Law professor hits newspaper writing

ToddJBehme · **Posted:** Wed Apr 16, 2003 12:55 pm

The quote below is from a law professor and is in a story about blogs in today's Chicago Tribune. The prof has his own blog. Do TCE members agree with his take on newspaper writing?"I just find blog writing more intimate and more compelling -- it's like newspaper writing used to be. Somehow in an evil conspiracy between [grammarians] Strunk and White and corporate management, all the blood and personality has been drained out of newspaper writing. Mike Royko would have been a blogger if he had been in the right generation."[ April 16, 2003: Message edited by: Todd J. Behme ][ April 16, 2003: Message edited by: Todd J. Behme ][ April 16, 2003: Message edited by: Todd J. Behme ][ April 16, 2003: Message edited by: Todd J. Behme ]

1105 · **Joined:** Sun Jan 19, 2003 1:01 am **Posts:** 2

A law professor, of all people, should know that libel suits and lawsuit chill, to mention two reasons likely within his purview, have ended what he might consider good newspaper writing.The way it used to be depends on how far back he wants to go in failing to prove his point. Late 17th century? The roaring '20s and dirty '30s, with a fedora on every hatstand and a bottle behind every Underwood? The Reds-under-the-bed 50s?As a blogger, responsibility may be less of an issue with him; he appears to miss those good old days when it was less of an issue in print.But he may have less to fear than he realizes. Here's a recent lead that would be more at home in a blog:********By ANDREW JACOBS
The New York Times News ServiceDEWITT, N.Y. â€” Every community has its resident crank: a junk-hoarding, pigeon-feeding recluse whose behavior might be irksome but is seldom menacing.â€********No, every community does not, especially not the type of "crank" who, within the next paragraph or two, becomes an accused abductor, sadist and rapist.Of course, you never know, so you'd better have the police investigate that suspicious old man down the street.The professor can rest easy; these are the good ol' days.

ToddJBehme · **Posted:** Sat Apr 19, 2003 2:03 am

The law professor isn't alone. Here are three grafs from Thomas Kunkel's column in the November 2001 issue of the American Journalism Review:
------------
Recently I was a judge in the national writing contest sponsored by the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors, which I am pleased to say is affiliated with Maryland. Our group was judging entries not from the nation's largest papers but from the next circulation tier, mostly regional metros. In other words, the work was fairly representative of mainstream newspapering today. There were of course some riveting pieces, and the standouts collected their hardware at the AASFE convention last month. Mostly, though, the hundreds of entries were just...bland. They weren't bad, they weren't irrelevant, they weren't (entirely) uninteresting. They simply weren't anything special. They were stories without strong narratives or writerly voices, cranked out in the competent, bloodless way that I'll call American Newspaper English--the literary equivalent of Wonder Bread. It is especially troubling that dozens of reasonably experienced writers, and presumably their editors, thought this was contest-worthy work. I have long maintained that one of the unintended consequences of our post-Watergate crusade for "fairness" has been a deadening of language in newspapers, as trigger-happy editors zap any words that might smack of taking sides. The decline of competition has contributed, too; a monopoly paper doesn't need its own personality to distinguish it from anyone else. The result has been a flattening and homogenizing of individual voices. That's why in an age when the education, professionalism and reporting abilities of the nation's press corps have never been higher, the writing has never been duller.[ April 19, 2003: Message edited by: Todd J. Behme ][ April 19, 2003: Message edited by: Todd J. Behme ][ April 19, 2003: Message edited by: Todd J. Behme ]

rumymommy · **Joined:** Tue Aug 06, 2002 12:01 am **Posts:** 138

Todd,You may have set a new record on this board. In two posts you've edited seven times, for a grand total of nine chances to tweak the writing. Very impressive.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Sun Apr 20, 2003 2:35 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Todd J. Behme:
 That's why in an age when the education, professionalism and reporting abilities of the nation's press corps have never been higher, the writing has never been duller.<hr></blockquote>Kunkel is entitled to his opinion. He's right, of course; there is a lot of lousy writing out there. But there's a lot of good writing, too. I don't know what he means by "post-Watergate crusade for fairness," and how that might affect the quality of writing. What he misses or, for some reason, refuses to acknowledge is that the quality of reporting not only is far better now than it was in 1972, the writing also is incomparably better. Take a stroll through some "pre-Watergate" microfilm if you don't believe me. Regarding "voices," apparently he is looking in the wrong places. I doubt that there have ever been more columnists given free rein to say whatever may be on their minds. It is hardly the fault of editors that so many of them have so little of value to say.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Sun Apr 20, 2003 2:55 am

Kunkel, as president of American Journalism Review and dean of the journalism faculty at the University of Maryland, has a lot to say.Our covers have been graced by what, to the outside world, are the faces of the American journalism industry: Mike Wallace, Al Neuharth, Tina Brown, Barbara Walters and Dan Rather, to name just a few. (November 2002)That helps explain why I stopped my subscription to AJR years ago.The Internet continues to hold tremendous potential for journalism, but I dare you to name five sites that are doing original reporting.I'm a print guy, of course, and so are the rest of us here, but I'll bet that we could list a lot more than five.

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