Reading Overload

The chapters from News Reporting and Writing this week were quite different but I suppose they fit together. I started off with the Media Law chapter – probably not the best decision considering I still had about 50 pages to stay awake for – but I got through it none-the-less. The chapter was a re-read from Intro. to Journalism. We also covered media law in my mass media class so I had a pretty good handle on truth, privilege, and fair comment and criticism before reading.

I feel kind of bad because media law just doesn’t intrigue me in the slightest bit. I understand how important the rights and protections of journalist are but reading about the same cases over and over again without a real-life scenario is really dull. It also seems to me that the differences between each case of libel suit are very minute. There is so much gray area when deciding the differences in private citizen and public figure, actual malice and poor choices, negligence and misinformation. It kind of makes my head spin.

I thought the online readings were pretty interesting, especially George Orwell’s bit about scholarly writing. He was able to illustrate how meaning is lost when writers use larger words, old metaphors and unnecessary jargon. One of the elements his article specifically addresses is the use of passive voice instead of active voice. This is one on my writing’s flaws. I tend to use passive voice unknowingly which, as my academic writing professor said, weakens my usually powerful writing.

I also liked Orwell’s “elementary rules” because they seemed like good standards to live by. I’ll list the rules here so maybe each time I make a blog entry I’ll have to glance over them again.

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

The Scholarly Prose article was also about the difference in quality straight-forward writing and overly-complicated academic prose. I can definitely understand the importance of straightforward prose because I’ve read too many long-winded and overzealous pieces for various classes. Obviously, as a journalist I want my writing to be easy to understand. I need to write in the straight-forward manner that the piece recommends and cut out my static verbs, complex embellishments, and long-winded sentences.

The report from Three Mile Island seemed like in interesting collection of facts about the coverage of the nuclear accident. It actually put me at ease to read that not all of the reporters had extensive knowledge about nuclear power before covering the story. For some reason I always have this guilty feeling when I’m assigned a story that I really know nothing about. At least the professionals were able to research and report at the same time to cover the disaster.

I also had no idea how many news agencies decided to cover the story. Obviously the list of reasons for coverage the report outlined was reason enough to merit the inquiry, but that’s a ton of publicity for any event!

The last bit of reading for today was the re-fresher on chapter eight in News Reporting and Writing. The chapter outlines how to write to be read. This kind of encompassed all of the reading selections from today because above all, journalists have to write in a manner that their readers can understand. The point of journalism is, after all, to share information. If the readers get lost or confused while reading, the entire point of the journalist’s work is lost.