The same people who will refer to "Star Wars, Episode 9: Quest for Cash" as "Star Wars" seem to have forgotten that we had a President George Bush, oh, not so long ago. Many years after Zachary Taylor, I believe. Now, I'm not going to get all AP-style-nazi on you and say every reference must be "President Bush," but if you're going to use the "George," the "W" is not optional.
Thanks so much for this. I think it's a symptom of the "everyone can write! it's just news!" attitude in our blog-loving culture. People without experience, or intelligence, or editors, or even good examples, are reporting "facts" and getting worldwide praise for it.
ReplyDeleteI think what the blog post logically leads to -- and you might well correct me -- is that we expect people to understand that things happen in a context, and that context has a lot to do with how news is framed and stated.
Although I've never worked for a news organization, I expect that in a reputable news source, understanding this context and ensuring facts are placed correctly within it constitute the editor's real work.