|
|
Daniel Silliman
|
|
|
| 18.5.02 |
What-do-you-call-him…
Seraphim seems to have worked out the title problem we had been having. In a recent post he calls me a “colleague and friend.” How simple and correct.
Before this simple solution my introductory titles were either long winded things or nonexistent.
Seraphim and I are friends, but our friendship has risen up around our common activities and is not something outside of them. Thus friendship was not a full description of our relationship.
Describing the common activities could grow complicated. We both are students at the same college; we both are members of Fairfield society; we both work for the Hillsdale Collegian; we are both in Hillsdale College’s journalism program; and, of course, we both blog. I cannot spend a paragraph introducing our extended lists of activities every time he writes something I want to comment on over at Pensate Omnia.
Colleague—what a simple word to pull all that together. Did such a solution have to be this long in coming? Cheers to “friend and colleague.”
by Daniel Silliman @
: Comments 0
|
Tough Editors and Good Reporters
Editors are commonly lambasted. They are the ones who destroy your story, mess up your information, make it harder for you to write, and all that jazz. And some of that’s true, but they are also the ones who take sloppy work and turn it into gold.
I have had good editors. Not perfect, but good. They have all been respectable and respectful. They have been fair to me and given me the leeway I needed. Normally, they were in it for the story and we got along.
I’ve had some copy messed up by editors, but I’ve had a lot more saved by them. I’ve fought with editors who didn’t want to run a story, but I’ve had a lot more assistance and support from them.
An editor is a designated bad guy—reporters and instructed to blame things on him in order to get the story—they sacrifice being likable for the sake of the news. They enforce deadlines and insist on quality. They aid the reporters in research and in reporting and in writing. They have to track everything that’s going on and keep up with it all.
It is a tough job. I enjoyed it for the six months I was an editor at a college newspaper and I look forward to being an editor at the Hillsdale Collegian for the next two school years.
I was reminded of the significance of the editor while looking at the award received by one of my reporters. She worked hard for that award and did a good job on her story and deserved it. But she won it in part because of the work I put into that story. I sent her back to her sources three times for more reporting. I made her spend a month on the project. I made her rewrite it. I edited it. I made it a big, time-consuming project. It was a better story and she was a better reporter because I was a tough editor. And she won.
The editor can make that difference—bringing out the talent of his reporters and pushing them until they have done everything they have the ability to do. It should be a blessing among reporters: “And may you have a tough editor!”
by Daniel Silliman @
: Comments 0
|
Mutual Admiration Society
Seraphim starts blogging again and I get complements. There is a reason I like to read that man’s blog.
by Daniel Silliman @
: Comments 0
|
| 17.5.02 |
Coming Home from College for the Summer:
The Paradox of the Peninsula
I’m driving along the peninsula again, this stretch of land caught between the mountains and the water. I can smell the peninsula. It smells of water and mountains and cool air, old people and cut grass, rain and blue skies, newspapers and books. It is the smell of the peninsula and the things I loved and love and live with, and the things that are in my life.
I can lift my eyes here, seeing the mountains that hold us in and push us up against the strait, push us to that national border where Canada meets us. The mountains and the water edge this place, these people and these towns, squeezing them. We are squeezed out the ends of this strip of the North Olympic Peninsula, into the ocean and into the sound.
I’m getting back in the rhythm of living on here, though when talking to my little brother’s I call college home without noticing until after I’ve said it.
I have a car again, and I’m remembering how much I enjoy driving even though I am not a good driver. I’m driving too those old haunts in Sequim, Port Angeles, Port Townsend: strange antique shops, the community college newspaper, the daily newspaper, the copy shop, libraries, old movie houses, new theaters, the coffee shops, the restaurants, the book stores.
Going into the little new and used bookstores, I’m happy to be here again and frustrated that they don’t have what I need. The bookstores are examples of my love and consternation with this North Olympic Peninsula. There is not a single copy T.S. Eliot’s complete works for sale where I live. To buy the book I will have to go to Seattle or Portland or another city where I don’t live or order it off the Internet without the bookstore experience.
This place is beautiful, and too small.
This place is refreshing, and constricting.
Oh, life at home with the paradox of the peninsula.
by Daniel Silliman @
: Comments 0
|
Yeah, Like That
A while ago on this blog I criticized my school, Hillsdale College, for its emphasis on the politics of the school while ignoring the philosophy of education. I believe it is the latter is the reason why Hillsdale is great and though the liberal arts/wisdom of the ages education it comes from the school’s conservatism, the education is what sets it apart on a daily basis. We offer more than a Political Science degree or an Economics degree.
Today Thomas Aquinas College is advertising closer to the vein I am recommending Hillsdale follow.
I am thoroughly Protestant—if understanding and sympathetic to Catholicism—but I really admire and respect and am attracted to this school because of this advertisment.
by Daniel Silliman @
: Comments 0
|
Seraphim seems to have finished his gluttony of silence, thankfully. I enjoy feasting over at Pensate Omnia.
by Daniel Silliman @
: Comments 0
|
| 15.5.02 |
To Churchill's Defense
My college president and Churchill worshiper, Hillsdale College's Larry Arnn (derisively known as Cap'n Arnn), may want to take note.
Hitchens piece in the Atlantic Monthly on Winston Churchill is met with a detailed response by the folks at the Churchill Online Homepage. This counter article is a little tedious, but that may be Hitchens fault.
My personal reaction to the piece was fairly ambivalent. Yeah, Churchill was a great drunkard and all that. Not exactly revealing dirt here. Hitchens seemed to rehash all the bad things said about Churchill while discussing a few new books on the man.
Churchill's still a great man, and Hitchens recognized that. He isn't a Greek god or an old west hero--Galiopli and his response to Collins in Ireland and his drunkenness assure us of that--but he' still quite a man.
The only significance of the affair that I am aware of is the Atlantic Monthly's running the piece as a cover story. They don't usually do that, I'm told. This seems to be a testament to Hitchens significance in punditry (as is the fact were discussing a tame article on Churchill months after it was published).
by Daniel Silliman @
: Comments 0
|
Self Promotion Gains Recognition, Readers (maybe)
Amazing what a little shameless self-promotion will do for you. I was linked by the Blogfather after writing the piece on Sullivan and alerting Reynolds and Sullivan to my piece by e-mail.
Reynolds linked me and Sullivan thanked me, saying "cheers." I am quite please by both and hope I have gained some readers by my brashness.
So, now that all you Instapundit reading, Sullivan following, readers are here, welcome. This is my blog. It is a lot like other blogs except it's mine and quite original. I'm pretty diverse in what I cover but anything that falls under the topics of philosophy, journalism, culture and politics and I feel I can comment on in an original fashion, is blogged on here.
So, welcome. Have a seat, make yourself at home and stay awhile.
by Daniel Silliman @
: Comments 0
|
Man Bites Dog:
Sullivan and the NY Times
Well. Our boy Andrew Sullivan scores in the brash, take-on-the-biggest-dog-in-town department.
He seems to be blogging in fine shape recently. His blog count is up again, after a dry period while he was acting in a Shakespeare play, and now he has tangled with the Old Gray Lady and, it seems, triumphed.
The man, as we know and as befits a blogger, speaks his mind and gives his opinion without apology. In short, the man is brash. Now he has triumphed in his brashness.
As readers of my humble blog know, I don’t find brashness a bad thing. (Now this is an understatement.)
Sullivan writes for the NY Times a—as well as the London Times, The New Republic and some other major media outlets. He has criticized all of them when the occasion arose, but the Times reacted, he says, by cutting his byline form the pages.
Howard Kurtz gives all the details in a piece of solid reporting and Schultz has something good on the significance of Sullivan battling the newspaper.
Anybody can take on the Times, many have done it in all sorts of media, the significance is in the violent reaction. The New York Times actually cares what Andrew Sullivan says about it. Sullivan—little Sullivan with his daily ramblings on his funny media and his beagle and his personal life on the page and his strange diversions into circumcision and just weird topics—is a player with enough weight to concern the New York Times
Slate has a piece about the inadequacy of the Times in the press war against Sullivan. The NY Times loses a press war? That ought to make the front pages.
Sullivan has always been a good writer, a good opinion journalist and great at sacred cow tipping, but this new media—the internet but especially blogging—has allowed him a weight he never had in a major magazine or a newspaper syndication. This man was good, but with this media he has become great.
Here’s hat’s off to our man Sullivan for making the big time and for slamming the New York Times.
It is about time someone shoved that old gray lady in front of a bus.
by Daniel Silliman @
: Comments 0
|
Rocking
Is there a direct link between air guitar and Jimi Hendrix? (he said listening to “Voodoo Child”).
Someone get a federal grant.
by Daniel Silliman @
: Comments 0
|
Award Winning
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am now an award winning student journalist. While I was News Editor and Managing Editor at The Buccaneer of Peninsula College, we won the American Scholastic Press Association first place with merit award.
That's hot stuff--and I was editor on that watch.
I would have liked to have won something for my personal work, but I will take what I can get for the old resume. This may even help me next year with internships.
by Daniel Silliman @
: Comments 0
|
| 13.5.02 |
Thankfully
The things some of us don't have to deal with.
by Daniel Silliman @
: Comments 0
|
| 12.5.02 |
The Return of the Insatiable Blogger
The silence has ended with the bus ride and the finals and I have returned to the west coast. I am here in Washington state with my family for the summer. Regular blogging will begin in the morning with work I pulled together and saved up over finals, bus ride annecdotes, details of my mother's day suprise, and bloddy blogging etc.
Update:Okay, okay. I've been a little slow here. I'm still trying to recover my rythm with the changed shedule, timezones and slow internet connection. I think I've figured things out and will soon be blogging above the speed limit.
by Daniel Silliman @
: Comments 0
|
|
Get blog templates like this one from BlogSkins.com |
