Archive for the ‘Shoptalk’ Category
There are only so many ways to say something
Earlier this week, I went through recording after recording from Sierra Leone–interviews with forced wives, and with women who suffered every denigrating crime even without being taken in marriage; interviews with ex-rebels, one so young he said he had to be taught how to rape; hour after hour of awful stories, each living in the [...]
Hearing the human, or, Why Marc Lacey is my hero
There’ve been a lot of articles about the rising price of food around the world and what it means for everything from the death of the middle class to the politics of oil nations to US agricultural subsidies to…to…to… But Marc Lacey, one of my favorite journalists and the only individual for whom I have [...]
Getting right speech right
I’m pretty sure I waxed rhapsodic in my graduate school essay about the importance of telling people’s stories. Stories were the one thing in the world that always made sense to me, even helped me make sense out of all the other things that didn’t. I don’t know when exactly it happened, but I’ve left [...]
And next in the long list of Things That Won’t Help
You’ll forgive the cynicism, I’m sure–or maybe not, which is also legitimate–but here is a quick highlight of things in my inbox: Writers in London “are calling for an end to the atrocities in Darfur.” Why? For the children, of course. “The world needs to wake up. For too long, it has let these children [...]
This just in: Michael Jackson to continue to be just fine
That’s right, folks: “Jackson Lawyer: Neverland Ranch Saved.” I found it via the trusty NYT, where only a sex scandal could get the Obama-Clinton war off the homepage. And once that happens, well, it’s a free for all, and next thing you know, this story is rolling through the AP news box. No word yet [...]
Forgive us our tresspasses, when we admit them with humor…
From a correction posted to a Feb. 18, 2008, NYT Story, “Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location”: “An article in some editions on Monday about a New York City Transit employee’s deft use of the semicolon in a public service placard was less deft in its punctuation of the title of a book [...]
I am a freelance journalist and multimedia producer who covers human rights, Africa and foreign affairs. [