Daily Dose: 12/28/16

10:45 AMStill here. Clinton Yates traveled to Prague to work with a world-renowned linguist to figure out if it’s “5-2” or “fine, too.”

(Good) Journalism appears to be back. Even though the pay is rough, the hours are not ideal, and the stress levels are alarmingly high, there’s some good news on the horizon for those in the field of the fourth estate: journalism. A “profitable” Washington Post, as Politico puts it, is set to add more than 60 journalists to its newsroom in the coming year. That’s almost unheard of in this profession, but the Post — which has invested heavily in new media technology in its newsroom — over the past 12 months, at least, has found a winning formula for bringing readers back in. Part of that is chalked up to the 2016 presidential election, but it’s also the investment in good journalism. From David Fahrenthold’s work on the Donald J. Trump Foundation to the continued groundbreaking efforts of the Pulitzer Prize-winning police shooting database, the Post has found that where there is good work — and, not to mention, heavy financial investment from a billionaire — there is an audience. There is, of course, still work to be done to save an industry that’s lost almost half of its workforce since 1990, and being a newspaper reporter is consistently rated the worst job in the country, but there now might be light at the end of that tunnel.

Rest in peace, Princess Leia. On Tuesday, the world lost another great human being. Renowned actress Carrie Fisher, star of the Star Wars films, died after suffering a heart attack late last week. While Fisher is best known for playing fearless heroine Princess Leia Organa in the original three Star Wars movies (and most recently in 2015’s The Force Awakens), she also starred in The Blues Brothers, When Harry Met Sally and Scream 3. Outside of acting, Fisher was an accomplished author and script doctor, and an outspoken advocate for mental illness, as the actress lived with bipolar disorder for most of her life. She was awarded the Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism at Harvard University this past May, where she told those in attendance, “Many people thank me for talking about [mental illness], and mothers can tell their kids when they are upset with the diagnosis that Princess Leia is bipolar, too.”

It’s still bowl season. College football bowl games kicked off Dec. 17, and while it seems like 50 games have been played so far, we still have 19 games to play before we reach the College Football Playoff National Championship on Jan. 9 (8 p.m. EST, ESPN). And while most of the games so far have been forgettable — though we have three bowls named after fried chicken spots this year — the action always picks up the closer we get to New Year’s Eve. When you think of the most exciting moments in college football history, you think Statue of Liberty play or Vince Young or missed two-point conversions. And what do those plays all have in common? They all happened in one of the “big four” games: the Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl. FiveThirtyEight runs down which bowl games are usually the best.

Winner of Tuesday: Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin

Burn.

Mike Tomlin says of Terry Bradshaw, "What do I know? I grew up a Dallas an, in particular a Hollywood Henderson fan." (1/2)

— Aditi Kinkhabwala (@AKinkhabwala) December 27, 2016

For all the kiddos at home, Hollywood Henderson once said Terry Bradshaw "couldn't spell 'cat' if you spotted him the 'c' and the 'a.'"

— Aditi Kinkhabwala (@AKinkhabwala) December 27, 2016

Loser of Tuesday: Phil Jackson

After 17 years of dating — and four years of engagement — New York Knicks president Phil Jackson and Los Angeles Lakers president Jeanie Buss have separated. Late Tuesday evening, Jackson tweeted out a screen-grabbed message stating that due to “the nature of our professional obligations and the geographic distance” between the couple, they were ending their engagement. That is sad in and of itself, but the dagger came when Buss retweeted Jackson’s original message, saying she has “nothing but love and respect” for Jackson but that “the love of my life is the Los Angeles Lakers.” How do you get put in the friend zone by your own fiancee?

What to look forward to on Wednesday: Analysis of celebrity relationships

From Drake and Jennifer Lopez to T.I. and his wife Tameka “Tiny” Harris. Don’t bother reading any of that. Pick up a book instead.