This story is almost beyond comprehension, for those of us of a certain age.  Anyone, that is, old enough to remember the Evil Empire that was the Soviet Union. Now, not even 20 years after the Soviet Union fell, to the delight of the free world, a former agent of one of its more feared […]

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That was the subject line on the e-mail I received yesterday from a friend of mine, David Lassen, and since he was working as a columnist in the print industry, it was hard to imagine “They got me” was going to be anything good. Maybe as the butt of a practical joke. You know, “Boy, […]

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My friend and former colleague Steve Dilbeck now blogs about the Dodgers for the Los Angeles Times. I would like to read Steve’s blog. I would also like to read a blog about the Dodgers. The trouble? None of the latimes.com blogs will load. Zero. Sports, politics, news. None can be called up. The people […]

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Another rough year for the economy. The world economy, the national, the state … People losing jobs. Unemployment of, what, 12.5 percent in California? Something like 10 percent in the nation? Even higher, when you include people who have stopped looking for work and the scads of people not fully employed. U.S. print journalism is […]

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Holidays here perplex me. If I stay long enough, I’m sure I will figure it out. Meantime … We are in the midst of what apparently is up to 10 consecutive off days for government workers in the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi is one of the seven emirates. Not that this applies to journalists. […]

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Sometimes the answer to this question is just plain scary. When journalists talk among themselves about “what readers really want” … they almost always take the high road. Too high a road. Readers want incisive reporting and elegant writing, journalists say. They want global news. They want hard-hitting investigative journalism That Makes a Difference and […]

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One of our favorite former journalism co-workers, Jim Long, died in September at age 46. Far too young for far too good a guy. Here is the obit that we did here in September, but most of you have seen it. The news here is that his widow, Judith Pfeffer, has created a blog dedicated […]

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Here is my good-news journalism story, from Abu Dhabi. Three weeks into my career at The National … I don’t have a computer station to call my own. Yes. That is good news. That is outstanding news. That is news that very few newsrooms in the United States have bumped into in, lo, these many […]

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Abu Dhabi is more than a little like Hong Kong, where I was a year ago today. It’s 1) all about business and the business of making money and 2) shopping seems to be a major social activity. Hong Kong shopping is fairly pervasive and spread out. Abu Dhabi seems to focus its shopping on a […]

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Making a big move is always easier when you know somebody — anybody — at the other end. Luckily, for us, we already know two people in Abu Dhabi, and they made our first night in town easy, fun. Entertaining.

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