And I'm not talking about "officer involved shooting" or language that would feature in a Citations Needed episode, I'm asking for niche. My example:
When you read a long form interview and the interviewer has to open the piece with describing them entering, what they ordered for lunch, etc in the most flowery language.
"Mr. Hex Bear greeted me with a comfortable yet quaint handshake. The disheveled, patchy beard paired with a stained hoody gave off the impression that he was a common man, but his lunch choice said the opposite. He ordered the Truffle Salad, a glass of 1989 Cabernet, and mentioned the chef by name, asked the waiter how his children were. From the moment Hex sat down, he never broke eye contact with me, but exuded a confidence that made it seem like he did this every day."
This is a weird post and feel no need to respond.
If you're writing a science article concerning a subject which you have not studied extensively, and a verbatim quote from a scientist is available, use it. Do not try to paraphrase it. You are not helping by trying to paraphrase it. The verbatim quote might be a style-guide violation because the vocabulary is too advanced, but the paraphrase will be inaccurate, and that's worse.
Big agree. Most frustratingly most scientists will gladly give you a shorter quote if you're any sort of accredited journalist, you just have to do the work of reaching out to them and waiting for a reply.
For a brief while in the Obama administration scandal-ghazi did replace it.
suffix-Ghazi oddly works well if applied for controversies talked exclusively by :frothingfash:
Man during the election all the time they'd be having these random goobers on NPR programs just spouting off their dumbass opinions who they're voting for and why like they're doing something enlightened by wow listening to voices.
I already know exactly everything they could possibly say. "ya know um Biden represents a kind of um like a return to normalcy that like if- ya know the past 4 years there's been so many um unprecitended things which um isn't the normal way for democracy to run. I just think that if we were to have another 4 years of that kind of um......"
Nobody in the entire world needs to hear what these people think.
Evidence that they've all got the same word-a-day calendar. There was a weird trend a couple years ago where every time something happened it was a "sea change." We started calling earthquakes "temblors" out of nowhere.
I mean that's less a journalism term and more so a shibboleth. Same with the ukkkraine. Anyone who says it the new way is likely a believe of media narrative, and any who says it the normal way is either again the ukkkraine or doesn't give two shits
This is another one I had trouble describing in the main post. When they say a persons name in the first paragraph. But then they want to refer to that same person as the subject of the next sentence and replace their name with a lofty description of their accolades. Hard to find examples of but like:
"Congresswoman Hex Bear shocked the world with her reelection victory. The first ever elected Ursine from Ohio shared a brief statement last night over the results."
Trying to show the personal side of someone while also inserting my own flowery language as proof I'm a creative writer.
Whatever this is https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2023/01/11/biden-ban-gas-stove-not-happening-health-concerns/11031761002/
Spending thirteen paragraphs debunking a right-wing fantasy in a style which people who believe in the fantasy have no use or respect for, thus reinforcing their belief in it?
I generally hate the "east coast writer visits rural Midwestern town". There was so much shit about this around 2016. "This town voted for trump, then one of their own was deported. We went fishing with one voter to get a deeper understanding."
I live in a tiny Midwest rural town with coal mines and whatnot. Just so much shit of "this coal mine voted for trump, now he regrets it." Wannabe Faulkner types waxing poetic about where I live, but straying far from the trailer park.
100000% this, my god. From 2016 to 2020 there must have been over a hundred of these stupid fucking articles about liberal journalists or just people in general going to the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Indiana and spending the day with an old man who's like "Well, I just don't understand all this gender stuff but I like to see the youngins have interest in fixing cars and going fishing on the lake!" and then the writer is like "Despite political differences, we had a great time together and we learned a lot from each other - and I especially learned a lot from him. Maybe if we all had these experiences and talked to each other without hatred and anger, we could heal the divides that so badly affect this country." and then I want to swandive into a fucking volcano.
Like, first and foremost, all the people living in flyover states are no more American than the average city dweller; an area having less people per square mile does not boost the Americanometer readings. Second, why not talk to people living in actual, deep poverty who need to work 3+ jobs to keep their families alive instead of 40-year-old white people who spend their time getting enraged by the internet and TV? Third, it's all a fucking lie anyway! The problems affecting America aren't because we're all politically divided, it's because our material conditions of all but the top 1% of the top 1% are declining and we're going mad because of it! It's because healthcare is prohibitively expensive! It's because we're all miserable and overworked at our jobs! Arguments between supporters of Capitalist Party A and Capitalist Party B make basically no fucking difference to anything at all! This is precisely the reason why the problem is always made out to be political division - because it isn't, and if we looked deeper and actually tried to find what the problems were and then tried to solve them, it would be to the detriment of capitalist profits! The smokescreen must remain!
Seeing this quite late, but great thoughts. Yeah, when I would hate read these articles, it was always pretty obvious to me that this political division was largely manufactured, because no one wants to address that what almost all people share politically in this country is a threat to capital.
I don't know anyone around me that doesn't believe in universal healthcare and some kind of public retirement system, but I never really see that talked about. Just the fact that like 80% of people in this country support it, but it's never brought up as a bipartisan way to heal. In fact, it has to be purposely obfuscated.
Lmao ignoring the vast swathes of suburban white Trumpsters who live just outside of every single city in America. Definitely just the midwest poors, not my coworkers and neighbors.
I have so many things I hate about journalists. Some of my least favorite:
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When they start an article with an anecdote about a single person or family, when writing about big things like famines or water shortages. I'm assuming it's meant to provide a hook that allows you to empathize with an individual and then subconsciously go "Wow, this is happening to millions of people right now!" but I just want to get to the actual information. It's a bit like when recipes have the person's entire family history before listing the ingredients.
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Moreover, doing the above but in support of one side in a conflict and then essentially presenting the other side as faceless hordes.
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Usage of famous quotes to support an argument. If I have to see one more goddamn quote from a rich dude who died over fifty years ago being used to help your argument as to why we need to feed more homeless people into a blender then I will go quite mad.
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Especially in the articles I've been paying attention to, usage of the words "brutal", "unprovoked", etc. In fact, I find that the usage of these words is inversely proportional to how bad these acts actually are when compared to a baseline measure of, say, what America has done (so, you'll find the word "cruel" when describing two civilians killed by a missile strike, but absolutely will not find it when the United States deliberately dronestrikes ten families at a weddding).
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