December 18th, 2009
The Printer’s Devil, celebrating the good in journalism….
So here is the second edition of my Printer’s Devil, reviving an old Daily News tradition of celebrating what’s good in this week’s newspapers.
There were two articles this week that I very much enjoyed reading. It’s kind of a tossup which I liked better but here goes:
Clever Writing: This has to go to Corey Kilgannon of the NY Times for his article on TV pitchmen.
“You’ve seen them in stores, you’ve watched them on TV, but if you want to see how those “As Seen on TV” products — bunion scrapers, kitty claw clippers and the like — go from concept to prototype to wonder item starring on late-night infomercials, welcome to Telebrands headquarters here off Route 80.
“But wait, there’s more.”
You gotta love it, and Kilgannon keeps the theme going with some very lively writing. Read it for yourself here.
Best Storytelling: Denis Hamill still writes a column in the NY Daily News though these days it’s buried in the Brooklyn section. Lucky for me, I live there and can still read it. His “ale of a tale of Jimmy Breslin” last week was a gem. Glasses were hoisted last week to celebrate Jimmy’s 80th birthday (pictured above with News’ cartoonist Bill Gallo, another age-old gem of a guy). Denis Hamill missed it but turned his favorite Breslin story into a column this past week. I can’t do justice to it and why should I try when you can read it here yourself.
Here are some other stories that caught my attention:
Fascinating: Zillions of words have been written about child abuse but this week the NY Times had a unique take on the subject, highlighting the story of the little girl who made child abuse a household term. It happened in NYC in 1874 and the abused girl was Mary Ellen McCormack. I never thought in terms of the first child abuse case until I read this story. Amazing tale.
Humanizing a Crime Victim: The NY Times’ Julie Bosman wrote a tearjerker this week about Lakisha Scriven, a city social worker shot in the head as she loaded her children into her car but here’s what was really interesting about the story — the victim was black. It’s not all that often that the news media humanizes black crime victims but this was a great example of doing just that.
That’s all I got….