Edited and ripped apart

There's a rule of journalism that's often taught and rarely practiced: write for a 6th Grade audience. Sorry, I don't buy that jazz. One contribution I would have liked to have made to my company and community is that I made the news a little smarter...even if only by instilling a little college-level vocabulary to colorize our shows. A daily game is made at my station by my colleagues of chopping up my little works of literary art, "dumbing them down" for the masses.

As an example, I was writing up lead-ins and teasers this morning for some of the stories we're running on our afternoon newscast, and here are some of the more choice words that got removed, with my entire crew laughing at me for being "nerdy wordy". This happens on an almost daily basis.

- The current financial state of the local government inexorably led senators to this decision
- We previously reported the much-ballyhooed public law
- The very truculent criticism of the administration
- Despite the defense attorney's attempt to obfuscate the evidence
- A Herculean effort will be needed to save $400M from this year's budget

And I won't even get into the incessant references to pop culture, literature, history and the Rocky Horror Picture Show (seriously) that now litter the cutting room floor. I guess vocab's best used in moderation...tastefully and sparingly. But a guy can try, can't he?

The funny thing is that for those of you that know me know I talk exactly like that. :-)