NYT, Bob Baker and writing better

[SF_Express]

Consecutive articles on Bob Baker's Newsthinking might interest the writers and editors here.

The first is about the New York Times asking 10 staffers to to critique 1A stories over a 10-day period:

http://www.newsthinking.com/story.cfm?SID=236

The second is a compilation of comments about the first:

http://www.newsthinking.com/story.cfm?SID=237

Pretty good stuff about writing tighter, long anecdotal leads, nut graphs, etc.

 

[Alma]

I brought this up to the top because it needs to read. It's very, very good. It's journalists talking about writing.

Ya know what? That affects most of you. Jay Mariotti and Jason Whitlock affects almost none of you.

 

[SF_Express]

Yeah, I was going to bump it eventually, but thanks. Good stuff.

 

[FreddiePatek]

Wow, what a delightful read!

I agree with SF and Alma ... everyone needs to take a look at this. I for one can easily empathize with the anecdotal lede issue.

Thanks, SF

 

[dixiehack]

From the second link ...

I was taught to write all stories as if the person reading them knew nothing, leading to an abundance of parenthetical phrases, dependent clauses and long attributions. All of this destroys narration.

That is a problem with the NYT especially, but it bleeds down to all shops, what I like to call "stations of the cross" journalism. It annoys those who understand the story's background and fails to inspire people new to the party to read further.

 

[SF_Express]

Bumping one last time for the weekday crew, then done. Realize that it's more a read, not something to reply to.

 

[SportsDude]

If you find these two links helfpful, Baker's book is a must-read. I have a copy I keep on reference. As a young reporter it's nice to be able to go back to it from time to time.

 

[Montezuma's Revenge]

It is an interesting read, SF.

As is usually the case with this sort of thing, the views of some (many?) of the people who work with words for a living is awfully disturbing to me. (See: the editor, I believe it was, who put on an impassioned defense of the value of of cliches.)

It's also telling that any thread with "Mariotti" in the title will get tons more traffic.

Learned the hard way a long time ago that a disappointingly small number of people in the biz are truly interested in words and storytelling.

 

[85bears]

Learned the hard way a long time ago that a disappointingly small number of people in the biz are truly interested in words and storytelling.

It is tough, isn't it? And I think that goes for editors, too. It seems like a lot of people in high supervisory positions don't really get interested in the important minutia of reporting and writing a story.

 

[Cal E. Fornia]

Couldn't agree more. One of our reporters came up with a nice story that needed to unfold, but her section editor doesn't want anything longer than 25 inches. Twenty-five inches wasn't enough for this one, so we ended up with a choppy story that lacked important details. We have to remember that steak dinners can't be stuffed into tuna cans.

 

[Cosmo]

Excellent links, SF. It's the sort of thing that makes me want to go back and read the ledes from my stories in the last year and see how I could have made them better, tighter, more concise, more powerful.

 

[Cosmo]

Well, this nugget from the second link is certainly interesting. Isn't this exactly the opposite of what the Poynter people and think-tank folks tell us?

o Write more features that are actually features, focusing on one person or group, because they are weird people in a normal place, or normal people in a weird place. Write fewer trend pieces that simply us a person as a way to get into a term paper on drug abuse, poverty, whatever the ill de jour is.

 

[Cosmo]

Rather disappointing that there isn't more talk on this thread ... question to think about: How many times do you catch yourself overwriting things? I know it happens to me sometimes. I'll get caught in a moment and try to weave prose rather than get to the meat of what I'm talking about. Where's the line between a creative lede and a completely overwritten one?

 

[Billy Pritchard]

It's the sort of thing that makes me want to go back and read the ledes from my stories in the last year and see how I could have made them better, tighter, more concise, more powerful.

I've been doing the same thing over the past couple of days. It's always good to go back and see how something can be improved, but I seldom do that. These links served as a good reminder that I need to review my work more often to keep from slipping into lazy writing.

 

[tmunson]

Maestro, I think what theyre saying is that instead of writing about an issue and 10 families, narrow the focus to one family so that the feature is more personal. ... It's an approach I agree with. I think it's easier for readers to follow one, two or three people in a story. But it's an editor cliche to get a lot of "voices" in the story, therefore not many newspapers do this.

 

[85bears]

Really interesting read. I printed it up and I'll keep the 10 printed pages on file. I don't agree with every word, but it's nice to see there are people who think about and discuss these kinds of things. Say what you want about the NY Times, but at least they put thought into writing and reporting there.

I particularly liked the part about the self-selecting readership. It was fairly pompous, of course. But perhaps more newspapers need to take that approach. Play to our strengths, not to our deficiencies.

Of course, that's easier said than done. The New York Times occupies a very unique place in the marketplace. Trying to copy their model to the letter would be like saying Tulane should win at football the same way Notre Dame does.