Pretty Much a Shame
3 stars
I get the feeling from reading this book that it used to be a top-notch refernce that was indispensible to many reporters. However, these days, I get the feeling that it is not nearly as useful as it could be.
The originl author was a legendary editor amongst the press. When he passed the book was passed to one of his disciples to revise. But since thn it is apparently being edited by some un-credited writer. And calling the work that has been done on it editing is really stretching the term.
The thing is, many of the samples of good writing are quite embarassing. They were good back in the 1970's or 1980's, but they are way out of keeping with the 202X's. And, the section on the internet is just plain embarassing... It reads like it was penned in the early 2000's and doesn't reflect the current state …
I get the feeling from reading this book that it used to be a top-notch refernce that was indispensible to many reporters. However, these days, I get the feeling that it is not nearly as useful as it could be.
The originl author was a legendary editor amongst the press. When he passed the book was passed to one of his disciples to revise. But since thn it is apparently being edited by some un-credited writer. And calling the work that has been done on it editing is really stretching the term.
The thing is, many of the samples of good writing are quite embarassing. They were good back in the 1970's or 1980's, but they are way out of keeping with the 202X's. And, the section on the internet is just plain embarassing... It reads like it was penned in the early 2000's and doesn't reflect the current state of resources available online.
There is still some very useful information in the book -- but I have the feeling that many potential journalists and writers will be put off by the staleness of the overall work.