Tag Archive: reporting

Someone shot up my friend’s workplace – and it should scare you as much as it scared him

On Sunday morning, someone took aim at the offices of the Lexington Herald-Leader, a major newspaper in Kentucky, and apparently shot the place up. Several windows were shattered and what appear to be bullet holes were found in other spots on the building, including in some windows on the press room. This was accompanied by a bomb threat at a newspaper processing plant down the road owned by another newspaper. It may have been a random act of violent vandalism, but I’m not so sure. A friend of mind works there. For obvious reasons I won’t name him. He’s shaken. He should be. He’s gotten threatening phone calls before — as a former small town journalist, I can say from experience that irrationally angry readers are…
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Why journalists hate their life

It’s no secret that the world of journalism is in flux. I spent over a decade in the world of newspapers, those fussy, papery things created by ink-stained wretches, and while I can’t say I don’t have an extreme fondness for those old relics — I think they’re wonderful, actually — I can say that I don’t have an extreme fondness for the visionless people who so often run news organizations. My friends still in the news business don’t disagree. A good friend who is an investigative journalist with a fairly large regional daily has seen his office withering under layoff after layoff. Hey, that’s par for the course with the news business these days … but this story is beyond the pale. At his…
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Goodbye, newspaper business

After 13 years in the industry, the newspaper business and I have bid farewell to one another. In a full-time capacity, at least. I’ll continue to write for newspapers because, well, I enjoy it and I’m good at it. To start, look for upcoming pieces in The Philadelphia Weekly and The Riverside Signal. But as for my working life being devoted to newspapers, that is no more. If you who know me from my position as editor for a family of weekly papers in New Jersey, time to know me for something else. This is not a bad thing. In fact, it has been a long time coming. The newspaper industry has been dying a slow death for some years now, helped along by executives…
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