So I just spent an amazing week in Houston, training on all kinds of double-super-secret cop stuff that will help protect kids.

(yay! my favorite subcategory of humans…blah….)

Had a ball.  Met some good officers, saw some old friends, and found some top-shelf barbeque (a requirement of off-site training, as far as I’m concerned).

But there was just a bit of a problem at the end.

United Airlines.

Understand, my history with United is not brilliant. About 15 years ago, I flew Lubbock to Denver and was invited not to fly with United because of a…uh…disagreement with a woman at the ticket desk. Somehow, I managed to avoid not one, but two, sets of handcuffs and cowboyed back to Denver on Continental.

That particular lesson cost me something like $600.

I wouldn’t have chosen United but the flights were set up by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office and so I was stuck.  Not a biggie, the previous problem was more than a decade a go and hey, we’ve all grown up.  I’ve learned a bit of tact and United has learned to communicate better with its customers (remember that….)

So I got to Houston just fine.  Coming home however, things got a bit dicier.  When I arrived at Houston International I learned the Chicago flight was delayed a bit so I checked my connection to the Quad Cities.

No problem, the gate guy said.  The flight to the QC is also late. Originally scheduled to leave at 8:49 p.m., it was now scheduled to leave at 10:19 p.m.

Okay…well…whatever.

In Chicago, the boards all still say 10:19 p.m.  The two women at the gate say the flight is 10:19.  The website says 10:19.

It’s a mechanical difficulty, the women say, but there’s another plane coming.

Suddenly, at 9:30, they announce the plane’s on its way and we’ll hit the skies at 10 p.m.

Whoop whoop, right?

Hah, naive reader.  This is United, remember, capable of fucking up not only a free lunch (which they don’t serve anymore, by the way) but damn near a free drink of water (which they barely serve).

So the plane arrives and we all get ready to board….

And 10 comes…and goes.

The two gate women announce the flight will leave now at 10:20. Except it’s after 10 and ain’t nobody being allowed to board.

At 10:15, they announce a new departure time of 10:30.  But still the doors are closed and still they ain’t letting anyone on this plane.

Now, remember, some of these people have been waiting on the original flight, scheduled departure at 8:49.  So by this time, some of the natives are starting to get a bit restless.

About 10:25, the two gate women leave.

And never come back.

Seriously, we never saw them again.

At 10:30, the gate marquis magically changed to 10:45.  No one came and told us, we just happened to see it on the board.

Still…we’re not boarding.

And at 10:45?  Hard to believe I know, but the board magically changed to an 11 p.m. departure.

Remember, the plane is at the gate, the luggage is aboard.

By this time, passengers are getting pissed.  There are three flight crew members in the gate area and customers keep asking what’s going on. Each said they didn’t know, or they refused to say anything. Nor did they bother to call someone from United who might have told those pesky paying customers what the hell was going on.

By 11:00, mutiny began to percolate around the gate lounge. A guy with dirty blond hair, surfer skin, and a harsh attitude stirred the troops by randomly pointing to passing crew members and saying, “Get them, they can fly the plane,” or “Grab that one, they can be the flight attendant.”

There was a flight attendant in full uniform waiting with the passengers. She was obviously done on her hours and was flying to the Quad Cities, but the problem – like the rest of United last night – was that she refused to say anything.  She also refused to go find someone on duty who could talk to us and let us know what the hell was going on.

So between the two still missing gate women, the three pilots standing around, and the waiting flight attendant, the passengers were ignored by six United employees.

What’s the Ratt song? ‘Lack of Communication?’

This was the exact same bullshit that got me booted from United way back in Lubbock 15 years ago.  Exactly nothing had changed for this corporation.  And so I responded nearly the exact same way.

Nearly.

There was a woman hovering around the gate, orange reflective vest and work pants, who I finally talked to.  Got in her face a little, but it wasn’t anything like that fabled day so long ago.  Why crank off on her?  She didn’t work for United, she was runway help, guiding planes in and out and directing the food, sewer, and fuel services.  She had no horse in this particular race.

So I apologized even as I got in her face and tried to ease up.  But I’m guessing I scared her because she immediately disappeared.

The difference between her and the United employees, though, was that she came back.

With a United supervisor in tow!

Things happened fast after that.  The guy took a second to have a small stroke as he realized there was no one around and a plane sitting at the gate.  He snatched up a radio and filled the airwaves and within five minutes we were boarding.

Yay!  Champagne all around, yes?

Uh…no.

I have no idea if he moved mountains or his timing was perfect enough to make it appear he moved mountains.  Either way, he should have moved a few more.

We boarded about 11:15 and everything looked great.  Except the pilot told us the plane (which had been scheduled originally for a longer flight) had too much fuel.  Couldn’t get off the ground with this much fuel and the passengers so it was going to be ten or twenty minutes while the tanks were emptied out a bit.

I sat in my seat, belted up, and ground my teeth.  We were on the plane so I was closer to home than I’d been in a week, but still….

Then the fuel truck pulled away.

Yah!  Cheap wine all around, yes?

Nyet.

Then the captain said the generator in the back of this small plane, the one that started the engine, was hosed.  What he said was, “…on the fritz.”

I ground my teeth and dug my nails into the arm rests.  It was 11:40, about three hours after this thing was supposed to be wheels up, and we were hostages to the corporate incompetence of fucking United Airlines.

Eventually, a generator truck twaddles up and started our engines. We were overjoyed!  There was nothing to keep us from getting home.

Salvation was at hand, brothers and sisters, and all we had to do –

What’s that you say?

No crew?  I don’t understand.  The crew is on the plane.

Hah, you naive reader.  Takes more than one crew to get off…the ground.  We also need the ground crew to physically push us away from the gate.

And apparently, during the wait for the generator truck, and the fuel truck before that, and whatever else before that, the ground crew…um…left.

Yes.  With a plane at their gate, one they knew needed a push, they left.

Thus stranding us at the gate.  The captain said, “…we’re stuck here until they come get us.”

When we eventually left the ground, at almost exactly midnight, the pilot put the freakin’ hammer down.  What was scheduled as a 59 minute flight took us exactly 36 minutes.  Son of a bitch found himself a tailwind and blasted the hell off.

Ultimately, I got home about 2 a.m.  Had United not had its collective corporate head up its arse, I would have been home by 11:30.

The point here is not the delays.  I understand delays.  Weather happens and sure as hell happened yesterday.  Mechanical problems happen and I want the airline take the time to solve that particular problem so I don’t…you know…die in a fiery crash.

But you gotta talk to your customers.  You gotta communicate.  I think most paying customers would be able to deal if they were simply told, straight up, what’s what.  Hell, in this case, even the website knew what was going on before the customers did.

What we had was no communication, two employees who fled for burger breaks or something, and a constantly changing departure time that was never attainable.

(another hint, United, don’t constantly change the time by 15 minutes when that’s never going to happen.  Figure out how long it’s really going to take and tell us.  That way we can go eat or piss or make a call, rather than having to stick around because hey, in 15 minutes the flight’s going to leave)

Getting treated like this, it’s absolutely no wonder people are protesting corporations.  (And if corporations really are people, per the Supreme Court decision in Citizens’ United, then I’d punch this motherfucking person right in the balls…hard…and repeatedly.)

I don’t think any of last night’s passengers were protest-types, but they sure as hell won’t have anything good to say about United.

Which is worse, Corporate America, the protesters who not a lot of people pay attention to?  Or the middle Americans who fly a few times a year and have lots of friends and co-workers who also fly a couple times a year?

On the upside, bravo to the flight attendant who worked her ass off to lighten everyone’s load. Jokes and comments and great Motown on the air before we left.

Lastly, no, I’m not equating getting a late flight with Mrs. Lincoln seeing her husband blown away at a play.  That’s just hyperbole.

Which is something I never use.

 

And now, from the home office down the road at my IT guy’s house, a completely random countdown of eight search terms used to find my website and blog (in no particular order):

– Guns and boobs.

I’m totally good with this one.  I enjoy the odd gun and the occasional boob so we’re good here.

–  Dreams of getting shot five times.

I’ve had dreams of getting shot – though I don’t remember a specific number – and it’s entirely possible I’ve written about those dreams.  I don’t remember this particularly but okay.

–  Trey Baker Big Tex Trailers

Uhhhh….  What?  I think that was a misdirect.

– trey president george bush

Hehehehe…haaahaaa…bwaaaaaaahhaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaa….  Oh, stop…my side hurts.  That’s hysterical.  Not sure I’ve ever written about my interaction, in 1984, with the future president George W. Bush, but I’ve told a shitload of people.  Perhaps that story is worth an entry.  Involved both Bushes, the Secret Service, Thomas Eagleton, a high school marching band, parking ticket, being thrown out of an event, etc.  In other words, a standard story of mine.

– Execute sex offenders

Wow.  Harsh.  I’d like them to go to prison, certainly, but I’m not sure I’ve ever said they should be executed. Seriously, I’m not sure where I stand on the death penalty.  Sometimes for it, sometimes against it.  Sort of like taco pizza…sometimes for it…sometimes against it.

–  Larry the Crime Donkey

Funny.  I wrote about this, and posted a picture, nearly two years ago.  It was something I discovered during my book tour on the way back from Texas.  I want to say at a Jack in the Box in Missouri somewhere.  A giant poster hanging on the wall of Larry the Crime Donkey.  It was pretty funny.  Would have only been funnier if it had been a signed poster….

–  Cowboy cocksucker

This came from Bouchercon 2011, in St. Louis.  Lori Armstrong, Sean Doolittle, Karen Olson and I had our Not-Usually-Annual-But-Sometimes-Annual drink.  Each time, someone else chooses what the drink will be.  It started years ago in Madison when that particular group and I had a shot of Jack Daniel’s as a non-memorial shot.  It was non-memorial because at the time I was fighting cancer, but wasn’t yet quite dead and so one of my dear, dear friends (luckily can’t remember which), said, “Hey, your friends are mostly glad you’re not dead.”  So we had a celebratory, non-memorial shot.  The Cowboy Cocksucker was Lori’s pick this year.  Actually wasn’t half bad….

And the most interesting, most off the wall random search term?

–  “pvc pipe” “bicycle inner tube” penis

I have not a single freakin’ clue what any of that means…or how it gets anyone to my website.

But I’ll certainly take the traffic.

(a month? really?  wow, I gotta do this blog thing a little more often)

So the education is over.

For now.

In March, 2008, I began working on my Master’s.  As of a few days ago, I finished it.  Three and a half years, twelve classes, one thesis, and something like 1800 written pages later, I’m all smart.

I feel smart, too.  Witty and wise.

And I’m sure the world is now at my feet.  I’m sure I’ll get a gigantic raise and promotion, that young officers will flock to me to take advantage of my experience and knowledge.

hehehehe…haaaahhhaaa…bwaaaahhhaaaaaaaa….

Oh, stop, you’re making my side hurt.

I will get nothing practical out of this education and believe it or not, that’s perfectly okay.  I love education for the sake of education.  If I could, I’d be enrolled in one class or another every day for the rest of my life.  And if I learned anything useful, great.  If not, that’s fine, too.

Here’s the thing: while I make fun of having gotten a degree in a place that will never, ever reward me for that extra education, I do believe education is the silver bullet.  I believe, without reservation, that education can solve most, if not all, of this country’s problems.

I don’t care if the education comes from an Ivy League university, a state college, a for profit place like Kaplan, or a technical school.  Any place that puts knowledge in someone’s hands can only be a good thing.  Any institution that teaches people how to think critically can only be a good thing.

A friend of mine recently finished snatching up an associate’s degree.  She managed to do it while in a house with a husband, three youngish kids, three dogs, and a pile of other animals.  She grew up in a tough household and wanted to move beyond her formative experiences.  She took the hard road and managed to complete her education in spite of all kinds of people – including people close to her – telling her it was a waste of time or money or both.  Now she’ll get a job in her chosen field and eventually will move far beyond those formative experiences.

Education is the silver bullet.

And I can’t figure out why there are people who disagree.  I can’t figure out why there are people who think education is simply a waste of time…or money…or both.

Had a supervisor once.  I asked him if I could go to a training class, one that was specific to my job and that would yield results within days.  He looked me dead in the face and said, “I’m tired of people taking time off for training.”

I remember standing there, stunned speechless, and staring at him.  He dared me to say something and then didn’t give me the days off.

At the other end of the spectrum is some training I’ve got coming up in Houston.  The sheriff found something he thought I’d enjoy and would be good at, and he’s basically ordering me to go.  It’s going to be amazing and interesting and I can’t wait to jump head first into it, though it makes me nervous because it’s a whole new set of skills; something I’ve never ever done before.

Something I’ve never done before is good.  Paths not only not taken, but unknown to me until recently, are the most interesting paths.  Find me the darkest forest…one with no trail, no light, no map at all.  Then get the fuck outta the way because that’s where I’m going.  I’ll find the trail and I’ll figure out the light. I’ll bring a flashlight or a box of matches.  Or I’ll make some matches, or set a woodland creature on fire or something.

But that place where I’ve never been is where I’m going.

And hey, right now, that place I’ve never been is hiding down in Houston, where I have been.  But Houston in February has got to be better – and much warmer – than Illinois in February, right?

Plus, it’s Texas!  Barbeque…Tex-Mex…pick-up trucks with gun racks in the windows….  Ah, my homeland.

I’m a fairly well-educated guy.  Not particularly smart, but I got a whole lotta receipts for a whole lotta dough spent on getting a whole lotta educated.

So when it comes to inanimate objects, I generally assume I’ve got ’em licked.

Uh…no.

Let me back up a little.

I’ve got a yen for abandoned things.  Barns, houses, corn cribs, cars, whatever as long as it’s been left to the vicissitudes of time and memory.  To me, for whatever reason, abandoned places represent lost hearts and spirits; maybe searches for the solid in life that can never truly be found.  I find myself melancholy and wandering through my own imagination about what once might have been.

When I find those places, if they show me their hidden selves, I spend hours with my camera trying capture what I think I see.

A few weeks ago I found a farmhouse.  What I noticed first were the windows, broken and jagged things.  They seemed, in that particular sunlight, like tears on a granite face…as hyperbolic as that sounds.

After getting permission from the owner, I scoped the place out, tramping through the rooms and across the piles and piles of broken and dead furniture, past the giant tractor tires stored in an interior room, on top of the long orange pipes stacked neatly in an upstairs bedroom, past the rusted child’s toy left in the other upstairs bedroom.

The two downstairs rooms were a jumble of old textbooks (the owner had been a teacher) that had long since decomposed into a sort of gray confetti that hid the condition of the floor.  So when I stepped hard into a pile of confetti, I didn’t see that the floor was soft.

Sank a couple of inches.  Broke just a bit of floorboard.  I chuckled and thought about how lucky I was to have not gone through the floor into the unexplored, but completely pitch fucking dark, basement.

So on my next day off, I bundled up some water and extra batteries, memory cards, tripods, filters and lenses, all manner of bullshit and off I went, snapping photos off like .22 shells from a varmint gun.  Then the inside.  Up the stairs and into the bedrooms and out the upstairs windows.  I banged out about a million and a half shots and was feeling really good.

And then, back downstairs, I found that soft floor.

Not the same spot, mind you, ’cause I’m smarter than that.  Remember all that education?  All those classes and tests and papers and projects and bullshit made me more than smart enough not to put my foot in the same damned place, right?

So I stepped a foot, maybe even two feet, beyond the soft spot.

Gotta tell ya, that soft spot was a damned sight bigger than I’d thought.  Son of a bitch ran probably another foot beyond where I stepped!

And yeah, I went crashing through.

Left foot went through and my left leg followed.  Right leg folded up like a card table and when I realized the toes of my right foot were just behind my right ear, I knew I was having a problem.  Both arms came out flat and slammed against the part of the floor that didn’t collapse, thus insuring almost perfectly equal bruises on the insides of my biceps.

But mostly?  My upper back jammed hard between two joists.  Hard between them.

HARD!

My howl split that still afternoon air and pain rocketed up into my brain like somebody had heated up some piano wire and jabbed it straight into my eyeball.

And then I realized, as I sat there, that no one in the world – the world – had any friggin’ clue where I was.

Hehehe…see, when I go photograph, I just go.  No place to be, no time to be there.  Just me and where ever the winds take me.

Which also means that when I die in an abandoned farmhouse, nobody’s going to know until some kids looking to scronk find my desiccated bones.

So that sucks.

I take a long breath.  Then a shitpile more, thank the Cosmos I’m not dead, and start to climb out.

When my phone goes insane.

Because less than two miles from where I’m standing over a big-ass hole in the floor, some mope is robbing a bank in one of my towns.

Literally at that second.

Everyone’s reaching out and touching me with the news.  I figure I’m right there so maybe I can help.  I jumped…okay, limp slowly…into my truck and race to town.  I give the detectives a few minutes of help tracking down witnesses and video, and that was about all I could do.

‘Cause I hurt.

Like a mofo!

Ultimately, I ended up with the biggest bruises of my life.  Huge one on my back, both biceps, my left ankle and foot, a few other smaller abrasions.  And pain that lasted for three weeks in my left ankle and knee.

Plus, I got yelled at, if you can dig it.

A lot.  By everybody.  It generally went like this: “Are you stupid?  You go wandering around and almost kill yourself and no one knows where the hell you are?  What if you get hurt?”

But then one dear, dear friend said, “If you die, can I have your police gear?”

It was a lesson learned.  I always want to appease my friends so in that day, I learned to let them know when I’m going to be somewhere.

Hah.  Hehehehehehe!  Haaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!  Bwaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, stop, my side hurts!  Telling people where I’m going is not usually how I play.

Couple weeks later, photographing in an abandoned corn crib, about twenty or twenty-five feet off the ground, with my fetish model thirty feet away and handcuffed to the –

Hang on, wrong fantasy.

Standing on a joist that what?  You got it, ladies and gentlemen, cracks beneath my very feet.

Got to another one safely but it scared the crap outta me.

And I’m up there, praying none of them break and I don’t go tumbling to the ground, and I’m thinking: son of a bitch, once again nobody knows where I am.

Why?  ‘Cause apparently all that fancy, expensive education didn’t take.

Though I hopped out of journalism just about eight years ago, it is something I still love dearly and follow closely.  But it also makes me tear my hair out.

The problem, from my lofty perch as commentator rather than working newsman, is two-fold.  The first is corporate ownership, which is transforming the press into The Media.  Newspapers and TV stations, radio, even internet platforms, are more and more group and corporate owned.  Corporations are, damn near by definition, terrified of offending anyone.

When I worked at the Bureau County Republican, I had story after story, including one I wanted to write about the paper itself, shot down because it might offend someone.  I never got pushed down by the publisher, it never went that far.  I got pushed down by the editor because of what he thought the corporate office would or would not support.  He never once tested those assumed boundaries and so our stories never addressed local problems nor offered local solutions.

The second problem is the individual journalist.  The men and women of journalism are under great corporate pressure, and the fear of offending someone rolls downhill just as fast as a heaping pile of crap.  Reporters can’t risk offending a source for fear that the source will cut off access.  If the reporter exposes a problem at a local government agency, for example, they will find themselves no longer welcomed at that agency.  Or worse, still able to visit the agency but with informational limits that are worse than being cut off.

That fear is strangling journalism and ability of reporters to make our society better just as surely as heart disease is strangling, and will one day kill, me.

Having said that, there are those who want to make journalism better.  Jay Rosen’s blog PressThink.org works extremely hard to raise the bar.  To that end, he recently posted the new reporter guidelines from the Voice of San Diego, which is a public-service, non-profit news gathering organization focusesing on investigative journalism.  These guidelines are exactly how journalists should think and work.  If all of them did our world would be a much better place.

Voice of San Diego: New Reporter Guidelines.

We only do something if we can do it better than anyone or if no one else is doing it.

* We must add value. We must be unique.

Three things to remember for each story:

* Context
* Authority
* Not just what is happening, but what it means

There is no such thing as objectivity.

* There is such thing as fairness.
* But everyone sees everything through their own filter. Acknowledge that, let it liberate you. Let it regulate you.
* We are not guided by political identification, by ideology or dogma. But every decision we make, from what to cover to how to cover it, is made through our own subjective judgments.
* We are guided by an ability to be transparent and independent, to clearly assess what’s going on in our community and have the courage to plainly state the truth.

Our bent: Reform. Things can always be better.

* We don’t have a dogmatic or ideological bent. But we do believe San Diego can and will do better.
* We can have better infrastructure, a healthier environment, a better education system, a responsive, efficient and transparent government, a better understanding of our neighborhoods’ challenges, a thriving economy and an ever-improving quality of life. If anything, this is our bias.

Be the expert.

* Write with authority. You earn the right to write with authority by reporting and working hard.
* No “he said, she said.”
* The day we write a headline that says: “Proposal has pros, cons” is the day we start dying.
* There is no such thing as 50/50 balance. There is a truth and we work our damndest to get there.
* Sometimes two viewpoints don’t deserve 50/50 treatment.
* Most of the time there aren’t two sides to something, anyways. There are 17. Who’s not being represented? If they’re not speaking up, how can you represent them?
* We don’t just “put things out there.” We’re not “only asking the question.”
* We don’t ask questions with our stories. We answer them.
* We don’t write question headlines, unless they’re so damn good that we can’t resist:
* We don’t do this: “Did City Official Take Bribe?”
* Or, to cite a recent example: “Did Wikileaks Hack Servers?”
* We’d maybe do this: “How Did a City Official Ended Up With Millions in Donations?”
* We’re not someone’s goddamn transcription service.
* They can relay their own news. In a world where leaders are able to communicate directly with their constituents very easily, we have to a.) make sense of what they say and b) find out the things they don’t want to say. It’s the only way to effectively use our limited resources.

Tell the truth.

* This means not being mealy mouthed and not being bias-bullied.
* Stand up to bias bullies. Tell them why you did something. Let them challenge you on it.
* If someone calls you biased, don’t be scared. Don’t dismiss it either. Reflect on it and answer with conviction.
* Don’t go quote-hunting for something you know to be true and can say yourself. Don’t hide your opinion in the last quote of a story.
* Take a stand when you know something to be true or wrong.

Care about your beat more than anyone else.

* It is your way to make San Diego a better place to live.

Focus on big problems

* David Simon, the creator of The Wire, has a quote that can be paraphrased this way: Journalism is good at solving small problems or taking small bites of a big problem. It’s not good at solving big problems.
* It’s easy as a journalist to take a stand against a six-figure salary. It’s easy to take a stand against an expensive meal on an expense report.
* Why do we take stands on those things and why are we afraid to take stands on bigger issues?

If you can’t find a good answer any of these three questions, drop the story:

* Why did I choose this story?
* Why will people care? (Not why should they care, but why will they care.)
* Why will people remember this story?

Avoid ‘churnalism’

* It’s not your job to have everything on your beat. It’s your job to have the best things.
* Don’t worry about getting scooped. Worry about not consistently making an impact.
* Love the title of this Columbia Journalism Review story: “The Hamster Wheel: Why running as fast as we can is getting us nowhere.”
* A quote: “The Hamster Wheel isn’t speed; it’s motion for motion’s sake. The Hamster Wheel is volume without thought. It is news panic, a lack of discipline, an inability to say no.”
* Another: “You say, ‘Why not have it?’ I say, ‘Because it isn’t free.’ The most underused words in the news business today: let’s pass on that.”
* We are a small group with limited resource. Everything we do must [pay off for the users.]
* We can learn a lot from sports journalism. (That’s for a different day.) But here’s one great quote to always keep in mind from sportsjournalism.org: “Nobody cares who’s first with the commodity news, but being first with what the news means still has value – in fact, it has more value than it ever has, given today’s torrent of information. Readers will gravitate to such stories, share them and remember them.”

Avoid the news voice whenever possible.

* Sometimes it’s necessary.
* But you should never write a story [the way] you think journalists are supposed to write it. Write like you would if you were trying to get your friends interested in an email. Lighten up. Be creative. Have fun. Be conversational.

Bring us in the implications, not the event.

* So it’s not “Booze Ban Voted Through Council Committee.”
* It’s “Booze Ban Has One Final Hurdle Left.”

Don’t be boring. People don’t spend their free time on boring things.

* That’s it.

Don’t tell me stories about “critics” or “some”

* I don’t have a clue who “critics” or “some” are. But they managed to be the most quoted people on the planet.
* I need to know who they are for that viewpoint to carry any validity.
* And I need to know what, if any, financial stake they have in the issue. Honestly. (Just a sample of headlines in the news in a five-minute search this fall: “Some say Escondido police union’s flier crosses the line…” “Some say new constitution would solve state’s woes…” “Critics say Washing Oily Birds Is Wasteful…” “Observers Say Time Right for Santander IPO…”
* I’ve read stories that use blanket “critics” in different spots to describe people on the opposite ends of the arguments. It was so confusing.

Have fun! Be creative! Push the envelope!

* You don’t do this for the money. So let’s have some fun.
* Try something that’s never been tried before. Or try something that someone else did somewhere else. Don’t do a story just to do it. Or because it’s an interesting exercise.
* Think about what will impact people or policy makers. What will they want to read or what will force them to make a change?
* Be a student of today’s great journalistic innovations.
* Be a leader of today’s great journalistic innovations.