Archive for September 28th, 2007

Observations on blog buffets apply to newspaper data centers, too »

By William M. Hartnett on Sep 28, 2007 in featured, newspapers | 2 Comments

Choire Sicha said about newspaper blogs what I’ve been thinking about newspaper “data centers” for a few months now.
Nearly all newspaper websites mistakenly segregate their blogs off with the other blogs. They’re organizing by form, not by content.
With that view of newspaper blogs in mind, and with all due respect because they took an important, [...]

Call it the case of the annoyingly overused newspaper lede »

By William M. Hartnett on Sep 28, 2007 in featured, newspapers, whinging | 8 Comments

Lazy newspaper writing drives me crazy. Trite phrases, pointless thesaurus-diving … I’m getting worked up just thinking about it. We’ve covered “to be sure” and “in a wide-ranging interview,” and lately I’m incredibly bothered by the “call it” lede. Some recent examples of the “call it” lede, followed by the subject of the story:

Call it [...]