ASJA PACIFIC NORTHWEST NEWSLETTER
For ASJA members in
Alaska, British Columbia, Idaho, Oregon and Washington
January 2025
https://asjapnw.org
In This Issue
From the Prez, Quantum Leaps, M. Carolyn Miller, ASJA PNW President
How I Got Started Writing, Joanna Nesbit
Cutting My Teeth, Rosemary Keevil
Perplexity.ai Challenged: Better Fact Check AI Research!, Bruce Miller
Member News and Announcements
Our January chapter meeting at 11 am:
M. Carolyn Miller is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Time: Wednesday, January 15, 2025
11:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87898612924
Meeting ID: 878 9861 2924
This newsletter publishes the first day of each month and welcomes article submissions and photos. Please email the ASJA PNW Newsletter Editor, Maxine Cass, at maxinecass@gmail.com .
Why Attend the ASJA Conference?
When the Association of Writing Programs (AWP) conference was in Portland a few years ago, I attended even though I’m not an academic. I attended because it was in my ‘hood and I was curious. What surprised me the most was how accessible editors were, and how ready they were to connect.
If you’re not attending the Spring ASJA conference, I’d urge you to, not only for that reason but for many others. Additionally, the chapter with the most attendees will be recognized, Debbie Blumberg, the Washington DC area chapter president, informed me.
For more info on the conference: https://www.asja.org/2025-asja-conference/
And info on client connections: https://www.asja.org/client-connections-labor-of-love/
—M. Carolyn Miller
From the President
by M. Carolyn Miller
ASJA PNW Chapter President
Quantum Leaps
I have started wearing a rubber band around my wrist. Every time I start to judge myself or compare myself to others and come up short, I snap the band to remind myself to “snap out of” the dark thoughts and turn to more positive ones. This simple Pavlovian exercise is working. But I shouldn’t be surprised.
Margaret Wheatley, a leadership guru whose book I read years ago, Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World, wrote about quantum physics and chaos theory in the context of business teams. Intrigued, I studied Wheatley’s work, and came away with a basic understanding of how the quantum world operates in modern life.
My rubber band exercise is, in fact, “field theory” in action. Field theory proposes that you don’t actually have to exert force to create change. Instead, you need only set your intention, with your thoughts. Those thoughts then act as magnets so that what you look for is what you find.
We often call this “synchronicity.” You think about your sister and she calls. You need a piece of information and it appears magically. In the quantum world, that’s the result of two fields touching. When they do, things manifest effortlessly.
I have a quote by Einstein on my computer desktop. Over the holidays, when cleaning things up, I re-read his words and was reminded of the value of my rubber band exercise and the verity of field theory.
“Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it,” noted Einstein. “Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”
Happy quantum leaps in the New Year.
M. Carolyn Miller, MA, spent her career designing narrative- and game-based learning. Today, she consults and writes about narrative in our lives and world, the inextricable link between the two, and the critical role of self-awareness in transforming both. www.cultureshape.com
by Joanna Nesbit
How I Got Started Writing
My first official byline (for paltry pay) appeared in a small, local parenting magazine. I wrote a piece on how to help new parents — I was one — and I led with an anecdote about a friend who had brought her preschoolers along to visit the third day after my daughter was born. It didn’t go well for me, and in the article I gently suggested better ways to help. I hurt her feelings deeply with that opening and I learned my first lesson about including people I know in my writing. I changed tactics and not long after got a personal parenting essay published on a national website (for no pay this time).
That essay led directly to my first paid national byline for real money. An editor called me out of the blue (back when we answered the phone) to ask if I’d like to contribute to a new magazine launched by Disney – it was Wondertime, a truly beautiful parenting magazine that later folded. The editor had read that personal parenting essay and thought my style would be a good fit for the fledgling magazine. At the time, I had zero idea how to pitch or write a reported article for a national audience. Somehow, I pulled it off. I have no doubt the editor went to bat for me a few times based on some of the editorial comments I saw.
The whole experience was exhilarating, flattering, and terrifying, and it’s how I got my launch into magazine writing.
Joanna Nesbit is a content marketer and service journalist who covers higher education, personal finance, family, and aging. She lives in Bellingham with her husband and two cats. Her two young adults have flown the coop. Find her work at http://www.joannanesbit.com/ or https://joannanesbit.contently.com/ .
by Rosemary Keevil
Cutting My Teeth
I was hired as a news reporter for CFTO in Toronto, the flagship station for the Canadian national network, CTV. It was 1983. I was 29, eager to please, bright-eyed with a ready smile and shoulder-length, thick blonde hair—and I was terrified.
Within the first two weeks of starting to work at CFTO-TV, I was assigned to cover an internationally reported story—an accident at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station in Ontario. Fuel rods had cracked, releasing a deluge of radioactive water under the floor of the reactor building. The situation was brought under control, nobody was injured, and no radiation leaked into the environment.
My reputation did, however, take a bit of a beating. I was doing Take One (not live) of the final reporter wrap-up in front of the power plant. You know, the one that ends with, “Rosemary Parrett, CFTO News.” My voluminous, 80s-style hair was bobbing in the wind as I stumbled over some words and then said, “Blaaaaaaaaaaa…Take Two!” I then went on to record a second, flawless Take Two.
As it turned out, the video editor of my story used Take One instead of Take Two, so my “Blaaaaaaaaaaa…Take Two!” went to air!
The next morning when I entered the newsroom, I approached the assignment desk to receive my marching orders for the day. But instead, I was informed that the Vice President of Programing wanted to see me in his office, upstairs. All the top brass had their offices upstairs. The man was about 50 years old, rotund, balding and cross-eyed.
Was I going to be fired two weeks into the job? Granted, this was my first news reporter job, and I had made a mistake on air.
I held the handrail to help me up those twenty stairs. I trudged to his office and gingerly knocked on the door, which was ajar. He knew it was me:
“Come in, Rosemary…” he grumbled. I pushed the door open and entered his sizeable office.
He shifted a bit in his seat and pointed to the chair in front of his formidable desk.
I sat down gently, tucked my hair behind my ears, and folded my hands in my lap.
“Rosemary…” I could tell by the tone of his voice there would be no pleasantries.
He stared, sort of at me, with his big cross-eyed brown eyes.
“You are going to be a good reporter!”
Oh no, I thought, what is he going to say? Am I going to be demoted?
“But…”
I was leaning so far forward that I almost fell out of my chair.
“But…you got too much hair.”
So, I cut my hair. I then continued to report on national stories.
Those stories included the Dr. Henry Morgentaler court cases. Morgentaler conducted a high-profile campaign to secure legalized abortion in Canada and was at the center of the legal cases that brought this to fruition. I was quite pregnant at the time.
I recall receiving a final 50-page judgment at 4:00 in the afternoon and I had it summarized into a one-minute, thirty-second story by the 6:00 News. I felt I did more than redeemed myself after my “Blaaaaaaaaaaa…Take Two!” fiasco.
Good advice I’ve taken with me from my early days as a reporter:
“If in doubt, check it out. If still in doubt, leave it out.”
“Tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em. Tell ‘em. And tell ‘em what you told ‘em.”
“Never start a story with a clip. You start with your best picture and your own voice.”
I have to say that TV news reporting was my favorite job of all time, and a close second is being the host of The Rosemary Keevil Show, a morning drive time current affairs radio program. Now, that’s another story, starting with: it doesn’t matter what the hell your hair looks like on radio.
Here’s a demo tape of my TV news work, playfully entitled “Hair and HairAfter.”
Rosemary Keevil is a freelance journalist and the author of The Art of Losing It: A Memoir of Grief and Addiction. She has been a TV news reporter, a current affairs radio show host, and managing editor of a professional women’s magazine. She was a can-can dancer in Dawson City, Yukon and drives a mean motorboat. Rosemary lives in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, with her partner and two doodles.
by Bruce Miller
Perplexity.ai Challenged: Better Fact Check AI Research!
Buried in the website meta code for perplexity.ai is the meta description tag that states: “Perplexity is a free AI-powered answer engine that provides accurate, trusted, and real-time answers to any question.”
If the free version is that good, then the Pro (paid) version should kick ass. Let’s see.
I recently put this prompt (input to a Generative Artificial Intelligence as a guide to generate a response) to Perplexity Pro:
“History of the Benjamin Franklin Magazine Awards [BFMA] initiated by the Society of Magazine Writers [SMW].”
The answer:
“The Benjamin Franklin Magazine Awards were initiated by the Society of Magazine Writers (now known as the American Society of Magazine Editors) to honor excellence in magazine writing and publishing. The awards were established in the early 1990s, aiming to recognize outstanding contributions in various categories, including feature writing, reporting, and design.”
Perplexity took language from the prompt by saying “initiated by the Society of Magazine Writers”. Regurgitating the prompt language — rather than creating an original response — becomes apparent based on real facts, not Perplexity’s idea of history.
The Society of Magazine Writers changed its name to the American Society of Journalists and Authors in the last half of 1975. The organization was never known as the American Society of Magazine Editors, which was created in 1963.
The Benjamin Franklin Magazine Awards were initiated about 40 years earlier, in 1953. An entry in the University of Illinois Board of Trustees Minutes from 1954 states in part:
“Two foundations, desiring to remain anonymous, have each given the University of Illinois $25,000 to establish a fund for a series of annual awards in magazines and magazine writers, which shall be designated and known as the “Benjamin Franklin Magazine Awards. . . .The idea of annual awards in the magazine field was initiated by the Society of Magazine Writers. . . .There will be eight annual awards, beginning in 1953 . . . .”
The University of Illinois administered the awards, which were funded for five years. The image below shows BFMA documents archived at the University of Illinois.
Real facts about the BFMA came from Google searches and The New York Times archives. Unlike AI results, manual search results often lead to minor mentions of interesting proportions.
Pre-Presidential Papers of Richard M. Nixon Series 207, Appearances, 1948-1962 has an entry for Nixon attending the BFMA dinner at the Statler Hotel in Washington D.C. on May 11, 1955. The event seemed to be a big deal, according to an article in the May 5, 1955 issue of the Daily Illini. “Richard Nixon, vice president of the United States, also will speak briefly . . . . Music during the evening will be furnished by the orchestra section of the U.S. Marine Band.”
Another minor mention led to the discovery of the book Prize Articles: 1954. BFMA articles published in 1953 were gathered together in a book published by Ballantine Books. Llewellyn Miller, a member of SMW, was the editor. Proceeds from the book were split 50/50 between the University of Illinois and SMW.
AI has advantages, but Perplexity lacks the substance to substantiate its claim that it “provides accurate, trusted, and real-time answers to any question.”
Manual searches on Google and in archives like the New York Times produced far more detailed and accurate information than Perplexity.
Seattle resident Bruce Miller is compiling a database of awards given by or associated with SMW, now ASJA.
Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), Gold Hill, Oregon. © Maxine Cass
Member News and Announcements
Randy Stapilus‘ commentary, “Greater Idaho movement running out of options” appeared in the Oregon Capitol Chronicle on December 19.
Joanna Nesbit (joannanesbit@comcast.net) is seeking ideas and contacts for future ASJA PNW meeting speakers.
NEWSLETTER PRODUCED BY
EDITOR: Maxine Cass
PROOFREADER: Catherine Kolonko
TECHNICAL EXPERTISE: Bruce Miller
*All stories are copyright by their respective writers.
*All photographs and illustrations are copyright by their creative makers.
*All rights are reserved to each of them for their own material.