Citing foreign press agencies
When citing a foreign wire service, I find it best to use an English language reference. Sometimes that’s the agency’s name in translation. “Agence France-Presse” (AFP) becomes “the French Press Agency,” and “Deutsche Presse Agentur” (DPA) becomes “the German Press Agency.” Or sometimes it’s the name in the original language, with an English description tacked on: “The Xinhua state-controlled news service,” in a story where it’s already established we’re talking about China. And note that, as in the last example, it’s important to indicate with a word or two (‘state-controlled’, ‘Christian conservative’, etc.) any possible bias a news service (or other source) might have.
‘Tory’ = Conservative
A ‘Tory’ is a member of the Conservative Party in Britain or Canada. This is not to be confused with a politician who is simply philosophically conservative (small ‘c’). It only applies to a member of the Conservative (big ‘C’) Party.
A quick summary of ‘summary judgment’
The Okeechobee School District has asked federal courts for a summary judgment on whether a Gay-Straight Alliance should be allowed to meet on the Okeechobee High School campus. –Port St. Lucie News, 30 Jan 2008 So what the heck is a ‘summary judgment,’ anyway? ‘Summary judgment’ is the term for a ruling in a civil lawsuit made by a judge, without a trial to establish facts. The premise is that there are no disputed material facts in the case, and that all the issues are legal ones. Obviously, the side that makes a motion for summary judgment wants the judgment to be in their favor....
Study, study, study
Intern Mallory just asked me, “What’s another word for ‘study’? I just used it three times in three sentences.” How about ‘report’ or ‘analysis’? ‘Survey’ sometimes works, too, if that’s mainly what it was.
Link of the Week: Newscript.com
Each week, I’m going to offer up one of the many web sites I’ve found over the years to assist me in research, fact-checking, or writing. Some will be gems you’ve never seen or heard of. Others will be commonplace sites everybody goes to, but for which I’ve found a special use or hidden feature that I’ll share. For my inaugural ‘Link of the Week,’ here’s one of the best all-around websites offering guidance on radio newswriting and delivery: Newscript.com The site is written and maintained by Ohio radio newsman Michael Meckler. It’s a tribute to the good, old fashioned broadcast newswriting values of clarity,...
One more way to ‘decentuate’ the appositive
There’s one other way to avoid appositives that I forgot to mention. You can make the noun and its description the subjects of two consecutive sentences, like so: The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says he’s now enjoying his retirement. John Shalikashvili left the top spot at the Pentagon in 1997… This works because English is highly asyndetic. That means the sentence structure carries much of the meaning, and so fluent speakers of the language understand how words, phrases and sentences relate to each other without the help of a lot of conjunctions and connective words. Thus it’s clear the subject of...
I’m negative about appositives
It’s often said about broadcast writing that it should sound conversational, but what usually goes unsaid are all the little technical things and thoughtful phrasing that go into giving written prose the feel of conversation. Those techniques will be a large part of my emphasis here. One such important ‘rule’ (in quotes because, once well understood, rules can be treated as guidelines and cheerfully broken to achieve a desired effect) is avoiding appositives. An appositive is a word or phrase, set off by commas, that further describes the noun it follows. For example: John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is now...
That’s quite a dangling attribution you’ve got there
One of the most common problems I see in newbie broadcast newswriting, especially among those who have prior print newswriting experience, is the dreaded ‘dangling attribution.’ That’s where the who-said part of a quote ‘dangles’ off the end. For example: “That’s the last time we shoot first and ask questions later,” said Sheriff Williams. This is one of those rare never, never, nevers in broadcast writing, for two simple reasons. First, it isn’t conversational. No one in the history of ever has used this construction in conversation (okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but not by much). The second, related reason is that it...
I’m relaunching this diary as a Journalism Blog
So it turns out that, for a journalist, I’m not very good at keeping a daily journal. Perhaps that’s because even I was bored by the minutiae of my daily life. Imagine how the readers of this blog (if there were any) felt. In the meantime, for the last couple of years, I’ve been thinking that there ought to be a way for me to share some of the practical wisdom about journalism that I’ve acquired over 25 years in the business. I’ve been ramming it down the throats of the unsuspecting interns who I train here at Sirius OutQ. But perhaps there are some...