William M. Hartnett

I look up the physical addresses of a lot of newspapers while putting together Paper View Monday updates. Actually, make that try to look up a lot of newspaper building addresses, because the process is immensely annoying and frequently futile. Often, I simply give up and make cat videos instead. As I put it the [...]

Are The Bobs available for newsroom consulting?

addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wmhartnett.com%2F2008%2F08%2F19%2Fbest-video-featuring-the-scene-in-office-space-where-one-of-the-bobs-says-what-would-you-say-you-do-here-ive-ever-posted%2F’;
addthis_title = ‘Best+video+featuring+the+scene+in+Office+Space+where+one+of+The+Bobs+says+%26%238220%3BWhat+would+you+say+you+do+here%3F%26%238221%3B+I%26%238217%3Bve+ever+posted’;
addthis_pub = ”;

Tropical Storm Edouard popped up off the coast of Louisiana yesterday, and the current forecast has it pointed directly at Galveston, with a landfall tomorrow morning at just under hurricane strength. (Totally coincidental that The Galveston County Daily News was featured in this week’s edition of Paper View Monday, by the way. My nose for [...]

More bad newspaper writing that makes my eyeballs hurt: The “Got _____?” lede. The original “got milk?” ad campaign is bad enough, but to see its udder-tainted influence afflicting the brains of newspaper reporters is worthy of an Official Hartnett Brand Writing Whinge™. Stupid, lazy, meaningless. Not much more to say about it.
Previous installments in [...]

Here’s the NBC Nightly News segment shot last week at The Palm Beach Post and broadcast Tuesday night. Included here at Matt’s suggestion. Probably not coincidentally, he’s in the background between 1:31 and 1:34 while The Post’s VP of digital is talking.

addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wmhartnett.com%2F2008%2F07%2F09%2Fanother-sign-of-the-times-dying-medium-does-story-on-dying-medium%2F’;
addthis_title = ‘Another+sign+of+the+times%3A+Dying+medium+does+story+on+dying+medium’;
[...]

Nothing much, really. I finished up some data entry this morning and had shrimp fried rice for lunch. Also, more than two out of four people in my newsroom are getting bought out or fired by the end of the summer. So, that’s fun. No getting around this fact: It’s going to be pretty hard [...]

Via the Associated Press Managing Editors by way of my own managing editor, the Iowa Newspaper Association is organizing assistance for newspaper employees affected by that state’s recent tornadoes and floods. Mash your mouse right here to see how you can help out a colleague. They’d do it for you. As Steve Buttry, editor of [...]

Following up on Charles Apple’s list of newspaper job openings (link via Danny Sanchez), here are a few at the Houston Chronicle. The following message from Chornicle recruiter Diane Cowen comes courtesy of Chronicle reporter Terri Langford on NICAR-L:
Newspaper layoff and buyout stories continue to trickle out, but we at the Houston Chronicle are still [...]

Not to make too much of The Wall Street Journal story calling The Washington Post’s LoudounExtra a “flop,” — the recent mini-backlash against Curleyism that no doubt prompted the story is in many ways more interesting than the story itself, after all — but it does provide a convenient excuse for me to ramble on [...]

Just getting this on the record: I still personally hate anyone who has ever used a “Call it a/the case of …” lede (including, unless I’m very much mistaken, myself many years ago in a weak and foolish moment). Also, “person of interest” is a stupidly meaningless and especially annoying example of cop talk that [...]