Some things you’ve asked lately:
Why Myanmar?
“I have noticed that The Plain Dealer refers to the country of Burma as Myanmar,” wrote Jordan Holtz of Mayfield. “Why pick on Burma?”
He went on to list a number of countries whose names are spelled differently in their language than in English. “Most people do not know what Myanmar is any more than they know what Helvetia (Switzerland), Sverige (Sweden), etc., are,” he wrote. “It is a disservice to your readers.”
The question has currency at the moment because of President Bush’s recent announcement of sanctions against the military-led government that took over the country and changed its name in 1989. In announcing the sanctions, Bush called the country Burma to show his disdain for the government’s “ongoing atrocities” and “brutal aggression,” prompting several stories about what the country ought to be called.
For some readers, that was the first time the name change entered their consciousness. Are they being ill-served, as Mr. Holtz alleges? Perhaps. Those of us who learned where to find Burma and Rangoon and Peking and Bombay on a map in the fifth grade become irritated when someone decrees that we now have to start calling them Myanmar and Yangon and Beijing and Mumbai.
But while the president can call the country anything he wants for whatever reason he wants, those of us in the communications business have more-pragmatic concerns, usually centering on (a) consistency, (b) clarity and (c) calling countries what the people who live there wish them to be called.
So even though many news organizations were slow to adapt after Myanmar leaders changed the English spelling to more accurately approximate the way those who live there pronounce it, over time most of us have made the switch. The Plain Dealer has been using “Myanmar,” and calling its capital “Yangon” instead of Rangoon, since at least 2000.
There are holdouts – the Boston Globe still uses “Rangoon” and “Burma” – but most newspapers tend to follow the lead of the Associated Press. As Daryl Kannberg, the Plain Dealer deputy managing editor who oversees such issues, says: “It’s a practical matter. That’s what most of our wire services call it. Our editors have enough potential problems to watch out for, without having to worry about remembering to change every reference in every story.”
First names, last names.
An angry reader called a week ago, taking issue with some wording in the Nov. 15 Metro cover story about four teens who pleaded guilty in the tragic death of Virginia DiGiorgio, the theatergoer who was run down by a stolen car in August.
“Whenever they refer to her, she gets called by her last name,” he said, “but the kid who killed her is ‘Dontez.’ I think this is horrible.”
I understand the angry caller’s point, and let me assure you that no disrespect was intended Mrs. DiGiorgio.
The use of first and last names in stories is governed by newspaper “style” – which is an effort to keep stories consistent and more easily understood.
In a more mannerly era, newspapers once used “courtesy titles” – Mr., Miss and Mrs. – for adults on second reference, but gradually most of us eliminated the “Mr.” everywhere but in the obituary pages. In the ’80s, women demanded equal treatment, and while a lot of us never got used to calling our grandmothers “Sullivan” on second reference, courtesy titles eventually went the way of the paperboy on a bicycle.
So now, The Plain Dealer, like most newspapers, uses an adult’s full name the first time he or she is mentioned in a story, and only the last name on second reference. And with children younger than 18, we generally use the first name only on second reference.
But that comes with a caveat.
When we’re writing about a juvenile charged with an adult crime, we generally refer to him or her using our adult style. That’s what should have happened here. But confusion about our own style guidelines kept us from getting it right.
Pot describing kettle?
0odybegin% An editorial last week addressed the $100 million windfall enjoyed by the “rusty factory town” of Erie, Pa.
That choice of words wounded Gladys Folk of Mayfield Heights, who grew up near Erie and considers it a lovely place.
I’m not familiar with Erie and will thus leave the descriptions to Gladys Folk and any of our reporters who might have spent time there. I will only observe that with all the unfair, egregious and infuriating slaps that Cleveland has endured at the hands of an unenlightened national media, Plain Dealer writers might want to be judicious about pinning unflattering labels on our rust, er, oxidized iron-belt Midwest brethren.
