Archive for Category : InTheNews

First Amendment Under Fire (Yes, Again)

Categories: Government, InTheNews, Politics
Comments: 1 Comment
Published on: May 20, 2013

“I thought the left loved freedom of the press and open government. I guess that’s only when ‘The Man’ is someone else.” That’s what one commenter said on a news story about the federal government hoping to charge a journalist for publishing news. It’s an astute observation about the way our two-party political system works:[...]

I Must Disagree

Categories: Government, InTheNews
Comments: 2 Comments
Published on: May 19, 2013

Commentary: A record Powerball jackpot isn’t a record to celebrate (Christian Science Monitor) The editorial board of CSM concluded their piece with this: Before the news media play up the next record-setting mega-lottery like Powerball, they may want to add these kinds of caveats in their reporting. It could deter people from rushing to the[...]

Beware: Editing Signs’ Grammar Without Permission Is A Crime

Categories: Grammar, InTheNews
Comments: 2 Comments
Published on: May 8, 2013

There is a school of thought, albeit a relatively unpopular one, that poor grammar or punctuation on printed signs should be corrected with a Sharpie or other tool, vigilante style. In the News: Vigilante Copy Editor (New York Times) And there are older instances, such as this one (The Virginian-Pilot).

Renters Forever: Photoshop Moves To Subscription Model

Categories: Business, InTheNews
Comments: No Comments
Published on: May 7, 2013

In The News: Adobe starts subscription for Photoshop and Dreamweaver (BBC News) This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone; many software companies are moving in this direction. Instead of having to ship millions of boxes and discs every year when they upgrade the software, they’re just going to add the updates to the online[...]

Penmanship Is More Than Outdated; It’s Unnecessary

Categories: InTheNews, Language
Comments: No Comments
Published on: April 21, 2013

Because I assume everyone wants to know my opinion (ha!)… In the News: Is Handwriting Still Important? The Digital Generation Skips Penmanship (BBC News) While I’m admittedly old-fashioned in many ways (for example, I don’t have a “smartphone”), I can usually argue practicality (for example: there’s no point in me having a smartphone). But the[...]

Deciding On The Top Story

Categories: InTheNews
Comments: 7 Comments
Published on: April 18, 2013

When I worked for a small-town daily newspaper, it was usually not difficult to decide which of our few stories each day would be at the top of the front page. Most of the time, one story stood out. “That one has to be the lead”, we’d agree. Other times, it was harder; we’d ask[...]

Teacher Punished For Assignment

Categories: InTheNews
Comments: 2 Comments
Published on: April 14, 2013

In The News: Nazi essay assignment teacher placed on leave by New York school district (The Guardian) I’ve seen a dozen or more stories on this recent bit of “news”, but not one of them has said why the teacher has been “placed on leave”. All the stories note that the teacher assigned her students[...]

Attack Of The Commas And Present Tense

Comments: 4 Comments
Published on: March 31, 2013

We all know the English language is still in flux. It’s a living, evolving set of rules and words. But sometimes that evolution produces strange byproducts, like this collection of words and punctuation from CBS News: Though, TV Guide is reporting that Lifetime is now, too, canceling the show. Let’s try that again, with more[...]

‘Root Cause’ of Sequester

Categories: Government, InTheNews, Politics
Comments: 2 Comments
Published on: March 2, 2013

In the News: US faces huge job losses as Obama orders $85bn cuts (The Guardian) “It’s happening because Republicans in Congress chose this outcome over closing a single, wasteful tax loophole that helps reduce the deficit”, said President Barack Obama, according to the story cited above. The story went on: “In his speech Obama blamed[...]

‘Sequester’ Going Into Effect

Comments: 2 Comments
Published on: March 1, 2013

From the news I’ve read this afternoon, the poorly named “Sequester” is going to happen. For the federal government overall, it reportedly means $85 billion in cuts. The “belt tightening could slow U.S. economic growth by at least 0.5 of a percentage point this year, that is not a huge drag on an economy that[...]

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