You are also definitely familiar with the Problem, which… is what gets pitched in a meeting or in an E-mail, and sometimes accidentally ends up in a piece…. It’s fine if you have to get some hook to get the editors to cover something that is maybe outside their comfort zone. Leave it there!
Something else you can leave behind: Historical digressions in books, especially books derived from blogs. When I opened Regret the Error, I expected more and better analysis of newspapers’ mistakes, not tens of pages of padding about how newspapers of yore handled the problem.
History sections are rote additions that fill a book to Costco size. They show the author put in time at the library. I’d prefer something original, and would pay the same price for a shorter book that gave it to me. Writing short is difficult and adult; regurgitating research is child’s play. I’ll pay for real effort.
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The foregoing posting appeared on Joe Clark’s personal Weblog on 2010.01.12 14:18. This presentation was designed for printing and omits components that make sense only onscreen. (If you are seeing this on a screen, then the page stylesheet was not loaded or not loaded properly.) The permanent link is: http://blog.fawny.org/2010/01/12/historical-digressions/
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