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Major AP style changes

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Stitch, Apr 4, 2010.

  1. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Anyone catch the AP advisory that states that it is dropping state abbreviations from datelines effective May 15?
     
  2. OnTheRiver

    OnTheRiver Active Member

    They give some sort of reasoning for this decision?
     
  3. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    Link, or e-mail on the change?
     
  4. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    This was the advisory that passed yesterday:

    Date: 4/3/2010 10:00 AM

    BC-AP Style,Advisory/116
    BC-AP Style,Advisory
    EDITORS:

    The Associated Press is changing its style on state abbreviations.

    Starting May 15, we will spell out the names of U.S. states in all stories and datelines where a city is followed by a state name. SACRAMENTO, Calif., for example, will become SACRAMENTO, California.

    State abbreviations will continue to be used in NewsAlerts and headlines.

    In making this change, we will be creating a consistent and universal style for international as well as domestic use.

    We also will drop the practice of including names of Canadian provinces in datelines. We will instead use Canada. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, for example, will become VANCOUVER, Canada.

    The AP
     
  5. SixToe

    SixToe Well-Known Member

    MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

    ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

    THISWILLLOOKSTUPID, NORTH DAKOTA

    ANOTHERCHANGEFORNOGOODREASON, TENNESSEE
     
  6. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    WEDON'TTRUSTANYONETOKNOWTHEABBREVIATIONSANYMORE, Mississippi
     
  7. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    Seems silly. I can see doing it for the Canada datelines, but what's the point of doing it for U.S. datelines. Then again, I think there are way too many datelines from the AP that have "require" states after them.
     
  8. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    ANDWEREFUSETOUSETHEPOSTALCODESEVERYONERECOGNIZES, North Carolina
     
  9. Bob Crotchet

    Bob Crotchet Member

    I didn 't even catch that, and I read the advisory wires every day. Quite a low-key announcement.
     
  10. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    AP tells Twitter to suck it.
     
  11. mediaguy

    mediaguy Well-Known Member

    I think a lot of papers will ignore the style change and just rewrite the AP states to their old abbreviations. Can they seriously have gotten enough complaints from readers that don't know a Mo. from a Miss. to spell it out?
     
  12. OnTheRiver

    OnTheRiver Active Member

    It's about time the rest of America got on board with Iowa and Maine, I guess.
     
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