‘Star Trek’ captain Patrick Stewart: A funny guy

If you were surprised to see Patrick Stewart pop up on The Daily Show last week, you weren’t paying attention when he visited the Chicago Comic Con in 2011 and explained how his inner comedian broke loose:

My Year of Rahm

Highlights (and lowlights) of my experience covering a year of Rahm Emanuel’s administration as Chicago’s mayor ...

■ … including the unforgettable FM News series, “Who’s Mayor Emanuel Ridiculing Now?”

Video excerpts of an exclusive interview with Emanuel:

Postscript: A year later, in December 2013, Emanuel granted me a sit-down interview for the nascent Rivet News Radio app.

(Photo: Judy MacLeod.)

Biz site Quartz makes good design choices

The team behind The Atlantic has launched a new business-centric Web site, Quartz. Freed from the demands of legacy media or existing user habits, the site makes a number of excellent calls, including these three:

RESPONSIVE DESIGN. Change the window size and watch the content rearrange itself to fit everything from a desktop browser to mobile phone screen. Tremendous efficiencies in this approach: Design once for many platforms.


NO ROTATING FRONT-PAGE GRAPHICS. Continuously flipping centerpiece images are the mark of an indecisive (or understaffed) editorial team. For one thing, the metrics are hard to track, making much of the effort involved unmeasurable. For another, secondary images may rarely get seen. Quartz takes a stand, picks its best shot and makes it fully accessible on its front page -- at least when the front page is displayed at larger sizes.

NO 'RELATED LINKS.' This content, which on major news sites is often appended in the left or right columns as an afterthought and then ignored -- worse, it's invisible on many smartphones -- on Quartz instead appears at the point most relevant to the story's narrative. (Note that ads, too, are well integrated with editorial content -- tough to ignore, but not bolted-on as at so many other sites.)
* Nieman Journalism Lab's Joshua Benton: Quartz risks "breaking two decades of website metaphors"
* Another sign digital can trump print: Pulitzer winner Mark Konkol leaves Sun-Times for online-only DNAinfo.com

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Free Wi-Fi / Online news rising / 'Golden Ticket' politics

3 things for Monday, Chicago. Each more fascinating than the last:

FREE WI-FI. Mayor Emanuel's planning to provide free wireless Internet access in Chicago's public spaces -- beginning today in Millennium Park. And the city's launching a "Broadband Challenge," inviting you to submit suggestions on how to improve Chicago's digital infrastructure.
* Microsoft's free online SkyDrive service for collaborative work "is great, and no one has noticed"
* iPhone users caught in Apple-Google crossfire
* Facebook tracking people you stalk on Facebook

ONLINE NEWS RISING. The owner of The Atlantic is launching a new, strictly digital business "publication," Quartz. He tells The New York Times print's a losing proposition: "Pure digital, without any legacy costs, massively trumps print."
* Steve Yelvington: "Social media bad for newspapers? Waah"

'GOLDEN TICKET' POLITICS. Chris Hayes at msnbc.com: "Imagine a world in which every minimum wage worker in America is given a golden ticket, like the ones in Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory. And imagine a law that required TV stations to only take those golden tickets as payment for campaign advertising time."
* JFK on tape berating a military aide: "He’s a silly bastard!"

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Journ class: Tweets, art and grades

3 things for students in journalism class today:

KEEP ON TWEETIN'. Now that you've established a Twitter account for the beat of your choice, you should live, eat and breathe that beat. Watch your Google Alerts for stories of interest, Tweet them, use them as inspiration for stories you can report on your beat.
* Twitter's advice to journalists: Tweet your beat, but not just your own stories.

WRITING AS PERFORMANCE ART. In 2002, Roger Ebert observed that the computer and the Internet have transformed the work of writing: "Because the monitor serves so many purposes, it seems to me like a public space. Countless voices have appeared on it—including yours, if you've e-mailed me. Typing on this monitor is subtly different from typing on a piece of paper on the L.C. Smith. That was a solitary act. This is more like a performance."
* Author using Google Doc to write, edit book in realtime -- as you watch.
* Information decay is eating away our modern history.

A GRADE REVOLUTION? What would you think about a class where the only grades are A, B or F? Mindy McAdams is experimenting with that in her journalism classes at the University of Florida: "... if A is 'excellent' and B is 'good,' then anything less than a B must be done over, or it earns a zero. ... [I]n the world of journalism work, we can’t publish or broadcast or upload C work."

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Keys to growing digital audience

3 things an institution of higher education's public information staff will hear from me today about how to build and engage a digital audience:

* Make every headline work.

* Email still counts. A lot.

* Study your traffic.

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Getting killed in the comics isn’t so bad

Originally posted March 13, 2007—on the occasion of Captain America’s “death” in the comics — by Charlie Meyerson in the Chicago Tribune Daywatch blog:

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Captain America fans, take heart. You can be killed in the comics and yet live to blog about it.

From Tribune archives: Kathy O’Malley and Dorothy Collin writing in the Chicago Tribune’s “Inc.” column, Wednesday, December 5, 1990.

Sorry, Charlie

Former Chicagoans John Ostrander and Mike Gold, both now working with DC Comics, included their old friend Charlie Meyerson in the upcoming Hawkworld No. 8.

In the comic book (on the stands next week), Meyerson plays his real-life role as WNUA-FM news director—but he’s in a helicopter covering a story about an oil tanker on the Chicago River (hey, this is fantasy, folks) and gets attacked by a giant flying monster; the helicopter crashes, killing Charlie.

At least we think it does; there are flames and it says “Snap!” “Thwank!” “Gyaaaah!” and, finally, “Bwadoom!”

Doesn’t look good for a sequel.

Footnote, Feb. 17, 2022: Ostrander resurrected me in Hawkman (Vol. 3) No. 1, reporting from “the Netherworld.”

Iffy bumper sticker / Best cheap iPhone buds? / Facebook your school

3 things for Monday, Chicago.

AN IFFY BUMPER STICKER, BUT, DARN IT, IT JUST MIGHT WORK. Ex-presidential candidate Rick Santorum told the Values Voter Summit over the weekend "We will never have ... smart people on our side."
* Romney team working to dispel "notion of a campaign in disarray"

BEST CHEAP iPHONE BUDS? Think the earphones that came with your iPod or iPhone are lousy? Andy Ihnatko calls the new version "one hell of an upgrade" and, at $29, "the best iPod/iPhone headphones ... under fifty bucks."
* Every Yahoo employee to get an iPhone 5 or other smartphone
* Shazam app upgrade to provide instant social connections for any TV show
* Apple products account for almost 33% of Chinese export growth in Q4
* AllThingsD: The personal computer era is over

FACEBOOK YOUR SCHOOL. If your alma mater doesn't have a decent alumni presence on the Web, you can fix that in minutes. Creating a Facebook group takes just seconds. Adding friends takes just seconds more. If you have any alumni in your existing group of friends, as soon as you invite a few, Facebook is smart enough to recommend lots more. Over the weekend, to share news of the death of a cherished teacher, I created a group with dozens of members. Over the course of a day, membership expanded virally into the hundreds.
* How to see what Facebook knows about you -- and what it tells advertisers
* A guide to Twitter jargon

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Better interviewing, better writing

3 things news reporting students will hear today:

INTERVIEW GUIDE. It's hard to talk, listen, take notes and think at the same time. How do you do it? Answers here.

DEPARTMENT OF REDUNDANCY DEPARTMENT. If you repeat substantial words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) two sentences in a row, one of those sentences can probably be shorter. Or they can be combined. Pronouns are your friend.

'VERY' = VERY BAD WRITING. Don't use this word. Instead of "very interested," for instance, say "fascinated." From The Elements of Style: "Where emphasis is necessary, use words strong in themselves." And certainly never use "very" in a phrase like "very unique." Unique means "one of a kind." A thing either is or isn't unique. It can't be very unique.
* Related: Is this "literally the worst word on the planet"?
* Not so related: Is this "the best word ever"?

... And then it's time to set up a blog.

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McDonald's menu / Apple's problem / Voyager's going ...

3 things for Thursday, Chicago:

McDONALD'S MENU. Next time you buy a Big Mac or other item at McDonald's, the calorie count will probably be staring you in the face as the company puts that info on its in-store and drive-through menu displays. Can you guess its highest-cal item?

APPLE'S PROBLEM. Is the iPhone losing cred among the kids? "That's my dad's phone," one teenager tells Andy Ihnatko.
* Laptop computer's designer dead.

VOYAGER'S GOING ... The Voyager spacecraft is about to leave the solar system.
* Will it return to menace humanity?

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Mayor's 'Armageddon' / Real Biden, Onion Biden / Newspapers' problem?

3 things for Wednesday, Chicago:

MAYOR'S 'ARMAGEDDON.' Carol Marin says Rahm Emanuel picked this fight with Chicago's teachers. Did he? Consider a 2011 year-in-review piece from December 2011.
* Emanuel: Nickelback values are not Chicago values

REAL BIDEN, ONION BIDEN. Can you tell the difference between the real thing and The Onion's version? (Thanks, @bmeyerson.)
* Obama back on Letterman's show next week

NEWSPAPERS' PROBLEM? Lousy headlines, according to Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic. For years, I've been trying to help.

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'SNL' newbies / Inside FM News / Banned from Facebook

3 things for Tuesday, Chicago.

'SNL' NEWBIES. Castmembers making their debuts on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend include Second City alum Cecily Strong, daughter of Bill Strong, managing partner at Chicago public affairs firm Jasculca Terman.

INSIDE FM NEWS. Brendan Greeley's written a detailed account of the rise and fall of Merlin Media's all-news radio experiment: "My Year at Chicago's FM News 101.1." (Is "veteran newsman" just a nice way of saying "old guy"?)
* From the ashes of the FM News project, my Knight News Challenge proposal: "Radio news, reinvented"
* Study: Young people consider news "garbage, lies, ... repetitive and boring"
* Speaking of which, an email attachment I won't be opening:

From: Robert S. Mueller
Subject: FBI HEADQUARTERS IN WASHINGTON, D.C.KINDLY OPEN ATTCHMENT

BANNED FROM FACEBOOK. This cartoon got The New Yorker staff temporarily kicked off.
* How to broadcast live video to your Facebook page from your phone, free
* The Onion: "Number Of Users Who Actually Enjoy Facebook Down To 4"

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Journalism, before the fall

Early in 2001, before the world changed in so many ways, Thomas Kunkel, then dean of journalism at the University of Maryland and president of American Journalism Review, wrote an article subtitled “Why it’s impossible not to love the journalism biz.”

In it, he counted down a Top 10 list of reasons journalism is “a fabulous line of work.”

He was right. It is a great line of work. It gives you license to ask anyone anything, a front-row seat to the unfolding of history. It’s a job in which your main responsibility — your privilege — is to learn something every day and then teach everyone else.

Done right, it’s the essential Job That Is Never Boring.

But Reason No. 4 set me off [emphasis mine]:

Most people do respect you — because your life is more interesting than theirs ...

So I wrote a letter to the editor, which the magazine printed. Here it is:

Date: May 31, 2001 9:03:51 AM CDT
To: “‘editor@ajr.umd.edu’”
Subject: “... because your life is more interesting than theirs”

My Top 10 list of the great things about journalism would include learning that lots of people have lives more interesting than those of journalists. Years of interviewing fascinating people from many walks of life have freed me of such condescension.

If the public perceives journalists as believing that their lives are “more interesting” than everyone else’s, a great deal of the respect claimed by Mr. Kunkel is at risk.

Journalism students of today: Your job as reporter is interesting because the people you cover are interesting — not the other way around.

If you find yourself thinking your life is more interesting than the lives of the people you’re covering, get a different job.

Ian Anderson played my flute

Back in the 1980s, Jethro Tull leader Ian Anderson visited WXRT-FM’s studios in Chicago. Production director Bill Cochran asked if he could borrow one of my flutes for Anderson to play, and I agreed.

But I wasn’t present when Anderson arrived, and I can’t remember now whether he used my open-hole Gemeinhardt or my closed-hole Gemeinhardt.

Anyone expert enough to tell, just by listening, which one this is?



(2017 photo of Ian Anderson by Sven Mandel.)

Newspaper endorsements: Dead? / Did president sink? / This just in

Three things about politics:

NEWSPAPER ENDORSEMENTS: DEAD? The Lakeland, Fla., Ledger is the latest to abandon the practice.
-- Newspaper endorsements are by their nature recommendations from smart, informed people. So, as a voter, I miss them.
-- On the other hand, in my 13 years at Tribune Co., as much as non-members of the editorial board would protest, editorials were perceived as innate bias for the whole organization. So skipping endorsements makes things easier for front-line reporters and the sales force.
-- On the other other hand, some newspaper endorsements have been driven by owners' business interests instead of by a compulsion to Do The Right Thing. So ending endorsements could dispel those doubts.
-- On the other other other hand, if reporters step up their game and provide fearless truth-telling during regular news coverage -- abandoning the "he-said-he-said" approach that has become a crutch in recent years -- maybe endorsements become unnecessary, because choices become more obvious.
(Thanks to Thom Clark for inspiration.)

'THE PRESIDENT HAS TO SINK TO THIS?' Richard Roeper questions the wisdom of the president's video with "Harold & Kumar" -- as straight man "for the most famous reefer duo since Cheech & Chong."
-- President's acceptance speech venue moved indoors
-- Mark Brown: Better now than four years ago in almost every way ... except financially
-- Where's Al Gore?

THIS JUST IN. Lead headline in today's Chicago Tribune: "First lady: Obama's heart unchanged." If his heart HAD changed, we'd have had a great story, wouldn't we?
-- Better: "Michelle Obama flattens an unnamed opponent (named Mitt)"
-- Mrs. Obama's speech drove almost twice as many Tweets per minute as Romney's
-- The Onion: "Good Evening, It's An Honor To Be Used As A Political Prop By My Husband's Campaign"

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3 things you may've missed over the weekend

If you unplugged for Labor Day, catch up here:

* Why great potential employees might hate your company.

* Daily Show, Colbert Report air rare Friday editions.

* Comic book letters pages were the Facebook-Twitter-chatroom of the 1960s.

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3 things to keep great potential employees from hating you

We get it: For reasons legal and bureaucratic, organizations can't or won't hire people who don't submit applications through a Web site. We understand the value of a level playing field, plausible deniability on unfair practices, and all the rest.

But hiring is one of the most important things organizations do. Why do so many concoct -- or tolerate -- online application systems so prone to pissing off potential hires?

Three things you can do to minimize chances your online application protocol doesn't chase away your most discriminating candidates:

* Make sure your job application form offers easy, prominent and plentiful ways to Save and Finish Later. Many of the best applicants are busy and may not have time to finish your application opus in a single sitting. Why force them into a rush job? Give them a chance to show their best work.

* Don't let applications get lost with a single click. Building in advisories like "Are you sure you want to leave this page without saving? All unsaved work will be lost" can keep driven job-hunters from taking your organization's name in vain and concluding it's run by idiots.

* Give feedback. Let your applicant preview -- and then modify -- his or her application as the hiring team will see it. And instead of lazily regretting you're "unable to send notifications to all applicants when jobs have been filled," promise to update all candidates when the decision's been made. If would-be Nigerian princes can send mass emails effortlessly, your team can figure out how to tell people who've spent hours preparing applications to work with you -- people who could someday prove the most promising candidates for your next round of hiring, if you go the extra inch to treat them decently -- "So long, and thanks for all the fish."

You're welcome.

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My first published Marvel Comics fan letter

Tales to Astonish No. 96 hit the comic book racks in my hometown of St. Clair Shores, Mich., on July 17, 1967.

I was 12, and I had Merry Marvel Marching Society fever, fueled by a fateful proposal from fellow fan and future comics and TV writer, and — about three years later — briefly my editor at Marvelmania Monthly Magazine, Mark Evanier.

This (yes, fawning) letter to Stan Lee and company was the first of many I’d eventually have published in Marvel and DC Comics.

Even as my media career unfolded, in print, on air and online, nothing matched the satisfaction of seeing my name and my words in the comics, alongside the exploits of the heroes (or, in the case of the stars of Marvel’s Tales to Astonish, the anti-heroes) of my childhood.

It was a thrill. It made me a celebrity in our little gang.

I bought a bunch of copies.

(Click for a more legible view.)

Share your memories below. What gave you a similar thrill as a kid?

(Slightly revised, July 10, 2017.)

The chair, man / Obama's AMA / Snicker snack

Three things to mull over the weekend:

THE CHAIR, MAN. If you missed rare Friday editions of "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report," you missed their euphoric coverage of the Clint Eastwood "chair" thing. Thanks to the Internet, you can catch up right here.
-- "@InvisbleObama" on Twitter (64,000 followers as of Saturday morning): Clint Eastwood built this.

OBAMA'S 'ASK ME ANYTHING.' The president's surprise appearance on Reddit this week set massive records. And it points one way to the future of politics.

SNICKER SNACK. USA Today's front-page coverage of the Republican National Convention is the subject of ... ridicule? admiration? This may be a political Rorschach test.

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