Writeopnik: A wannabe writer weights in, OppoLock-style

"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit) 12/05/2013 at 11:41 • Filed to: Writeopnik, New Media, News Embargo

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News embargoes, journalistic quality, and stuff.

I could've written almost anything for a first line. I've actually put some thought into it, but my lazy, fried brain settled on quite possibly the laziest choice it could conceive (generally indicated by concluding a sentence with "and stuff"). The first line is the most important line of anything you can write - the Great American Novel(TM); a leading piece in the New York Times , Barron's Financial Review or AutoWeek; your OppoLock post, whatever. It sets the tone of what's to come and, most importantly, it clues your reader in on just what the hell you even want to talk about.

News embargoes, journalistic quality, and stuff is a pretty sorry first line, even by my own assessment. It doesn't even fully tell you what this post is about (which won't be so much about the craft of writing as the debate of writing). But hey, it gives you the basic idea, right?

So yeah, this is at least partially a response to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! But it's more a response about the actual craft of writing and what purpose it sets out to do. First I want to make it clear that this is in no way an attack on TTAC or Jack Baruth. At the very least, Baruth is a massive improvement over Bertel Schmitt - and except for a few cases where Schmitt !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (if you really need a reminder of what I'm talking about, I'm referring to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ) I actually (generally) liked what he said. I have a lot of respect for Baruth - he's an intelligent guy, I also like what he says and I think he watches out for the best interests of the automotive industry, including (actually, especially if not solely) the consumer. TTAC is one of my most favorite car blogs, and no I haven't suddenly forgotten Jalopnik exists.

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And I have to put in some personal disclosure too, especially since I mentioned it in the very title of this post - yes, I am a wannabe writer whose primary personal writing goals are towards the creative side (but then again, who isn't?) I am, however, a professional journalist - or rather, I was, for a few small-town industrial papers (all transportation-focused, no less). I also have other credentials that I'd honestly would rather not name, and for that matter is not worth naming - it's not so much a case of my work not always being exemplary but rarely being such. If you read this article and come away with the conclusion that it was composed by a nobody jackoff who doesn't know what he's talking about, I won't be bothered in the least. I also reference a guy or two who I might not necessarily agree or disagree with (you should be able to spot exactly who I mean). I present them neutrally as supporting a tangential point, not as a direct endorsement or criticism.

But back to the craft of writing - actually, back specifically to that thing about first lines. Baruth writes:

It means that from now until the end of time you'll get your information about cars filtered through some intern who has limited education, limited talent, limited resources, and a twenty-minute time limit to get it done — with fifteen minutes being nice if you can do it, Jeremy, you know we value the fastest, most hyperbolic writers here at BigBlogCorp. Ironically, the opening sentence of the Jalopnik article bears the unmissable signs of first-draft writing. Get it done, get it out, get it over with.

The first and most obvious problematic concerns the limited education and talent of interns, but that's for someone else's OppoLock post. I'll agree with the Jalopnik first line being clunky - for most readers the phrase "product embargo" is automatically inferred to its correct meaning. I'd simply state that these are done for the company's best interest, for obvious reasons (after all, most people are familiar with the concept that companies like controlling their product information) and about how Jalopnik doesn't follow this policy.

The larger - and arguably only relevant - issue is, does the article deliver the information you want, and does so accurately with minimal bias? Everything else is secondary to that goal.

The issue of whether or not it delvers the information you want is, of course, left to personal opinion. Presumably the answer is yes as implied by the fact that you're visiting Jalopnik in the first place - if capitalism is voting for products with cash, then you're voting for Jalopnik with clicks. You therefore give them incentive to have them keep doing what they've been doing. As for doing it accurately and with minimal bias, that's rather hard to judge on what's essentially an opinionated editorial piece. But focusing so much energy on how this particular Jalopnik article achieves those goals is digression from the issue those goals are tied to.

There are (at least) two thoughts to how the quality of a journalistic piece is measured. The first and perhaps most traditional school of thought is that a piece of news, even something as basic as a daily report, should have the same quality, word-smithing, thought and effort as Upton Sinclair's !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (a novel that has the unique distinction of being a true watershed moment not only for fiction writing but for journalistic reporting as well - if you want to learn about the craft of both, regardless of what writing camp you're in, you should read it). This naturally requires a lot of effort. And I do mean a lot - like anything worthwhile, what dumps out is equal to what you dump in. Of course, whether or not it's worth it is dependent on your exact goal.

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The second school of thought would make !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! proud - "quantity has a quality all its own." This would be the "Get it done, get it out, get it over with" Baruth mentions. The idea that the consumer doesn't care how the information is presented - he or she only cares about possessing that information, period. In fact, the faster that information is presented, the better - the consumer then move on to other pursuits, like the possession of even more information. Something that can be presented right in your face and immediately absorbed, and BAM!, knowledge acquired.

Of course this leaves a massive iceberg's worth of information left unsaid - the nitty-gritty that Upton Sinclair revolutionized journalism and even the most basic tenants of storytelling period with. Some issues can't be parsed like that. But not every issue deserves a three-thousand word expository essay to be published in Atlantic Monthly.

The pressures of journalism as an art form push towards "everyone needs to be Upton Sinclair" to the absolute most extreme possible. That's inherent of any art form. It's also a byproduct of how journalism is romanticized, and rightly so. Every writer worth his or her salt (basically, anybody not named Stephanie Meyer or !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ) is pushed to create something that will leave an indelible impression upon the reader and, hopefully, change that reader forever. This is the basic foundation of learning. Nothing is more visceral, more relevant or more fundamental to the act of learning than what's actually, factually happening in the world right now. Why not make the news itself an art form? For that matter, how can you not make the news itself an art form?

The pressures of journalism as a capitalistic, money-making enterprise says that's hogwash. Those pressures push towards a very specific, sole direction: whatever the consumer demands, as interpreted by whatever the consumer is willing to pay for. Upton Sinclair actually proved that the notion of journalism romanticized as a literary art form is far from hogwash - but that reflected the consumer demands of a bygone era. Actually, depending on who you talk to capitalism also pushes towards another yet equally very specific direction. As the biggest supporters of libertarianism and laissez-faire economics like !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! will tell you, capitalism inevitably pushes towards greater efficiency.

Inevitably.

That is, societal progression is a byproduct of efficiency. Anything that isn't efficient gets abandoned. Adapt or die. It's a cruel world, but it also works for the greater good, or so they say.

It boils down to whether or not consumers consider journalism as an art form or as a simple commodity. Or it would, if media outlets hadn't already decided that for them.

Just as video killed the radio star, it also killed journalism as art. Or more fairly, it commoditized news information beyond the point of no return. People got used to being blasted with all the international and especially local news they can possibly care about and then some in one shot, in tiny minute-by-minute rapid fire segments. Moreover, it made people get used to the idea that the news could be delivered in such terse, bare doses - in fact, people got used to the idea that the news was outright better that way. It gave you just what you needed, so you can move on with your life.

The internet made things better and worse. Sure, people had instant access to Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker. But it didn't take long for people to figure out how to take the terse rapid-fire style of the nightly local television news and translate it to the written word of cyberspace. Remember !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ? Remember how it was referenced almost 24/7 in the late 90s during the height of President Clinton's infidelity scandal? It's not even a legitimate news site - it's a collection of links to other news sites. But it wasn't CNN or the HuffPo or even FOX News that got the credit - the Drudge Report, through basic headlines and hyperlinks, became one of the first New Media darlings.

So what does this mean? In this age of commoditized news, terse and rapid-fire will almost always win over in-depth. The nation's shrinking newspapers (and magazines) are all the evidence you need of that. Hell, it's even effected how !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! are treated. Greatly, in fact, to the point where people wonder if it's going to be a literal lost art form (webcomics and print comics share a common origin but the change in medium has a profound effect on how they diverged). Actually that brings up yet another point - the change in medium to web-based journalism has had a profound effect on how the delivery of news displaced the actual quality of the news.

It goes back to the idea of that underpaid intern Baruth berates - and the wider issue of the democratization of who actually tells and delivers the news. Who delivers it is no longer important, just as long as its delivered and that it's right. When news broke out that Paul Walker died, what was the first and most important thing about it? It didn't matter if it was CNN or OppoLock - everybody had their own conjectures of the involvement of street racing or the dangers of the Carerra GT, but everyone was on the same level playing field that Paul Walker had died in a car accident. For that matter, where did I first hear of the news? It wasn't on any cable news channel. It wasn't on HuffPo's website. It wasn't even on Jalopnik or OppoLock. Nope. For me, the news first broke on the Twitter feed of a 20 year old Disney Channel actress-cum wannabe singer blessed with 52Cs:

Or let's go back to the thing that brought this all about in the first place: that Mustang news embargo. I'm sure Autoweek has a lot of nice and detailed things to talk about it. Much of that is undoubtedly relevant: engine options, performance figures, etc. But what's the one thing you immediately care about? !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

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And do the horsepower figures or engine options suddenly become less valid because it's first reported by someone without the automotive journalistic pedigree of Autoweek? Beyond the looks and technical stats, what else is there even to write about? Sure, you can write up the model's history, but coffee table books do a better job of that, let alone slideshows !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! does.

There's a limit in terms of how much time is actually worth investing into a news item in the first place, especially if you've already decided that news should be commoditized. I'll eagerly admit that !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! is done on the "Get it done, get it out, get it over with" model because it's what I can really afford to do at this point. Sure, I can go more in-depth and I wish I did - I can talk to the pilots who flew these things (which I did, years ago), dig up official manuals and even snap a few pictures myself. And that article is rife with grammatical mistakes, distracting and awful repetition and, from strictly a wordsmithing standpoint, just general stupid. Hell, I recognize that this article is full of needless repetition and ideas too diffuse as I'm writing it . Am I going to go back and redraft it? Hell no. As it stands, it's worth my personal time and investment only for a first draft (well, second draft only thanks to Kinja - and now you know why italics are rarely used in this article past a certain point. Save often, kids) as long as the point still comes across. And I still can go back and polish things up. The thing is (and in addition to the fact that I just have other stuff to do), the way I set the context ended up imposing a deadline - it worked best on a specific timeliness thanks to that context. Deadlines aren't just an artificial construct set up by newspapers for the convenience of publishing - the farther away the reporting gets from the timeliness of the news contained therein, the less it's worth. When I write opinion pieces on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , I'm tied to a specific timeliness based on the relevance of MT's COTY, ending at about the new year when the the release of many MY 2015 cars are just months away, at most. This article is tied to a timeliness of probably 24 hours or so when people still care about this news embargo thing. When timeliness starts to really hit, like in the case of an immediate and sudden even as in Paul Walker's death (or even the reveal of the new Mustang), Get it done, Get it out, Get it over with might be the only thing you can afford. And getting your information through "poorly trained interns" is truly going to be "from now until the end of time" because that's how long news will continue to be commoditized.

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So that's a lot of long-winded bitching about bitching. That said how you absorb information is as important as the mere process of absorbing it. Being able to consume information in a satisfying way - enjoying the filet minion verses the quarter pounder with cheese - is an important component to the learning experience. So in the age of commoditized news, how does one achieve that?

Go beyond just the news. The magazines that Baruth argues should compete on quality that will still ultimately be competing for the same news sources as New Media will still back themselves up into a corner, but that doesn't mean the niche markets will go away. If you prefer to read in-depth about issues in the New Yorker or Atlantic Journal, have at it, that's what they exist for. There's a plethora of quality, comprehensive nonfiction tomes out there too with entire careers worth of research and essay-writing behind them. And don't forget fiction writing. Remember how I said The Jungle revolutionized news reporting and fiction writing? Fiction is still the one area where, even in terse, rapid-fire form, still requires a lot of thought poured into it (or at least that's what we like to think). Either way, making the trip to the library is worth it. Absorbing the news is one thing - it tells you what the issues are and gives you the raw information you need to decide how it impacts your daily life. But true learning - reading what a researcher has prepared in-depth, or even playing out a fictionalized and escapist scenario in a fiction work - gives you the tools to make those decisions.

GhostZ > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 12/05/2013 at 11:45

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Rule #1: Do not claim to be a wannabe writer if you put it on an article without careful editing and brevity.

Write for your audience. There is no difference between consumption and art.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 12/05/2013 at 11:47

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It was a dark and stormy night ; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

I always thought the best first sentence - and one that should be used everywhere is this. See, it was the first sentence of this post.

CalzoneGolem > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 12/05/2013 at 11:58

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Tl;DR

Tom McParland > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 12/05/2013 at 12:01

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I'm not a wannabe writer but I do like to write. I try to provide good content for the folks here whenever the mood strikes me to put more effort into something other than wagon rants and carpornz. I understand and support what you are saying about the state of journalism. I for one respect TTAC and think most of their content is well done. However, for some odd reason they seem to take things way to seriously sometimes in addition to getting a bug up their ass every now and again about Jalopnik. The Jalop editors do a great job and do it in a way where they realize that this is just about cars...and not a matter of national security or something.

Kugelblitz > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 12/05/2013 at 12:38

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Bulwer-Lytton is the best comedy a writer can find.

Also - WIEGHTS in? I think you mean WEIGHS in. Dude, I think that's a typo.

Stef Schrader > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 12/05/2013 at 12:54

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Confession time: I've edited after I've posted before—mostly OCD type things like correcting brain-farts on that TDI's "gas tank."

I think there's room for both types of content on the intertoobz: beautifully written New Yorker-style pieces that I can read over a nice, long number two and "just get it out there" first pics of something I really want to see.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Kugelblitz 12/05/2013 at 13:29

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I was thinking maybe he was wighting in. If his post slays any others, they'll rise as undead under his control.

Kugelblitz > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 12/05/2013 at 14:06

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Wights would be drainers first, so if his current level is wannabe, then after a smack (and save fail) he would regress through poser, casual poster, hack and then finally to newbie before he actually came back as undead copy editor guy.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Kugelblitz 12/05/2013 at 14:17

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That's true, but it depends on what version of D&D, er, Workshops & Writers we're using. IIRC 3.0 doesn't specify "slain by a wight's draining touch", just "slain by a wight", so friends of mine have hypothesized a wight manning a siege engine...

Kugelblitz > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 12/05/2013 at 14:36

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Workshops and writers, now THAT is scary shit right there.

Our wight(er) would of course have to use a wand for maximum effect. Area effects and all.

Wand of Whiteout When you absolutely, positively have to edit every motherfu**er in the room.

PS, mainly Pathfinder, these days.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Kugelblitz 12/05/2013 at 14:51

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I'm in a 3.5 game at the moment and starting a Shadowrun 20th (rev. 4th). Playing in 3.5 game as educated barbarian/fighter/rogue/duskblade elf to screw with DM.

Any system in which an IBM Model M keyboard was a spell focus would rule.

Kugelblitz > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 12/05/2013 at 14:54

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Pathfinder and L5R. I GM the L5R stuff. Half of us are martial art types so the game discussions can be fairly technical unless cooler heads previal. Hilarious.

I have a smackton of Shadowrun source books (older versions). More than 20? If only they appreciated in value.

Oh and the model Ms are money. Great feel to them. Also, that PC sounds hilarious.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Kugelblitz 12/05/2013 at 15:01

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Same GM running the 3.5 game has thought about doing OA - and I in turn have threatened to play a Carp Hengeyokai geisha (possibly a Sohei).

Said elf PC is allegedly TN and moderately secretive and deranged, so it was the Smartest Thing Ever when the DM threw allips at us and drained his wisdom to 2. Good times, good times.

Kugelblitz > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 12/05/2013 at 15:07

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Oh dear. Beware the low wisdom PCs, even the ones using it as their dump stat. They are worse than random encounters.

One of my best players is running a Scorpion (spy) entertainer. Very funny hijinks there. I think for about six months everyone was convinced she was a he until the PC had a massive brain fart and yelled for help while she was nekkid. The actual real shock was just magnificent. Love RPGs.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Kugelblitz 12/05/2013 at 15:23

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I only really got as far as attempting to force-feed the arachnophobic PC some cooked spider to make him "get over it", engaging in deranged threats, becoming more pyromaniacal than usual, making a hat from an ankheg, and becoming pschotically paranoid about ghosts.

Around that point, a DM-provided Lesser Restoration ex-machina occurred, oddly enough courtesy a ghost.

Kugelblitz > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 12/05/2013 at 16:46

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"becoming more pyromaniacal than usual, making a hat from an ankheg"

Setting things on fire is a constant issue with my group. At one point I was running a pre-gen and as I read the descriptive text to them, there, outside of the bad guyz meeting room was goddamned kerosene lantern. I did a head desk while everyone chortled with unmitigated glee.

Ankheg hat? Does that put you in the Belkar fan club?

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Kugelblitz 12/05/2013 at 16:53

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Exoskeletal(ankheg) vs. endoskeletal (kobold, etc.) it really comes down to what hat sizes one wears, I'd say. My character had the presence of mind to scorch out the inside with fire, of course - he wasn't unsanitary about it. Though, as said ankheg had nearly dropped him, I think the Belkar vengeance streak wasn't to be discounted.

Actually, now that I think about it, it was mostly because the ghosts in the place hadn't touched the ankhegs, so it was only logical that the ankhegs and ankheg tissue might have some deterrent ability that way. (14 int, 2 wis).

Kugelblitz > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 12/05/2013 at 16:59

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I can see that, now, after laughing my fool head off.

I have one PC who got some halfway decent advice from a snake once. Now he trusts snakes implicitly because why would they lie? Having seriously low wisdom is an asset . This has caused some problems. since I GM 80% of the time they can all pound sand, since I am usually the one saying, "why am I STILL GMing for you EEDEEOTS!" in my best Stimpy voice.

offroadkarter > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 12/06/2013 at 11:43

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To the PR people in their metaphorical ivory towers who consider Jalopnik to be nothing but a heavily-JavaScripted sewer for mouth-breathing teenagers, bronys, unemployed Millennials living at home with their parents, and euphoric-fedora-wearing forever-alone virgins who were perma-banned from “9GAG” for failing to meet that site’s minimum IQ requirements

My God, is the FP really THAT bad?