In other words, they like to use unusual words. The line might read, "Madison called Monroe a "filthy lint licker" before she threw an antique vase valued over $5,000 to the floor." These are not the words that only journalists seem to use, like “acrimony,” “mull,” “spark,” “axed,” and “decry.” Nor are they the words journalists often parrot from sources, like “high rate of speed,” “end user,” “stakeholder,” or “bad actor.”, ICYMI: Trump sparks debate with usage of the word ‘pour’. A check of the Times database reveals that since 2006, Rivkin has been quoted at least 31 times in articles concerning the detainees at Guantanamo Bay (12 times), detainees at Bagram, executive privilege and presidential authority, targeted killing, Iraq, Abu Ghraib, the performance of Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and the Central Intelligence Agency and its interrogation policies. But others cling to the notion that it is not torture. Other times I conclude that it makes me ideally suited for newspapering—certainly for the rigors and conventions of modern ‘objective’ journalism. 4. Punctuate the attribution properly. All direct quotations should be clear, concise, relevant and effective. Copyright Info. I’m taking a pass on the toughest calls I face. But others cling to the notion that it is not torture. An article on the prospect that President Obama might transfer some Guantanamo detainees to the United States included a warning from Rivkin that classified information might be made public during trials in civilian courts—”a danger that David B. Rivkin, an official in the Reagan Justice Department, calls ‘the conviction price.'”. For I can dispose of my dilemmas by writing stories straight down the middle. I actually don’t mean to be critical of Rivkin, a man with whom I have a perfectly pleasant personal relationship. '”, Truth. (printable version here). In this article, I will raise some questions about the assumption behind that credo, as well as the utility, in this media-saturated and cynical age, of the siren call of “fairness and objectivity.”. They behave as if every argument must be heard and has equal merit, when some are simply specious.”. They said training could take up to 6 months. '”, How was it that Rivkin had emerged, Zelig-like, into daily journalism? Exception: When attributing a long title to a source, the order is reversed. If you provide enough context that the reader can understand the fancy word, they will stay with you. If you think they do, you might be surprised. The familiar image of the marketplace of ideas suggests ideas competing freely for public favor, unvetted, unranked and unregulated by some superintending power. A leading commentary on the modern practice of journalism, “The Elements of Journalism,” by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, omits “fairness” and “objectivity” from its list of the 10 basic elements of journalism, described as “clear principles that journalists agree on—and that citizens have a right to expect.” Why the omissions? When a federal district judge issues a decision, there is no “other side” to the story—the decision is the decision. Over the last few years, the name David B. Rivkin started showing up in the columns of The New York Times. said. How about truth for a goal? WRONG: "For years," Logan Greene said, "it's been profitable being a mechanic in this city." But Brent Cunningham, deputy editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, has observed that despite this discontent and self-reflection, “nothing replaced objectivity as journalism’s dominant professional norm.” In fact, he notes, “a cottage industry of bias police has sprung up,” leading to “hypersensitivity among the press to charges of bias,” which in turn reinforces the problematic adherence to a standard of “objectivity” that “can trip us up on the way to ‘truth. But digging up the briefs, reading them, and summarizing them takes more work than accepting an ad hominem sound bite from someone willing to answer any call. Remember: report only the source's answers, not the questions you asked. Fairness and objectivity should be regarded as tools to that end, they maintain, rather than as ends in themselves. And you gave them your fancy word without sending them away in the hope they would come back. Ideally, news articles (as opposed to opinion pieces or editorials) are about relaying facts and faithful depictions of events to the readers. Quotes and Attribution Remember this. They foment the impression that eschewing bloviation is for dotards. As others have pointed out, “said” is neutral and invisible. “The problem is that the word torture is loaded with political and social implications,” she wrote on her blog, adding: “NPR’s job is to give listeners all perspectives, and present the news as detailed as possible and put it in context.” Because using the word torture would amount to taking sides, reporters should instead “describe the techniques and skip the characterization” entirely, she said. ‘We may not have a journalism of truth because we haven’t demanded one,’ the cultural critic Neal Gabler wrote in response to the media’s performance in covering the health care debate. After all, “the First Amendment recognizes no such thing as a ‘false’ idea,” the Supreme Court tells us. Does your audience? He worked in the Office of Policy Development in the Justice Department and worked for Vice President Bush as legal adviser to the counsel to the vicepresident, later becoming special assistant for domestic policy to Vice President Dan Quayle and associate general counsel in the Department of Energy. ", Other Disciplines | Writer's Web | Writing Center | Make When another judge ruled that some prisoners held by the United States at the Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan had the right to petition for habeas corpus, Rivkin “warned that the ruling ‘gravely undermined’ the country’s ‘ability to detain enemy combatants for the duration of hostilities worldwide. For example, "Nationwide, Nordstorm's sales are flourishing. In 2009 and 2010, The New York Times wrote about the 50 words most frequently looked up by its readers. Adolph Ochs, the founding publisher of the modern New York Times, whose byword was “without fear or favor,” believed that a responsible newspaper should “report all sides of a controversial issue, and let the reader decide the truth,” according to a reminiscence written a couple of years ago for internal distribution to the Times staff.