THE WAY IT WAS OPINIONS INSERTED IN NEWS STORIES ONCE WERE STRICTLY TABU
HAL MORRIS WWW. GRUMPYEDITOR. COM
Just like everything else, the media business has changed radically. Thanks to veteran newsman and columnist, Hal Morris, who hangs out at www. grumpyeditor. com these days, here is a peek into the way it was for you journalists and PR people out there.
In these days of " fake news," how did working as a news staffer differ in earlier years?
Getting the story first, ahead of the competition, was paramount then. Still is. But so was accuracy.
And most important--- no editorializing.
Editors were very firm in staffers not expressing opinions in stories when typewriters were the prime mode of composing copy.
Rule of the day was: " Leave the editorializing to the editorial pages." Not so these days. It ' s rather common now for news stories to show bias of omission, misleading information, incomplete details or slanted reporting.
One factor never mentioned with that " slanting " is that reporting / writing news stories is being conducted now by fewer journalism graduates.
Holding a political science degree seems to be popular these days.
With that kind of college training, it ' s like taking your dog to a veterinarian who holds an engineering degree.
Whether it ' s the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, CNN or MSNBC, reporters and writers seem to have great difficulty keeping opinions to themselves.
And often they get right to it in opening statements.
Back in the typewriter days, even without social media, competition was keen.
For example, in Los Angeles, where I worked, there were six daily newspapers in the metropolitan area. Competition in getting to the story--- whether a shooting or a ribbon cutting--- was fierce.
The Los Angeles Mirror and Herald- Express, as afternoon newspapers, had five deadlines a day( six if including a " replate " that included the day ' s stock market action).
So reporters, rewrite staff, city desk, copy desk, typesetters and makeup editors all had to work with dispatch to get the presses rolling with latest developments in efforts to beat " the other guy " in getting
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