Things That Just Fit

Good Reporting starts with what You’ve Got

I’ve got a pointer for bloggers and journalists, that’s probably unnecessary: Use all resources on hand when writing.

Late yesterday, I posted: “Google has lost control of Android”. After I completed writing the nearly 2,000-word missive (it’s longer now), I went to a Forrester Research tablet report received on Friday to look for a chart. I had planned to write a separate news story on the report and hadn’t read it before writing the analysis. How stupid.

There are two charts in the report, and the second one contains data that supports the main point my analysis makes. Had I seen that first, and the supporting text, I would have structured the story quite differently and written something shorter, since analyst Frank Gillett so affirmatively supports my main premise.

After posting, I inserted a second lead paragraph and changed the first, to clearly refer to the data. The analysis doesn’t flow as well as I would like, when adding in Frank’s tablet forecast, which is fault of my original construction not his data.

The point: I should have looked at his report before writing one word of my analysis.

Photo Credit: Tony Hall

Do you have a journalism story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

Last week, I bought Train’s new album ‘California 37’. It’s a surprisingly good listen, with one helluva anthem in track “You Can Finally Meet My Mom”, which I only discovered this morning (shows how little free time I have). Coincidentally, tickets for Train’s US tour for the album went on sale today.

The song is musically and emotionally rich. The lyrics are timely, but not timeless. That’s okay. The linked video is bit of introduction to what I consider to be the best song on the album.

The best songwriters are good storytellers. The most moving music evokes a story from your own life, as surely this one will for many.

Everything about this track is oddly together. 

Do you have a music story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

I spent some time playing with Neko, with one hand on his feather wand toy and the other on the Fujifilm FinePix X100. The camera is light and features a real viewfinder, which made composing the images easier while shooting action shots one-handed. Do you have an animal story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com. I spent some time playing with Neko, with one hand on his feather wand toy and the other on the Fujifilm FinePix X100. The camera is light and features a real viewfinder, which made composing the images easier while shooting action shots one-handed. Do you have an animal story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com. I spent some time playing with Neko, with one hand on his feather wand toy and the other on the Fujifilm FinePix X100. The camera is light and features a real viewfinder, which made composing the images easier while shooting action shots one-handed. Do you have an animal story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com. I spent some time playing with Neko, with one hand on his feather wand toy and the other on the Fujifilm FinePix X100. The camera is light and features a real viewfinder, which made composing the images easier while shooting action shots one-handed. Do you have an animal story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com. I spent some time playing with Neko, with one hand on his feather wand toy and the other on the Fujifilm FinePix X100. The camera is light and features a real viewfinder, which made composing the images easier while shooting action shots one-handed. Do you have an animal story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com. I spent some time playing with Neko, with one hand on his feather wand toy and the other on the Fujifilm FinePix X100. The camera is light and features a real viewfinder, which made composing the images easier while shooting action shots one-handed. Do you have an animal story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

    I spent some time playing with Neko, with one hand on his feather wand toy and the other on the Fujifilm FinePix X100. The camera is light and features a real viewfinder, which made composing the images easier while shooting action shots one-handed.

    Do you have an animal story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

    The Queen of Aggregation Takes the Prize

    When I look at changing news media and things that go oddly together, Huffington Post and the Pulitzer Prize would be two of them. After all, Ariana Huffington is the queen of aggregation, right? Yet one of her reporters took the coveted journalism award this week. Could it be that—gasp—there is a place for new world-old world journalism after all, or that one becomes the other?

    I’m a harsh critic of Huffington Post, and an unfair one at that. I don’t read the site ever and haven’t closely followed changes since being acquired by AOL only to really be the one ultimately taking charge. Huffington is Queen Bee over AOL news, make no mistake about that.

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    The Delicate Art of Anonymity in the News

    Doreen Marchionni:

    Quoting anonymous sources in the news these days is about as verboten as telling your waning audiences to bug off, as the student reporters at the college where I teach might attest. In some ways, they’re synonymous.

    For decades, lazy journalists routinely attributed controversial material in stories to anonymous sources — until readers and media critics lashed out. By the time I got to college, the practice was so out of favor that I hardly imagined its use. My teachers preached the rigors of fact-based reportage and deep sourcing that comes from humping a beat. And if a source wouldn’t go on record with vital information, backdoor it with a comparable source or leave it alone — it’s not worth losing your credibility with audiences if the source turns out wrong. 

    Then I got in the news business, and shit got real.

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    My 90 year-old father-in-law is really big on hugs, and he collects plenty during any day.  His behavior gave me an idea.

    Last week, while walking with my wife, I suggested how much better the world would be if hugs were currency. What if we paid for everything hugs?

    At one Coca-Cola machine in Singapore, you can. It’s part of the “Open Happiness” marketing campaign and plan to spread more “Coca-Cola Hug Me Machines” in select places across Asia. Definitely hugs and Coke go oddly together. #hugmecoke

    Have you hugged your Coke machine today? Better: Have you hugged someone for a Coke—or for no reason at all? That will be three hugs, please.

    Do you have a hugs story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

    ABC’s ‘Titanic’ sinks, ah, stinks

    Say, did you watch ABC’s “Titanic” mini-series? Three of four one-hour parts aired last night. The first commercial came within 10 minutes and they followed fiercely thereafter. As if the meandering plot wasn’t difficult enough, the frequent commercial breaks made getting into the characters that much more work.

    The costumes and dialogue took me back to 1912 and gave stark sense of the class society. But I found the characters to be absolutely boring to watch. I fast-fowarded through Part 1 in about 15 minutes. I can’t imagine watching anymore.

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    Gawker this Dung Beetle

    On Friday, “What is a dung beetle’s favorite kind of manure?” popped up on my Google+ feed and, foolish me, click, click. I’m a sucker for a good, oddball headline and confess to writing plenty of them. Besides I studied entomology some in college.

    These types of question headlines are more common, and you see them in unexpected places. People often ask a question when Googling something, which is major reason for headlines like this one. Then there are the topics that go so oddly together with the site presenting them.

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