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Excuse me, are you a reporter or just someone with an iPhone?

If you write using the media of the day — the Internet, etc. — you have no shortage of possible topics. I am talking about the two three explosions in Boston including two near the Boston Marathon finish line. Two are dead and 28 are hurt, so far. You know the drill. The first reports are always wrong.

Yes, it is horrible. Yes, yes, our thoughts are with the people there and their families. All of those are on the check list. I’m sorry. That probably sounds exceedingly cynical. That is the way it goes these days.

The media, both during such incidents and in retrospect, talk about the use of the instant means to transmit the news. Unfortunately, what we see so often isn’t necessarily news being shot out into the Internetsophere. (Yes, that is real word that I just made up!)

Checking Twitter, some possible eyewitnesses are commenting on what’s happening. On Facebook, my big city TV reporter friend is reaching out to his friends to find connections in Boston or those who are in Boston.

All that is great, seriously. I would have given my left hand — I’m right-handed — had the technology now available been handy when I worked in a newsroom. Oh, you had the people who sent nasty-grams, just not much of real help in reporting a story back then.

“There was a third explosion,” Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis just said. “There was an explosion that occurred at the JFK Library.”

Wow, that plus all the unexploded bombs supposedly found.

I am watching a news conference on CNN. They still do these “things” good.

My point is that all the technology wave has brought is great. I would just say: “Be careful.” Don’t buy into the simplicity that every person with an iPhone is a reporter. That isn’t the case. One only has to watch or read work by some of the actual working reporters already out there. Some of those people aren’t even reporters.

It’s just something I thought should be mentioned.

We now return to our breaking news coverage.

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Will Zucker save CNN from itself?

A headline from The Washington Post “Style” section online today asks the question: “Jeff Zucker is remaking CNN. Are viewers tuning in?” The outcome of that query appears to be somewhere between “no” and “someday perhaps.”

The Harvard-schooled Zucker — who was named at age 26 the youngest executive in the “Today” show history — still seems a TV industry wunderkind despite his rapid ascent taking some 25 years. He nonetheless is credited to many of the successes over the years at NBC and NBC Universal. That industry in now holding its breath to see if Zucker can deliver a bit of fresh O² to the first 24-hour news channel as he did to Oxygen and other NBC International products. Zucker seems to have a huge task ahead.

Ratings have fallen for a number of CNN time slots over the years. Some of these can be attributed to remarkable timing, such as that of Fox News rise during a Republican boom during the two terms of W. Bush. Fox also can thank distinctive right-wing propagandists like Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and, until he just went too far off the farm, Glenn Beck.

CNN can also blame itself for the turnover of the channel’s various talent and likely an absence of strong leadership like that of the visionary CNN founder Ted Turner.  The list of “new” network anchors are hardly inspiring: Ashleigh Banfield, recycled from the early 2000’s, is an example. While her news credentials look good on paper she often exhibits a grating delivery on her 10 a.m. Central newscast. Banfield comes off too combative and too opinionated for a show that one assumes is for news rather than opinion. Of course, other CNN anchors seemed to have crossed over to the commentary street long ago as well.

Banfield is just a personal dislike as is Piers Morgan and Erin Burnett even though the latter is certainly prettier that just another pretty face. Other newer CNN hires are likewise disagreeable to me. Jake Tapper and Andrew Cuomo have what appear to be solid news chops but both leave me waiting for some breaking story to happen so the anchors might come alive.

I also see a lot of Northeastern college on resumes of many top CNN personnel. Certainly nothing is wrong with that part of the country but I have seen before the damage a lack of geographic diversity can bring to regional or national news.

One new show I am anxious to see is the Sunday night preview of “Parts Unknown” hosted by chef, writer and traveler Anthony Bourdain. His Travel Channel series “No Reservations” and “The Layover” belong in the Top 10 of TV overall in recent years. Well, the latter below that even though it was excellent as well. Bourdain is a character whose taste might not please all. He brings more of a writer’s perspective and a narrator’s voice to the small screen while his shows provide excellent visuals. His frank exposure of drug usage which included heroin and cocaine may also prove a turnoff to some. But he certainly brings lifesaving measures needed by CNN.

No conclusions are here just as nothing solid comes from the Post’s headline. As always we will have to just tune in to see.

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You really don’t have to smell the roses when you stop

One man’s cliche is another man’s philosophy. Whoa! Maybe that’s two, SMACK, two, SMACK, two cliches in one. Whatever. Maybe that’s a little too heavy for me when all I want to say is I stopped to smell the roses today except the roses weren’t roses but were instead honeysuckle vines.

It’s hard to smell the honeysuckle on a warm, windy, humid day here in Beaumont, Southeast Texas, USA. Especially such is the case since the wind is coming from the direction of most of the petrochemical plants in the area. As I have noted here before, the plants don’t smell as bad as they used to back in the latter part of the 20th century. But odors do become more acute on very humid days. I’m sure there is a scientific reason for that, or maybe it is just baloney. I just know I smelled more chemical plant or refinery on the short walk I took this afternoon to the extent I had to get close up to smell the honeysuckle.

Photo/effects by EFD
Photo/effects by EFD

There are three sensory experiences that remind me of my roots in the Pineywoods of East Texas. One is the sound of the wind as it wafts through the trees in a pine forest. Number two is the haunting sound of the lonesome whip-poor-will. Perhaps it is always described as lonesome because it is poor, whipped and has no will? Who knows. And third is the sweet smell of the honeysuckle vine. Well, I suppose I could add a forth: The sound of the morning sawmill whistle blowing. I don’t know if such a noise exists anymore. At least, I doubt it exists anywhere in East Texas to the extent that the whole town can hear it as when I was a child.

A reference to honeysuckle is not to a single vine or vine flower. But I really don’t know the difference between all the different types including the invasive Japanese honeysuckle. Where I grew up a certain type of honeysuckle was actually known as a wild azaleas. An area was set aside by a timber company on which a trail exists for both birding and for checking out the namesake wild azaleas. It is named, appropriately, the Wild Azalea Canyons Trail. The wild azaleas peak blooming is supposedly late March but they may still be blooming well. This is certainly no Grand Canyon but it is a decent walk down and back up.

It doesn’t take a road trip or a vacation, however, to enjoy what’s out there. Often all one has to do is step outside. Sometimes you will see something for the first time that may have been there all along. That is when you know you need to stop to smell the honeysuckle a little more often.

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Hold the presses! Now get those puppies underway!!!

Work looms ahead in an hour-and-a-half. This is another night to work until 8 p.m. and earn an extra two hours in “premium pay.” It’s not as good as overtime but getting paid for nine hours when in actuality working seven is not terrible.

Since I have a few tasks to accomplish before work — shaving my head among those tasks — this will be short.

A matter of little import except to perhaps English teachers and copy editors today with changes in “The Associated Press Stylebook” which includes using the word “underway” for all uses. The journalism word from upon high previously used two words except ” … when used as an adjective before a noun in a nautical sense … ” During my stint in the Navy I sometimes composed correspondence or military jurisprudence forms as well as the “Plan of the Day.” I would have the occasion during such cases to use the one-word word “underway.” This is Navy style, in no small part, because ships or units getting “underway” is a big deal. After all, ships are a big deal to the Navy for some strange reason.

During my time as a journalist I often continued the naval practice of writing “underway” as one word. Lazy? Yes, but also practical. Editors and journalism teachers always preached the doctrine of simplicity so I bought into this dogma — which is NOT a dog’s mother — by utilizing the pragmatism of writing one word for under way instead of two. That would get a story sent back by an editor, depending on pressing deadlines, in order that I might use the space bar between the two words. So, perhaps it was lazy. It was definitely force of habit that continued from the Navy although I seldom use “port and starboard” in conversation or writing these days.

I suppose a bit vindicated and perhaps a smidgen petty. But then again, I was a Navy petty officer.

So there you are.