pyrrhic victory

I was once told that reporters should write for readers with a Grade 8 reading level.

GRADE 8!

 

yes
depends on the story
it's a lot better known to newpaper readers than sprinkling in names of current bands or something.

 

I've always been a big believer in that Sorkin/Jed Bartlett quote, Mystery:

It's not our job to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It's our job to raise it.

You can take that "play to the middle" philosophy to absurd ends. And eventually we're all dumber because of it. Certainly every article in the sports section shouldn't contain references to Jean-Paul Sarte or Kierkegaard. But the beauty of newspapers is that they entertain AND educate. If my kid was reading a story and came across the world Pyrrhic, and didn't know what it meant, I make 'em look it up. Or ask someone smart (like mom) what it meant.

Otherwise, you reach a point where you eliminate anything outside people's comfort zone. References to the madness of King Lear? The indecisiveness of Hamlet? The scheming of Iago? Sorry, no one outside a college classroom reads Shakespeare. Better make a Harry Potter analogy instead. And kill those Hemingway allusions too. Cause The Sun Also Rises was boring.

A newspaper should inform, but it should occasionally challenge you too.

 

I tried to get "dyspeptic" in a story once. It was quashed once my editor polled all of the copy editors in the office and none of them knew what it meant.

 

There aren't any hard and fast rules to writing, aside from always erriing on the side of clarity and brevity.
There are times when a slightly highbrow reference is the clearest and especially briefest way to say something. Pyrrhic victory might fall into that category, or it might not. Depends on its use.
If I'm an advertiser, I sure as hell don't want readers at an 8th grade level. I'm buying spots on local TV news for that crowd.
This is as personal as I can get about this. Newspapers were how my parents taught me to read. They weren't hoping I'd get to an 8th grade level and then stop.

 

I understood the etymology, so I got the meaning of the word.

Sidebar, it appears it should be "Pyrrhic" sted of "pyrrhic." The lowered one appears to change the meaning.

 

Now that is ironic!

 

Nick Seitz of Golf Digest once told me to "send 'em to the dictionary once a story." Now, I don't know if he meant the staff or the readers, but the point was well-taken, although you could make a use distinction between magazine writing and newspaper writing.

If nothing else, his advice helped me learn the difference between "sinecure" and "cynosure".

 

I'm sure there are readers who don't know what "filibuster" means, either.

Does that mean you avoid the term or "explain it" in every story in which the term is relevant?

Of course not.

I can find "hip" phrases and references in every edition of ESPN Magazine that are more foreign to me than "Pyrrhic" ever was.

 

It's not a question of dumbing down the product or trying to reach the lowest common denominator; it's writing in an accessible, professional manner, and phrases such as Pyrrhic victory, travails of Odysseus and nine circles of hell are needlessly arch. Pick stronger verbs and more focused description rather than dip back into college lit class.

 

Personally, I prefer a Sisyphean feat reference.

 

I think it's the job of the teachers, the advocates, and the politicians to raise the common denominator. But if you write for a general-purpose newspaper, your job is to report based on where it is now. Sort of like how if you work at a McDonald's, you might want the world to eat prime rib with black truffles, but your job is to get the Big Macs out to the masses.

I understand your point, and I share in it to the degree that I wish people were smarter, or at least acted smarter. But ignoring or overwhelming significant portions of your readership because they don't have the liberal arts mastery you do does more harm than good.