1. I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)     Otis Redding
2. The Man I Love                                                             Etta James
3. Comes Love                                                                   Ella Fitzgerald
4. You’re The Nearest Thing To Heaven                      Johnny Cash
5. I Put A Spell On You                                                    Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
6. This Girl’s In Love With You                                     Aretha Franklin
7. Here I Am (Come And Take Me)                             Al Green
8. Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You                                Lauryn Hill
9. All Over Again                                                             Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
10. Hallelujah I Love Her So                                          Ray Charles
11. Just One Kiss                                                              Raphael Saadiq Feat. Joss Stone
12. Just A Little Bit                                                          Etta James
13. For Once in My Life                                                  James Brown
14. Two Hearts, Two Kisses (Make One Love)          Frank Sinatra
15. Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours                     Stevie Wonder
16. When She Begins                                                      Social Distortion
17. I wanna be your lover                                              Prince

So, expect it in your mailboxes soon. If I don’t have your address (like, for instance, one Miss Unfokused) shoot me an email. I love y’all!

I’m moving back to the great state of Texas soon. I like DC a lot, but it’s expensive to live here and they have winter. I’m not a big fan of winter. There’s also the whole “girl out of Texas” conundrum. Also, Texas is better than California. I always knew that, but having evidence is always fun.

I first saw that Michael Jackson had been rushed to the hospital on Twitter. Most of the media sites I checked had updated and had a breaking section that showed that he had been hospitalized. The discrepancies started when several more gossipy sites started reporting that he was dead. So far as I can tell, several websites jumped the gun on reporting Jackson’s death by more than 30 minutes.

In the crazy news cycle that we live in on the web, is there anything to gain by holding back until something has been confirmed? Can we afford to be sure? As a journalist it makes me hella uncomfortable to even consider putting information out there that hasn’t been affirmed in some way. As I sat with some fellow students at school today, we were comparing which sites had gone with the story that MJ had died and which ones were holding off. I tend to value a news source taking that extra couple of minutes to make sure, but I am not under the erroneous impression that I am an average consumer.

What do y’all think about the way that Michael Jackson’s death was reported?

I’ll leave you with some of my favorite Michael Jackson videos. RIP MJ. Thanks for the tunes and the dance parties you’ve inspired.

Thriller

Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough

Beat It

The Way You Make Me Feel

Smooth Criminal

Black or White

All videos are from Michael Jackson’s official YouTube page.

Have a good weekend!

There are certain things you do not do while conducting an interview. One of the biggest no-no’s is asking closed questions. NEVER ask a question that could be answered by yes, no or any other one or two word response. Dave does that repeatedly, even after it is obvious that Joaquin is in a less-than-conversational mood.

Another stupid thing to do in an interview is to insult your subject. Dave does that from his opening remarks through the bitter end. I’ve watched Letterman before and I know he can be quite a dick to guests, but I’m sure being insulted from the first word out of Dave’s mouth to the last was not helping Joaquin adopt a chatty demeanor.

When Dave started to talk about the movie he said that it’s a great movie and Joaquin is great in it, but then he asked Joaquin who the lovely lady in the movie with him is. Joaquin looked confused, and while I’m sure his state of mind had a lot to do with it, there happen to be several lovely women in that movie.

After Dave answered his own question, he kissed Joaquin’s ass again, to which Joaquin said, “Thank you.” That’s perfectly acceptable behavior for someone who’s just received a compliment.

Joaquin actually started to open up after Letterman’s soliloquy about how sad he was that Joaquin is retiring from acting. Joaquin said it was difficult to talk about something so personal in front of a live studio audience and the rest of God and country. It was a pretty lame answer, but at least it was an open question that required Joaquin to talk a bit. I’ll give Dave a point or two for that.

I don’t deny that Joaquin had a big part in one of the most awkward interviews of all time. He was chewing gum, which is totally inappropriate. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming, which is pretty weak considering he was there to promote a movie. BUT, there are a ton of people who go on talk shows that don’t know what clip they have and Dave acted like this was some sort of unforgivable, mortal sin.

If I were Joaquin, I wouldn’t have been bending over backwards to make the interview great either, since Dave started off the whole thing by insulting him. He did just enough to technically address the questions asked of him and went ahead and let his freak flag fly. I, for one, don’t blame him.

Dave needs to stop being so lazy and figure out some real questions to ask. This “aw, shucks” flattery routine he does is not good interviewing. He has exactly two tricks: asskissing and insulting. His guests do the grand majority of the work for him. It’s time for that old dog to learn some new tricks.

But, I knew the commissioners pretty well and it was quite obvious to me who was lying, who was simply ignorant and who was honestly trying to do good things for the community. But, I couldn’t tell my readers because I had to treat everyone equally.

The reason people read newspapers is because they have lives. They don’t have the time or desire to go to every city council and planning and zoning meeting. That’s what reporters do. They become experts on the politicians they cover and what’s going on in their communities. Why people don’t let reporters tell them what’s going on in for real is beyond me.

Look, I understand that not everyone is going to agree with my assessment of things. That’s fine. I’m going to tell you how I made my analysis of the situation, though. I’m still going to give you the facts, but after I’m done breaking it down I’m going to tell you how I see it.

I have had to write articles where I knew for a FACT that the person I was quoting was full of shit. I couldn’t prove it though. SO, in order to be “fair” I had to quote them and my only recourse was to find an adversary and let them say why they didn’t agree. Unfortunately, the adversaries rarely said what I would have. All I could do was present as much evidence as I could to the contrary without seeming like I was out to “get” somebody.

Look, I’m not a political rival or a special interest group that has a vested interest in a grand majority of the beats I have covered. Wouldn’t you rather hear it from me than somebody who has an ax to grind? Sure, I’d have an interest in taxes and zoning near my house and all those other things, but if I told my readers about it, what would be the harm?

I’m just so tired of being told that in order to preserve my ability to work as a journalist I can’t speak my mind except to my colleagues in the newsroom. Because, ladies and jellyspoons, the bile  you hear on the airwaves or see on cable television is a far cry from the partisan fire breathing that goes on newsrooms all over America. These people have opinions. They’re just not allowed to tell anyone about it.

My point is that nobody is free of biases. Instead of pretending like the delicate minds of our audience would be shattered if we put a little analysis in articles outside of the opinion section, let’s add value to our stories. We get paid to know what the hell is going on. Let’s tell people about it.

I took an ethics class last semester where I was told that as a reporter these things were strictly forbidden:

• Having a political sign in my front yard, even if it belongs to my spouse
• Putting any bumper sticker on my car or any of my belongings that might be construed to reveal something about my opinions
• Disclosing any political views on facebook, no matter how vague
• Attending the inauguration
• Attending any kind of march, demonstration or protest that I am not covering
• Writing any blog entries about my political views

I could start to do these things in the event I get an opinion writing job, but since experienced journalists are the ones who get those plumb jobs and there are scads of unemployed journalists out there with more experience than I have, that’ll be a cold day in hell.

I’m not suggesting that every news article should be an editorial or op-ed. I’m just suggesting that reporters should have the flexibility to tell their audience something directly if there is something that a bare recitation of the facts can’t accomplish.

Campbell Brown of “No Bias, No Bull*&^%” appeared on The Daily Show and she said it best, I think. She said, and I’m paraphrasing, that if Candidate A says it’s raining outside and Candidate B says it’s sunny, a reporter should be able to look outside and say, “Clearly, it is sunny and Candidate A is wrong.”

I totally agree. What do y’all think?

But, it’s a practical thing. If someone of interest dies, that moment is not the time to start gathering information. People rarely die according to deadline and imagine the outcry if the Austin American-Statesman hadn’t had an obituary ready when Lady Bird Johnson died.

The Miami Herald is taking obituary planning to another level, apparently, when it comes to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Miami Herald senior editor Manny Garcia called Fidel Castro “a constant pain who never seems to go away, and you pray that he passes soon.” Here’s a link to the article this quote came from where he wrote about the Herald’s anticipation of the sickly leader’s demise.

Former Miami Herald editor Tom Fielder said that preparations at the Herald for Castro’s death are, “maybe more detailed than the Pentagon’s plan to invade Iraq.”

via Romanesko

My bachelor’s degree is in English Writing and Rhetoric and nothing gets my panties in a bunch like wordiness. Legal writing really irks me, as I’m sure you can imagine.

Some of the writing in my textbooks remind me of style exercises I had at St. Edward’s. We’d get ridiculously long sentences and the assignment would be to eliminate the unnecessary words.

Here’s an example:

“It is unusual because the decision turned not so much on the Court’s rejecting the constitutional claim that there was a need for confidentiality as it’s rejecting the remedy and doubting its own ability to fashion coherent rules in advance.”

-The Fourth Estate and the Constitution: Freedom of the Press in America by Lucas A. Powe, Jr.

Here’s how I would change it:

“It is unusual because the Court didn’t reject the constitutional claim of confidentiality: the Court rejected the remedy and doubted its ability to write coherent rules in advance.”

I just cut out 12 words. Now that I’ve kvetched, I must get back to reading. Wish me luck.

Now I do correct folks in a kind, non-threatening fashion. I put myself in their shoes and I decided that I would rather be corrected once than go on sounding like a dumbass over and over.

But, the more I do this the sadder I get. It’s not like they get angry or defensive. I would understand that reaction. Rather, they do not care.

I risk sounding like an uptight geek because words and language have immense power. They shape the way that we look at each other and determine, in many ways, our station in life.

For example, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to get a job in the world of business without being able to represent yourself verbally as an educated person who understands the jargon of the industry. I don’t think it’s necessary to sound like a Rhodes Scholar all the time in order to prove yourself, but I do think that in order to participate in the discourse of the business world you should be able to talk that talk.

I am like a lot of people, I think, in that I change the way I talk when I’m around different people. The way I conversed with my State Trooper patrons at the cop bar where I used to bartend is completely different from the way I talked to the State Representative for the area I covered when I was a reporter in Hays County, Texas. The way I talk to my grandmothers could not be more different than the way I talk to my girlfriends from high school.

It’s that variety and flexibility that makes language so great. I am also aware that English is not now, nor has it ever been static. Reading Old English literature is plenty proof of that. And, I know that many of the words that we use daily used to be thought to be incorrect. But, I don’t see that as an excuse for willful ignorance or insisting upon using non-words like irregardless. By the way, if that was a word, it would mean the exact opposite of what people use it to mean.

I love that language is fluid and ever-changing, but I believe that in order to engage in the evolution of language, you should know the rules before you break them.

For instance:

• Irony- 1 the expression of meaning through the use of language which normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous effect. 2 a state of affairs that appears perversely contrary to what one expects.                 

Notice that this has NOTHING to do with something being coincidental.

Definition from AskOxford.com

What words do you hear people use incorrectly?

It just sounds to weird to be true, right? Surely, they’re joking and just nailing the dry humor of sending a bunch of detainees to a museum in the hotbed of liberal sensibilities that is the Bay Area.

Lest you think I am making this up, here’s the clip from “Meet the Press” where Boehner talks about it:

My favorite part is when Gregory laughed as if Boehner was joking, and said that it’s a tourist attraction and not suitable to hold anyone at this point. Boehner simply replied, “It’s very secure,” in a tone as dry as the damn Atacama desert. Sometimes I really DO feel like I’m taking crazy pills.