Long ago, even back when I was in high school, I had no qualms about corresponding with other writers. It began with letters to the editor, a section of the newspaper at which veteran journalists scoffed. Maybe they did not care what the unwashed masses thought, but I tended to read such letters. If they were of uneven quality, so what? I must have had 30 letters printed in the Austin American-Statesman in the 1980s, 1990s and up to the day in 2007 when I got a plane heading to the Orient.
Those were directed to the general readership of the AmStat (or whatever publication had raised my ire), sometimes provoking a response or two. No less interesting, however, was the private correspondence I had with staff writers themselves. Needless to say, I wrote to each of these women and men in a respectful way. I am not and have never been one to rant. Rather, I like to have a collegial exchange of views. Sometimes the purpose of my letter is not to criticize but to compliment a writer for having covered a topic well.
Since moving to Korea, I am no longer in daily contact with writers at the Austin newspaper, which has shrunk considerably—in terms of its literal size, staff and readership. Electronic media is squeezing old-fashioned newspapers and magazines almost to death. These days, I am more often in touch with writers at the online version of Sports Illustrated. Joe Posnanski, Sam Amick, Steve Rushin, Frank Deford, Don Banks, Jeff Pearlman and others have heard from me.
What kind of wisdom do I toss their way? It depends on what journalistic sins they have committed. I got on Posnanski for (1) a tendency to repeat himself for emphasis, (2) typographical errors and most of all (3) his bloated writing. Joe, I asked him, do they pay you by the word? Why all the self-indulgent digressions? This is known as tantalizing the reader, which I was taught never to do. On the other hand, I have praised Posnanski for his ability to see the big picture in sports history as well as the detail. If he says Rogers Hornsby was a great hitter but a lousy fielder, I take his word for it. He writes with varying degrees of authority about baseball, football, basketball, tennis, golf, boxing, and track and field. Posnanski lives for sports as I never could. I have other interests.
Writers like him have received e-mails that gently upbraid them for political correctness, the roots of which seem to grow deeper every day. This, I admit, may be traced to the fact that I am a middle-aged, heterosexual male of European-American descent. I was born and raised in the South, to compound matters even further. If I were a left-handed, disabled, Jewish lesbian living on Manhattan's lower east side, I would undoubtedly have a different perspective.
One thing these guys at SI do that really irks me is as follows. Somewhere along the line, they decided it was cool to separate the words of a phrase as if to give it extra oomph. Two examples of many that I recall are “The. Best. Team. Ever.” and “End. Of. The. Road.” This little schtick is employed in headlines as well as in text. It seems anything but cool to me, and I let them know. I told one of them, “Stop. Doing. Such. Crap.” “This. Is. Bad. Journalism.” “Get. An. Editor.”
It may seem like a minor point, but I become irritated when one of them hyphenates an adverb ending in "-ly." This is wrong, and not just because the Chicago Manual of Style says so. Indeed I have sent off a few e-mails about incorrect hyphenation. Go ahead and call me the grammar police—see if I care!
More recently, Jeff Pearlman of SI earned a place in my doghouse by employing another dubious gambit. (Pearlman has written five sports history books, two of which spent time on the New York Times best-seller list, so he must be a competent writer.) To put it into context, he did a puff piece about former NBA player and coach Kurt Rambis. In the very first paragraph, Pearlman made an observation about Rambis’ fingers. Apparently, the pro basketball wars had made them less than aesthetically pleasing. He stated that Rambis’ fingers were mangled and they “jet out at odd and awkward and, well, disgusting angles.” It was his unnecessary use of the word “well” that drove me up the wall and then to my computer keyboard. Pearlman is by no means the only writer who thinks this is acceptable. I strongly believe it is not.
I wrote him and said, “Your use of the word ‘well’ is, well, dumb. If I were you, I would, well, cease and desist. It is evidence of, well, weak writing. I guess you did not, well, go to journalism school. Surely you can, well, do better. Well, goodbye.”
Finally, there is the matter of parenthetical insertions. Too often, these and other writers succumb to the temptation of putting words (within parentheses, like this) into the mouth of a person being quoted. Whether it is a single word or several, this is generally not a good idea. I realize that meaning is sometimes conveyed by tone of voice or facial, hand or body expression and not words. For clarity's sake, if there is no other choice, it has my approval—presumptuous as that sounds. Most of the time, however, it gets the big thumbs down. Numerous writers have heard from me on the matter of parenthetical insertions. I tell them, "Quote him accurately! If he didn't say it, how do you know he meant it? And if he meant it, why didn't he say it?"
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