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“listen: there’s a hell of a good universe next door; let’s go” May 11, 2017

Posted by Peter Varhol in Uncategorized.
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I was once again reminded of this line from an e. e. cummings poem, rather rudely, when I read that the United States was considering a laptop ban on flights from and to Europe. Having just returned from Europe last night (Stockholm), lugging not one but two laptops, I suddenly found myself thrust into an alien alternative universe that I didn’t understand.

While we are by no means perfect, the citizens of the United States have certainly enjoyed one of the highest levels of personal freedom in the history of the world. And yet I wonder.  Could it be that we really don’t want that freedom?

I was in Zurich several years ago, watching teenage boys dive off of a major street bridge into Lake Zurich. This would never be allowed to happen in the U.S.  I told my sponsor, a thoughtful and worldly person, and he replied, “I think we in Europe take more personal responsibility for our actions.  The state doesn’t protect us from ourselves.”

And I was in Stockholm this week, looking out my hotel window at the Hammarby ski slope Monday night. Shortly before 6 PM, the slope was full of runners, in groups, at its height, I estimate at least 75 people in four groups, plus individuals.  They were running up the ski slope, running down, running in circles halfway up.  I invested five minutes to walk over and talk to a few of them.  There were various groups, older, young, male, female, training for various purposes.

I am a runner, but I walked up to the top of the mountain, and walked down. These people are in such incredible physical condition.  Collectively, they looked like the bad guys (and women) in a Matt Damon movie.  No ski slope in the U.S. would allow people to come in and do this kind of unsupervised physical activity; there would be a lawsuit a week because of injury.

There are certainly significant tradeoffs in safety and freedom. When I read that we will allow laptops in checked luggage, but not in the cabin, I think we have swung too far.

And worse, any safety in this action is false safety. There can be no discernably less risk from this action.  What it does is reinforce our fears, and reinforce our isolation from others around the world.

For the most part, people are people, worldwide, with similar desires, needs, and motivations as us. We can work together to overcome physical threats.  And we should do so.

Yes, this too shall pass, in time. But it is unfortunate that we have to go through a stage of irrational and unreasonable personal fear to get there.

What Do We Want in Our News Media? July 15, 2016

Posted by Peter Varhol in Publishing, Uncategorized.
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Well, there is a loaded question if I ever heard one, especially during this interminably dragging election season in the US. News has changed greatly since my youth, I think somewhat for the better.  I am old enough to remember Walter Cronkite (barely), and was a young adult with the likes of Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw.  My newspapers consisted of the Beaver County Times and Pittsburgh Press.  Print, of course, either picked up at the pharmacy or delivered in the vicinity of the door.

I am certainly familiar with all of the downsides of our current news delivery. A variety of delivery sources means that we can choose one that represents our point of view, reaffirming our world view and stunting our knowledge growth.  And the proliferation of news outlets means that there is no time or money (and sometimes no inclination) for copy editing or fact checking, so we are engaged in a real-life rendition of “Believe It or Not”.

And the so-called newsrooms! At times it seems like the protagonists are more interested in bantering with each other rather than conveying information to their audience.  Of course, that is largely the fault of their employers, who today view news delivery as a source of entertainment.

But let’s not forget the positives. We can get news as it is breaking, not on a network or newspaper schedule.  I think that has awakened more people to their connection with the larger world around them.  News is less filtered; let me explain that one.  When half an hour at 6 or 11, or a daily newspaper, was our only way of getting news.  Out of necessity, news was rationed; and we never knew who did the rationing.  Who gave us our world view?  I didn’t know it at the time, but of course it had to be.

The ability to select from multiple news sources gives us the ability to see the same event from different perspectives, giving us a more complete picture of events. I’ve appreciated the reporting of Al Jazeera, for example, because of the complete different take on a lot of Middle Eastern news.  Not that one or the other is correct or incorrect, but rather it’s what they emphasize or downplay that is interesting.

I can’t speak for others, of course, but over the years perusing the Internet I’ve determined what I look for in news. For my needs, I have Felix Salmon to thank, for the period in which he blogged for Reuters.  To be clear, I rarely agreed with anything Felix said.  But his range of interests, and his ability to explain, meant that almost every day I learned something new.  I don’t have to agree with his point of view in order to discover new things.

In the same vein, I would add Justin Fox and Barbara Kiviat, former Curious Capitalist columnists at Time magazine.  Barbara in particular had a penchant for objectively looking at data, and could weave a story out of statistics like few others.  The web publication Quartz also enthralls me, for its ability to go in depth in an incredibly wide variety of topics.

Where Are the Copy Editors? November 2, 2015

Posted by Peter Varhol in Publishing.
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As I read Internet comments (forgive me) on news stories, I commonly see that some posts that rail against poor grammar or typos. Where are the copy editors, they ask, in their own superiority of the English grammar.

Well, this isn’t a hard one. Copy editors existed when we published, whether daily, weekly, or monthly, for an audience that would pay for content.  Remember when you bought a newspaper?  I didn’t think so.  That business model is so dead.

And that is a big part of the problem. The cost structure of today’s online news outlets does not permit an army of copy editors to read and mark up editorial copy before it is published.  And that puts additional pressure on the writers to get it right the first time.  Because we want to see it now, not when on the daily printing cycle.

It’s really not a problem, except for the pedantic and inflexible among us. We should recognize that getting real time news, without actually, well, paying for it, is at the expense of other considerations.  By and large, those considerations are on the order of getting news out quickly, with accuracy and grammar taking a back seat.

At the same time, I curse the poor grammar and inexplicable typos of the 20-somethings who are minimally-paid assistant writers and editors charged with putting significant and often breaking news online. At the same time, I realize that, even with their level of experience, they should be better.  I still have a screen capture of a horribly-formed CNN narrative that purportedly exposed a significant headline story about the auto company “Suburu”; except of course that the company is Subaru.

That is inexcusable, and I hope that the writer and editor involved in that fiasco were summarily fired. Except that I doubt it, because to do so would require them to bring onboard other junior and poorly paid editorial people who are not up to this simple task.

And that is the real tragedy here. Our news outlets could do better, even with the talent that is available.  Most reporters and editors were never well paid, yet often felt a sense of obligation to get this story right.  But those outlets show no desire to do so.  As our news could be better, much better in some cases, if they would take an interest in selecting and developing their talent.  I do not believe that they are doing so.

Because of my significant background in tech publishing, I have an interest in publishing in general. I think I have an understanding of the issues here, and also think that our news outlets are doing it wrong.  Very wrong.