44 Last Organization Tree

Graphic Communication

Today I taught basic speech organization for the last time.  This is always one of the toughest aspects of public speaking for me to teach because I literally cannot remember a time when I wasn't able to put smaller ideas inside of larger ideas.  I don't understand minds which are not able to organize ideas in hierarchical and outlined fashion.  Nevertheless, I do my best to get across the concept of how this basic form of organization works and turn to an old metaphor, the Organization Tree.

Tree of Science (1663)

I'm sure this idea arises from the teaching of rhetoric in the Middle Ages.  I seem to remember seeing an organizational tree form on the door of a colleague some years ago.  Today I asked Professor Google to find that illustration for me but, sadly, I couldn't track it down.  I did, however, discover that Manuel Lima, author of  Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information,  has a new book out called The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge, in which he provides a history of the use of the tree as a visual metaphor for various kinds of information.  Allison Meier provides a review of Lima's book at HyperAllegic complete with several illustrations (see one below).


So, I feel like my little tree is part of a vast and branching history of visual rhetoric.

Nevertheless, I'm not sorry to say good-bye to it.

What is News? (Provoked by NPR)

I'm listening to NPR's Weekend Edition. Lead story is that Israelis and Palestinians are once again at war. To me, that's not news. That's gossip about "the latest brawl" between folks who have been killing each other for several thousand years. In my own ethnic history, the folks who used to kill each other often (Scots and Swedes) are now relatively calm in their relationship. So, according to my understanding of news, Scotland dropping bombs on Sweden would be news. Two middle eastern cultures attacking each other -- not news.

So, that's a contradictory claim. Where do I get my definition of news?

The first definition of news I ever heard was this one: "Dog bites man -- not news. Man bites dog - news." I learned that definition either from watching T.V. cop shows with my mom (San Francisco Beat, 77 Sunset Strip) or directly from my Dad who was a hard drinking newsman like those in old RKO and Warner Brothers movies.* I knew this definition by sixth grade. Like most stuff I learned in 6th grade, I thought it came directly from The Truth of Things. (I had no sense that adults -- people -- are always motivated to motivate.)

(Researcher tip: I found the obituary mentioned below by googling "man bites dog" then googling "John B. Bogart" and finding the NYTimes obit. URL: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9800E7DE113CE533A2575BC1A9679D946095D6CF )

I didn't know the definition came from John B. Bogart, who, according to his November 18, 1921 obituary in the New York Times, "was city editor of the Sun for seventeen years from 1873 to 1890, and often referred to as 'the best editor in the country,' died Wednesday night at his home, 181 West Eighty-seventh street, in his seventy sixth year." That's the lead of the story (who what where when). The how is in the next sentence: "seriously ill only one day" but "long suffered from diabetes." Information helpful to the readers comes next: Those who care can "view the body" the next day at the Stephen Merrit Chapel on Eighth Avenue. Internment will be in New Haven.** (Those who care would include people going just to see who is there, if anyone. Bogart hadn't worked in the news business since 1915.)

See how all the news in this story is in the first paragraph. That's how my Dad told me to write when I was in 7th grade, and that's how I learned to write in my two years of high school journalism and the college reporting classes that lead up to my B. A. in photo-journalism.

Bogart's famous quote is in the second to the last paragraph of a four paragraph article. I'd cut and paste it for you but I can't in the given formats.*** "His remarks on the subject of 'news' are often quoted by newspaper men. Perhaps the most famous was that about the man and the dog. 'When a dog bites a man, that isn't news. It often happens. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.'" So, that was one of the great public definitions from the latter part of the 19th Century and well known by 1921.

For other definitions of yews, y'all can do your own googling. I stand by my original statement: people who have been beating each other up for centuries beating each other again is not news. It's maddening, disheartening, and deeply, deeply tragic. But it's not news.


*In old movies, however, you don't see the four kids watching mom haul Dad's sorry ass up the front steps when he came home late and drunk.)
** For a time in New York Broadway shows tried out in New Haven. So some New Yorkers might think it ironic that Bogart closed his life there. )
*** I'm not up on all current skills. Scanned PDF to Blog -- "naht gunna daht" to quote Dana Carvey as George Bush, Sr.)