made), weather, crime, tax increases, local elections. They want national and international news if they can relate to it. 

Horace Chamberlain is not a celebrity, except to old-timers in Jefferson Township who elected him mayor several times. 

Yet "news" shows fill their time with silly celebrity gossip, the latest diet tips followed by the latest recipes and sob stories of "regular people," who cease to be regular when they become celebrities. 
I'd venture to say if the Today show or Good Morning America woke people up to news, they'd like it better. And maybe even be more awake. 
 

Stealing is Stealing

NPR's On the Media featured an interview with a college professor who tells students to buy term papers off the internet and try to defend them as their own.
While that may be in interesting exercise in learning one more reason it is wrong to buy papers, that is not his purpose.
He does it, he says, and he may have been joking because the alternative seems unlikely, because there is no more originality in art or music so why should their be in writing?
Ok, so John Cage or Sting or Sir Paul aren't doing anything new, they are just rehashing what has been written before? And there is no difference between what Roseanne Cash did on The List and what she is recording now? 
Talk about flawed theories. 
I wish I had caught the professor's name, but I was driving through Mahlon Dickinson State Park which means the radio reception was iffy. I would like to read some of the things he wrote (publish or perish, you know) and see if I could find out where he stole it from. 
I'm a big fan of academic freedom, but I think the line should be drawn at teaching students to break one of the 10 Commandments. Just as a for instance. 
Stealing is stealing.
Plagiarism is plagiarism. 
You don't encourage it, certainly not in an academic setting. Not even as a joke. 
There is plenty of room for creativity. The last great thing has not been written. Not even close. 

When Will They Ever Learn

No, this isn't an anti-war column, although I could easily write one of those. There are plenty of things people don't seem capable of learning. 
One of those is not to foul their nests. 
You would think it's pretty obvious, you don't throw your garbage on the floor or out the window, do you? I mean when that lunatic group down in Philadelphia threw their garbage out their windows in a row house, the neighbors went out and bought guns. Ostensibly because of the rats, but who knows for sure?
But people who live and fish and swim and otherwise have fun in Lake Hopatcong seem to have a problem understanding that throwing things in the lake is pretty much the same as throwing things out the window. 

About 400 volunteers took the time one chilly Saturday morning to pull the stuff out of the lake, or at least at the edge of the lake, which was lowered five feet for the five-year drawdown to allow lakefrom home and business owners to do repairs on docks and other structures without the expense of erecting a coffer dam. The volunteers, led by 40 team leaders, didn't go into the muckiest parts of the lake for safety reasons, but they still pulled out thousands of aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles, cell phones (lots and lots of cell phones) articles of clothing, tools and many, many tires. 
Now, it's likely some of those things -- like the cell phones and some small tools -- fell out of pockets when someone leaned over while fixing a boat. It's also likely a few of those cell phones was thrown at someone during a dockside domestic dispute, probably fueled by the contents of some of those cans. 
But some of the debris was the result of carelessness. Of not thinking or not caring. And that's just wrong. The lake isn't just a playground. It's a water source for downstream. It's a mechanism to recharge the watershed that has been robbed of water by development in the Musconetcong River Watershed. It's also home to fish and other aquatic animals and provides sustenance for muskrat, mink, raccoon and other mammals. 
The Lake Hopatcong Foundation, which sponsored the clean-up, hopes the sheer about of debris found will be a wake-up call to lake residents and visitors. 

Who is a Journalist?

It used to be easy-ish to define.
We didn't call ourselves journalists, but we knew who we were.
We called ourselves newspapermen or newspaperladies. We distinguished ourselves from broadcast folk. They were a little effete, you know? They didn't speak, they intoned.And the TV people were "hairdos." We were the real deal. 
We were professional in the sense most of us at least went to college. Not everybody majored in journalism. Being a Good, Little, Italian Girl, I majored in English/Secondary Education so I would get not only a diploma, but also a piece of paper that said I could get a job. 
It lied, but that's beside the point.
I did get a newspaper job -- not exactly as a reporter, more like doing the recipe column, the Puzzlegraph, which was some sort of word-play contest I had to judge and send out the prizes for, fill-in as darkroom tech and occasionally on the stat camera and do weddings, engagements, baby announcements and cover one municipality. And a couple of municipal courts. 
You have no idea how many people light fires in parks when fires aren't allowed. Just sayin'. . .
Later, I became a reporter. Covered three towns, answered the phone, took the ad proofs to Cohen's of Washington because they wanted them on a day the ad rep was working in another town, took pictures of guys with trout on the first day of the season, took pictures of guys with deer on the first day of the season.
You know, a reporter. 
Not a journalist.
After Woodward and Bernstein, the term journalist came closer to the lexicon. Then "investigative" was added as a modifier/ A mostly unnecessary modifier, since every reporter has to dig on occasion. And it is digging, like grave digging. Not some exciting romp. 
Today, the digital revolution has produced all sorts of people who call themselves journalists. Many erroneously. 
The New Jersey Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists held a two-hour form on the question of who is a journalist. Notice I didn't say "to answer the question," because we were reasonably sure we couldn't.
What did become clear, unsurprisingly, was that people who have worked in the news business for years, who chose it as a profession in spite of the long hours and low pay, don't believe random bloggers and other "citizen journalists" fit any definition we are familiar with. 
Not because they don't have degrees. Not even because they don't have employers who are actual. publishers. But because they aren't practicing journalism the way we practice it. Some are ethical. Some can research. Some are objective. But not all of them are. Some aren't even willing to write under their own names. 
We talked -- something we love to do -- argued a little -- something else we love to do, and came to the conclusion we should do these forums more often. 

                                        If anyone knows about professional journalism, it's
                                        Pulitzer Prize winner Jonathan Alter.

                                         Michael Stephen Daigle has worked for traditional and
                                         new media.

                                         John Ensslin and Clay Dobosh listen to the debate on
                                         who is a journalist.

In the Company of Giants

He looks a bit frail and rambles a little when he talks, but the gentleman above is still Jimmy Breslin.
While it is incomprehensible to some of us that he was never so honored before, maybe the same year as his buddy, Pete Hamill, nevertheless, the Deadline Club chose Breslin and seven fellow journalism legends to induct into their Hall of Fame on Thursday, November 14.

                                         Here's Hamill with Colin DeVries of the Daily News

The luncheon was at Sardi's, as you can tell from the smiling faces on the wall above Breslin and Alex Tarquinio, president of the Deadline Club. I believe that is Lucille Ball in the upper left-hand corner.
Breslin talked about getting into journalism after learning the electrician who fixed things in his grandmother's basement in Richmond Hill would occasionally drive to Ossining (literally "up the river) to throw the switch on the electric chair at SingSing. He wanted to watch. Of course, but the time he was working for The Long Island Press and could go, he no longer wanted to see the spectacle.
I shook Jimmy Breslin's hand once before. When I lived in NYC, he and Norman Mailer, ran for Mayor and City Council President of the city and they announced on Staten Island, because no one had ever announced there before, not on The Forgotten Borough. So, once settled on Staten Island, they decided to announce at Wagner College, certainly one of the loveliest places on the Island, and a bit of an anomaly, a Protestant Parochial College within the city limits.
That earlier experience didn't diminish meeting him again.
I met his friend, Hamill when Alex asked me to herd the attendees to their tables. I pointed out to Pete it was above my pay grade, but asked him to find his seat.
Breslin wasn't the only honoree who brought friends.
Cindy Adams was the first honored, alphabetically. She came with Barbara Walters, who looks much more frail than Breslin.
Adams was funny. She talked about how her career started because her husband knew the Shah of Iran, who, was, at that time, dying in a city hospital. She also told of her acquaintance with Manuel Noriega ("if you're indicted, your invited"), including being cut off when he called her from prison by her Yorkshire Terrier, Jazzy.

 

Also honored was Grayden Carter, editor of Vanity Fair. Being an editor, he said little more than "thank you."

Bob Herbert worked for two of the great newspapers of the city, The Daily News, in the days when that tabloid was in its iconic 34th Street building with the giant globe in the lobby. The globe is still there, but it no longer rotates. Sort of like The Day the Earth Stood Still.The Daily News was used as The Daily Planet in the Superman movies. Herbert was also an op-ed columnist for The Grey Lady, The New York Times. Among his stories was one about expense accounts in the old days. If a reporter had to go out of town, it involved getting a cash advance from the basement finance office. It also involved a lot of paperwork. One day, Herbert was asked if he had a credit card. He said yes and was sent to Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Carol Loomis is a senior editor at Fortune and the editor of a biography of Warren Buffet. My daughter the accountant says "there are a lot of those," but hers is Tap Dancing to Work. The audience related to her talk about being afraid every day at work. "Fear is a great motivator."
Linda Mason was the first woman to work as a producer for the CBS Evening News. She worked with Walter Cronkite, which is very much like working with God. She started her career at the Times-Herald-Record in Middletown, NY.

I had the pleasure of telling Bill Moyers we have a mutual friend, Cathy Bao Bean. But, I've known her longer. Moyers is a great speaker -- big surprise, I know. He pointed out that "news is what people want to keep hidden, everything else is publicity." He also noted "getting at the truth is almost as hard as hiding it in the first place."

Norman Pearlstine, unlike several of the other honorees, started his career in broadcast and now is becoming Chief Content Officer at Time, Inc. He calls this the "second phase" of his career.
After the luncheon (which was amazing) and speeches, we sophisticated, classy journalists acted like school kids with our heroes.
Of course.
We were in the company of giants.

 

Parks and Rec

I really am not a situation comedy person. 
Ok, I kinda enjoyed Seinfeld. Friends, Will and Grace, but I haven't really loved a sitcom since Murphy Brown. and before that, Wings.
Which probably means I have a thing for "workplace" sitcoms as opposed to "family" sitcoms. Which those of my vast number of readers with a Freudian bent will undoubtedly interpret in some sinister manner. 
The point is, I have been totally loving Parks and Recreation.
For one thing, it's hysterically funny. For another, it's almost painfully real.
For those of you not familiar, P&R is about a small city in Indiana and the employees of its parks and recreation department, notably the deputy director Leslie Knope, played by Amy Poehler. Leslie is one of those relentlessly optimistic civil servants who takes her job seriously and works hard. In other words, she's constantly besieged by the public, her co-workers and the city council. Living proof that no good deed goes unpunished.
The other main characters are: Ron, the director of P&R, who hates government in any way, shape or form; Tom, the sleazy, womanizing co-worker; April, the depressed and Goth intern; Ann Perkins, a nurse with a giant hole int he lot next to hers; Andy, Ann's ex-boyfriend who fell in the hole and then lived in it; Donna and Jerry, two co-workers with lesser roles, but lots of fun when allowed. A few other occasional characters drop in: Orrin, a performance artist who rarely moves; John-Ralphio, a friend of Tom's with the personality of a car insurance commercial; Mona Lisa, J-R's sister who is mean as a snake. 
As the seasons moved on, there were some changes. Mark, the city planner who dated Leslie and then Ann, leaves, and the city is invaded by bureaucrats from Indianapolis. Chris is hyperactive, manic and tiresomely healthy. Ben is quieter, smart and cute. 
Naturally, various other city employees and officials drop in now and again.
Another character is City Hall which is festooned with murals painted in a more simple time. And by simple, I mean a time during which it was perfectly ok to treat the local Indian tribe like dogs. Or worse. The murals are a hoot.
In pretty much every episode, an incident arises that reminds me of something I covered as a municipal beat reporter. 
I mean, I've never covered a giant hole being turned into a park, but I have covered the rivalry among municipal departments and it does get just as weird as it does on TV. As does the rivalry between neighboring towns. 
I would highly recommend Parks and Rec to anyone, but especially to anyone who has experience with municipal government.