One Bee reader pointed out what he fears is a disturbing trend in The Bee. He perceives that the newspaper is publishing fewer news obituaries about notable people from around the nation and the world than it once did.
That would be a loss, he said, because that’s a form of news he values highly. He hopes the editors don’t lose sight of the public’s interest in people whose lives have made a difference, or who made an impact on history.
The reader is correct that fewer national and world stories about significant deaths have been showing up in recent months and years. It is a long-term trend.
Deputy Managing Editor Mort Saltzman said that a combination of factors have led to the results. The Bee runs more regional news obituaries than in the past because readers expect that. The number of paid funeral notices has grown rapidly with the soaring population of the region, and the current economic downturn makes it less likely new pages can be added in the short term to accommodate the growing demand.
Saltzman agrees that many national and international figures deserve attention when they die, but the priorities on space now remain closer to home.
Bee editors haven’t lost sight of the need, he said.
The reader suspected the situation began to show up more beginning with the April redesign of the newspaper, but the April changes were not to blame, according to Saltzman. This started as much as a decade ago, he said, and continues.
The constant competition for space for all types of news has tested editors for years.
When newspapers conduct scientific readership surveys, the readers’ strong preferences for local news over most other types of news shows up consistently.
Comment: Newspapers in many American cities face the same strange challenge of satisfying reader demands for intensely local content, which is harder to provide as communities sprawl across multiple jurisdictions and populations boom, and the continuing but lessening demand for national and international news.
We want to know it all, actually, including when a famous artist or scientist or statesman passes away anywhere in the world.
But most of us are left with a strong diet of regional news, and just a taste of what happens elsewhere.
Remembering Rosie
Reader Darlene Boyce read “the article [about the Merchant Marine veterans] with interest, having known someone who was in the Merchant Marine during WWII…
“My problem with the article,” she said, “was the description of Liberty Ships as having been ‘slapped together.’” The Bee referred to a man who served, to quote The Bee story, “aboard a Liberty Ship, one of the mass-production supply vessels that were slapped together in record time by U.S. shipbuilders…”
Reader Boyce challenged the language of the story as misleading. “Neither you nor I nor your reporter is an expert on that subject. My mother would be. She was a welder in Richmond, Yard 4. She is not here to defend her workmanship. She never ‘slapped anything together’ in her life.
“I feel the language used was not a good example of journalism. Liberty ships were built quickly. Records were set. Let’s not demean those records with some reporter’s opinion of something he or she knows little or nothing about.”
The dictionary won’t settle this dispute over language. Technically, the dictionary says when you slap something together you assemble it by striking it sharply with your hand. That might be a bit of a stretch, but probably is an informal way to describe speedy wartime ship construction.
The problem is that the language evokes the idea of “slapdash,” a word which is “characterized by haste or carelessness,” also according to the dictionary.
I’m pretty sure that an honest attempt was made to use action-packed verbs, a goal of every journalist, without any intent to denigrate the contributions of the war workers. That attempt ran smack into the memory of a family member’s honored place in history.
The Liberty and Victory Ships built in Northern California during the war were certainly done in a hurry, and were simple in design, but few who ever met the women and men who put them together would suggest the work was careless.
A new national monument at Marina Bay at Point Richmond is dedicated to “Rosie the Riveter,” symbolic of women like Boyce’s mother. It focuses on the idea they helped win the war through their hard work, and earned gratitude and recognition.
A lot of former “Rosies” still live in Northern California, and they would be the true experts regarding how the ships were built at Richmond’s shipyards.
Calling all clichs
Bob Baker of the Los Angeles Times issued an invitation last week to the staff at his newspaper. Baker, a deputy metro editor, asked the Times’ folks to join him and declare war on clichs.
The word spread to other journalists by way of the Internet.
To be sure, Bob, The Sacramento Bee is on board.
Baker reported in the Times “Newsthinking” publication that he had been struck by the constant appearance of clichs in his paper, even after he had created an anti-clich segment in his monthly critiques. So he recently created a list of his (least) favorite clichs, and has declared war.
I’ll spare you the entire list because it makes me cringe, but please note a few clichs from his newspaper that also appear with regularity in this newspaper.
“To be sure,” is currently a favorite at The Bee. It appeared eight times in 12 days, and 50 times since the first of May.
“Ground zero” showed up a lot — 11 times in two months — in local and wire stories about the energy crisis, politics and business.
“Ratcheted up” has appeared in Bee pages five times in two months. And “defining moment” and “the rest is history” (a favorite of sports writers) each have appeared in The Bee eight times so far this year.
Don’t blame all clichs on sportswriters and editors. Every section of the newspaper shares in this linguistic larceny, from the front page to the back.
Rather than borrow the Times’ list of clichs, Bee readers are now invited to help create a Bee list of clichs-to-be-avoided.
Send me your suspects. I’ll check the clip files and let you know how The Bee staff measures up. This could be a defining moment for Bee journalists. Let’s ratchet up the attack here at ground zero and create a brave new world.
Where was I?
Nothing irritates readers more than not being able to figure out where something happened. Call it dateline confusion. Steve Blust, the chief of copy desks at The Bee, addressed the need for editors to help people understand locations precisely in a recent note on improving The Bee: “The Bee serves a huge geographic audience,” he said, “and you can bet that when we fail to adequately describe a location, whether it’s a rural town of 200 people or a densely populated neighborhood in Sacramento, we’re going to confuse a large percentage of those reading the story.
“In the past we have sporadically included a county reference following the dateline of a small town, and that helps somewhat. For example, a recent Education Extra story began, CAMPTONVILLE, Yuba County (which was fine, although this story desperately cried out for a locator map).
“Locator maps obviously aren’t going to be used with every story, so it’s imperative that we clearly explain locations to our readers,” Blust said.
Good advice.
