Chapter 7

1.High school graduates probably represent a good median between dumbing down and unnecessary complexity. There is no real need to go beyond this, today's HSC is more than enough to equip people to read about everyday life. The language of a bright and well educated high school graduate is also superior to the murky caveat laden Gareth Evans style of communication. At the high school graduate level, every necessary word is already available for any story in a newspaper, anything beyond that is tolerable, maybe for subjects that demand subtlety, but in most cases not needed. Also, people who have not attained such a level of education still have a very good chance of reading such a level, and finding it useful and enjoyable. Journalism is not a competition to use the longest or most obscure words, it is a job where people try to get the highest possible number of readers, and then to give them the news they want. So first it must be accessible, then it must be readable. That means, direct, easy to understand, and with enough flow and rhythm to entertain and keep people reading. Readers should not have to consult dictionaries to get the point.
2 Putting your own thoughts into stories is a privilege, it is a gift of editors to certain writers. Most stories need very little to no opinion on the part of the author, they need to use their mind in planning the story, think about how to phrase things better, get sources and quotes. This process should dominate their time to the point that almost no room is left for personal opinions. Political and opinion writers are awarded the entitlement to voice their opinion on the subjects of their choice, but their job is different from that of a reporter. A reporter's real job is to get out facts to readers, their time should be spent doing this as best they can. It depends upon your job, what management expects of you and the individual story. Even a seasoned reporter would not need to inject much opinion in a story about bushfires, and similarly a rookie would be failing in their job if they did not give their reading of election prospects in the event that they are assigned to a story about opinion polls. A journalist must respond to the situation, bushfires are not a matter of opinion, but complex and contested stories often require the journalist to give a summary of how they see it. It is not always a matter of seniority, but mainly who is given a particular story. Of course, editors prefer trusted and respected proven journalists to cover topics where opinion is unavoidable, as nobody would want a hothead making sweeping comments about controversial issues. A reporter earns their right to give an opinion, and so they are given stories where opinion is needed.
3. Yes I believe it does matter that we are losing some of our own phrases and using some borrowed from other cultures. It is important because words like "al-oo-minum and nu-kul-ar"
are not real words, they don't exist. Now, while those particular words are not used much here instead of our own, these patterns start small and eventually overwhelm local languages. A reporter would be incomprehensible to most Australians if they wrote, "This geezer left his gaff and ate a bap as he walked up the high street like a right bobby dazzler" -it's insane. That was English as some speak it in England, a style nobody seeks to emulate. It is not because any language or style is superior to any other, it is just that people should use the language that is natural to them, it may seem illogical, but mostly it is just to achieve uniformity and regularity.
If people are left to mix and match, don't put "u" in the word humour or colour, or use "z" instead of "s" the problem then becomes general, and children will say "Why write "they're" or "their" if "there" will do? Why write meat instead of meet? People should understand that good spelling and grammar reflects and encourages good thought. If children cannot understand grammatical distinctions, how can they comprehend logical distinctions? Such things could not even be explained to them if the faculty of language is undernourished. Our thoughts can only be conveyed to each other at the level of our language. Each country has their own style for their own reasons, but just as mixing metric and decimal makes a mess, so too does fuzzy and ill defined language weaken thought generally.
A global language is emerging on the internet and in SMS messages. It is contracted and simplified and makes non english speakers almost level with native english speakers at a rudimentary level. It is useful to bridge the gaps between cultures, but limiting or resigning oneself to this mode of expression as the norm would be a terrible mistake.
4 Some journalists have a serious commitment to accuracy. Some call themselves journalists but they are more interested in pleasing their boss and getting a promotion than accurate reporting [Honestly, look at many Nes journalists, they just "tow the line" as expected]. Newspapers have a serious commitment to profits. They do what is needed to retain their readers. For broadsheets, this means that accuracy is demanded and mostly delivered, with tabloids sensationalism is in demand and accuracy is often ignored. Nevertheless, many newspapers still refuse to correct mistakes even when those mistakes are brought to their attention by people who may be hurt or aggrieved by them. Newspapers commit to accuracy as far as it is important to their credibility. If they will not losers readers by being inaccurate, they will continue making baseless claims. This is true of magazines, "glamour/celebrity" magazines,
they fulfill a separate purpose to write gossip and rumours, the more gossip and rumours, the more they sell. Online, newspapers publish and behave differently from what they put in print. Again it is a simple issue of readership. If one audience demands fact, analysis and thorough investigation, it will be delivered to them. If online readers want photos, jokes and scandals, they are also catered to. Accuracy per se is not the major concern of management. If it is required, it will be adhered to for the most part.
5 To be realistic, sometimes serious mistakes are made, but they are the factual equivalent of a "typo". If nobody complains, to be quite honest, I think a journalist would be wasting their time to ask that it be corrected just to satisfy their own conscience. Newspapers do not like to run corrections, many will do so under duress but even that does not work for some. There are many reasons to resist printing corrections, the annoyance, the loss of prestige, and not least the waste of space for something else. If nobody complaints, you may assume that it was such a gross error that people automatically ignored it as they would a "typo", or despite being a serious mistake it may have been harmless and not important to people. Either way, the choice is to run a correction, thus drawing attention to the mistake, but satisfying your own conscience and proving that as a newspaper, you are observant and stringent about accuracy, or wait until a complaint is made and then correct but risk appearing on Media Watch for ignoring it in the first place [it may also make it look like you didn't know what was going on until someone else had to point it out for you]. If it is painless cheap and easy, run the correction. If it's all a big unnecessary fuss, then don't worry, wait and if there is no complaint just ignore it and put things straight in the next story on the subject, thus correcting the error and avoiding a correction. If there is a complaint, run the correction [the only negative there is that a reader beat you to it].