Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

Name changed to protect the candid

04.14.2009 by David Murray // Leave a Comment

A communicator colleague sends me a retiree notice from a plywood plant:

“John Grayhair said his farewell to feeding dryers on March 17th  after 44 years of service. He was sent off with a retirement party that included a steak dinner with family and crew, with lots of celebration including taking his family on a grand tour of the plant. John plans on sitting in front of his new big screen.”

I suppose I should be worried about the little voice in my head: "God that sounds pretty good right about now."

Categories // Uncategorized

The potential upside of newsroom consolidation

04.14.2009 by David Murray // 2 Comments

Last week the Chicago Tribune told employees it was eliminating 20% of the newsroom staff. A story on the move reports the Trib last month "mixed copy editing, page design, graphics, imaging and
some photo editing into a single department, creating new job
descriptions that will combine copy editing with graphics and photo
editing with design."

Let's play that back: Copyediting with graphics … and photo editing with design.

I suppose I can imagine one person being good at photo editing and design. But … copyediting with graphics? (I once wrote on the birthday card of a graphic designer, "It doesn't matter what I write here because you never read the copy anyway." Did that make her mad? No, because she never read it.)

To a combination football player/editorial hand like me, that's like combining "place kicker and offensive tackle."

Well, wait a minute. Maybe we're going back to a time before super-specialization, when everybody had to know a little about everything. And maybe, in the long run, that's not all bad.

Lou_Groza_c226_large

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Sacred cow killed (or just injured?)

04.13.2009 by David Murray // 7 Comments

Sent to me by Boots reader Kasia Chalko, this goes with both barrels after E.B. White and William Strunk and their Elements of Style.

I think they've had it coming for awhile for selling so many copies of such a smug book. But the only people who can defend it are professional writers who have found it helpful.*

Have you?

* My writing teachers were my father, my college professor Jack Null, Larry Ragan, Alden Wood, Mike O'Malley and Digby Whitman. Drinking from those firehoses, I never got around to reading Elements. But I have long used a line from Elements to force me to reread my stuff for clarity: "When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair."

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