Re-examining the Adverb

Reused with kind permission from the Poynter Institute. www.poynter.org   For years, I’ve known without a doubt what to do if I found an adverb in my copy: exterminate the sucker. Before I hit the send button, I’d call up my word-processing software’s “Find” command, load the chamber with the “-ly” suffix that is the form’s […]

Putting Endings First

Re-used with kind permission from Poynter Online for Journalists: www.poynter.org The quote has become the default ending in American journalism and readers and writers are all poorer for it. The other day I randomly picked some news websites, clicked on stories, and scrolled to the bottom. Try it yourself. Open a newspaper, pick a story, and […]

Help with Emotional Interviews Part Two

Lessons Learned: Handling Emotional Interviews, Part 2 The challenge of emotional interviews, which figured in last week’s column, brought two items of feedback worth sharing. The first shares the insights of a reporter who came to the newsroom after more than two decades in nursing. The second focuses on the lessons a young reporter learned. […]