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So How Was That First Post 12 Years Ago?

  July 10, 2008 marks the day I published the first post on Ishmael’s Corner (below). Dusting off the post, I assumed my first attempt would come across as pompous or worse. Actually, it’s OK. Not great. Not a Pulitzer Price winner. But it does a decent job in explaining the blog’s aspirations. Keep in …more

A Stately Trump?, Journalist Office Hours, and a TikTok Mug

The Grab Bag post returns for a second 2019 installment. Again, the story lines in these posts can’t quite shape stand-alone posts. Yet, I hate to see a shard of a story go to waste. .   TIME Cover Photo Depicts a Stately President Trump Take a gander at the cover of TIME Magazine August …more

U.S. Journalists Poke “the Bear” with a Digital Stick.

The Columbia Journalism Review published an open letter to President Trump earlier this week before the official inauguration which of course takes place later today.We already know what Trump thinks of journalists. Let’s put it this way. His campaign rhetoric never included the slogan, “Make journalism great again.” And we now know what journalists think …more

Pitch Shaped by Storytelling Techniques Opens Door at Major Business Publication

I’ve been waiting months to share this exchange with a journalist at a major business publication. I love this example because it shows a journalist’s reaction to the same core content: one based on the typical bulldoze pitch, and the second reflecting storytelling techniques. Here’s the first volley. Me Journalist This was probably my worse …more

Storytelling in the Age of Creative Destruction Conference: Krishna Bharat From Google News

The Innovation Journalism (InJo) Conference at Stanford kicked off yesterday. Gathering 100+ journalists, academics and the like to scrutinize the telling of the innovation story makes for a lively dialog. The opening session featured David Nordfors, founder of InJo, interviewing Krishna Bharat, the creator of Google News. Dubbed a “fireside chat,” I’m pleased to report both …more

Blast Magazine’s Media Kit Tells A Story

One of the last places you’d expect to see the art of storytelling is where a publication sells its advertising. Even one of the bastions of high-brow reading, The Atlantic, – home to Malcolm Gladwell and other marquee-name storytellers – offers a fairly mundane sales pitch: The Atlantic is America’s leading destination for brave thinking and bold ideas …more

To SEO Or Not To SEO (The Headline), That Is The Question

OK, it’s not exactly Shakespeare. But it does raise a question for communication professionals. Namely, should cleverness or search engine optimization be the guiding principle in writing a news release headline? I pondered this question after reading the interview conducted by Brian Pittman from the Bulldog Reporter with Meredith Artley, executive editor of LATimes.com. Specifically, Artley shared: “We have a graining …more

That All Important First Graph

Take a look at the following opening paragraph in a recent Economist article: “The porters at Trinity College, Cambridge, were puzzled by the faded, handwritten letter. They did not recognise the addressee’s name, and opened the envelope. Inside was a note which appeared to suggest a meeting; perhaps even a date. But that meeting probably …more