Molly Ivins Visits the Police Blotter

[cal04]

Last November 16, E. J. Dionne of The Washington Post delivered the annual Theodore H. White Lecture at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The same evening, under the auspices of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Molly Ivins was awarded the David Nyhan Prize for Political Journalism, named in honor of the famed Boston Globe columnist.

Now the Center has produced a booklet containing Dionne's lecture, along with the Q and A that followed. But it also holds the transcript of what turned out to be, perhaps, Molly Ivins' last public remarks away from her native Texas. She succumbed to cancer, which she had been fighting for some time, on January 31, 2007.

Ivins' comments ranged far and wide, as was her wont, with many addressing the decline of newspapers and her ideas on how to combat that (halting newsroom cuts, for example). But in defending the press, she also highlighted some of its witty attributes, such as odd headlines, leads and police reports.

"I swear to you," she testified, "if you put out a newspaper and all it said on its front was 'guaranteed one good laugh a day,' you would have a successful newspaper." Then she claimed that she had served for many years as "the daily chuckle editor" at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003568721

[razors edge]

1. K&R

Hey cal04, been out of town for a while, catch you later next week on Malloy.

BTW MI was one of a kind. She will be missed.

[ewagner]

2. "Damn! Is it midnight already?"

That has to be one of the funniest stories I've read in years!

Molly knew how to tell a story....I really miss her...

k & R

[shrike]

3. I used to do police blotter

I loved it, actually, and wish I'd had a chance to stick with it longer.

Other than the fact it can get depressing (people will steal anything that's not nailed down, and that's the truth) it provides a remarkable window which to view human behavior, some of it downright entertaining.