John T. Reed’s news blog

I am a journalist. Have been since 1976.The first rule of journalism is “get your facts straight.” The second rule is “only do man bites dog stories, not dog bites man stories.”Somewhere down the list is “get both sides of the story.” But that does not, in my opinion, trump the “man-bites-dog” rule.So why do the media report stories with the following general themes?• Democrats criticize Trump• Democrats call for investigation of Republicans• Democrats call for appointment of special counsel to investigate Republicans• Democrats allege “ties” to [insert bad guy here]• Democrats allege smoke that must mean Republican scandal fire•...

My wife liked the Shari’s Berries cookies I sent her for Valentines Day. So I tried to order the same for Mother’s Day. The guy in India, or so it sounded on the phone, asked me three times what I wanted to send. Three times I told him same as Valentine’s Day.He said he did not know what it was. I pointed out to him that his web site had an order history tab, but that I could not get it to work. He said again he did not know what I ordered on Valentine’s day.These guys send me multiple...

I am watching discussion of Hillary’s blame-Comey-and-the-Russians tour on Fox’s MediaBuzz.The Clintons could save themselves a lot of criticism not to mention time if they would just adopt the West Point answer to the question “Why did you screw up?”No excuse. West Pointers David Petraeus and Bob McDonald (VA head) used it when they screwed up. Flynn did not use it, or attend West Point. The commander of the US submarine that killed Japanese fishing students when it crashed surfaced to impress VIPs who were on board went to Japan and apologized saying it was my fault he made no...

June used to be the graduation month. For reasons unknown to me, May is the new June when it comes to college graduation—even at my hypertraditional alma mater which has 215 years of tradition unbroken by progress. The big deal culmination of your four years at West Point used to be called June Week. Now I guess it’s May week.Graduation time has a new meaning at my house. It never occurred to me when I wrote the book, but we noticed that sales of my book Succeeding increased at this time of year. My readers are right. This is a...

I am not the only one intrigued by the question of how small can a house be or how cheaply one can live. I am watching the TV series Tiny House at the moment. There are also TV shows about RVs and boats with living quarters. Last week, I rented an RV to see if I wanted to buy it. I did not and canceled my order to buy one almost exactly like it.My REASON for being intrigued by this may be rare, though. I am a real estate investment expert. I remember when all you needed to build a house...