Stormy weather aboard the Alaska ferry

Hello. When I posted this hastily one night in Juneau, at the Silverbow Inn, I didn't have time to add any detail, just throw up the pictures of a stormy trip. I was on my way back to Anchorage, Alaska after a year at Stanford reveling in a John S. Knight midcareer fellowship. All wonderful things do end. I remember one of my teachers saying: one day more, and the fellowship wouldn't be as great as it was. So, the 20 of us are all journeying back to where we came from.

As you can see below, we were plagued by stormy weather out of Bellingham, Washington. We were on the graceful old Columbia, a 35-year-old, very comfy vessel. We camped on the back deck under the solarium roof, which included some toasty heat lamps. We had a three-night journey up to Juneau. Lucky for us, we weren't tent-camping out on the backdeck of the ferry, which looked more like this:

After the storm, the weather improved dramatically!



And I made it home, safe and sound, reunited with my dog Clare who'd been staying with a friend and her dog for the year.

Buck up

These journalism times are indeed unsettling, with shrinking newsrooms and all. So learning why one newspaper editor is optimistic is worth your time and trouble. John Robinson of the Greensboro News & Record has three reasons why he's optimistic now. Go read them yourself here, but the first one surely will make you sit up straight and feel good, so I'll tease with it.

1. The reporters are better. I'm speaking of reporters like this who are paid for their work and reporters like this who aren't. The professionals are smarter and quicker, and more fluid and more diverse than any in the 30+ years I've been in the business. They are innovative and open to change. We're in good hands. The widespread entry of non-pros is a splendid development, bring new eyes to old and new topics. When I was editorial page editor, it was a daunting challenge to write on complicated issues day after day, knowing that there were dozens of people in the community who knew the topic better than I. Now they have access to a megaphone to inform those of us who care. How can that be anything be a valuable complement to democracy?

The tip for this came from Jeff Jarvis' BuzzMachine blog, where he cites his own optimism and that of a few others. On a Monday, that's worth reading.