Here’s my column from today’s paper. Not my finest work, I think, but some folks liked it. The opener: “I’d like to apologize in advance for the quality of this column. I just ask that you keep in mind that I have the writing ability of a below-average 15-year-old.”
Also, for the first time in Dallas, my name appears in today’s paper in a spot other than the byline.
True story: I was giving a little talk to a third-grade class a few weeks ago. I was supposed to be explaining how a story gets put together and explaining its different parts: the headline, the dateline, the byline, etc.
Anyway, the kids were all supposed to be finding each of these elements in a story in the paper. I was wandering around the class and stopped at one little girl’s desk. “Okay, in this story, show me the dateline,” I said. She pointed to the byline (“By John Doe”).
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I think that’s the byline.”
“No, that’s the dateline,” she replied. “It has the writer’s name so someone can ask him out on a date if they want to.”
Kids, they say the darnedest things!
A riposte, of sorts, to your column, can be found here:
http://moonoverpittsburgh.blogspot.com/2005/03/teaching-to-test.html
Surely that little girl was supposed to be my daughter. A girl after my own heart!
Joshua Benton is the director of the Nieman Digital Journalism Project at Harvard University, among other things. Before that, he was a staff writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News. (More.)
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06 Aug: COLUMN: A year’s wait can make all the difference for your child
Any opinions expressed here are solely mine, and not those of my employer. In many cases, they may not even be mine.
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