These two items were tacked up in the CJVB news room. I thought that some budding journalist might find them helpful.
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THE DEADLY SINS OF NEWSWRITING
(Outlined by Mervin Block at an RTNDA Seminar)
Starting a story with a quotation (Listeners can't see quotation marks)
Starting a sentence with a participal phrase (Remember S-V-O subject, verb, object)
Starting the story with the mane of an unknown (Put a title/description before the name)
Starting a story with “it is” or “there is” (Dead phrases that deley the story)
Starting a sentence with a pronoun (Listeners want to know who “he” or “she” is)
Using “yesterday” in a first sentence (Listeners tune to today's news
Writing a first sentence with “to be” as the first verb (Use action words)
Starting a story by saying someone is “in the news” (Unnecessary)
Characterizing news as “bad”,”good”, “interesting”, etc. (Just tell the news)
Using newspaper words like “latter”, “respectively”, “cite”, “felled” and “garbed”
Jamming too many facts, figures and names into a story (Keep it simple)
mistakes in grammar and style are serious but the gravest sin is a mistake in facts
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How to Write Good
(Rob Jellett CFMO Ottawa)
1.Always avoid alliteration.
2.Preositions are not good to end centences with.
3.Avoid old-had cliches.
4.Employ the venacular.
5.Eschew ampersands & abbrevtns.
6.It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
7.Foreign words are not usually apropos.
8.Never (usually) generalize.
9.Some comparisons are as bad as cliches.
10.Don't be redundant. Donpt use more words than necessary.
11.Be more or less specific.
12.Analogies in writing are like feathers on snakes.
13.Understatement is always best.
14.Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
15.Who needs rhetorical questions anyway?