View Full Version : CNN predicts the future . . . forced tense
DoneThatToo
Jun 23rd 2008, 07:47 AM
" The comedian best known for those seven words banned from airwaves dies Sunday.'
Carlin obit (http://www.cnn.com/)
So he has a few more days left?
NO! He DIED Sunday.
jrat33
Jun 23rd 2008, 08:25 AM
Seriously, this "writing in the present tense" crap is getting on my nerves.
It's OK if things happen in the past consultants and news directors. Writing in the present tense doesn't magically make it happen in the present.
ewink
Jun 23rd 2008, 09:24 AM
CNN's web producer must lurk here, because I just read it and it says 'died Sunday'.
Go Medialine!
The Fedora
Jun 23rd 2008, 09:47 AM
HA HA HA...
Yeah, I try to catch them all before I read them on the air. MUST CHANGE!
Worse is when the kids write both present and past tense in the same sentence.
No Mistake
Jun 23rd 2008, 11:33 AM
Unfortunately it's not just kids. I worked with an anchor who wanted the lead sentence to be present tense. They thought it made it more immediate. Even something that happened 24 hours ago needed to be present tense to them. I argued this and lost. I was told it's OK to write false present tense and go to past tense in the rest of the story. Never mind that it's wrong and misleading to the viewer that may not know the story is about something several hours old.
Produce man
Jun 23rd 2008, 01:16 PM
False present tense is just some bullsh!t gimmick consultants dreamed up.
HolyToledo
Jun 23rd 2008, 01:37 PM
a) inaccurate & misleading.
b) the antithesis of conversational.
Why are consultants and twit News Directors determined to make us sound
like newsboys hawking EXTRA editions on street corners in the 1930s?
Like lemmings to the sea.....
DoneThatToo
Jun 23rd 2008, 02:07 PM
These posers are trying to best the master of Future History!
Robert Heinlein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_History)
Jane Craig
Jun 23rd 2008, 04:02 PM
WXIA Atlanta just opened their 7:00 with "A body is found in (some) park." Next sentence announces that said body ..."was floating..." I'm so confused. This thread has hit one of my pet peeves of NewsSpeak.
CKMD
Jun 23rd 2008, 04:38 PM
Our News Director forbid that kind of writing 5 years ago...I still have to fix it in most of the new kids' scripts everyday...and then they argue with me about how I'm changing the immediacy.
There's a way to make it active and past tense...duh.
WXIA Atlanta just opened their 7:00 with "A body is found in (some) park." Next sentence announces that said body ..."was floating..." I'm so confused. This thread has hit one of my pet peeves of NewsSpeak.
Don't forget this one: "A body...found floating." For the people who don't want to use false present tense but can't figure out how to make the story sound current otherwise.
The Fedora
Jun 23rd 2008, 06:06 PM
oh... you mean NBC NewsSpeak. Take out every other word.
Diggin' Bear
Jun 23rd 2008, 08:46 PM
Jeeze, biggest peeve I have on the planet, and so easily avoidable. Merv Block has a nice piece on how to avoid false present tense and still write the story in active voice.
Oughta be mandantory for anybody who touches a TV news script.
CKMD
Jun 23rd 2008, 09:06 PM
Jeeze, biggest peeve I have on the planet, and so easily avoidable. Merv Block has a nice piece on how to avoid false present tense and still write the story in active voice.
Oughta be mandantory for anybody who touches a TV news script.
Umm...yah...it's called giving the action to the subject.
"Police found the body..." Rather than "The body WAS found by police..."
"Sgt. Smith died when his humvee hit an IED..." Rather than "Sgt Smith WAS killed by an IED that had hit his humvee..."
It's tough, though, for some people...but I can't figure out why.
Spike
Jun 24th 2008, 12:22 AM
It's tough, though, for some people...but I can't figure out why.
Because they're trying to write around facts they don't know.
[Who found the body?] + [Oops, forgot to ask.] --> "A body was found."
Could have been the police.
Could have been a deputy.
Could have been a homeless person.
Could have been a little old lady.
Could have been the little old lady's dog.
Maybe the cops are tight-lipped and aren't saying who found the body.
Often when you see someone avoiding active voice it's because she's trying to write around an important piece of information she doesn't have. That's not always the case. Sometimes reporters and producers just get into the habit of writing that way. But they're in that habit because they've had to write around missing facts too often.
The Fedora
Jun 24th 2008, 02:24 AM
But they're in that habit because they've had to write around missing facts too often.
Which is a bad, bad thing.
CKMD
Jun 24th 2008, 07:17 AM
Often when you see someone avoiding active voice it's because she's trying to write around an important piece of information she doesn't have.
She?
Why a she? Is the assumption that it's a she because you have some sort of statistic that all producers are "she" or that most reporters now are "she" or because of some sort of mysoginistic view of life?
Edited to add: The you write the copy, "Someone found the body this morning...but police aren't releasing any more information." Which is more than likley true because pigs are pigs.
22
Jun 24th 2008, 12:47 PM
I think he was referring to the anchor... who is a she.
CKMD
Jun 24th 2008, 01:24 PM
I think he was referring to the anchor... who is a she.
Then the assumption is the anchor actually wrote something.
22
Jun 24th 2008, 01:43 PM
You have a point. I know the anchor. Little chance she wrote anything.
Spike
Jun 24th 2008, 05:20 PM
I think he was referring to the anchor... who is a she.
No, I was referring to reporters and producers. The masculine pronoun is usually appropriate if we don't know the gender of the antecedent. However, in this instance the probability that the antecedent is female is considerably greater than the probability that the antecedent is male. Therefore, since the majority are female, and because it is cumbersome to write "he or she" every time I want to refer to an unknown producer or reporter, I choose just to use the feminine pronoun for simplicity's sake.
No Mistake
Jun 24th 2008, 06:38 PM
Another one I can't stand is has been. An example: Officer Johnson has been patroling the streets for 10 years. I see and hear that daily, and I can't stand it.
CKMD
Jun 24th 2008, 07:05 PM
I had a News Director who charged producers a quarter every time has, had, have been appeared in a script.
We had many a pizza party...
Produce man
Jun 24th 2008, 07:48 PM
The bottom line is that good copy is conversational.
Have you ever heard anyone say "Did you hear what happened this morning? Two people die in a fiery car crash!"
Another side
Jun 25th 2008, 01:36 AM
Umm...yah...it's called giving the action to the subject.
Sgt. Smith died when his humvee hit an IED..." Rather than "Sgt Smith WAS killed by an IED that had hit his humvee..."
... "Died" and "Killed" are not interchangeable.
wx or not
Jun 25th 2008, 06:27 AM
Umm...yah...it's called giving the action to the subject.
Rather than "The body WAS found by police..."
"Sgt. Smith died when his humvee hit an IED..." Rather than "Sgt Smith WAS killed by an IED that had hit his humvee..."
The problem here is not only the tense. It's Sgt. Smith. He's dead and he won't tell us which way he passed away, actively or passively.
CKMD
Jun 25th 2008, 07:37 AM
... "Died" and "Killed" are not interchangeable.
In this version of the story, they are.
Another side
Jun 26th 2008, 02:43 AM
OK. Whatever you say.
*sigh*
jrat33
Jun 26th 2008, 05:37 AM
I always equated dying as something that happens from natural causes or a disease. Kind of a soft connotation.
Killed has a harsher connotation and should be reserved for a violent or unnatural death, like accidents, murder, etc.
Just my two cents.
CKMD
Jun 26th 2008, 08:43 AM
That's fine...you can think that. But, for purpose of this thread and discussing active voice versus fake present tense, it doesn't matter.
Why AS is getting his panties in a bunch over an example not meant in literal copy is beyond me. The point is still the same.
If we want to really get into it, Whether or not the person was killed or died doesn't matter. The person is dead. Depending on how the facts are presented to us is how we would write the copy.
The point remains, it's useless to make it fake present when the person DIED or someone KILLED that person.
For the purposes of my example, they are, therefore, interchangeable.
Another side
Jun 28th 2008, 01:55 AM
*laughing*
My panties aren't in a bunch. They've been bunched before, of course, around here, but this isn't one of those times.
I made an observation, you responded, I sighed, said OK, that's it.
That doesn't make my panties bunchable.
Mighty Dyckerson
Jun 28th 2008, 06:32 AM
My panties aren't in a bunch.
My wife's are in my mouth. My MOUTH, people!!!
CKMD
Jul 1st 2008, 08:47 AM
*laughing*
My panties aren't in a bunch. They've been bunched before, of course, around here, but this isn't one of those times.
I made an observation, you responded, I sighed, said OK, that's it.
That doesn't make my panties bunchable.
OK...mine are always in a bunch, though.