Today is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. At one time we celebrated it as a national holiday. Today, though, the world little notes nor long remembers it.
This display at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, Illinois, is titled “Lincoln Fights Fake News.” The book is an unauthorized biography a friend sent him to fact-check after his unsuccessful 1858 Senate run. The highlights and marginalia are Lincoln’s. He notes that the bit about his first meeting Stephen A. Douglas in New Salem was “wholly wrong.”

Observations: This week’s three dispatches were all about Lincoln, based on our visit to Springfield last year. I tried to find nuggets that most people don’t know or may have forgotten, and deliver them in shorter posts. Working a theme week was a modest success. Still, more people are coming here looking for Bubble Wrap. The web offers many nuggets about Lincoln, few about my pop.
Interaction: More comments this week on three fronts: the blog itself, Faceook, and LinkedIn. As with the old column, I enjoy chatting with readers, even if they are all personal friends and family.
Professional development: Perhaps appropriate for Lincoln Week, I made my debut on LinkedIn. No surprise, most of my contacts are former co-workers from the newspaper. It’s good to catch up with them, too.
Next week: Should I (shudder!) join Twitter or some other social media? Writers and journalists seem to like to tweet, but it never appealed to me.
Also, I’m thinking about a new focus and format for this blog. And I may cut back on its frequency to work on other projects. See you Saturday!
In case you missed it …
-
Journeyman Journalist, 1979: Passing by the bar
Reading Time: 2 minutes I didn’t have the necessary devotion, interest, motivation, or drive to continue my legal studies. Had I subconsciously decided not to return to the law?
-
Journeyman Journalist, 1979: No strings attached
Reading Time: 2 minutes Does a reporter create a conflict of interest by accepting publicity work from the subject of a story? It could have become a tangled web.
-
Budding Writer, 1978: ‘I Do Care’
Reading Time: < 1 minutes As a writer, I should care more about what other people think and less about what they think of me.
-
Journeyman Journalist: Bridging the gap
Reading Time: 2 minutes Sometimes the hats of journalist and fiction writer can overlap. Covering a local disaster led to ideas for a short story.