What Not to Write
When you read guide books, they tell you step by step what should be done to get the job done. This is not so with Newspaper Style. When I first started reading the introduction, I believed that this would just be another dry “how to” book. I found that it is actually a very entertaining book: first because it is more of a how not to, and second because the examples given are quite humorous. One of my favorite sections was the one over cliches. Looking at the list of cliches, it occurred to me how much I use cliches without even thinking about it. I use them in conversation and in writing. They are cliches for a reason. They are overused and the meaning has been lost to them. When writing an article for a newspaper or magazine, there is only so much space allotted to you. The information that needs to be presented is important and can’t be bogged down by words that are unnecessary and hold no meaning.
George Orwell Reading
A little more than half-way through his article “Politics and the English Language”, George Orwell wrote something that made me stop and think. He wrote, “All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.” As someone who generally hates anything to do with the realm of politics, this statement threw me. If every issue is a political issue then theoretically, I should hate every issue. What Orwell wrote is very true, our language has evolved do to politics and what is considered politically correct. There have even been several retelling of stories to make them politically correct (i.e. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs becomes Snow White and the Seven Vertically Challenged Men). Even though these were written as satire, the writing of stories such of these is a political issue. It is amazing how one sentence can make me, or any person, re-evaluate their beliefs. I can no longer say that I hate politics, because now I see how politics is encroaching on every issue.
Hello world!
I am a visiting student from the United States where I am majoring in English with an emphasis in journalism. My ultimate goal, as far as in the realm of journalism, is to work for an entertainment magazine interviewing musicians. Waking up every morning and dreading going to work is not how I want to spend my life. I want my work to be enjoyable and make me happy.
One thing that really hit me in class today was when we talked about what truth was and the need to be skeptical of everything in print. In the U.S. there is a saying; “If it bleeds, it reads.” Looking at some of the front page stories in American newspapers with a skeptical eye, questions are raised as to how much of the story was embelished to make it more sensational. Looking at articles with skepticism also means that when a story is read, I need to know something about the sources mentioned. Without knowing information on the sources, how can I be able to ascertain if the source is reliable? This will be especially hard while I am abroad simply because I am not familiar with the political figures and other sources that will be used in articles here.
