How many style guides do journalists really need?
I remember a fellow journalist telling me how her J-school professor once ordered students to write out the entire AP Stylebook by hand as part of a class project. The exercise, I was told, was...
View ArticleCampaign to eliminate media mentions of ‘Polish death camps’ claims success...
This was been a good week for Alex Storozynski, the president and executive director of the Kosciuszko Foundation, and a former journalist with the New York Daily News and the New York Sun, among other...
View ArticleAP Stylebook updates entry on racial IDs in news stories
On Tuesday, the AP Stylebook updated its entry on when journalists should publish information about a person’s race. The update says that race is pertinent in stories about crime suspects who have been...
View ArticleThe New York Times explains why it still uses ‘illegal immigrant’
Time Magazine | ABC News | Politico | Poynter Jose Antonio Vargas is asking news organizations to stop using the term “illegal immigrant,” saying it’s inhumane and inaccurate. During his keynote speech...
View ArticleJose Antonio Vargas ‘disappointed’ NYT not budging on ‘illegal immigrant’
The Atlantic Wire | The New York Times Jose Antonio Vargas will continue trying to persuade The New York Times to stop using the term “illegal immigrant,” he tells The Atlantic Wire’s John Hudson, even...
View ArticleYour quick Election Day (note the uppercase) styleguide
The Associated Press released its Election Day styleguide in August, but honestly, who was paying attention then? (OK, we were. But you weren’t.) Here are the most common phrases to get right....
View ArticleProPublica releases style guide for news apps
News applications editor Scott Klein has written a “ProPublica News Apps Style Guide” that codifies “the typographic and technical best practices” its developers follow. Much like the AP Stylebook, the...
View ArticleAP issues style guide for papal succession
Associated Press The Associated Press has issued a helpful style guide for what promises to be an eventful March in the Roman Catholic Church. For example: Mass is “celebrated, not said.” The word...
View ArticleAP stylebook adds entry on mental illness
AP Stylebook | NAB The Associated Press has introduced guidance on how to use information about mental illness in coverage. “Do not describe an individual as mentally ill unless it is clearly pertinent...
View Article5 ways that social media benefits writing and language
It’s easy to assume that new forms of technology have dumbed down the English language. Text messaging has reduced phrases to letters (CU L8r) and tweets have so many abbreviations and hashtags they’re...
View ArticleAP changes style on ‘underway’: Copy editors react
Two days after changing its style on the term “illegal immigrant,” the Associated Press issued a Stylebook update that’s significant but in a much quieter way: underway One word in all uses. OK, it’s a...
View ArticleTimeline shows changes to AP style
Journalism in the Americas “Ms.” arrived in 1980. “Illegal immigrant” entered in 2004 (and left this year). The hyphen in “e-mail” left the building in March 2011. Zach Dyer catalogs these and other...
View ArticleLos Angeles Times, too, moves away from ‘illegal immigrant’
Los Angeles Times Articles in the Los Angeles Times “will no longer refer to individuals as ‘illegal immigrants’ or ‘undocumented immigrants,’ but instead will describe a person’s circumstances,” Times...
View ArticleSan Francisco Chronicle changes style on ‘illegal immigrant’
The San Francisco Chronicle changed its style on “illegal immigrant” Monday. It’s the latest of several publications to reconsider the term. The newspaper’s new style will “essentially match” the...
View ArticleJournalists declare war…on ellipses
Slate The job description of the ellipsis has changed, Matthew J.X. Malady writes. His emails, his text messages…full of three-point shots. Clay Shirky hypothesizes to him that “people are trying to...
View ArticleAP, New York Times, NPR update style on Chelsea Manning
“The Associated Press will henceforth use Pvt. Chelsea E. Manning and female pronouns for the soldier formerly known as Bradley Manning, in accordance with her wishes to live as a woman,” the news...
View ArticleAre we heading for a post-apostrophe society?
Time | Slate | The New Republic The apostrophe — the punctuation mark, not the parenthetical form of speech directed at one person — will never die as long as copy editors and auto-correct programs...
View ArticleNPR will use term ‘Obamacare’ less
Maynard Institute | Associated Press NPR standards editor Stuart Seidel asked reporters and editors to “avoid overusing ‘Obamacare’” after the Maynard Institute’s Richard Prince wrote him saying “the...
View ArticleAP’s new Lingofy plugin is like a robot copy editor
Associated Press Lingofy is a browser plugin that “checks website content for AP Stylebook’s spelling, language, punctuation, usage and journalistic style guidelines,” the Associated Press says in a...
View ArticleTaser is not a verb, says Taser
KATU morning producer Jennifer Kubus asked a good question on Twitter: Newsroom debate about using the word “Taser” when brand of stun gun is unclear. Ok in news scripts or not? @AP @Poynter...
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