journalism blog

It is the most famous speech in American history. Given by the most important president in our history, honoring the soldiers who died in the most decisive battle in the country’s history. Gettysburg is a special, even sacred place. I have great interest in history, particularly events that changed its course. My wife and I

It starts with a thought. After you think about it long enough, you put it on the page. It’s the first step. It can gush out of you, or it can be a painful trickle. I’ve written over a dozen pieces for this blog. Most of the sentences gushed out. But writing about the thing itself

Family, Money, Community, Security. These are four things we all care about. I’m sure you can name others. In the news business, we were always looking for stories that had viewer benefit. What could they get out of a story? How did it affect their lives? Why should they pay attention in this world of

You can never anticipate what you may find when you start to search your family history. My wife had asked me to clean out an old metal box full of her late parents’ papers. I knew there was a handwritten history that her aunt had researched years ago. It traced their Irish heritage back for

We, as journalists, are destroying words. Our most important tool is being dulled by over use and misuse. We’ve done it to ourselves because it’s easy, and everyone else is doing it. This just causes the infection to spread. There are many examples of words that we have destroyed, but I have four that top

He was the teacher you always remember. The one who had the greatest impact. When I learned Robert Muccigrosso, PhD. died last May after bypass surgery at 73, I had a sense of loss and remembrance. He was an English teacher at Nazareth High School in Brooklyn in the 1960s. My first encounter with him was

We are downsizing. We are preparing to move to a smaller house next year after 37 years in our current home. This means getting rid of stuff we no longer need, or want, because we won’t have the room in the new place. Two early, and obvious, victims of the purge are the dozens of books

How do you sum up someone’s life? What they accomplished. How they failed. How they succeeded. Who they loved. What impact did they have on others, which is the true measure of a life well lived. While it may seem odd to some, I’ve always been interested in obituaries, and not just famous people. I

“Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now I’m found Was blind, but now I see” -John Newton, “Amazing Grace” That’s packing a lot of information into four lines. I think we as journalists, whether television writers or reporters, print reporters, or bloggers can learn

It’s the size of a business card, and it sits in a glass case on our mantle. It holds the story of what may have been one of the most powerful and successful prayers of the 20th century, and the meaning it had for one special soldier. It was 70 years ago that the last