Journalism
"CHIRP!"
“CHIRP!” by David Benjamin “The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” — Mr. Dooley (Finley Peter Dunne) PARIS — When the press acquiesced to being called “the media,” the door closed on Finley Peter Dunne and opened wide for Billy Bush. Marshall McLuhan introduced the term “medium” to…
Read MoreA letter to my Senator
A letter to my Senator by David Benjamin The Honorable Tammy Baldwin United States Senate 717 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510-4906 Dear Sen. Baldwin: Not too long ago, I went back to my childhood hometown of Tomah to drop off a copy of my latest published novel, A Sunday Kind of Love, at…
Read MoreStop Saying That!
Stop saying that! by David Benjamin “Literally for Figuratively. ‘The stream was literally alive with fish.’ ‘His eloquence literally swept the audience from its feet.’ It is bad enough to exaggerate, but to affirm the truth of the exaggeration is intolerable.” — Ambrose Bierce, from Write It Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults MADISON,…
Read MoreI wanna be Donny's girl
I wanna be Donny’s girl by David Benjamin “Dowd is rooting for the bear… She’ll criticize Trump, but ultimately, she’s OK with him, because he plays his gender role in what she has decreed to be an appropriate manner. He’s a boor, a rogue, a bully and a jerk, but… he’s a man, and that’s…
Read MoreOh, Susanna, now don’t you lie to me
Oh, Susanna, now don’t you lie to me by David Benjamin MADISON, Wis. — Thanks to my wife, the hotshot high-tech journalist, I get to crash parties where I don’t belong. For me, “the turd in the punchbowl” isn’t just a grace note. It’s my red badge of impertinence. So, there I was — without…
Read MoreThe prebuttal imperative of the “liberal media”
TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 2015 The Weekly Screed (#726) The prebuttal imperative of the “liberal media” by David Benjamin PARIS — I thought I’d coined the word “prebuttal” until today when, in the New York Times, I found Paul Vallely using it in an op-ed piece about Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical, Laudato Sii. Vallely was citing…
Read MoreWeak in Review
THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2015 The Weekly Screed (#717) Weak in Review by David Benjamin MADISON, Wis. — My conservative friends think that liberals worship the New York Times — oops. It’s The New York Times, right? (Talk about pretentious!). But reading the Gray Lady is more like meeting an old friend every morning at the…
Read MoreApocalypse now… and tomorrow… and the day after that
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2014 The Weekly Screed (#696) Apocalypse now… and tomorrow… and the day after that by David Benjamin “Good morning, ladies and germs! It’s Monday, and I’m Fred Fiermonger, alongside my co-host Abigail Angst, and this is ‘Good Grief, America,’ your daily wake-up-and-smell-the-napalm call here on the Anecdotal News Network. As you all…
Read MoreGreed on Grub Street
THURSDAY, MAY 29, 2014 The Weekly Screed (#678) Greed on Grub Street by David Benjamin “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” — Samuel Johnson MADISON, Wis. — The other day, optimistically, I clicked my way over to Vox, Ezra Klein’s spiffy new online news site. But, as soon as I got…
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