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How to fix newspapers III: Don’t cut editors, change them
(Also see Parts I, II. and IV.) Alan Mutter has a post making the rounds today bluntly titled “Can newspapers afford editors?” Mutter wonders how many editors really need to look at a story before it...
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Why can’t news be interesting just for the sake of it?
I came across two blog posts yesterday that offer reminders of how the prevailing view of what’s news needs to change. First, Alan Mutter calls out The Oklahoman for wildly overplaying a story about a...
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The linguistic idiocy of TV meteorology
I know I said recently that newspapers should stop worrying so much about AP style and other copy editing minutia. But I have to add a large exception for jargon — particularly, as John McIntyre notes...
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Jimmy Kimmel is engaging in coital relations with Ben Affleck
The New York Times provided a hilarious example of newspapers’ self-enforced irrelevancy the other day, when they attempted to write about Jimmy Kimmel’s “I’m Fucking Ben Affleck” response to Sarah...
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Worst. Justification for copy editors’ existence. Ever.
I recently proposed a new vision for copy editors in the newsroom of the future, in response to a provocative Alan Mutter post asking whether papers can still afford editors. My basic prescription:...
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Choose your own grammar
In honor of National Grammar Day, John McIntyre has a nice post explaining why much of what we have been taught regarding grammar and usage rules ultimately amounts to a “proliferation of bogus advice...
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The Washington Post transforms editing (in theory)
Does Leonard Downie Jr. read my blog? (I’ll field this one: no.) Via Jack Shafer, I see the Washington Post has accepted that the current editing system is outdated, inefficient, and unaffordable. From...
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