T-D Only Cares about Old People

The Times--Dispatch only cares about old people, or so it seems since they've scheduled their coffee meeting with the general public for 9 a.m. on a Monday morning at McLean's on Leadbetter Road, a breakfast place out in the suburbs. Who can go to these things except retired people? And that's already the paper's core audience, so this must be a retention meeting rather than one seeking new readers or departed readers. Well, I can tell you what the people who have nothing else to do on Monday morning are going to tell you about the paper:
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Don't worry about the lack of tech and tech business coverage because we can barely operate push button phones, much less use a computer. We don't care about the future. We aren't going to live there. That paper delivery guy is throwing my paper into the bushes. What are you going to do about that? What happened to all those columnists we used to read? What happened to them? Stop moving the bridge column, and I don't understand these new fangled comics. What happened to Gasoline Alley and Henry? I liked Henry. Little bald white boy. Didn't say nothing. 

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Especially in the obituaries. I like obituaries. I read them first, and if I don't see my name, I have a second cup of coffee. Ha, ha. Today in History, that ought to be on the front page. I remember some of that stuff.  And the horoscope. Well, you know I know they're probably just made-up, but I like to call my friend Eleanor -- she's in assisted living at Westbrook -- and read hers to her. Sort of gives her something to look forward to every day, knowing how the day might turn out. Can the paper be delivered earlier? Because we're up at 4. We like to get to the Waffle House before the crowd, and bring our own paper. We've got things to do after that. I've got to be at the grocery store as soon as the doors open, because if you're just a few minutes late, all the marked down meat and bread is gone already. Some people must get to the parking lot at 3 a.m. and just sit there, waiting. 

More people are reading the paper online? You mean on line at the grocery store? Well, sometimes I do look at the People or Us Weekly. Or Woman's Day. Now there's a good magazine. Recipes. I don't know why they have to talk about sex, though. Everything is sex. Getting your man to do stuff. I'd be happy to get him to take out the trash. If you want to see the Enquirer and those trashy papers, you have to go to the Food Lion. Clerks at the K-Mart, they don't care about helping you. Have you see the size of their fingernails? Painted all kind of colors. Some of them have jewels on them. I don't know what the world is coming to.
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What's the Point, Stylebook?

One casualty of the death of newspapers is the death of the AP Stylebook. I suspect most bloggers and young newsies don’t even know what it is. They learned to write by text message and have a whole different style.

So it’s ironic that by the time I finally acquired a basic grasp of the Stylebook, which had been a thorn in my side trying to break into journalism, it doesn’t matter anymore.

VCU didn’t teach the Stylebook. My professors were mostly moonlighting newspaper reporters and they didn’t want to work too hard for their side money, so I came out of school knowing how to imitate newspaper writing only because I read newspapers, and that’s about all. The Times-Dispatch and News Leader took glee in making me take Stylebook tests and I didn’t score that well and didn’t get hired, but it was just a screening tactic. When they had someone they wanted to hire, like the offspring of an existing editor or someone at random who would increase the number of minorities in the newsroom, the Stylebook test didn’t matter.

I wrote book reviews for years for the News Leader’s late Ann Lloyd Merriman and noticed what she edited. Then I did another stint writing essays for Style’s Rozanne Epps and paid attention to her changes. This was my actual college education.

It was hard to get into the good habits of the Stylebook (you learn best by repetition) until I started grinding out routine news copy regularly, and this finally happened when I became an editor/reporter at the Mechanicsville newspaper. I wrote with my Stylebook open on my lap. It made my managing editors happy, but in the long run, did it matter? Not a bit.

My next boss was a press secretary with a master’s degree in journalism, or so said his office wall, and he didn’t seem to know anything about the AP Stylebook. He routinely changed my carefully Stylebooked writing into his own anti-Stylebook and when I pointed it out, “That’s not AP Stylebook,” he’d just smile. He was making twice the salary of those beady little reporters at the T-D, so what did he care? He could hang up on them all day long and twice on Sunday.

Rolling Stone has its own set of rules, which makes it difficult for me to read their articles without mental red lights when my eyes brush across something that strikes me as wrong, and just now, while reading Time, “17%” jumped out at me, which should be a Stylebook “17 percent.” So who still cares about the AP Stylebook? Maybe the AP.

I still try to write Stylebook style, just to show my whole life of struggle with it wasn’t a waste, but what does it matter? I get submissions from people all the time for the publications and newsletters I work on, and nobody is writing Stylebook-style. And don’t get me started on two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence (it's been one space since the birth of computers!!!). Why are so many people still writing typewriter-style?