Jennifer Howard

I’ve spent a lot of time, probably too much, complaining about flaks who don’t do their jobs well—or, depending on your point of view, who do it too well. In the spirit of fair play, I asked myself what journalists do that probably drives publicists crazy. Here’s what I came up with. Feel free to add your own in the comments. (P.S. I have been guilty of all of these except #8.) 1. We don’t return your phone calls. 2. We don’t answer your emails. 3. We don’t answer your follow-up phone calls and emails about the previous phone calls… Read more...

I am often dismayed by the news about the news these days. If you care about newspapers and what they do—and you should—it’s terrible to watch as reporters and editors get laid off and coverage of such frivolities as foreign affairs and culture shrinks. Every morning, when I open the front door to collect the Post from the doormat (yes, our paper carrier is that good), I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to indulge in that particular ritual. Even if I have to give up the print paper someday (sooner than I expect, maybe), I don’t believe that… Read more...

From the NY Observer: The Washington Post’s publisher Katharine Weymouth sent out an email to her staff this morning declaring that the business model for the paper would have to undergo a “fundamental change.” First, they’re going hyper-local! Washingtonpost.com is going to be recast itself as a local news and information site for people who live in or near the Beltway. From Weymouth’s memo, as reported by the NYO The three pillars of our strategy are: —Being about Washington, for Washingtonians, and those affected by it —Providing utility, engagement, and convenience for our local readers —Extending our brand with new… Read more...

The global economy’s collapsing, we’re closing in on a historic presidential election, and lord knows what the world’s rogue nuclear states are up to. (Maybe the IAEA does. I do like the idea of an “Atoms for Peace” agency.) Here’s what’s been happening in my world in the last week: On Saturday, I attended an all-day marathon reading of Paradise Lost at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn. (It’s Milton’s 400th anniversary this year.) Sunday I flew back to D.C. and finished up a big story about a new edition of Frankenstein that gives us Mary Shelley’s original draft, or… Read more...

As a working journalist (for the time being, anyway), I haven’t said much about the seeming death spiral of the newspaper industry: the hemorrhage in subscriptions and ad revenue, the to-the-marrow cuts in newsrooms. (In management parlance, this is sometimes referred to as “rightsizing.”) If I had a brilliant idea about how to save the biz, I’d be angling for Katherine Weymouth’s job. What I can do is write stories that are useful and/or interesting to someone, beginning with me. Many of the journos I know, the good ones anyway, operate according to a philosophy that’s half egotism, half altruism…. Read more...