The Reader's Guide to Journalists
Why did the writer use that word? Why did the cable crew emphasize that angle over another? Why is that story played where it is? If you're a journalist, you can figure out what they were thinking, but if you're not, much of journalism can look like a Pollock painting.
From time to time, I'm rolling out the Reader's Guide to Journalists, so that one day, when we've all been replaced by social media and cable gossip, readers can rise up and begin cloning real, honest-to-God journalists.
From my journalist and ex-journalist friends, I solicit further rules, for which — observing one of the Rules — you'll get proper credit. If we can crowdsource this, we might be able to help confused readers and viewers of the distant future revive our craft.
Herewith is the Reader's Guide to Journalists, a continuing series:
Rule No. 1: People we dislike give "rambling" statements and answers; people we like give "wide-ranging" or "comprehensive" statements and answers.
Rule No. 2: We like to use unnecessarily long, seemingly formal versions of common words so our stories sound more important. People always "attempt" to do something; they never "try" to do it. And they always "receive" something; they never "get" it. In this, we are much like police officers ("The subject proceeded on foot ...").
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Rule No. 3: People we like decline to comment; people we dislike refuse to comment.
Rule No. 4: We hate to use the word "that," even when it is needed to make a sentence clear. This is because we were told that it was bad by a journalism school professor who last wrote a story back when "that" counted as four extra characters in the telegraph bill.
Rule No. 6: All editors are mindless creativity-killing drones until we join the desk ourselves. Then all writers become sloppy prima donnas who won't answer their damn phones on deadline.
Rule No. 7: We believe that if both sides criticize us, we've prepared an impartial, well-balanced report, even if both sides are criticizing us because we got it all wrong.
Rule No. 10: Just because you couldn't find the story on the specific pages you looked at on the specific day you decided to check the news doesn't mean we didn't cover it.
Rule No. 11: One occurrence is interesting; two are an oddity; three are a front-page trend.
Rule No. 12: We used to write in a dry, uptight style because we hoped The New York Times would hire us. Now we right in a dry, uptight style because we hope the Huffington Post will think it's important and link to us.
Rule No. 13: We insist that there are always two sides to every story, even when there aren't. We would totally write "But Mr. Hitler insisted ..." with a straight face.
Rule No. 14: We always treat our sources with respect, unless they're Southern, in which case their tobacco and beer choices must be noted and their quotations must be rendered in a colorful way. This is because we believe Southerners are the only Americans who smoke, drink, and drop the final g when talkin'.
Rule No. 15: We write in short paragraphs (journalism school rule: no ledes of more than 33 words) because we assume readers share our short attention spans.
Rule No. 16: We like to use modifiers like "key" and "major" and "significant" because it means we don't have to work as hard to make the importance of the subject clear from the context.
Rule No. 17: We never use semicolons; this is because editors and journalism school teachers think they're highfalutin.
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