Comments on Spyral Notebook: Whose Eager Staff?

So like parents with marriageable offspring (ie th...

2009-05-27T18:44:23.912-04:00

So like parents with marriageable offspring (ie they are dating... what happens there?), news bosses are both pushing forward and pulling back (pushing and pulling... you got the reference), fearful of looking out of date by reminding their eager staff (who has an eager staff in a dating situation... well most men, I would say) about the danger of going too far (going too far... ending up in the sack).

I think it's fair to say that all those references in one sentence didn't end up there by accident. My bet is that he started writing the sentence, go halfway into it, and just wanted to see if he could get it by the editors. Clearly he could.

So they are either as juvenile as he, or not very good at their jobs. Or... they thought it was funny as he did.

Wow, I didn't even notice. "Pushing forward and pu...

2009-05-27T18:27:08.823-04:00

Wow, I didn't even notice. "Pushing forward and pulling back?" Could it be unintentional?

I recall once writing a history paper about new sources of energy in Victorian England and saying it succeeded in "taking the heat off of British coal."

My prof chastised me for using sophomoric puns. I had no idea -- although I wasn't a very experienced writer at that point.

It was the sexual innuendo I was referring to...

2009-05-27T15:45:25.708-04:00

It was the sexual innuendo I was referring to...

Cut him some slack. He's a J-school prof. Actually...

2009-05-27T15:23:31.547-04:00

Cut him some slack. He's a J-school prof. Actually, I think his piece is what newspaper websites need more of. The web abhores a voiceless vacuum.

When I first started as a reporter in 1996, by far my most indispensable tool was my office phone. Email was rare and so was trolling the Internet for information.

By 2006 I was on Facebook, using it to see what my sources were doing. Then I started a company blog that was mostly unedited.

Then I got a cell phone and started tweeting. The office phone is still important but no longer crucial.

I'll take 2009 any time over 1996.