OKLAHOMA CITY — One of the visits I make periodically to conduct training sessions for other CNHI newspapers took me to Stillwater, Oklahoma last week.
As a sports editor for several suburban New York community newspapers in the 1980s, I sometimes had to handle complaints from high school coaches and athletic directors who thought we were favoring one of their competing schools over them.
Regular readers know I am a huge fan of Aaron Sorkin’s scriptwriting.
I’m guessing not many of you remember long-time New York City radio DJ Harry Harrison.
Some of my favorite moments each day come during the commute from my home in East Buffalo Township to The Daily Item building in Sunbury.
One of my personal — OK selfish — hopes for 2020 is to finally see Lin Manuel Miranda’s heralded play “Hamilton.”
So, made any New Year’s resolutions for 2020?
If you like looking at lists of things, this is your moment. There are lists everywhere this time of year.
How you answer the following question, I’m guessing, will have a great deal to do with when you were born.
A few times a week — my goal is three — I drive down 4th Street to the Sunbury YMCA to do some walking and other exercises.
Horace Stoneham, the owner of the New York and later San Francisco Giants baseball teams from 1936 to 1976, was vilified in New York when he announced he would move the team out west prior to the 1958 season.
A little over a week ago, as 3-year-old Arabella Parker lay dying from the injuries sustained in an October beating, members of The Daily Item news team gathered to discuss our next steps in reporting this tragedy.
Forget thinking about preparing the turkey, stuffing and green bean casserole for a few moments, if you will.
In what seems to be an almost weekly occurrence these days, another new streaming service — Disney+ — launched last week.
While editing one of our many election advance stories the other day, I caught a mistake on the date for this year’s election.
With Halloween once again upon us on Thursday, I’ve got a confession to make.
I had the opportunity to speak to the current class of Leadership Susquehanna Valley on Thursday. As usual, The Daily Item sponsored the group’s Communication-themed day. That won me about 15 minutes to address the members of this year’s class.
The late Indira Gandhi, India’s first and still only female prime minister, is reported to have said something in a 1982 interview that I think means more today than it did then.
I’ve never been much for awards shows on TV, but most years until recently, I did catch at least part of the Emmys.
Regular readers know I have been a New York Mets fan most of my life.
I had the radio turned off in my car the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
One of the first things I learned when I moved to the Valley in 2015 was that you can get to a lot of big cities from here in about 3 hours.
My two favorite television shows of all time are M*A*S*H and The West Wing.
Did you know that September is National Better Breakfast Month?
A few weeks ago, I sat in on a very cordial meeting with a group of religious leaders to discuss how to get more good news into the newspaper. They wanted to know how best to reach out to us with events they were hosting in hopes we could cover them if warranted.
About the best thing you can say about Pennsylvania’s Open Records Law is that it’s not as bad as it used to be.
I saw a TV commercial recently that I guess, to some degree, achieved its purpose.
I have lived, worked and voted in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Indiana, Virginia and Pennsylvania since I was first old enough to cast a ballot in 1973.
Outside of maybe a new shirt, a book by a favorite author or a bottle of a preferred adult beverage, there aren’t many material things that I or many people my age really need or want.
They didn’t get the attention received by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions on gerrymandering and having a citizenship question on the U.S. Census, but the nation’s top court also made two troubling rulings last week on First Amendment and Freedom of Information Issues.
Whenever there’s a new business opening in the Valley, odds are we’ll be asked by someone involved to do a story.
Once a month, for the past three years, a group of Valley community members has met for an hour in The Daily Item’s first floor conference room to discuss important community and state issues and our coverage — or potential coverage — of them.
I often wish I’d had more conversations with my father about his service during World War II.
A Pew Research Center survey released last week looked at people’s views about community journalism. Among other things, it showed that people place strong value on local journalists being a part of their community.
The TV drama “9-1-1” has become one of my favorite shows the past couple of years.
When I was a kid, my mom was president of our local Little League. It meant we were at the Washies Playground in Danville a lot.
Judging by all the national news coverage it’s already been getting, I know it may seem like we’re already deep into the 2020 presidential election.
I’ve got a question for you.
Sometime back in the 1990s, I remember reading — OK, skimming — a book titled “All I Really Need To Know I Learned From Watching Star Trek.”
The Pennsylvania primary election is just a bit more than six weeks away.
When reporters are working on challenging stories, I sometimes remind them of something an editor told me many years ago.
No page in The Daily Item gets as much reaction on a regular basis as our Opinion page.
I coached a lot of youth baseball and softball when our two sons and two daughters were growing up. I enjoyed most of that experience.
One of the great things about this job is that in editing stories reporters turn in, I know I’m likely to learn something that makes me stop and think.
One of the great things about this job is that in editing stories reporters turn in, I know I'm likely to learn something that makes me stop and think.
There’s a scene in the 1965 movie “A Thousand Clowns,” in which actor Jason Robards, playing a character named Murray Burns, talks about standing on a Manhattan street corner, telling random strangers who walk by, “I’m sorry.”
I don’t normally write about national issues in this space, but as a baseball fan, there’s a topic I felt compelled to address.
When you bring your car to a mechanic or call a home repair professional, there are five words you never want to hear:
Last Sunday I wrote about something new at The Daily Item — daily news, sports and weather updates now available on the Amazon Alexa devices and app. Already, according to the metrics we receive from Amazon, hundreds have begun to listen.
