Category Archives: Journalism

Headline of the Moment

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th December 2022

Workers, Internal Memos Reveal Why Southwest Melted Down During Cold Snap The above headline conveys the message, but things do not melt down during a cold snap, they freeze. Writing headlines is the journalistic equivalent of a time out. If somehow a person has obtained a job in a news organization and can’t do anything,…


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Colin Powell’s Death From COVID

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th October 2021

The reporting of Colin Powell’s death exemplifies why the public is so confused about the COVID outbreak. Here’s a representative excerpt concerning the General’s demise: His passing represents a breakthrough death—when fully vaccinated patients die from COVID-19. Roughly 7,100 such deaths have been reported in the US, with 85% occurring in patients 65 and older. That the infection…


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Two Headlines – Two Examples of Noise

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th June 2021

Below are two headlines reporting on the same data – the latest jobs report. Take your pick as to which is the more believable. I suppose they could both be wrong, but they seem to be seeing the same data through different lenses. They are examples of both noise and bias. I’ll have more to…


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To Err is Human, to Kvetch Divine

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th November 2020

Earlier this month Commentary published its 75th anniversary issue. It contains a long dialogue (Editing Commentary – A Conversation) between John Podhoretz the magazine’s current editor and his father Norman a previous editor. The conversation, nine pages of it, is a largely congratulatory depiction of how heavily edited is the copy published. John describes an…


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The Guardian Discovers that Syntax Can be Difficult

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd July 2020

We’ve decided to keep Guardian journalism free for all readers… This declaration is from the online Guardian. Is the paper giving up on journalism? They seem to be saying so. They’re keeping the Guardian journalism free – ie, free of journalism, as in germ free. This confession confirms a suspicion that I’ve wondered about ever…


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The Sky is Falling – But Slowly

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th January 2020

It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future. Yogi Berra The great Yogi’s admonition not withstanding, people seem confident of their ability to foretell the future. The futurist du jour is a teenage girl who foretells the imminent end of the world. Perhaps she’s right. Nevertheless, despite thousands of years of doom’s just around…


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Olympic Journalism – Sentence of the Games

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th August 2016

Over the past 100 years or so the sports desk has replaced the classical music beat as the depository for journalism’s weakest writers. The following sentence shows why. It’s from an article by Johnette Howard writing for ESPN. It occurs towards the end of the article about the Ryan Lochte debacle. The context doesn’t mean…


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A Clinical Vignette About Medical Journals

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th November 2015

A medical journal is supposed to be an unbiased and objective source of the latest and best medical information. Of course, since all journals (for now) are run by human beings the reality and the ideal are widely separated. Even so, you shouldn’t be able to tell the politics of the journal’s editor from its content….


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The Joys of Proofreading

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th November 2011

For the record, the 49ers won 27-20.


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The Wall Street Journal and American History

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 15th June 2011

The Wall Street Journal today published Students Stumble Again on the Basics of History. In it they present the familiar lament that many American students are deficient in the basics of American history. The following picture was used to illustrate how little our students know about the Declaration of Independence. All is not lost, however,…


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