COMM 337: Craft, writing

Elvis Costello, the British punk rocker who has now become something of an elder statesman in the music industry, once said "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Impossible, in other words.

So, perhaps, is writing about writing.

But in the next few days, we're going to try to take what Don Murray in writes about writing in "Writing to Deadline: The Journalist at Work" and compare it to what more recent writers say about their craft and what happens when they actually practice it -- which may not be the same thing always.

National Public Radio aired a series in 2004 called "The Craft of Writing" ... featuring the work of three prize-winning magazine writers. Over the weekend, read the stories by Evan Wright in Rolling Stone.

Dana Milbank of The Washington Post has skewered both Obama and McCain in his coverage of the Democratic and Republican national conventions. Read both (we want to be fair and balanced, right?) What kinds of things would have gone into his notebook (cf. Murray 49? He's trying for edge, not empathy, in my opinion. And not all of Murray's questions would apply to Milbank's way of reporting/writing. But some of them may. On your blog, compare and contrast what Murray says and what Milbank does.