Over the last decade, I have cited more examples of good writing from The New York Times than from any other publication. But yesterday, Aug. 16, the great newspaper had a bad day. The writers whose work I’m about to criticize are top professionals appearing on the front page of the world’s most important newspaper. This is not about them, which is why we’re not using their names. It’s about the evolving standards for good writing on the most important page in American journalism.
(I invite those writers, or anyone else at the Times, to argue with me, or to point out writing in this blog that does not work for them. I invite all readers of this blog to do the same.)
My hopes were up with this lead out of Springfield, Ill., on the fading of the state fair as an institution:
The cacophony of smells — waves of manure, tractor fuel, all things deep fried — signaled the opening of the state fair here on Friday. Piglets squealed in a pen, sheep tolerated last-minute haircuts, and dutiful ponies stepped around a wheel in slow motion, bearing children on their backs.
This is sprightly stuff, a whirligig of sensations. Poets would recognize that first phrase as an example of synesthesia, the intentional mixing of sensory images, as when we describe a “bright flavor.” And the early syllables in “cacophony” offer us a whiff of the scatological “caca,” a nice preparation for “manure.” Beyond these sights, sounds and smells is the experience of the scene itself: the writer transports me from my armchair to another place a thousand miles away.
As I like to say: “The lead is a promise.” If the lead fulfills its promise, the reader should get more writing like it in the body of the story. Alas, with the exception of three or four phrases, we get little more than a standard business or government story, characterized by language such as “attendance has dropped sharply in recent years,” or “to rescue that fair from its mounting debt,” or “A spokeswoman for the Illinois fair, Chris Herbert, said its more than $4 million in annual operating expenses were covered by its revenue… .”
The effect is classic bait and switch. Like a carnival barker, the reporter woos you into the tent only to sell you a bottle of castor oil. I love colorful, snappy leads. But I’d rather have a straight lead than a colorful one that mischaracterizes the story.
Another Page One story describes the new status of the planet Pluto in our solar system. It begins: “Pluto dodged a bullet today.” Dodged a bullet?
Unless the Times is describing action in a Mickey Mouse cartoon, it has committed the sin of killing a fascinating story with a cliché. [See Tool 16.] Only bad things happen when the writer settles for the familiar phrase. For example, the headline reads: “For Now, Pluto Holds Its Place in Solar System.” Notice the clash of metaphors. In the headline, Pluto is standing still, but in the lead it’s ducking and dodging.
Clichés create a gravitational force that attracts other overused phrases: “In the hope of ending years of wrangling…,” and “at least a dozen more solar system objects are waiting in the wings…,” and “as word of the decision leaked out yesterday… .” Orwell condemned such writing as a substitute for thinking, with phrases nailed together like the “sections of a prefabricated henhouse.”
The third disappointment, also from a story on the front page, came in a single phrase that was not good enough. The story itself taught me something important that I did not know: that Michael Schiavo had turned to political activism against those politicians who tried to keep Terri Schiavo alive.
A quote about his thoughts and actions after Terri’s death came with this attribution: “… Mr. Schiavo, 43, said at his preferred meeting place, a T.G.I Friday’s near his house in a neighborhood misleadingly called Countryside.”
Hmmm. Why the gratuitous slam? And what does it have to do with the focus of the story? Does every place name now have to justify itself to The New York Times? Does Lakewood Estates really have to be near a lake with estates or Stony Brook near a stony brook? I happen to live about a half hour from Countryside, and it is more famous for its strip malls, high school and soccer fields than its open green space. But does the gratuitous detail accomplish anything more than making residents angry at The New York Times? And does the great newspaper need another group to be angry at her?
The New York Times has had great writing on Page One since the days of Meyer Berger and before. It will have it again. Tomorrow. I hope.
— Roy Peter Clark, vice president & senior scholar
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Roy Peter Clark has taught writing at Poynter to students of all ages since 1979. He has served the Institute as its first full-time faculty…
