There's been a number of great things I've seen recently on writers and writing, with a majority of them related to New York Times writer David Carr who died on Feb 12th.
Three really profound remembrances were "David Carr, friend of journalism" by Erik Wemple for the Washington Post, "King David" by Ta-Nehisi Coates for the Atlantic, and (with this last one the shortest) "David Carr was one of my dearest friends" by Andrew Rossi for CNN. Related to Rossi, he directed the movie Page One: Inside the New York Times, an awesome film for anyone interested in writing.
Written in the New York Times as a final "Media Equation" column of Carr's (the byline was "with David Carr") was "David Carr's Last Word on Journalism, Aimed at Students," a piece that included the link to Carr's syllabus to his Boston University Journalism class, a pretty fascinating document about writing that Carr posted to Medium. The last thing to note about Carr in this post was something published by Longform with "David Carr, 1956-2015" containing five pieces by Carr and one interview done of him.
Two other pieces about writing were compelling works starting off with "I never intended to write a Starbucks story" posted to Nieman Storyboard and on an interview with New York Times writer Jodi Kantor done by Lisa Pollack. It's interesting content from Kantor about writing a story that's incredibly fascinating to me in that it appears to have quickly brought about a large change for the better from Starbucks in how they schedule employees' work shifts.
The final piece to mention here was a sort of oldie, but goodie with "Stephen King's Top 20 Rules for Writers" taken from his brilliant book On Writing, originally published in 2000.
Showing posts with label CNN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CNN. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Great pieces that dealt with humanity - by Mooney, Harding & Deitsch
There's a few pieces of writing I've seen lately that were really well done and for me struck a cord in the humanity showed in them. Also very much related to this idea of humanity was a request on twitter that's generated a number of heartwarming responses very much worthy of keeping track of.
The first piece of great writing to to note here was by Michael Mooney for the September issue of D Magazine. "Signs of the Homeless" was about Dallas area man Willie Baronet, who as Mooney wrote "has been buying and collecting signs made by homeless people for 20 years" and it's a tremendously interesting read that trafficks in the ideas of charity, commerce and contribution.
Another piece of excellent recent writing was from the Washington Post on September 7th. "Hiding in N. Virginia, a daughter of Auschwitz" was written by Thomas Harding tells the story of Brigitte Höss, the now elderly daughter of Rudolf Höss, Kommandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The piece is a pretty amazing one and Harding towards the end of it included a quote that very much made me think of this aforementioned theme of humanity. Speaking of Brigitte, the son of a Jewish Virginia couple who employed her even knowing who her father was said "she is a human being, she was not responsible for her father."
The final thing to note on this subject of humanity came out of a Twitter request by Sports Illustrated writer Richard Deitsch with him asking people for pictures of the "single best moment in their lives". The resulting flood of images resulted in multiple stories on it with several of the pieces that included a number of the images being ones by CNN, by Fast Company, by The Chive and by the San Diego Union-Tribune.
There are a ton of great images that I've seen retweeted from this request and below are a few of the tweets that particularly struck me...
The first piece of great writing to to note here was by Michael Mooney for the September issue of D Magazine. "Signs of the Homeless" was about Dallas area man Willie Baronet, who as Mooney wrote "has been buying and collecting signs made by homeless people for 20 years" and it's a tremendously interesting read that trafficks in the ideas of charity, commerce and contribution.
Another piece of excellent recent writing was from the Washington Post on September 7th. "Hiding in N. Virginia, a daughter of Auschwitz" was written by Thomas Harding tells the story of Brigitte Höss, the now elderly daughter of Rudolf Höss, Kommandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The piece is a pretty amazing one and Harding towards the end of it included a quote that very much made me think of this aforementioned theme of humanity. Speaking of Brigitte, the son of a Jewish Virginia couple who employed her even knowing who her father was said "she is a human being, she was not responsible for her father."
The final thing to note on this subject of humanity came out of a Twitter request by Sports Illustrated writer Richard Deitsch with him asking people for pictures of the "single best moment in their lives". The resulting flood of images resulted in multiple stories on it with several of the pieces that included a number of the images being ones by CNN, by Fast Company, by The Chive and by the San Diego Union-Tribune.
There are a ton of great images that I've seen retweeted from this request and below are a few of the tweets that particularly struck me...
@richarddeitsch My 3 year old, Zoe, walking less than 24hrs after her 3rd open heart surgery. #myinspiration pic.twitter.com/xS4z6zjc71
— Caleb Lihn (@CLihn) August 17, 2013
@richarddeitsch today my daughter met her brother for the first time... pic.twitter.com/Zg4hvc2uJO
— BW (@bdubs20) September 10, 2013
Love. RT @ssharpwft: 1 of my top moments in life - Zoe 1st meeting her lil bro Sean & his reaction :) pic.twitter.com/03rsd4Wxca
— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) August 16, 2013
@richarddeitsch The day my wife woke up after her double-lung/heart transplant. pic.twitter.com/JEYalwt6lr
— Ryan Kaltenbach (@RyanKaltenbach) July 9, 2013
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Fast Company Dec/Jan Issue: Toms Shoes, Louis C.K., General Assembly, Bluefin Labs, Nest
Several short pieces of interest from the Dec '11 / Jan '12 issue of Fast Company magazine.
In the Now section of the magazine was Toms Founder Blake Mycoskie's Fashion-Forward Childhood. Nothing terribly new in the short piece, but Toms Shoes an interesting company given it's practice of giving away a pair of shoes for each sold.
Also notable for the subject was Louis C.K.: The Next Steve Jobs Will Be A Chick. As this CNN story details, C.K. has been selling online for $5 a self-produced standup special and after a few weeks is now at $1M in revenue. Very interesting approach taken by C.K. and also cool given the $280K+ in charitable donations he's already dispersed from the proceeds.
Two longer, but not feature length pieces from this issue were on augmented education and utilization of Twitter for business intelligence...
Anya Kamenetz penned General Assembly Provides Entrepreneurial Skills To A Chosen Few about the New York-based startup which offers classes and education programs in the fields of "technology, design, and entrepreneurship". Seems a solid concept for a business as education certainly can't stop with the traditional receipt of a college diploma.
On a company working to aggregate and make accessible some heavily fragmented information, Rachel Arndt wrote Bluefin Mines Social Media To Improve TV Analytics. Selling services to "brands, agencies and TV Networks", Bluefin Labs works in an interesting area.
Finally, this issue of Fast Company had a short piece on the company Nest and it's smart thermostat. Fascinating product designed with user experience in mind from former Apple exec Tony Faddell.
In the Now section of the magazine was Toms Founder Blake Mycoskie's Fashion-Forward Childhood. Nothing terribly new in the short piece, but Toms Shoes an interesting company given it's practice of giving away a pair of shoes for each sold.
Also notable for the subject was Louis C.K.: The Next Steve Jobs Will Be A Chick. As this CNN story details, C.K. has been selling online for $5 a self-produced standup special and after a few weeks is now at $1M in revenue. Very interesting approach taken by C.K. and also cool given the $280K+ in charitable donations he's already dispersed from the proceeds.
Two longer, but not feature length pieces from this issue were on augmented education and utilization of Twitter for business intelligence...
Anya Kamenetz penned General Assembly Provides Entrepreneurial Skills To A Chosen Few about the New York-based startup which offers classes and education programs in the fields of "technology, design, and entrepreneurship". Seems a solid concept for a business as education certainly can't stop with the traditional receipt of a college diploma.
On a company working to aggregate and make accessible some heavily fragmented information, Rachel Arndt wrote Bluefin Mines Social Media To Improve TV Analytics. Selling services to "brands, agencies and TV Networks", Bluefin Labs works in an interesting area.
Finally, this issue of Fast Company had a short piece on the company Nest and it's smart thermostat. Fascinating product designed with user experience in mind from former Apple exec Tony Faddell.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Writing on Loss: from Joe Posnanski, Wayne Drash and Tommy Tomlinson
Some really remarkable writing lately on the lives and passing of two people... Nick Charles and Nina Leavitt.
Charles is by far the more well known of the two as the former co-anchor of CNN Sports Tonight and then boxing commentator for HBO and Showtime. Diagnosed in Aug 2009 with terminal cancer, he passed away yesterday and left behind three grown children, a wife and five-year old daughter, Giovanna.
His story also has a tremendous amount of uplift and I first learned of Charles through the Mar 2001 Joe Posnanski column "Lessons Of The Fight Game" for Sports Illustrated. This morning I saw word of Charles' death in the Posnanski blog post "My Friend Nick Charles". Both pieces are poignant and portray a life-affirming approach to death (a bit cliche to note here, but true nonetheless).
Further writing on Charles can be found in the lengthy April 2011 CNN piece "Facing death, CNN sports legend embraces life" by Wayne Drash. Really solid work on the man and his life.
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The story of Nina Leavitt is perhaps more sad than Charles' in that her passing was sudden and came at a younger age. Written by Tommy Tomlinson for the Charlotte Observer, "Nina & Kristopher: A story of great love, great loss" was actually the second column by Tomlinson on the couple. The first was "Love lands ... and moves quickly" and reads as absolute tragedy given the news of Leavitt's passing.
Powerful writing from Tomlinson (linked to from the aforementioned Joe Posnanski's blog) that reminds of The Last Lecture (which I reviewed here) from Randy Pausch.
Charles is by far the more well known of the two as the former co-anchor of CNN Sports Tonight and then boxing commentator for HBO and Showtime. Diagnosed in Aug 2009 with terminal cancer, he passed away yesterday and left behind three grown children, a wife and five-year old daughter, Giovanna.
His story also has a tremendous amount of uplift and I first learned of Charles through the Mar 2001 Joe Posnanski column "Lessons Of The Fight Game" for Sports Illustrated. This morning I saw word of Charles' death in the Posnanski blog post "My Friend Nick Charles". Both pieces are poignant and portray a life-affirming approach to death (a bit cliche to note here, but true nonetheless).
Further writing on Charles can be found in the lengthy April 2011 CNN piece "Facing death, CNN sports legend embraces life" by Wayne Drash. Really solid work on the man and his life.
-----
The story of Nina Leavitt is perhaps more sad than Charles' in that her passing was sudden and came at a younger age. Written by Tommy Tomlinson for the Charlotte Observer, "Nina & Kristopher: A story of great love, great loss" was actually the second column by Tomlinson on the couple. The first was "Love lands ... and moves quickly" and reads as absolute tragedy given the news of Leavitt's passing.
Powerful writing from Tomlinson (linked to from the aforementioned Joe Posnanski's blog) that reminds of The Last Lecture (which I reviewed here) from Randy Pausch.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Haiti Earthquake Writing from Time & CNN
Couple of really powerful pieces on the Haiti earthquake.
From the Time Magazine Feb 1 issue (which isn't actually the cover above, but... neither here nor there) came the piece "Aftershock" from writers Bryan Walsh, Jay Newton-Small and Tim Padgett. Just powerful writing that looks heavily at the latter part of the subheading below...
"One of the worst-ever natural disasters in the western hemisphere leaves the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince in ruins. What it will take to rebuild."
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From the CNN website, I a few days ago came across the Elizabeth Cohen piece "Hard lessons, humility for big-city doctors in Haiti". Gut-wrenching stuff that fits squarely into the category of "makes you think about what things are important and what things aren't."
Hopefully this piece along with that from Time are also calls to action for those who can donate money to relief efforts.
From the Time Magazine Feb 1 issue (which isn't actually the cover above, but... neither here nor there) came the piece "Aftershock" from writers Bryan Walsh, Jay Newton-Small and Tim Padgett. Just powerful writing that looks heavily at the latter part of the subheading below...
"One of the worst-ever natural disasters in the western hemisphere leaves the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince in ruins. What it will take to rebuild."
-----
From the CNN website, I a few days ago came across the Elizabeth Cohen piece "Hard lessons, humility for big-city doctors in Haiti". Gut-wrenching stuff that fits squarely into the category of "makes you think about what things are important and what things aren't."
Hopefully this piece along with that from Time are also calls to action for those who can donate money to relief efforts.
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