Remembering William F. Buckley, Jr.

I was about as unaligned with his political views as one could possibly be but had the privilege of working with him on several occasions as well as sharing a wine-laden lunch that I will never forget.

And despite our differing views I found him to be extremely tolerant of what I thought. This is in stark contrast to today's climate where if you disagree with someone you're viewed to be a person with serious moral or intellectual deficiencies.

When I heard of his passing today I recalled the several times he wrote articles for Yachting where I was editor at the time. When he first called to pitch a story about a sailing trip to the Med I at first thought it was a prank. (I'm sure this must happen to many people like him.) I agreed to the article and several weeks later he brought his laptop to our office, added a few key sentences based on some back issues in our library and then printed out the article. (While he was very much ahead of his time in terms of word processing I was struck but how un productive it was to print the article out and have us re-key it.) Nevertheless, the article made it to print.

However, it didn't happen without a stern rebuke. During the final editing process one word was changed and Buckley called up all steamed that we had completely ruined the story. It didn't seem like that big a deal at the time but seeing that I was at a disadvantage arguing about words with William F. Buckley I apologized in a letter back to him. Several days later he faxed back the letter with a note saying that the whole argument was stupid and let's forget about it.

This all led to a lunch at his house in Stamford that was one of the most fascinating I've ever had. Fearful he would discover my left-wing tendencies I tried to steer the conversation to just sailing and only sailing. Still, after copious amounts of wine and with photos of Nixon, Kissinger and Reagan hanging over my head he did discover my views and while I am absolutely positive I had no influence on him I was duly impressed about how tolerant and gracious he was about my opinions.

After lunch and more wine I realized I needed to crawl home and sleep all this off. He, on the other hand, wandered off to his study to complete a speech he was writing for an appearance at Yale that evening.

Why a byline strike?

Reporters at the Honolulu Advertiser recently conducted a byline strike to protest their lack of a contract. (Full report here.)

I've never understood the logic of doing this. It's commonly done and for the life of me can't figure out why this will convince management to pay reporters more. That's because I have a strong suspicion that readers don't care who the writer is. In some cases they might recognize the name of the reporter. In virtually none, I am willing to bet, does the byline add any value.

Instead, how about withholding something management or the readers find of value? How about the crossword puzzle, the comics or the school lunch schedule. Leave those out and I promise you will get the reader's attention.

Why journalists are in serious trouble

Mark Potts posted this a while back but I have to admit that I am one of those who thought the same thing he did when I saw this exchange between Sam Zell and a journalist at the Orlando Sentinel. (Read full post here.)

There's nothing I can really add to Mark's post other than agree with it and hope to bring it more attention.

If you watch the video of Zell muttering "fuck you" after responding to an Orlando Sentinel photog's insistent questions about journalistic quality and think, "Right on, Sam," you're a Recovering Journalist.

If you don't, you're still stuck in denial, a state of mind that has no idea that journalism is a business, doesn't get that it matters (far) more what readers think about stories than what journalists think of them, pines for the extremely bygone days when newspapers dominated the news universe—and is walking straight off a cliff clinging firmly to all of those romantic, noble but no longer realistic notions. Buh-bye. Nice working with you. You're toast.

Too many sites to check

While I've long believed that sites such as Facebook will prove successful in some sort of fashion, I've also long felt that there are too many such sites and eventually they will have to figure out a way for all of them to work with each other or there will be consolidation.

The news that Facebook now accepts news feeds from other sites is a step in that direction. (Full report here.) However, note that Facebook isn't allowing other sites to capture its updates.

Still on my wish list -- a way for Facebook and other sites to give me multiple personas. In my real life I act differently in different settings and share different info. At work I don't share pictures of my vacation but I do have photos of my children on my desk. Facebook, and other sites, are one big pile of everything and includes information from one persona I may not want to share with others. In a perfect world I would have three personas: work, family and friends. With each bit of info I add I would be able to designate if it's for one of those three personas or all three.