Might Have a Job With the Newspaper...and you won't believe this...

[Azraele]

Two employees have turned in their letters of resignation, so in 2 weeks, the newspaper is going to need people. The editor in chief has told me that if I do write for him, that I can't write any higher than 9th grade level, and not to use "big words."

I'm sitting here in near disbelief. Did this entire town cease their eduction at 9th grade? Granted it's a small farming town, but I can't use big words??? What constitutes a big word for a ninth grader?? Twelfth grade I might expect, but ninth? That's barely high school level.

Are all newspapers like this??? Are my expectations too high?

 

[notfred]

Yes, all newspapers are like that. They want all thier readers to know what the words in the paper mean. Otherwise they feel stupid and stop reading the paper, and then the paper doesnt make any money.

 

[GL]

Of the Toronto area papers, the Sun is written for a 5th grade literacy level, the Star is written for an 8th grade literacy level, and the Globe and Mail/National Post are both written for somewhat higher literacy levels. 9th grade literacy level should give you free reign to use pretty big words unless the standards for 9th grade literacy are lower in your neck of the woods.

 

[Soybomb]

As former newspaper editor (college, but stil...) I can say, yes indeed thats quite common. You might also want to look at the inverted pyramid style of writing where you put the most important details at the top and the least at the bottom. You do that because most people don't read past the first couple paragraphs if they make it past the headlines. And if you jump to another page....no one will see that People is dumb

 

[GL]

Check out this link. That's a 9th grade literacy test. You'll need Adobe Acrobat reader. Check out the "acceptable" and "more acceptable" student examples. That should give you an idea of the level of writing I'd say.

 

[Azraele]

I kind of suspected as much, but I would have thought that at least a high school grade level (11-12th) would be the norm. This is a pretty bad area though, so 9th grade gives me lots of free reign. One of the columnists writes on a 5th grade level (if that). The first time I saw the article I was a bit shocked at simply it was written. I'm an English major, so I guess I'm trained to be overly picky.

<Edit> GL, thanks for the link.

 

[Soybomb]

Really its not as constricting as you might think it is. You just wind up learning to use many many short words opposed to what you'd normally say

 

[DannyLove]

<< Yes, all newspapers are like that. They want all thier readers to know what the words in the paper mean. Otherwise they feel stupid and stop reading the paper, and then the paper doesnt make any money. >>

i have to agree there

danny~!

 

[GL]

It's the same reason behind why many people don't watch Jeopardy but love Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Jeopardy = I can answer 2 out of the 5 $100 questions. Who Wants to be a Millionaire = I can answer enough questions to earn more money than that genius on Jeopardy who won.

 

[DAM]

my hometown has a 6th grade reading level :--(




dam()

 

[MrBond]

I'd have a hard time doing that....I write very well, and would have a hard time degrading my ability.

Damn it, I just used a 10th grade word! Doh!

 

[weezergirl]

yeah i remember on average you are supposed to write so that a 13 year old can understand it. ha!

anyways, congrats on getting a job! which newspaper is it? and what kind of articles are u going to be writing?

 

[Azraele]

It's the town's newspaper, small, nothing fancy. I'd have a lot of free reign on what to write too. Anything interesting, some of it should deal with the town, but not all of it has to I don't think.

Besides writing, I'd be responsible for the book-keeping and accounting and things like that.

 

[Alienwho]

Wow, I had a 9th grade reading level in like 3rd grade.

 

[Tiger]

If you get the new job please strive for accuracy in your stories.

We just had a situation with the local newpaper totally screwing up a story about one of our Ham Radio events. We called them to tell them about the event and they said they'd be there at 2:00pm, they showed up at 11:00pm. The kid they sent out to do the story ran around like a chicken with his head cut off taking pics and writing notes. We gave him a prepared release describing the event, the sponsor, the basic idea behind the event, etc....

The story published in the paper was junk. The kid managed to get just about every salient point wrong, from the event name, names of participating organizations, names of participants in photo captions, and the general idea behind the event, etc....

We were supposed to submit the story for &quot;publicity&quot; points. It's not going anywhere but the trash. Several e-mails have been sent requesting a re-write and have fallen on deaf ears. I guess it's going to take a flaming letter to the editor to get it corrected.

 

[WordSmith2000]

<< I'm an English major, so I guess I'm trained to be overly picky.
Did this entire town cease their eduction at 9th grade? Granted it's a small farming town, but I can't use big words??? What constitutes a big word for a ninth grader?? Twelth grade I migth expect, but ninth? >>



Since you had three misspelled words in 5 sentences, you will probably fit in just fine.



But seriously?
If the editor of the paper is worried the most about your ability to dumb down your writing level, and is not worried about your reporting skills (being an English major is just not enough to work on a paper, IMO) then he must be desperate.

Take the job, and try to do the best you can. Ask a lot of questions from the senior reporters and try to learn all aspects of the job. Being a reporter can prepare you for so many other areas of life that it is like going to ?reality school? instead of college. Consider yourself lucky to get the chance.

~~~5 yrs reporter, 6 years editor, currently writing computer manuals~~~

 

[Azraele]

<<Since you had three misspelled words in 5 sentences, you will probably fit in just fine>>

Hey I never said I could type. Thanks for the heads up.

Did I get them all?


We're talking about a paper run by basically one man, the editor-in-chief. He's the main reporter, writer, editor, etc etc etc. He works himself to death too. What I'd be writing would be small stuff, like human interest articles and opinions, little to no actual reporting involved. This is a town that has an article in the paper every week about what happened at the rest home. That's how exciting it is. The two employees who quit were *the* two employees there. They helped him type up some of his articles and did the accounting, along with a few other tasks. They didn't even write, so the fact he's asking me to write is an added bonus.