A list of rules that every journalist should read--and follow.
My favorites:
- We would not run anniversary stories and commentary, except in the rarest of circumstances. They are a refuge for lazy and unimaginative journalists.
- We would replace PR-speak and certain Orwellian words and expressions with more neutral, precise language. If someone we interview misused language, we would paraphrase instead of using direct quotations. (Examples, among many others: The activity that takes place in casinos is gambling, not gaming. There is no death tax, there can be inheritance or estate tax. Piracy does not describe what people do when they post digital music on file-sharing networks.)
- Our archives would be freely available, with links on every single thing we’ve published as far back as possible, with application interfaces (APIs) to help other people use our journalism in ways we haven’t considered ourselves.
- The more we believed an issue was of importance to our community, the more relentlessly we’d stay on top of it ourselves.
