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Q&A with author of Conversation: A History of a Declining Art

Oct 02, 2006 - Posted by Heather McCall
ShareThisE-mail, Blackberries and text-messenging are all standard tools for journalists. Stephen Miller's new book, Conversation: A History of a Declining Art discusses ideas and concerns about general conversation that may be of use to reporters doing interviews. In an interview with Kenneth Whyte for Maclean's, Miller said: "I argue that face-to-face conversation is the ideal form of conversation because you have nuance, you have gesture, you have tone. Phone conversation is second-best, and electronic conversation is bad in general, because things go awry in emails."

Comments

Submitted by n/a (not verified) on June 17, 2005 - 9:00am.
My understanding has been that the motivation for the Here purchase was the advertising -- it was reaching a readership, and thus a desirable advertising reach -- that the papers couldn't reach. But once the deal was done, it was hardly surprising that changes began happening in editorial. Just this week, the Moncton Times-Transcript has been running front-page stories about the "popular demand" for a second Rolling Stones concert in Moncton this fall. The paper is a sponsor of the show already scheduled, and its own web site includes the on-site petition where this "popular demand" is manifesting itself. Sigh ...

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