The Rules of Journalism, continued

Your ongoing guide to working in, or understanding, the media.

I thought of a few more rules after I posted The First 10 Rules of Journalism.

36. Go interview bald eagles. See if you can get them to whistle back. That’s a metaphor.

37. Ask ordinary people how they get by. How do they buy food and clothing, make meals, pay the rent or mortgage, arrange for daycare and get to work? What do they watch on TV? Where do they go online? What scares them? What gives them hope? There are stories in all of it.

38. Water is life, that’s true, and so is soil. Pay attention to how land and water are used. Yes, that means covering and understanding land-use policies and decisions, which can be droners.

39. Figure out how technology is being applied and where it’s taking us. That’s a continuing, interesting, important story. Farmers, for example, often are early adopters of technology.

40. Seek out entrepreneurs who have figured out how to be successful without screwing over other people or the environment. There are stories in how they did that, and in the decisions they made along the way.

41. Artists often sense, examine and express social issues before the rest of us notice what’s going on. Pay attention to what they hold up for you to see.

42. “We were the social studies kids.” That’s how longtime Oregon newspaper guy Rick Bella once described journalists. That’s why we’re so bad at math and science. Not too many engineers in journalism — none that I worked with — but I knew several reporters who had gone to law school.

43. Bridge the urban-rural divide with your reporting. Bridge the left-right divide while you’re at it. Bridging the racial divide is a person-to-person work in progress, but we’ll get there. The divide between haves and have-nots could kill America.

44. Hank Aaron’s number. It’s a bit of baseball trivia you should know even if you never work in sports. God bless Hammerin’ Hank, the real home run king.

45. Be exact with the language. I have a couple short examples from (again) my days at the wondrous Albany Demagogue-Herald in the mid 1980s: Our editor, the legendary Hasso Hering, opened a staff meeting by saying, “We had a miracle in our paper today, an absolute miracle.” Turns out I’d written that a man had been electrocuted in a work accident of some kind but was doing OK at the hospital. Well, if you get electrocuted, you’re dead. I should have written he was burned, or shocked. Another time, Hasso frowned when a story described someone as an “accused murderer.” So not only was he accused, HH pointed out, but he was a murderer, too. Use defendant, the man accused of, the man charged with — something else that doesn’t convict the guy in print before he stands trial.

46. Be fair, be accurate, be honest. Help this fine lady tend the flame.