WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2006
Romenesko Letters
While doing research,
Bruce Bartlett noticed that newspapers a hundred years ago rarely used bylines. "I wonder if this didn’t improve the quality of news writing. Relieved of the burden of taking personal responsibility for every word that appeared in an article, even if edited beyond recognition by someone else, I suspect that many reporters felt free to just do their jobs of telling people what happened, when, where and how. With one's name on almost every article now, I think that many reporters consciously or unconsciously play to some crowd and hold back, spin, and otherwise alter their reporting from what they would have written if their names didn't appear."
Posted at 7:12:27 AM
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