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?
3 comments:
We use it. Love it, live it. :) We do break from it on some things with our own style, such as calling the gov's house the "Executive Mansion," capped ... and capping Council, as in "City Council," when it stands alone and refers to Richmond City Council. I always need a cheat sheet on which theaters in town are Theater and Theatre. And do we cap the "The" in "The Diamond." Fights often break out.
Mariane..having just commented on your previous post, I almost didn't comment on this one cause it would look like I had nothing better to do. Your sentence on the hiring practices at the once-great newspaper company at 333 E. Grace Street was dead on. I never applied to an edit job there because I knew that's what would happen. Later, when I had 10 years writing experience, I went through the test at the Virginian Pilot, and the same thing happened. I should have known better, but I needed a job.
I once hated AP Style and grew to love it only reluctantly. I still argue with the idea that a boat is an "it" and not a "she". I would take the word of my grandfather, a WWII Navy officer, over some jerk committee in NY any day.
I did, however, work in Richmond Newspapers ad composition for one kind soul named Nancy Archie and another named Herb White, who was the chief supervisor. All the fun folk hung out and smoked while putting together six-page double trucks for Super Fresh. Nobody wanted the grocery ads, you wanted the little ones from Rountree's, Clock Shop, and Lee Art...
Newsfromdoswell adheres religiously to the AP Stylebook.
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