A reminder to myself.

I am preparing to lead a class tomorrow at the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation's Frank Bolden Urban Journalism Workshop, on writing ledes. So I've been compiling examples of good and bad ledes, and thinking about how to get the kids to think about how to tell the difference. And a link led me sideways (because the Web is all about going sideways) to a piece titled, "The war on leisurely leads and anecdote addiction."

In it, Bob Baker describes an experiment by the New York Times, wherein they formed an in-house focus group of 10 journalists and had them evaluate the quality of the paper's writing over a 10-day period.

And just as I was getting into the story, this thought popped into my head: I love journalism.

It took me quite by surprise. I would have expected to hear myself say something like, "I really enjoy journalism." I enjoy reporting (on a sufficiently interesting topic). I enjoy writing. And I really enjoy deadlines - I love knowing that come a certain time, what I'm working on will be done. And I enjoy reader feedback.

Hey wait, I just used the L-word again. And now that I think of about it, I enjoy reporting a lot, and maybe I do love it. And I definitely do love to write, although a great deal of the time it scares me witless. I love the chase, the quest for the right words and the right ordering of the words to make facts sing. I have not captured the right words quite that way nearly often enough. But I still love the chase.

And perhaps most importantly I love the fact that journalism done well is important.

I left the Post-Gazette to continue doing journalism with "Homewood Nation." But in making myself editor and publisher, without colleagues, I put myself in a position where it is too easy to drift, led astray by every distraction.

Time to remember what I'm here for. To tell stories.

The Economic Policy Institute, a D.C.-based think tank with the slogan, "Research for Broadly Shared Prosperity," issues "Economic Snapshots" on a regular basis that provide a quick look at some aspects of the nation's economy. The July 23 snapshot noted that the federal minimum wage, due to increase on July 24 from $5.85 an hour to $6.55, is still less than the minimum in 23 states and the District, and that a full-time worker at that wage still earns below the poverty line for a household of two.

Hm. Should wages, for some jobs, be tied to household size? Probably not. Wages should reflect the value of the work.

Still, it does seem that almost any job worth doing should be worth more than $6.55 an hour. That's only $13,624 a year.

Life at that income level is so painful. Every little thing is a problem.

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I went to Chicago last week for Unity. There was much attention given to blogging and other aspects of digital-age journalism. Before the conference, there was a workshop on "Diversity in the Digital Age," which I would have liked to have attended.

Oh, well. Can't have everything. Yet.

Poynter Online has an interview with Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-TV News Directors Association (RTNDA) in response to their report that both radio and television have seen increases in their percentage of minorities in staff and management. One of the questions was, "What advice do you have for the print side?" Part of Ms. Cochran's answer:

"One avenue for newspapers as well as radio and television stations to pursue is the increased participation of citizen journalists through Web sites and interactive media. This represents a new source of talent that comes from the community and that could bring in a much greater diversity of voices."

Some folks in the business fear that citizen journalists might sully their brand; I fear that they might be exploited by media outlets that are all too happy to have them work for free.

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During the centennial meeting of the National Governors Association last week, the nation's governors sent a letter to Congress urging them to extend renewable energy credits for at least another five years. In the past, the credit has lasted only two or three years, causing companies to shy away from building create large-scale projects such as wind farms, that take a long time to complete.

Will the governors' letter get Congress off the dime? We'll see.