Petersons - The Associated Press Guide to News Writing, 4th Edition

FOURTH EDITION

Rene J. Cappon

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2019 Petersons. All rights reserved.

Previous editions 1982, 1991 by the Associated Press

1999 by Petersons, a Nelnet company

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ISBN: 978-0-7689-4373-3

Printed in the United States of America

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Fourth Edition

This book is aimed at a select audience: Those who care about precise and attractive use of the language.

If you are in that company, read on. For here you will findin a mix of humor, common sense and only occasional editorial piquea guide to help you achieve what should be every journalists aim, telling the reader what you mean in a crisp and correct way.

Perhaps the problem is the speed with which daily journalists must do some of their work. Perhaps it is that sameness of some of what we writetodays baseball game being normally not very different from yesterdays, this weeks council meeting straying into predictable clichs, todays news briefing advancing us little if at all toward better understanding of the subject.

Whatever the reason, the problems that persist in everyday news writing are not hard to identify, and it is to these that this manual speaks.

We talk here not of an idyllic newsroom where the final four-paragraph accounts of auto accidents can be the leisurely product of a third and fourth rewrite. No, we deal here with what the careful writer (and editor) can do in a busy newsroom to bring to news copy the clarity and the appeal it must have at a time when so many other activities beckon for the readers attention.

So, good writing is a practical matter; the story must be written well if it is to be read well.

But more tellingly, it is a professional matter. We should feel pride in doing our jobs well and in fulfilling our obligation to serve the reader well.

In the tumult of the last decade, as journalists have found themselves caught in unaccustomed legal and professional controversy, thousands of speeches have been given in defense of what we call the peoples right to know.

Let us also recognize the peoples right to understand and be entertained. In support of this right comes this guide to the careful use of our most precious assetthe word.

LOUIS D. BOCCARDI
President and Chief Executive Officer, The Associated Press (19852003)

From a writers point of view, the best circumstance is to have Jack Cappon, in the flesh as your editor. Next best is to have at hand, for consultation or merely occasional picknicking, a collection of his ideas on the use of language, wrote Jules Loh, a special correspondent for the Associated Press in the preface of the previous edition of this text. Indeed, though Cappon died in 2007 and so much about the news industry seems to have changed since these words were first published in 1982, his ideas about language and newswriting remain relevant today. The basic principle that writers must focus on technique while handling daily deadline pressures still matters in an era of constant publication, which the internet enables for both professional and citizen journalists.

Ren Jacques Cappon was born in Vienna in 1924. German was his first language, but one of five he eventually studied. Of those, English seduced him, Loh wrote. After finishing high school in New York and attending the University of Iowa, Cappon worked at the Associated Press for more than a half-century. He started in bureaus in Baltimore, Frankfurt and Kansas City before becoming a legendary editor. He oversaw the New Features department from 19581962 and again from 19771989. In that role he oversaw multiple Pulitzer Prize winners on a desk known affectionately as the Poets Corner. In 1989, he moved into a new role teaching writing throughout the AP and to newspapers. Given the reach of the AP into every corner country, it is hard to think of a more consequential role.

The Associated Press is still the news lifeline of this country. It was the internet before there was an internet, long before the massive technological upheaval of the mid-1990s and beyond. Its iterative, get-to-the-point style of writing dominates in the digital era. The wire service was a live blog before anyone knew those words, sending stories as it learned of them, changing the approach as details emerged; these are still core news skills. Readers saw the finished product in their morning newspaper, unaware of the skill and effort necessary to produce each article.

Cappons words are still vital to sense makers and storytellers today. There are more demands on a writers time and attention than ever before and, as innovations in the way news is reported and delivered proliferate, the unrelenting speed of information makes clarity vital. We live economy of language daily as we try to squeeze out thoughts via Twitter or on social media, where saying what you mean in as few words as possible is essential. Frankly, Cappons focus on developing good writing habits is a necessity because we inhabit a world with fewer editors like Jack Cappon.

What follows in this reissue preserves much of Cappons original writing and wit. Everyone who commits words to the page for a living, on some level, shares what Loh described as a visceral romance with the language. This book updates some examples and adds context for the digital era. But the text reminds us that good writing has a timeless quality, even if it is used to produce something as ephemeral as a news story.

Any word book like this guide is, in a sense, a collaboration. My collaborators have been numerous; I count among them the people on the staffs of The Associated Press and AP member newspapers who have been subjected to writing workshops I have given over the years. Rather than a systematic journalism manual, the book is extended shoptalka continuation of the discussions, formal and informal, with news writers intent on improving themselves in their craft.