Times writing self-critique
Gawker got a copy of an internal Times memo on the quality of writing in the paper and published it here.It's informative reading for anyone interested in understanding how a news story is put together, if you can persist reading through the jargon and unclear writing (never mind grammatical errors and poor punctuation) in the memo. Some examples:
...A relatively smooth passage would often be interrupted by a thicket of words: a sentence or a paragraph clotted with clauses and qualifications or flabby with excess verbiage, requiring a second (or third) read....
...Of course every day yielded a different front page, a different stew of stories, their aggregate quality sometimes stunningly fine, their aggregate quality sometimes dispiritingly average....
...In the interests of space, Ive focused on criticism, but it goes without saying that nearly every story, including those I might have, or even definitely would have, approached differently, met a high standard. The one story that really left me scratching my head, the Iran nuclear story of this past Sunday (more below) had the mark of too many editors no offense!...
It seems that the editors could show more leadership: the memos show some of the artificial writing for which they criticize the reporters.
Yeah, yeah, I understand. It's an internal memo, not meant for public view. But these are professional writers for the most respected newspaper in the world. If they can't write a clear, correct memo, what hope do the rest of us have?
New York Times, writing, journalism
posted by Unknown @ 5/13/2006 08:50:00 AM
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