Launching Politico

The coming launch of the political news web site Politico has drawn much attention from those who wonder about its longevity (see the latest New York Times article about it; and an earlier one). I have no idea about how long it will last -- though, being a political news junkie, I hope it will be for a long time -- but I am fascinated by the ideas that its founders have about how it should be structured and how it should operate.
More


Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

Tributes to a coach

Not a football coach, though it is that time of year. A writing coach.

Don Murray, a man whose work and ideas influenced many of us in the business of writing and teaching writing, passed away Dec. 30. Writing gurus Roy Peter Clark and Chip Scanlon at the Poynter Institute have written fitting tributes to the man they knew personally and the one who talked and taught writing for all of his professional life. (There is a lot more about Murray on the Poynter website.)

Murray won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in the 1950s -- the youngest ever to do so -- but he didn't let that stop him from a long and prolific career as a magazine journalist, newspaper columnist, fiction writer, and university professor. His idea about the five steps of the writing process have been referenced by JPROF here.

The world could do with a few more like him.

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.

2007 -- year of the First Amendment?

Well, it isn't likely, but I always begin a year with that great hope -- and very little else.

There is no reason to be confident. Our leaders want to diminish the rights of the Constitution because it will make them more comfortable and more secure in their power. The people seem to buy these outrages in the name of solving "problems." The problems are rarely solved, but the politicians get more comfortable.

This past year we saw the Federal Elections Commission "reprimand" a NASCAR driver because he had a "Bush-Cheney" sticker on his car during a race. We can only hope that the FEC continues to make such ridiculous decisions so that people will wake up to how dangerous that agency has become.

Meanwhile, we can hope (but, as I said, without a lot of confidence) that high school principals will leave the student press alone, that prosecutors will find other ways to pursue their cases besides jailing journalists, and that FEC bureaucrats will get stuck in traffic on their way to work.

And to give you a taste of what is going on with the First Amendment and the Constitution, I recommend the following as a starter:

• George Will, "A Retreat on Rationing Free Speech" (Washington Post)
  
  
  
• Dahlia Lithwick, "The Bill of Wrongs" (Slate)
  
  
  
• Bradley Smith, "New Rules Might Silence Democracy" (Ft. Worth Star Telegram)
  

Looking after the First Amendment is never easy, but it's always worth doing.

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.