Some of the many confectionary tributes arriving at the Blagojevich household in the last couple of days:
[By way of the Cake Writing Generator, with a nod to Marie.]
I Look This Stuff Up, So You Don’t Have To
I read a piece in The New York Times in the last couple of weeks that suggested a common sense way of doing — what would you call it? — historical lexicography, maybe. Or in plain English: investigating when certain words and terms came into common use.
Here’s the technique: Go to Google Books, then search on your term. Sift through the pile of results until you get a rough sense of the earliest references. It gives an approximation of when terms appeared — sort of a quick and easy way of what the Oxford English Dictionary’s researchers and informants have been doing for more than a century in tracking down words to their original uses and contexts.
As I said, you’ll have to sift through a lot of results to get an idea of when your word or phrase appeared, though Google helps with an advanced search that lets you look for publications by date. For me, anyway, the sifting is part of the fun.
I’m curious about when the idea of “ethics in journalism” or “journalism ethics” gained currency. I’m not surprised to find lots written about it, including works that deal with the invention of journalism ethics, published in the last ten, twenty, thirty years. Searching for stuff written before 1970, I find a 1922 essay in the International Journal of Ethics, “Journalism, Ethics, and Common Sense.” It starts:
“Several books and many articles have been published lately on the far from fresh subject of journalistic ethics–rather the lack of ethical standards and principles in contemporary journalism. Some writers have not hesitated to indict the entire newspaper business or profession on such charges as deliberate suppression of certain kinds of news, distortion of news actually published, studied unfairness toward certain classes, political organizations, and social movements, systematic catering to powerful groups of advertisers, brazen and vicious faking and reckless disregard of decency, proportion, and taste for the sake of increased profits. Other writers have been more moderate and have recognized that there are three species of newspapers–good, intelligent, honest newspapers, morally pernicious and intellectually contemptible newspapers, and colorless, indifferent, innocuous newspapers.”
I want to go further back. Here’s an entry for a 1918 publication, “Instruction in Journalism in Institutions of Higher Education,” from the Department of the Interior’s Office of Education. I’m amazed who I find there.
(Washington and Lee’s Department of Journalism says this about the program’s inception: “To help rebuild a shattered South, the college developed several new programs; among them were agricultural chemistry, business and journalism. It is not clear how many young men, if any, actually received the scholarships that Washington College widely advertised, but it is certain that the program lasted only a few years.” A permanent school was established in the 1920s.)
The Office of Education’s account includes the warm welcome Lee’s idea was accorded by the doyens of the profession. “Frederic Hudson, the managing director of the New York Herald, when asked, ‘Have you heard of the proposed training school for journalists?’ promptly replied, ‘Only casually in connection with Gen. Lee’s college and I can not see how it could be made very serviceable. Who are to be the teachers? The only place where one can learn to be a journalist is in a great newspaper office. ”
That reaction puts me in mind of what I still hear from long-time journalists; except now they’re all for journalism education, and they’re decrying all this online stuff that’s breaking down their walls and their bottom lines.
(And as to the original question: the earliest instance I can find of “journalism ethics” — actually “ethics of journalism” — is 1846.)
Quality Control
It all too often comes to the attention of the management here that typos, wrong words, random omissions and a variety of other gaffes make it into what passes for the finished product here. Don't hesitate to point them out to the proprietor. He makes no pretense to perfection but would still like to think he can get things right eventually. Your assistance in this matter is appreciated.
Inaugural History
A joint project by a friend, Chicago artist MK Czerwiec, and me: “Great Moments in Inaugural Address History.” Let me explain about joint project: I suggested the idea and did some research; MK did all the heavy lifting of making the art happen. (Click for larger view.)
Copyright 2009 MK Czerwiec. All rights reserved.
Notebook
Some people who would have loved to see this day: Mom and her brothers, all of them. South Side Irish, acutely aware that there was something wrong in the racial situation around them and all determined to a greater or lesser extent to do something about it. Bill — Bill Hogan — gave his life to the cause, Mom found a purpose in the civil rights struggle at moments when her own life was nearly unbearably difficult, and the rest gave what they could. They would be thrilled today. And one other person I'm thinking about: my mentor and our old family friend Max McCrohon. He would have loved this, too.
Dueling ministers: Rick Warren, the Southern California evangelical who gave the inaugural invocation, cut right to the heart of what makes my skin crawl about conservative Christians. His first words: "Almighty God, our father, everything we see and everything we can’t see exists because of you alone." I guess if you're in the god business, that's the position you've got to take. And Warren himself, may the fairy sprites and trickster spirits of the world bless him, talks about the need to build bridges rather than walls with faith. But this particular brand of straight-laced "our way is The Way" preaching, this sort of Christian certainty, bespeaks an openness that's only open as long as you embrace it. Much more to my taste was the Rev. Joseph Lowery's benediction, which began with lyrics from the hymn "Lift Every Voice and Sing" [not "Lift Every Voice and Thing," as I earlier wrote] and ended:
"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. Say Amen. And Amen."
More later, maybe.
One Bread
All American Freedom cookies (or “cookies” — closer inspection reveals they’re actually graham crackers, which ain’t cookies in my book, no way, no how). Not to be confused with American Spirit cigarettes or Freedom of Choice maxithins.
My first thought upon looking at the packaging, early this morning before my first cup of coffee, was, “Do kids still march around with the American flag like that?” Maybe — but only in the Wii All American Freedom Cookie game from Nintendo.
A subsequent thought was prompted by inspection of the back of the package, where I read, “Provides one bread for NSLP.” In other words, this counts as a serving of bread in the National School Lunch Program. Odd phrasing: “Ms. Lunch Lady, may I please have one bread?” I don’t think so.
What is “one bread”? I turn to an under-appreciated work of modern American literature, “Subchapter A–Child Nutrition Programs: Part 210–National School Lunch Program,” a 65-page PDF document. Still haven’t found the chapter on bread.
Berkeley Frost
Oh, sure: You, wherever you are to the north or east of the San Francisco Bay shoreline, you have your cold snaps, your big old snowstorms, and your drifts. All that’s enough to make you forget how the cold season started some frosty morning a few months ago. Here on the Bay, frost happens every so often in the dead of winter, on some clear morning after a storm has passed. This morning was one of those frosty mornings for us to come out of our uninsulated bungalows and think that we’re in some kind of wintry solidarity with folks on the Columbia, near the East River, or on the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Erie.
If I Were to Get Peevish, This Is What It Would Look Like
In the newsroom, I don’t
believe in pet peeves. Way too many things nettle me to name just one as a
favorite. And face it: most pet peeves, including the ones I don't have, arise from some point of arbitrary wisdom elevated to a principle that's really just an excuse to vent about how no one does things the right way anymore.
But if I ever let myself indulge in the pet peeve thing, one of mine would be the use
of murder rate when one means murder toll. This is of particular concern now when cities are toting up the body count for the past year and feeding it to reporters who repeat the numbers (without thinking much about what they may or may not mean; most of thinking isn't a part of the exercise). The murder toll is the simple count
of murders in a particular place in a particular year. The rate is
typically an assessment of the number of homicides per capita (typically
expressed as the number of killings per 100,000 population). That way you can
compare places like Richmond, East Palo Alto and Oakland with
It’s OK but contrived
to use rate as a way of extrapolating or equating the number of murders in one
period of time to another period – “Pleasantville police say there have been
100 murders in the first six months of 2008; at that rate, the city will break
its yearly record of 190, set in 2007.” Personally, I’d stay away from this use
of rate because in the Bay Area, anyway, the ebb and flow of murder stats do
not seem to follow any rhyme or reason summed up by such simple arithmetic. Better
to apply this sense of rate in retrospect: “Police say 130 people were murdered
in Pleasantville in 2008. That’s one of the highest tolls on record, but police
note that the rate of killings dropped markedly after the bloody first six
months of the year, when 100 homicides were reported.”
Like I said: If I were to have a pet peeve, I could get some mileage out of this one.
Post-Holiday Drip
The first of January has always felt to me more like the end of something than a beginning. From childhood, I have always had the feeling that New Year marked the close of everything I looked forward to at Christmas. New Year’s Day meant it was almost time to go back to school. It began a bleak stretch of winter with only the weak promise of Lincoln’s Birthday (this was an Illinois upbringing, after all, and Presidents Day came along after I was done with school) to get me out of class. The all-day football was a diversion, but hardly satisfying except that as long as that last game was still on — and it would be the Orange Bowl, playing long into the Central Time night — the holidays weren’t really over. Then time would finally run out, and you’d be facing January with nothing to take the edge off the fact the season had turned to cold, hard winter. Holiday lights and Christmas trees? They stayed up for a while, sometimes for weeks, but overnight turned into a reminder of the last pang-inducing and overdue holiday chore.
The first of the year? I’ll take the second, when I feel like I’m already sledding down the course of something new.
(And not — not! — that this is a comment on this year’s New Year’s Day, which was marked by taking down the luminaria this morning; seeing the wonderful documentary “Man on Wire” over in San Francisco with Kate, Eamon, and Sakura; having a repast of pizza and beer over at Lanesplitter, the Oakland restaurant where Thom works, and then going over to Thom and Elle’s place to check out some new electronics and the beginning, anyway, of “Iron Man.” It was a great day. But as a holiday, I’m not sure that I get it.)
News Omen
Does this happen where you live? You see or hear a helicopter in the distance. You watch for a few seconds and realize it’s not going anywhere. It’s just hovering. And then you know something like news is happening nearby. Much of the summer, the appearance of helicopters over the UC-Berkeley campus signaled some new hijinks related to a group of tree-sitters trying to stop a construction project at the football stadium. Last spring, a chopper appeared in the dawn skies just a few blocks east of us and just sat there. Turned out a local guy had committed suicide by ramming his car into a line of parked vehicles at 100 mph.
This morning’s case in point this morning: While walking The Dog, we spotted a helicopter just hanging up there to the west, near I-80, the Eastshore Freeway. Two possibilities: a horrific traffic jam, possibly involving major roadway carnage, or some other photogenic event. When we got back to the house, we turned on KCBS, the AM all-“news” channel. The first traffic report comes on. No, nothing about a backup on the freeway down there. What then? During the local news segment, there’s an item about a body discovered burning on the frontage road adjacent to the freeway. Police are investigating. Choppers are hovering.