Tag archives: writing

From SPJ’s unimaginative department

David Herrera,

In researching state shield laws recently I found that past presidents of the Society of Professional Journalists had written editorials about them.

I couldn’t resist the irony of journalists recycling old editorials into new ones. This is the stuff of bad PR reps, or at least so we were taught.

Here are the opening sentences of Irwin Gratz’s editorial. Gratz was SPJ president in 2004-05:

Regardless of whether you believe anonymous sources are overused or not, there’s little denying reporters sometime need to promise confidentiality. Some of the greatest investigative stories of our age have relied on them.

Now read the opening sentences to Christine Tatum’s editorial. Tatum was SPJ president in 2006-07:

Regardless of whether you think journalists use too many anonymous sources, it’s hard to argue that they don’t need to promise confidentiality sometimes. Many of the biggest investigative stories of our age have been based in part on information shared with a reporter by someone who wanted to keep his or her identity a secret.

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On argumentation in reporting

David Herrera,

Perhaps I’m being unfair to journalists, or to writers in general, but I can’t understand how an article like “Labor Campaigns Against Tax on Health Plans,” in The New York Times, could make sense as a piece of writing trying to inform me of something.

Consider (what I think is) the article’s conclusion:

Having failed to persuade President Obama to scrap a proposed tax on high-cost health insurance policies, labor leaders took their case Tuesday to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and they said they received a more favorable response.

“[Labor leaders] said they received a more favorable response [from Pelosi].” Shouldn’t this be an extraordinarily easy argument to prove? All I need is a to read a labor leader telling me how they were received by Obama, and how much better their reception from Pelosi was.

But what are we told about the reactions of “labor leaders”? Only Andrew Stern saying: “I love the House, and I love the speaker.”

By what rules of logic and argumentation can we reach the conclusion from Stern’s statement?

If no such rule exists, why should we believe what the article is arguing? Why couldn’t the article have simply featured a few quotes?

What upsets me is that the kind of logic on display seems to be common among journalists–those who describe their role as helping people know about what their government is doing. It frustrates me that what passes for political journalism is appears to be devoid of basic argumentative skill.

But, I can’t back up with data the feeling that this writing style is common. It is just memory talking. So, I would welcome arguments to the contrary.

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