Friday, October 03, 2008

Editing Disease

I caught myself editing an LA Times headline this morning. Not the first time either. The only journalism classes I ever had were in high school. I was, of course, on the paper and thought that's what I'd be, the next Nellie Bly. You know, the kind of woman played by Rosalind Russell. But alas I didn't pick my college--I won't go into that--and it turned out NOT to have a journalism department. Back in the day, it never occurred to me that there was such a thing as J-schools for college grads. Actually, was there? I wouldn't have gone anyway. I wasn't into clear thinking or assertive behavior in those days.

Anyway, I learned all the basics in Mr. Ritche's class. (I can't remember how to spell it, that's how long ago it was). I understood how the inverted pyramid worked and why. I searched out words like "very," "just," "pretty," and eradicated them. I tried to avoid the prepositional phrase in favor of strong adjectives and the occasional, even stronger verb. I probably forgot a lot, but when I see unnecessary words, it bugs the **** out of me.

3 comments:

K.C. Ball said...

There were J-schools, back in the day; I attended a damned fine one at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

And don't fret about editing; I do it, too, except I hate to see those adverbs. Anyway, that headline deserved it. Such sloppy work!

le0pard13 said...

I'll qualify my comment that I've never taken a journalism class, but I've always appreciated good journalism. What's really frightening is its current downward spiral, with the newspaper consolidation and acquisition by media conglomerates that's causing it. I can't recall the fiction book that contained it, perhaps a M. Connelly book, but it referenced how those who do PR releases would seek out TV reporters for a sound bite, but would try to avoid the newspaper reporters because they were no fools. Sadly, that time may have passed.

Anonymous said...

Take THAT newspaper!



HA!


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