Henrietta Lacks, Would that we'd known you when...

"No dead woman has done more for the living." -- from a review in The Guardian

And yet she was dead for 20+ years before we acknowledged her.

Without a doubt, this one will stick with me.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, is so good I'm not going to attempt a full review. (The New York Times actually did two, following up its original with a sequel.)

Look, this blog is intended to give advice about what to read, or not. My advice on this book is: READ IT.

And while I'm crazy about libraries, I recommend buying this one, because chances are very good you'll want to take your time with it - it's not hard to follow, but there's a great deal to the story, and you'll probably need some time to absorb it. When you finish it, I'll bet you'll want to share it with several friends and family members.

I hope you'll buy a copy for those you know who are interested in writing, science, medicine, or law. Like I said, there's a lot to the story.

Read it.

Update: In September 2015, somebody who almost certainly didn't read the book tried to ban it. Obviously, not gonna happen - the movie hits HBO on April 22, 2017. 


  Update, 2017... And now it's a movie! 

Want to stay informed? You better read this.

Please excuse my reference to The Huffington Post; it's not often I call celebrity-celebrating publications "recommended" reading. However, this hybrid editorial-blog-Q&A by a guy who makes films is absolutely recommended.

Full url in case link doesn't work:
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-cusack/what-is-an-assange_b_2317824.html

On Libraries: Gotta check this out

Is anyone reading this Huffington Post series on libraries? I'm not a big Huff fan; but this is worth reading.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/libraries-in-crisis/

Hyperlocal Media: the good, the bad, and the huh?

Hyperlocal media is a cool new phrase. But it's not new, and I'm not convinced it's all that cool.

Every employer, neighborhood association, or PTA that ever had an internal newsletter - or an employee-centric intranet - has a handle on hyperlocal media.

Enter Patch.com, a newish product from AOL. Patch claims to be something new in journalism; it aims to be a complete online news source for one zip code at a time.

I'll give Patch this: its editors are qualified journalists, and the ones I've read can write, well.

That said, a 'complete' news source needs more than one contributing editor; it needs more than one perspective on what constitutes news and where and how to gather and disseminate it. News should be, by definition, worth reading. Even when you're covering "news" in a single zip code, every dog lost/cat found isn't newsworthy. Of course, many Patch sites have several contributors. Unfortunately, most of them are sending in press releases about rummage sales and library story hours.

Your local Patch may be worth reading, don't get me wrong. And for the record, I love dogs and libraries. (Full disclosure: Cats are OK. I don't do rummage sales.)

But didn't societies create newspapers to see a little further than their own backyards? I may not think I need to know today's Euro or Yen valuation, it would behoove me to think about it occasionally. But I sure love reading my local paper to find out what's happening in neighboring school districts, nearby cities, the state capital - I could expand, but you get the point.

Hyperlocal media surely has a place on the great, big, WorldWideWeb. But even hyperlocal news deserves unbiased, professional treatment. Patch doesn't appear to offer that, but it's still young...we won't know how it will 'grow up' for several years.

SportsInk.com is a site with a similar idea (and some important differences) that's grown quickly in Northeast Ohio. SportsInk covers high school sports in the greater Akron/Canton (OH) area. In that way it's hyperlocal.  It's also all but off the hook when it comes to many of those balanced-reporting type questions. It's not just journalism; it's sports journalism.

So what? How good or bad Hyperlocal Media is allowed to get is largely up to you, the readers. Are you  tuning in to hyperlocal sources? Will you continue? Speak up. (Folks in the business call that UGC. You can call it whatever you want - I call it posting a comment, and yours are most appreciated.)

~~~~What are you reading?~~~~~

History in a Hurry

Gimme Rewrite Sweetheart and Front Page Girl are good old-fashioned books, meaning you can't judge 'em by their covers.

Doris O'Donnell and Don Bean have lived - and written - enough history to fully appreciate the current state of journalism, and both are honest enough to admit they can't predict the future of the game. When O'Donnell and Bean started writing for Cleveland newspapers, that's what it was called: the newspaper game.

There were three - count 'em, three - daily newspapers in Cleveland when Bean and O'Donnell got started in the game. The players weren't perfect and the papers weren't unbiased, but they had plenty of watchdogs on staff. As Bean ruefully points out, in his reporting era  reporters would measure the depth of the concrete on the street. And if it wasn't what the taxpayers had coming to them, well, somebody would print it.

In her book, O'Donnell describes discrimination in the business, certainly, but she also describes a business with a lot of principles. Regardless of sex, reporters were supposed to consider themselves representatives of the community. While female reporters were expected to wear white gloves and hats and to say "Yes ma'am" and "No sir," they were also tough enough to measure the concrete on the street and find out just what was buried in Sam Sheppard's backyard. (That's a teaser. Read the book.) They were also given an unbelievably long time to get a story. It's unbelievable today, anyway.

Bean and O'Donnell both spoke at today's meeting of Ohio Professional Writers, attended by about a dozen current college students (journalism majors) and many more with hair long gone gray, fellow journalists who were getting their first beats about the time O'Donnell and Bean were retiring.

O'Donnell likes to say journalism is history in a hurry. And while it's hurrying faster than ever before, it's not dead yet. We can hope that among today's budding journalists are some visionaries who see the value in the old, and a way to make it new again.

The plea from this graying writer: HURRY.

Editor as Floral Arranger

- - - This post also appears on my writing blog - - -

If you've read one entry you know my bias: I think journalism is here to stay, it's a worthy, beautiful profession, and it's absolutely necessary to a civilized society.

Biased as I am, I think (good) editors are artists; I see an Op-Ed spread, or just about any section of the paper, as a carefully constructed work of art. Balanced, and if not lovely, at least interesting to a variety of viewers. It's not always a floral arrangement; sometimes it's just a collage. But it's art, baby. Art. (Of course, it's not all editing - a good page designer sure helps.)

Consider a recent two-page at a recent two-page book section in The Plain Dealer. Because you won't see the layout online, try to imagine...

Two equal but very different three-column reviews sit front and center: one on the weighty Cheever, a biography by Blake Bailey is balanced by a look inside the lighter Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee. The "grownups" hover over reports on two tales for teens - it's as if the arrangement knows that the kids are growing up fast. Fiction and nonfiction reviews hold up the edges of the spread.

It's big-headed hydrangeas and graceful young buds, a bright spray here, and bit of greenery there. A fresh look at some new-in-paperback books and a few recommendations from the NYT Best Sellers list poke up from the bottom of the page like baby's breath.

There's something for everyone.

Keep reading.

Listen Up!

Sound Reporting: The NPR guide to audio journalism and production is primarily a textbook, however, I think it also deserves a spot on many readers' 'for pleasure' lists.

As intelligible as anything heard on NPR, Sound Reporting (paperback, $20) is a meaty 334 pages, plus a nice glossary and index. (You know I love a good index!)

Jonathan Kern is listed as the author, however, he's quick to share credit with the "hundreds" of NPR reporters and editors who contributed to the book.

Why read it?

Obviously, reporters/writers/journalists of all kinds and wannabes should dive in and start dog-earring the book immediately. As I said, I sure hope it's required reading in many journalism schools.

I sincerely hope it's also assigned reading in high school English classes - particularly those focused on writing. The book does as good a job as any I've read in teaching us how to WRITE WELL and listen/read (to news and other supposedly factual information) critically.

Not surprisingly, the intro was packed with info, mostly about NPR. I was surprised to find out that NPR listeners, numbering about 22 million (each week) are a very diverse bunch! According to "independent surveys,"

the audience self-identifies as 32 percent liberal, 23 percent moderate, and 29 percent conservative. ... And 28 percent of NPR news listeners agree with this statement: Just as the Bible says, the world literally was created in six days.

So far that's the only statement that had me gasping for air.

The biggest takeaway from the book - I think; I have to admit I haven't finished it yet! - is that good journalism must respect its audience. And I guess that would be the most succinct answer I could give to the question, why do you listen to NPR?

NPR stations, for the most part, don't tease their listeners by withholding the lead; they don't try to entertain or surprise so much as they try to impart information in an interesting way. No more, no less. No gimmicks.

And sadly, they have no serious competition.

For example, I simply cannot imagine any Fox News reporter - or even the uber-popular Anderson Cooper, for that matter - allowing the SUBJECT TO BE THE SUBJECT of this exchange, from an All Things Considered interview shortly after Hurricane Katrina:

Belinda Bruce: I really can't explain it, except just say maybe it was for the best.

Michele Norris (host): For the best.

Bruce: Yes, because I'm more happier when I can stay homeless.

Norris: Help me understand that. You're sitting at a shelter. Your house is most likely underwater. And you're happier here than you were back home.

Bruce: Because there was so much going on in my neighborhood. Even though I was comfortable in my house - in my house- blocks up where the kids went to school, it was horrible. They always had shootouts. They just didn't respect the kids. They were selling drugs. The good thing is I'm away from that with my kids. And maybe they'll get into a better school, a better neighborhood.

Kern included this exchange as an example of writing the way people speak. But it tells us a lot more than how to write for radio, doesn't it?

OK. Here's my completely unbiased review: buy it! This book is excellent! And please, buy it from NPR, where you'll be asked if you want a portion of your purchase to support your local NPR station(s).

Thanks for listening.