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When did writing in major newspapers become so bad?

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Re: When did writing in major newspapers become so bad?

#231

Post by banana_giraffe »

ketzo wrote: post #213
jimmaswell wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A measure that becomes a target often stops being a good measure.

Huh. This is actually quite insightful to me. I wonder if this applies more broadly? What from your own life makes you say that?

It's a variant of Goodhart's law. Can't speak for the person you're replying to, but absent good management, I've seen review goals turn into nonsense. "You had a goal to fix 5 bugs this quarter, and only fixed 4", "but one was a massive bug that would have cost us $x!", "but you didn't fix 5 bugs, so no bonus"

You see it happen on different levels a surprising number of times.

Re: When did writing in major newspapers become so bad?

#232

Post by benzible »

michaelhoffman wrote: post #3

Newspapers have been laying off copy editors right and left in recent years. A reduction in the quality and clarity of writing is an obvious and predictable outcome. https://j-source.ca/article/copy-editors-laid-off-more-than-... https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2017/by-dismantlin...

ding ding ding!

Copy editors do far more than people assume [1]:

> The dirty little secret of newspaper journalists is that a lot of them can't write very well. That's by no means universally true, but it's true enough. [...] I transformed some real trash into publishable writing, saved my paper and some writers from professional embarrassment, and introduced relatively few errors on my own.

And from the comments:

> Having worked at small, mid and metro newspapers, I can tell you reporters who can't write very well exist everywhere. When I first started working at a major metro, I thought all of the raw copy would be flawless. After all, these reporters were working at a metro daily. But there were plenty of reporters who really needed the old rewrite desk. Some reporters, of course, were very good writers But pity the poor reader if copy editors disappear.

[1] http://www.yelvington.com/content/07-08-2008/death-copy-edit...

Re: When did writing in major newspapers become so bad?

#233

Post by Veen »

avree wrote: post #186

It's funny that the author makes several mistakes in this piece criticizing writing. The first jumped off the page at me: "She is involved in The Drunken Canal, a regional print publication based New York City" This is also bad writing: “Honor Levy was conflicted about pulling her piece from The Drunken Canal, a regional New York print paper she began last year. She had several short stories published in the New York…

> Regional is a redundant descriptor if New York is included.

No it’s not. There’s a difference between being based in a region and being a publication that serves a region. The NYT is based in NY, but it’s not a regional publication.

Re: When did writing in major newspapers become so bad?

#235

Post by grawprog »

My main problem with most journalism today is the overuse of loaded adjectives specifically, but loaded language in general.

It's rare to find a news story at all these days that reports something as

'X happened on this day. A and B parties were involved. Y was the consequence of X.'

Instead news.is always reported more like.

'&adjective, &adjective X was the most &loaded_descriptor event ever. The &negative_adjective, &dehumanizing_term A's, &negative_adjective &negative_verb the &positive_adjective B's. Everybody should hate the &negative_adjective A's.'

Re: When did writing in major newspapers become so bad?

#236

Post by Animats »

After newspapers got rid of "rewrite".

Back when newspaper content came mostly from reporters who went out into the real world, newspapers had "Rewrite". Reporters would phone in stories, and Rewrite would rewrite them. They'd rewrite the copy in house style, and maybe look up some file info to add to the story. Then stories were passed to editors, who would edit them, putting copy-editing marks on them. Finally they went to the composing room, where typesetters typing on Linotypes would apply the editing corrections and often catch spelling errors. The copy of each story was tweaked by at least three people.

Now, it's direct from author's keyboard to publication. The only intervention is spell check.

Re: When did writing in major newspapers become so bad?

#237

Post by Veen »

Nimitz14 wrote: post #67

Just because you don't like a piece of writing does not mean the writing is bad. > I have so many questions. > Is the person a writer for New Yorker? Is The Drunken Canal somehow related to the New Yorker? What is The Drunken Canal? How was she “regretting” something at that point in time? Vocally or otherwise? What publication was being stored in those unmarked white newspaper boxes? Wait, is The Drunken Canal a pub…

There will always be moaning philistines and there will always be people who regard them with the contempt they deserve, so don’t despair.

Re: When did writing in major newspapers become so bad?

#239

Post by [deleted] »

kyle_martin1 wrote: post #62
offtop5 wrote: post #21

This is what happens when you spend decades demonizing journalism. Instead of giving us insightful articles, the New York times is competing against Facebook and Twitter to grab your attention immediately. I have a feeling most people don't read an entire New York times article, the entire point is just to create headlines you can share on Facebook or Twitter, keep those clicks and kpis flowing! In a way this is fant…

I agree. Centralized media equals a controlled narrative. Gone are the days of investigating prestige and bi-partisan reporting. Maybe it never really existing though... It's clear that the majority of reporters lean center to far left politically. When it comes to topics that will make their "side" look bad, there's usually a lack of intellectual curiosity for the truth. This happens on both sides, of course, but th…

[deleted]

Re: When did writing in major newspapers become so bad?

#240

Post by scdp »

kyle_martin1 wrote: post #62
offtop5 wrote: post #21

This is what happens when you spend decades demonizing journalism. Instead of giving us insightful articles, the New York times is competing against Facebook and Twitter to grab your attention immediately. I have a feeling most people don't read an entire New York times article, the entire point is just to create headlines you can share on Facebook or Twitter, keep those clicks and kpis flowing! In a way this is fant…

I agree. Centralized media equals a controlled narrative. Gone are the days of investigating prestige and bi-partisan reporting. Maybe it never really existing though... It's clear that the majority of reporters lean center to far left politically. When it comes to topics that will make their "side" look bad, there's usually a lack of intellectual curiosity for the truth. This happens on both sides, of course, but th…

I'm hoping this is satire. Project Veritas is infamous for amateurish hitjobs and misleading editing that quite frankly only fools would fall for. Ben Shapiro is not a good example of pretending to not be biased. He'll conveniently forget to disclose that he's funded by fracking billionaires while dunking on environmentalists.
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