Walsh hits the bull's-eye
If you're looking for some true common-sense editing advice, see Bill Walsh's "Fine Point vs. El Marko."
Woe to those who would reflexively edit.
posted by Doug @ 1:18 AM
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Common Sense Journalism
An extension of the Common Sense Journalism monthly column by Doug Fisher, former broadcaster, newspaper reporter and wire service editor. From new media to old, much of journalism is just plain common sense.
"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Unknown (often improperly attributed to Thomas Jefferson)
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
"Common sense is not so common" - Voltaire
"Common sense is instinct; enough of it is genius" - George Bernard Shaw
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Woe to those who would reflexively edit.
Yes, I do coaching and consulting. That is the only shameless commerce you'll get from me here. Go to the bottom of the blog for more details.
Who am I: A longtime print and broadcast reporter/editor/producer and then AP news editor who now professes journalism at the University of South Carolina. (But please note, nothing on this blog represents official university policy or sentiment. If it did, I'd be very concerned.)
My point: That journalism is a great occupation, that most journalism is common sense and that our problems arise when we sometimes don't use it.
What's covered: My interests center on editing and writing and on editors and the challenges they face in a changing environment. I'm convinced editors are not being trained enough to face these challenges, but that common sense rules the day. I'm heavily involved in Newsplex, the new-media newsroom at the University of South Carolina. But my interests are wide-ranging, so anything, from ethics to some aspects of Web design, is fair game.
Hope you find something here worthwhile.
Who am I: A longtime print and broadcast reporter/editor/producer and then AP news editor who now professes journalism at the University of South Carolina. (But please note, nothing on this blog represents official university policy or sentiment. If it did, I'd be very concerned.)
My point: That journalism is a great occupation, that most journalism is common sense and that our problems arise when we sometimes don't use it.
What's covered: My interests center on editing and writing and on editors and the challenges they face in a changing environment. I'm convinced editors are not being trained enough to face these challenges, but that common sense rules the day. I'm heavily involved in Newsplex, the new-media newsroom at the University of South Carolina. But my interests are wide-ranging, so anything, from ethics to some aspects of Web design, is fair game.
Hope you find something here worthwhile.
Previous Posts
- When is a 'jumper' not a jumper?
- Editing the briefs
- Too good to not mention
- Punctuation explained
- Priceless quote
- Language Log-the book
- Diagramming sentences
- Farmers Market - and other sticky points in AP style
- AP and the hyphen
- A Memorial Day reminder
- The Convergence Newsletter
- Hartsville Today Report (1Mb PDF)
- CSJ-the column
- Doug's Homepage
- A J-School Year
- The Freedom of Information Act Wiki
- EFF: Legal Guide for Bloggers
- Journalism Wiki
- Robert Niles' Reliable Numbers Online
- A copy editor's lament
- AP's Ask the Stylebook Editor
- Am. Heritage Usage Guide
- Your Dictionary
- One Look dict. - includes reverse lookup
- Yiddish dictionary
- Online Etymology Dictionary
- Alan Cooper's homonym list
- Sentence Diagramming Guide
- The Passivator
- Vocabula Review - for your inner prescriptivist
- Language Log - for your inner descriptivist
- alt.english.usage and FAQs
- Biker Week Cross-Media Coverage
- Journalism Desktop - Resources
- The Racial Slur Database
- Online Education DB's "150 Resources for Writers"
- Videogame Style Guide
Right click on the chicklet and copy the address to your newsreader. (Or click directly on the chicklet for some quick links to some of the most common newsreaders.)Or you can use the Atom site feed
- Newsplex
- Google News
- Yahoo News
- Topix
- CJR
- AJR
- Poynter
- ACES
- ACES Discussion Board
- On the Media
- Free Daily Newspapers
- mediadrop
- Media Bloggers Association
- Florida Press Club
- The Numbers Guy at WSJ.com
- Covering Crime and Courts
- Mystery Pollster takes the mystery out of political polls
- Reporters'Cookbook Wiki
- Crowdsourcing.com
- Newspapervideo
- Open Congress
- Citizendium
- Ed Henninger - design (check his column and helpful hints")
- McClatchy VP Howard Weaver
- Bob Baker's "Newsthinking"
- Testy Copy Editors
- Bill Walsh's "The Slot"
- Walsh's "Blogslot"
- Walsh's "Off-Topic"
- A Capital Idea
- Headsup: The Blog - "editing and the deskly arts"
- McIntyre's "You Don't Say"
- Bechtel-"The Editor's Desk"
- Pam Nelson's Grammar Guide
- Robinson-"Words at Work"
- Kilian's "Ask the English Teacher"
- David Sullivan
- Willis-"The Scoop"(investigative/CAR)
- Schaver-Depth Reporting
- News Librarians Blog
- 10,000 words
- Howard Owens
- Tim Porter's First Draft
- Skowran-News Atoms
- Journalistopia-Danny Sanchez
- John Rains'Coaching Blog
- Infomaniac
- Working with Words
- World Editors Forum
- Editor Evolved
- "morose copy editor"
- Micro Persuasion
- Public Journalism Network
- Journalism Hope, successor to J-Log
- Dan Conover
- John Duncan - Inksniffer
- DigiDave-Dave Cohn
- Copy-Editing Corner
- Regret the Error
- Bryan Murley
- Dale Cressman
- Jay Rosen's Pressthink
- Ralph Hanson-Living in a Media World
- McAdams-"Teaching Online Journalism"
- Innovations in Newspapers
- Alan Mutter on media economics
- Paul Conley
- The Language Guy
- Scriptae Viri Commenticii
- Media Giraffe Project
- Ctr. for Innovation in College Media
- Joe Marren
- Tom Mangan
- Will Sullivan's Journerdism
- Dick McMichael
- Andy Dickinson
- Pat Thornton
- SPJ's J-Education Forum
- Randy Craig's Readership 101
- Paul Gillen's Newspaper Death Watch
Porter now blogs at Second Draft
- CCJ's list of journalism Web sites
- Massive Web 2.0 list
- Metroblogging
- Tom Bowers' "Thinking About College Teaching"
-
South Carolina and related blogs
- The Bierbauer Report
- Post & Courier's Lowcountry Blogs Roundup
- American Entropy
- Crack the Bell
- Brad Warthen
- S.C. Headlines
- S.C. Hotline - extensive blog list
- S.C. Statehouse Report
- Elise Hu - a former Upstate TV reporter now at NPR
- Newsguyy
- Gary Karr
- David Stanton
- The State's editors
- Columbia City Paper blog
- S.C. Citizen Journal
Some of these are very political. No endorsements are made or implied. These are just some of the more active S.C. blogs. Notifying me of any dead links is appreciated.
Some other fun sites:
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