For students of media writing

On April 4th, I visited with Al Aamodt's Media Writing students at Minnesota State University, Moorhead. During  my talk, I mentioned several books that would be helpful to anyone involved in communicating through electronic or print media.

Although you may not plan to be a screenwriter, Joseph McBride's new (2012) book entitled: Writing in Pictures: Screenwriting Made (Mostly) Painless is a fascinating and useful treatise for anyone interested in writing for any medium. Although McBride's focus is on writing movie scripts, he includes many quotations and insights on developing your ideas into a produce-able media project. To me, it was like reading how Alfred Hitchcock worked: inspiring and useful in my own work no matter what kind of writing or media project I was planning to do.

During my 25 years of managing a corporate communications department and personally handling a number of media crises, I always attempted to practice four principles of crisis PR. I found when I followed these steps, I was usually able to kill negative media stories within a week to ten days. These four rules are not guaranteed to work; but if you don't use all of them, I can almost guarantee your bad press will stick around for long time. I write about these guidelines in a column I wrote in 2011 entitled Crisis PR and today's "journalism"

Although I don't agree with many of his political views and I regard manipulation of public opinion through specially-minted expressions as questionable or, in some cases, unethical,  Dr. Frank Luntz has written an excellent book on the subject: Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear, an informative and useful work for students and practitioners of public relations and advertising.

In in his chapter entitled "Political Case Studies," Luntz quotes the late Edward R. Murrow, one of the founding fathers of CBS News, as saying, "Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions." How true.

But the political world today is filled with clever slogans, the kind described and explained in Words That Work: "

"The death tax"

"Save, strengthen, and simplify Medicare" (what they really mean, in my opinion, is cutting the benefits to seniors, physicians and hospitals)

"Personalizing," not "privatizing," Social Security. (Bunk!)

"Democrat Party." (This uses the noun, "Democrat" incorrectly. "Democratic Party" is correct English, but the "rat" part is diminished when one uses Democratic, rather than Democrat. This sleazy use of language.)

"ObamaCare" in place of the correct and more accurate term: "The Affordable Health Care Act of 2010."

And the list goes on. I'm sure you can think of many more expressions you've heard that should be subject to questioning by intelligent and discerning minds. The benefits of reading Dr. Luntz's book not only accrue to communication and advertising professionals; this treatise helps create awareness among all members of our representative democracy of the use, misuse, and skewing of the language to influence public opinion and elections. I highly recommend it for a permanent place in your personal library.


The Elements of Graphic Design (Second Edition) is the kind of book I discovered at a public library and then immediately purchased my own copy. The author, Alex W. White, has designed many magazines and corporate identity programs.

In his latest book, he's produced an excellent reference and resource that should be on the bookshelf of every graphic designer and student of the print and publication arts. It's the type of volume one browses through to catch the muse or find some inspiration for a new project.

White covers the history of typography and the reasons for organized page layout. I find myself paging through it often and reading a chapter or two on a particular area of graphic design. I highly recommend it. White has richly enhanced the above book with insightful quotations that stimulate thinking and ideas. For example:

"The use of words--there sounds, their meanings, and their letter forms--has been an intriguing aspect of design since the invention of the alphabet. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but, as one wit pointed out: it takes words to say that." - Allen Hurlburt (1911-1983)

"When it doubt, make it red. If you're still in doubt, make it big." - Ivan Chermayeff (1932- )

"The colors red and yellow pop forward which is why they're used in advertising. Blue and green recede." - The Elements of Graphic Design, (Second Edition)

I've been a student of writing all my life. Throughout my career, I tried to develop and use whatever talents I have been blessed with. However, the single most important interest and skill that made it possible  for me to advance in my career was writing. And even though I am now retired, I still use that skill personally and professionally. And I'm still learning.

While there are countless books on writing, on my last trip to Boston before I retired from my corporate position in 2008, I picked up a copy of Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark. Dave Barry said, "Roy Peter Clark knows more about writing than anybody I know who is not currently dead."

According to the biographical information on the book's cover: "Clark is vice president and senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, one of the most prestigious schools for journalists in the world. He has taught writing at every level, from school children to Pulitzer Prize-wining authors."

I found Clark's book to be very helpful in the way he gives one various checklists and advice-rules to follow when working on a piece of writing.