New newspaper rules:
Remember that you’re aiming to write at a fifth-grade level. The average newspaper reader doesn’t want to read a piece of prose that goes on, and on and on, without making a point. New journalism calls for grammar good. Demonstrate complete, absolute perfection and stay away from wretched redundancies, if and when they come along.
Readers. Skim. So. Don’t. Waste. Space. With. Long. Sentences.
Report thoroughly. Make sure to include lots of statistics in your report. Check that two and two make five. Confuse the reader; it should all make sense.
Follow good advice from others in the profession.
“It’s best not to use an anonymous source,” an anonymous source said.
Be sure to give a source proper title with attribution, said one dumbass in his worthless book.
Bam! Use words that convey impact.
AMPLIFY the impact of the story with elements of tension, drama and conflict, because if you don’t, the world is going to end, and every human will die in its wake. Still, and I truly believe you can do this, give hope. Something astonishing will come along to save us through innovation, according to a new report about reports.
Share internal intelligence and expertise. Like, did you know that the African rhino goes to the bathroom 14 times a day? Always fact-check because that’s a big, fat lie.
Include only appropriate interviews with only the best possible interviewees. “My Portuguese teacher was jumping up and down in class today,” Emily Clark, a Spanish and urban planning senior, my former roommate and muse said.
Know your audience and cater to their wants. The Daily Aztec columnists should only write about booze, sex and drugs if they want to get a comment back. STDs are a fact of life.
Abortion and religion are taboo. Everyone already knows that women who get abortions are murderers and that a belief in Christ is the only way to avoid living an eternal life in hell.
Put more advertisements in the paper than real news. Right now, the cost to run an ad is at amazingly low price. Just for you, I’ll give out a two-for-one special if you run more ads than stories about Iraq or Afghanistan in your paper.
Speaking of war, Anna Nicole Smith was, is and always will be more important.
So is Facebook. Make sure you share this column with your friends. And “like” it.
Stay away from other sad stories such as tragedy and AIDS in Africa unless you have some really gruesome pictures. In that case, run the story on the front page and create a controversy. It will only last a few days until America forgets about the Third World travesties entirely. Or the world actually ends. Play on the fear that it will end.
Never plagiarize, even though I stole this column idea from an old grammar column by William Safire of The New York Times. Cover both sides of the story by being fair and balanced. Like Fox News. Or MSNBC.
Follow these rules and no others, and you will be fine. But make sure not to take anyone else’s advice, because they’re definitely wrong, and I will kill you if you don’t listen to me.
Leave your readers on a positive note and never demand.
Always finish your.
Don’t even bother putting this to print. Just post it straight online.
-Ty Thompson is a creative writing graduate student. Reach him at cosythews@yahoo.com.
