In the olden days, journalists used to be taught to always write in the active voice. Oops. Let me say that again. In the olden days, journalism educators told their students to always write in their active voice. Whatever happened to that edict?
The problem with writing in active voice is that you have to introduce at the top of the sentence the source of the action being reported upon. And if you write it that way, it can simply ruin a good story. Here are two leads for a news story. Which do you think is sexier?
- The federal government has been issued a challenge to account for a billion dollar hole in its budget.
- The federal opposition has issued a challenge to the federal government to account for an alleged billion dollar hole in its budget.
Version one is the juicier lead, isn’t it? The billion dollar hole is introduced as a fact. And the government is immediately on the moral defensive, having to deal with a “challenge”, albeit from an unspecified source. In the second version, the story loses a lot of its heft, simply because the first words we hear is that ‘the federal opposition has challenged’. So we know from the get-go that we are in the territory of ‘he said-she said’ journalism. In this version, too, the facts of the story are in dispute because the billion dollar hole in the budget has become an “alleged” hole.
But in the world of real-time publishing, where journalists are constantly seeking to ‘refresh’ stories hour-to-hour or minute-to-minute and make them entertaining, these issues around who said something become rather inconvenient. Instead, the more important thing is WHAT was said, irrespective of the source. The problem with revealing too early in the piece the source of the claim is that it robs the piece of its news value and leads to inconvenient observations such as “Well, they WOULD say that, wouldn’t they?”
Which brings me to the theme of this post, which is the storm in the twitterverse over the last week about the Bligh government in Queensland “bowing to pressure”, according to News Ltd, over calls for a Royal Commission into the floods disaster. Typically, the source of the “pressure” in this case was not revealed. The implication, as always, was that “the pressure” was from the general community, as expressed in the editorial pages of The Australian. In fact, there was no “pressure”. The government in Queensland was always going to hold an inquiry into one of the worst natural disasters in Australia’s history. And the notion that this action stemmed from the fearless journalism of Murdoch’s hacks was so typically self-serving.
But it isn’t just the Murdoch media that excel in passive voiced news without an obvious source. The ABC specialises in it, particularly since it went online. It is now de rigeur for the ABC to run unsourced claims in headlined quotes – NBN Will be ‘No Nirvana’ for Cheap Broadband – because to run the source in the headline would rob the item of its newsworthiness. Sure enough, the source of that last quoted headline was none other than Malcolm Turnbull, which rather depowers the story. Where is the old chief of staff telling the reporter “well, what did you expect him to say?” And spiking the story.
It is simply NOT NEWS to say “Gillard is Under Pressure” when the alleged source of that pressure is an Opposition spokesman sticking out a press release on a quiet Sunday night. Once again, under-resourced newsrooms having to update stories once or twice an hour are desperate for fresh leads. The spin doctors know their predicament, so they spoon feed them half-baked press releases with ‘throw forward’ intros that fit a neat hole in the schedule. This is why you so often hear: “The federal government is expected to come under renewed pressure this week…”
Expected by WHOM? Where is the pressure coming from? Who says it is ‘pressure’? In the olden days, we used to call the people who asked those questions ‘journalists’. These days, though, so many of the guardians of our democracy are mere typists.
17 Comments
Way2fargone · January 23, 2011 at 11:06 AM
This is very accurate. So often do news items consist of press releases that my confidence in the product has been damaged,
Anonymous · January 23, 2011 at 11:22 AM
THis has been driving me nuts when listening to the ABC News or reading it on line for the last couple of years. Nice to see someone articulate the issue so clearly!
Anonymous · January 23, 2011 at 11:33 AM
Beautifully explained, thanks, Mr Denmore.
I guess the only matter remaining in question is whether the hacks concerned will trouble themselves muchly over, or even comprehend the seriousness of, their professional failings. Denied the benefits of quality training and seasoned workplace oversight, and with a likely house bias pressuring them to conform their output to a determined political flavour, what hope is there for genuine, quality reporting?
Very little. And less as time goes by.
Tap! Tap! Tap! Another nail is driven into the coffin, as the mainstream news media lies dying an undignified death in the gutter of disrepute.
Anonymous · January 23, 2011 at 11:50 PM
I truly wish that all of the “typists” out there were forced to read and comment on this post.
Brave Mr Denmore!
Antipatico · January 24, 2011 at 12:09 AM
The 'under pressure' theme is a constant, it's the broad media's daily 'the state's a tinderbox'. A brief read of the papers each day reveals that everyone is 'under pressure', some 'bowing' to it, others sinking. Australia's simply one huge Queen and David Bowie song.
But your great point is so welcome and that is that the so-called pressure is either simply made up (as in The Australian story) or pressure of such spurious weight to be laughable.
Has it always been like this?
Mr D · January 24, 2011 at 12:17 AM
Always been like that Antipatico, but just has worsened as the pressure to pump out more stuff (online + old media) with fewer resources.
Spin doctors know this, so create prefabricated news to push the narrative forward in ways that reflect well on those they are paid to advise.
This is why the ABC runs a major government announcement (months in the making) on the 11am bulletin and then for the rest of the day runs the self-serving reactions of the rent-seekers who employ communications advisers to pump out media releases pushing their views.
So the perception is conveyed that the government is “under pressure” or “under siege” or has its “back to the wall” – when all that is really happened is that noisy and self-interested minorities have managed to hijack the narrative.
The worst part is that the media makes no distinction between the value of one source and another. They are all equally worthy. And in ABC land, where the journalists live in fear of the stop-watch “balance” police, it is convenient to keep it that way.
What gets lost for the public is any sense of proportion.
sean · January 24, 2011 at 1:08 AM
I get the feeling that the issue of misleading headlines also stems from hyperlinks to online stories. I am as guilty as anyone for clicking on a link with a porvocative title only to get to the story and become dissapointed with no quotes or substance to it.
The online version of the Australian seems to be much more politically focused. With a great emphasis on putting Labor to account, flip to the SMH/AGE and the same type of stories simply don't run. However the print version of The Australian seems to have much more balance 'in context' in the overall run of stories.
With online news, you only read what you want to read. It's more focussed with parts of the story cut out allowing you to miss some of the material behind the story, thus making your own conclusions from a slightly less informed point of view.
Anonymous · January 24, 2011 at 2:46 AM
Thankyou for this excellent post. I hope it is widely read.
Andy Bechtel · January 24, 2011 at 3:50 PM
The passive voice can be useful on occasion. Sometimes the thing being acted upon really is more important than the thing doing the acting.
Here's a good explanation:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2922
I noticed that several of the comments here use passive voice — “is wisely read” and “another nail is driven into the coffin.” Intentional? Effective? Or ironic?
Anonymous · January 25, 2011 at 2:45 AM
I want to contact you, but could see no other way to contact and don't wish to put my message and email address up publicly on your blog. So this is only a test to see if this note appears automatically on your blog, or if it gets to you first.
Mr D · January 25, 2011 at 2:54 AM
Anonymous, you can contact me on mrdenmore@gmail.com.
Anonymous · January 25, 2011 at 6:57 AM
@Andy: I wrote one of the comments you (mis)quoted. No, I was not being ironic.
His point is about how stories are shaped; I don't think it was a general attack on the passive voice in any context.
Wood, trees…
weaver · January 25, 2011 at 7:11 AM
This fits in neatly with your remark over at Larvatus Prodeo that journos avoid numeracy because nothing kills a story quicker than a concept of proportion, and with my own thoughts about the insistence on protecting the anonymity of sources who face no repercussions for their “leaks”. (If Judy Miller had revealed that the “intelligence sources” who were telling her Saddam had AQ connections were actually member's of Dick Cheney's staff, not only would she have denied Cheney the opportunity to cite her articles as support for his claims, she would have denied herself a news story – because “Dick Cheney's Office Confirms Dick Cheney's Story” isn't one. See also the difference between “Sources Allege Backbench Revolt” and “[Leadership Aspirant] and Pet Journo Cook Something Up”.)
More and more it seens to me that most of what's in the “professional” journalist's toolbox is for the purpose of creating news where it does not in fact exist.
Mr D · January 25, 2011 at 8:42 AM
Yes, anon it's almost as if the media tail is wagging the information dog.
David Collett · February 26, 2011 at 1:33 PM
Brilliant! I also love the line on another of your articles about the government not giving the newspapers any information so there isn't any separation between the ads! It would be very entertaining to see all the politicians do an April fools joke on the newspapers and give them absolutely no news for a cycle or two without any explanation and then finally explain that they have all made bets with each other about how close they can make the ads come together in each newspaper! The public would then start to pay attention again!
jason brown · March 3, 2011 at 1:44 AM
Weaver is right. Journalism needs a rating system, same as movies, but dealing in context, not age limits.
How many he-said versus she-said stories avoid using easily available data sets.
And those they do are not checked.
If anything, things are worse here in New Zealand: the Speaker of the House of Parliament accuses his own party of “reckless misuse” of official data – and not one media organisation quotes him. A letter to the editor (mine) questioning the omission is ignored.
Instead, they wrote about a visit to the public gallery by a double bevy of Miss New Zealand contestants.
jason brown · March 3, 2011 at 1:51 AM
More here, including link to Hansard page:
http://www.facebook.com/dompost/posts/123107317761104