A funny thing happened...

This time three weeks ago, the family and I were on our way to the mountains of Colorado, happy to be leaving Philadelphia and the East Coast in our rear-view mirrors.

But somehow, that didn't work out so well. My wife and her boss had a sudden parting of the ways, so she piled in her new Jeep and headed back to Philly.

So this time two weeks ago, we were selling our house and trying to figure out where to go next. Virginia, maybe. North Carolina? California? Arizona? The horizon was wide open, but one thing was sure - we were leaving here.

And somehow that didn't work out either.

As I was rooting around for contacts and job leads, one of my favorite freelance clients decided to make me a full-time offer I couldn't refuse. Right here in Philadelphia. Starting next week, I'll be working for the Committee of Seventy, a political watchdog group here in town. My title hasn't been settled, but I'll be doing think-tankey kinds of things - research, writing, thinking - related to ethics and public policy. I'll finally get paid for doing exactly the sort of thing I used to do mostly free.

So here we are still in Philly. Our grand plan for the Next Big Adventure ended up meaning staying right at home. And I am not sorry about it - we have had a complicated relationship with Philadelphia, but somehow this just seems right, like discovering a new city from the comfort of our old house.

Funny how things happens.

Generic News Story #1

Something important happened recently, which caused us to assign one of our increasingly scarce staff reporters.

This event had several important implications, which we would put here.

"This is where to put a good quote from a witness, investigator, or participant," said Source #1.

This event had several other important details, such as who else was involved, why it happened, and an exact date and location, which we were unable to wedge into the first two paragraphs, 'cause who wants to read really long opening paragraphs anyway.

"This would be an excellent place for a second quote from some other witness, investigator, or participant," said Source #2. "Unless, of course, the editors say we're short on space, in which case this quote gets cut first."

This event was part of some larger pattern, such as the culmination of a long process, the start of a new process, the first time, the last time, or maybe it was just plain weird.

"This is where to put dispassionate, big picture analysis from some uninvolved expert, professor, consultant, or politician," said Uninvolved Expert #1. "If all else fails, interview some little-known reporter from a niche publication who follows this kind of stuff intensively and is just glad to get some mainstream exposure so his mother knows he has a real job."

But there are always people who disagree with whatever he says, no matter how arcane and uncontroversial the topic at hand might be.

"This is where to put someone - anyone at all - who even tangentially disagrees with your first Uninvolved Expert," said Uninvolved Expert #2. "This is what we call 'balance.'"

Here is where to note that Experts who know something about your event are either still investigating the matter or else declined to comment on the controversy.

At this point, it would be useful to introduce some witnesses or participants, if you haven't already.

"I saw the event, yes I did," Witness #1 said.

And now would be a great time to detail efforts by relevant officials to encourage, discourage, or study the event at hand, with an eye toward causing it to happen again, or not to happen again, or move to some other place in the future.

"This is my top priority until some other significant event occurs," Relevant Official #1 said.

So now it's time to go back to the actual event that we talked about in the first paragraph. Perhaps it is time to say when the involved persons will go on trial, or maybe how long they remained in the hospital, or when the Guinness Book of World Records plans to visit.

"This final quote has no chance of making it in print, although it is a really great quote that totally sums up the entire article," Source #1, 2, or 3 said, "because the copy editors tend to cut from the bottom without regard to how artful and elegant the writer has been in picking a kicker quote."

-30-

Perfect Rock Songs

My friend Geoff has been posting videos on Facebook lately and he went on a Van Halen kick tonight, which reminded me of something - that Van Halen has what I consider the Perfect Rock Song. By this I don't mean the Best Rock Song, but the "perfect." And there is a difference. I never was a Van Halen fan until the summer of 2001, when I lived in California. I had just bought a BWM 323, which was by far the fastest and coolest car I had ever driven, and cost far more than I had any business paying. I had to take a business trip to Fresno for reasons that don't bear the repeating, and very late one summer night I found myself screaming up Highway 99 far in excess of the speed limit. It was hot and dry and I was the only car on the road - only slow-moving semis laden with fruit were in my way. And on the radio came Van Halen's Dance the Night Away. And I was transported. I had never given the song a second though, but at that moment I realized I was happy because it is the perfect rock song. It's shallow, but it's happy, smooth, sexy, and calls up all that's best about being 17 or 18, free, adventurous, and without a care in the world. The guitar is smooth and big and jangly. The beat is slow, regular and - well - perfect. I realized I could listen to that song and drive forever and never, ever, miss where I had come from and never care if I got where I was going.

Uh, yeah sure, Maybe.

Once long ago, I got a fortune from a fortune cookie that said "You are the Greatest Person in the World." And really, who could disagree with that? So I taped it over my desk at work.

Then about a year later, I got another fortune at the same restaurant that said "Your stupidity is your greatest problem." I was taken aback, of course, but it's hard to argue with that one either. So I taped it up right under the other one.

I thought they made a nice kind of balanced presentation.

The other day, the boys and I had Chinese food and we got this as a fortune:



This one was a bit harder to make sense of. So I am taking a wait-and-see position.

Say it with splotches

The more observant of my blog readers will notice a strange addition to my blog layout today - a weird little box that looks like a mutant crossword puzzle in the lower right corner.

I am told this is something called a QR code. It is kind of a custom bar code in which you can embed information to be decoded by your cell phone or other bit of smart gadgetry. Actually, I've known about this kind of thing for a long time - people were talking about early versions even back in the early '90s - but it never occurred to me to try it until today, when I read a piece by legendary journalism recruiter Joe Grimm, suggesting that sticking something like this on a business card or resume would be a nifty way to make potential employers think you're way cool and tech savvy.

Use a Two-Dimensional Bar Code to Brand Yourself as an Innovative Journalist

So I tinkered with the technology and, sure enough, it works.

The mysterious set of blotches on the blog will lead you to my website:

Seanibus

This is what it looks like:



In order to understand the code, you need a little piece of software for your cell phone, which connects with your built-in camera. There are lots of them out there, but the one I found that works with my Blackberry - and seemingly many other devices - is called NeoReader.

But the nifty thing is that you can encode damned near anything in these little doodads. Again, there are lots of sites that do this, but I am kind of fond of the one, called Kaywa.

For example, here is my email address:



But the really excellent part is that you can encode long blocks of text, making it possible to send secret messages to people. For example:



This is the first paragraph of the Gettysburg Address (though my Cell Phone had a hard time deciphering this much text).

Or this:



This will tell the viewer "You are a complete idiot."

The possibilities here are simply limitless.

Sgt. Witch

Former Congressman Bob Barr (who turned out to be one of the funniest members of Congress in my time there) is concerned that the Air Force Academy is going a little too far in accommodating the religious needs of "pagans." He writes today in his Atlanta Journal Constitution blog:

The US Air Force, at no less a prestigious location than the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, has taken the notion of religious tolerance to a new level, in creating an outdoor worship area for pagans. The site, apparently sacred to pagans, consists of an inner and an outer circle of large stones. I’m sorry, but this truly is hilarious. Don’t get me wrong, if someone “has little or no religion and delights in sensual pleasures and material goods,” which is the definition of a “pagan,” then I say live and let live.

But I have to tell you, if I were in the Air Force and was being commanded by an officer who practices hedonism as a religion (another part of the definition of “pagan”), and who dances around a circle of stones in the woods carrying a lighted candle, I would be more than a little worried about following him into battle.

Funny thing is, this is not an entirely new idea. The immortal Jean Shepherd (whose wisdom about Beer I referenced earlier) had something to say about his days in the army, when he listed himself as a "druid." Here is a long segment from his Army routine from his radio show in 1967. The audio is a little choppy in spots, but if you have a few minutes, it is worth a listen, if only because he ranges far and wide as usual and has some tangential observations that hold true even today. The Druid bit is about 10 minutes in.

11/18/1967 Army-Druid

Shepherd reports that when he was inducted, the dog tag maker insisted that he declare a religion. Not being a religious guy, Shepherd said "druid."

I thought I was being funny, but he said 'OK, I've never seen that one.' Cachunk. And for 3 1/2 years I carried a dog tag with a D on it.

The only problem, he said, was that there were no official religious holidays for Druids. Other guys in his unit, a Signal Corps radar company, got Christmas or Passover off, but not Shepherd, who spend every holiday on KP duty as a result. At least until one day, when his commanding officer called him in.

'Shepherd,' he said, 'I understand you're a Druid.' I said Yes. 'Well, I read in a book that Druids are about to celebrate Great Oak Tree Day.' I said Yes - I'm glad you care ... it's a seven-day holiday, you know. And they celebrate it in New York. It's the only temple we've got in the U.S. It's in Central Park, right by the Ice Skating Rink, in a hole in the ground.

His story of how he thereafter became a Druid chaplain is priceless.

To this day, he says, "I'm the only registered Druid" in the Department of Defense records. "You ought to see the mail I get."

On every Nov. 17, I get phone calls. All day long at the station I get calls from one member or another of Company K ... They say will you please give me the sacrament over the phone?

Incidentally, if you make it past the long Army segment, there is a WOR newscast included that is fascinating to hear, including stories about the Vietnam War and a long segment on sports, including a score of the Baltimore Bullets game and news about O.J. Simpson's standout play in a USC football game that propelled them to the Rose Bowl.

Literary criticism at its finest

Wonkette on Richard Cohen's column today on the Administration's terrorism policy:

Why bother picking this apart? One criticism should suffice: many of the words that Richard typed here should not have been typed. He could strengthen his argument by deleting many of these words and replacing them with nothing. After he types his first draft, he should go back to the beginning, and delete the first word. Then the second word. The third word, fourth, etc. Eventually he will have deleted each individual word in his first draft, and no words will remain. Then he’ll have an argument!

Oh, God, how I wish I had written that paragraph.

This makes me so sad

Former Greene County Sheriff Willie Morris died yesterday, apparently a suicide. Willie is a figure that looms large in my life - he was the sheriff when I started my newspaper career and the first lawman I really got to know. There are a lot of people in the world described as Larger Than Life, but Willie really deserved the title.

He was a champion weight lifter - and as a result a huge man physically - with no real law enforcement experience when he ran for office in 1983. He had been a professional painter and a bar bouncer. He said he just got fed up with the crime and disorder under the old sheriff and figured he needed to do something to make the county a better place.

And he did. He clamped down hard on the gunplay that made little rural Greene County a hotspot of homicides - there were no killings between the time he took office and late 1993. He delighted in drug raids - Greene County is ideal marijuana territory and Willie loved bounding out across dirt roads to pounce on some hidden pot field. And he became famous for running speed traps and drunken driving checkpoints. Drinking and driving had once been a weekend pass time in Greene, but it turned into a very bad idea in his county.

Willie was far from perfect as sheriff, of course. Because he had no professional law enforcement background, he managed more by enthusiasm than by proper methods. He didn't seem to pay much attention to legal niceties and he had no time at all for the sheriffs in nearby counties, many of whom were former State Troopers. He thought they were stuffy and they thought he was a dangerous loose cannon. And he did have a bad, bad temper. He legendarily beat up his brother Clyde, who was just as strong and big-hearted as Willie but had a little trouble with the bottle and spent a fair bit of time on the wrong side of the Law (and as a result, on the wrong side of Willie).

There were a lot of people in Greene who thought Willie was corrupt or incompetent. I doubt that though - I certainly never saw any evidence to back up the corruption rumors and the crime stats certainly speak for themselves in terms of Willie's effectiveness, however unconventional (and perhaps even occasionally unconstitutional) his methods.

The guy I knew had a heart as big as his muscles. He was more than kind and understanding with me, a young, out of place, inexperienced reporter. He expected a lot from his men, but he was always willing to give them a second chance, sometimes too much of a second chance.

And he was brave and dedicated to Greene County. He took a shotgun blast to the face one day in 1991 while helping a woman leave her abusive husband. The doctors down at UVA hospital told me that the main reason he even survived was the thick ropes of muscle under his skin - that blast would have killed me, or most other humans. The doctors never were able to remove all the pellets - they were lodged too close to his spine to safely remove. I know Willie suffered horrible pain the rest of his life from that. I don't know if that had anything to do with his sad end, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Of all the things I'll remember about him, though, it is his hands. He had huge, gnarled, strong hands. When you shook hands with Willie, you knew it. He loved to look good in a crisp brown uniform, with his black belt polished to a fine shine. He'd stand there proudly with those big hands planted firmly on his holster and radio. That picture is as clear in my mind as the day I was there.

Like this:



This is a photo I took of Willie, probably on some drug raid, some time in mid-1990. He was absolutely in his prime, months before the shooting. It's a shock to realize he's about the same age here that I am now. And this is how he will always be fixed in my mind.

Here's a profile of him I wrote in 1990 as part of a big series trying to explain to everyone what their five main elected officials, known as Constitutional Officers, actually did for a living.

Those years I spent in Greene loom large in my life and my memory. And Willie was a big part of it. He's a big figure in some of my favorite journalism stories. That story about the day he was shot was technically complicated, for example, by the fact that all three main characters - the sheriff, the woman, and her husband the shooter - were named Morris. And to complicate matters, Willie was related to Mrs. Morris but not Mr. Morris. Try sorting that one out in print sometime.

Willie also uttered my favorite line about law enforcement. One day we were talking about some crime story I was writing and I asked him about something stupid the criminals had done that had given them away. He leaned across the desk and looked me closely in the eye and said, "When smart people begin committing crimes you and I are in big trouble."

I haven't seen or talked to Willie in maybe 15 years, but I think of him often. And now I'm going to miss him.

Haiti, brought home

I enjoy reading The New Yorker - its a great magazine, well written, stupendously edited, often informative and thought provoking (though I do wish they'd get rid of Malcolm Gladwell and Anthony Lane, but that's just me).

But never, in all my decades of reading the magazine, has New Yorker brought me to tears. This is the single best piece I have ever read in the magazine:

Haiti, the Earthquake, and my family

Life in a cube farm

It's been many years since I actually worked in an office, but I was reminded this morning that there are certain patterns and habits that are common to all, particularly the strange rituals and obsessions that develop around the group lunch.

On a local discussion group, we were talking about the fate of the space formerly occupied by Susanna Foo, an excellent high-end Chinese restaurant that used to be an institution in Philadelphia. But Susanna Foo herself got tired of running the place and closed it down last year. Now the Mexican food chain Chipolte is eying the location, adding yet another semi-fast food Mexican lunch place to the already crowded niche in Center City Philly.

One poster observed that there must be a demand for such a place since there are so many of them already in the area and all seem crowded. "It's a pretty popular businessperson's lunch-hour," he said.

Another poster, known only as The Count, then responded with a story that simply crystallizes everything about life in a downtown office:

In my office, that would be an understatement.

There is a group of women in my office (20's, 30's) who declare a Qdoba Day about once a month or so.

It's insane.

The declaration usually begins with an email blast with "Qdoba!!!!!!Today!!!!!!" in the subject line.

Followed by, "We'll meet in the lobby at 12:15!!!! Don't be late!!!!!!" (Usually done in 64 font and multiple colors).

For the remainder of the morning the women will walk in and out of each other's offices and discuss what they are going to order, how much they love Qdoba, and whether they would rather have a Qdoba Burrito or 7 new pairs of Uggs.

No work gets done on Qdoba Day.

Around 11:45 begins the parade to the bathroom as the women go as a group to freshen up and re-apply make-up for Qdoba.

They will return from Qdoba around 2:00 and spend the rest of the day talking about how if Qdoba was a man they'd marry it.

It's amazing. No other lunch place anywhere in the city gets this type of reaction. Not Marathon, not Pietro's, not Oyster House, not Happy Rooster, not Shiroi Hana, not Good Dog.

In fact, if I offered them a choice between a free lunch at Parc and lunch at Qdoba I think they would take Qdoba.

I haven't enjoyed a life-in-the-office story so much in years.

A sense of adventure

My youngest son is a bit of a handful. He dashes at the world at top speed with his head down, ready to bust through whatever is in his way.

He's in First Grade this year and just beginning to have serious tests and homework. Earlier this week he said he had a spelling test.

"Oh, don't worry," he explained. "I don't study. I want the test to be harder."

It isn't Yoo-Hoo

My father is quite fond of Jean Shepherd. We used to listen to him on the radio and later watch his show, Jean Shepherd's America. To this day, his voice is as familiar to me as any member of my family's. And one Shepherd bit has stuck with me for years - his ode to beer. It's funny because my father dislikes beer and so at the time I saw this, I would have disapproved of beer - it wasn't until many years later that I grew into my current obsession. But still, hearing Shepherd's voice over pictures of vats of frothy beer worked a hypnotic magic on me.

This is a great old clip - Shepherd really gets cranking in his patented style around 4 minutes in, when he hoists a glass himself and recalls his father's love of beer.

"This isn't just a drink," he said. "It isn't Yoo-Hoo. This is beer."



"When you look at that glass of beer," shepherd concludes, "you're looking at life itself. The mother of us all: Beer."

There but for the grace of God...

Regret the Error is out with its annual Corrections of the Year list, which is always hilarious, though I have to post my usual disclaimer: I only laugh up to a point, 'cause God knows I have published my share of howlers. Epicaricacy is not an emotion journalists should indulge in too gleefully.

The corrections list isn't quite as funny this year, I find - in fact, some of them are just pathetic (like the endless series of corrections the New York Times had to run on the now-infamous Walter Cronkite tribute article).

But there are a few I enjoyed a lot and my favorites are both geographic:

Best Geographical Error

The Justice (New York University):

The original article provided the incorrect location of New York University’s new institution. It is in Abu Dhabi, not Abu Ghraib.

Runner Up

Canadian Press:

The Canadian Press moved a story April 3 that erroneously reported The Wilkins Ice Shelf was originally part of Jamaica. In fact the Ice Shelf, located on the western side of the Antarctic was originally the size of Jamaica.

I am knocking on wood.

Do bears really do that in the woods?

A hilarious send up of the pompous old Coors commercial that ran until a few years ago. This version is by Breckenridge Brewing. I am not wildly fond of Breckenridge, but they get points for a fabulous commercial:

Breckenridge Brewery - Lucky U IPA



Oh, and it is a lovely visual of where I'll be moving if I can sell this house of mine in Philly.

Perfect

Washington Post TV Columnist Lisa de Moraes has a wonderful column this morning about the now infamous White House Party Crashers and their inane statements and TV appearances so far (Jezebel has a really good rundown on this for those who haven't had enough). Lisa managed to pull off one of my favorite all time bits of attribution for a quote, in discussing how Michaele Salahi keeps saying the publicity has ruined her life:

"It's been really unbearable to go through," she wailed from the Four Seasons hotel in Georgetown, where she had arrived nearly two hours earlier so people could put on her perfect makeup and dress her spectacular hair.

"Our lives have been destroyed," she added blondly.

This reminds of one of my favorite bits of fiction writing, by New Yorker writer Ring Lardner, who wrote of a young man with his father, who obviously didn't know where he was going:

Are you lost daddy, I asked ten-
derly.

Shut up, he explained.

This space available

I got a number of positive responses from my post of yesterday, disclosing that I have never been compensated by anyone for any product plugs (Kraft Olde English Cheese is delicious, by the way). Several people offered to buy me a beer (Bear Republic products can't be beat). Even my old friend Charlie Puritano took time out from his busy schedule as a film-maker and part time Ninja to weigh in (PMG - look into it).

But sadly, I have yet to hear from my most lucrative potential client, Chrysler (buy a Jeep or I'll kick your ass. Seriously). You'd think they'd have a little gratitude since I have purchased not just one, but two Jeeps just this year.

Some day, I guess, I will learn how to monetize this Internet thing. Provided it isn't just a fad.

Full disclosure

The new Federal Trade Commission rules on blogger disclosure have finally put me in a very uncomfortable position. So today, the day the regulations become effective, I must finally come clean about my association with the many products and services that I have mentioned in my blog over the years.

I am not proud to admit this, but federal law and decency compels me.

The sad truth is that I got paid squat. Nothing. Not even a free paperclip. I have done all my fine work, written all my intricate and well-reasoned prose, for nothing. Nobody paid me a dime. Not that I wouldn't have been happy to accept a wee token. Free Beer? Yep. Money? Damned right. Even a little pat on the back and a few kind words from some ruthless running dog of capitalism would have been nice.

But nothing.

Thanks, FTC, for making me admit publicly that my work is worthless.

From the mouths of babes

My six-year-old son Colin has this friend who, for reasons that will become obvious, I will call Jack.

See, "Friend" would be an overstatement. Jack has a massive man-crush on Colin, hugs him, follows him around, hangs on his every word, generally moons over him. This has been going on since Pre-K and they are now in First Grade. Colin was at first puzzled, then annoyed by this attention. I keep trying to point out that Jack is a nice kid and Colin should put up with him since we all need all the friends we can get in life.

So at lunch today, Colin comes out with this:

"Jack is an idiot."

No, Colin, I say, Jack is a nice little boy.

"Jack is an idiot," Colin insists. "Jack is the king of idiots. If there was one idiot in the world, it would be Jack."

By which point, of course, I am struggling to keep a straight face.

Be nice, I say.

"When I tell Jack he's not my friend, he laughs - like this," says Colin, making donkey sounds.

I am laughing too hard to respond, causing people in the restaurant to turn and look at me.

"I learned in French that they have a special fancy word for idiot," Colin says. "It's Jack."

By which point I was forced to clear the tears from my eye.

Everyone's a critic

I once heard some old editor - maybe it was Ben Bradlee, but maybe it was some other crusty old cuss - say that, based on the letters he received over his career, he had concluded that there were three things that every man believes he is able to do better than every other man: Build a fire, make love to woman, and edit a newspaper.

And in this spirit, I must say this guy really got under my skin:

The News Behind the Story Between the Lines of the Meta-Narrative Surrounding the Nonevent


In fact, if this idiot thinks he can run my blog better than me, I say give it a try, Buddy. I quit. You run the place for a while.

Jerk.

Meta-narratives

I got a number of interesting responses to my post of yesterday about meta-narratives.

The most interesting comes from Geode, AKA Joe, who brilliantly raised the argument to the next logical level:

It seems, though, that the media itself is caught in its own meta-narrative, which you rightfully capitalize: the narrative of Left Wing Bias. The most insidious thing about a meta-narrative is that once it gets rolling, any shred or tidbit that seems to support the 'story' is picked up and carried around, but anything that would tend to undercut it is 'not particularly newsworthy.' Ignoring the fact that the supporting snippets, taken on their own, aren't particularly newsworthy! They only get picked up for how they tie into the existing, ongoing serial."

And of course, he is correct, both about the mechanics of the phenomenon and the particulars about the "mainstream media." The entire argument that there is a Left Wing Bias in the media is a meta-narrative in itself, and not one confined entirely to conservatives. Every blip, every inconsistency, and every human failing on the part of journalists is now examined at length and held up as proof that there is in fact such a bias, despite the fact that decisions in journalism rarely get made is such an organized fashion.

This points to an interesting aspect of the phenomenon, which is that meta-narratives, at least the ones that last, are not based on nothing, which is to say that they are not entirely fantasy. In every case I cited yesterday, there is at least a kernel of truth, or something that the victim of the meta-narrative did to provoke the story. Al Gore really did have a bad habit of making statements that sounded self-absorbed and boastful; George W. Bush really is incurious and sometimes says or things that make him appear shallow or ignorant; Sarah Palin really has made some statements that are jaw-droppingly vapid; Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy really did have unhealthy tastes for skirt-chasing, and in Teddy's case at least, alcohol.

And of course, the media really does have an occasional leftward bias for a lot of complicated reasons.

But in every case, the kernel of truth gets inflated and exaggerated to the point where it clings to reality by only the most tenuous thread. Unrelated stories about the person become colored inappropriately by that one aspect of his or her personality or past.

Why is this? In part, I think, it is a form of group-think. If someone is saying something that seems to run counter to the collective wisdom, it is usually easier to conclude that the one is wrong while the majority is right rather than the other way around. It is not an unreasonable presumption, but is also not always right - and it is sometimes dangerously wrong.

Another part, which is probably easy for outsiders to miss, is a technical aspect of journalism, and that is the need to frame a story, to add context and perspective. A story that only says who, what, when, and where is dull. The clincher to the story is usually "why." And, unfortunately, it is sometimes easier to fall back on an easy shorthand - Gore exaggerates, Clinton is a cad, Palin is a lightweight, Kennedy is a drunk - than dig deeper and look for the actual why. Sometimes the actual why is simply less interesting than the stereotype.

So what do we do about it? I am afraid that much of it is embedded in human nature, so it would be difficult to stamp out, particularly in highly competitive stories where lots of news organizations are focusing on a single person or issue. A few pitifully news organizations, particularly McClatchy, have a good record of resisting the herd's take on a big story (McClatchy's coverage in the run up to the Iraq war was superb). Underdog papers in the shadow of bigger competitors, like The Washington Times (where I worked for five years), do it sometimes since they are trying to define themselves in opposition to a larger paper that may be following the current meta-narrative, but that can be hit-or-miss. And certain individual reporters, such as Peter Baker of the New York Times and, formerly, the Washington Post and the Washington Times, seem to have a good instinct for spying the real story behind the clutter. Unfortunately, however, I am not sure how to institutionalize it across the media.

But as readers, there is always something we can do about it, and the answer is not revolutionary: question the common wisdom and, dare I say it, don't believe everything you read.