You Must Remember This
Slate’s media critic Jack Shafer recently observed that the words “should” and “must,” once banished from The New York Times’ editorials, were making a comeback. “[S]hould-and-must editorials,” the editorial page’s editor thought, “made it sound as if the Times’ message to readers was, ‘You must, by God, because we said so, and we’re the fucking New York Times.’”
The News has been going on something of a “should” and “must” bender of late; of its last six editorials, the titles of four boast a “should,” and two a “must.” One even has both: “Voters should not settle for flawed system; Public must be informed about corruption.” Because they said so, and they’re the fucking Ann Arbor News.
Isn’t that more of a “We’re against things that suck” stance?
posted by Dave on December 13th, 2005 at 11:52 amIt is a good point, that the use of “should” and “must” can indicate weak writing. Presenting the facts, and letting the facts speak for themselves, often is more effective.
On the other hand, if the piece is marked clearly as an editorial, then a certain laxity ought to be permitted. Furthermore, what sense is there in telling people that they “must” not use the word “must.”
posted by Joseph j7uy5 on December 13th, 2005 at 5:00 pmI heart Slate.
posted by Heidi on December 13th, 2005 at 5:43 pm… they “should” not use the word “must”, perhaps?
posted by Sketchy on December 13th, 2005 at 11:14 pmFWIW, the Michigan Daily is (at least around here) the all-time champ in the “should” category. A nickel for every time I’ve seen “students should” in a Daily editorial…
posted by Kevin on December 14th, 2005 at 9:42 amThe question is, why read the A2 news? Unless you’re attempting to become an active participant in county/township politics, what does it offer than the NY Times or the WSJ or Google News doesn’t?
posted by A2Zealot on December 14th, 2005 at 11:21 amor perhaps we should (must?) simply present the facts in the form of criticism to drive home the point that editorialist should not use “must” or “should”
this is so friggin PoMo my heads gonna blow
posted by bennyprofane on December 14th, 2005 at 12:08 pmWell, I read it because I am an active participant in city and county politics.
Much as we may all crititicize the Ann Arbor News (many kudos to AAIO for the must/should posting), and detest its awful web site, it is still a much better newspaper than is typical for communities of this size.
That’s damning with faint praise to be sure. A lot of newspaper chains have simply given up on doing anything that’s the least bit labor intensive, such as covering local politics. It is truly disheartening to compare the local reporting found in newspapers of 50 years ago to today.
But the Ann Arbor News, perhaps anachronistically, still tries, and I am grateful for that.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 14th, 2005 at 12:13 pmAnd of course a lot of national papers are worse with the should-and-must thing; I just thought Shafer’s piece was funny and worth looking at from an A2 perspective.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 14th, 2005 at 12:19 pmHmmm… Well you have to remember that the Ann Arbor News is owned by a conservative conglomerate known as Advance Publications. A family owned conglomerate, that owns some hundred or so other media outlets. Ever notice that it almost always endorses a conservative candidate? For example Bush in the last election? How out of touch is that with the community, for a “community newspaper.”
posted by Brendan on December 15th, 2005 at 6:01 pmThat was pretty much a slap in the face to the community. They are entitled to their opinion, but I thought that was kind of a subscription suicide move on their part.
posted by OFWinsurgent on December 15th, 2005 at 8:05 pmI don’t think the should/must problem correlates with ideology. Shafer points the Wall Street Journal editorial column as one which avoids that kind of ex cathedra pronouncement. Not that I find the WSJ editorials at all compelling.
Pretty much all local daily newspapers these days are owned by larger entities. The biggest problem with the one that owns the News is the awful hash of a web site those papers all have to share.
The News tried to sneak the Bush endorsement under the radar — no accompanying picture of Bush, no mention of his name in the headline, totally unlike all their other endorsements. I’m sure they knew that nobody in 2004 was going to choose which presidential candidate to vote for based on their editorial, and it would only lose them credibility and subscribers, but newspapers are expected to announce a choice for president.
The Bush endorsement was no doubt ordered from on high, but I bet most of the papers in that chain didn’t bury it like the News did.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 16th, 2005 at 10:19 amBush? Conservative? Not so much.
posted by Dave on December 16th, 2005 at 1:53 pmLarry: Yeah, but that’s kinda weird. Not only did more newspapers withhold ANY endorsement in 2004 than in 2000 or 1996, but also that newspaper endorsements as de riguer is sort of a new idea (last 25 years). While newspapers certainly did endorse candidates prior, it was far more infrequent for the first half of the century.
posted by js on December 16th, 2005 at 2:29 pmI’m not feeling you on that, js. My archival work has shown that cities frequently had a Democratic paper and a Republican paper (even cities of modest size) and the papers were not shy about their allegiance — including putting editorials on the front page.
posted by Dale on December 16th, 2005 at 2:48 pmRight, Dale, that was the era of the “party press”, when newspapers were pretty much sponsored by or closely allied with political parties. You couldn’t make much money in newspaper publishing, and so disseminating propaganda was the driving force in journalism. There was not really much distinction between news and editorials in most local papers in the mid-1800s. They resembled those emails you might get today from the Democratic or Republican National Committee.
By 1900, or certainly by World War I, newspaper publishing became a more viable business model, and a new ethic of nonpartisan objectivity arose. And I have certainly seen newspapers from (say) the 1920s and 1930s, with an obvious strong point of view, but no candidate endorsements at election time. Maybe the lack of endorsements was supposed to buttress the claim that they were “Independent”.
It’s probably a huge oversimplification, but I think by the 1950s or 1960s there arose general sense that newspapers owed it to their readers to announce election choices. So I think js is probably correct that the notion of the newspaper editorial board pronouncing its choices from on high (amidst pages of supposedly objective news coverage) is a relatively new phenomenon.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 16th, 2005 at 3:19 pm