Category: General
-
Ghree Lockard: A Fish in Water
Ghree’s story is the last of six pieces in a series called “Story of My Life,” produced with funding from the Wake Forest University Humanities Institute and exceptional cooperation from Group Homes of Forsyth. Ghree is one tough cookie, and she doesn’t let anything slow her down. She has cerebral palsy, so she has a…
-
On the Air
The most amazing thing has happened to me: I am back on the air at WFDD, the public radio station in Winston-Salem, after an unplanned sabbatical of more than 12 years. I think I made good use of the time: I learned to be a newspaper reporter and editor; I learned about the web and video…
-
Recommended by Wordle
One of the most humbling things I’ve done recently is ask my former colleagues for LinkedIn recommendations. The many beautiful responses I received reduced me to tears of gratitude, especially the words of the young journalists who have all gone on to bigger and better things in their careers. Just for fun, and because Wordle is a…
-
Everything you need to know about social media …
And I thought I was so clever. Lately I’ve been having conversation with friends who are still trying to wrap their heads around using social media as part of their outreach for business or creative projects. So I started thinking about a straightforward way to explain some of what I think of as the basic…
-
Inauguration Day
A father, his daughter and the first black president of the United States My old dad always did have a knack for getting things his way with us, even before an epidural steroid injection gone wrong landed him in a wheelchair. I’d learned to tolerate this, and my forbearance was even sweetening into genuine compassion….
-
Song of the Ice
The iPhone is a mighty media tool, especially when it is the one piece of equipment you’re carrying when you encounter breathtaking beauty and mystery.
-
Goodbye, Newsroom
Perhaps it’s not the most politic thing in the world to announce your unemployment on your own website, but I have never been one to pussyfoot around. I lost my job a little over a month ago, in a newsroom reorganization that was part of a larger reduction in force by the Winston-Salem Journal’s new…
-
Not for the faint of heart
When I started fiddling around in digital media, there was one thing I swore I’d never do: get in front of the camera. For one thing, I have a wardrobe made for radio. I mean, look up ‘the rumpled look’ in the dictionary, and you’ll probably find a picture of me. I’m usually too busy…
-
The Poems Department
It’s pretty unusual these days to get a hand-addressed envelope delivered to the newsroom. (And much of the time, such letters are what we call “jail mail”, long entreaties from inmates who have nothing but time on their hands to write rambling letters about their cases.) But this is certainly the first letter I’ve seen…
-
The Murders at Grassy Creek
When three people were murdered on a Grayson County, Va., Christmas tree farm, suspicion soon focused on Freddie Hammer, a man who earned his living chopping firewood and doing odd jobs in neighboring Ashe County, N.C. In 2008, reporter Monte Mitchell of the Winston-Salem Journal spent several months unraveling Hammer’s complicated past, including his conviction on…