Happy 25th anniversary to The Onion

Congratulations to The Onion on its silver anniversary. "America's Finest News Source" was founded by two students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1988 and gained national attention when its web site was launched eight years later. I wish I could think of something clever to write in honor of the event (a good headline would be especially appropriate). But I'll just have to say thanks for the laughs--and we all look forward to more years of great news satire.

Post overlooked King speech

Today is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King's historic "I Have a Dream" speech.  The news media has been doing anniversary stories on the event for weeks, a good thing everyone would agree.  But few news organizations have reflected on their coverage--or lack of coverage--of the march.  One of the best and most honest pieces I have read is by Robert G. Kaiser, an associate editor at the Washington Post, who was an intern at the newspaper 50 years ago and helped cover the march.

As Kaiser recounts, the Post published two dozen stories about the march but they all missed the importance of King's speech. The words “I have a dream” appeared in only one story and it appeared on Page A15. Although the Post published brief excerpts from the speeches made given, but the three paragraphs chosen from King’s speech did not include the ringing words, “I have a dream.” In Kaiser's words, “We blew it.”  Kudos to Kaiser for his admission and to the Post for publishing it.

A Linotype machine? Really?

Here's something I would not have to expected to read in 2013: a newspaper is still published using a Linotype machine. The Saguache Crescent in Colorado is thought to be the last newspaper in America still being put out with the technology invented in the 19th century.  Publisher Dean Coombs puts out his four-page weekly with the same Linotype machine his grandparents used

"I'm not much interested in change," Combs said in the story published by the Los Angeles Times.  "If it works we just keep doing it."