I emerge from three weeks of flu, bronchitis and related maladies on World Press Freedom Day and want to take more than a moment to hail the work of so many journalists who put themselves on the line to give us the information we depend upon. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a stunning …
Category: Media
Daylight Saving Time leads off Sunshine Week
Running around the house yesterday, looking frantically for the directions to set my clock radio forward to Daylight Saving Time, I thought about how stupid it is to have to go through this twice a year. Why not just go on daylight saving time year-round and call it, er, a day. Florida Senator Marco Rubio …
Continue reading Daylight Saving Time leads off Sunshine Week
Listening to Ann Coulter not Jim Mattis: a recipe for disaster
The menacing lion-like creature shook his orange mane, growled and chased me down the hill leading to the road where our house is. I sat bolt upright in bed, realizing it was just a bad dream that had disturbed my sleep. Later, in light of day, I realized our living nightmare is much more dangerous …
Continue reading Listening to Ann Coulter not Jim Mattis: a recipe for disaster
News media are not “enemies of the people”
I ask you: do I look like an enemy of the people? Given my 30+ years in journalism (including Boston Phoenix, WGBH-TV, WCVB-TV) and nearly a decade more as a blogger, Donald Trump would probably say yes. Journalism is certainly in my DNA. Which is why I’m so proud of what my local newspaper is …
Summer reading part two: non-fiction
The following are suggestions from when I wasn’t fleeing the daily news into real fiction, as noted in my previous blog. I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey behind the Lines of Jihad, a memoir by Washington Post national security reporter Souad Mekhennet, takes us into dangerous territory to places she was uniquely qualified to …
Civility and indignation can go together
Red Hen owner Stephanie Wilkinson asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave her Lexington, Virginia restaurant , declaring it a moral issue. Wilkinson said her request was in the name of upholding "certain standards, like honesty, compassion and cooperation." Some of her gay employees had objected to Sanders' defense of Donald Trump's ban on transgenders in …
Trump a candidate for Nobel Appease Prize?
Remember Lucy pulling the football away just as Charlie Brown was about to kick it? Imagine if Charlie Brown, instead of being dejected, ran around the field with his arms stretched high shouting that he had just kicked the winning field goal. North Korea’s nuclear threat is gone!! We can now all sleep easily. Mission …
Saving equal access to the internet
Net neutrality isn't just an issue for millennials and techies. The Federal Communications Commission's December decision to change the rules governing access to the internet will affect us all. Your eyes glazing over? Our attitudes won't be so "whatever" come June 11th when the change takes effect and internet service providers like AT&T, Verizon and …
Remembering Barbara Bush
It was June 1990, Severance Green at Wellesley College. Blue sky, warm sunshine, graduating seniors and their families waiting to hear from two commencement honorees, Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of Russian premier Mikhail Gorbachev, and Barbara Bush, First Lady, wife of President George H. W. Bush. Local press and national networks were there to cover …
Debating the debate
Monday night’s Clinton/Trump debate won't be Lincoln/Douglas. No Demosthenes or Cicero here. Even if the candidates were inclined to that level of discourse, the American public would probably not be prepared to give it the time or its undivided attention. It won't be a classical debate, scored by nonpartisan judges on technical aspects of the …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 