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Have you ever been scolded for swearing in the newsroom?
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Another one
Posted by Burl Burlingame 2/12/2008 4:58:57 PM

Back in the long-ago '80s, things weren't going well with a story, and I said, out loud and to myself, "Shit!"
Then I realized that the elegant, blue-haired lady who covered our "society" beat was right next to me. "Pardon my French," I apologized.
"That's not French," she sniffed. "The French word for shit is merde."

Times change
Posted by Burl Burlingame 2/12/2008 4:51:13 PM

There ain't no more cigar smoking or bottle drinking in the newsroom either.

Some years ago, I had a conversation with an irate -- and quite crazy -- reader who, in the space of 30 seconds, accused me both of being a Communist AND a Nazi. Finally, I went, "F---you!" and slammed down the phone.
A second later, he called back and yelled "F- you, a--hole!" and hung up.
I felt duty-bound to report this exchange to the managing editor (since the crazy person was a local captain of industry likely to work his way up the phone chain).
"So you said, f--- you?" clarified the ME.
Yeah.
"And he said, f--- you, a--hole?"
Yeah.
"Well," said the ME mildly. "Sounds like he won."

Times change. A few years ago, I was suspended for using the f-word in the newsroom. No kidding. Just for a few days. but the implicit threat spread, and now the place is as quiet as an insurance office.

Heck, I was rewarded
Posted by Kathleen Purvis 1/30/2008 1:04:53 PM

Not only was I not scolded for swearing, I was encouraged. When I started at the Palm Beach Post as a copy "boy" in 1977, the news editor took one look at me -- 18, female, blonde -- and declared I was too innocent to work in a newsroom. So he made a rule that he wouldn't acknowledge anything I said unless I used at least two obscenities in every sentence. Took me years to break the habit. Ah, the so-called "good old days."

Got an award for this once ...
Posted by Geoffrey Giordano 1/29/2008 8:14:28 PM

... one night, after the usual metro vs. night desk, behind-the-scenes, late-hours maneuvering for 1A play of a story when I was in charge of the night desk, I let out a string of 32 or so F-bombs. After I finished, one of our veteran reporters handed me a photo of Franco Harris that had been lying around (had a few Steelers fans in the newsroom, including me) with a pasted-on note that read "Award for most consecutive uses of the word f--- in a two-minute span." Whenever I look at that, I think more about the blood, sweat and tears and great work a then-superlative crew did together ... means more than the "official" awards we get from time to time. Newspapers need passionate people who a) will question anything, anytime, anywhere and b) spoil for a good fight. But corporate-schooled interlopers and posers don't understand that ... and this country should be afraid of the consequences of increasingly dumbed-down, "polite" newsrooms. What's next ... are we going to tell cops and pro athletes to stop swearing in the heat of the moment while they're doing their jobs?

Just don't drop the bomb around prep school kids!
Posted by Sandra Fish 1/29/2008 6:12:33 PM

While working at the Orlando Sentinel in the early 90s, i was asked to take a couple of high school boys to lunch. We rode the free bus downtown, which they clearly had never been on. At some point during lunch, i said the F-word (as i'm won't to do!) and immediately apologized.

Turns out these kids went to the same exclusive private school as one of the newspaper's higher ups... and the next day i was in the metro editor's office being taken to task for my language. He was a bit sheepish about the whole thing, as i mentioned that no one appeared to be concerned about another reporter who said far cruder things to his sources on the phone, loud enough for other sources on other phones to hear... Oh well...

In this century, at the Daily Camera, we had a temporary worker filling in for an editorial assistant. She refused to return after a day in the newsroom because it was just too crude! So for some, the stories are true!

Not for cursing, but for going barefoot
Posted by Denise Bridges 1/29/2008 5:40:20 PM

This whole discussion is funny to me because it's so illustrative of how times have changed. When I was a young snip of a reporter in the late 70s, I worked at the Oakland Tribune and sat in front of Paul Grabowicz, he who today is the learned New Media Program Director at UC Berkeley's School of Journalism. But then, he was the irascible chain-smoking investigative reporter who ended every phone call with a spate of four-letter words. I learned how to curse thanks to Paul. (I've told him this story, and I've told him that I've shared it with others, so he won't be surprised that I'm sharing it here). From Paul, I learned how to string a whole sentence together using the most profane language imaginable. To my knowledge, no one ever asked him to cut it out or keep it down. But when I began to traipse around the newsroom without benefit of shoes, I got a note from an assistant city editor telling me it wasn't "professional" for me to walk around like that! My response? Gimme a *bleep bleep* break!

Two instances of swearing ...
Posted by Alex Dering 1/29/2008 5:19:58 PM

First, "profanity" is the wrong word. Profanity is to swearing as glowing is to sweating.

Two anecdotes:

I once listened in as a fellow reporter had a phone conversation that ended something like this (and at a very loud level):

"That's not what the article said, sir."

"I gave you a chance to tell your side. You never returned my calls."

"Sir, you know what? Why don't you go f--- yourself?" (SLAM!)

Three stunned seconds later, everyone in the vicinity applauded and cheered.

Second anecdote. One of the best editors I ever worked with -- best in the sense of skill, knowledge, etc., all the useless stuff -- described his sense of growing frustration with a slovenly reporter with a rant that went something like this:

"So she brings me the article and then tells me she's going home. I ask her if she'll give me a couple of seconds to actually, you know, read her piece while she's still there. Just in case she didn't get everything absolutely perfect on the first try. I start reading as fast as I can. I get to the fifth paragraph and tell her I don't understand what the person being quoted is trying to say. 'Yeah, I didn't understand it either. See you on Monday.' And she walks out the door!"

He lets that sink in for a second and goes on, his voice rising with each sentence. Think of John Cleese in Fawlty Towers.

"Thanks. You didn't understand it either. Great. That really clears things up. Maybe I should put something at the end of the article asking readers to e-mail us if they figure out what the f--- it is we're talking about because we don't know and I can't ask the reporter because she's standing here waving her [uh, cleavage] at me, wanting to leave exactly on the dot of five."

Funny how most swearing seems to come about as a result of being provoked by someone else's non-professionalism. But it's only the swearer who gets the punishment/lecture/slap on the hand/insulting memo ...

F-bombs Away
Posted by William Seberger 1/29/2008 1:20:08 PM

In any of the newsrooms I've ever worked in, a general distinction was drawn between swearing in general, "Oh, sh**" and swearing at someone, "No, f-you". Working as a freelancer, I apply the same standard to others with whom I work.

The former is/was acceptable in lower tones and as long as it wasn't distracting to others, where the latter would generally get you hauled into someone's office for a lesson in 'etiquette.'

I try not to use foul language on assignment, although after killing a camera on the mountain one day, I'm pretty sure that most of Southern Arizona heard me drop the Fat Man of all f-bombs.

I'm of the opinion that most of the people in the business have pretty thick skin, and aren't easily offended.

Yes, it has happened to me
Posted by Karen Talaski 1/29/2008 12:32:06 PM

I work at a small, twice weekly newspaper and since our office is quite open � the newsroom is just feet away from the reception desk � I have been chastised by my editor "to watch your language" for using a few choice words after speaking to a reluctant source (the district attorney or police come to mind) or when the words don't come out like water at my finger tips. I rarely use the 'f' word but the 's' word comes up regularly in my conversation. When I was a sixth grade teacher, I kept my language in check. As a reporter, I thought you were supposed to be a hard-drinking, rough-talking son of a you-know-what. While I don't have a bottle of whiskey in my desk drawer, the swear words do come out occasionally when I least expect them to. Oh, if only the newsroom was buried somewhere deep in the bowels of our building!

"It offends me"
Posted by Geoffrey Giordano 1/29/2008 12:23:00 PM

I had a newbie corporate "go-getter" tell me that the F word I (a senior 1A editor and supervising editor for nearly 20 years) "offends me." That was about a year or less before I and other senior-level talent left, as we simply didn't wish to continue pouring our souls into an environment where the most valued employee was an easily controlled drone who never questioned anything, anytime.

Yes
Posted by Michel Marizco 1/29/2008 10:25:37 AM

I once worked for an outback, lonely weekly, the kind of 2,000 circulation paper that survives mostly off the legals.
The managing editor (there were only five of us and everybody had a title even me; I was the "reporter") used to get so pissed off at the publisher, that she'd fly into fits of cat-like rage.
On my third week of work, I was greeted with the: "Fuck you and your fucking paper!" that she was screaming at him when I walked in.
Next thing I knew, she picked up the office radio and hucked it at him. Missed, batteries everywhere, one even rolled out into the parking lot.
She never looked hotter than at that moment, like a rabid Xena.
Then I worked for a mid-sized paper that charged me $50 a month for smoking.
I really miss that little backcountry paper sometimes.

I got so wupset (part 2)!
Posted by Alex Dering 1/29/2008 7:25:01 AM

I'm definitely gonna need a valium because of this article, which has gotten me so wupset that I can't stop shaking at the thought of adults speaking like adults.

I don't recall ever being told not to swear in a newsroom. I do recall having posts deleted from Poynter because I used swear words in them. You know, not just for the um, goshdarndoodly, of it, but because sometimes a swear word sums up an opinion perfectly, and I was taught that writing is supposed to sound good (you know, that whole tin-ear thing that no one applies anymore).

For example:

The current state of American journalism is all fished up.

He got a job at a newspaper, but he's the dumbest mothtucker I've ever met.

etc.

I was so wupset I left out a word ...
Posted by Alex Dering 1/29/2008 7:18:36 AM

But, as I have had journalistic training -- and not the filth training that this article seems to embrace -- it wasn't a swear word.

"There is nothing, ever, under any circumstances WORSE than an adult using a vulgar word."

Whew.

Profanity?
Posted by Alex Dering 1/29/2008 7:08:52 AM

Profanity? In a newsroom? I don't believe it. Next you'll be telling me some journalist actually called a politician a liar once.

I was born at night. But not last night. There is nothing, ever, under any circumstances than an adult using a vulgar word. That's why newspapers scrub them out so vigorously.

Nothing finer than a shot-up soldier, lying in a substandard hospital bed at a military hospital being asked by a reporter being led around by a PR flak, giving his honest-to-God opinion of what happened to him and having it sanitized so that no one gets wupset.

Now let's stop scaring everyone with BAD WORDS and get back to work, glossing, glibbing, and gossiping.

Quite the opposite
Posted by Thomas Mangan 1/29/2008 12:10:04 AM

My expletive outbursts have become the stuff of legend in the newsrooms I've worked in and I can't recall anybody ever telling me to can it.

Oh fudge!
Posted by Michelle Leder 1/28/2008 9:32:35 PM

Back at the Bradenton Herald (1989-92), I quickly bonded with another young reporter, Leo Vazquez, who started at the paper a week after me. Both being New Yorkers, we cursed pretty frequently until we were told by one of our editors that our language was offensive and that instead of saying, F-ck this or that or even you, we should use the word fudge, instead. While we had a lot of fun joking around, and saying the word fudge very loudly around the newsroom, it helped remind us that we really were living in the sticks.

The upside is that now, nearly 20 years later, whenever we get together, we still laugh about how ridiculous it was to be told not to curse in a newsroom.

Timing is everything
Posted by Curt Chandler 1/28/2008 9:13:34 PM

When I was an academic intern at the Dubuque Telegraph Herald in the late '70s the city-side reporters and editors had gotten into the habit of shouting a quick expletive after hanging up the phone following an interview with a non-cooperative source. This happened a lot during morning cop calls. One day I was sitting at my desk watching an assistant city editor across the aisle. He was tired, cranky and not happy with a series of interviews. "Fuck you very much!" he shouted after slamming down the receiver after each call -- That is until he got distracted and tossed out the expletive just before the receiver slammed into the cradle. The newsroom was suddenly very, very quiet.
The managing editor's note on proper phone etiquette landed on each desk that afternoon.

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