I’m back from several days in New York. My dad is hanging in there. He would like to feel a whole lot better than he does. We’d all like that. But we had a good visit and I hope to return soon and find him back on his feet. I will let this topic rest for now. It’s been a rugged stretch.

It feels odd that I have done no kind of 2008 wrap up or 2009 somethingorother. But it’s too late for any of that and besides, I don’t have much to say.

I’ve been informed via Twitter by a high n mighty journalist that bloggers should keep their damn New Year’s resolutions to themselves because nobody is interested and who do they think they are? (To paraphrase.) So even if I had New Year’s resolutions, which I don’t, I wouldn’t write about them.

It’s funny though—high n mighty journalists are quick to tell other writers that nobody cares what they think and yet the man-on-the-street (or in-the-living-room) interview is considered key to a properly reported news story. Do I really care that that Elizabeth Gross of Lake Highlands hosted a dinner party candlelight last night, when the power was out in Dallas?

Hm. Not really. (Although I did like her remark about how everybody looked young.) So why are the personal experiences of writers considered self-indulgent while the personal experiences of other people are considered news? (To be fair, the journalist under discussion says he has no objection to personal writing as long as it’s not too personal.)

One great thing about man-on-the-street interviews is that they can be unintentionally hilarious. My favorite was in a TV news story about daylight savings time. One anti-daylight-savings-time woman-on-the-street opined, “I just don’t think they should be messing with God’s time.”

What time zone do you think God lives in?

What do you think about all this? Do the resolutions of bloggers hold any interest to you? What about man-on-the-street interviews?

Labels: newspapers, writing