Beginnings say as much about who begins them as they do about what they begin. Journalists and writers, of professional kind or independent and online, take very seriously the ledes they produce and how others see them. It’s very likely that I have had harsher scrutiny for ledes I’ve written than for anything else, and [...]

I shared the rough curriculum I had established for working with a journalism club at a neighborhood school before my time there was cut short. Just a week after I took a full-time job and told the club’s adviser that I’d have to take a bit of a sabbatical from my time there, I wanted [...]

Before I suspended my trips to Frankford High School to work with the school’s journalism club, we established what would have been a nice rhythm. Every Thursday, I would come and give a lesson, and the following Monday, the students would use what we talked about and put it into practice by getting out of [...]

I’ve written about social media here more than I’d probably like to admit. These social networking sites are transforming the way we receive our news and information. There’s no secret there. But they keep popping up, so much so that I’ve stopped joining them, because I never know when enough’s enough. Newspapers are still figuring [...]

The following feedback came in regarding my recent article about the halted expansion of the central branch of the Free Library, as collected here: I was at the library last week. I’m not sure the expansion is a necessary ingredient of the Philadelphia ego. Chasing technology as an improvement when the city is not flush [...]

Perhaps more than any other profession, journalists live in moments, that hour’s story, that day’s deadline. Zack Stalberg was made a legend for his Frank Rizzo moment. As a 2001 Philadelphia Weekly profile suggested: Within two years the night rewrite kid is a City Hall reporter covering Frank Rizzo at a time when Rizzo was, as [...]

There are those terms: a reporter, a journalist, a correspondent, a newspaperman, and others. What are the differences, and which are you? Find out.

So you have a press release and want someone to actually pay attention to it. After noting a fine internship with the Philadelphia Business Journal, I thought I might offer some advice I got there. Through that internship, I dealt with thousands of press releases, so let me help you out. The publicity world is in the midst [...]

What would you rather write or read a story, an article or a piece? Is there any difference in the terminology? This came to mind while writing on the different titles for those in journalism, the reporters and writers and newspapermen and others. Is a story a feature? An article hard news? A piece something [...]

As a young, aspiring journalist, I want to know what it is I need to have, what I need to know and what I need to learn. I’ve spoken to some friends, colleagues and with a few professional internships in my past, I think I am ready to fill the vaccum. What needs to be [...]