This writing advice becomes now and then more urgent. I dragged it out to help reporters covering the Great Recession. I am sharing it again to see if it can stand up to the test of a great pandemic.
I don’t expect such advice to “go viral” — what a newly loaded phrase — but I hope it spreads in support of coverage that takes responsibility for what readers and viewers know and understand. Our goal is twofold:
To give people what they need to make safe decisions about their personal health and the public’s health.
To give readers confidence in their knowledge so they will not be harmed by the type of anxiety that leads to panic — and worse.
There are a dozen strategies of clarity and comprehensibility listed below, some with specific reference to coverage of the coronavirus. I have rearranged their original order from the belief that there is one writing strategy that stands above the rest.
While accuracy is clearly the most significant virtue in reporting on something as consequential as a global pandemic, it too often happens that reporters don’t take the next step — working to be understood. Yes, a writer can be accurate and incomprehensible. Perhaps the only thing worse is to be inaccurate and comprehensible because then readers will be acting upon information that is useless or even dangerous.
1. Slow down the pace of information, especially at points of complexity.
A child calls a parent on the phone and blurts out that they are in trouble, talking at the speed of light. What does the parent say? “Slow down, honey, slow down. Now tell me what happened.”
Answers & Comments
Answer:
This writing advice becomes now and then more urgent. I dragged it out to help reporters covering the Great Recession. I am sharing it again to see if it can stand up to the test of a great pandemic.
I don’t expect such advice to “go viral” — what a newly loaded phrase — but I hope it spreads in support of coverage that takes responsibility for what readers and viewers know and understand. Our goal is twofold:
To give people what they need to make safe decisions about their personal health and the public’s health.
To give readers confidence in their knowledge so they will not be harmed by the type of anxiety that leads to panic — and worse.
There are a dozen strategies of clarity and comprehensibility listed below, some with specific reference to coverage of the coronavirus. I have rearranged their original order from the belief that there is one writing strategy that stands above the rest.
While accuracy is clearly the most significant virtue in reporting on something as consequential as a global pandemic, it too often happens that reporters don’t take the next step — working to be understood. Yes, a writer can be accurate and incomprehensible. Perhaps the only thing worse is to be inaccurate and comprehensible because then readers will be acting upon information that is useless or even dangerous.
1. Slow down the pace of information, especially at points of complexity.
A child calls a parent on the phone and blurts out that they are in trouble, talking at the speed of light. What does the parent say? “Slow down, honey, slow down. Now tell me what happened.”
a pandemic that it will take years to expose.
Explanation: