How text-to-speech technology can help journalists avoid copy errors
You've run spell-check and closely studied your story. Your editors have done the same and…
March 28, 2013
Chip on Your Shoulder
How journalists can become better interviewers
Every day around the globe, journalists pick up the phone or head out of the…
March 4, 2013
How brain science can make you a better writer
A TV ad for kayak.com features an unscrupulous doctor manipulating a patient's exposed brain, turning him into…
January 30, 2013
A multimedia journalist’s holiday wish list
Technology has filled the journalistic toolbox with an array of innovative gadgets that enable journalists…
December 19, 2012
Storytelling on Deadline: A Bookbag for Reporters and Editors
STORYTELLING THE NEWS: A Bookbag for Reporters and Editors Suggested by Chip Scanlan,…
January 9, 2012
Rhetorical inventory of Obama’s budget, deficit speech reveals talking points, strategy
The torrent of news stories, analyses, editorials, columns and blog posts about President Obama’s speech…
April 14, 2011
Putting Voters in the Analyst’s Seat
Political analysis of campaign debates has long been the business of the chatterati: news analysts,…
October 7, 2008
Diagramming Palin’s Sentences
Forget politics. Anyone who's interested in clarity should study this post on Slate.com by author…
October 3, 2008
Train Crash Leads LA Times to Create Django Database on Deadline
At 4:40 p.m., Friday, Sept. 12, a Metrolink commuter train collided with an oncoming freight…
September 18, 2008
Whose Journalism Is It?
Journalists work hard to report the news and tell the stories of our time. They…
May 30, 2008
The Best Writing Tip of All Time: Sit
Having trouble getting the writing done? I faced that familiar problem a few days ago.…
April 2, 2008
No time for The New Yorker?
CORRECTION APPENDEDUnread New Yorkers have been gathering dust lately — sprawled on the coffee table…
March 25, 2008
Can Chess Make Us Better Writers?
I've never played chess. It always seemed too hard to learn. But a story in…
March 24, 2008
The Smell of War
We know all about the fog of war, but what about its smells?In newsrooms I've…
March 18, 2008
M&Ms: New Life for Old Lessons
On January 17, 2006, I launched "The Mechanic and the Muse," a blog that would,…
March 18, 2008
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