Chapter 7

Chapter 7: A word’s worth


1. At what educational level of readers should newspapers be aiming? Do you think your main metropolitan newspaper is hitting the mark?

A newspaper should be compelling and informative and yet simplistic in its approach. I believe that newspapers should be written for a target audience of at least a student in secondary school, years ten and above. Articles that include longer words and phrases send mixed messages to their audience and therefore should be kept concise and simple. I do believe that the metropolitan Newspapers are hitting the mark. I believe that through the use of house guides, journalists are very limited to the complexity’s they include in their articles in order to appeal to the greater number of readers.


2. To what extent do you think reporters should be able to interpret news events and inject their thoughts into news stories?

I believe that journalists must be careful when interpreting news events and implementing their own thoughts and opinions. The influence and power that a journalist holds can be very significant within local communities and therefore blatant bias on the journalist’s behalf may take valuable information away from a story. This is not true where the journalist is a specialist in a field and personal opinion is required but for the recounting of news events, I believe journalists should avoid injecting their thoughts.


3. English is a growing and ever-changing language as new words evolve and old ones fall into disuse. What then of the idea of a global language? Does it really matter that our language is being tainted with Americanisms and US spellings?

While English is widely recognised as an ever expanding and dominating language I believe that labelling it as a global language would be presumptuous and striping cultures of there ethnicities. In comparison it is evident that Cantonese and Mandarin are also becoming widely recognised as one of the most spoken languages in the world, however this is due to population and the rapid economic expansions evident in China. Science Fiction – in particular “Firefly” have made predictions that a hybrid language of both Chinese and English will be evident in the future where they will be interchangeable as more people will grow more accustomed with the Asian language.

As for the Americanisms and US spellings, it is rather concerning for a traditionalist to witness what has been referred to as “the death of the English language”. However these spellings and US colloquialisms are only display Americas influence and global power that are evident in many other walks of life and culture.


4. Based on your own experience and your reading of newspapers, do you think newspapers have a serious commitment to accuracy?

No I think that newspapers are letting standards slip as with their commitment to accuracy. The Australian has made several mistakes of late including spelling errors. In particular in the issue 16th August there was an article that mentioned Amy Pearson and then listed her as being “pictured” there was no picture accompanying this article, and I assume it was edited out during layout.


5. What would you do if you made a serious mistake in a story you wrote but no one contacted the paper to complain?

If it was a serious mistake I would write a retraction to correct the errors in the initial article.