There’s fun reading in Romenesko’s Letters section as reporters write in with accounts of unusual and/or awful story assignments. From the San Jose Mercury news “One Christmas … the then features editor strolled over to a colleague and assigned her to go 34th Street in San Jose and ‘find a miracle.'” From the Rocky Mountain News: “Another lame story assignment. Hey! The new phone books are here!” One editor assigned a reporter to cover the vandalism of six garden hoses. Turned out the editor was one of the victims.