Carl Hiaasen — American Writer born on March 12, 1953,

Carl Hiaasen is an American journalist, columnist, and novelist... (wikipedia)

You can do the best research and be making the strongest intellectual argument, but if readers don't get past the third paragraph you've wasted your energy and valuable ink.
The first rule of hurricane coverage is that every broadcast must begin with palm trees bending in the wind.
My escape is to just get in a boat and disappear on the water.
Nobody with an IQ higher than emergency-room temperature could ever believe that 'death panels' would be appointed to nudge the elderly toward euthanasia. Yet for idle entertainment, it's hard to beat Sarah Palin's ignorant nattering on the subject.
Good satire comes from anger. It comes from a sense of injustice, that there are wrongs in the world that need to be fixed. And what better place to get that well of venom and outrage boiling than a newsroom, because you're on the front lines.