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01/25/2023

All's Not Korrect in spelling today

Dear Benjamin Dreyer: Okay is not OK.

The esteemed grammarian violated the Associated Press Stylebook this week, using the variant spelling "okay" in a witty Washington Post column on "contronyms," words like cleave that have opposite meanings, an apt subject for January, the "two-faced month."

"Okay "would be proper for addressing someone named Kay, such as Katharine Graham, the late Washington Post publisher.

Dreyer, Random House's executive managing editor and copy chief and the author of "Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style," surprisingly doesn't know the AP Stylebook's preferred OK, also recommended by Webster's dictionary.

A Washington Post copy editor should have saved Dreyer from the error. But such misspellings are common these days, even in esteemed publications like The New York Times and Times Literary Supplement.

I often see advisor instead of adviser, protestor in place of protester.

Confusion reigns over the proper use of rein. Principle/principal, capital/capitol, forego/forgo and discrete/discreet are often misapplied.

Spell check gone awry causes some of the errors. But declining editing standards are mostly to blame.

OK?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted at 10:50 AM in Current Affairs, newspapers | Permalink | Comments (0)

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01/23/2023

Sally Jenkins covers San Francisco 49ers for Washington Post

While layoffs loom at the Washington Post, the newspaper's star sports columnist Sally Jenkins covers the San Francisco 49ers' playoff run.

Jenkins, the daughter of the legendary golf and college football writer Dan Jenkins, displayed old-school sportswriting grandiosity in a Post column describing the 49ers' workmanlike victory Sunday over the hapless Dallas Cowboys to advance to the NFC finals against the Philadelphia Eagles.

In her lengthy sojourn in California, nearly 3,000 miles away from the newspaper's hometown, Jenkins also chronicled the 49ers' opening-round playoffs win over the Seattle Seahawks. Displaying her father's descriptive gifts, she gave a vivid picture last week of California rainstorms drenching the famed Pebble Beach golf course.

I enjoyed Jenkins' impressionistic column in Monday's Post about the 49ers tight end George Kibble's juggling catch of a pass from rookie sensation Brock Purdy to subdue the Cowboys.

But after all of the turmoil about the Washington Post layoffs, Jenkins' extensive 49ers coverage seems strange. Like other sports columnists, she's likely ringing up a sizable expense account.

Jenkins' following a team on the other side of the continent from Washington recalls the glory days when the Post and other newspapers sent big-time writers to important sporting events. But the newspaper's imminent job losses expose the perilous state of once invincible papers like the Post.

The newspaper recently laid off Pulitzer Prize-winning dance critic Sarah Kaufman. Jenkins makes pro football a ballet.

 

 

 

Posted at 11:52 AM in Current Affairs, history, newspapers, Sports, writers | Permalink | Comments (0)

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01/10/2023

Farewell, Charles Simic and Naomi Replansky, imimitable American poets

Charles Simic and Naomi Replansky wrote poems in which every day objects opened connections to monumental historic tragedies.

Simic, the Serbian-born poet who learned English in a Chicago-area high school as a 15-year-old, translated European surrealism into the American idiom.

The former U.S. poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner died Monday at age 84 at an assisted care facility in Dover, N.H., from complications of dementia.

Like Simic, Replansky captured the startling images of foreign poetry in American language. Replansky, who died at age 104 Saturday at her home in Manhattan, echoed the surrealism of Latin American writing, a difficult feat, as admirer Philip Levine noted.

Replansky also went against the grain of American poetry by her use of rhyme and meter. In an excellent obituary examining Replansky's undervalued career, New York Times writer Margalit Fox effectively illustrated Replansky's technique by giving examples of her poetry.

In one poem cited by Fox, Replansky recalls eating with a spoon when she heard about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The poem contrasts her personal anguish with the immense suffering of the Japanese city at the end of World War II.

Unlike the prolific Simic, Replansky published only three collections of her work. She also held a variety of jobs, including a stint as a "stewardess" on a ship making an ocean voyage.

Fox says the Bronx native, who lived for a number of years in California before returning to New York City, was discouraged by a negative review from Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The beat icon objected to her use of  rhyme. Fox's examples of Replansky's work show that he was woefully misguided and that she revitalized traditional techniques.

In his outstanding New York Times obituary of Simic, the newspaper's literary critic Dwight Garner traced the poet and critic's rise from World War II-ravaged Yugoslavia to a place at the center of American literary culture. The U.S. poet laureate from 2007 to 2008, Simic won the Pulitizer Prize in 1990 for his prose-poem collection, "The World Doesn't End."

As Garner noted, Simic remained haunted by his childhood in war-torn Serbia, where he witnessed first-hand Nazi atrocities. In poems beginning with every-day experiences, he shifted to recollections of his harrowing past, mixing horror with black humor. In later life, Simic more frequently wrote about the pleasures of food, love and daily experiences.

Like William Carlos Williams, Simic wrote deceptively simple poems that seemed easy to imitate. Yet he was unique in his droll use of imagery in which common objects gained magical qualities.

Simic's death immediately followed that of another major American writer, poet and novelist Russell Banks. Noted editor and poet Daniel Halpern confirmed both men's deaths.

The passing of writers like Simic, Replansky and Banks brings sorrow mixed with gratitude that their work endures.

 

 

 

Posted at 11:22 AM in Books, Current Affairs, newspapers, poetry, writers | Permalink | Comments (0)

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01/06/2023

New Atlanta Journal-Constitution publisher sets course for digital transformation

New Atlanta Journal-Constitution president and publisher Andrew Morse will hasten the demise of the newspaper's print edition.

Morse, former head of CNN Worldwide and an experienced television news executive, said he plans to accelerate what he called the media company's transition to digital news.

If there will be no more paper, why call it a newspaper?

Before Morse's arrival, the AJC already has been pushing readers online, cutting news coverage in the print edition with early deadlines and emphasizing the "e-paper."

Apparently, the digital campaign has not generated sufficient revenues to please Cox Enterprises leader Alex Taylor, the scion of the Cox family's new generation. Morse, who has no print experience outside of the editorship of his student newspaper at Cornell, was chosen to realize Taylor's digital dreams.

Cox hopes Morse has more success with the AJC's digital makeover than he did in starting the doomed CNN+ streaming effort. After a massive publicity campaign and several high-profile hires, new corporate ownership turned the plus into a minus, torpedoing the initiative.

Outside of The New York Times with its multifaceted offerings and The Wall Street Journal with its authoritative financial coverage, old-line media companies and new startups have hit potholes on their way to the digital future. The Washington Post after flourishing during the Trump administration  recently saw subscriptions plummet, leading to imminent layoffs.

Under Taylor's direction, Cox Enterprises recently purchased the online news operation Axios, following the Times' acquisition of the sports site the Athletic. The announcement of Morse's hiring indicated closer cooperation between the AJC and Axios.

I'm one of the dying number of subscribers who still receive the print newspaper every morning. One day soon, the AJC will no longer arrive on my driveway. Guess I'll have to buy a new I-phone and learn the AJC's digital password at last.

 

Posted at 10:22 AM in Current Affairs, newspapers, Southern history | Permalink | Comments (0)

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12/19/2022

William Rawlings' "The Columbus Stocking Strangler" a definitive history of complex murder case

When I arrived in Columbus, Ga., the fear over the "stocking stranglings" had subsided.

From September 1977 through April 1978, seven elderly women were raped and murdered in their homes in Columbus' middle-class Wynnton neighborhood. Two other women survived the attacks. During the same period, the predominantly white area experienced several burglaries. 

Fear and anxiety gripped the city as the murders continued. Columbus' police launched a task force, raised reward money, appealed for help from state and federal law enforcement agencies and began extensive 24-hour patrols. Yet, several more women were found slain in their beds, even after taking safety precautions. At last, the serial killings mysteriously stopped, and the city's terror receded.

Investigators found hairs at the crime scene linked to a black assailant, raising racial tensions in the city known as the home of Fort Benning and the insurance giant Aflec. The murders uncovered intense class divisions in a city changing from its textile mill economy.

Despite the frenzied police investigation, and mounting criticism from the Columbus Enquirer and Ledger, the then vibrant morning and afternoon newspapers, an arrest in the case was not made until 1984. After lengthy legal maneuvers and a grueling trial, the suspect, a black career criminal named Carlton Gary was convicted in 1986 of three of the murders and sentenced to death.

But repeated court appeals, including to the U.S. Supreme Court, resulted in Gary not being executed for the crimes until 2018.

Veteran author William Rawlings' "The Columbus Stocking Strangler," published by Mercer University Press, gives a comprehensive account of the stocking strangler murders, in which several of the women were strangled with their own stockings. The victims were also raped and brutally beaten.

Some readers might find Rawlings' detailed descriptions of the crime scenes too graphic, but they document for the historical record the brutality of the attacks. Although fingerprints and palm prints were found at some crime scenes, police were unable to make an arrest. Rawlings establishes that the suspect lived close to his victims' homes at the time of the slayings, eluding the police patrols.

Rawlings details how Gary was finally arrested through a chance link to a pistol stolen in one of the Wynnton burglaries independent of the murders. He closes the book with a thorough recounting of the 32-year legal battles that kept delaying Gary's execution.

With an in-depth account of the 1986 trial and Gary's subsequent appeals, Rawlings clearly explains complex legal issues. Despite a few awkward sentences and typographical errors, he delivers a compelling narrative.

Rawlings delves into findings by Vanity Fair investigative journalist David Rose that DNA and other evidence showed that Gary was not the killer. Rose made his case for Gary's innocence in the book called "The Big Eddy Club," named for an exclusive, all-white social club in Columbus.

While I plan to read Rose's book, Rawlings convincingly dispels Rose's claims and establishes that Gary was guilty of the murders.

When I came to Columbus for a job at the Columbus Enquirer, I lived in Wynnton, a neighborhood of charming architecture, family restaurants and small businesses similar to Atlanta's Virginia-Highland and Morningside.

Reading Rawlings book, I realized that I'd lived only blocks away from the Stocking Strangler's victims. The book made me regret that I never knew much about the case when I lived in Columbus, and deepened my understanding of the city where I spent several brief but formative years.

"The Columbus Stocking Strangler" gives a definitive history of the middle-sized Southern city's reckoning with one of America's most challenging murder cases.

 

 

 

 

Posted at 12:01 PM in Books, Current Affairs, newspapers, Southern history, writers | Permalink | Comments (0)

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12/09/2022

New York Times shakes off 24-hour employee walkout

Our New York Times arrived on the driveway as usual Friday, unfazed by a 24-hour walkout of editorial workers.

The newspaper was packed with stories and columns, including the familiar bylines of Washington reporters Peter Baker and Michael Shear on a front-page article about NBA star Britney Griner's release from a Russian prison.

Baker and Shear didn't join the mini-strike of some 1,100 newspaper workers, which began at midnight Thursday. Star reporter Annie Karni also authored a front-page article, but she emphasized she had written it before the walkout, and fully supported it.

While I sympathize with the newspaper guild's effort to get a bigger share of the Times' millions in annual profits, I was relieved to see the newspaper in its distinctive blue bag.

I'm sure the Times' bosses had no problem producing stories for the media company's web site, where most readers now experience the Times. I am one of the dinosaurs who haven't strayed from the print edition.

As Politico media columnist Jack Shafer said this week, the walkout is unlikely to sway the Sulzberger family to meet the union's demands. In the online world, media companies are no longer crippled by labor actions, as Shafer pointed out.

If the walkout doesn't bring concessions from the newspaper, the union might try a more substantial walkout. But the Times will keep publishing.

Posted at 11:19 AM in Current Affairs, history, newspapers, writers | Permalink | Comments (0)

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12/05/2022

Influential black playwright Adrienne Kennedy makes Broadway debut

I discovered a major American playwright over the weekend: Adrienne Kennedy.

Kennedy makes her Broadway debut this month at age 91 with a production of her one-act play "The Ohio State Murders" at the renovated James Earl Jones Theater, according to writer Scott Brown's engrossing profile of Kennedy in Sunday's New York Times Style magazine.

Starring Broadway icon Audra McDonald and directed by the acclaimed director Kenny Leon, the play is based Kennedy's experience at Ohio State University, which she entered in 1949 and where she suffered intense racial prejudice as one of the few black students at the school.

In the play, written in 1994 and staged several times, a famed writer named Suzanne Alexander returns to her alma mater and discovers painful truths about the racism she encountered there.

Kennedy, who wrote the Obie-winning "Funnyhouse for a Negro" and a number of other plays, writes in a surrealistic, impressionistic style, Brown said. The television writer and former New York magazine drama critic was one of Kennedy's students.

Her work has influenced Suzan-Lori Parks, Charles Fuller and other black playwrights who've received national acclaim  in recent years.

"The Ohio State Murders" is part of a Broadway black renaissance, including an all-black performance of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" starring Wendell Pierce as Willy Loman, and revivals of August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson," Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" and Parks' "Topdog/Underdog."

"The Piano Lesson," directed by LaTanya Richardson Jackson and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Danielle Brooks and John David Washington, also received attention Sunday in the Times Style magazine. In a feature on dinner parties around the country, the play's cast was pictured eating pizza before a performance. It was gourmet pizza, Richardson Jackson disclosed.

As with Wilson, Kennedy's plays have been frequently published. If I don't get a chance to see "The Ohio State Murders" in person, I'll look forward to reading the play and other Kennedy works.

 

Posted at 11:48 AM in Actors, Current Affairs, Magazines, newspapers, writers | Permalink | Comments (0)

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12/01/2022

New Nobu luxury hotel at Phipps Plaza in Buckhead highlights Atlanta's economic disparity

The Nobu luxury hotel has arrived in the city with the nation's highest income disparity between rich and poor.

Atlanta's glaring economic divide punctures the city's rosy claims of offering prosperity to all. While rich parts of the metro area boom with developments like the Nobu, many Atlantans are mired in poverty.

The newest bauble in a chain founded by noted chef Nobu Matsuhisa, famed actor Robert De Niro and film producer Meir Teper, the hotel opened Tuesday at Phipps Plaza.

With 152 rooms and suites that cost up to $1,000 a day, the hotel includes a Nobu restaurant, a health club and a 12-story office tower. Goldman Sachs and Novelis have already signed up as tenants, according to the AJC.

Delayed by the Covid epidemic, the hotel tied up Phipps' accessible back parking deck for years and replaces a retail area last occupied by a mid-level Belks store.

Phipps owner Simon Group hopes the hotel complex boosts the struggling mall, where customer traffic hasn't recovered from Covid. A Hermes luxury store will further brighten the mall's prospects. But many Atlantans can't afford the new high-income Phipps, which used to draw middle-class crowds.

The Nobu is Buckhead's first newly built luxury hotel since the St. Regis opened on West Paces Ferry following the 2008 recession, according to the AJC, which also reported this week that Atlanta leads the nation in income disparity, even outpacing cities like New Orleans known for intractable poverty. Atlanta also tops New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles, all too expensive for middle-class families.

Those wealthy Buckhead citizens who want to form a new city can enjoy their fancy meals and drinks at the Nobu, never worrying about those who struggle to live.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted at 12:00 PM in Current Affairs, newspapers, Southern history | Permalink | Comments (0)

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11/28/2022

Veteran journalist Margaret Sullivan gives ink-stained prescriptions for a critically ill media

Veteran journalist Margaret Sullivan led the Buffalo News in the last days of newspapers' eminence.

In "Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (And Worries) from an Ink-Stained Life," Sullivan laments the demise of local newspapers and the rise of social media spreading false information.

Over the last few decades, once vital newspapers and local TV news operations have been ravaged by the migration of advertising to Internet sites.

The former media critic for The Washington Post and "public editor" for The New York Times, Sullivan diagnoses major failings of national media, which she blames for Donald Trump's 2016 election.

She stands among those calling for the traditional media to make changes in political coverage, no longer giving equal weight to untruthful views. She gives a thorough exploration of the "objectivity" debate, calling for news media to rigorously expose untruthful claims.

Along with her earnest prescriptions for the embattled news media, Sullivan gives a memoir of her career, from her childhood in Lackawanna, N.Y., a declining industrial suburb of Buffalo, to vaunted places among the elite national media.

From a progressive middle-class family, Sullivan was inflamed to enter journalism by Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate coverage and the film "All the President's Men."

After graduating from Georgetown, Sullivan rose from the reporting ranks to a series of executive positions at her hometown Buffalo News, a curious survivor among afternoon newspapers. She at last reached the top as managing editor and executive editor, increasing the newspaper's staff diversity and giving more coverage to black neighborhoods.

Sullivan said goodbye to Buffalo paper when New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. offered her the public editor's job, in which she answered reader complaints and exposed the newspaper's journalistic failings.

Battling Times editors whom she finds as defensive and self-protective as any government bureaucrat, she finds the job stressful but meaningful. Her prime target is the Times' addiction to anonymous sources, which she never completely quells.

Former Times editors Jill Abramson and Dean Bacquet are skewered as thin-skinned and self-righteous. Although Sullivan shows herself standing her ground against combative Times editors, Sullivan admits that Abramson once made her cry and confesses that she's shed a few newsroom tears. That's about as confidential as the book gets.

Sulzberger, whom a few years ago passed the newspaper's leadership to a new generation, comes across as the most admirable of the Times' leaders, even giving Sullivan a going-away party attended by resentful Times editors.

The account of Sullivan's years at the Post lacks the drama and inside intrigue of her tenure at the Times. Back in the newsroom in the Post features department, she after a slow start gains her footing as a prominent media critic, predominantly taking the Times to task for its exaggerated coverage of Hilary Clinton's email debacle. She finds that the Times' prominent front-page coverage of the Clinton story, along with CNN's incessant coverage of Trump rallies, were a major factor in Trump's unexpected election.

Sullivan's closing chapters are a valuable primer on the news media's crisis, from the demise of local news to the national media's challenges in covering candidates like Trump who stir their conservative base with false claims.

Now a Duke University professor, Sullivan has moved to the sidelines. Her clear-eyed views raise hopes that she'll soon return to the fray.The national media need a smart battler like the woman who never lost her Buffalo toughness, albeit with a few tears here and there.

 

 

 

Posted at 12:18 PM in Books, Current Affairs, newspapers, politics | Permalink | Comments (0)

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11/08/2022

Despite pessimism, USA democracy will prevail

A liberal chorus' cries of alarm grew into a crescendo as election day arrived.

In the latest red alert Tuesday, the New York Times' Paul Krugman warned that a Donald Trump-led American fascism could be worst than Viktor Urban's in Hungary.

Krugman, coining an oxymoron, claimed that the MAGA favorite Urban practices "soft fascism," controlling the Hungarian courts and media but not murdering or imprisoning dissenters.

In contrast, Krugman fears, Trump followers might jail perceived villains like Anthony Fauci, Paul Soros and Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile, right-wing columnists for Robert Murdoch's New York Post and Wall Street Journal gloat about the approaching red tide.

Despite the rise of Christian nationalism in the GOP and plans to disrupt the government, the Murdoch choir assures its readers that liberal fears are overwrought.

No matter what happens, I'll keep believing in a better America.

 

Posted at 10:14 AM in Current Affairs, history, newspapers, writers | Permalink | Comments (0)

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