TFP Column: In The Absence of Proof to the Contrary

Writing is a curious process. While I have never spent any real time dissecting the mechanics of it with other people that I know are doing it, I freely admit that there times when I don't understand where this process begins or how it works. Sometimes it's with an article of story that moves me to comment, sometimes it's an accumulation of research that comes together of its own accord. 


In this case, it began with phrase that came at me out of nowhere. It was in fact this phrase that began the research for this week's TFP effort, "In the Absence of Proof to the Contrary". It simply struck a chord with me, and challenged me to find out why this was so. 


My hope is that the effort to discover it will help to turn around a mindset that seems so prevalent today (and of which, I too am guilty). Editor-in-Chief Michael Miller likes to surprise me as to when these efforts will pop up on the TFP website (and this week, apparently himself as well), so I won't know whether it will appear in the shadow of the mid-week Star edition, or as part of the weekend Free Press. (It may even rear its ugly head again.) 


It doesn't really matter though, because anyone who want's to know what's going on in Toledo and NW Ohio will already be looking at Toledo's largest Sunday circulation and Best Weekly Newspaper, the Toledo Free Press.