Oddly Enough Blog

You’re lacking in your hacking!

Lamar, get in my office!

What’s up, Boss?

Look, you’ve had enough time! I told you if you want to make it in journalism, you need to hack into some voice messages, and I want to see what you’ve got. We’re on deadline!

I think you’ll be pretty happy, Boss. Look at this one. “It’s me. Pick up tuna fish and vodka on the way home.”

That’s not very much to go with, Lamar.

Oh, I’ve got more, Boss. “This is Mom, why don’t you ever call?”

I guess that’s a little better. What else?

Throw it! What are you waiting for?

Mr. Blog Guy, let me say we appreciate you cooperating with this Senate investigation into journalistic practices. I know you’re a busy blogger.

Anything I can do to help Senator. I’m happy to testify.

Now, during your years as a wire service reporter, can you give us an idea what your daily expenses were like? Remember, you are under oath.

Sure. On average, I’d spend maybe $2,000 a day on private detectives, $1,400 to buy info from the cops, $800 on rumors from sleazy street criminals and $4.60 for Utz Potato Chips and Hostess Twinkies from the vending machine in our snack room.

So if my math is correct, that’s more than $4,000 a day, is that your testimony Mr. Blog Guy?

Nah, I’m just jerking your chain. I didn’t pay for anything like that, except the junk food.

Give your money to me

No, I don’t really want you to send me your money. Unless, you know, you don’t want it.

That headline was just a trick, a gimmick that we journalists sometimes use to get you to read stories you wouldn’t otherwise notice.

As I write this, the most-discussed story on reuters.com is an opinion piece headlined, “Don’t donate money to Japan.“

It is attracting thousands of clicks, but also some criticism from readers who say it was irresponsible. I myself doubt whether that headline stopped anyone from donating. If folks are taking orders from headline writers now, it’s news to me.

The problem is, writing trick headlines can become just too easy. The same blogger who is enjoying such success with this one, last year wrote, “Don’t give money to Haiti.”

I hope he realizes that if his personal fortunes ever go south and he is forced to beg outside our office in Times Square, somebody is bound to write, “Don’t give money to that blogger.”

It smells like Jennifer has been here…

Blog Guy, I thought I saw a photo of Jennifer Aniston this week. Why is she in the news? Some kind of Nobel Prize deal or something?

Are you kidding? It’s HUGE! She launched her personal fragrance, “Jennifer Aniston,” in Mexico!

Wait a minute. Didn’t she already launch that same fragrance?

Sure, in London last July, but it’s not real news until it’s launched in Mexico. See, we only issued seven photos of her from the London launch.

And how many did you use from the Mexico City event?

Um, 13, 14, looks like 15 altogether. So you can see, it’s  twice as important.

Space alien plot to deny news to shoppers?

National Enquirer publisher files for bankruptcy

Boy, I did not see this one coming.

Who would have guessed you could lose, selling  stories like “Angelina, Jennifer Catfight at Arby’s,” “The Chocolate Mousse Diet,”  and “Homeless Oprah Lives in Packard” to a captive audience in supermarket checkout lines?

Sure, there were signs the tabloids were heading in an odd direction when some of their scoops started having some truth in them. I’m talking about you, John Edwards and Tiger Woods.

Plus, the fortunes of news tabloids took a slide when groceries expanded express lines and self-checkout terminals, giving customers less time to become well-informed citizens.

But there’s more to it than that. For a glimpse of what powerful force could unite to bring down the tabloids, take a look at this purported alleged transcript from a super-secret meeting held a couple of months ago at a Holiday Inn near Dayton:

One picture is worth two or three words…

Johnson, get your butt in my office! You call yourself a news photographer?

What is it this time, Boss?

I sent you out to get a simple headshot of someone and here is your full, uncropped photo… I’m not making this up.

See, in journalism, headshot refers to the WHOLE head. Your photo makes her look like one of those “Kilroy Was Here” cartoons American soldiers used to draw.

Do you follow my complaint, Johnson?

Look sweetie, news we can use!

We journalists are trying really hard these days to give people content that really makes a difference to them.

The very technical news media name for it is “news you can use.” A good example is an actual story from Mexico this week…

“Honey, I’ll have a little more coffee, please. Look, it says here in the paper that 280 crocodiles have escaped from a refuge up the road, and they’re roaming around loose!”

“Well, I’ll be, Lamar! I guess I’d better go bring the kids inside, if we have any kids left!”

“Right. And here’s a tip, hon. It says here these things are up to 10 feet long, and we shouldn’t try to capture them. So you can just put away that roach spray and ball-peen hammer.”

This simulated conversation shows why such news is important to regular readers such as yourself. If entire towns have been turned into buffet dinners for crocodiles, you can probably make money from that.

“Your comment is important to us…”

Considering what they say, that you can’t choose your own family, I guess I’ve been pretty lucky with mine.

I’m talking about my blog family, the coterie of far-flung readers who have grown close around my Oddly Enough Blog over the past three years.

The blog, if you’re not a reader, is my own quirky take on news and non-news. It is sarcastic, snarky and, some readers think, entertaining.

It’s a little hard to categorize. Travel and Leisure magazine named it one of their “Top Travel Websites of 2009,” much to my surprise. As the slogan on my landing page says, it’s “News, but not the serious kind.”

The overwhelming majority of people who come to my blog just read it and go on to something else, leaving a trail of 3.1 million page views last year.

But a plucky few stick around, commenting, joking, flirting and just doing what people with something in common do.

Good to the last droppings?

Okay gang, we’ve gotta find a way to distinguish our brand of coffee from all the others. You know, like it’s grown on misty Blue Mountain, or in the intoxicating sea breezes of Hawaii, or some poetry like that.

Boss, why don’t we go more in the direction those guys in Asia took? You know, “We make our coffee from half-digested cherries found in the poop of wild civets.”

Are you out of your freaking mind, Lamar? How much are people going to pay for coffee made from wild animal poop?

Well, right now it’s going for as much as $350 a pound in London, Boss.

Yikes! Okay Lamar, but the ONLY way that works is for the news media to do the heavy lifting.

They would have to cover the hell out of it, to create a market. Journalists aren’t pushovers. We can’t just punch a button that says Poop Coffee Publicity.

Holy moly! Nonstop Jolie!

Blog Guy, you often write about Angelina Jolie. Has her new movie had its premiere yet?

Well, I can only speak for Berlin, Paris, London, Moscow, Seoul, Tokyo and Hollywood. I know it has premiered there because we moved photos of her at each place.

SEVEN cities? That’s very generous of Reuters, free publicity-wise. How does that compare with your coverage of the endless Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz odyssey recently to promote their new move?

So far, Jolie is one city ahead of them.

And why is it newsworthy every time she shows up in a different city to plug the same movie?

You don’t understand journalism. We never know if she might announce a new policy on global warming or the economy or the New York City mosque.