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Byron York published a bon mot on X that simply said --
Previously unknown legislative maneuver...
It was in response to Axios Reporter Andrew Solander's Xeet:
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tells me “I would introduce the motion to vacate myself” if Speaker Johnson passes funding to Ukraine.
Solander then quickly posted "Just to clarify: Greene was saying she would introduce a motion to vacate against Johnson." Such are the hazards of using social media as a professional newsperson or rapid response pundit.
The news cycle today is no longer truly a cycle, it is immediate and malleable. How does a person whose career started in the age of daily papers (with occasional extras), three networks, editors and enforced pauses, adapt to instantaneous unmoderated publishing? How do journalists, who came of age after social media had replaced print media cum online publishers, develop skills at editing their writing? What is "professional journalism" writing? Are emojis and texting shortcuts like "ur" (for "you are") and "wtf" (well, you know, for "what the [redacted]") going to become acceptable? Is the "Oxford comma" well, and truly, dead?
Even as I wrote this post, I paused numerous times to change words, add commas, rearrange sentences. I could never be a "quick post" news reporter without falling into the problem Solander did in his Xeet. How many times can you be called out by a luminary like Byron York without you becoming the joke?
Journalism started out as a vulgar profession — vulgar in the sense of it's now obsolete meaning:
The language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people in a particular country or region; the vernacular.
It only became polished at the hands of copy editors and when incorporated into publications featuring editorials and content with more literary aspirations. So maybe there is something more "pure" about social media and its vulgarity as a journalistic platform.
I don't know if it's a brave new world. But it certainly is a strange new world.
Discussion (32)
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Exactly.
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Just another reason to avoid social media...
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Ricochet is my only discussion forum where I interact. I do read a few others. I take in very little mainstream media junk.
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LOL. It's a minefield out there, one in which many people have convinced themselves that there's nothing useful to be gained by writing clear and concise prose which--unless one intends otherwise and is being deliberately vague--cannot be misinterpreted. (To break the rules, it's first necessary to know the rules.)
This can be seen most clearly in the tortured and nonsensical language by which people who are obviously men or women are referred to as if they belong to the other--or no--sex, and in which those who are singular are referred to as if they are each plural. It's ugly, it's meaningless, and--sooner or later--it will generate enough confusion and bad outcomes that, God willing, it will stop.
Andrew Solender says that he "attended Vassar College and The London School of Economics." His Linkedin profile indicates he won a couple of awards for excellence in journalism while at Vassar. It's not as if he's some schlub who just wandered in off the street (although he writes like one), and he doesn't appear (at least superficially--which is where it counts) to be a diversity hire.
I don't think they see any need to do such a thing, because in general there's no penalty for sloppy writing, and things move too fast for most people to notice. Perhaps mocking them, as Byron York does here, is a start.
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I see what you did there. Well done.
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