I have long been a critic of AP writers, beginning in the early ’70s when I was a reporter for the Hartford Courant (at the time it was just called The Courant.)
As a reporter answerable to the State Desk, I got a well-rounded education in how to write objectively, accurately, plainly, clearly, concisely and quickly. The men who worked on that desk were demanding, sarcastic, occasionally foul mouthed and often hilarious. I loved them.
After I sent my stories to Hartford by teletype, I would drive home. The phone would ring and an angry male voice would say, “This is the state desk.” Corrections, clarifications, all handled in about 30 seconds, and that was it.
Moving back to my home state of Maine years later, I took a job as a wire editor, working the night shift at the Press Herald. My job was to edit AP and UPI (United Press International) stories. Some of them were just God-awful.
Oftentimes the first paragraph would be so long that by the end of it you had no idea what they were trying to say. But if the writing wasn’t as crisp as it could have been, at least it was objective.
Oh, for a return to those days. Like most of the television networks, they’ve become nothing more than operatives for the Democratic party.
I just read an AP story about two cases against Trump that Jack Smith will be dropping. If you’ve been a Trump supporter for more than a couple of days, you’re expecting it to be slanted toward the left leaning liberals, and you would be correct. The two cases were the Jan. 6 attack on the capital and the Florida records case. The authors of this article are listed as Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker.
In the Jan. 6 case, the second sentence reads as follows: “The decision by special counsel Jack Smith, who had fiercely sought to hold Trump criminally accountable for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election…”
Wait. The word “fiercely” – doesn’t that word imply that Smith’s efforts were admirable? Or even laudable? Maybe I’m reading too much into it. My state desk editors cautioned us against using adverbs or adjectives unless they were critical to the meaning of the sentence.
“for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election…” Wait. Is there any evidence whatsoever that he tried to subvert the 2020 election? I’ve never heard or seen any. Like the old lady who used to say “Where’s the beef?” Where’s the evidence?
The sentence continues. The decision to dismiss the criminal charges “represented the end of the federal effort against the former president…” Wait. Was the entire federal government against the former president? Actually, now that I think about it, many in the federal government WERE against the president, weren’t they … and probably still are. So, I guess the writer is correct about this.
It’s also bad writing. Here’s the rest of the sentence: “following his election victory this month despite the election-related cases and multiple other unrelated criminal charges against him and is headed back to the White House.” Who or what is headed back to the White House? Certainly not the charges. No, and neither is Jack Smith. But Trump, thankfully, is headed back to the White House.
Further on in the article we read that the cases “had been seen as the most perilous of the multiple legal threats Trump has faced.” Had been seen as “the most perilous by whom?” My state desk editors would have screamed “attribution, attribution!”
Then there’s a reference to the documents that Trump had taken back to Mar-a-Lago. The writer refers to Trump’s “hoarding of top-secret documents.” Hoarding? Now there’s a pejorative word. When we learned about the top-secret documents stashed (now THERE’S a pejorative word) in Biden’s garage next to his Corvette and a couple broken lamps, was he accused of “hoarding?”
No, just move along, people, nothing to see here.
“Trump has cast both cases as politically motivated …” the article says. Absolutely true. They certainly were politically motivated.
The article ends on a dark and threatening note. It says in October Smith’s team “filed a lengthy brief laying out new evidence they planned to use, accusing him of ‘resorting to crimes’ in an increasingly desperate effort to overturn the will of voters after he lost to Biden.”
“Increasingly desperate effort” – nope, nothing prejudicial about those words, right?
And then “resorting to crimes” – just dumping it on us with no explanation.
But that’s just the kind of bogus writing you can get away with in this day and age.
Paula Gibbs McKenney is a Woolwich resident.