The assignment has two parts:
- Read back through Chapters 5 and 6 in "Modern News Editing," and find something useful you didn't know before. The key here is that it has to be something useful, something that doesn't make your eyes glaze over ... and/or something you can use in your own writing or editing other people's writing.
- Write a paragraph explaining how you will use this pearl of wisdom as you scale the heights of journalistic excellence in your own career.
8 comments:
After going back through Chapters 5 and 6, the "Avoid redundancy" section on page 86 caught my eye. When writing, I know I should avoid redundancy, so I guess it is not somthing I had never heard of before, but it was a great reminder. I think as writers we forget about redundancy and most of the time, we do not even realize we're doing it. One example the book gives is "widow of the late John Smith." If I were writing that story, I am pretty sure I would have written that very same sentence. Even as a reader, I probably would have over-looked it. As a writer it is important to avoid such phrases like "graves of dead soldiers will be decorated" because they can make you sound stupid. Not only do they make you sound uneducated, but they also take up space. As we've all learned, shorter and to-the-point is better in journalistic writing.
After reading chapters 5 and 6, the "Don't trust your memory" section on page 83 made me think why not to rely on memory. Before I usually write, I try to remember what I am planning to write about and I have a hard time trying to remember all the information I need for a paper or story. The way I can learn how not to use memory is to write the important information down on paper so I don't have to remember what I am planning on writing that way I can have more time to finish a project or get a story in the paper. Therefore, we must learn to write down information on paper so we won't become lost in our work, but also that we won't lose our jobs while working for a newspaper.
When I was re-reading chapter 5 the section on fairness and taste caught my eye. The book says that your copy should be balancing, objecteve and free from snide or belittling comments. I think that with the 2008 presidential election approaching, as writers (or editors), we need to be especially careful and make sure we're producing a fair and balanced story. It is our job to make sure that both sides of an argument are treated equally, and that our own personal biases are left out.
One thing that stood out to me while reading chapter six was the word "novice". I had just seen the use of the word in an article I had recently read and had no idea what it meant. A novice is defined as "a beginner or amateur.
I also found a word I had never seen used before. The word "bemused which is defined as "dazed, preoccupied, or confused".
I was most irritated by how many colloquial-past-tense I apparently use. For example: Dove, as in “She dove into the pool.” *Buzzer* Wrong. She dived. She dived into the pool. That’s what AP says, that’s what I’ll go with, but I can’t make it sound right in my head.
When I went back through Chapter 5 and 6, what caught my attention was "check the arithmetic" in Chapter 5. When I am writing I really don't think about math or arithmetic. However, I realize that it is very important to double-check numbers and percentages to make sure they are accurate and make sense. I thought the first sentence about an old joke that people go into journalism because they are bad at math because that is one of the reasons I went into communications. I hate math!! I am horrrible at it so that old joke is really true in my case.
The thing I found interesting was in ch 5,which was Don't trust your memory. Basically, you do need to write things down, and not just rehearse from your mind...unless you are completely sure. If not, the most extreme case can be legal actions against the editor and/or newspaper company. Editors ethically should not make up facts or quotes either, again, this can lead to trouble and most likely firings.
Once going thru chapters five and six i found that the part on fainrness and taste was interesting. It mentioned that copy should be fair and tasteful. Balancing objective reporting and interpretation is a continual problem.. True that, we see it everyday in our media. It went on to say that all stories should be fair and snide, belittling comments should be removed. If that is the case why do we read articles everyday that in some sense put someones reputation on the line.. People love reading information that has exceeded these limatations.. It makes our media coverage exciting and gives the people something to talk about!!!
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