Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Last Saturday I had the honor of teaching at a public writing conference at The Washington Post. After I finished my part of the program, I spent the day listening carefully to four of the Post’s most accomplished writers and reporters: David Finkel, Bob Woodward, DeNeen L. Brown, and Ezra Klein.

I took copious notes, wrote down anything that struck me as wise or useful, and want to share with you what I learned from them. Please don’t take these as direct quotations, but as handwritten paraphrases containing the gist of their advice. Particularly notable were the shared values of craft and sense of mission and purpose in a gang of four that ranged from the 70-year-old Woodward, still cranking out books, to the young phenom Ezra Klein, who is trying to re-invent how to make policy stories interesting and relevant. I’ll take them in the order of their presentations...

When a veteran stand-up comic is also funny on Twitter, it doesn’t exactly come as a shock. When an unknown phenom makes you physically choke on guffaws, though, it’s a revelation and also something of an extended audition.

...After catching the attention of the comedy cognoscenti in 2010, the then recent Harvard graduate soon got jobs writing on the Oscars and Disney’sA.N.T. Farm., before moving to a staff writer position at NBC’s ensemble sitcom Parks and Recreation. (The show was just renewed for a sixth season.) The in-demand writer is also an accomplished poet who’s writing asatirical guide to science for ladies.

Megan Amram’s frothy blend of dark humor and smart, surreal silliness has found more than 356,000 followers on Twitter so far. Although not everybody trying to generate laughs online is doing so for the same reasons, or with the same twisted flair, Amram’s consistent comedic quality is enviable for anyone trying to make their mark with brief bursts of humor. The multidiscipline writer recently spoke with Co.Create about puns, poetry, and how to be funny on Twitter altogether....