I make puns. A lot of puns. This post is my justification. My grandfather Saul was a self-educated Russian immigrant who worked as a linotype operator for the now-defunct Philadelphia Bulletin. While that was a blue-collar job, it required an excellent knowledge of English. He was a fun guy to be around. He made a…
I got a PR pitch last week that I liked. The site they pitched me on is as clear and punchy as the pitch they sent. It’s proof of my maxim that short, clear writing stands out. The site is called Finimize. Here’s the pitch they sent me: Hi – I noticed your blog post on…
The New York Times asserts that candidates are not paying the price for lying. I think that’s wrong. We just haven’t seen it yet. The problem is pretty widespread. According to the Times‘ article “Candidates Stick to the Script, if Not the Truth, in the 2016 Race“: Donald Trump denies saying that Marco Rubio is…
One company has proven itself up to the task of indiscriminately bombarding me with irrelevant and really awful press releases — Meltwater Press. Today, I ridicule them and their credulous clients. I’ve been conducting a science experiment. When I started this blog, I also created a new email address. I never use it to sign up for…
While Web research is great, interviews generate insights and spark in your writing that you can’t get any other way. But your interview won’t be successful with a haphazard approach. Follow these four steps to maximize your chance of success: Find ’em, contact ’em, persuade ’em, and interview ’em. Find ’em: Figure out who to talk to Ask…
Donald Trump’s interview about technology on breitbart.com is uncharacteristically equivocal; he sounds like any other politician. Apparently, his batshit candor is limited to tweets, debates, and speeches. Memo to Trump-haters and opponents: technology is his weak spot. Breitbart Tech’s Milo Yiannopoulos interviewed Trump about tech issues from the NSA to artificial intelligence. Full of equivocation and hedges, Trump’s…
An International Air Transport Association study was unable to find a connection between passenger “happiness” and airline profitability. But that’s boring. So the travel news site Skift reported it as if happy passengers don’t matter. The lack of a finding, like a vacuum, sucked up the truth. Skift’s article, by Marisa Garcia, was titled “IATA Study Finds You…
If you are an author, you need to promote yourself on social media. There ought to be a manual on how to do that, and now there is. It’s Chris Syme’s book “SMART Social Media for Authors,” and at $3.99 for the Kindle edition, you really ought to get a copy. This is the book…
The Republican National Committee suspended its relationship with NBC News, alleging bias and disrespect in the recent debate on CNBC. My analysis shows that only 54% of the questions were about legitimate policy issues. So the RNC has a point. Debates featuring a scrum of ten people are a poor way to judge candidates; they mostly show the candidates’…