When I began journalism school in 2009, I immersed myself in the best journalistic writing out there: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, etc. But as I continued to progress in j-school, I saw the industry shift dramatically. Students my age were turning to BuzzFeed, or worse, tweets for their news intake. I still remain appalled by BuzzFeed's content, but is there a place for this type of informal, GIF-happy journalism on the Internet?
To see the differences between formal and informal writing, you only need to compare a company like The New York Times, arguably the bastion of the journalism industry, to something like BuzzFeed. The NYT thrives on long-form, detailed pieces that go on for hundreds of words. Most articles' structures build progressively throughout several paragraphs. Proper punctuation is used, and you won't find any trace of serious errors (fragments, comma splices, and so on). The tone is usually serious, and there's a sense of gravitas to the content in the formal style the NYT employs.
Meanwhile, BuzzFeed thrives on short, pithy sentences that are low on content and high on energy. Here the tone is meant to be humorous or evoke emotion. The writer frequently engages directly with the reader by using first-person point-of-view. You won't need a dictionary to read BuzzFeed; the word choice is always simple and concise. And you'll also see the occasional fragment used for dramatic effect. ("Kanye named his baby North. No really. He did. Honestly.") Worst of all, BuzzFeed writers inundate their audience with exclamation points at every turn. You won't read too many "articles" that don't use at least two or three per story.
Is formal writing dead, then? Sure, it's nice to know for when you're writing a cover letter. But as content becomes increasingly more web-friendly, the desire to read simpler, more accessible articles will likely trump the formalized style of age-old publications.
No comments:
Post a Comment