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  • I'm a writer, journalist, and the editor of The Gambit, the alt-weekly newspaper in New Orleans.

    Journalism: My work has appeared in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Globe & Mail (Canada), The Times- Picayune (New Orleans), The Oregonian, and Willamette Week, as well as in magazines including Details, Vogue, Publishers Weekly, and Portland Monthly.

    Publishing: Tight Shot, my first novel, was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Its sequel, Hot Shot, was roundly ignored by everyone, but was a far better book. I'm also a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

    Stage: I was a member of the Groundlings and Circle Repertory West in Los Angeles, and am a playwright (see "Stage" in the right-hand rail).

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« The One-Minute Book Review | Main | Happy Halloween »

October 29, 2006

All apologies

Wd_mybadbody_1I'm reading Paul Slansky and Arleen Sorkin's My Bad: 25 Years of Public Apologies and the Appalling Behavior That Inspired Them, which is a fascinating and funny collection of public self-flagellations from Bill Clinton to Trent Lott, from Jerry Falwell to Jesse Jackson, from Ozzy Osbourne to Jerry Lewis. (Trent Lott takes up four pages.)

My favorite chapter is "Media Mea Culpas," which runs the gamut of American journalism--Mike Wallace, Matt Drudge, Bill O'Reilly, Janet Cooke, all three cable news networks, and Globe magazine (which ran the headline "TO DI FOR" one week after Princess Diana's death). But one journalistic apology is head and shoulders above the rest:

"It has come to the editors' attention that the Herald-Leader neglected to cover the civil rights movement. We regret the omission."

--The Lexington [KY] Herald-Leader apologizing for the 40-year-old policies of the then-separate papers to relegate coverage of sit-ins, marches, and the like to brief mentions in a column called "Colored Notes." (July 4, 2004)

03:29 PM in Journalism, Non-fiction, Reading |

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