The News Biz

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Professional Standards

“The young man fresh to journalism will find, sometimes to his astonishment, particularly if he is a high-born child used to coddling, that he is called upon to perform tasks which entail almost endless drudgery—a searching for details of the most picayune sort. He must learn names and middle initials. He must know his town and its people. He must attend dull luncheons, dinners, board meetings and charity affairs. He must learn that it is possible to make at least ten mistakes in a ten-line obituary, all of them unpardonable. . . . He must learn all the ‘don’ts’ and a million boring things that go to make up professional technique. He must learn, if he doesn’t already know it, to avoid adjectives and to swear by the little verbs that bounce and leap and swim and cut.”

  —Stanley Walker (1898-1962), city editor, New York Herald Tribune, 1934

 

• Editorial Comment: I love those bouncy little verbs.

• Yesterday’s WORD: Did you miss yesterday’s WORDs from columnist and Yale Law prof Stephen Carter, on AP’s capitulation on the use of “hopefully”? Click here. 

News from our award-winning student news site, The Hard News Café  
• Aggie journalists to report Oct. 3 on Ethiopia’s hope, heartbreak
• Waste bin trashers in N. Logan can be fined $1,000, council says, by Jessica Sonderegger
• Nibley resets public hearing on electronic signs for Sept. 26, by Danielle Manley
 • Logan, Utah, makes top-10 (we’re #3!) list of best college towns in U.S., by Ted Pease
• ‘Meet the weirdos,’ dean urges students at USU opening event, by D. Whitney Smith
• Aggie journalism prof’s Washington Post article foreshadows Ethiopian leader’s death, by Matthew D. LaPlante
• Aggie Reports from Ethiopia: Olympic Dreams, Empty Pockets, by Danielle Manley
• Joe’s boat bursts into flames—in his driveway!, video by Ted Pease



PeezPIX by Ted Pease

College Cove, Trinidad, California