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| Not Danny Murphy. Wikimedia Commons. |
I’ve been a news junkie since I was a boy. My first job in a
suburb of Boston was delivering The Boston Globe, The Herald Traveler, and for
a handful of discerning readers, the Record-American. Eighty or so newspapers
on a bike, long before I started driving a car. There was another guy in the neighborhood who delivered the Patriot Ledger in the afternoon.
My father worked in the
Mailers’ Union for the newspapers. When I was in high school, right across
Morrissey Blvd. from the Boston Globe, he got me a few shifts on Saturday
nights putting the Sunday papers together at The Globe. That was back when the
Sunday newspapers were gigantic. When I went on breaks, I enjoyed reading the
paper in the middle of the night, before anyone else had an opportunity to.
I did well at writing in high school and I took writing
classes in college. One of those courses was Magazine Feature Writing at the
University of North Florida. That class was taught by the incomparable William
Roach. Students in that class had to go through the process of writing and
submitting four articles to magazines. One of mine got published! It was a
thrill to see my name in print. I went on to write book reviews for the Florida
Times-Union and numerous articles that were published in excellent magazines
like Onyx, The Wittenburg Door, and National Business Employment Weekly.
In the 90s a friend of mine who was in radio ran for
Congress and I got involved with his campaign. During that time I read dozens
of books about the media. I was trying to learn enough to become the logical
pick for press secretary if my friend won. Unfortunately, he didn’t win. I had
accumulated so much information that I felt like I had to do something with it.
By that time, lots of Americans loathed the media. Trivial Pursuit was hot. I created a trivia game called Media Mayhem, the game that empowered people to
trash the media, piece by illicit piece. I intended for it to be a fun way to
learn about the media. Although the game didn’t sell as well as I would have
liked, I did manage to get on over fifty talk radio shows throughout the
country as a guest to talk about it.
I’ve never stopped being a news junkie. I still get two
newspapers – the Wall Street Journal and the Florida Times-Union – delivered to
the end of my driveway every morning. (Actually, the WSJ doesn’t publish on Sundays
or holidays.) Also, I’ve continued to write for publication. Toward the end of
2016, it seemed to me that there would be a serious need for informative
articles and blog posts to educate people about fake news. I wrote blog posts
on topics like How to Spot Fake News, Pizzagate, Buzzfeed, Alternative Facts,
and more.
To lighten things up, I also wrote fake news about fake
news. Those posts include titles like Fake News Announces it will Develop a
Code of Ethics, and a post about the fictitious Fakies Awards. I believe that
humor and satire can be very effective for making points about serious subject
matter.
Check out the book, Fake News 101, at Amazon.com. As a
former reviewer of books, I can assure you that it will be well worth your
time.
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