Legal Writing

Story Forms and Shapes

Posted on March 12, 2008
1. Inverted pyramid -- Like the pyramids of Egypt, it has passed the test of time.2. Five Ws and H -- Enduring questions that guide reporting.3. Nut graf -- Created a needed revolution in the way we thought about news writing.4. WSJ A-heds -- The cleverest feature stories "floated off" the once grayest page...

Institutions/Organizations

Posted on March 12, 2008
1. The New York Times -- Easy to pick on, impossible to match. The standard bearer over time for excellence in the reporting and editing of news.2. CBS News (the early years) -- Think Murrow, Cronkite, Fred Friendly. Think of the birth of serious television documentaries...

Technologies

Posted on March 12, 2008
1. QWERTY Keyboard -- From the 19th century typewriter to the Blackberry in your pocket, this arrangement of letters has produced most of the world's journalism across all media and platforms.2. Printing Press -- Can't have freedom of the press without the press, right Mr...

Documents

Posted on March 12, 2008
1. First Amendment -- The great granddaddy, grandmommy of them all; protector of five freedoms (can you name them?) So powerful you can stand on it, trample on it, wrap yourself in it -- as long as you dont shout FIRE in a crowded theater.2. ASNE and SPJ codes of conduct -- While the Constitution ensured the freedom of the press, it took serious journalists to argue that with liberty comes responsibility...

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People

Posted on March 12, 2008
1. Edward R. Murrow -- Great on the radio, greater on television, embodied the potential of television news.2. George Orwell-- The British author most respected by American journalists for both his fiction and nonfiction.3. Ernie Pyle -- Balladeer of the common soldier, killed in battle...

National Grandma Day?

Posted on March 04, 2008
Today, as I work on a new book titled "The Glamour of Grammar," I turn this column over to, perhaps, my favorite copy editor of all time: Vicki Krueger. I worked with Vicki for years and, with our desks just a few steps apart, turn to her often on matters of style, grammar, and usage...

'The Finest Sports Writer Who Has Ever Lived'?

Posted on February 26, 2008
RELATED Sign up for Roy Peter Clark's "Sports Journalism Summit." Applications and payments will be accepted through March 12, or until all spots are filled.  When I first saw Frank Deford in person, I was surprised by his suave and lanky look, a cross between Boston Blackie and Ichabod Crane...

Hero or Victim: Not the Only Choices

Posted on February 18, 2008
For about 15 years I lived next door to Jack Leonard, one of the greatest men I've ever known. His essential greatness had nothing to do with the fact that he was a quadriplegic. His disabling injury -- sustained during a water skiing accident when he was 21 years old -- came to magnify his greatness, and over the years he became the object of extensive news media coverage, all of it positive...

Love-Crazed Journos Write Their Hearts Out

Posted on February 14, 2008
Little did we realize that our whimsical little short writing contest would attract dozens upon dozens of entries from love-starved writers from all over the world. We're about to name three winners, 10 finalists and a list of honorable mentions. But first, information we've gleaned from the exit polls: 1...

The Shortest Form of All

Posted on February 11, 2008
In an era of journalism business massacres, it's time to turn our attention to Valentine's Day. A little time for a little love will go a long way. I remember a wintry day in Canada some years ago where I was conducting a retreat for a wonderful group of journalists from the Toronto Star...

In Defense of the Horse Race

Posted on February 05, 2008
RELATED Attend the 2008 Sports Journalism Summit, April 16-18, featuring the father-daughter team of Dan Jenkins and Sally Jenkins. To apply, click here."Super Tuesday Tips," by Butch Ward, Jill Geisler and Ellyn Angelotti."Tuesday's Problem: Should Journalists Declare Party Allegiance?" by Kelly McBride...

The Public Bias against the Press

Posted on January 31, 2008
RELATED Sacred Heart University poll: "Americans Slam News Media on Believability." The public bias against the press is a more serious problem for American democracy than the bias (real or perceived) of the press itself. That is one reasonable conclusion to a study of media credibility conducted by Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn...

Send in the Clones

Posted on January 18, 2008
RELATED "Successful Embryo Cloning Documented," San Diego Union-Tribune."Breakthrough? Lab Claims Human Embryo Cloned," TODAY Show video. And so it has begun. News has broken that a private California clinic has produced a human clone for the purposes of extracting its stem cells...

Spare the Change

Posted on January 14, 2008
This is an essay about the word "change" and how our political leaders have drained it of its meaning. It is a word that has inflamed Jeff Jarvis to infantile babbling. RELATED "Civil War and Civil Language: Word Choice and the Newsroom," by Roy Peter Clark...

The Sad Decline of Britney Spears and Our Voyeuristic Complicity

Posted on January 11, 2008
A few weeks ago, I overheard a conversation among women about someone whose skirt was so short that when she sat down her "Britney" was showing. Variations on this joke have appeared since paparazzi shot photos of Britney Spears "going commando," a popular term for appearing in public without the benefit of undergarments...

Christmas Without Snow

Posted on December 19, 2007
I received a very nice Christmas present last week: the new paper cover edition of "Writing Tools."  My publisher Little, Brown has created an even prettier book, if that's possible, the foam green cover now in a classy textured paper stock. Holding a book you've written in your hands is a little like admiring a new baby: you sigh, count the fingers and toes, say a little prayer of thanksgiving and remind yourself that the long months of work were worth it...

A Modest Proposal: Here's to More Cheating in Sports!

Posted on December 13, 2007
For the record, I'm against torture and I'm against cheating in sports. Sort of.Over the next few days, journalists will be having a field day (sports metaphor) covering and commenting upon the revelations in the Mitchell Report about steroid abuse in baseball...

Big News on Writing Tools

Posted on December 10, 2007
To clear the way for what I hope you'll find an exciting new project, I'm tying a big holiday bow on the Writing Tools blog, which will take a little vacation until the New Year. In doing so, I'd like to thank all my colleagues and readers for their encouragement as I continue to share with you the work of "Writing Tools" -- the book, the blog, the Quick List, the podcasts, the seminars and, of course, the musical...

Unearthing a Buried Treasure: Gene Patterson on the Kennedy-Nixon Debate

Posted on November 29, 2007
With the help of my colleague David Shedden, we've unearthed a buried treasure: a column by Gene Patterson, published October 8, 1960, in The Atlanta Constitution, covering the second televised Nixon-Kennedy debate. I had the honor and pleasure of co-editing a book titled "The Changing South of Gene Patterson:  Journalism and Civil Rights, 1960-1968...

The Plagiarism Trap: Is it Ethical to Shoot a Fly with a Bazooka?

Posted on November 28, 2007
As someone who has written about plagiarism for more than 20 years, I think it may be time to re-think the word.  Because the p-word is the scarlet letter of the literary world, because it is associated with a rogues gallery of writers and reporters, it  should be reserved, in my opinion, for the most serious cases of malpractice...

Reverse Plagiarism? Or, Did I Say That?

Posted on November 28, 2007
During a friendly exchange of e-mails, Columbia Missourian editor Tom Warhover noted that the "higher standard" on plagiarism he mentioned was in place long before he arrived at the paper.  In fact, he noted, "the policy comes from, of all people, you!"  RELATED Poynter Online centerpiece: * "The Plagiarism Trap:  Is it Ethical to Shoot a Fly with a Bazooka?" I assumed that the allusion was to an essay I had written for the old Washington Journalism Review in 1983, titled "The Unoriginal Sin...

Does an Epic Revival Say Something about America?

Posted on November 27, 2007
I grew up in the 1950s watching the first Godzilla movies as simple expressions of mindless adventure and dinosaur violence. I remember my shock years later upon reading an analysis that connected the birth of Godzilla -- a destructive monster created by radioactivity -- to the atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II...

Gaining Altitude: Will Journalists Rise to the Challenge?

Posted on November 21, 2007
There's an idea about the future of newspapers floating over the land and it goes like this:  As more and more breaking news and information drives readers to Web sites, the newspaper of the future will have to change.  It will become more up-scale in its audience and advertising, more selective, more focused, a little brainier...

Two Minutes with Mailer

Posted on November 15, 2007
I saw Norman Mailer in his now discarded flesh on three occasions. The first was in 1969. I was a college student with a summer job in New York City, and you never knew what famous person you'd run into on the streets of the Big Apple. One sunny morning, as I was walked down Fifth Avenue, I saw a small mob gathered on a corner surrounding two men...

Time to Play the Pyramid!

Posted on November 12, 2007
There are few dog and pony shows more productive and long lasting than the one I've shared with my pal Don Fry. Our friendship and collaboration go back almost 37 years, and we agree on many things about the values of journalism and the craft of writing...

The Difference between Good and Great

Posted on November 07, 2007
On the morning of Oct. 8, 2007, I found myself in New York, reading the local newspapers in search of a great headline. I ignored the New York Times because of an old bias that the best headline writers wind up working for the tabloids. Who could forget -- if it really saw the light of day -- the headline, "Headless Body in Topless Bar"? It takes the power of parallelism and kicks it up a notch...

Covering 'Fascist' America

Posted on November 01, 2007
Is America on the road to becoming a fascist state? If so, what should journalists do about it? Those questions come in response to an elaborate argument in Naomi Wolf's latest book "The End of America," an argument she summarized in a recent C-SPAN interview...

Headmaster, Indeed

Posted on October 30, 2007
RELATED "JK, Your Postscript Is a Little Late," by Roy Peter Clark. "Is Dumbledore Gay? Depends on Definitions of 'Is' and 'Gay,' by Edward Rothstein. "Blogospheric Reaction to an Outed Wizard," by Mike Nizza. If there's one thing I do not have, it's a dirty mind...

We Got Da Funk - But Which One?

Posted on October 26, 2007
Some words sound the same, but are spelled differently and carry different meanings. Other words, among my favorites, are near misses, close calls, words that look or sound a bit alike but are rarely used in proximity or rarely confused: poetry and poultry...

The Curse of Chief Wahoo: Enabling Racist Imagery

Posted on October 24, 2007
I received a compliment from a group of journalists who attended the first Unity conference in Atlanta.  One of them told me that they looked through the program, examined all the titles, and voted on the ones they thought were best...

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