US Newspapers are really badly structured

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Articlkes are just too damn long. This would have been three or four articles in a UK or other european newspaper, better structured and better written too. I am always put off reading US newspapers by the sheer size of articles and the guff that surrounds the journalism, particularly in the comment pages.

Why is this when the rest of the US media is sragging the world into coverage in ever more bitesize chunks? Why is there no happy medium in US news reporting and if there is where is it?

― Ed (dali), Monday, 24 March 2003 10:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Honestly, it's just the Comment section which goes to absurd lengths.

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 24 March 2003 10:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Did you read that piece above? From the news section; a run down of events in iraq.

― Ed (dali), Monday, 24 March 2003 10:57 (twenty-three years ago)

No, site asked me to register so I fucked off.

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 24 March 2003 11:13 (twenty-three years ago)

I think the problem is not that the articles are too long, but that so many of them are poorly written. I prefer longer articles if they provide a deeper insight and understanding of the issues, but not if they simply meander and restate the same points over and over.

― Nicole (Nicole), Monday, 24 March 2003 14:50 (twenty-three years ago)

Quite right. Most articles in the LA Times, f'r instance, essentially say what can be said in the first four paragraphs.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 24 March 2003 15:10 (twenty-three years ago)

In the first journalism class I ever took, in high school, the teacher told us that ALL mainstream US press (apart from some op-ed) was written to a 14 year old's average reading level, even Time and Newsweek, and that whatever we wrote for our newspaper or theirs, this rule would have to be followed.

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 24 March 2003 15:32 (twenty-three years ago)

That still doesn't excuse use of the word "subduedly".

― Nicole (Nicole), Monday, 24 March 2003 16:31 (twenty-three years ago)

why thats a perfectly cromulent word

― mark p (Mark P), Monday, 24 March 2003 16:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Technically it may be okay but it sounds stupid.

― Nicole (Nicole), Monday, 24 March 2003 16:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Subdudely -- the state of being in a 'oh yeah, I remember them on my college radio playlist for like two weeks back in 1990 or something, right?' band.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 24 March 2003 16:36 (twenty-three years ago)

The problem with that specific piece is that its was trying to describe many different situations and everts, it would have been much better to tackle each event or group of events in depth in separate articles.

― Ed (dali), Monday, 24 March 2003 16:54 (twenty-three years ago)

The sad thing is that's probably because most US newspapers aren't inclined to devoting more than 2-3 articles a day to the war.

― Nicole (Nicole), Monday, 24 March 2003 17:25 (twenty-three years ago)

It's more important to talk about that riveting city council meeting. (But depending on the meeting and the issue, maybe that's true!)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 24 March 2003 17:27 (twenty-three years ago)

No, it's more because they're more into tabloidesque, semi-exploitational fare like the Elizabeth Smart case.

― Nicole (Nicole), Monday, 24 March 2003 17:29 (twenty-three years ago)

That whole thing is more hyperreal than anything that's happened in the Gulf, I don't care what Baudrillard said.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 24 March 2003 17:31 (twenty-three years ago)

The sad thing is that's probably because most US newspapers aren't inclined to devoting more than 2-3 articles a day to the war.

Eh? My local newspaper has a whole section devoted to the war, and it still spills into the main section.

― Chris P (Chris P), Monday, 24 March 2003 18:32 (twenty-three years ago)

they need more words to bury or neuter the relevant information.

― badgerminor (badgerminor), Monday, 24 March 2003 18:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Even the New York Times and the Washington Post? Supposedly the WP is written to a somewhat higher level, because overeducated wonks are so large a portion of its audience. (When I was at washingtonpost.com, I was questioned only on using "deliquiscent" in a GVSB preview.)

― j.lu (j.lu), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 04:20 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm from the DC area, and every smug history and political science teacher looking to either have sex with their more impressionable students or "blow our minds" brings up the hoary old 8th-grade reading level thing. Oh jesus, my pathetic parents are reading the Style section of the Washington Post while you and your massive throbbing brain are decoding the riddles of the Sunday New York Times. Please, tell me that I'm more mature than my peers and take off my clothes.

― Chris H. (chrisherbert), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 05:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Sorry, it didn't blow *my* mind when my teacher told me that,it merely disappointed me because I felt my fellow citizens were very, very stupid if discourse had to stop at a level I reached in tests by the time I was six.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 08:09 (twenty-three years ago)

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