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Michael Brown
On Writing
SUMMARY LEADS AND HAND-HELD COMPUTERS: WRITE TIGHT
Though journalism is a living form, a living art, I think what has to be done is you must still teach those things that are industry- or standard-wide. Because if you don't, that particular student, be it journalist, be it print or broadcast, will be at a disadvantage. Because when they enter the work field, they will still be working for those people who have been taught the old way. And if they don't understand the lingua franca of the industry, you have a problem. And since we're talking about the field of communications here, what we do, we teach the process of the summary lead. When I teach the high school students here, ...we teach it on a college level. We teach those things, and we often tell them, "If you can't tell this lead, and do this lead in 19 words or less, it's no good." Everyone knows that your story should be told in four paragraphs. If it's not told in four paragraphs, it's not a story. It's nothing but a, it's a novel. So that's what we think we need, to be able to begin to teach journalists how to write tight. I am of the opinion that the summary lead will never go out of vogue. For one reason. And that is this: within the next ten years, maybe sooner, you're gonna be able to take a newspaper, it's gonna be an electronic newspaper, in your hand, the size of a pocket calculator. And you're gonna be punching what you want to read. And if that information is not tight, it's not gonna be read. So we're gonna be reading newspapers in the palm of our hands. And so therefore, we must learn how to write tight in the concept that we all teach and we all know about, who are journalists, how to omit needless words. And so therefore, the summary lead is almost just that, omitting needless words, or summarizing what that person's going to read. And if it's going to be on an electronic newspaper, held in the palm of your hand, we talk about this new technology, it's gonna have to be tight. So summary leads are going to be very important.
A word processor in your hand. That's a communications device. You can do anything you want with it. In your hand. So why's the next step, a hand-held newspaper, an electronic newspaper. Right now you can get on Nexis and read any newspaper in the world you want, just about. What's the next step? That's for the industry. Why can't I, since I write now, I subscribe, currently, as an individual, for the print, I subscribe to The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Defender, the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Los Angeles Sentinel. I could read them at home on Nexis. Why can't I walk around the street and read them? It's the same thing. So that's what we're talking about. And I think reading tight and writing tight is going to be the key.
They're going to be very important in this modern technology; with advances of modern technology it's going to be very important to be able to do that, it's going to be very important to omit needless words, it's going to be very important, say, "There were a whole lot of guys," "There were many," it's going to be very important to do that. That's what we're going to still have to teach students.
THE INVERTED PYRAMID
Well, when you begin to talk about the inverted pyramid, there's so much stuff about the inverted pyramid, some people say, "It's old." And in essence if we follow the same track in which I'm talking now, the inverted pyramid's not gonna become very important, isn't it? If we follow that train of thought, there are schools who are not teaching, who tend to get away from the inverted pyramid. There are even people who are teaching in journalism more features style, freestyle writing, for hard news. But is that a reflection of our society or is that just a change in the trend of writing and I would say that it's a reflection of what's happening in society, that many times now society truly is gonna get right to the meat of the stuff or just wanna hear more flowery, if you will. And I think as journalists we have a responsibility. And that is to report it accurately, thoroughly, and fairly.
STORYTELLERS AND THE NEWS
I think that most of your storytellers are not news or hard news writers. Most of your storytellers, because of the way the industry goes now, they are either relegated to very specific neighborhood or zoning writing, they may be relegated to feature, or when they're asked to write on hard news because they are able to, storytellers are very good fact-gatherers. That's what assisted them in storytelling so well. They are relegated and they're told, "We need you to write this in a minimum of 20 inches. We don't need 40 inches for this story." And they're able to do it.
THE EDITING PROCESS
I just wrote this. [Crumples it up.] Let me write it again. If you can't do that, you can't write. You may love the way you write, but you can't be in love with what you wrote. And that is not a play on words, that is very, very serious. Because if you can't make changes, it will never ever grow. If you can't make changes, and corrections, and if you're gonna sit up here and argue with your copyeditor and the proofreader, "Don't change that, you can't, don't be editing my stuff!" It serves no purpose. You wrote it, it should be able to withstand the test. If it can't withstand a couple of changed words here and a couple of changed words there, it's not worth a hill of beans then. So you are not to be in love with what you wrote. But love to write.
Again, good is a value judgement. We're getting down to the essence of the art of communication. Being able to communicate your thought. We're talking about those things that we are taught in English composition. The ability to communicate. That's what we're getting down to. And that's what happens. But, what happens when you begin to put that egocentrism in here, the egomania, well you can't tear this story up, or someone changes it and you have an attitude, I question whether or not you should be writing. It's just that simple. As a writer myself, I have two books published, I'm currently working on two for publication now. If you can't allow changes, it's never gonna go anywhere. That's just that simple. A mother and a child. You love that child but you're gonna make some changes in that child so that child can grow, so that child can be the best. But are you gonna love that child so much that you can't tell that child when the child's wrong? If the stuff stinks, it stinks! If it's not communicating the thought to me as a copyeditor, if I can't understand it, certainly the readers can't understand it. And that's all copyeditors do. That's the only thing. And nothing else.
STYLEBOOK LINGUA FRANCA AND BUSINESS
My point here, when we talk about copyediting, we talk about use of UPI or AP stylebooks. You must have a frame of reference. Your frame of reference also becomes your lingua franca. Readers have become used to reading newspapers a certain kind of way. Though USA Today has changed the way we read and the way newspapers look, but yet they still follow some form out of a style. Newspapers are living and they're constantly merging, they're not stagnant. But yet you still must have a standard by which to judge and base and build upon. And that's why it's important that students understand newspaper writing style. And I emphasize, there's a difference between English composition and newspaper writing. There's a difference between writing for your college newspaper, writing for your college yearbook, then writing for a newspaper to make money. There's a difference. Bottom line. And if you're gonna write for the newspaper, you're writing for only one purpose, that is to get you a paycheck, and if you don't write what your readers want, if you don't write to support that advertiser, you don't have any ads, you don't have any money. You don't have any money, then you get out of here. Just that simple. It's about business. It's business. And you have a style. A standard. And that standard has to be set somewhere. Though your newspaper may have a very specific style. For instance, at the Chicago Defender newspaper, we do not hyphenate African American. We do not hyphenate Chinese American. Some newspapers do. But that's our style. So therefore you are now incorporating the style of your newspaper into the standard style. Which is AP or UPI stylebook. And I guarantee you those newspapers that have their own style, it's based upon something. For instance, I'll guarantee you "Navy," the "United States Navy," is always capitalized in every newspaper across this country. But "navy" as far as Soviet or some other country, is always lowercase "n." That's the style! That's the style of the industry. Because people are used to seeing that. If people are used to seeing a certain article on page three or a certain section of your newspaper on page three, and one day you put it on page ten, you're gonna get all kinds of phone calls that say, "That stuff's not in the paper." "Ma'am, did you turn to page ten?" "For what? It's supposed to be on page three!" "Did you turn to page ten?" "Why'd you move it?" That's my point here. That's what style does. I'll read it. "This doesn't sound right." People tell me, "This just doesn't sound right." I'll say, "Well, ma'am, this is the way we write." I have many English teachers call and say, "This is just wrong. Terrible." I say, "Well, maam, that is the newspaper style. We do not put a comma between Brown, and Junior, J R period. We don't put a comma there in the newspaper. We do that in English composition." "Well, it's wrong." I said, "Well ma'am, it's wrong if I were writing a paper for class. But the industry says we don't put a comma there."
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