APSE column

Talk about stating the obvious.

For you non-journalists who read the APSE newsletter, Garry D. Howard, your vice president, explains how the roles of reporters and columnists differ.

Very enlightening, if you're in a high school journalism class.

http://apse.dallasnews.com/2008/aug2008/081308howard.html

 

Or if you're one of their idiot readers who can't figure out that a column labeled "In my opinion" is just that. To be fair, those type of readers are not unique to Wisconsin.

This was originally published in the JS a couple of days ago, as per the note at the top. Not sure why they felt the need to put it on the APSE site, though. Not much us newsies can take from it.

 

I have to admit, I didn't realize at first that this had run in the newspaper.

On the other hand, why then post it on the APSE site? To show how learned you are?

 

The line is blurred, especially for readers, when you let the same person on a large staff write news stories and columns about the same subject.

A reader probably doesn't notice that some stories have a picture of the writer and others don't. They see a story by a writer and then a column by a writer and can't separate the two.

That being said, I don't know why this would be posted on the APSE site either.

 

With those two posts, it's like Matt's talking to himself.

 

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I'm schizophrenic.
And so am I.

But I'm not MMatt60.

 

Some papers blur the line even further. The one I subscribe to runs one or two short features per week where they normally put their columns, but everything in that slot gets a mugshot, so you have to actually read (and comprehend) the story to tell whether or not it's meant to be commentary. As you might expect, a few readers have trouble understanding the concept.

Same paper runs everything ragged-right; no justified text anywhere to be found. (We're the exact opposite -- even our columns are justified.) I never understood the significance of that until I started reading this board, and I suspect the same is true for an overwhelming majority of your readers.

And yeah, that piece does seem out of place on APSE.

 

Good Lord, has it come to this?

I figured out the difference between a columnist and a reporter when I was about twelve years old.

 

JR, I get 100 emails a week to our writers, who are all columnists, asking them to be more objective.

 

I"m sure you do SF. I just find it astonishing, that's all.

The upside is that they're reading your damn paper. It'd be worse if they didn't care.

 

I cringe to think of the writing skills on display in some of those emails, but I'm guessing most of the people on this board have encountered the same misunderstanding. Within the last week, I've had at least five people ask me about the subject of my next "column." (Umm, I don't write columns, I cover preps/community sports. Wait. Maybe they're trying to tell me something?)

Fortunately, the feedback has been positive in my case. Guess I'll let 'em call my stories whatever they want, as long as they're not egging my house ...

 

Garry Howard is an embarrassment to the profession.

That is a fact.