RIP English: Welcome to its "ignominiously diminished form"

(Image from The Washington Post)

I read an interesting column about the recent demise of the English language by Gene Weingarten, columnist for the Washington Post titled Goodbye, cruel words: English. It's dead to me.

Weingarten argues the ultimate demise of the English language at 1,617 years old, "survived by an ignominiously diminished form of itself", came from the Washington Post itself. He writes:

The end came quietly on Aug. 21 on the letters page of The Washington Post. A reader castigated the newspaper for having written that Sasha Obama was the "youngest" daughter of the president and first lady, rather than their "younger" daughter. In so doing, however, the letter writer called the first couple the "Obama's." This, too, was published, constituting an illiterate proofreading of an illiterate criticism of an illiteracy. Moments later, already severely weakened, English died of shame.

He goes on to list examples of misspelled words and misused phrases found in major newspapers, including "pronounciation", "Alot", "spading and neutering" and "doggy dog world".

While the column is humourous, Weingarten brings up an interesting point.

Beset by the need to cut costs, and influenced by decreased public attention to grammar, punctuation and syntax in an era of unedited blogs and abbreviated instant communication, newspaper publishers have been cutting back on the use of copy editing, sometimes eliminating it entirely.

As our editing print and online media class is finding with our "spot the screwup" assignments, newspaper publications aren't perfect. And as everyone knows, when time is short, reading becomes skimming.

As staff numbers dwindle at newspapers worldwide, are we at risk of losing the English language? If newspapers don't use proper English, who will?

Ideal opinions inform

(Image from The Globe and Mail)



Tonight I was catching up on the stack of Maclean's magazines and found myself enjoying Andrew Potter's opinion piece in the September 13 edition of Maclean's titled That Far Down, Who Decides What's Law.

I don't always like Potter's editorials, but I thought this one was good for two reasons.

1. It presented an educated argument.

2. It educated me, the reader.

Potter discusses the unfortunate situation of the Chilean miners that have been trapped 700 m underground since Aug. 5 and could be stuck there for as many as four months while they wait to be drilled out. He argues that they may have to form their own political system to mediate disputes that perhaps may not adhere to Chilean law because of their extreme living situation.

Potter supports his argument by outlining possible disputes the miners could find themselves engaged in (like the allocation of food to privacy procedures) and by comparing their situation to an interesting philosophical thought experiment (Philosophy: one of my favourite things to learn about!).

After thinking more about it, I realized that perhaps I like his opinion because it wasn't a strong political opinion, which sometimes turns me off editorials, especially when they aren't well supported.

The subject matter was timely, interesting and important, and Potter gave the reader a lot of things to consider in thinking about the issue.

So cheers to Andrew Potter for this piece. I think it's a good example of the kind of editorials journalism could use more of. It goes beyond basic reporting to stimulating the mind of the reader.



(Image from thestar.com)

School House Rock: My First Grammar Lessons

I think everything should be taught through song.

OK, so maybe you'd expect that coming from someone who loves Glee, (which premieres tonight, Tuesday Sept. 21 on Fox, by the way), but music really helps solidify information into your brain.

Take, for example, my first lessons in grammar, which I learned from School House Rock -- short, informative songs that taught helpful grammar lessons about conjunctions, interjections and how a bill becomes a law -- in the middle of my Saturday morning cartoons.

Twenty years later, I still remember the "Conjunction junction, what's your function?" song whenever I think of conjunctions.

Grammar is important to learn when you're in elementary and middle school, but (conjunction!) let's face it. It's dry and (another conjunction!) boring.

Associating a tune with words makes things so much easier to memorize. Case in point: compare the number of song lyrics you remember from your childhood to how many grammar rules you remember.

My point? We need to bring back School House Rock. Don't believe me? Check out their informative and catchy lesson on interjections! Wow!

Thou shall not project opinions!

(Image from christuniversity.in)

A recent journalism assignment has got me thinking a lot about one of the basic rules of journalism: don't assume one person's or a few peoples' opinions is representative of a whole group.

I have been bombarding innocent citizens the St. Vital ward prior to the Winnipeg Civic election to find out what they think are problems in their neighbourhood and what they want changed at city hall in the next four years.

With this information, I'm to write an article for the CBC's website, quoting five people, that gives readers an idea of what is going on in the St. Vital ward as they prepare to vote for a city councillor.

I've collected a lot of opinions, but they vary widely, from potholes to better community facilities to less police radar guns, making it difficult to pinpoint key concerns many citizens share.

I am struggling to find a way to write a story that does not project the opinions of these few people onto everyone in the ward, but that informs people living outside the ward about some of the ward's issues.

That involves staying away from phrases like "many citizens" or "a major concern".

Any other thoughts on how I can pull this off?

Stand-Up Proofreading

There are a lot of humiliating spelling blunders that go beyond small mistakes to become hilarious screw-ups, like many newspaper journalists' worst nightmare: leaving out the 'l' in "public" so it becomes "pubic". (Watch out for that one, public relations students!)

But it would be a lot more embarrassing to be foiled by a proofreading error as a broadcast journalist reading from a script you didn't write!

At least in print, you can hide behind a shield of anonymity. No one can look right at your face and laugh out loud directly at you when they read your typos (unless you're my Dad — he liked to point those out to me when he came across them in the Brandon Sun).

But if I read a typo on the air (like pubic instead of public), I would immediately realize my mistake, go beat red, lose my place on the teleprompter and crumble into a puddle of humiliation. Much worse than a little news print!

Check out Taylor Mali's hilarious "The The Impotence of Proofreading" spoken bit that plays on some mistakes that are funnier when read aloud.

The Art of Interviewing

Interview prep used to be one of the most stressful parts of writing a story for me.

It might seem silly that it's not the interview itself that makes me quiver.

But how prepared you are, what questions you ask, how you phrase your questions and how much research you do can be the difference between getting a good, thorough story and getting a mediocre story missing important information.

As I have become more experienced at interview prep, it makes me less nervous, but I still spend almost as much time prepping as I did when I first started doing interviews (but less time fretting and reading them over and over again, worrying I missed something).

This afternoon, I spent a few hours researching and preparing three interviews. When I was done, it felt like I had accomplished very little. I had no answers to my questions — no story. But it had to be done.

And I would argue it was possibly the most important part of the stories I just prepped for.

But regardless of how much prep you do and how finely you craft your interviews, when conducting interviews, it's important to be flexible and stray from your questions when need be. You have to be a good listener and play off of the answers you get or you might miss something important.

All of the interviews I have done are for print stories, which are easier interviews to do as no one will ever hear/read your questions. (I just cringe a little bit when I listen to the recording — I giggle when I'm uncomfortable and am trying to be overly friendly!)

But as we get further into our broadcast journalism course, I've been thinking more about on-air interviews and the extra talent that takes. Thinking on your feet in front of the camera while thinking about your posture, your reactions and keeping your guest comfortable, among other things, takes a lot more practice and talent.

Katie Couric, who I personally think is a great interviewer, offers some good tips about television interviews: how to prepare for them, the importance of moving away from planned questions, body language and tone of voice, and remembering your audience.

Educational Editing

(Image from photobucket.com)

"Kiddo! I've got another lesson for you," yelled my desker at the Brandon Sun this summer.

"Mr. Desker", we shall call him, edited many of my stories and put up with all of my rookie mistakes... but not without teaching me a lesson or two along the way.

I walked over to his desk, awaiting a scolding for an error I'd repeated too many times. As I rounded the corner, he walked up to me, menacingly slamming a large, hardcover book between both hands.

He held the book above my head.

"Where is this book?" he asked.

I was a little confused. "Where is it?" I asked.

"Where is this book?"

"Above me?" I replied, meekly.

"It's over your head. OVER your head," he said, lowering the book. "Books go over your head. But charities don't raise OVER $10,000. They raise MORE THAN $10,000."

"OVER!" he said, holding the book above me again. "MORE THAN," he said as he lowered it.

Point taken.

"Got it, Youngin'?" he asked.

I had. I've never made that mistake since.

Mr. Desker's presence is felt throughout the newsroom. A large sign stating, "NO-WHERE IS NOT A WORD IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE" looms over the desk of another reporter, a not-so-friendly reminder to never make that mistake again.

He's a little rough around the edges, but good at what he does, a softy at heart and he really cares about making us better self-editors. And the more he gets his point across, the less he has to be frustrated with our mistakes.

And he sure keeps things entertaining!

For a better explanation of more than versus over, check out Grammar Girl's explanation.

What is journalism?

(Image from reportr.net)

For our first blog for journalism class, we were asked our thoughts about the question, "what is journalism?"

I have found it difficult to come up with a phrase that encompasses everything I think journalism is, so I decided to compile a list.

Journalism:

• tells important stories to people who care about them
• strives for the truth
• finds and discloses all sides of a story
• gives a voice to those who can't speak for themselves
• uncovers what shouldn't be covered
• tells audiences why the story is important
• makes the complicated understandable
• allows for true democracy by ensuring transparency and informing voters
• changes the world

After compiling the list, I decided perhaps I was answering the question "what is good journalism?". But isn't that what all journalists should strive to achieve?

Thoughts?

Back to school blogging butterflies

School is back in session, which means my blogging hiatus has ended.

What?

No, of course not by choice!

But I do realize it is a valuable promotional tool, a necessary skill for journalists and the way of the future (apparently — I'd like to know who decided that!).

This semester I will be blogging double time — once a week for my journalism class (about journalism) and once a week for my editing print and online media class (about editing print and online media).

So get ready. I'll be blogging.... faithfully.