A Good Editor

A good editor should have solid writing and grammar skills, but this is just the beginning. They also need to be able to correct problems in another person's writing while displaying a combination of both assertiveness and sensitivity. People wear their hearts on their sleeves when it comes to writing and ,there needs to be a mixture of both positive and negative feedback.

An editor should also be very detail oriented; honestly I think that most people need to be detail oriented, but an editor needs to be this times a thousand. They need to see the mistakes the others see. They need to be on point.

Lastly, an editor needs to be a creative wordster while at the same time being very concise and analytical. They also need to perorm very tedious, mind-numbing work. I feel like editing is similar to that of solving algebraic expressions -- it's not for everyone.

Where I choose to get my news

I have to say that most of the time I get my news from the Web or the television. Although, on occasion, I do read a paper on Sundays. I'm not ashamed of the fact that I'm a Web junky when it comes to my news; its the quickest way the news is distributed. In this day and age the news comes at you in bits of information -- either through social networking sights like Facebook or Twitter or through blogs like the Huffington Post or Politico. Reading a paper is just SO old school.

A gluten free me

What if someone told you could never again eat pizza that was delivered? or drink a beer? or have a donut? or order a Reuben sandwich? or how about ordering any sandwich for that matter? This happened to me all at once... My doctor just recently told me that I am most likely allergic to gluten.

Gluten is the protein that is in barley, oats and rye and it's in freaking everything. Okay, I'm being a little hyperbolic. I can get gluten free bread, beer and probably donuts; and its not in everything; most fresh foods are okay, but wheat and flour and everything they are made of is out of the question.

Ease and accessibility is totally out the window. Hello, compromise.

So... I guess I need to make this as easy on myself as possible. I am on my quest to become a gluten foodie. Look for my new blog: "gluten is for chumps" - coming soon.

Henson Heeds Headlines

In the insanity that is my morning routine, I can never find the time to read the paper. I can only squeeze in a quick look at the headlines. Alright! I admit it. I'm hopelessly addicted to my snooze button. I need help.

Anyway, with this quick glance, usually while I'm guzzling coffee, I need to get an idea of what's happening, and the headlines usually give me the rundown. That's their only job as far as I'm concerned. Headlines are the quickest way to the news, and you should not have to read any further.

A perfect example of what I mean appeared in the February 26, edition of the Valley independent. The headline: "House sends Patriot Act extension to Obama" is a perfect headline to me. It tells me what is happening. It's concise. I need no more.

Photo courtesy of reinvented @ Flickr

The blogosphere

There are millions of blogs out there dealing with every topic imaginable -- from recipes to ideological rants -- and Journalism, obviously, is no exception. Here are two of my favorite blogs dealing with the written word.

Regret the Error:

This blog was started by a freelance journalist in Montreal named Craig Silverman and is dedicated to reporting "media corrections, retractions, apologies, clarifications and trends regarding accuracy and honesty in the press." I just love it. Sometimes, it can be hilarious. Other times, it can be very serious. I find gratification knowing that every publication makes mistakes -- even the New York Times.

The Journalist's Toolbox:

I didn't know about this blog until my Journalism III professor introduced it in class. I have since marked it as a favorite on my browser. The blog is exactly what it says it is and includes all kinds of tools a journalist would find useful, including public record databases, measurement converters and the newest job listings.

Photo courtesy of Ann_Moles @ flickr

Snowstorms, persistence and my uncanny ability to lose things.

Besides the blizzard that knocked out my power for eight days, which now that I think about it makes everything else seem kind of trivial, I had a couple of setbacks while trying to complete my first project.

I had some trouble getting my initial interviews, and I had to pretty much bug the heck out of the Veteran's Affairs guy to get them done; he has a hectic schedule and apparently is on the phone with different military personnel and students almost every minute of everyday. After about a week trying, I caught him idling between tasks and was able to do an interview and get some contact information for a student veteran. On a side note: The veteran, it turned out, didn't have much going on besides being a student. So, I remedied the situation by doing a story on the Army ROTC program and changing the veteran profile from a main story into a sidebar.

Other setbacks included the temporary loss of my digital camera, which I totally freaked out about and then eventually found under my bed, and the permanent loss of my reporter notebook - which held the names of the three people in my favorite photo… Arghh! I’m still trying to find a solution to the photo problem.

Photo: Director of Veteran's Affairs, Robert Prah, sits behind his desk.

Getting good with grammar

After lunch, after we had put away our lunch boxes and settled back into our seats, my third-grade language teacher, Mrs. Ramsdon, would grab the English workbooks off her desk, and some kids would moan in distress. As for me, I didn’t moan. I was excited. English was my favorite subject, and as she traveled around the room handing out the books, I took solace, knowing that we would soon be knee-deep
in the different parts of speech, in capitalization, in punctuation, in syllables, and in -my absolute favorite –spelling. In a few moments, I would become a player. In a few moments, I would be forgiven for my morning math atrocities.

My love for English class continued through the years, and when I was in high school I was assigned to write a three- page essay about what I wanted to do for profession. I wrote that I wanted to be a writer. When I got my paper back, I saw that it was ravaged by red ink. On the top, there was a scribbled note: “If you want to be a writer, you need to work on your grammar. Read and write more.” I
took that suggestion pretty seriously, and I believe that reading and writing is most effective way to learn grammar. By writing, you are experiencing trial and error. By reading, you are seeing how it’s done. I read and write every day.

Now, I’m in college for the second time, and I’m still discovering few grammar rules. I’m beginning to think it’s a life long journey. Even when you figure everything out, there is going to be a degree of maintenance required to keep it fresh in the brain. So, I’m always looking for good books to sharpen my skills. Right now, the most useful thing I’ve found is Strunk and White‘s “Elements of Style.” It’s really concise, and it’s and taken pretty serious in the field.


Photo Credits:

Writing tools by Brainonlithium @ flickr