Silence is probably 'the most underused reporting tool'

Read some good advice from Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo, now with the New Yorker, whose talk at Northwestern University was covered by the campus paper. She notes that readers, even her mother, don't want to read about some of the important issues we write about. Our jobs as writers when we're addressing these issues is to engage the reader and make her care. An important piece of advice from Boo: Silence is probably "the most underused reporting tool":

http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/11/15/43797d4a96524

And if you're discouraged about all the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it reporting about the newspaper business and the panic over maintaining profit margins, read this Leonard Pitts column:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13197692.htm