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Posted By Thomas E. Ricks
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 2:35 PM
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What does a journalist do when he has a penny ante story
that he thinks might at least illuminate a larger problem? He maintains that it
provides a "rare window" into that problem. To wit, the New York Times reported
today that:
...the indictment, handed up last Wednesday in the federal court for the Southern District of New York, provides a rare window into the troublesome question of how military and civilian contracting officers -- few of them sophisticated in the ways of clandestine wire transfers and money laundering -- have so often managed to set up corrupt deals at the heart of the United States enterprise in Iraq, and more recently in Afghanistan..."
But wait! Earlier this month, the Times peered through another such news-filled pane, this one involving the case of a political theorist not granted tenure at Harvard:
The uproar, which has been front-page news in The Harvard Crimson and the talk of faculty meetings and dinners, provides a rare window into the byzantine tenure process at one of the world's most prestigious universities.
Hobbling
for broke, this article also noted in the same paragraph that the situation
"raised sensitive questions."
In July, the Times found
an eerily similar perspective in the story of "a well-known dissident [that] provides a rare window on Iran under its
ruling clerics." (To be fair, that was just in a summary of the story. In the article
itself, the window in case received a different adjective: "In several lengthy interviews, Mr. Batebi
provided an unusual window on Iran under its ruling clerics.")
I could go on. "Legal
strategy aside, the report provides
a rare window into the inner workings of the exchange." And so on. I
suspect book reviewers use this device a lot, too.
But you get the point. This pattern in the New York Times
raises the sensitive question of just how rare these journalistic windows are.
I am sympathetic to the plight of the reporters involved, and I know I used
such crutches a lot during my time with my head inside a computer on deadline.
Journalism is indeed a glass house. Still, there is a tiredness in these
structural devices. Use them if you have to, but only if you are unable to come
up with a fresher way to say it. Everybody involved in these Times
stories, from reporters to copyeditors to bosses, should be sentenced to re-read
Orwell's Politics
of the English Language, one of the best things ever written about writing
and thinking.
Update: In this item, the story about Harvard was from 1997, not as I said earlier this month.
specialkrb/Flickr
The story about Bonnie Honig at Harvard is from 1997, not earlier this month.
Mr. Ricks: Do you have any other suggested reading for those of us who would like to improve our writing?
Anything by Orwell. Strunk & White's 'Elements of Style.' The King James Bible. Shakespeare. The speeches of Abraham Lincoln.
And let's not forget Mark Twain, when in the end it may come down to straight talk, i.e. "Answers to Correspondents" in the "Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." - uh?
Strunk and White is good. Some mroe suggestions:
Writing w/ style by Trimble
On Writing Well by Zissner
Grammar girl podcast for grammar.
Writing Reference for grammar, but any big solid book on grammar and usage.
Eats, shoots and leaves.
Raymond Burr did kill his wife, but Jimmy Stewart winds up with both his legs broken anyway.
Googling: [site:nytimes.com "rare window"] yields 330 results. Ouch.
Edit: I suppose it's all relative. "Condition of anonymity" yields 107,000 results.
Would you please recommend a list of journalists who distinguish themselves by being great writers? Perhaps we could add them to our Google news alerts.
Would you please recommend a list of journalists who distinguish themselves by being great writers? Perhaps we could add them to our Google news alerts.
Looking through such rare windows it is easy to see the very basis of western culture is deception and theft. Every time I hear the word "competition" I remind myself it is a code word for identifying the better conniving scheming con artist. I buy something and sell it to you for more than I paid for it. That is all there is to our civilization; it is a giant ponzi that eventually runs out of stupid people you can convince to spend money they should be saving. The U.S. has run out of money if not stupidity. The thieves in politics, in the corporations, and in government have made thieves of us all and now we are going to pay the penalty (at least those of us without large amounts of precious metals hidden overseas). A free press could have saved us from disaster but advertising and greed killed that possibility long ago. Buckle your seat belt.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4049dac4-8d05-11de-a540-00144feabdc0.html
Cost Control is the issue with .... just replace "doctor" with "acquisition advocate". Next time for whatever problem one may have how is it that continual testing and sensing are always prescribed? Our health care system has been co-opted by the inebriation that comes from 1) cost plus profit and 2) indefinite quantity (drug prescription) franchise business model similar to that enabled by DoD 5000 series and DFAR in the national security market. F-22=CAT Scan+MRI+....
Defense of Rare Windows, and Cliches in General
A "rare window" may be common in journalism, but still be a rare opportunity to make public facts in a certain, limited-access area. Since we have thousands of newspapers publishing every day, committing journalism on all kind of things, you might find dozens or scores or "rare windows" from the same newspaper. But unless they're windows into the same topic, the critique falls flat.
Defense of cliche--a cliche can serve as a conceptual shorthand, its familiarity enabling the writer and reader to convey a large amount of information very rapidly.
For comparison
Google site:nytimes.com macarena 994 results
Google site:nytimes.com "cold fusion" 745 results
Google site:nytimes.com amero conspiracy 104 results
Google site:nytimes.com "foreignpolicy.com" 168 results
The Value of the School Costs..
Dear Tom:
It came with this article...
"U.S. Shifts, Giving Detainee Names to the Red Cross...NY Times 23 August 2009.."
....names of men such as Mullen, Stone of USNA and Petraeus of USMA who were making statements, sending directives, visiting sites and demanding conduct in accordance with treaties, laws and codes of conduct that were befitting the principles of these United States. Men who are making honest appraisals of where we are in these wars and how we are acting and stating it forthrightly.
These are the values that the investment in the costs of Annapolis and West Point are expected to return.
Two weeks ago Shipmate, the USNA alumni association magazine, placed on its cover a picture of members of the Class of 2013 standing before the statue of James Stockdale, medal of honor recipient for forbearance under torture in Hanoi whose heritage was defiled by past prisoner (Abu Ghraib and Gitmo) torture and abuse conduct.
These are signs of change, signs of leadership and signs of investments being well returned. Evil is being turned back at least in the armed forces.
Continue to enjoy your vacation.
The Times' article re. the Honig tenure controversy at Harvard offered no insight whatsoever into the "byzantine tenure process at one of the world's most prestigious universities." Proclaiming it a "rare window" was nothing short of an outright lie. The only mystery about this instance of the tenure process was why the president of Harvard denied the tenure application, and the Times' reporter had no more insight than those who read about it first-hand in the Harvard Crimson. So the Gray Lady's motto must be "When you lack facts, throw in a cliche!"
"Politics and the English Language." Pretty significant difference in meaning.
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