Beer Of The Week-June 29

It's Saturday. You've had a hard day in the yard. The mercury is pushing into the upper 90s. The humidity is 100 percent. You've paid your dues to the hydration gods by drinking the requisite amount of H2O.
You want a beer but nothing too heavy.
Reach for an ice-cold Pearl Light.
The original maker was the Pearl Brewery, established in 1883 in San Antonio, according to various Internet sources. Pearl's parent company purchased the Pabst Brewing Co. in 1985, and 14 years later, it began transferring production to Miller, closing all the Pearl breweries. Today, Pearl (my college favorite as well as the No. 1 beer for my maternal grandmother, God rest her soul) and Pearl Light are brewed at the Miller facility in Fort Worth.
Pearl Light is the best-keep secret at the end of the suds spectrum where you'll find the beer-flavored bubble waters.
If you're going to drink light beer, you might as well go all the way. As far as I know, Pearl Light - and its "68 calories of natural goodness," as a friend calls it - is one of the lightest, if not THE lightest, beer on the market. It has fewer calories than Natural Light, Bud Light, Miller Light, Coors Light and even Michelob Ultralight, whose calories range from 90 to 115.
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art26815.asp
Pearl Light is a crisp, refreshing little number that dances nicely on the tongue and leaves almost no aftertaste. It's the croaker or perch of beers.
Perhaps the best part is the price, which is between $6 and $7 for AN ENTIRE 12-PACK. It's kind of hard to find, though. I can get them at Spec's in Beaumont but have yet to see it at any of the local grocery stores.
If you want to go cheap: Pearl Light.
If you want to go light: Pearl Light.
If you want a beer that comes in a cool-looking can: Pearl Light.

Timewaster Of The Week-June 26

I came back from vacation today to find this little gem passed on to me:

http://sticksportsbaseball.com/index.php

You're the batter, and you simply use the arrow keys to hit a variety of pitches.

A perfect way to chew up some company time on a slow work day!

Reality Television, Journalism Collide

My wife and I are shameless reality television show junkies. We'll watch just about anything, from island survivors to hapless wanna-be cooks to a bunch of beautiful people stuck in a camera-rich house with little or no contact with the outside.
The latest reality-TV stunt, according to Yahoo news, entails a model and former World Wrestling Entertainment bimbo doing an anchor stint for the CBS affiliate in Tyler. Despite it being a CBS affiliate, the reality series will air on Fox.
That's some strange bedfellows, for sure.
The TV-personality-in-the-making, Lauren Jones, will undergo training and then co-anchor the 5 p.m. newscast. The show might premiere in August if the network deems it worthy.
The show already has sparked arguments over whether it will erode journalism's credibility and sanctity, despite the fact that we've already done a lion's share of the damage to ourselves.
Speaking on behalf of Tyler's ABC affiliate, General Manager Brad Streit accused its competitor of selling its integrity. Mike DeLier, his counterpart at the NBC station, called it a publicity stunt and not a journalistic endeavor.
Al Tompkins, a guy I know from the esteemed Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., said the show "devalues the work of real journalists who are trying to do real work," according to the Yahoo story.
In response, the CBS GM Phil Hurley laughed off the criticism and noted how much media attention is paid to Paris Hilton, who had a hit reality show herself in "The Simple Life." Hurley even acknowledged that "it's going to be comedy."
It's that last statement that makes this an unfortunate endeavor. If Fox is shooting for a broadcast-news version of "The Simple Life," I hope the show never gets aired.
I don't have a problem with the overall idea, and I've known many a TV station to favor looks over skill and experience when it comes to hiring staffers, so I don't think there's much argument there.
When's the last time you saw a TV anchor who looked like Granny from "The Beverly Hillbillies"?
A friend today sent me a link to the Yahoo story and asked me what I thought. My friend is about as liberal as they come and enjoys engaging in political arguments and feather-ruffling anywhere and everywhere he can. I'm sure we'll have quite the fiery e-mail exchange by late afternoon.
But rather than express outrage over the concept, I opined that it could actually be a great idea if done right.
Universities today as whole teach philosophy over practical application when it comes to journalism. Instead of making the students go cover a council meeting, they too often make the kids ponder the meaning of it all.
Subsequently, every spring I get a pile of applications from graduating seniors with 4.0 grade-point averages and not a single newspaper clip to show me what they can do. If someone hires them, they're going to require a lot of hand-holding and constant guidance.
In other words, they'll be trained from scratch, much like Lauren Jones will be. With so much exposure and publicity at stake, she might even get some damn good training.
During the 1990s, I spent almost four years as editor of a weekly newspaper, where the rubber hits the community road. Having to hire people became one of the least pleasant aspects of my job. I got the applicants who couldn't get a job on a daily, and most of them were the 4.0s with barely a clip to show for it.
So we became a sink-or-swim boot camp. Many succeeded, but others failed. For the failures, I sat them down in my office, told them I didn't think they had what it takes and then gave them some time to find something else. They always did, and they always thanked me for pushing them in that direction, which usually tripled their salaries.
In addition to training journalists at the weekly, I also had the headache of a massive news hole and no wire service, so I assembled an army of stringers, free lancers, contributors, etc., to send me a river of information from their respective worlds. I got plant columns from the agriculture extension guy. I had little old ladies covering rural communities. I had sixth-graders writing stuff about their schools.
What I learned is that you can teach just about anybody to be a nuts-and-bolts journalist. Get the facts. Make it accurate. Write simple. Subject-verb-object.
It reminds me of Linus talking to Charlie Brown about pitching. Charlie wants to do all kinds of crazy pitching, and Linus says it'll be fast balls, slow balls and curve balls only.
That's how I teach the green reporters: Facts. Accuracy. Keep it simple. Don't get overwhelmed thinking about every conceivable angle. You'll get to that once you can master the simple stuff.
If Fox wanted to do their show in my newsroom, this is how I would approach it. Just give me someone intelligent, stable and eager to learn, and I'll teach them how to be a reporter.
I don't see this as an insult to the trained journalists. In a hiring environment, their college degrees and experience obviously give them an insurmountable edge over non-journalists.
But the reality show would give our newspaper publicity and perhaps spotlight the kind of training and passion that too often fails to occur in the college setting. It might get more
Unfortunately, this will never happen.
Why?
Because it wouldn't make sensational, popular television in this day and age, so the showmakers would be left to come up with stunts, silliness and inaccurate portrayals to satisfy the reality-show junkies in us all.

Here's the link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070611/tv_nm/foxreality_dc;_ylt=AgA6.IzFmq0bbWqdloYLgWVY24cA

Timewaster Of The Week-June 11

This one is one of the most addictive I've seen yet.
It's similar to the ones where you set up and upgrade various weapons. However, YOU create the maze in this one.
There are little guys, big guys, guys that split into multiple guys, flying guys, guys immune to certain weapons and fast guys. If a guy gets past your defense, he'll give you a cartoonish "YIPPEE!" as he moves out of the picture.
My best score so far on "medium" is 6,550, and you'll have to figure out how to rise up into the higher parts of the score rankings. I've seen scores that top 8,000, and I can't figure out how the heck they do it.
I give you Desktop Tower Defense:

http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/

Off And On The Record

Sources and readers often get confused about the term "off the record."
What I tell reporters is information should not be taken off the record. If a source up front says, "Off the record ... ," then the reporter should stop the interview, request the information be provided on "background" and explain the difference between the two terms.
That way, the source does not have exclusive control over the information, and the reporter is free to pursue other sources to verify the information. The background source's identity will be protected.
There are exceptions, of course, to accepting off-the-record material, such as sources and reporters getting close enough to discuss non-newsworthy personal matters, such as an upcoming colonoscopy or whether their boss was a lousy cook at the company picnic.
However, if they're that comfortable with each other to share that kind of thing, they shouldn't have to discuss up front whether the information is off the record.
It's just understood.
I've been in this business for 22 years, and neither I nor anyone I've ever worked with, to my knowledge, has burned a source by writing off-the-record information into a story for publication. The last thing we want to do is trash trust with a reliable, valuable source and destroy our credibility.
However, there are exceptions to that, too, such as a source confessing to a murder. If you tell me you killed somebody, I sure as hell am not going to protect you.
But the best way to avoid any confusion is to not accept off-the-record remarks in the first place.
What sources don't understand is that they can't engage in an interview with a reporter and close the interview with "Oh, and that was all off the record."
Sorry, but it was.
If a source wants that information off the record, it must be agreed upon up front.
Again, there are exceptions.
We don't expect everyday people to understand all journalism rules. We don't want to take advantage of people. If they have second thoughts about something they told a reporter, we'll weigh all facets of it and carefully decide whether the information warrants publication.
Public figures such as elected officials don't get the same leverage when it comes to taking back things they say on the record. As public figures, they should be familiar with how the media works, and governmental agencies and companies often teach courses on dealing with journalists.
Why?
Because effectively communicating with the media just comes with the job.

Timewaster of the Week-June 4

A quick, easy one that promotes a Superman movie:

http://hk.promo.yahoo.com/movie/superman/Stop_Press_Game/

You play photographer and try to snap Superman as he flies around a city. You must meet certain standards to make Page 1A and move on to the next level, and there really aren't that many levels.

Woo!