Read that again?

[Jens]

USA Today violated the guidelines in the Associated Press Stylebook which says:

Well perhaps, but USA Today is not AP, so USA Today has to follow USA Today stylesheet, not AP stylesheet.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[schlaugh]

The AP Stylebook applies to all news organizations although I’ll grant you that it’s largely a darned good convention that is adopted (or ignored) in most newsrooms. The rule of thumb was always “When in doubt, check the Stylebook.”

Some papers have their own conventions that predate the Stylebook, such as the New York Times referring to people as Mr. or Mrs. or Ms.

[Gillianren]

The AP Stylebook does not apply to all news organizations. As you mentioned, the New York Times. There are several papers in the US well known to have their own stylebooks, and that's one of them. Time has their own as well, and I'm pretty sure Newsweek does, too, that's different from Time. The AP would quite like all publications that use Associated Press information to use their style, but it's not mandatory.

[schlaugh]

The AP Stylebook does not apply to all news organizations. As you mentioned, the New York Times. There are several papers in the US well known to have their own stylebooks, and that's one of them. Time has their own as well, and I'm pretty sure Newsweek does, too, that's different from Time. The AP would quite like all publications that use Associated Press information to use their style, but it's not mandatory.

True, it's not mandatory and I'm not saying it is nor did I mean that. But the stylebook does establish consistency across news organizations and I'm quite sure that most, if not all, rely on the Stylebook for fundamentals or guidance. Like I said, when in doubt...

A bit of trivia from the 2017 edition's Foreward (and my bold):

The first Associated Press Stylebook was 60 pages, bound together with staples, a basic guide for newswriting. It has evolved into a comprehensive reference manual that fills more than 600 pages and is published in Spanish as well as English across an array of digital platforms, encompassing the collective wisdom of the AP staff and Stylebook readers.

Despite drastic changes in the media landscape, one constant remains: The AP Stylebook is a definitive resource for writers. Today’s Stylebook still outlines basic rules on grammar, punctuation, usage and journalistic style, but it also reflects changes in common language, offers guidance on media law, explains AP’s news values and principles, and helps to navigate the ever-changing world of social media.

When I worked in the news biz the AP Stylebook sat on every editor's desk and was present in every newsroom I ever visited when I changed career arcs to technology. Now you can get it as an e-book or an app...which would have been blissful back in the day when we first started writing on computers.

As for the AP, it's a co-op made up by and for the news industry. News organizations agree to share content with the AP and have it distributed by the AP, so having consistency is important for easier sharing and reduced editing and re-work on the receiving end.

ETA: And bit of computer weirdness in reviewing this thread and others. If I'm on a PC, using a real keyboard, then my posts are understandably more verbose than those produced on my phone. I suspect this is true with many people. But not always does Tapatalk append the "sent from my iPhone" note to my posts. Odd.

[Trebuchet]

T But not always does Tapatalk append the "sent from my iPhone" note to my posts. Odd.

You can turn that off, or do a custom one, you know.

Sent from my Dell Inspiron 15!

[schlaugh]

Yes, it just seemed weird that some posts included the tag line and others did not. Now I see that it’s selectable on a post- by-post basis in Tapatalk so I may have fat-fingered the tick mark.

[DonM435]

Hmmm. I thought the app was smart enough not to state "Excuse my brevity" when the statement went on too long!

[schlaugh]

If I get that wordy in Tapatalk I start to introduce a variety of errors.

[Trebuchet]

If I get that wordy in Tapatalk I start to introduce a variety of errors.

As does autocorrect!

[Solfe]

I am think about a book that has bothered me for years. It's called The Hunting of The Quark. It's science history and might not be the best source. What bothers me about it is, there is a paragraph which mentions the United States sent many of their top scientists to Vietnam to build a force shield. They failed.

Ok... no real surprise there.

What troubles me about this paragraph is, I can't determine the subtext of the comment. Is the author trying to say, "The military/government/war was silly/stupid"?

What really troubles me is the obvious next question: "Ok, they didn't invent a force shield. What did they invent?" I am sort of incredulous that you could send all your top minds off to invent something and get a null result. They must have created something, right? And if it was the top minds at work, any result would interesting, even if it was not particularly helpful or even related to the task at hand.

It's sort of like saying: "In August 1969, we rented a diary farm in New York and sent all of the best musicians there... and nothing at all happened."

I am probable missing some sort of commentary on those events, or it is a minor detail which has been blown out of proportion, or it didn't really happen.

It still bothers me as I don't seem to have the tools to verify such an event happened or do research.