Breaking language barriers

[HanSenSE]

Found via Facebook. First thought it was another rant on diversity, but also brings up some good points on the changing locker room landscape.

The Unbearable Whiteness of Sports Journalism: The Houston Chronicle’s Blunder Is Reflective Of A Larger Problem | All Digitocracy

 

[Fredrick]

Found via Facebook. First thought it was another rant on diversity, but also brings up some good points on the changing locker room landscape.

The Unbearable Whiteness of Sports Journalism: The Houston Chronicle’s Blunder Is Reflective Of A Larger Problem | All Digitocracy

Good story. Good topic. I will say this: It is wrong to quote an athlete verbatim in English if he/she butchers the sentences and language. You either have to clean it up or figure another way to convey his/her message. Sorry, but it is not right to run some quote in broken English. In the linked column, I find it interesting that the first quote is in broken English and the rest of Gomez's quotes are in perfect English. What's up with that?
You might say, "by God the rules of Journalism are to quote the person's words EXACTLY how he/she said them." That's fine but I'm saying screw the "rules." It's a new era. We should be making our new rules because the people in charge now aren't even fricking journalists. They don't know anything about journalism to begin with. I stand by my statement you can't run an athlete's quotes verbatim if he/she is from another country and it makes them sound foolish.

 

[MNgremlin]

Good story. Good topic. I will say this: It is wrong to quote an athlete verbatim in English if he/she butchers the sentences and language. You either have to clean it up or figure another way to convey his/her message. Sorry, but it is not right to run some quote in broken English. In the linked column, I find it interesting that the first quote is in broken English and the rest of Gomez's quotes are in perfect English. What's up with that?
You might say, "by God the rules of Journalism are to quote the person's words EXACTLY how he/she said them." That's fine but I'm saying screw the "rules." It's a new era. We should be making our new rules because the people in charge now aren't even fricking journalists. They don't know anything about journalism to begin with. I stand by my statement you can't run an athlete's quotes verbatim if he/she is from another country and it makes them sound foolish.

Completely agree. Even if it's not a ESL speaker, I still clean up what they say.

 

[justgladtobehere]

Wasn't this something Roberto Clemente complained about? Progress.

 

[BDC99]

Really difficult issues, since you can clean up the quotes but that brings an ethical dilemma. I would paraphrase and say Gomez acknowledged his struggles and knows the fans are disappointed, or something. Ii don't have a problem cleaning up the quotes but you risk putting words in their mouth.

Regarding diversity, that's tough too. I went to college from 1993-97, and I don't recall minorities in my classes, and many of the women were PR/Marketing majors. There just doesn't seem to be interest in doing it. I have worked with great minorities and women, but the candidates are amazingly limited. I don't know the answer.

 

[Southwinds]

I don't think it makes anyone come off as less intelligent. Those are the words that spoken. Readers have to infer from the quotes and, probably, the name if someone is not a native speaker of English. Carlos Gomez, Dirk Nowitzki, Alex Ovechkin, Gennady Golovkin, whoever - they're all speaking a language that they're not necessarily comfortable with. Part of that is on the team to diagnose if a player can hold his own. (And, a lot of players, in my experience, want to try.) If they can't get through a sentence, it's one thing to clean it up or paraphrase. If they convey thoughts with 35-second answers that have a little bit of mishmash here or there, so be it.

To be fair, there are also a lot of native English speakers who speak gobbledygook sentences.

 

[Old Time Hockey]

If you've covered preps, you've probably cleaned up the language of some high school kid, and probably didn't think anything of it. Why should this be any different? I don't see any ethical dilemma in accurately conveying the content without making the person look ignorant.

 

[BDC99]

But someone who doesn't speak the language isn't ignorant

 

[LongTimeListener]

Really difficult issues, since you can clean up the quotes but that brings an ethical dilemma.

It brings no ethical dilemma whatsoever. The only choice is whether to be a superior asshat. This guy chose to do so.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

If the interview were broadcast instead of written in the paper, no one would complain.

 

[cjericho]

If it's any athlete in whichever league more than a few seasons, most people know the way he speaks. So if the quotes are cleaned up people probably will read it and think "he didn't say that."

 

[Riptide]

I like how Gomez stuck it to the writer on Twitter:
"next time you want an interview have Google translate on hand.”

Play ball!

 

[Ace]

It is an interesting question. I try to avoid quoting subjects using poor grammar unless I mean to convey the subject has difficulty, is an idiot or is colorful. As mentioned above, there are ways to do that, even if you are a purist about direct quotes.

Personally, I don't think it makes someone from the Dominican Republic sound ignorant to be quoted that way.

The article about the White Sports Writers problem conveys this as a mistake. I disagree. It's a decision. But perhaps if the staff were more diverse there may have been a conversation about it.

Final thought: Direct quotes are overused by the majority of sports writers. Many think if they took the time to talk to someone, by golly, their long-winded, say-nothing quotes are going in the story.

If Moses were a sportswriter, he would staggered down the mountain with 156 commandments, asides and suggestions.

 

[nubyjas_wilborn]

What would you recommend instead of direct quoting? I've been looking to try different ways to quoting.

It is an interesting question. I try to avoid quoting subjects using poor grammar unless I mean to convey the subject has difficulty, is an idiot or is colorful. As mentioned above, there are ways to do that, even if you are a purist about direct quotes.

Personally, I don't think it makes someone from the Dominican Republic sound ignorant to be quoted that way.

The article about the White Sports Writers problem conveys this as a mistake. I disagree. It's a decision. But perhaps if the staff were more diverse there may have been a conversation about it.

Final thought: Direct quotes are overused by the majority of sports writers. Many think if they took the time to talk to someone, by golly, their long-winded, say-nothing quotes are going in the story.

If Moses were a sportswriter, he would staggered down the mountain with 156 commandments, asides and suggestions.

 

[Bronco77]

Most of the best editors I've worked for have had the same general rule of thumb: If it's a game story or garden-variety feature or column, fix the language. If it's something more -- for instance, an in-depth Sunday centerpiece that might include a visit to an athlete's hometown -- there's a bit more latitude to quote in slang, dialect or whatever to help set the scene and the tone. But certainly never to the extreme that the Houston Chronicle writer went to.

 

[Ace]

What would you recommend instead of direct quoting? I've been looking to try different ways to quoting.

These quotes could easily be paraphrased.

Or you could paraphrase part and quote directly just a word or phrase to avoid the awkward verbs.

 

[LongTimeListener]

If you've ever taken "like" and "you know" out of a quote the dozen times an athlete generally uses those words in a 30-second sound bite, you can't seriously think there's a need to preserve broken English in its natural state.

 

[Bronco77]

If you've ever taken "like" and "you know" out of a quote the dozen times an athlete generally uses those words in a 30-second sound bite, you can't seriously think there's a need to preserve broken English in its natural state.

Again, drawing on experience with top-notch editors, most would not even allow "gonna" (instead of "going to") and "gotta" (instead of got to) into the paper. In fact, one sports desk stylebook I worked with forbade those usages in all cases; another one allowed them in rare instances that didn't include routine stories. Writers would argue, "Well, that's how so-and-so talks," and the editors would come back with, "True, but it's bad English and shouldn't be in the paper."

 

[BDC99]

Most of the best editors I've worked for have had the same general rule of thumb: If it's a game story or garden-variety feature or column, fix the language. If it's something more -- for instance, an in-depth Sunday centerpiece that might include a visit to an athlete's hometown -- there's a bit more latitude to quote in slang, dialect or whatever to help set the scene and the tone. But certainly never to the extreme that the Houston Chronicle writer went to.

Again, drawing on experience with top-notch editors, most would not even allow "gonna" (instead of "going to") and "gotta" (instead of got to) into the paper. In fact, one sports desk stylebook I worked with forbade those usages in all cases; another one allowed them in rare instances that didn't include routine stories. Writers would argue, "Well, that's how so-and-so talks," and the editors would come back with, "True, but it's bad English and shouldn't be in the paper."

Agreed. Across the board. Had a fairly well-known writer who would routinely respond "Well, that's what he said" when I call with a question. Weeeellll, it doesn't make any sense!

 

[fossywriter8]

Agreed. Across the board. Had a fairly well-known writer who would routinely respond "Well, that's what he said" when I call with a question. Weeeellll, it doesn't make any sense!

I don't agree.
One of the best quotes I had came from a high school football coach talking about a key play in a close game several years ago — a fumble recovery for a long score, if I remember correctly. His closing line about the play was "Who'd a-thunk it?"
My editor wanted to take it out. She said it was bad grammar and used a word that didn't really exist. She was also a graduate of the private school the guy coached and thought it made her alma mater look bad.
We argued about it, and then a fellow reporter, also a graduate of the school, walked in. She asked him about it.
He read it and said, "Oh, you've got to put that in."
It ran.
We never received a complaint.