My Personal Social Media Policy

After weeks of thought, I have settled on the following social media policy:

I will do my best to be polite and productive while using social media, but I can’t promise anything.

Thank you for reading.

OK, Dan, Fine.

Dan Lehr, a producer at Newschannel 9 and my former internship supervisor at the station, gently chided me via Twitter recently that while he would be glad to add my blog to the blogroll on his (very awesome) “Public Interest” blog, I needed to post more often.

While most of my online time as of late has been spent firing off one-liners on Twitter, I will do my best to ramp up my contributions here. I mean, this site is named after me. If I don’t do it, who will?

Stay tuned…

Of God and Good Manners

Though I haven’t been a newspaper editor for more than a year, I still read newspapers like crazy. Whenever I go out of town, for example, I always pick up as many different daily and weekly papers as I can in the cities and towns that I visit. You never know when you’ll find something really, really good. And Jack Hunter’s column, “Separating Church from Hate,” in the December 24 issue of the Charleston City Paper was really, really good.

An excerpt:

It seems for every pushy Bible-thumper there is always some Christophobic twit to match, whose obnoxious enthusiasm for his unbelief knows no bounds. The activist atheist who’s upset that he’s surrounded by Christians deserves to be accommodated about as much as the religious fundamentalist who’s upset he’s surrounded by heathens.

Both unquestionably have a right to their own opinion, but should also have the judgment to temper their personal beliefs with common sense and good manners.

Newspapers and Impact

An brutally accurate assessment of the current state of newspapers by Doug Chapel, whose “Action Geek” comic was recently axed by Worcester Magazine:

There WAS a time when a newspaper could have actual IMPACT on its environment, but as of late, it’s easier just to be an easily palatable vehicle for advertisement instead of a hard-hitting, gutsy, opinionated, essential part of living where we live.

(HT: aan.org)

All the News That’s Fit to Bury

The Mormons and I don’t usually see eye-to-eye on too many things. Usually.

Orson Scott Card, a Democrat and Mormon, keenly takes the media to task for lousy, dishonest, and biased reporting about our current economic crisis.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that’s what honorable people do.  Honest people tell the truth even when they don’t like the probable consequences. That’s what honesty means. That’s how trust is earned.

(HT: Mick Wright)