© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Stop trying to think outside the square: a presentation for young journalists

IN 2005 I was invited by my union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, to give a presentation to young journalists on "thinking outside the square". I suspect the attendees may have been rather bemused by what I offered them. Reading it again, 15 years later, there isn't much I'd change, however. "Thinking outside the square": it's a piece of jargon from those awful new-age management seminars of the 80s and 90s where they used a pat routine of clever tricks and illustrations to show people that their thinking was constrained. It’s become a cliché. Inside…

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The Ocean is Broken: the story behind the story, and a sequel of sorts

In September 2013, while working at The Newcastle Herald in NSW, Australia, I read an item in our paper about a yachtsman visiting Newcastle Harbour. The sailor, Ivan Macfadyen, noted in the brief article his shock and surprise at the state of the North Pacific Ocean after a recent voyage. The article grabbed my attention, so I found Ivan's contact details and asked him if I could do a follow-up interview. He accepted, and told me a little more about the experience that led to his comments. The reported remarks had followed his second Sydney-to-Osaka yacht…

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