Will Web Metrics Kill Professional Journalism?
By Tim Berry
The crumbling of mainstream journalism worries me. But am I just being nostalgic? Was it really that good in the past? The Portland Oregonian, one of the grand old daily newspapers they used to use an example when I was in J-school in 1971, and is still printing big paper newspapers every day, is changing... Read More »
Good News, Bad News, And True Story on Blogging and Editors
By Tim Berry
The good news and bad news about blogging is editing and editors. Good news: anybody can blog without going through an editor as a gatekeeper. Back in the old days we used to strive to “get published.” Now we just publish. Hooray, we’re free. Bad news: nobody is so good that good professional editing doesn’t... Read More »
Journalism and Blogging: Both Sides Now
By Tim Berry
Jolie O’Dell is a journalist who blogs. She cares about journalism, I gather, because of the way she writes about it in posts like How to Tell a journalist from a Blogger and Not all bloggers are journalists and not all journalists are jerks on her own blog. Most of the time, though, she’s a... Read More »
Confessions of a Hypocritical Business Planner
By Tim Berry
Irony: I’m a business planner, and I have been for 30 years now; but the biggest decisions of my real life have been remarkably unplanned. I could rewrite my own history backwards to make it all seem like it had been planned, but it wasn’t. Going from hippy to business planner to entrepreneur, I tripped... Read More »
Want to Write Well? Cut Mercilessly
By Tim Berry
Back in my distant past I had to learn to live with editing. I was in my twenties. It made me mad. Why change my stuff? But it also made my stuff better. “Berry, you write like a God-damned literature major.” (Norberto Schwarzman) So said the overnight editor at UPI back in 1972. He did... Read More »
True Story: ‘A Reason Why Not’ Isn’t Good Enough
By Tim Berry
I can't say I liked my first boss. But I learned a lot from him. Some of it worth sharing. He was bureau manager of United Press International in Mexico City in 1971. He was about 45 years old, just... Read More »
About Words I Won’t Put in the Title of This Piece Despite the Temptation
By Tim Berry
"Tim," Matt said, beer in hand, in a bar in Mexico City, "you have to learn about 50 words that will almost guarantee you play in the papers." He swallowed. He looked at me and frowned. "But you're so young,"... Read More »
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