After brief stints as a speechwriter on a Presidential campaign and as a stringer for Gannett, I segued into the world of corporate communications as the financial editor of a New York
Stock Exchange-traded company. It was there that my copy had the good fortune to come under the scrutiny of LJ -- simply the best editor I have ever known.
Before entering the editorial ranks, LJ was a computer programmer and systems analyst who believed writing was a craft - difficult if not impossible to teach - BUT it could be learned by
remembering three rules:
1. "Writers write."
2. "Read good writers."
3. "A line of good computer code and a good sentence have a lot in common: simplicity and logic."
Until you are serendipitous enough to encounter your personal LJ, here are three books that will help you become a better writer.
First, for the apprentice, there are the basic textbooks. As I write this, I have four of them in front of me. All are from different academic publishers, and, unfortunately or inevitably, they
are all titled Public Relations Writing, which, to my sardonic sense of humor, speaks volumes.
And the winner is ... Public Relations Writing, by Professor Thomas H. Bivins of the University of Oregon. I like this text for several reasons:
1. If PR folks do nothing else, they write, revise, write, ad infinitum; therefore, for neophytes in the field, skills must be mastered quickly.
2. This is the 5th edition, so Dr. Bivins has been around the block a few times and has made an effort to keep up with the goings-on in the field.
3. All of the key areas are covered: news releases, backgrounders, newsletter and magazine articles, brochures, print advertising copy, broadcast scripts, and even desktop publishing.
4. He suggests ways of being creative in such areas as feature writing, poster, flyer and brochure design, and newsletter design. In summary, this is a solid example of a quick reference and
general resource guide.
Second, for the journeyman, pick up a copy of Reaching Audiences - A Guide to Media Writing by Jan Johnson Yopp & Katherine C. McAdams. This, too, is written by college professors, so the
focus is on the importance of the audience in considering media and messages. What is unique is it demonstrates how to accomplish tasks in the proper order within a mass media framework. Finally,
this book pays attention to the changing media environment and discusses a wide range of careers in print, electronic media, public relations and advertising, and analyzes the differences and
similarities in writing styles among them.
Finally, for the craftsman - someone who has "been there, done that, seen the video" - remember life-long learning is the name of the game; or, as LJ so often said, "read good writers."
Depending on whether you voted red state or blue state, several authors come to mind, but for the reader who seeks historical perspective and clear persuasive writing, my first choice has to be
The Best of I.F. Stone, assembled from more than six decades of Stone's writings and published in 2006.
The abridged resume of Stone - or Izzy as he was known to admirers and detractors - could read: reporter, radical, idealist, scholar, paradox and pariah. In a sense, he is the descendent of such
revolutionary pamphleteers as Tom Paine and a forerunner of the best of today's political bloggers.
This anthology of 65 articles is divided into seven broad themes that interested and occupied Stone throughout his life. Most of the articles are from I.F. Stone's Weekly, a four-page newsletter
that he started from his home in 1951 and ceased publishing in 1971, for health reasons. It had 70,000 subscribers.
What made this modest newsletter a "must-read" for important and influential people (Albert Einstein was a lifetime subscriber) was Stone's ability to ferret out facts and report them in a
personable tone that offered critical insight into the issues of his day.
Reading Izzy's lucid illuminations on free speech, nuclear proliferation, civil rights, the Middle East and Vietnam, one can't help but be reminded of the words of one of the 20th century's other
great expositors: "It's déja vu all over again."
Contact:
Peter Brinch is a principal at Tangram Communications and can be reached at [email protected].