Unacceptable English in news writing: investigating the English language training requirements for New Zealand journalists

Abstract

This study investigates the English language training requirements of New Zealand journalists by gathering the changes (920) that 18 experienced copy-editors made to 50 journalists' news stories. The New Zealand Journalists Training board nominated the participating copy-editors who represented print (metropolitan, provincial and community newspapers, and a news agency) and broadcast (radio and television) media as well as journalism training institutions. Participants were given guidelines to select typically poor news stories (other forms of journalistic writing were excluded from the study) prior to an interview during which they voiced their thoughts out loud while copy-editing the stories (think-aloud protocol). After each story, they were asked to comment on the reasons for and acceptability of each change they made (retrospective interview). The changes were entered onto a database and were assigned a level (type or location of the change, such as spelling or clause), an operation (how the change was made, such as addition), a strategy (how writers could be expected to correct their own stories, such as consulting written English language conventions) and an acceptability rating (as given by the participant on a scale of one to four). Results indicate that most changes occurred on the phrase, discourse and punctuation levels: in particular, changes to long and wordy phrases, unclear references, textual repetitions of words (double marking), incorrect tense and commas. An analysis of the strategies assigned to each change revealed that changes requiring intuitive abilities were the most prevalent (compared with proofreading, consulting and comprehending). Changes relating to media conventions and style were more than twice as frequent as changes relating to English language conventions and style, but the need to make the latter changes was less acceptable than the need to make the former. The frequency, prevalence and acceptability of the types of changes are discussed and compared in order to produce three priority groups for trainers' attention. Changes that were frequent, prevalent and unacceptable included spelling, tense, references, register, names, commas, capital lettering, double marking, simpler words, conjunctions, expressions and wordy phrases, as well as performance slips. Unacceptable changes that were neither frequent nor prevalent included changes to subject and verb concord, apostrophes, name spelling, ambiguities and transitions. Changes that were frequent and prevalent but more acceptable included changes to sentence structure, numerals, misplaced parts and attribution. Suggestions are made for the industry's and trainers' consideration. Appendices include interview procedures and materials, a transcribed interview, participating organisations, summaries of the levels and strategies used for analysis, a list of main findings, a list of specifications, examples of changes for use in training, and areas of house style that need clarification or could be standardised.