#1556: The accuracy of "the Phrase" -- Pierre-Pierre commens

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Publisher <publisher@haitiantimes.com>

>It is not my intention to bash journalists as a group, but in
>general the reporting on Haiti over the last few years has been
>nothing short of a phenomenal bore, due to not only "the phrase"
>but the extraordinary amount of filler attached to almost every
>news article about Haiti.  How many times can one rehash the
>same old story about how Aristide came to power, how he
>was sent packing by the Haitian army, how the U.S. restored
>Democracy in Haiti, and how fragile this process has been
>du to the Haitians' inability to implement the political and
>economic reforms demanded by the international community.


It is called background and the journalist assumes that the reader does not
remember or is reading the article for the first time. Actually it is one of
the things that seperate American journalism from say European, where the
writing is provincial and esoteric. The problem here is that there are too
many experts reading these articles and of course, the journalist is not
writting with you in mind. A journalist adience is broad. For example, when
I wrote for the New York Times, I keep in mind, our readers, affluent urban
and suburban professionals who are so consumed with their lives that they
forget things, albeit concerned with world events. So when I write a piece I
try to scratch their memory a bit. On the other hand, an article for the
Haitian Times would be written differently. It is not that the standards are
lower, but the audience is different, which is Journalism 101, keep the
audience in mind when writing.

cheers,

garry