Contrary to popular belief, there’s a glimmer of hope for progress in a campaign to reduce the frequency of clichßs in Times-Dispatch articles.
This column fussed repeatedly in the late 1990s about such weary expressions as “tip of the iceberg,” “raised eyebrows” and the ever-popular “up for grabs.”
As in, “all 140 seats are up for grabs in the fall election.” Had you noticed that cliché largely has vanished from political articles in this newspaper? Credit for the achievement should go mainly to Ed Newland, assistant Virginia news editor who oversees political and governmental coverage.
He feels so responsible for keeping copy clean of clichés that he sent me an “I didn’t do it” note about a Page One item in January. The item, promoting a next-day General Assembly article, reported legislators would be concerned about the November election “when all 140 seats are up for grabs.”
Newland’s note reminded me of a regular feature in AJR, or American Journalism Review, published by the University of Maryland. Titled “Cliché Corner,” the feature explores media use of a chosen cliché. For example, among the 13 publications cited by the feature in December was this entry from Newsweek:
“Contrary to popular belief, a Mercedes and a standing tee time are not issued with a medical-school diploma.”
Thus it followed that the ombudsman’s assistant, Karen Owen, misspent an afternoon searching The Times-Dispatch’s electronic files. Her mission was to determine how many times the “Cliché Corner” choices from its eight features of 2002 turned up in your newspaper last year.
(She also tracked “up for grabs” and found the cliché appeared in 37 items in the T-D in 2002. The champion user was Sports, with 20, including a 60-point — or nearly one-inch tall — headline announcing, simply, “Up for grabs.” Metro-Virginia news, Business news and Flair copy had only four each.)
I am not surprised to report that not once did the newspaper employ AJR’s cliché-of-the-month for last March, “schadenfreude.” The word refers to the enjoyment one may get from another’s misfortune or suffering. I view it as a William F. Buckley Jr. word. Newsroom victims here might view it as an ombudsman characteristic.
The Times-Dispatch earned a C+ (all right, B-) in the Owen survey. Here’s the scorecard on appearances in this newspaper of the seven other expressions singled out in the journalism review magazine:
“Glimmer of hope” (11 times in the T-D); “our own worst enemy” (4); “connect the dots” (11); “poster child, or poster boy, girl, man, woman, children” (6); “hand-wringing” (12); “the greatest — or hottest — thing since” (2); “contrary to popular belief” (7).
Look for them in a newspaper near you. Or, send your favorite clichés to me by e-mail, fax or letter (see numbers and address in footnote to this column) to be researched in The Times-Dispatch for another column.
That’s akin to baiting the field in bird hunting.
. . .
Language usage is the No. 1 concern of readers who tell members of the international Organization of News Ombudsmen (ONO) of the faults they find in newspapers. Kent Booty of Longwood University’s public relations office and a former newspaper reporter, said he is pained by what he calls “word inflation — the tendency to use more words than necessary in writing.”
His peeve du jour is “convicted felon.”
The phrase, he said, happens “with disturbing frequency in your newspaper, as well as in other newspapers and from the TV newsfolks . . . No one can be a felon without having been convicted; thus, ‘convicted’ is not necessary. A ‘convicted felon’ is, well, a felon.”
In another message, he flailed “past history,” “answer back,” “period of time” and (gasp!) “originally born.”
The last one was new to me. I was originally born “Plynn Jerald Finch Jr.,” but my father hadn’t liked his name and had mine changed. Does that count?
. . .
John X. Miller, public editor of the Detroit Free Press, innocently ignited the Great Name Challenge that became an international topic for news ombudsmen last month.
He sent an e-mail to the ONO membership asking how other media were using Saddam Hussein’s name in second reference and in headlines — Saddam or Hussein. The Free Press copy desk was using Hussein and he wondered which was proper.
For a week he was deluged with e-mailed advice from newspaper sages in the United States from Orlando to Seattle, and abroad from The Netherlands, Sweden and Turkey.
When the votes were counted, 12 newspaper, television or radio operatives said “Saddam” was their choice on second reference. Eight newspapers used “Hussein.”
The Times-Dispatch follows Associated Press style, which refers to the Iraqi leader on second reference as Saddam. AP explains the choice this way:
“First, Hussein is not his family name. Saddam is his given name, and Hussein is his father’s given name; this is common practice in Arab families. His full name is Saddam Hussein al-Majd al-Tikriti, but he uses neither al-Majd, which is akin to a family name, nor al-Tikriti, which is a name for his extended family, or clan, derived from the Tikrit region where the president is from.
“Second, he is not usually referred to as Hussein by people in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East. Political leaders and Iraqi citizens call him simply Saddam or by both names, Saddam Hussein. Both Arabic and English-language newspapers follow the same practice . . . ”
You know how he is called in the formal New York Times.
Mr. Hussein.
